Author: Duncan Geere
Gaming BAFTAs – winners announced
Last night, the gaming BAFTA winners were announced. They went predominantly to ‘hardcore’, more traditional games and ignored more recent successes. Particularly missing out were GTA IV and the Guitar Hero/Rock Band franchises. Call of Duty 4, on the other hand, cleared up – winning three awards.
Action & Adventure: Fable II
Nominated: Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare, Dead Space, Grand Theft Auto IV, Prince of Persia, Tomb Raider: Underworld
Artistic Achievement: LittleBigPlanet
Nominated: Assassin’s Creed, Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare, Dead Space, Gears of War 2 (Eh? – ed.), Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots
Best Game: Super Mario Galaxy
Nominated: Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare, Fable II, Fallout 3, Grand Theft Auto IV, Rock Band
Casual: Boom Blox
Nominated: Guitar Hero World Tour, Buzz! Quiz TV, LittleBigPlanet, SingStar Vol. 2, Wii Fit
Gameplay: Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare
Nominated: Grand Theft Auto IV, Left 4 Dead, Mario Kart Wii, Rock Band, Super Mario Galaxy
Handheld: Professor Layton and the Curious Village
Nominated: Geometry Wars: Galaxies, God of War: Chains of Olympus, The Legend of Zelda: Phantom Hourglass, Patapon, Soul Bubbles
Multiplayer: Left 4 Dead
Nominated: Buzz! Quiz TV, Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare, Gears of War 2, Mario Kart Wii, Rock Band
Original Score: Dead Space
Nominated: Assassin’s Creed, Fable II, Fallout 3, LittleBigPlanet, Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots
Sports: Race Driver: GRID
Nominated: FIFA 09, Football Manager 2009, MotorStorm Pacific Rift, Pure, Wii Fit
Strategy: Sid Meier’s Civilization Revolution
Nominated: Advance Wars: Dark Conflict, Command & Conquer: Red Alert 3, Ninjatown, SOCOM: US Navy SEALs Tactical Strike, Viva Piñata: Pocket Paradise
Story and Character: Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare
Nominated: Assassin’s Creed, Fable II, Fallout 3, Grand Theft Auto IV, Mass Effect
Technical Achievement: Spore
Nominated: Assassin’s Creed, Fable II, Fallout 3, Grand Theft Auto IV, LittleBigPlanet
Use of Audio: Dead Space
Nominated: Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare, Gears of War 2, Grand Theft Auto IV, LittleBigPlanet, Super Mario Galaxy
GAME Award of 2008 (public voting): Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare
Nominated: Fallout 3, Gears of War 2, Grand Theft Auto IV, Guitar Hero: World Tour, Left 4 Dead, LittleBigPlanet, Professor Layton and the Curious Village, Wii Fit, World of Warcraft: Wrath of the Lich King
Gary won’t be too happy, given how few of his original recommendations won awards. I’m fairly pleased though – CoD4 is fantastic, as is Spore, Civilization, GRID, Left 4 Dead and Fable 2. Given the competition, it’s good to see excellent games beating off the populist choices like GTA IV and Gears of War.
(via Buzzin Games)
Capcom challenges you to find body parts in central London
Fan of Resident Evil 5? Fan of body parts? Fan of central London? Combine your passions tomorrow morning, Thursday March 12th, as Capcom leaves miscellaneous body parts strewn around the area near Trafalgar Square.
Entrants will be required to find as many body parts as possible, and take them to Westminster bridge by 11am, where you have to hold them over your head and shout “Kijuju!”. Points will be allocated for each body part found – 2 for an arm, 2 for a leg, 3 for a torso and 5 for a head.
The players with the most points at 11am win a “trip of a lifetime” to Africa. Tech Digest will be there in force, trying to win it for ourselves, so we’ll see you there!
(via Capcom)
Last.fm wades into YouTube music video row
In our discussion yesterday about the barney that’s erupted between YouTube and the Performing Rights Society(which collects cash for songwriters), I mentioned Pandora’s exit from the UK market due to hefty PRS fees.
Well, now Last.fm has weighed into the debate with its own take on things. Founder Martin Stiksel says that both sides need to find a resolution – and quick – before less-than-legal alternatives take hold. Stiksel wants cheaper and “less complicated” licenses as a result:
“It is a fundamental problem that we have been facing in that online music licensing is getting more complicated and more expensive. We pay each time one users listens to a song or watches a clip and, while that is more accurate because it makes sure the more popular songs get paid more, it is also very expensive. Terrestial radio pays a fixed minimum and that works out a lot cheaper – we have to find commercially workable rates otherwise illegal services will win and take over.”
Last.fm currently relies heavily on YouTube for its video content, so it has a vested interest in keeping the service going. The service has Last.tv in the works for the future, though, as a way of serving personalized music television to people. That could be interesting when it happens.
PRS and Google are due to meet over the next few days to see if they can find a resolution to the crisis.
Nokia pumps out three new music phones, and comments on the N97, Spotify and Comes with Music
Nokia seems to have decided that music is where it wants to be. The Finnish handset-maker has announced three new handsets today – the 5730 XpressMusic, the 5330 XpressMusic, and the 5030 – which doesn’t have an XpressMusic suffix, but does have an XpressRadio one.
The handsets range from budget to high-end. Starting at the bottom, the 5030 XpressRadio is a candybar with a built-in FM radio antenna, not the internet radio that Nokia’s been pushing to date. It’s very cheap, at just €40 before contracts come into play. Budget-tastic. It’ll be available in Q2.
Then there’s the 5330 XpressMusic, which has a different design to many Nokia handsets. More square. It’s a slider, and it has a 3.5mm headphone jack, 24 hours of listening time battery life, and some sort of crazy light thing going on. If you have any idea what that’s about, then free free to comment. Unfortunately, the 5330 won’t be running S60 – just the cut-down S40 version. It’ll cost €184 before taxes or contracts get involved. It’ll be available in Q3 2009.
Then, at the top of the range is the 5730 XpressMusic which comes in black/red, black/grey, grey/blue and black/pink. It’s got both a numeric keypad and a slide-out QWERTY, which shrinks the screen down a little, but it’s the only phone of the three to be running S60.
Specs-wise, the 5730 has got Wi-Fi, a 3.5mm headphone jack, a 3.2-megapixel camera, HSDPA, and GPS. You can also access your media from the home screen, which will be handy for those who want easier access to their content on the go. It’ll cost €280, and will be available in Q3 2009.
The phones were announced with a webchat this morning, and as part of that chat, the Nokia team also answered a few random questions from the audience. Here’s a few interesting tidbits that they came out with.
Firstly, when asked about the N97, Product Manager for Music Solutions, Steven Stewart, said the handset is “like sex in your hand”(!). The device hasn’t been announced as a Comes with Music device, but Stewart said it would be “perfect for getting unlimited free music downloads”, which sounds like a hint to me.
The inevitable question about Spotify was asked – Nokia responded: “Yes, the music team is aware of most all types of music services and devices. Spotify is one of many interesting new services. Social Music is an important part of the music experience which our teams are busy as beavers working on!”. Given Spotify’s now-officially-announcedmobile ambitions, a tie-in could be very powerful.
Discussing Apple and competition, Stewart said: “Nokia is doing many exciting things with music that apple is not. Nokia has a large range of devices for most every taste, style, and use. Nokia also has a subscription model for unlimited free music that users keep even AFTER the membership ends. But we do look at ALL of the competitive intelligence to make sure we are developing music experiences that consumers want.”.
Lastly, with regards to Comes with Music, the service will shortly be announced in Italy, Sweden, and Mexico. There are no current plans to unbundle the service from handsets, so that it’ll be usable with any device. I suspect that’s because, like Apple, Nokia wants to carefully control the ecosystem and not have to deal with supporting other manufacturer’s handsets.
The DRM on the service is “a requirement of the labels and publishers at this point”, says Stewart. “Nokia Music team is looking for the best experiences for Music Lovers. Getting DRM free music is one of the things which we are in discussions with the labels and publishers about.”
Nokia 5730, 5330 and 5030.
Hyundai's MB-910 touchscreen watch-phone
Oh dear, I hear the rumblings of the forming of a bandwagon. The £1,000 LG G910 wasn’t enough for you all? Hyundai doesn’t think so, because it’s making its own variant – the similarly-named MB-910.
As well as being a watch, it’s a tri-band phone, with 3 hours of talk-time battery life, bluetooth (for a headset), SMS, MMS and video playback. No video calling, I’m afraid. Best feature of all? POLYPHONIC RINGTONES! Hurrah – I missed those.
Available within the next few months (“Q2”), Hyundai’s watchphone will cost £200. A bit more reasonable than LG’s effort, at least.
(via Reg Hardware)
Plug mug, stops office-based mug theft
Do you have a mug problem in your office? Where some tosser always steals your mug from the cupboard just as you *really* need a soothing cup of tea? Well here’s your answer.
The Plug Mug, from IWOOT, has a removable plug in it that you can keep on your keyring and only apply when you’re drinking. That way, it’s useless to anyone else. It’s dishwasher safe and everything.
Yours for just £10, available right now.
Plug Mug (via Technabob)
VIDEO: See how fast SSDs can get
Most people know that the hard drive is one of the slowest bits in most modern computers, and we’re all eagerly anticipating the arrival of affordable, capacious SSD drives, but I hadn’t quite realized how fast these things were until I saw this video, from Samsung’s marketing team. Watch it above.
A set of 24 SSDs in RAID can open the entirety of Microsoft Office in half a second, the entire start menu (53 programs!) in 18 seconds, and can copy a DVD from place to place in less time than it takes to throw the aforementioned DVD out of the window. Best of all, the system can defrag in just three seconds. Impressive!
(via Gizmodo)
Sources sugggest Apple launching netbook after all
After months of will-they, won’t-they action on the subject of an Apple netbook, the latest reports suggest that they-will is winning out. Apple is apparently working with a Taiwanese corporation, Wintek, to produce 10″ touchscreens for such a device.
The launch could be as soon as the second half of the year, and it would likely be packing a stripped-down OS, somewhere in between standard OS X and the iPhone OS. The touchscreen is almost a given, after how well multi-touch on the iPhone has gone down.
One thing that remains under question – will Apple drop the specs to match other netbook manufacturers? Or will they try and cram high-end components into a tiny shell? Apple’s never been one for making budget models of its computers, and there’s no reason why it might start now.
(via CNN Money)
Guardian opens its content to the world, launches API
The Guardian, a British newspaper, has today launched the Guardian Open Platform. “What’s that?”, you may ask. It’s an open API for all the Guardian’s web content. More simply, it’s a way for anyone to freely use Guardian content and data for whatever they want.
You may be wondering why on earth the paper would give its content away for free, given that it charges for it in paper form. Well, the answer is that the Guardian wants to be an all-pervasive source of knowledge on the web, rather than just a site that people have to go to to get that content.
Using the new system, anyone will be able to integrate Guardian data into web applications. The Guardian, in return, gets ad revenues. For the moment, it’s limited to just 5000 queries a day, and it’s all still in beta, but with any luck the Guardian can use their strong trusted position to become the default content provider for many sites on the net.
Guardian Open Platform (via TechCrunch)
iPhone prototypes now available on eBay
Want to get your hands on a piece of tech history? Of course you do. Someone’s managed to get hold of a couple of iPhone prototypes and has chucked it on eBay, because that’s what people who get rare bits of tech do.
Phone #1 powers on, and displays an odd interface. There’s a plastic matte screen. It can make calls, and surf the net. It won’t send texts, though.The second model won’t turn on at all, but has a glass screen.
The bidding, at the time of writing, has reached $940, but the seller will ship worldwide, so don’t be put off by those dollar signs. There’s a day to go, so the bidding will almost certainly escalate quite a bit as the auction nears its end. How much do you really want a couple of barely-working iPhones?
(via iLounge)
