Day: March 27, 2010

Nintendo recently announced that their new handheld (currently dubbed the 3DS) will be released sometime over the next 12 months.

Details are sketchy at the moment, but it looks like it will:

• Be backwards compatible with DS and DSi game titles.
• Feature a screen that produces 3D imagery without requiring special glasses.
• Include orientation and motion sensors, and vibration feedback.
• Feature a special 3D joystick.

I’ve enjoyed seeing the design ideas coming out of this thread on NeoGAF, but I’m not entirely bought off on any particular design (yet). As is my want, I’ve been playing around with different concept designs.

My first idea was based around the following possibilities:

• A vertical tablet has appeal to a wide audience (ebooks, crosswords, etc.).
• Dual cameras could be used for 3D photography/video with the 3D screen.
• Nintendo may focus on cameras, motion, and touch over “legacy” controls.
• “Classic” controls should be available for the traditional gaming audience.
• 16:9 is the new 4:3 (let’s hope it’s 720p!)

Here’s the current mock-up (click image for larger version):

It’s pretty rough, and I had a few different ideas while working on it, so look out for something new over the next few days. 😉

Update: Minor fixes (mostly lightness).

Perhaps the greatest feature of modern communications technology is the way in which it lets humankind share its universal love for cats. Surely I Can Has Cheezburger and Cats the Look like Hitler represent the pinnacle of human achievement in terms of utilisation of technology for the benefit of humanity. Throw in keyboard cat, yodeling cats, ninja cat, box cat, omg cat, and trololo cat for good measure (check out the videos if you haven’t yet seen them!)

On a related note, I’ve found that MMS messaging greatly enhances the experience of keeping cats. Being a constant source of fascination and entertainment, cat antics need to be shared – and with a camera phone handy, it’s just a click (and predictive text input) away.

Shortly after getting Mao I struck upon the idea of sending Heidi SMS messages supposedly from Mao (who purported to have stolen my phone). This progressed to MMS messages documenting her various adventures (“I’m in yer sink, doin yer dishus”) and the entire concept expanded to both cats when we got Bruce (who is decidedly less articulate than Mao when text messaging).

When Minh was cat-sitting the cats, she sent us frequent photos of their adventures from their perspective. Always cute and humorous (obviously), these messages sometimes alluded to implicit questions (eg. “I hav a smelly poo problem” implies “Is that normal?”).

Anyhow, it’s a fun aspect of my life that not many people know about and I wanted to document it somewhere. Heidi and I really appreciated getting photo updates from the cats while they were away from us, and we try to send Minh photos now that they are away from her!

Here’s the latest message (send today):

I saw something moving in the bushes…

Omg! Wat iz it!?

Cheesy, but fun times! 😀