Tech Archives - Page 14 of 28

Review: Nintendo DS Lite

Today I treated myself to a Nintendo DS Lite. I’ve been a huge fan of the DS ever since I picked one up last September, and still highly recommend it. But the new DS Lite is even better!

I have the two units side by side here. The DS Lite is on the left, and the older standard DS on the right. Note how the Lite nearly blinds my camera. That’s the major feature improvement – a much brighter screen. You can even play it in direct sunlight, something the original DS could never handle. I never thought the original’s screen was bad, but the colors really pop out at you on the improved version. I don’t think I could go back. The battery life is also extended, overall size is decreased, and the whole design is much more stylish (it looks quite at home next to my iPod).

Nintendo even went out of their way to make wirelessly transfering your online gaming settings from the old DS to the new one a snap.

I don’t have a lot to say about the system that I didn’t the first time around, but I still really like it 🙂

The DS Lite does have one minor disadvantage: Due to its smaller size, Large older Game Boy cartridges like Warioware: Twisted look more than slightly ridiculous hanging out the bottom.

Still here

I’m finally back from a whirlwind two weeks of travel, during which I visited: New Orleans, Nashville, Atlanta, Rochester, Pittsburgh, and the Thousand Islands area. Atlanta was not an intended destination, but thanks to Delta’s atrocious customer service I got to spend the night. That’s a horror story for another time. Needless to say I’m exhausted, but it was more than worth the craziness to see so many family members and friends.

I’m suffering from information overload now that I have time to sit down and see all that I missed. My list of RSS feeds has never been quite so intimidating.

I had an interesting experience at a gas station in rural Pennsylvania. There I got to use the RFID chip embedded in my new debit card for the first time. While seamless (just wave the card, no button pushing necessary at all), the process makes me a bit nervous. Something about removing the safeguard of a PIN feels wrong, and I’m placing a lot of faith in my bank’s ability to make my chip uncopyable. This wouldn’t bother me in, say, a library card. But in a card so closely tied to my financial identity, it’s another matter entirely.

An interesting note: The WordPress plugin I use to display what I’m currently reading on my site (Now Reading) can’t handle books that aren’t published yet, so I’ve disabled it for the moment. If anyone is interested, I’m currently in the middle of Stephen King’s upcoming Lisey’s Story, which I grabbed a preprint of at ALA.

ALA 2006 – Exploring the tech of gaming

Speakers were Eli Neiburger, Matt Gullett, Kevin Ferst, and Beth Gallaway.

Eli spoke for the bulk of the session, and was really fascinating. He pointed out that video gaming is not really new, it has been around for about thirty years now. And the calls that it will be the downfall of civilization as we know it are “just another part of the generational churn.” Movies, music, and even novels have all held that spot at some point or another. Media coverage of hyper-violent games is overblown. I didn’t catch the exact statistic, but something like only 12% of all games sold last year were rated M (Mature), and even they are intended for ages 17 and up. In the same way that you wouldn’t take a first grader to an R movie, they shouldn’t be playing M rated games. Parents need to be educated about the rating system to understand this.
Eli runs amazingly successful gaming events at the Ann Arbor District Library system. He points out that they are about the only programs to draw in large numbers of teenage boys to the library.

I was in awe the entire time, just listening to Eli speak. He’s truly passionate about gaming in libraries, and can justify it in ways I can’t even begin to list. I think he won over most of the audience.

The other speakers had less time, but were still interesting and relevant. Matt Gullett pointed out that you shouldn’t make programs to create games, which he has run, too much like school or you’ll lose the kids. Instead, the sessions can be places to create and interact socially.

Kevin Ferst brought an interesting perspective, in that he isn’t a hardcore gamer himself but still has successfully run sessions at the library. You don’t have to be an expert!

Beth Gallaway pointed out that teens do need structure and boundaries, which libraries can provide in these programs like any others. And what about teaching ‘mashup’ classes at the library? Kids love to take game footage and sync it up with their favorite music, creating quick music videos. Use it as an opportunity to teach them some tools, as well as a quick copyright/fair use lesson (record companies are starting to sue kids over these videos).

I admit that I find it hard to apply a lot of what was covered in an academic library environment. But the study of gaming, and how it impacts the students we receive in colleges, is still very relevant. And what would be so wrong with hosting a gaming night for incoming freshmen? 🙂

ALA 2006 – Next Stop Blogging

This session was all about building a professional blog for your library. Jason Griffey (http://www.JasonGriffey.net), Karen Coombs (http://www.librarywebchic.net) and Steven Bell (http://staff.philau.edu/bells/webpresent.html) spoke.

Griffey covered the technical back end – how to pick a blogging software package, and particularly whether to go with a hosted solution or to install your blog on your own servers. He highly recommends installing it on your own servers. If nothing else, it is important to have full control over the content you’ll be generating. I fully agree with this. Google’s Blogger system is great for setting up a quick blog, but for something professional like this you need finer granularity of being able to alter and control the blog.

Coombs talked about ways to enhance your blog, including:
Think about applying a Creative Commons license, instead of the more restrictive traditional copyright system. You can maintain rights like selling the post, but allow others to quote it and build on your work (as long as they give credit). Other options exist as well.

She also mentioned remixing your feeds with Feedburner, using tags as a more versatile alternative to categories, and using multiple stylesheets to support easy printing and viewing on mobile devices with small screens. This last tip is something I’d never thought about, and plan to get it running both here and on blogs we’re starting at UAH very soon.

Bell outlined a method for integrating your academic library blog into your institution’s courseware system (like Blackboard or WebCT). The details of how are on his site which I linked to above, so I won’t rehash that here. But I like this idea a lot. As Bell pointed out, less than 10% of college students actively use RSS feeds. 5% would voluntarily subscribe to a library blog’s feed. But by integrating the blog into courseware, he personally surveyed that at least 50% read the postings. These stats aren’t directly comparable, but I think his overall point still makes sense.

At one point Bell also mentioned the idea of using a blog or wiki as a method of communicating reference desk updates among reference librarians. I’m intrigued here too, but think it might be overkill for a relatively small staff such as where I work.

The session was well attended, and the audience was very curious. Blogging in libraries isn’t going away any time soon.

ALA 2006 – Google vs. Microsoft

Google and Microsoft are the only two major search engine vendors (that I’m aware of) at this conference. After talking to reps at both booths today, and seeing what was going on at them, I’m about to commit geek heresy: Microsoft is beating the pants off Google, at least in substance.

Google’s booth is very gimmicky. You get a scratch off card, and go around talking to their reps to get the answers to the six questions on it. The questions cover Google’s resources for librarians, Google Scholar, and Google book search. Get them all right, and you get to pick an item of Google swag. T-shirt, hat, journal, etc. But there’s nothing to stop you from scratching off multiple cards and claiming multiple prizes. So that’s what a lot of people are doing. Meanwhile, the reps’ (all attractive young women, naturally – possibly not the best choice to talk to a profession that is so largely female) knowledge is not very deep. They each know their station, and how to get you the info needed to answer another scratch off question, but little else.

Microsoft’s booth, focused on their new Academic Live search, is wholly different. Sure there’s still swag, (nalgene water bottles) but there’s nothing wrong with swag in general and they don’t make you jump through pointless hoops to get it. Meanwhile, the MS reps are actually involved in the site’s development and know their stuff down cold. You can tell they’re really proud of Academic Live, and have a lot of fun showing off little random features. I asked them how they were going to handle linking Academic Live to various openURL resolvers, and was instantly greeted by the guy in charge of that aspect of the system. He asked for a few details, gave me his card, and said to e-mail him when I get back to work. He’ll get our resolver set up on Academic Live quickly, instead of waiting for the automated system they’re developing to kick in sometime down the road. A question I asked on a similar topic at the Google booth was greeted with blank stares.

I’m not making a judgement just yet on whether Google Scholar or Academic Live is the better product. But Microsoft earned itself my serious consideration today, whereas before I would have been tempted to dismiss them without a second glance. Substance trumps Style.

ALA 2006 – LITA Top Tech Trends

This afternoon I attended LITA’s panel discussion on top tech trends. Unfortunately my notetaking wasn’t quite fast enough to always catch who said what, but there were some interesting overall points made.

Several panelists commented on the rising opinion that “OPACs suck”. But they put a positive spin on it, hoping that the growing dissatisfaction with the catalogs will prompt changes. “We’re fighting back.”

Social software and online comunities was a biggie. Karen Schneider brought up an interesting point: Are we reading the privacy policies of the third party sites that libraries are starting to trust data too? She suggested in particular that Flickr’s policies (via their owners, Yahoo) may not be on the up and up. I suppose I’ll have to start reading the fine print…
A few people brought up the fact that federated searching is not working. I agree, but only to a point. At UAH we have a federated search system up and running, that a recent survey shows the vast majority (I can’t remember the exact numbers offhand) of users prefer it over searching individual databases. I’m quite pleased with it personally, and wonder if other libraries attempting federated search simply haven’t found the right software for their situation. But that said, I find the idea of metadata harvesting to be deeply interesting. If nothing else, using it could vastly speed up the searching of multiple databases at once.

For a bit of perspective Eric Morgan mentioned that this is LITA’s 40th year of existence, and that 55 years ago today (well, yesterday by the time I post this), the first color television broadcast went out. How far we’ve come in such a short time!

Audience questions at the end brought up the topic of digitization of paper resources. Panelists agreed that the digitization of the physical document itself is the easy part. Securing the rights, a useful search system, etc. are where the difficulty lies. Also, I wish I could remember who said “Google Book Search makes our OPACs look good.”

How do the panelists identify trends? They go outside libraryland, and see what the public is doing elsewhere. They look at Newsweek and Time articles for ideas of what has gone mainstream. And lastly, they watch non-techies to see what gets picked up.

This was a great session with a light tone and relevant topics.

Tech Convergence

I’ve been thinking recently about the convergence of technology. Specifically, the idea of multiple gadgets being squished into one unit. Cell phones with cameras are an obvious example. In fact, cell phones are at the root of a lot of convergence. Think of how often new devices are described that way: “It’s a cell phone that plays iTunes songs.” or “It’s a cell phone with PDA functions.”

I tried to think of what gadgets I’d gotten rid of through convergence. My cell phone has a very basic low quality camera that I sometimes use, but it isn’t even remotely functional enough to make me toss my standalone camera. I stumbled around the recesses of my mind for a while, trying to figure out something I’d gotten rid of thanks to convergence.

Then, I had an a-ha moment: I no longer own a stereo.

Well, perhaps that isn’t entirely true. I own one, but it is still in my parents’ house a thousand miles away – it didn’t make the move with me. Instead, I have a decent set of speakers hooked up to my computer and iTunes. For the rare time I need to listen to ‘normal’ broadcasts, I use a clock radio. I hadn’t even really noticed the change, but when I think back to middle school a decade ago – 12 year old me could never imagine living without something so basic as a stereo.

I wonder what else I’ve forgotten using, or will in the future.

Next Generation Gaming

I was recently asked about my take on the next-gen console wars. Now that the annual E3 trade show has come and gone, things are going to heat up quickly.

There are three main competitors in the console gaming race: Microsoft’s Xbox 360 (available now), Sony’s Playstation 3 (available in November), and the Nintendo Wii (available fourth quarter this year sometime). I’ll comment on each in order.

The 360’s main advantage is that by the time the other two consoles hit the public, Microsoft will have been on the market for a full year already. In gaming time, a year is an awfully long time to withhold the newest games from oneself. But really, there just aren’t any games that make me want to buy a 360. Sure, there’s World War II shooters that look pretty interesting, and racing games that look really pretty (ok, really really pretty). But take away the upgraded graphics, and the games are not much better than what I can get for my existing Xbox. The difference is certainly not enough to justify $400 out of my budget for the 360. But this said, when Halo 3 is released for the 360 (next year sometime) I will finally break down and buy the console. I just love that series too much! And by that point, I’m hoping the price of the system will have dropped a bit.

I have zero interest in obtaining a Playstation 3 – the price turned me off entirely. $600 will get you the higher end system, and $500 the lower end (missing a lengthy list of features). There is simply no way I will ever pay more than my monthly rent for a video game console. And there isn’t even a game like Halo 3 to get me excited. Everyone was buzzing at E3, wondering what the PS3 controller would look like. Well, it looks exactly like the current PS2 controller. But silver. The only two new features are an extra button in the center (stolen from the 360’s design) and a degree of motion sensitivity (stolen from the Nintendo Wii’s design). Plus, a feature of the PS2 controller has actually been removed: rumble force feedback.

Microsoft and Sony are both heavily pushing the fact that their consoles fully support gaming in high definition. What I think they’re forgetting is that the average consumer does not have an HDTV yet. Even I, who normally fits an early adopter profile, don’t plan on getting one in the next few years.

Which brings me to the final entry: the Nintendo Wii. Putting the strange name aside,
I really can’t wait for this one. The controller is fully motion sensitive, and many games will take full advantage of that fact. For example, play a tennis game: you swing the controller as if it were a racket. A racing game: you hold it like a steering wheel. Nintendo is aiming at both the existing gamer market and the vast group of those who have never owned a console. By simplifying the controller, they hope to remove an intimidation barrier and broaden the system’s overall appeal. Sure, the system will be missing some features (like true HD images – again I don’t have a TV to use that anyway), but the rumored price point of $200-$250 is the best thing Nintendo has going for them. The Wii is the only system of the three I plan to buy at launch day.

For me, Nintendo is the obvious winner. I mean come on, they’ve even managed to get me excited about a tennis game! And I can understand why many will still be drawn to the Xbox 360. But the Playstation 3? I can’t fathom how it can be successful. It will be overpriced, unoriginal, bulky, and perhaps most importantly – very few of their game previews at E3 made anybody sit up and say ‘wow’.
Anyway, that’s my two cents.

Unimaginable features for the Wii

If you don’t follow gaming news regularly, you might have missed that Nintendo recently officially named its next video game system: “Wii”. (It’s pronounced ‘wee’, and yes the internet has been ablaze with puns!)

Previously code-named the Revolution, the system has the potential to be just that for console gaming. For example: the controller is fully motion-sensitive, meaning you can do things like play tennis games as if you were holding a real racket.

Anyway, to my point. Time magazine recently got some hands-on time with the new system. The article isn’t available on their website yet, but it is in Lexis Nexis (“A Game For All Ages”, by Lev Grossman, in the 5/15/06 issue). This quote was particularly illuminating to me: (the italics are my emphasis)

“But the name Wii not wii-thstanding, Nintendo has grasped two important notions that have eluded its competitors. The first is, Don’t listen to your customers. The hard-core gaming community is extremely vocal–they blog a lot–but if Nintendo kept listening to them, hard-core gamers would be the only audience it ever had. “[Wii] was unimaginable for them,” Iwata says. “And because it was unimaginable, they could not say that they wanted it. If you are simply listening to requests from the customer, you can satisfy their needs, but you can never surprise them.”

I think that advice can be applied to any profession, including libraries.

Second Life Library

The Second Life Library 2.0 initiative really fascinates me. Second Life is a free online role playing game. Unlike most games of this type, there are very few limitations on what you can do in the game world. The official site does a much better job of explaining the concept than I can.

So what is the Second Life Library 2.0? A bunch of librarians and organizations like OPAL and the Alliance Library System are building a library inside the game world. They play on offering reference service, instruction programs, and pretty much anything else possible in the game.

There’s a couple of reasons I love this idea. It definitely accomplishes outreach to an unserved population. At the same time, there’s a definite Cool Factor that libraries can sometimes lack. Thumbs up to all involved!

I really want to help out with this project, but unfortunately Second Life will not run on my aging computer. I’m hoping to get a new system later this year, so maybe I’ll join up after that event.