Category: General

Although completely unrelated to the recent onetwenty downtime, I’ve had fairly intermittent internet access since my last post.

Most of the problems have been with the telephone line itself. We’ve had quite a bit of crosstalk and the ADSL has been unable to synchronise. I called amcom and (after waiting on hold for 20 minutes) spoke to someone who clearly knew their stuff and was very helpful.

We found that phone calls made with our landline came up with caller ID from some unknown number, so we called Telstra and they sent someone over. After they fixed that problem, the crosstalk remained and they sent somone over again.

It all seems to be working now and I’ve pretty happy with the service from Telstra and very happy with amcom. They even called back today to confirm that our problems are resolved, and the 8Mb/1Mb connection with static IP at no extra charge is great! It’s definitely much better than our previous experience with iiNet and Telstra.

We spent our first night in the new place last Saturday and have been cleaning and organising things since then. The kitchen is usable, the plumbing generally works, and (most importantly) our ADSL was connected today. So I’m back online and getting back into things.

Thanks to Tone for his impeccable furniture arranging advice and to Minh and Jason for “felting” the dining set.

Update: added photo of the view. There’s not much to see inside 😛

http://the-magicbox.com/0602/game060215c.shtml

According to The Magicbox, this is the new look for Bomberman on the Xbox360:

What? For comparison, here is an image of the original bomberman that I pulled from Wikipedia:

What is going on in this crazy, crazy world?! I mean… (ahem)”this new visual aesthetic marks a distinct new direction in style when compared to the classic Bomberman art”.

Musings on the possible appeal to a western gaming market and the problem of continuity after the jump!

Update: Looks like insert credit feels the same way!

Continue reading “Bomberman goes badass”

Alternate title: Be the early career Michael Jackson of the video-gaming world!

If you haven’t heard about it yet, the controller for the next generation Nintendo video-game console is a doozy. It looks fairly modest, like a television remote control with only a few buttons. However, it has possibly the coolest feature ever to grace video game controllers: it knows where it is and where you’re pointing it.

The game developer and game player communities are ablaze with anticipation! What interesting, wild, crazy, and zany ways can games use this unique controller? What gaming wonders lay beyond this precipice of user interaction? My answer to both questions: not much you didn’t see coming.

Continue reading “Don’t forget the “obvious” games!”

It looks like my XboxMove mockups were picked up by xbox360fanboy. Of course… I submitted it as possible news… but I’m glad that it was interesting enough to warrant a post on their site!

I appreciate all the comments and hope to see this model in 3D sometime soon (ish). Even more so, I hope to see it on shelves… with a big fat design royalties cheque made out to me! Mwahahahah!

Between the spam e-mails that litter my csse e-mail account, I found a couple of messages from a Microsoft recruiting officer. At first I thought that they were spam, but upon inspection they seem to be legit.

The end result? I missed a scheduled telephone interview with Microsoft. Since I’m not really looking for work at the moment I sent them a polite response to that effect.

It looks like they just searched for resumes and sent out e-mails. Did anyone else receive something similar?

Update: A big correction! Changed “really looking” to “not really looking”!

Yay! Yay! Yay!

It’s a fairly small ex-housing commission place for $185, but it’s right on Terrace Road with a great view of the river and a short walk from Heidi’s work (Royal Perth Hospital).

Yay! Yay! Yay!

Update: $185! That’s half what we were paying last year in Sydney!

As a follow-up to my previous two posts about the XboxMove, I’ve made a few mockups in full colour and with more details.

Here’s a concept image for promotional material (coincidentally, it’s the perfect aspect ratio for a desktop wallpaper):

More images and a full-size (1600×1200) version of this image after the jump.

Update: More recently, I’ve also made a PSP redesign. Please let me know what you think. 🙂

Continue reading “XboxMove handheld console in full colour”

As a followup to my original XboxMove post, this image illustrates how the XboxMove screen flips out. It also shows how the handheld can stand at a slight angle from vertical when the screen is down.

Watch out for more detailed (non-diagrammatic) images of the XboxMove soon.

Update: Added new image. Moved old image to next page.

Continue reading “XboxMove to the side”

This is my prediction for a possible Microsoft handheld device.

Much like my “reasonable” DS redesign which turned out to be pretty close, I tried to concentrate on style and features that would meet Microsoft’s objectives and also on what was possible and financially viable within the next year or so.

Clearly the things that they would want are:

• Style: Complements the Xbox360 and reinforces the Xbox brand.
• Functionality: Integrates with the “digital home”. Connects to Xbox Live.
• Competition: Reduce the risk to competitor innovation.

Here’s a quick mockup just to get things started:

More images and in-depth discussion after the jump.

Update: Look out for a more detailed mockup within the next week!
Update: Added notes on interface.
Update: Added related links.

Continue reading “XboxMove”