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Movin’ on

After 1,148 postings and almost three years worth of writing I am moving to blog on WordPress. This means a shiny new domain renaissancechambara dot com where you can find the same poor standard of posts on similar topics to what you’ve got used to. I will be leaving my archive of postings here, until I work out how or if I can move my postings over. You can subscribe to the RSS feed here.

The Host

I finally got around to writing a review of The Host (Guimul). A product of the Korean film industry, which seems to be on creative fire at the moment. The Host has been compared to The Royal Tanenbaums and Godzilla or Tremors.

The film also has a subversive tone questioning the relationship that South Korea has with the US and the suppression of citizen interests for the betterment of big business.

The performance walks a tightrope between humour and tragedy without the heavy-handed humour in many Hong Kong films.

Get out and see it if you haven’t had a chance already.

Links for 2006-12-08 [My Web 2.0]

Holloways of Ludlow – anglepoise reseller

Rumour has it… Guide to gossip sites and blogs

Developing world demands high-tech handsets – Mobile & Wireless – Breaking Business and Technology News at silicon.com

instructables : Homemade instant oatmeal

WidSets Beta

Main Page – Fab @ Home

A special edition of Jargon Watch brought to you in association with Research In Motion: makers of the BlackBerry

BlackBerry Orphan – children who suffer from mental neglect because their parents are continually occupied with their mobile email device

Adult pacifier – mobile email device

Is Jim the most evil man on this planet? One of BlackBerry’s biggest defenders, Jim Balsillie, the chairman of Research In Motion, says children should ask themselves, “Would you rather have your parents 20% not there or 100% not there?”

I can’t believe that he went on record with that quote.

Thanks to Wall Street Journal: BlackBerry Orphans by Katherine Rosman (December 8, 2006).

Game Theory

There’s been some interesting things being said about Sony and its inability to get things right with the PS3.

Pros

• Its an impressive, if flawed piece of engineering. It has been said that the PS3 platform is designed to last up to ten years. However, Sony’s hand may be forced to refresh much faster by the deeper pockets of rival Microsoft

• It is a great platform to seed Blu Ray into the marketplace

• Disaffected customers have been purchasing PS2s and PSP devices – which demonstrates strong brand loyalty, rather than a total rout by rival console makers

• Sony’s ability to run Linux and powerful silicon may open new markets and partners beyond its existing eco-system

• Sony can’t afford to fail, as Bill Gates said during the 1997 turnaround of Apple; a near-death experience can be a great motivator

Cons

• The PS3 has underperformed in the marketplace, Nintendo and Microsoft are hitting target numbers

• Sony’s engineers have built the most expensive games console ever and the company stands to lose between 200 – 300+ USD on each box

• Sony has been outinnovated by Nintendo with the Nunchuk, providing consumers with a new way of interacting with games. In a war of polygons versus playability – playability wins

• Sony game development is too expensive: the graphics elements of a PS3 game costs 8.6 million USD to develop, and 500,000 units are need to be sold in order to be profitable. This is roughly twice the price as a Nintendo game

• Sony has ventured into Uncanny Valley with its latest graphics engine. (The dip in postive consumer attitude as the character better mimics human life is the Uncanny Valley.) There is a paradox of realism – after a certain point, the closer to reality that the gaming experience gets in terms of graphics and player experience; the harder it is for the game to seem real. This inability to believe makes it harder for the players to fully engage in the game.
  

Impact

Sony is going to live or die by its software, out of all the consoles Sony’s is the most expensive to develop for and has the smallest user base. This is likely to be the case for the next 12 months at least. From a games developers point of view the chance of break even let alone success is least with the PS3 and probably greatest with the Nintendo Wii.

Couple these business factors with Sony’s distain for its developer community and you may see an exodus of developers to Nintendo.

Sony’s failure will be a breach of trust with large developers and will adversely affect an entire games industry eco-system. Electronic Arts is already taking corrective action; developers run a risk in the rush to get on the Nintendo train that quality slips as they try to get into the Wii market faster with mediocre products that will sit on the shelves.

The less games that sell on the PS3, the greater the loss that Sony suffers on each box. The more fanciful have speculated that massive hardware sales and low games sales could bury Sony. Its sophisticated engineering could be the biggest waste of smarts since the Maginot Line.

Links for 2006-12-07 [My Web 2.0]

Hong Kong Expats | Shanghai Expats | Shenzhen Expats – Forums, Resources and Networking

Main Page – JigsawUK

Goombah: Music Search and Discovery

Wired News: Fine-Tune Your Music Discoveries

LatestD9.com: The Latest Releases, On Time, Every Time

Holmes Report Blog

Social Bookmarking – Automatic submission service

Can Yahoo Deliver On Social Search? – SeekingAlpha

On heavy rotation

I picked some recordings that were at the popular end of dance music at HMV last Friday:

• Klaxons – Magick (SMD mix) – A one-sided single by the leaders of the new rave movement that consists of erm the Klaxons. The single is pretty jackin’, though I don’t know if this single is indicative of their general material
• Mync Project & Danny Rampling – Strobelight – Better quality material than would expect from Positiva, a good solid house tune in both normal and dub versions
• Freestylers – In love with you remix – For house heads the one to go with is the DJ Bomba and Senor mix

Links for 2006-12-06 [My Web 2.0]

I was thinking about writing something about the Yahoo! reorganisation the yesterday, but there was so much being written and those that I spoke to on the inside were still looking for information on how it pan out (this will probably take months) that linking to a selection of the pundit comment out there seemed the best approach.

Yahoo’s CEO makes big changes at the top – Los Angeles Times

Rules for Using MySpace in Politics | Personal Democracy Forum

Charlene Li’s Blog: Dissecting Yahoo’s reorg

Japan’s Bloggers Focused on Companies & Brands : Social Media Implications

A Gonzo Journal » Blog Archive » Blogging And Regulation

A New PB&J Sandwich at Yahoo!? [Fool.com: Motley Fool Take] December 6, 2006

TWiki – Enterprise Collaboration Platform & Wiki

INTERNAL MEMO: Terry Semel: ‘friendship will survive forever’ – Valleywag

Hooked on Work: the Allure of Extreme Jobs

Alsoft, Inc. Makers of DiskWarrior and MasterJuggler

Jargon Watch

GAMEY – Google, Apple, Microsoft, eBay, Yahoo!. VC-speak for the group of companies expected to buy up the creme of Silicon Valley start-ups. Thanks to CNN Money.

Generation Cash – Generation Content getting paid through sites like citizen journalist photo agency Scoopt, and video sites like Revver, eefoof and Flixya splitting ad revenue. This content for cash game has gone mobile; mobile operator 3 pays video creators per download through its SeeMeTV initative and MyNumo rewards the creators of ringtones, videos and wallpapers through a revenue share approach.

The concept also extends to the black economy trading on eBay and those people operating as part of the Fon wi-fi network and the big cash prizes offered by the likes of Intel and Netflix for customer-generated innovation. It’s Alvin Toffler’s prosumer concept made good. Thanks to Trendwatching.