I recently upgraded from my original Zune 30 to a Zune 80 thanks to a phenomenal sale price online. I love its smaller body, longer battery life, and of course the more than doubled capacity.
Aside from non-tactile feedback, I also dislike touch-based controls on portable devices due the the additional battery drain the technology introduces.
After trying out the new touch-sensitive, swipable squircle for a while, I ultimately turned it off in favor of sticking with traditional 5-way d-pad control. I operate the MP3 player blindly in the car, tracking forward and backwards in songs and skipping tracks. I didn’t want to inadvertently jump around or alter the volume level just by keeping my thumb on the squircle.
I was experiencing some unresponsiveness and unintentional (often opposite) behavior sometimes. Why won’t it read my clicks? Why is the volume raising instead of skipping a track? Why’s the track restarting instead of skipping forward?
I’ve since figured out the mystery. It turns out the Zune Pad’s touch setting only deactivates swipe gestures. Otherwise the touch-sensitivity is still active, and in fact determines the action taken when the squircle is depressed. In fact, I don’t it’s a traditional 5-way d-pad at all; I believe there’s a single microswitch under the big button. The Zune uses it’s touch sensor to determine whether your finger is in the up/down/left/right/center zone when the button is depressed. If you press any direction with a fingernail, nothing happens since there’s no skin contact to send electrical signals. And if you put a finger on one direction but press the opposite direction with a fingernail, the action activated is the one where your skin is making contact with the pad.
Clever implementation…but sometimes annoying. Fortunately, my battery life is phenomenal, though I haven’t put the unit through a multi-day endurance trial yet.
Alongside the announcement of the Zune HD (to take on the iPod Touch), Microsoft has announced that the Zune video marketplace will supplant the current Xbox Live Video Marketplace on the console. No word on if the music store will follow or if Xbox-related videos will now be downloadable to through Zune’s PC software.
I think this integration has been a long time coming. Consider that ever since the Zune launched, it shared the same servers as Xbox Live content, shared the same “gamertag,” and used Microsoft Points from the same pool. (The last point makes Nintendo’s division of Wii-only points and DSi-only points an odd decision.) J Allard and many of Microsoft’s Entertainment & Devices group went from working on the Xbox to the Zune. It’s always all been in the same family with what seems to me minimal political hiccups getting in the way of synergy between the two brands.
The justification I’ve been using to explain that lack of cross-over was in the licensing terms. I’d figured that maybe some time early on when the umbrella terms were drafted, they called for media playback specifically only on the Xbox 360, not taking into consideration portability to other devices.
With the video store, it’s possible, though hopefully unlikely, to have purchased the same video on both the Zune and Xbox Live Video Marketplace. The smart user with a network would have only bought from the Zune storefront and streamed the video to their Xbox 360.
Personally, I’m hoping that I’ll be able to download all the gaming videos from the Xbox Live Video Marketplace to my PC, where hard drive space is more plentiful. I have a 120GB hard drive on my console, and it is chock full of gigs upon gigs of trailers, developer’s diaries, press conferences, and concerts. I need to regularly delete older demos just to make room for a new one, and there have been occasions I didn’t even have enough space to download a new Rock Band/Guitar Hero song.
This one’s actually more of the “not hotness.” 3D Realms shut their doors this past week, leaving behind a legacy of great shareware and…not too much since then. Uh…Max Payne and Prey, I guess.
When I first saw these advertisements at GDC09 (before the city took them off their bus stops, it seems), I was excited that, just maybe, we’d hear something something about Duke Nukem Forever. If you go to the website, though, it’s a casting call to be the spokesmodel (a la Lara Croft) for Deep Silver’s upcoming Duke Nukem Trilogy of portable games.
I still have my fingers crossed someone will pick up the project. I don’t think we’re holding our breath any longer, but there are still plenty of gamers out there eager to see the final product.
Television:
Southland (NBC)
I’m not normally one for cop shows, but about a month or so, I kept the television tuned in to NBC’s Southland after it’s Thursday night full night of comic goodness. Â They’ve been promoting it as from producer of E.R. (a show I didn’t watch, either) and plastering the Ben McKenzie’s (Ryan from The O.C.) face all over the promos.
I was pleasantly surprised. Â While on the surface it’s a show with cops doing cop things, it’s more of a character drama than about fighting crime. Â There’s a rather large cast, and each week the show does a series of intertwining vignettes on a small handful of them rather than trying to make up some token thing so each cast member gets screen time. Â It’s a true ensemble piece, and no individual character is being singled out as the “star” or center of the spokes. Â The policework plots tend to merely serve as a framework to enable us to get a sense of each character’s personality and individual personal struggles in and out of the uniform.
Music:
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Kylie Minogue North American Tour
Kylie Minogue, international pop mega-star (in all places but the US…), just announced her very first North American concert tour in her over two decades of performing. Â She’ll play seven dates in September and October across the US and Canada, of course none of the stops near me.
You US folk may be familiar with her songs “Locomotion” from the late ’80s and “Can’t Get You Out of My Head” from the early ’00s or her role as Cammy in the ’90s Street Fighter live-action movie and the (Absinthe) Green Fairy in Moulin Rouge. Â Apparently later this year she’ll be starring in the biggest-budget Bollywood movie yet and record a song with A.R. Rahman, the guy who scored the Slumdog Millionaire soundtrack. Â Hmm.
Now if only Michael Jackson would come back and tour the US. Â Or rather, the US let MJ come back.
Her 2008 album X is on my list of perfect albums. Â A collection of pop perfection you can get lost in but sung a variety styles so that none of them sound like a rehash of each other.
Movies:
The Wackness
I’ve already written a review, which you can read here. In short, it’s a coming-of-age story with drama and humor supplied by the bro-mance between an old psychiatrist and his young pot-dealing patient/dealer. Cinematography is like a dreamy summer day, and the film is supported by an old-school hip-hop soundtrack. I would say its surreal visuals and bittersweet coping plot is reminiscent of Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind.
Gadgets:
Samsung Alias2 (U750)
When you hear about e-ink, I bet that the first thing you think of is the Amazon Kindle or some other e-book reader. Or maybe the Esquire magazine cover from last year. This dual-hinge phone uses the technology for dynamic keypad/keyboard layouts, switching between vertical/horizontal layouts and numeric/QWERTY modes depending on context.
The backlight shines through the clear portion of each key behind the labels, and though B/W is high contrast, I think that much light might with such small fonts might actually make it difficult to see the proper keys. I’m only guessing, however, since I haven’t seen the phone in person.
As much as I applaud this innovative use of the low-power dynamic displays, it still comes at the expense of an ergonomic no-look layout. Aside from the space bar and a few menu buttons, the face keypad is one large grid of same-size keys, making it near impossible to accurately navigate without looking at your finger placement. This probably won’t be the best phone for people who like to T9 text on the sly with their phones kept in their pocket or by their side.
Or, rather, Z to X, as the case may be.
