Monthly Archives: January 2012
New Video Game to be Composed by……Sir Paul McCartney!?!
Former Beatle, frontman of Wings, and music icon Sir Paul McCartney stated in an interview that he is currently working on music for a videogame (and no, it’s not “The Beatles: Rock Band 2″ in case you’re wondering). In an interview with Die Zeit (by the way, “Google Translate” will be your friend for this article), McCartney was asked by the interviewer if he would ever write music for a videogame. His response was that he already is, and that he finds the idea “exciting,” and the games market “fascinating;” also noting that videogames are selling more than CDs nowadays.
He recalls when he was a child and music was mostly accessible via his own radio and record collection, but today music is EVERYWHERE. Due to this, Sir McCartney believes that by making new music in videogames, younger people will be hearing his music for the first time through that particular medium.
Maybe (just maybe), I’m amazed….
….as long as it isn’t like Journey’s and Aerosmith’s venture into videogames. Ugh!
[Thanks Joystiq]
Save that New Car Money for a Cost Effective Pre-Fabricated House, Instead!
This is the Mimahouse, a pre-fabricated house that can be easily customized by the homeowner. They are made in Portugal, and range at a price the is approximately similar to the Family Car. Judging by how they look (both interior and exterior) I wouldn’t mind my first house being one of these house — now, I just got to get one of these shipped over to the US….*man, shipping costs/fees are gonna kill me…..*
[Thanks Gizmodo & Mimahousing]
WELCOME The Brand New PractitioNERD
JUST MOVED THE GOOD ‘OL BLOG!! SAME BLOG!! SAME NERD!! NEW HOME!!
http://ThePractitioNERD.wordpress.com
Yeah, I have hopped, skipped, and jumped from Blogger to WordPress. Why? Mainly just the options and features that WordPress has available has finally caught my attention, plus WordPress was the very-close second pick to starting the PractitioNERD blog to Blogger in the first place. Also, since I like to begin/edit/publish my blog posts on my Android phone, the WordPress app and MILES AHEAD of what I like to see in my blogging apps over the offering of the Blogger app, and thus more useful and necessary for The PractitioNERD blog. Over the next few weeks, all new content will to uploaded to the new WordPress blog, while the new blog itself will also have earlier posts updated.
I’m so excited!! I’m NERDING out, here!!
Grantland’s David Shoemaker on the 2012 WWE Royal Rumble & The State of the WWE
With the WWE Royal Rumble coming up tomorrow, the WWE finds itself in a very interesting and very successful situation (if played correctly). Grantland writer David Shoemaker (also known as “The Masked Man”) takes a look back at the history and the legacy of the Royal Rumble, as well as the current intriguing storylines that are leading up to the event.
Shoemaker starts by discussing the inception and evolution of the Royal Rumble event, conceived by Pat Patterson, which was inspired by the tradition of the battle royale-type match being a match of “controlled-chaos.” He continues with the insanely-clever return of WWE mainstay Chris Jericho, who had just returned to action after a lengthy absence, seeming to play and exploit the fans’ knowledge and expectations of the typical “hyped-up returning good-guy wrestler” story to become a top heel (or bad guy). Next is the continuation of the CM Punk storyline from this past summer (which I also blogged about), in which he broke the fourth-wall to take the company into an “Reality Era” (a play of the WWE’s “Attitude Era” of the late 1990′s), followed by the complete bait-and-switch of the persona of another returning wrestler, Broadus Clay, hyped as the unstoppable and violent monster, yet returning as a dancing machine (“what him get down, watch him get down“).
I strongly recommend reading the entire article (linked below), as it is a very interesting and fun read. At the end of reading it and reflecting of the state of the WWE in the last year or so, I think the answer to Showmaker’s question of whether or not the WWE was “trolling their own audience” is a huge, emphatic YES; YES they are. To tell the truth, it’s probably working; I’ve been glued to the TV every Monday and Friday Night (or at least Hulu) to catch up on the madness.
[Thanks Grantland]
Best Buy challenges GameStop, Slaps White Glove Across Face
Say what you will, but this is a “gangsta” move by this Best Buy store.
It’s become pretty common knowledge that GameStop is the most popular retail store in the video game market, mostly because of its presence in the used games part of the market. With little to no competition in this field, GameStop has been scrutinized by game developers and consumers alike for its practices and policies (i.e., questionable trade-in prices, cutting developers out of income), as well as bordering accusations of the dirty business word known as “monopoly”.Nowadays, GameStop is beginning to face some competition from other retailers branching out into the used games market, including: Walmart, Best Buy, Blockbuster, Amazon, GameFly, etc.
Reddit user “striker1122” posted this image from a local Best Buy, which – coincidentally – is located DIRECTLY NEXT TO a GameStop site. The sign reads “STOP trading in somewhere that only sells GAMES,” while cleverly utilizing the stylized font and colors of GameStop’s logo. OH SNAP, SON!!
Best Buy’s (as well as other retailer’s) drive toward the used games market may greatly affect it, but may likely result in the increase of used game sales, resulting in financially hurting developers. Allow me to stand on my soapbox and recommend that the best way to support the video gaming industry is to buy your games new (whether at full retail price or even on sale) to help the developers, which results ultimately with benefiting us, the consumers, the gamers. However, should the urge to buy used ever come up to rear its head, it’s at least very comfortable knowing that we have other (and probably better) options than just GameStop.
[Thanks Reddit]
"Entertainment Weekly" shadows WWE’s Stephanie McMahon
I remember back on the late 1990′s when you couldn’t read a magazine of almost ANY type without seeing a pro wrestler from WWE (or WWF) or WCW on the cover or featured in a story (I have an issue of freakin’ TIME magazine from early 2000 covering the McMahon-Helmsley Era storyline and the lead-up to it).
In the most recent issue of Entertainment Weekly (released January 20th), WWE’s Executive Vice President of Creative Stephanie McMahon, was shadowed by the writers as part of the magazine’s “What Did You Do Today?” series, offering a look into the busy day of one of the most powerful and hard-working people in entertainment.
EW followed McMahon to take a peek into her life for a jam-packed 14-hour workday, ranging from: taking two of her daughters to school with her husband, Executive Vice President of Talent Triple H, meeting with WWE Studios executives about plans for the Sundance Film Festival (including the one-on-one meetings with her father, WWE Chairman and CEO Vince McMahon).
The (impending) Death of Hudson
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| “LONG LIVE THE BEE” |
Tis’ a sad, sad story. Long live Bonk. Long live Master Higgins. Long live Bomberman. Long live Hudson.
[Thanks Destructoid]
This 360 House Goes Around-and-Around-and-Around-and-Around……
What you see is the 30 House, located in Galapagar, Madrid, Spain, and desinged by architecture firm Subarquitectura. This project began a an attempt to solve the problem of creating a house with a public program of social relation, maintaining the large family’s private life, and have it located on a sloped area of land with great views.
[Thanks ArchDaily]
Let’s Keep the DREAM Alive….
My 5 Favorite CES 2012 Stories: Day 5
We have come to the end of the CES 2012 road, everyone. It’s time for my final news briefs about my 5 favorite products/stories introduced on the final day of the show. This is the 5th and last day of “The PractitioNERD” coverage of CES 2012, and here are my favorite stories from today’s CES coverage.
1) Live ESPN 3D boxing at CES! (but if it’s “live,” isn’t it 3D already?…. ESPN hosted a Top Rank Boxing event live from the CES show floor, which actually attracted a good crowd. To show off how the event could be broadcast in 3D, the crew was using a Sony HDC-P1 camera system with 3D rigs by the Pace Cameron Group, which were all sent through a Sony MVX-8000x production switcher. According to Engadget, the quality of the love 3D images were very impressive
….and visions of the Tiger Electronics “R-Zone” system dances in my head. Vuzix showed off a functional prototype for its Smart Glasses industrial class monocular display. In other words, it’s a special lens attached to a main display driver that projects a bright, 1.4mm holographic picture for one of your eyes. The origins of the glasses go back to them being part of a DARPA project that would let soldiers involved in air-to-surface operations to track jets, check ordinance, and mark targets. While the tag price for the military / industrial monocle $2500-3000, the consumer version (with the same bells and whistles) will cost only between $350-600. However either unit won’t be available until next year. Smart Glasses > R-Zone. Anything > R-Zone.
3) Canon’s New Cameras can Recognize your Face…..uh, creeeeeepy?Canon’s announcement of its new ELPH series of cameras, as well as the new PowerShot G1 X, brought along the discovery of a new feature: the face ID system. The G1 X’s Face ID would be able to differentiate between children and adults, providing more focus to younger subjects that are in frame. Also, the camera has a built-in facial recognition system, allowing users to store details of up to 12 people on the camera (with names, birthdays, and multi-angled profile pictures), helping the camera focus on those individuals saved on the camera
4) AMD shows off its new Trintiy APUs and Lightning Bolt chipsAMD came into this year’s CES aggressive with the presentations of it’s upcoming Piledriver core-based Trinity APU chips, which come in three flavors (desktop, laptop, and “thin & light” — likely netbooks/tops). The “thin & light” APUs are for use with slim-form PCs (i.e., ultrabooks) and only draw 17W, while providing similar performance of current generation 35W chips. AMD also presented the Lightning Bolt, which can drive up to four displays (with up to 2 at 1080p full HD) and several USB 3.0 ports (while not yet reaching that speed) while providing power. AMD aims to have Lightning Bolt be inexpensive to integrate to PCs, and is currently in the prototype stage.
Happy "Friday the 13th" Everyone……What’s That Noise?!?
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| The 2009 Remake was all types of AWESOME!! |
If there is any horror/slasher movie series that I enjoy the most, it would definitely be the “Friday the 13th” series. In other words, if Jason Voorhees himself put his machete to my neck and gave me one choice for favorite horror/slasher film series, it’s going to be “Friday the 13th” (an not JUST because he was directly threatening me or anything like that).
Everything about the series intrigues me; from the seemingly inept teenagers just asking to be taken down by Mr. Voorhees, to the advancement of the series’ storyline/cannon and its universe. I enjoyed the better films of the series (Parts 2, 4: “The Final Chapter”, 6: “Jason Lives”, “Freddy vs. Jason”, and the 2009 re-imagining — in which I wore my Jason mask all day during my grad school classes and to the theater to watch it), to the so-so films (Parts 1, 7: “The New Blood”, and “Jason X”) and the flamingly-awful ones (Parts 3: “3D”, 5: “A New Beginning”, 8: “Jason Takes Manhattan”, and “Jason Goes To Hell”; which I deem the WORST).
My earliest memories of the watching the movies might have been when I was 8 years old and saw the trailer to “Jason Goes To Hell” — coincidently, the worst of the series — on the First Choice pay-per-view channel (hands-up if you remember First Choice). After that, I was able to only watch the films on TNT Monstervision (hands-up, anyone?), usually hosted by Joe Bob Briggs, or on the cable movie channels, and I got caught up with the lore of the tragic story of Jason Voorhees. It wasn’t until my freshman year at Texas A&M when I started purchasing and collecting the entire “Friday the 13th” movie series on DVD (which is now complete)!
I now leave you with “The Top 13 Moments” of the Friday the 13th franchise, as selected by James Rolfe — a.k.a. “The Angry Video Game Nerd” — of Cinemssacre.com. Enjoy the video, and please remember to avoid the Jason-chant, never investigate weird sounds, and NEVER run/hide upstairs.
My 5 Favorite CES 2012 Stories: Day 4
…and on the FORTH DAY (or third since Monday was technially Day 0), there were more announcements at the 2012 Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in Las Vegas. It’s time for some news briefs about my 5 favorite products/stories introduced today at the show. This is the 4th day of “The PractitioNERD” coverage of CES 2012, and here are my favorite stories from today’s CES coverage.
1) The Plextor’s PlexEasy backs up Pics/Phones/Tablets WITHOUT a computer
Pextor’s PlexEasy stand-alone DVD burner is making it’s way the the States after being announce in Europe a month ago. The drive can back up data to CDs/DVDs directly from a variety of sources — i.e., SD cards, cameras, smartphones, tablets, etc., all via USB. While it can be used without a PC, it can be connected to a PC to draw it’s power from any of the its USB ports. No price has been announced.
2) Sony shows off PSVita cloud saves and 3G functionality
Wow, MORE PSVita news? You’d think I wanted to buy one of these! Destructoid’s Dale North tried out the game “Warrior’s Lair,” a third-person action RPG due out in late this year for the Vita, which has cross-platform play with the PlayStation 3 (enabling the player continue playing from one system to another via cloud save support). North started playing the game on a Vita, paused the game, chose the cloud save option, and (after save confirmation) was able to continue where he left off on the Vita on the PS3 within 30 seconds. The “fast and flawless” operation of the AT&T 3G connection was used while North was playing “Unit 13,” a third-person action-shooter due out March 6th, and was able to play online with the 3G connection (along with viewing game messages, leaderboards, rankings, prompts, etc.).
3) How it feels to hold the Wii U controller
Destructoid’s Conrad Zimmerman commented that the controller for Nintendo’s upcoming console was “deceptively lightweight,” even with its internal battery. He also noted the great positioning and pressure/tension of the more-traditional controller inputs (analog sticks and face buttons). I’ll let his own words speak for itself:
4) Behold the Power of Razer’s Blade gaming laptop
Razer’s Blade gaming laptop may weigh only 7 pounds and is under 1″ thick, however it packs a heck of a punch in terms of its features: an Intel Core i7 processor, an NVIDIA GT655M, 8 GB of RAM, and a 256GB SSD. The laptops’s stylish aluminum casing and beautiful 17″ LED display doesn’t hurt either. Another star feature of the laptop is the “Switchblade” interface, which is essentially a traditional trackpad on steroids (since it’s a full-fledged touchscreen with 10 easily-configurable dynamic buttons) with numerous possibilities of functionality. And how much would you pay for one, pry tell? TWO THOUSAND SEVEN HUNDRED NINETY-NINE US DOLLARS!!
5) Sharkfin Promises Custom-Fitted Earbuds For Just $5
What do I love the most about the included set of headphones that came with my Samsung Epic 4G phone? They are adjustable/customizable inner-earbud headphones that block out outside sounds and they don’t FALL OUT OF MY EARS (which is a problem I’ve ALWAYS had with earphones; they kept friggin’ falling out)!!! Before, finding these type of earbud headphones that would STAY IN MY EARS were expensive, but Sharkfin is intending to offer a set of grey and black soft-squishable material for $5.00 that when molded together are able to chemically react within 5 minutes (hmm, for $5, huh) to form a flexible shape of the wearer’s ears that will never loose that shape.
[Thanks Destructoid, Engadget, & Sharkfin]
A Forest Building in the Middle of a City is Strange/Awesome
Whenever your living environment has poor air quality, it’s obviously no good for the well being of anyone. Milan, Italy is guilty for having terrible air quality; it ranks as one of the worst in the whole country. To help take action regarding this issue, architect and developer Stefano Boeli has proposed an idea to address those concerns: repurposing two old residential towers into vertical forests.
Yes, you read that right: vertical forests. Read the rest of this entry
My 5 Favorite CES 2012 Stories: Day 3
It is DAY THREE of the 2012 Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in Las Vegas, everyone!! You know what that means (if you’ve been reading this since Monday) right? It’s time for some news briefs about the products/stories introduced today at the show. This is the third day of “The PractitioNERD” coverage of CES 2012, and here are my favorite stories from today’s CES coverage.
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1) Lenovo’s IdeaCentre Q180 HTPC hands-on
I love home theater PCs (HTPCs) and everything about them (see here), and Lenovo’s IdeaCentre Q180 is one of the smallest desktop PCs (at 22 mm-thick) and affordable (starting at $299). The Q180 comes with a Blu-ray drive (it even uses magnets to hold the Q180 to the Blu-ray drive and a USB adapter), and an N5902 keypad makes the IdeaCentre an HTPC that can be easily hidden. The Q180 is powered by a 2.13GHz Intel Atom dual-core CPU, features HDMI, USB 3.0, and VGA outputs, and supports full HD and 7.1 surround sound. Now I get a step closer to my cut the cable/satellite plan.
2) Warpia unleashes WarpiaTV, wants to be your web service middlemanWarpia’s television service, WarpiaTV, acts as a middleman between the internet and your living room by combining their browser with a motion controller with seven buttons and providing access to online services (i.e., Facebook, Twitter, Netflix, and stored media on a hard drive. The device comes in both a wired version ($80) and a wireless version ($120).
With the increased popularity of Near-Field Communication (NFC), there are still some concerns about security and privacy (due to personal information stored in NFC tags and mobile payment applications — like Google Wallet — could easily be compromised if your stuff goes missing, i.e., stealing). While most existing services like Google Wallet are focused on security, its not the case for every other service that uses NFC technology. NXP Semiconductors is working on a smart card that adds an extra barrier of entry/security, requiring you to draw gestures (i.e., signatures), patterns or enter PIN codes in order to unlock files on your computer. Hope you don’t mind waiting for 6 – 12 months…
4) Olympus looking to Sony, Panasonic, Samsung and others to solve its money problems?Poor, poor Olympus; after the recent and infamous $1.7 billion accounting scandal implicating its OWN management on the highest levels, leading to them suing their OWN executives AND president for fraud. Now it seems that they just cannot catch a break, as Reuters has reported that Olympus is in financial dire and might partner up with Sony, Panasonic, Samsung, Fujifilm or Terumo Corp. to get some extra cash just to keep going.
5) GLASSES-FREE 3DHDTVs, ULTRA BOOKS, TABLETS, PHONES. You Know, The Usual at CES
I honestly could not find any particular item in this category that raises any interest to me, other than the sheer number of new items of these types of devices that are being shown at CES this year.
