Fun and Games at e3 2010

So e3, the largest video gaming convention in the world has come and gone. This year we saw a wide array of cutting edge games that are finally starting to utilize the current mature console generation (wii, Playstation 3, Xbox 360). Along with new flashy games we got a good look at some hardware coming up, including the Nintendo 3DS, Kinetic, and Playstation Move. Here is a list of a few things I thought really stood out from the rest of the pack....

Crysis 2

Besides being the sequal to the most visually realistic game to date, the impressive thing about this title is that they got it running on aged hardware like the Xbox 360. When the first Crysis was originally released Crytek, the developer, said it could be ported to the consoles because they simply weren't powerful enough, but here we are 3 years later. And now only is it running on Consoles, but it looks BETTER than the first. Kudo's to Crytek for pushing the technical envelope on this one.

Nintendo 3DS

The entertainment\tech industry is riding the 3d wave which has only gotten larger thanks to hit movies such as Avatar. But before we even had time to get too excited about 3d movies, Nintendo has announced a new and improved portable console that is 3d and doesn't require glasses! Will this be a gimmick, or the next big thing? Hard to tell, but given Nintendo's recent track record this could be huge.

Kinetic

Excited, yes. But also prepared for disappointment. This looks like it could take gaming forward in leaps and bounds, but unfortunately it looks like it's being geared towards the casual market. Sure this may not be great for all game types, but wouldn't it be cool to play a RTS minority report style? Only time will tell if MS drops the ball on this one.

Well that's all for now. e3 had literally HUNDREDS of games being shown, and there is lots to talk about, but these are the key things that peaked my attention.

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Cool Web Tech Demo's of Past and Present

Web browsers have come a long way from simply displaying text information. We now have built in graphics and networking that really bring the browser one step closer to replacing\merging with the desktop. On the plus side, when you make a web application it spans across all platforms. Windows, Mac, it typically doesn't matter, your audience is huge. On the downside, you are more limited to what you can accomplish, and the fancier your get, the more sluggish your applications become. Well, slowly but surely the negatives of a web app are slipping away and here are some cool examples of that.

The first example I'd like to show is a raycasting engine written in 5k of Javascript. Raycasting, for you not-so-nerdy types, is the technique used to make such classic computer games as Wolfenstein3d and Doom. Though these games appear 3d, they are really 2d but appear 3d through some rendering tricks.

http://www.wolf5k.com/faq.html

5k is an extremely small for anything, especially a raycasting game.

The second example, isn't anything to practical, yet, but makes awesome use of Javascript and the canvas tag. Image the types of things we could do with this if IE supported canvas!

http://www.andrew-hoyer.com/experiments/cloth

The last example, is a brilliant example of what could be when HTML5 becomes standard. I put a emphasis on "could be" since, to my knowledge, MS hasn't made anything regarding the canvas tag official with IE 9. IE is really the bottle neck holding back this sort of thing from becoming more mainstream, but regardless, check it out, and marvel at the brilliance of yet another 20% time Google project.

http://code.google.com/p/quake2-gwt-port/

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The fall of Rome, the plateu of Microsoft, and the rise of Apple.

As history has demonstrated, nothing lasts forever. New ideals replace the old, and if you aren't flexible enough to adapt you'll be put out to pasture, no matter what type of empire you've built up. It would seem that we are at a major evolutionary point in the IT industry. Yes, you might say the IT industry is always changing, which it is, but the changes occurring now are more much clearer than previous changes. Even though the changes we are seeing now are rapid and radical, lots of them been quite predictable. 10 years ago if you were to take a guess at where we'd be now it would be pretty clear that mobile computing would be that status quo, and here we are. Yet despite this predictability Microsoft has failed to keep up with the times. They are the undisputed leader in desktop computing, but in terms of online platforms or mobile, they have fallen far behind. Not because their products are sub-par. On the contrary. Bing, Zune.... these are highly acclaimed technologies that they offer, but they are both years too late. Years too late in the tech industry doesn't cut it. As great as those products are people's thirst for personal, mobile, connected computing is being quenched by the likes of Apple (iPhone), (who a little more than a decade ago was on their death bed), Google (Android), Rim (Blackberry), and many many many miscellaneous mobile platforms. So what went wrong with Microsoft? Try as they may, their vision of mobile computer never caught on. Pocket PC's remained a niche market for technology enthusiasts and the first generation of tablet pc's didn't quite cut it with the masses. Both technologies were a little to soon, a little too clunky, and a little too uncool.
Apple on the other hand, waited until the fruit was ripe for the picking. The PC market had grown stale, and users were bored with their plane-jane cell phones and desktop pc's. Even if the iPhone wasn't a perfect product right out of the gate, its what people needed. It was fast, cool looking, and easy to use. It was design from the ground up for mobile computing. It wasn't Windows stuffed into a little device. Also, it appealed to the masses. It didn't have a watered down version of MS Office like it's windows CE predecessors, but who wants that anyways? Only 0.5% of the human population want a dummied version of excel, but everyone and their dog wants to be tweeting and connecting through facebook on a sleek, light-weight smart phone. That with the power of the app-store is where Apple hit the nail on the head. Microsoft might of dominated the pc world, but Apple is dominating all the other consumer level hardware form factors. So what does this mean? Well, 10 years ago, anyone with an interest in technology could of told you that mobile was the big thing. Everyone saw it coming. But what is the next big thing now? Well I guess we'll have to wait and see, but if we can learn anything from history, it's that it probably won't be from Microsoft or Apple, but some other smaller company that with skill, vigilance and a little luck will IT into a new era.

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