Author: Bob Martens

Categories
Technology

Onward Wii U

So Christmas is past and through no fault of Christmas I have my hands on a Wii U. I’ll document some of my initial thoughts here.

Black Wii U

  • Hardware is nice. Really nice. I liked the Wii as just a piece of technology (and one that Nintendo really didn’t re-release like the slimmed-up Xbox 360 and PS3), and the Wii U continues the trend of really nice, slick, hardware that might not need a major revision in the future. Granted, the console itself is bigger, but it is quieter than the original Wii … so points on that. I do like the separate LED to show that a disk is loaded. A nice, simple touch. Bringing the sync button outside of the hinged door is another small change but makes it much easier to use the console.
  • The Wii U GamePad is going to take some time for me to get used to. After the Wii Remote + Nunchuck of the Wii, the GamePad seems very rigid because … it is. Not a knock against it, but it is something different. The screen looks really good and I can understand why they used resistive instead of capacitive touch for as well. No, it is not HD, but it works well enough for a controller with eleventy-billion different sensors on it.
  • I’m starting to think of the Wii U as a more powerful Wii plus the addition of the dual-screen nature of the Nintendo DS. I wasn’t even thinking that way before, but after using the console for over a day, I can already see what Nintendo was going after. The GamePad really opens up some avenues before restricted to just the mobile-focused DS and 3DS, which could be exciting. It took almost the entire generation of the Wii to get to a game that really harnessed the motion controls in such a way to deliver what everyone was hoping for in the beginning (I’m looking at you The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword), and the DS took a good, long while before games started to really take advantage of the dual-screen nature of that device. The Wii U will take some time as well as developers try and put the two together, but I think Nintendo has provided a decent game to showcase some ideas (Nintendoland), and I have a feeling that hey will be pushing things forward as they usually do. This is why we need a strong Nintendo and I cringe every time someone says that Nintendo should stop making hardware and start just publishing games for other platforms. How quickly we forget about Sega.
  • It is nice to see Nintendo properties in HD.
  • I’m very interested to see what Nintendo is going to do with the Zelda series. So far Zelda, Metroid, and 3D Mario have not been announced or even shown off … but with the GamePad, Remote, Remote + Nunchuck, and Pro Controller you have a plethora of options for controlling those games and who knows what will happen with the second screen available. I’m hoping they keep the 1:1 controls from Skyward Sword around but refine them just a little bit. The future will be interesting.
  • I’m planning on picking up one of the big-name 3rd party ports to try and get an idea of how those might do on the system. There is a huge backlog of high-quality ports that could now be brought over to the Wii U and probably do quite well. Mass Effect 3 is on the top of the list for now.

I think that is about it for now. Overall, I’m highly impressed with the system and even just the two games I have so far (Nintendoland and Just Dance 4). Having an HD Nintendo system should not be underestimated.

One thing I have not dug into is any of the online components. That will be for later (and for games that feature online play more prevalently).

Categories
Business Life

Back to Things

I’ve been using Reminders for most of my todo tracking for a while now (since the release of iOS 5). However, I’m starting to read Getting Things Done by David Allen (thanks to Back to Work and Merlin Mann) and I’m finding that Reminders isn’t going to fit my workflow anymore.

Things

So I’m headed back to my original task management app: Things by Cultured Code. I’m already invested in it via Things for Mac, Things for iPhone, and Things for iPad, so I’m covered in everything possible way (at least for now).

Is it overkill? Maybe. Will it help me get things done? Probably not.

I guess only time will tell.

Categories
Life

Just a Little Further

Andy Rutledge posted a wonderful article about a quote from Firefly that resonates quite strongly with him. You can find it there in the article and I recommend that you go ahead and read it so I won’t reproduce it here.

Firefly Crew

While I wouldn’t consider myself a Firefly superfan (as Rutledge does), I do very much enjoy the show and have always found the show to be somewhat inspiring in a very small way, and I think that the quote he pulled illustrates the reason why quite poignantly.

I would love to be as independent as possible, not really from my family or friends, but professionally and monetarily. This doesn’t require copious amounts of money, but it does require me to change the way I think about “work” and what I need to do to get things moving.

Just doing what needs to be done to stay ahead of the curve, to keep moving forward, to get just a little bit further, to keep moving ahead … that’s the idea. That’s the goal. It isn’t to go completely and totally independent with a house covered in gold, but to set a goal, meet that goal, get to the next day, week, month, year … you get the idea.

That needs to be my mindset. It is not about getting a lot further, but just a little bit.

Categories
Life

Star Trek Into Darkness Trailer

Star Trek XII

The first trailer for Star Trek Into Darkness has been released. Go watch it.

I’m excited, really excited.

Categories
Life Technology

Rural Uptake of Technology

Two posts this morning crossed my desk and I thought I’d just comment briefly on something neither of them talked about.

The first was MG Siegler’s iTunes 11 article at TechCrunch. Go ahead and read it if you like, but I’m going to pull out a choice quote anyway.

Again, it works a lot better than the previous versions of iTunes for this, though performance still leaves a bit to be desired. For example, clicking a track to play it from the cloud always seems to result in a couple-to-few second delay. Not huge, but not as fast as say, Rdio.

He does mention the “performance issues” a few more times, but more on that later.

Finally I saw another article on Ars Technica titled The rest of the Internet is too slow for Google Fiber. I didn’t read much of the article, but the idea of an ISP being too slow for the rest of the internet blends in quite well with what Siegler was saying and what I’m going to write about.

In a time and place where you can get almost limitless amounts of information at any time, we’re very quickly getting into a technology disparity gap that is going to end up rivaling the wealth gap we continue to hear so much about. It has always been there (sound familiar) but it is getting worse (now I’m just playing with you).

The main issue right now is the lack of wired bandwidth to rural communities. It is sad to see smaller communities seemingly accept cable and DSL as acceptable “broadband” solution for every business. The lack of high-speed, wired, fiber bandwidth is not just a problem for consumers, but for businesses as well.

I think it is fairly safe to say that the world is not going to become less connected than it is right now (barring any unforeseen circumstances), but in order for those new communication platforms and mediums to takeoff, the latency and speed of consumer and business connections need to increase drastically … and nowhere more-so than in rural communities.

I don’t have answers, but putting all of our hopes on wireless technologies isn’t going to cut it. If you want to break the backs of incumbents in almost any industry, you’re going to need to get rural areas up-to-speed or things are never going to get there.