Game Review: Portal 2

Portal 2 has been much anticipated throughout the country over these last several weeks.  Last night I finally got the chance to sit down and play it myself.  Here are my initial (spoiler-free) thoughts:

Portal 2 is overall just better than the original.  It's funnier, more challenging, and longer.  Both the graphics and the physics are better than in the original, and the single player storyline is great.  The trusty Portal Gun is still your main mode of transportation in both single player and multiplayer, but new challenges have been added such has mirror cubes and tractor beams.  There are times in single-player where you're required to change your portal's location in mid-air and other fun challenges.  Sometimes the solutions are obvious and easy, but there are other times when you'll have to muddle through every single option until suddenly you realize the answer has been staring you in the face all along.

The single player story is great, giving you more insight into Aperature's history.  GLaDOS is even more insane and the character dialog is even more hilarious than in the original.  You're playing as Chell again, dragged back to Aperature and undergoing more testing by the not-dead-or-destroyed GLaDOS.  The facility is quite worse for the wear, however.  The attention to detail in the game is amazing, and the graphics are truly a delight for the eyes.

For me, though, the best part about Portal 2 is the multiplayer, where you and your partner work together through testing challenges.  Portal 2 introduced a gesture system of communication for those who prefer not to use voice chat.  While GLaDOS insists it's not a competition, in her own sadistic way she still tries to pit you and your partner against each other.  Players earn "collaboration" points for figuring things out, and GLaDOS constantly hints that one of you is doing "better" than the other.  She also takes great pleasure when one of you is accidentally destroyed by the other, handing out bonus points for extra cruelty.  With 2 portal entrances and exits in play the multiplayer mode can get especially tricky, but it is super fun to have your partner falling in an endless loop and then suddenly change the portal location to have them rocket off at an angle to land on a seemingly unreachable platform.

To wrap it up - Portal 2 is awesome, and in every way better than the already great original.  The single player story is more in depth and the multiplayer is sure to keep you coming back for more.

Score: 9.5/10

*Disclaimer: I have not been paid by Valve or any other entity for this review.

Artificial Intelligence in the Workplace

.....Good Morning, Dave.......

You science fiction fans out there will recognize that line from 2001: A Space Odyssey. What if we could take HAL 9000 and make it real?  Well, you know, minus the murderous tendencies.

Just imagine: you sit down at your desk, and after a moment for the facial recognition to log you in your virtual assistant asks you how your day is going and what she can help you with. She then reminds you of your schedule, tells you the weather, and reads you a few of your emails.

Sound far-fetched?  Meet Denise, the new virtual assistant from Brazilian company Guile 3D Studios:

Total awesomeness, right?  It gets even better.  The basic version of Denise is available at the Guile 3D website for only $100.  The Platinum and Business editions will run you a bit more, but are still incredibly inexpensive.  All I can say is that I want one.

I have not been paid by Guile 3D Studios for this post.

BYU Students Take Eye Control to the Next Level

Okay, I'm sure you all remember when I posted about the awesome eye-controlled laptop from Tobii a while back, right? If you don't, you can always scroll down a bit and have a look.

Well, now some students from BYU are taking eye-control technology it a step further by adding something that's really needed in the EC market - affordablility.  You see, even Tobii's system, the PCEye is considered to be inexpensive in the EC market, and it costs a whopping $6,900. Let's face it, that's not something most people with the types of disabilities these systems are designed for can afford.

So, the students from BYU partnered up with EyeTech Digital Systems and created a Windows 7 tablet PC using eye tracking software developed by previous students (also partnered with EyeTech Digital). This was all part of their year-long capstone engineering requirement. The tablet is a bit thicker than usual, but only cost them $1,500. When you consider that an ordinary Windows 7 tablet retails for around $750, that's really not bad!

The eye tracking software uses a camera to track where a user is looking. This allows a user to control the cursor simply by moving their gaze around a screen. Blinking will perform a mouse click.  The tablet will run any Windows program, from Solitare to Skype, and EyeTech Digital plans to market the technology as an alternative to the sophisticated systems that are already out there.

And hey, at that price, even tech enthusiasts like me could consider buying one. I can definitely see the possibilities.

Check out the new gadget!

Hey guys!  Just wanted to draw your attention to that handy little gadget labeled "ChaCha Search" on the right hand side of the screen.

ChaCha is a neat mobile app and website that is totally free to use, and will answer any question you have while you're on the go.  You can text your question in to 242242, or call it in to 18002ChaCha.  They also have a mobile smartphone app (available on iTunes).  You can catch them on Twitter or Facebook as well.  Each question is handled by a live human guide and the answers are super fast.  Things like 411 business look ups, movie times, sports scores, etc. are unlimited, while more difficult questions (say... sending in your chemistry homework....) have a limit of questions you can ask.  If you get a message that says something to the effect of "We didn't understand you..." just keep trying, or ask one of the unlimited question.

ChaCha also sends out jokes, pranks, and tons of other stuff.  Definitely worth a look.  Visit their website at www.chacha.com.

(Disclosure: while I am one of the "human guides" that works at ChaCha to answer your questions, I have not been paid to post the gadget or write this post.)

Heads in the Cloud - Computing in the Digital Age

Yesterday Amazon launched its cloud storage service know as Cloud Drive.  Ever since seeing the announcement on their webpage users around the world have been scratching their heads and saying "what the heck is 'cloud storage'?  What is a cloud?  Where is it? How do I use it?  Is it safe?"  Today I'm going to do my best to answer a few of those questions.

Every morning around the globe people wake up, get out of bed, and flip on a light switch.  The vast majority of them have no idea how the electricity is generated or transported to their house; they just know it works.  So it is with cloud computing.  A user can pull up an application on the internet, use it, and never have to install or run it on their own home computer system.  That in a nutshell, is what cloud computing is.

Contrary to what you might think, the idea of cloud computing is not new.  It was first theorized in the 1966 book The Challenge of the Computer Utility by Douglas Parkhill.  Almost all of the aspects of cloud computing that we use today came from that book, including the electric utility metaphor used earlier in this post. Businesses today utilize cloud computing for its agility, cost effectiveness, reliability and scalability.  Individual users are becoming aware of cloud computing technology mostly as it relates to cloud storage.  With digital collections of movies, photos, and especially music growing at an extremely rapid rate, users are looking for ways to store their collections without taking up valuable hard drive resources.  Additionally, cloud storage has the added bonus of being able to be accessed from any computer - you don't have to be at home.

The biggest question involving cloud computing and storage is undeniably safety.  With access occurring virtually, how can you be sure that it is safe?  Simply put, the companies providing these services have the greatest incentive to provide the absolute best in information security out there, because if people don't believe the service is safe, they won't use it.  No more business.

I'd love to hear your thoughts on this.  Will you be using Amazon's new cloud drive?  What cloud storage do you already use (hint: have a flickr or photobucket account? Post videos on youtube? Share photos on Facebook?  That's cloud storage, even if you didn't know it)?  Did you realize that's what it was before reading this post?

 

Welcome to Augmented Reality

A lone person driving down the road at night slows when they see a deer by the side of the road, highlighted blue by the HUD in their windshield.

A pilot getting ready to land sees the flight paths of the aircraft around him laid out with clear precision.

A gamer walking through the streets of New York holds up his smartphone and fends off attacking aliens.

A sports fan, watching the big game at home can see every play drawn out in perfect clarity as the announcers analyze the game.

Welcome to the age of augmented reality, where almost any aspect of our lives can be enhanced with virtual information.  Science fiction writers dreamed our world for decades.  Now we're living to see it all come to fruition.  Yet, so few people are aware of it happening, or even know what "augmented reality" is.  You see it every Sunday during football season when the 1st and Ten line is displayed on your television sets.  You see it when the GPS app on your phone shows you where you are in real-time with directions for where to go next laid out in front of you.  You see it when you hold up the same phone's camera to look at a landmark in a foreign country and see information about the landmark displayed for them to read.

Yep.  All of that is augmented reality.  And, it's been around longer than you think.  The first AR simulator was invented in 1962 by a man who was not a scientist.  His name was Morton Heilig, and he was a cinematographer determined to create the "movie of the future".  His invention, the Sensorama used 3D technology and could give a viewer the sight, sound, feel, and even smell of riding a motorcycle through the streets of Brooklyn.  Pretty impressive.  Unfortunately it was also incredibly expensive to make films for the contraption, and so the idea was laid to rest.

Fast forward to 1992, when L.B Rosenburg developed Virtual Fixtures, a functioning AR system at the US Air Force Research Laboratory and demonstrates the benefits AR can have on human performance.  Of course the military saw the benefits of the technology right away.  They now use AR in a variety of ways, most recently ARMAR, a head-up display designed to help military mechanics in making repairs.

These days anyone with an iPhone has access to a myriad of AR apps right at their fingertips.  Even more notable is that we now may have the first true AR gaming system on our hands.  This year Nintendo's 3DS system shipped with 6 AR cards included that will allow users to interact with virtual objects that appear in reality as shown by the system's camera.

Still don't think that AR is a big deal?  Check out the most recent advertising campaign taking place in London's Victoria Station right now:

So, what's next for science fiction writers?  With their dreams becoming reality every day, how are they going to push the envelope even farther?  I don't know, but I personally can't wait to find out.

Game Review: Beyond Good And Evil HD

For fans of the original, the re-release of Beyond Good and Evil in HD format was an exciting announcement.  Once again we can play as fearless reporter Jade with her loveable "uncle" Pey'j and wacky sidekick "Double H".

The storyline of Beyond Good and Evil remains unchanged from the original.  You play as Jade - a reporter on the planet Hillys, which is currently at war with and constantly under attack from the aliens known as the Domz.  As the game unfolds, it is your job to uncover a conspiracy between the Domz and Hillys' supposed protectors - the Alpha Sections.  In spite of the main story's seriousness, there is a lightheartedness to the characters that makes the game fun and easy to play.

There is one main side-quest to the game that involves photographing all of the different animal species on the planet Hillys.  While it sounds easy, this can be a difficult task, as you are sometimes photographing animals that are shy, small, and hard to catch on camera.  It adds an interesting element to the game, however, when you're stopping in the middle of a boss fight to snap a picture of the creature you're facing.

While the graphics have been revamped up to HD quality, sad to say the camera angles are still as frustrating and awkward at times as they were back in 2004 when the game was originally released.  There also isn't much replay value to the game - once you've played it you've played it.  However, it is a fun break from some of the longer, more in-depth RPGs out there.  I will personally replay it trying to get all those photos, looter races, and other tidbits that are included throughout the world of Hillys.

As a girl gamer I have to say that my favorite part of the game is Jade herself.  At last we have a smart, innovate, funny character to play whose wardrobe does not make her look like a wanna-be porn star.  Even her proportions are appropriate!

The game was originally designed as a trilogy and therefore ends with a twist.  While the sequel hasn't been produced online, it's been hinted at by the game's creator, Ubisoft that if enough people download the HD release, the sequels will be given the go-ahead.  So get out there and get downloading folks, for 800 Microsoft Points, you really can't go wrong with this one.