Archive for the 'In the News' Category

Gizmodo has a Cliff’s notes edition of some recent statements made by FCC chairman Kevin Martin. While the article (and the statements) have to be taken with a grain of salt, if any of what he says comes to pass, it will be good times for consumers. Particularly interesting to me are the facts that he thinks cable is too expensive (it is), and that the term “broadband” should indicate something higher than 200 Kbps (I had no idea our defined value for that was so low!). We can only hope that he keeps his word on at least a few of these items.

Warner Brothers studios has officially defected to the Blu-ray format, and now Paramount seems poised to do the same. This is all but the end for the HD-DVD format, which is a real shame. Granted, there’s no real difference between the two formats (none that are apparent to the common consumer, anyway). Blu-ray discs may end up being more expensive, due to the fact that they cost a little more to manufacture. They also continue the stupid “region coding,” where certain discs will only play in the players purchased in a specific geographic location.

If for no other reason, I wanted HD-DVD to win the “format war” because Blu-ray is backed by Sony. Any day that Sony fails is a good day in my opinion, and it’s a shame that the movie studios decided to take the low-road. Time will tell how well this format takes off.

I missed one highlight from CES in yesterday’s post. Namely, the 150-inch television from Panasonic. With televisions like this on the horizon, I predict a weakening in movie theater ticket sales.

I’ve only been casually following the events at this year’s CES, but a few things I’ve seen have been pretty impressive:

• Super-Black Kuro Concept TV: the black values on this concept are unreal.
• 9-mm Thin Concept Plasma TV: can televisions get any thinner?
• Alienware Curved Monitor: I’ll take 2, thanks.
• Closed captioned HD radio: this is a great idea, and I’m surprised it’s only now showing up.
• Bloggers were given different badges than the regular press. The writeup at Gizmodo about this fact is so true.
• Finally, the humorous video from Bill Gates’ last keynote. What can I say? The guy knows how to make fun of himself.

There’s currently a lot of buzz about the supposed firing of Jeff Gerstmann, a long-time editor at GameSpot (Penny Arcade! even has a comic about the incident). He was apparently fired based on a poor review he gave for “Kane & Lynch: Dead Men,” a game for the xBox 360. Eidos, who publishes the game, currently has a large advertising partnership with GameSpot for the game. This move indicates to me that Eidos was attempting to buy a good review, which they didn’t get. I have no trouble believing that they had a hand in getting Mr. Gerstmann fired.

It’s really sad to see when professional reviewers are forced to say one thing or another, but it’s not surprising. The almighty dollar seems to make most of the decisions these days. Years ago I subscribed to Computer Gaming World magazine, but I canceled my subscription after the quality took a nose dive. The “larger” gaming websites are starting to head in that direction as well, especially after shenanigans like these. I do most of my game review reading through Metacritic, checking out what reviewers as a whole have to say about various games. I also try to seek out independent reviews, from people like myself.

This kind of story is one reason that I decided to post my own reviews here on this website. Although I don’t have as much readership or visibility as the big review websites, I try to provide an alternative to the paid endorsements that publishers try to shove down our throats. Hopefully you find my reviews to be useful and honest. If so, then I’m succeeding where the large sites are failing. And that’s good enough for me.

I really hate how news outfits continually refer to Cyber Monday as ‘the busiest online shopping day of the year.’ If you take a look at the Wikipedia article, you’ll see that the term “Cyber Monday” is actually a neologism, undoubtedly created to generate public interest (and therefore, boosted sales figures). A number of online retailers point out that early December is actually a busier time than today supposedly is.

That being said, I love shopping online, and I try to do most of my holiday shopping through online outfits (though some things just have to be bought locally). How about you? Do you do your holiday shopping online, or do you head to the brick and mortar stores?

File this one in the “Oops!” department.

During a recent US Navy exercise in the Pacific, a Chinese nuclear submarine popped up in the middle of the US fleet, completely undetected until it surfaced. I’m guessing that the top brass in the Navy will demand answers for why the submarine was not detected. This was no doubt a shock to everyone aboard the US ships, as the Chinese sub was easily within range for launching torpedoes.