Tag: awesome

Kinect me up, baby

Recently, I decided to treat myself to the technological wonder that is the Xbox Kinect. But, before we crack on, let me make one thing absolutely clear –

The Xbox Kinect is, without doubt, the most exciting piece of technology I have ever brought into my house (by a clear country mile) and, quite possibly, the most amazing thing I have ever bought. Ever. Full stop.

It really is that good.

What’s worrying, however, is that for a short while I didn’t even realise it.

Xbox Kinect

Returning from my parents this past Christmas (I believe it was Dec 27th), I stopped off in town to pick up the Johnny-5 head-shaped bad boy and left him by the TV for a couple of days, before breaking it open just before New Year and cracking on.

“This’ll be fun” I thought “I’ll give it a whirl”

See, as you may know, I am a gaming geek (some would argue more so than a mobile geek), and so getting my hands on the latest awesome periphery for my current console of choice was fairly high up on my list of priorities.

“Gaming is going be awesome with this…”

Honestly? It’s been over a month now and I’ve hardly played the games at all. Don’t get me wrong, Kinect Adventures IS fun and I’m informed that the yet-to-be-opened Dance Central is pretty damn good also. However, the Kinect has changed something so significant, so utterly mind-blowing that most of the time, I switch it on just so I can play with IT.

Why?

It’s all about the interface. Things that live on my Xbox (aside from the games) include (but are not exclusive to) Last.fm, Sky TV, Twitter, Facebook and – thanks to a handy piece of software called Connect360 (no relation) – my entire music, photo and video collection that resides on my Mac.

[Nearly] everything is available to Kinect with… and it rocks.

Introducing such a fundamental step-change into the way I interact with my main media channel has, perhaps unsurprisingly to some, drastically shifted my usage patterns along with it. Last.fm, formally an Xbox Gold ‘nice to have’ extra that I only used on occasion is now the main reason for switching the Xbox on in the morning/afternoon/evening…

Forget the wavey-roundy, gesture sensitive motion capture stuff (although that’s quite cool also) the Kinect, for me at least, is all about the voice activation.

Let me show you:
.

I can be in the shower in the next room and be yelling out my instructions AND IT STILL HEARS ME! Music, is everything…

In the same way that nobody knew they needed an iPad (and yet now suddenly they now wonder how they ever did without them), the Xbox Kinect slips into your day to day life like the smoothest of gloves onto a well-worn hand. Within a couple of days you catch yourself wondering why on Earth everything in your household doesn’t run in the same way.

“Kettle? Boil.” or “Shower? On.” and of course, “Tea. Earl Grey. Hot.“ are suddenly so desperately close to hand but also, in the same breath, achingly far away. The Xbox Kinect really is the technology of the future boys and girls and believe it when I tell you; we’ve not even scratched the surface.

Microsoft have already said that they expect to double the resolution of the on-board camera within the next 6-12mths and the face tracking technology they demo’d at CES recently was again, an equally fascinating glimpse into the very near future.

Maybe it’s the hours upon hours that we spent back in my SpinVox days talking about the future of speech technologies that has got me so excited about all this, maybe it’s because at heart, I’m a massive Star Trek fan and being able to talk to my computer is a pipe dream I’ve lusted after ever since I first saw Jean-Luc do the exact same thing all those years ago… or maybe, just maybe it’s just because that deep down, I am a geek – through and through – and I just love new technology.

In closing:

Got an Xbox? Get a Kinect. It’s that simple.

Irkafirka

I’m in Canada, writing from my second hotel of about four I think for this trip. The first night, in the Wyndhams, my body clock was still adjusting. At 4am my eyes opened like it was 9am and kicked me up into the day. Damn. “Best start work then…”

First, coffee….  and this is what I’m faced with –

Another poor quality photo from the Nexus One. Sigh.

There isn’t much tech in the world that I don’t get on with, however coffee machines (along with most fax machines) would be on the very short list if I ever made one. In fact, I just did and look – they’re at the top.

170720101356

Were there any instructions for the machine anywhere in the room? No.
Any tips or pointers on the actual machine itself? No.
Brilliant.

Tweet tweet –

About 90mins later, this appeared –

What’s the twitpic behind the link?

Well… THIS:

How freaking amazing is that? My tweet, illustrated.

To give you some background, I stumbled across Irkafirka sometime ago now, back when they randomly sketched one of Benny’s tweets. I thought it was amazing and started following them. Both on Twitter and on RSS. Irkafirka illustrate tweets. Randomly. And they’re awesome.

Yesterday they did one of mine and I’m grinning form ear to ear.

Thanks to both of you, Chris and Nick. I’m made up.

Cheers.

Getting to know… the staff :)

We’re into week two of our month-long 10th birthday celebrations and this week we’re celebrating the people that really make things happen; our staff.

Before we start waxing lyrical about how freakin’ awesome they all are (they are, really) and generally start going to town on just how stupidly and ridiculously hard they all work (really, they do), I thought it would be best to try and find out a little bit about them.

Not all of them mind, just a few – i.e.: the ones that were still around when I ran around asking for blog names and addresses before I left the office!

There’ll be more to follow (at some point) I’m sure, but for now, here’s a teeny, tiny snapshot into just some of the friendly faces who drive us forward –

Tom is @tom_messett on twitter and http://www.tomsideas.wordpress.com is where he writes about, you guessed it, some of his own ideas 🙂 Currently musing about BP & Social Media…

If you’re a regular reader here then you’ve no doubt heard about our very own @mollyflatt. Molly writes her own blog at http://www.mollyflatt.com, where you can also find links to her stuff on The Guardian, Finch’s Quarterly Review and so on. Molly sasy: “Be warned. It’s all very me.”

This is Sam. He doesn’t exactly run a blog but he has asked me to tell you that he runs his own website and forum here – http://forevermanutd.com and here http://fmuforum.com. “It is not the most popular theme however – being Man Utd.” – No comment Sam ;) 

Straight and to the point Ricc lists his details as: “My Personal blog: http://riccwebb.posterous.com. Slightly more serious blog: http://adinspiration.posterous.com. Twitter @RiccWebb“ – Thanks Ricc

When pressed for some online details Jacqui ran away and hid for a little while, only later emailing me to say: “I feel decidedly bad about my lack of online content: I do have a blog: www.jacquihill.com and a Twitter account @JacquiHill… But I’m not going to lie, last entry on blog was in January (hides face in shame).”

“Hi I’m Paul, I’m nonsensical and when I’m not sending spaghetti to people – http://chroniclesofspaghetti.tumblr.com – I like to write Acid Fiction – Which by the way I have a lot more written than is up on the blog at the moment ^_^ http://blog.acidfiction.com“ – Paul’s spaghetti blog is possibly the best thing on the internet. Probably.

Resident skateboarder Matt – “My own twitter is @lngbrder888 and also run www.longboardsource.co.uk which includes a technical blog (http://bit.ly/biHbs3) and a ‘Scene’ blog (http://bit.ly/ccetCb). There is also some shamefully ephemeral tweeting on @longboardsource.”

Oh.. and I nearly forgot –

Ahem. You can find me on twitter as @whatleydude and, when I’m not writing here at 1000heads, I blog about the other things in my head over at my happy place. Sometimes, just sometimes, I find the time to write about mobile too. I save that stuff for http://thereallymobileproject.com.

…………

Like I said, that’s definitely not everybody (in fact – we could make this a recurring feature!), but hopefully you can see we’re a passionate bunch who not only extol the virtues of blogging and tweeting at every possible moment, but also practice what we preach too.

We love our staff. They rock.

🙂

The trek up

Molekskine entry: September 2nd, 2009

Altitude is a small problem. It takes 30-40mins to find your rhythm; breathing, walking, clambering etc… it’s hard. But when we make to the ice, things are easier. Well, I say easier. What I mean is, ‘less hard’ 😉

On thing is for certain, the view is stunning…

The big part of this challenge is being lowered down into a crevasse. Turns out the lowering part is the easy bit.

You can hear the glacier crack and move under your feet, the ground itself isn’t moving but the concerned looks on the faces of our Italian guides gives them away, it’s time to move. By the time we’re on our way back to camp, the clouds have moved in and finding the journey becomes just that little bit more precarious.

Hold hands lads, we don’t want to lose anyone out here…