To use a quote from The Simpsons: “It’s funny because it’s true.” While Apple stuff is pretty neat, I sometimes get that feeling that they see all programmers who don’t work for Apple as barely-tolerated, not-really-trusted “fourth-party developers”.
This comic was created by Manu Cornet, the artist behind the comic org charts of the big tech companies.
"I’m sure there’s more than one way to easily transfer your Facebook photos and albums to Google’s Picasa service (which will apparently be renamed Google Photos soon, according to social media industry blog Mashable). If you know of a good method for moving from one to the other, do share it in a comment below, but I would like to highlight one that launched very recently.
The aptly named Move2Picasa.com website lets you connect to your Facebook account, after which all your Facebook photos and albums will be migrated over to Google’s Picasa service. Note: sans captions, comments and whatnot.
It admittedly took a couple of hours for me to get my Facebook photos transferred, but for people who don’t mind the wait and would like to move only their photos to Picasa / Google Photos, this is a more than adequate solution.
Evidently, the more photos you (and other) try to migrate, the longer the queue, the longer the wait. Another caveat: it’s all or nothing – you can’t migrate specific photos or albums at this point.
Needless to say, once your photos are in Picasa, sharing them with Circles (or the world) on Google’s brand new social networking service, Google+, can be done in a snap.
The web app was built by AmiWorks’ Aman Kumar Jain and Amogh. According to the website, roughly 300,000 photos have already been transferred to date.
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See what’s on telly when and set recordings with Virgin Media TV powered by TiVoHowever, if you have a TiVo you may find the app useful because:
Lets you know what’s on when. It’s even easier to find what you want to watch faster, too. Just choose your Virgin TV region and package (M, L or XL) and see what’s on the channels you have.
You can set your box to record a show whether you’re at home or on the move. Remote Record lets you set up recordings online or through your mobile.The app doesn't appear to add that much functionality over the existing mobile site for Virgin's TV Guide (not during my quick 2 minute play with it) but nevertheless, its there and its worth a look for customers with an Android device.
It’s simple – just log in, pick a show and press record. You can record a single episode or save the whole series.
German team Black Monkeys declares Galactic Warfare after over two years of development...
Love Call of Duty? Love Star Wars? German modding outift Black Monkeys has a treat for you. After two and a half years in development, the team has released Galactic Warfare a Star Wars-themed 'mod' for Call of Duty: Modern warfare.
It's a total conversion so all the environments, weapons and characters have been re-skinned to fit within the Star Wars universe. Players can choose to become troopers in the Imperial Forces or soldiers of the Rebel Alliance, before scrapping it out over seven maps including Mos Eisley, Bespin and Jundland. Of course, as it's a mod, you'll need the PC version of CoD: Modern Warfare, but if you already own the game, you have little excuse not to download, install and start deathmatching on the deadly sands of Tatooine. I just hope the legal depts at LucasFilm and Activision are feeling benign...
Here's a video trailer, anyway. Let us know what you think...
It's great the education secretary backs the use of games in classrooms, but does he actually realise their full potential?
It seems that finally, the Conservative party is learning to love video games. Education secretary Michael Gove recently delivered a speech on the future of education to the Royal Society. Towards the end, he recognised the importance of using digital technology in the classroom, and highlighted the role games can play in teaching:
'Computer games developed by Marcus Du Sautoy are enabling children to engage with complex mathematical problems that would hitherto have been thought too advanced. When children need to solve equations in order to get more ammo to shoot the aliens, it is amazing how quickly they can learn. I am sure that this field of educational games has huge potential for maths and science teaching and I know that Marcus himself has been thinking about how he might be able to create games to introduce advanced concepts, such as non-Euclidean geometry, to children at a much earlier stage than normal in schools.
'The Department for Education is working with the Li Ka Shing Foundation and the highly respected Stanford Research Institute on a pilot programme to use computer programmes to teach maths. We have not developed the programme – we are just helping them run a pilot. Stanford says it is one of the most successful educational projects they have seen.'
The argument caught some in the games industry by surprise. Ian Livingstone, the life president of publisher Square Enix and co-author of Nesta's Next Gen report on the games industry, tweeted, 'Michael Gove in favour of technology AND computer games in the classroom as a learning tool for maths! WOW. Art next?' He has been lobbying parliament for better computer education in schools, including the addition of Computer Science to the National Curriculum. It seems Conservative party thinking might be moving in that direction.
But there are very important limits to the way Gove talks about the use of games. Mary Matthews, the strategy and business development director at UK developer Blitz Games Studios summed it up perfectly in her comment beneath a Gamesindustry.biz story on the Give speech:
'Great to see Michael Gove actually talking about games, but sad that he still thinks their best use is carrot and stick – do the equation and get ammo to shoot the aliens – eat the brussel sprouts and then you can have the Christmas pudding. Using games for motivation is only one facet, let's get him thinking about exploration, experimentation, team building, problem-solving and independent, personalised, differentiated experiences – then we'll really be tapping into the full potential games can offer for learning ...'
The problem is, Gove's speech represents an outdated concept of technology and learning; it is part of a lingering belief that computers should be used merely as information retrieval and reward systems within the traditional education system. But this is a massive waste. Simplified programming languages like Scratch and Kodu are showing how computers and games can be building blocks in all facets of education, allowing children to construct their own interactive experiences.
Livingstone wants to see the return of extracurricular programming clubs, which were hugely popular during the home computer boom of the 1980s. Children need to understand computers, not just as inexplicable technological objects that provide entertainment and information, but as useful tools in all learning processes. And learning how to develop programs and applications has benefits that reach farther than computer literacy. As Antony Cain, a lecturer in games development at Lancaster and Morecambe College, points out in his response to the Gamesindustry.biz story, computer code requires pinpoint written accuracy, so children also pick up literarcy and grammar skills; they learn structure and logic, they learn to organise thought.
But there is something more fundamental here. Learning is no longer a linear commodity, and – like it or not – traditional skills that rely on memorisation and repetition are becoming obsolete in the era of instant information retrieval. Games can teach us how children will need to learn in the digital age; as active agents, using multiple simultaneous interactive sources. In his rather radical paper 'Rethinking Learning in the Digital Age' MIT professor (and creator of Scratch) Mitchel Resnick proposes a total re-think of the classroom space, adopting the modes of the multimedia, multi-tasking era:
'Instead of a centralised-control model (with a teacher delivering information to a roomful of students), we should take a more entrepreneurial approach to learning. Students can become more active and independent learners, with the teacher serving as consultant, not chief executive. Instead of dividing up the curriculum into separate disciplines (maths, science, social studies, language), we should focus on themes and projects that cut across the disciplines taking advantage of the rich connections among different domains of knowledge.'
Resnick envisions a shift from a 'knowledge society' to a 'creative society' in which the general population are active, knowledgeable participants. This is exactly what is happening in games at the moment, with the rise of 'user-generated' content, and build-it-yourself games like LittleBigPlanet and ModNation Racers. Lots of titles now come with level editors allowing users to create and share their own stuff – and in the era of social networking, social news aggregation and interactive TV passive consumption is over. So what place does it have in the classroom?
Gove's view is certainly a step forward – games should be, and indeed are, an important part of education: there are lots of software companies making great educational software, while Channel 4 Education has produced some amazing online titles. But the way games work, the way they're structured, the way they teach players their systems, the way they ask players to engage with the virtual world, and the way they allow social interaction, should also be important pedagogical pointers. Games are, after all, among the most complex systems that children are exposed to – just look at the labyrinthine structure of titles like Lego Star Wars, or the masses of information in RPG games, or the social economies at work in Club Penguin and Moshi Monsters...).
Schools shouldn't be more like games in terms of meta-structure. I'm not talking about gamification – I don't mean that children should get points or badges for turning up; they shouldn't earn XP that unlocks new areas of the building. Margaret Robertson of innovative game design studio Hide&Seek makes a great case against mistaking reductive 'pointification' for games-based learning. No, games teach us that complex systems, and the provision of choices, and working together in co-op groups, can make really tough problems easy and fun to deal with.
Of course, I'm no expert on education. But in a few years time, I'll have to start helping my young sons with their maths homework – I'm secretly hoping that, by then, it will involve playing Angry Birds or Left 4 Dead, or designing an Android app to solve equations. I still have nightmares about SMP text books. Don't make me go back there.
As many of you will have seen, we have just launched the marketing campaign for Virgin Media TiVo. As part of this campaign we've decided to lower the price for the 1TB box to £99.95. We're conscious that the earliest buyers of this great product paid £149.95, which was an offer only available to existing Virgin Media XL TV customers at the time.
We want to ensure that those who bought TiVo early are not missing out on the more competitive price now available. We're therefore pleased to say that we'll be crediting all those customers who bought the 1TB box at £149.95 with the £50 difference. This will appear on your bill in the next two months. We'll be emailing all these customers shortly, to confirm this.
We hope that you'll continue to enjoy your TiVo experience, which we think is the best way to watch TV, ever!
As a long-time BlackBerry enthusiast and proud Canadian (most of the time anyways - those hockey riots in Vancouver were a disgrace), I want to see Research In Motion turn around the negative sentiment that is now stalking them in the media and gain back the sales momentum and brand popularity they have enjoyed in the past.
But should this challenge prove too difficult in the months ahead or simply take too long to execute in the face of an eroding market cap, what will become of RIM? I've pondered this question a lot in recent weeks from every conceivable angle, and it was sitting on a patio sipping my fourth pitcher of Sangria on Canada Day that I concluded Google will buy Research In Motion. It won't be Microsoft - they've made their bet on Windows Phone and Nokia (and the Steve Ballmer at BlackBerry World thing was little more than a PR stunt). It won't be Co-CEOs Jim Balsillie and Mike Lazaridis buying back the company and going private again (though I'm sure they'd love to do that). It won't be any other company seriously stepping in with a bid. It'll be Google. Keep reading for my logical reasoning.
In no particular order....
1. QNX. QNX, the foundation of the new BlackBerry Tablet OS and future QNX-based BlackBerry "superphones" is literally a drop-in replacement for the Android's Linux Kernel. Thanks to its POSIX compliance, it would literally take just weeks for Android to make this conversion, and they would immediately enjoy the benefits of QNX on the Android platform: improved stability (microkernel vs. monolithic kernel), better security (notice how the PlayBook hasn't been rooted), ease of rolling out new hardware (QNX is already running on 32 cores) and more. Android has its vulnerabilities. Android with a QNX kernel is compelling.
2. Canada is nice, eh. Google already has offices in Kitchener (next to Waterloo), Ontario, where RIM's headquarters and main talent pool are located. It could be that Google has been thinking ahead.
3. Java. Java is at the heart of the Android, and Research In Motion has a lot of smart people who know Java.
4. Mobile patents. One of Google/Android's biggest weaknesses currently are their lack of patents in the mobile space. Google is starting to get inundated with lawsuits, and unfortunately, these lawsuits don't just get directed at Google but also the companies that are using the Android operating system on their devices. Google NEEDS to build up their mobile patent defenses. Buying RIM not only would give Google RIM's patents, it would also get Google into the recent Nortel patent acquisition that Google was not part of the winning bid on.
Google lost the bid on Nortel patents to a consortium of companies including Apple, Microsoft and RIM. It's pretty clear that this consortium was done as a block again Google to stave off Android growth and prevent Google from winning the bid. However, looking at Google's bids for the patents, which were based on pi (3.141519 billion) and other universal constants like the distance between the Earth and the Sun, it's like Google wasn't even taking the bid seriously. And why would you? If you're Google and you're about to buy RIM, who's stake in the Nortel bid was $770 million, you're getting your piece of over 6,000 Nortel patents for a $4 billion dollar discount. Google actually buying these Nortel patents at over $4.5 billion would have been a stupid move if they're planning on buying RIM in the near-ish future. A RIM acquisition has effectively been discounted by over $3.5 billion.
5. T.A.T. Google has worked extensively with The Astonishing Tribe in the past. TAT did the UI for the original version of Android on the T-Mobile G1. Google knows TAT. Google likes TAT. RIM owns TAT. Google buys RIM and now owns TAT.
6. Enterprise. Android becomes viable for enterprise. Currently when you mention Android in enterprise, most people just laugh. The security isn't there, nor is there a great way to manage it. RIM already announced they're working on cross-platform BES support at BlackBerry World this year. In a world where Google owns RIM and there's a QNX kernel on Android (see point #1), Android in enterprise is no longer laughable, it's awesome.
7. Carrier relationships. I don't think anybody would argue with the fact RIM has done a great job over the years at expanding its footprint around the globe. Google is obviously doing a great job at this too with Android, and Google would only further benefit from RIM's existing carrier relationships and RIM's existing base of people who currently work in these roles.
8. Proof of concept complete / Commitment to Android. RIM has already announced support for Android apps on the BlackBerry PlayBook (and future QNX-based BlackBerry Smartphones). I believe this was done without Google's blessing, but it shows that Android on BlackBerry is already doable. It also shows RIM is already going to rely on Android for "app tonnage," which could be seen as a turn off to other potential RIM suitors.
9. Reduce fragmentation. Google has made it clear that they want to reduce the fragmentation in the Android ecosystem, and BlackBerry running Android apps on Google only complicates this issue further. Because RIM is having developers resubmit their Android-built apps to App World (effectively making them BlackBerry apps), there's little Google can currently do to prevent this. Google buying RIM allows this to be addressed.
10. Assuming Google wants to, they could now own the end-to-end experience. Google currently builds no hardware. Instead, they give away the operating system to companies like HTC, Samsung, LG, etc. who build the hardware. Google may not want to change this approach, but if they wanted to, they could actually own the hardware and software stack and build their own hardware via a RIM acquisition.
Bonus Reason 11. Google's Eric Schmidt was a CrackBerry addict. Seriously, even in 2009 as Android was emerging from it's shell, Eric Schmidt was rocking a BlackBerry (remember when he got caught on camera using it). I'm not saying everybody at Google likes BlackBerry, but I'm sure they get BlackBerry.
Google's Eric Schmidt snapping a photo on his BlackBerry
That's a lot of logical reasoning as to why Google buying RIM makes a ton of sense. Are there any reasons why it would be a bad idea? Prior to last week, my main sticking point would be the corporate culture. I think pockets of RIM -- like QNX and TAT -- would fit with Google's college culture perfectly. But the historical RIM is more stuffy and enterprise focused. Though after last week's Open Letter to RIM Senior Management, I more than ever get the feeling that RIM not only needs but WANTS a cultural change. It'll be hard for RIM to make that change happen by themselves, but the Google culture is well known. RIM has a lot of smart people who would be unleashed in a Google culture. I think if Google bought RIM you'd see thousands of currently-depressed RIM employees be as excited as heck again. It would be just the thing that RIM employees need. They wouldn't be fighting a world that seems to have turned against them - they'd be back on a winning team again.
I can't see the future and I don't know how this is all going to play out. Maybe the worst is now behind us and RIM will get their act together and turn things around. But if not, I really believe the worst-case scenario for RIM would be a Google acquisition. And honestly, I don't think it would be a worst-case at all. I actually think it would rock.
Long before I was a fan of BlackBerry I was a fan of Google (pretty sure I started using Google for search within in a week of it going live), so if RIM has to get bought, I personally want it to be Google that buys them. I don't think as much good would come out of companies like Cisco or Dell acquiring RIM (and I think Microsoft is out). It's a selfish reason, but to me it's valid. I'd rather see RIM be independent, but if they have to get bought, let it be Google.
It feels like the world wants to consolidate around less mobile platforms, not more. Having iOS, Android, BlackBerry, Windows Phone, WebOS, each with their separate mobile development platforms, is arguably too many. On the internet, I build one website and it works with Internet Explorer, Firefox, Chrome, etc. If I want to put my content into an app and hit everybody, I need to build too many dang versions to hit everybody. For content publishers and people who want to have all the apps, having less platforms is easier. If you're #1 or #2, you're set, but if you're going to be relegated to a number three, four or five, you're better off joining #1 or #2.
As RIM's share price continues to decline, RIM becomes more attractive as an acquisition target to somebody. And the more I think on it, the more I believe Google has an eye on RIM and likely knows what they want to pay for the company. When it came to Groupon, Google reportedly offered $5 billion to the company (which they turned down). In that case, they went in fast with a lot of money to get in early on something that was taking off - there wasn't technology there, but rather an emerging network. This is a much different scenario. Android already has momentum and BlackBerry is in the declining position. Google won't lose out by waiting to buy RIM. However, Google does have a lot to gain from buying RIM, but they're in a position where they can afford to wait and buy it at a discount. I'm pretty sure Google is thinking shares of RIMM will continue to decline. And hey, maybe I'm way off base here and Google isn't currently looking at RIM at all. But maybe after this article they will be.
Should Google buy RIM, I'd hate to see the BlackBerry name go away, and I don't think it would (why kill something so well-known?), but following all these logical reasons of why Google will buy RIM I'm still not sure how the actual BlackBerry brand would tie into an Android/BlackBerry future. I'll keep thinking on that. In the meantime, be sure to sound off with your comments! What do you think? Is this destiny or just crazy talk?
CrackBerry.com's feed sponsored by ShopCrackBerry.com. 10 Reasons why Google will buy Research In Motion
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Is there a word missing from this film title? If so, it may spring from a blunder of astronomical proportions ...
Sadly, there are those who've found something lacking in Transformers: Dark of the Moon. Still, never mind the movie: what about that title? You don't have to be a Pink Floyd junkie to notice that a rather important word seems to have gone awol.
The 'dark of the moon' is a three-day period at the end of the lunar cycle when the moon isn't visible from Earth. Psychics consider this a great time to receive messages from the soul, and in primitive matriarchal cultures it's the moment to head for the menstruation hut. However, none of that has any bearing on anything that happens in Transformers: Dark of the Moon. Indeed, the dark of the moon doesn't even get a mention.
What the characters do keep prattling on about is the dark 'side' of the moon. As indeed they must, since this is the location for the film's seminal events. This is where Sentinel Prime crashes a Cybertronian spacecraft loaded with galactically momentous cargo. It's where the Apollo 11 astronauts go to check out the wreck, and whither Optimus hastens to rescue his one-time mentor. So it looks as if the word 'side' should have been in the title but somehow got left out.
When you spend a couple of years making and marketing a $200m movie, you surely don't get its name wrong by mistake. So what's up? In the absence of an explanation from the film-makers, speculation has understandably been rife.
The URL transformersdarksideofthemoon.com was registered at some point. Apparently it used to redirect to michaelbay.com. Perhaps even more mysteriously, it has now ceased to do so. Other clues also suggest the word 'side' was originally meant to be up there. The Spanish title is still El Lado Oscuro de la Luna. So why did the word disappear from the English-language version?
Among the welter of theories, the one favoured by most scholars (including our own Peter Bradshaw) lays the blame on Pink Floyd. The band's surviving members are presumed to have bullied Paramount into changing the title to enforce their supposed copyright, or to have demanded a royalty sufficiently excessive to make even a Hollywood giant baulk.
Well, Floydsters have been known to resort to litigation, but only to lay claim to the name of their own band, not that of one half of our nearest celestial body. Floyd didn't invent the expression 'dark side of the moon', and any claim to own it would be unlikely to have impressed a top studio's lawyers. Since the Floyd album appeared in 1973, at least two films have already borne the same title, not to speak of a video game, at least three novels and a whole bunch of songs.
Yet few of the other suggestions so far advanced seem much more convincing. The least fanciful is that the change was simply a bid to be more succinct. Still, if such was the ambition, why not just settle for Transformers 3?
Naturally, your correspondent asked Paramount. But by the time of going to press, no answer had come. In the circumstances, perhaps that's not surprising. Anyway, this column's duty is now clear: it must offer a theory of its own. Here goes.
Director Michael Bay knew he faced an awkward challenge. A third helping of mindless metallic mayhem must have threatened to be a bit of a bore, even to him. What was to be done? Why, this time he could invest the proceedings with a bit of romance, menace and magic. How? He could co-opt a real-world phenomenon that has always enthralled and unnerved. He would initiate his action in an eerie place that's perpetually dark, perpetually cold and condemned to rotate endlessly around our planet forever out of our sight. A place that many believe has already played host to real alien incursions.
Bay's team applauded enthusiastically and set to work on a film that would obviously need to be called Transformers: Dark Side of the Moon. Everyone was thrilled. Everyone, that is, except one geeky intern. For in this lowly youngster's head a horrible doubt was taking shape. Mindful of Megan Fox's fate, he kept his counsel long into the months of postproduction. Finally, however, he could stay silent no longer.
At a tidying-up meeting, he raised his wavering hand. We have a problem, he said, a big one. The basis for our film's supposed charisma doesn't actually exist: there's no such place as the dark side of the moon.
After a moment of appalled silence, he explained. It's true that because tidal forces have slowed the moon's rotation, one of its hemispheres is permanently turned away from us. But the moon gets its light from the sun, not the earth. So the far side gets just as much light as the side we can see. The whole idea of a 'dark side' of the moon is rooted in a centuries-old misconception.
The room resounded with curses from all present. If they just went ahead as planned, would anyone notice their howler? Of course they would. That Guardian column, Between the Lines, would be on to it in a jiffy. The whole franchise would become a laughing stock.
What could be done? There was no time to reshoot all the scenes in which that 'dark' side got a mention. The whole thing looked hopeless. Then someone came up with a desperate ploy. Just drop the fateful word from the title: that way, sneerers might be thrown off the scent. Regrettably, the plan doesn't seem to have worked.
Instead, all that happened was that the title became a mess. Some might say this makes it well suited to the film itself. But that would be unkind.
WHEN I WAS YOUNG
you didn’t have to tell kids not to try this at home. we weren’t complete retards back then.
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While tech pundits are widely praising Google’s new Plus product, I’ve found the one feature that could take away from Facebook where it’s most dominant: Time on the site.
Facebook users are known for staying on the site for over half an hour a day, something no other site could compete with… until now.
To be honest, my gut reaction after using Google Plus was initially, “Why on earth would anybody switch to this from Facebook?”
However, when I loaded up Google Finance as I do every morning, I suddenly realized that I was asking the wrong question. The reality is that users won’t have the option of not using Google Plus.
Google already has more users than Facebook, over one billion. They aren’t going to suddenly leave Facebook in droves, they’re just going to spend more time on all the sites in Google’s network. That big notifications box in the top right of all Google sites is the reason why.
As I’m browsing around Google-powered sites there’s occasionally a red notification alert that pops up and immediately grabs my attention. Soon enough I’m clicking through the various notifications and seeing what my friends have shared and who has recently begun sharing with me.
It’s a not-so-subtle tactic by Google to quickly increase the amount of time you end up spending on Google properties. It’s also an easy way to immediately add social discovery to all of Google’s products.
The notifications box is also something that Google could leverage to steal one of Facebook’s most valuable assets: developers.
Something like 30 percent or more of all Facebook users’ time on the site is from applications. While Zynga, which is reportedly filing to go public this week, has built a multi-billion dollar business on top of the platform, it has little loyalty to the company.
The primary reason is that Facebook is now taking a 30 percent cut of every game developer’s business. By contrast, Google, which brings in over $30 billion in revenue each year, could easily afford to let developers keep all the money they generate.
Add in the fact that Google also has the fastest growing mobile distribution channel of any company (Android) and you suddenly realize the power that the search giant has to woo developers.
No, Google Plus is not a “Facebook killer,” but despite the company’s numerous failed attempts at getting into social media, the new Plus product gives users no other option but to accept the fact that Google is becoming exactly that: social.
This is clearly just the start, though. Once Google Plus becomes stable and more widely used, the company will attempt to compete with Facebook where it matters most by building an entire social platform. The notifications are just one indicator of what lays ahead.
Readers, have you tried Google Plus yet — do you think it has the potential to cut into your use of Facebook?
Disclosure: I own shares of Google.
Update
Looks like I was dead on with the platform prediction … there’s now code already showing their interest in launching games within the system.
