GeekSugar

Website of the Day: Last Year's Model

GeekSugar — Fri, 15 May 2009 13:25:34 -0700

I'm not making any promises about what I'll do if/when the new iPhone is announced next month, but I'm entirely behind the philosophy of the website Last Year's Model.

Last Year's Model advocates the virtues of not upgrading your gadgets - whether it's to save money, to be earth-conscious, or because you simply don't need to.

It seems especially timely because of the current recession, but being conscientious about upgrading (especially if you tend to do it just because you want something new) is something we should all be thinking about at any time.

To participate, just go to the Facebook page and sign up, and say why you're sticking with one of your older gadgets. Mine? My Canon Rebel XT SLR, because it still takes, and will continue to take, gorgeous photos.

To learn how to post your favorite websites to our Website of the Day group, read more.

I know that this long list looks scary, but trust me, once you get the hang of it, it'll be a snap the second time around.

First of all, join the Website of the Day group.
Click the pink "Share" menu on the top left side of the page.
Choose "Blog" and "Regular Post."
Give your story a "Title."
Fill in the "Body" with a link to your favorite website and the reasons why you love it.
Click "Next."
Choose the audience for your story to "Website of the Day" in the dropdown menu.
Add keyword(s) (for example mine for this photo was "Website of the Day").
Change channel to "Technology and Gadgets."
Fill in tag field with relevant tags.
Click "I'm done" to submit content.

So join the Website of the Day group and share information about all your favorite sites! Yours just might end up on the geeksugar homepage!

AT&T Offers iPhone 3G S "Early Upgrade Pricing" For Current Customers

GeekSugar — Wed, 17 Jun 2009 17:03:27 -0700

Here's some amazing news for folks who wanted to upgrade to the iPhone 3G S, but didn't want to pay the full price and sign a new contract: AT&T just announced via its Facebook page that it will be extending its upgrade prices to current AT&T customers who purchased an iPhone 3G last year and aren't yet available for upgrade prices (that would be all of you). And if you've already pre-ordered your iPhone 3G S online, you should expect an email from AT&T alerting you to a nice refund. Even better news? If you purchase a new iPhone 3G S at full cost, you won't have to sign a new contract. That's right baby, "commitment free."

Check out the "early upgrade pricing" when you read more.

The iPhone 3G S early upgrade prices will be $399 for the 16GB model and $499 for the 32GB. These prices will be posted on AT&T's website tomorrow, June 18. Although full retail prices will remain the same at $599 for 16GB and $699 for the 32GB iPhone 3G S, you'll now be able to buy without a contract. Today's announcement gives iPhone customers who are upgrade eligible in July, August or September 2009 the ability to upgrade for only $199 or $299.

Geeks We Love: Elaine Chow of Gizmodo

GeekSugar — Thu, 12 Feb 2009 04:01:36 -0800

You've already seen the men of this year's Geeks We Love series, and now it's time to mix it up with a girl-crush: Elaine Chow of Gizmodo.

A gadget girl living in and writing from China, Elaine is set apart by geography and gender, as most of the Giz staff is male. Check out what she has to say about that, as well as a valuable dating/technology lesson she learned in my interview with her.

GS: You're the Gizmodo member who writes from Asia. Do you look out for what's breaking in tech while we're all sleeping on the other side of the world?

EC: Basically that's my job! Catch things that are only around the Asian websites or that would otherwise fall through the cracks during the graveyard shift. Thanks to the Internet, it's not too hard to do - though it sometimes gets lonely since very few of my coworkers are on the company chat room at two in the morning.

To see the rest of my interview with Elaine, just read more.

GS: Gadget rundown! Cell phone, computer, console?

EC: I actually have a terribly old cellphone - a Nokia model from 2005 that my dad stopped using last year. I'd lost my U.S. phone, a SE W580, on the plane ride over here. I've been hemming and hawing over what to replace it with since. A part of me wants something I can slip into tight jeans. Another part of me wants to use a smartphone already. Preferably running Android.

I've got my tablet PC, a Fujitsu Lifebook T4210, and my desktop. . . a Shuttle PC I built myself. I've been kind of lazy with my Shuttle. Back in New York, I had it hooked up to a 27-inch LCD TV. I was going to do that here, but just haven't found the time or money to go TV shopping. I got the Shuttle because it was small and easy to move around, but I wanted to be able to swap components as they got old. With the tablet - I love tablets. I like to doodle, so sometimes when I'm feeling a little strung out, I'll fire up Sketchbook Pro.

Besides that, I've got a Wii, a PS2, and my DS Lite. I've been a little obsessed with Mario Kart lately. I used to DDR a lot, but I haven't found a good mat in China yet. I'm waiting for Sony to come out with a slim PS3 (you know they're going to at SOME point in time. Come ON Sony!). . . and debating whether I really need an Xbox 360.

I waffle a lot when deciding whether to buy new stuff. I'm very stingy and I hate waste, so I'll obsess over the value to use ratio of my purchases. My TV's a big ol' 26-inch CRT my parents donated to my apartment.

GS: As one of the only female writers on the Gizmodo staff, do you feel you have an edge? Do you think you handle tech stories differently?

EC: I don't know if it gives me much of an edge to be a girl writer. When I first started out, I'd get some misogynistic comments if I ever wrote about say, a kitchen or cleaning gadget. I would like to think I don't handle anything differently than my fellow writers because I have ovaries though. It helps that the Giz crew is a pretty enlightened bunch. Maybe the guys tend to make a few more boner jokes. . .No. . . No, I make a lot of boner jokes too. Never mind.

GS: Being a woman writing in tech, is it more important that you connect with a female audience and show them you're a woman so they can relate to you, or that you are seen on the same level as a male tech blogger?

EC: I think the best way for me to write is to not think about being anything other than being "Elaine, who was fascinated enough with geeky things to become a tech blogger." I think me being a woman will color my posts as often as me being an environmentalist, me being a science lover, me liking cats, etc. You know? Like, it's important. . . but it's not the most important thing. That being said, if me being a woman blogging at Gizmodo has made any girl out there think "Hey, maybe this tech stuff isn't just for guys after all," I'd be super psyched.

GS: How do you feel about the current state of dating and technology? Any funny mishaps happen to you that could be blamed on tech?

EC: I'm one of those terrible people that never write letters or calls to say hello anymore thanks to email, IM'ing and text messaging. I think the last two guys I dated, I never actually conversed with on the phone. Part of that is probably because I actually hate phone conversations. It's a weird neurosis.

Hmm . . . a mishap with technology. Well, I don't know if I can call this one funny. A former boyfriend of mine had problems controlling his jealousy. One day, I had left my MSN messenger on before leaving my house for work and he saw that I'd received an email from another ex. He went into my emails, from there got passwords to my private blog and then proceeded to read it and yell at me for things I'd written (sometimes about him) that he didn't like.

Now my laptop is password protected and there's a specific guest setting for anybody that's not me to use. Also, I try not to date psychos.

GS: What's your favorite or most memorable thing you've gotten to do as part of Gizmodo?

EC: Meeting Brando in Hong Kong was a very surreal moment and it was thrilling to know that he was a fan. I think that sometimes I forget that millions of people are reading us, and some of those people are making the things we talk about all the time. And then you meet one of them and you're kind of like "whoa, why are you even giving me the time of day? You're awesome!" I love that I got the opportunity to do that.

Spore Mania: My Interview with Ocean Quigley

GeekSugar — Wed, 03 Sep 2008 09:00:18 -0700

We have just a few more days until Spore hits the streets, and I couldn't be more excited! In preparation for the release, I got a chance to speak with Ocean Quigley, Spore's Art Director, about the making of the game, and all the challenges they faced while producing this trailblazing title. We also talked in depth about Spore's Creature Creator; the thing that allows you to mold and sculpt your creatures to life.

I'm assuming that you've already been toying around with it, because there are more than three million creatures created and submitted to the Sporepedia - Spore's answer to the encyclopedia!

Not surprisingly, with all the fun creatures, buildings, and planets you can make (and take over) in Spore, this game has been in development for quite some time. But you won't believe just how long it took to get made! Read on for my full interview!

So exactly how long have you been working on Spore?
A great long time! I started on it back in '99 after finishing up Sim City 3000, doing a few months of conceptual design with Will Wright (the creator of The Sims and Spore), then took a break to work on Sim City 4. So I've been noodling with it, well, geez, since back in the 20th century!

You must be totally relieved now that it's finished!
It's kind of hard to believe that we've come to the end of such a long development cycle. I've accumulated about six months of vacation, so I'm going to disappear for a while!

To check out the rest of my interview with Ocean, and why Spore will change the face of 3D modeling forever, just read more.

Where did your career start? Did you always know that you wanted to get into video games?
I started out as an oil painter, but it's not too often that you get to be on the ground floor of a new medium like that has been done on computers. Oil painting has been around for centuries, and people have been painting on cave walls before that, so if you think about the opportunity to be in the thick of a formation of a new art form, those opportunities are really rare. With the explosion of computer power we've seen over the last few years or so, it's become possible to make no-holds-barred, straight up artwork. It's was obvious to me in the early '90s that I needed to be a part of this.

Coming from a fine arts background, was it hard for you to relinquish that control of what will be produced in the game by the players?
That was kind of interesting! Because you have to hold back a little bit. Usually, when you're an artist you say, "This is what I want this object to look like," and you sort of bang on it until it looks like what I want it to look like. But in Spore, I had to step back because how it works out will be up to the player. In Spore, you're really experiencing a new kind of artwork where it's made by the interactions of the player. It's not this static, inert object. It's a dynamic art form. It took years to figure out and get used to.

Spore's creation editor is similar to some professional 3D modeling programs out on the market. How do you think Spore's creation editor is better or different than those programs?
The main difference is that the professional programs like Maya don't make any assumptions about what you're doing, so you're working up from bits and pieces. If you wanted to make a creature, you may start with a cube, and then pull those shapes where you want them to be. Whereas in our Creature Editor, we've given a lot of thought about making creatures and how they are put together. So instead of starting with a triangle or cube, we give you the structure of creatures (spine, muscles) and they are just waiting to be sculpted. So really, you could make creatures, like, a thousand times faster in our editor than in other programs.

I get the feeling that Spore will spawn a whole new generation of 3D modelers and animators. Did you have that in mind when creating the game?
No question. It's such a wonderful experience to create things and bring them to life. But the barrier to enter the 3D modeling world is incredibly high - not only are the production tools really expensive, but they are really hard to use. So one of the things that I wanted to do was give that experience of creation - of what it's like to shape something and see it come to life and basically give tangible form to your imagination - to millions of people, not just the handful of artists that use these expensive programs.

I'd expect that Spore will be a gateway to thousands of visual artists, but also that professional modeling programs are going to have to learn from Spore's user interface. You're going to have these artists coming from Spore, and then into these higher level programs like Maya, and they will realize how awful they are to use.

You worked on The Sims, which has been hugely popular with the female gaming community. Did this fact have any impact on how you made Spore?
Yeah, no question. We have a lot of women in senior positions, and we wanted to make sure that we didn't just make something that would appeal to the guys on the team, so at every stage the art direction was critiqued by the women that were on the project. The final art direction that you see reflects the years of ideas we thought would appeal both to men and women.

Will you play Spore, or are you completely Spore-d out?
Yes, I will play, but I'm actually waiting for a release copy, just like everyone else! I've got a pretty good sense about what the play will be like, but I'm needing a little bit of a break so that I can play with fresh eyes. My kids are very excited to play it as well.

Do you play any other video games?
I like all kinds of games, but the only type that I really don't play are the World of Warcraft, or online games in general. I've got the kind of personality that I know it would just take over my life! It's good to know your limitations.

Do You Future-Proof Your Gadgets?

GeekSugar — Sat, 27 Sep 2008 13:10:40 -0700

When I buy a gadget, I try to act like it's the last version of the gadget I will buy (except for when I'm hypnotized by new iPhones, but that's not my fault. I was hypnotized!). Much like a car, I kick the tires, look under the hood, or do as much as I can to check out something before I buy it, because I want to have quality things so they last a long time. Since tech is so expensive, I think it's more important to spend as much as you can, because you're already going to spend a lot, and you need it to last (AKA "future-proofing"). With my last TV, I did my homework before buying; I compared models and brands, then once I found one I liked, I read or watched other tech blog reviews, inquired from friends who already had that kind of TV, and when it came down to it, sucked it up for the high price tag. My boyfriend and I chose the biggest model we could stand and the highest HD quality that exists because we want to have this TV for the next ten years (hypnotization notwithstanding). But not everyone is like this; things like TVs or cell phones are often not as important to some (shrug), or some people spend a little to have something to tide them over - and just replace as it comes necessary. I think it's an investment, so I justify saving and splurging. What do you do?

Source

Expected Holiday HDTV Price Drop Explained

GeekSugar — Thu, 30 Oct 2008 06:00:52 -0700

If you're in the market for a new HDTV and are ready to plunk down your money for that new set - hold off! The prices of HDTVs are expected to plummet in the coming months, which can mean huge savings for you.

There are a number of factors that may lead to LCD and Plasma TV prices hitting the deck this shopping season, one of which is the economy. We're afraid to spend our money! So retailers have to make it irresistible for hesitant shoppers to hand over that credit card, while they clear out their inventory to make room for the newer models to come.

Another reason for the deep discounts? The digital signal switch. If you haven't gotten on board with digital, and are still using an analog signal TV (with the 'ole bunny ear antenna), you have until February 17, 2009 to get your hands on a converter box, or to upgrade your television. What a better way to usher in this new era of digital viewing than with a LCD TV, deeply discounted to sell?

Want to know when the best time to buy might be? Hint: it may not be when you think! Find out when you read more.

If you're planning on buying a high-end set, you may not find the best prices at the crack of dawn on Black Friday. Last year, we saw the best deals on name brand TVs in the three weeks before Christmas, when retailers were still trying to push out those remaining models while battling it out over prices. Good things come to those who wait? Most likely!

Source

Behind the Scenes at ILM: The Making of Indiana Jones

GeekSugar — Tue, 14 Oct 2008 06:00:40 -0700

It's been 19 years since we last saw Indiana Jones - who just so happens to be one of my favorite heroes in film - so I was stoked to see the latest installment to hit the big screen. However, I'm even more excited to take home my own copy of the film tonight to add to my collection. Not only to relive the adventure, but to see the extras that come with the DVD!

During my visit to the ILM studios, I was not only treated to some juicy behind the scenes info on the making of Iron Man, but also got the inside scoop on the making of Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull. We chatted with Visual Effects Supervisor Pablo Helman and Art Director Christian Alzmann here in San Francisco a few weeks ago, and talked about the challenges of movie making, and how visual effects really enhance film. To see what they offered up, just read more.

Scenes for the film were shot in Hawaii, Russia, Brazil, and New Mexico.
Although there were a lot of special effects used in the blockbuster, Pablo Helman (Visual Effects Supervisor) wanted to use real landscapes and location shots whenever possible - usually he used at least 50 percent of actual footage, with the rest being visual effects.

The nuclear bomb scene in the first half of the film was shot using miniature models - the entire town was scaled down, except for the one house Indy ran into to hide from the bomb.
The chase scene through the jungle contained a huge number of visual effects. The road they were driving on was in Hawaii, but the cliffs were pieced in from shots they took in Brazil.
The attacking ants were programmed with artificial intelligence, so the animators didn't have to animate every single ant's path.
To get the special effects right for the Maccupiccu scenes, a photographer was sent on location to photograph the landscape for three days. Later, animators and visual effects designers could match the light, contours, and backgrounds to the photos, since the Maccupiccu scenes were shot on a set.
Interesting, but obvious: George Lucas prefers working with special effects, whereas Steven Spielberg likes to work with actual film and footage.

Will you be getting your copy of the DVD today? You know where I'll be after work!

Daily Tech: The Andriod to Get More People Using the Web Via Their Cell

GeekSugar — Thu, 26 Jun 2008 12:10:07 -0700

The open-source Android OS is said to be making its debut later this year and under the Android rules, everyone's their own boss as phones are set to get more web friendly thanks to Google. - Wired
Dell's colorful new Studio laptops have officially been announced with prices starting at $799 for the 15-inch Studio 15 model. - USA Today
Nintendo gets a big thumbs down for its "Green" ranking. According to the "Greenpeace Guide to Greener Electronics" who ranked 18 different electronics companies by how green their products and production processes are, Nintendo sadly came in last place. - Switched
Lifehacker tallies up five of the best desktop media players. - Lifehacker
The new and improved iPhone 3G may support MMS, an internal AT&T memo reveals. - CrunchGear
Movies and TV shows will be available for download on the PS3 sometime this Summer. - Crave

Source

Sex and the City Movie Tech: Miranda and Her BB

GeekSugar — Wed, 28 May 2008 04:37:19 -0700

We're in the homestretch now of our Sex and the City Movie premiere, and I can honestly say, Christmas came early this year! We've already jogged our memories on tech from past seasons, and last week we learned about some of the gadget gear from the movie! So Samantha has an iPhone, Louise (Carrie's assistant, played by Jennifer Hudson) uses a Sidekick, and Carrie likes to mix it up between cell phones and pay phones.

And what about Miranda you ask? You'll find her with a BlackBerry 8700, which is kinda odd, considering there have been at least three new models out since they started filming!

Photo courtesy of New Line

Must Haves For October

GeekSugar — Mon, 01 Oct 2007 08:00:22 -0700

Every month on geeksugar I offer my picks for the top five Must Have gadgets, gizmos and techie treats you need to get through the month. For some of you, October is time to get gadget gift ideas for xmas and a time to transition from the summer to winter months-out with the old and in with the new! What's particularly great about this time of the year is that there are so many fabulous product launches and releases. Here are some hot new releases that I'm sure you'll enjoy as much as I do!To find out about these must-haves, just read more

The Logitech blue mouse is comfortable, classy and comes with the added bonus of being wireless and bluetooth compatible! Great for everyday use or for taking with you on the go. Batteries are said to last up to four months so you don't have to worry about replacing them every week. This mouse costs $50 each and comes with a cute protective pouch as well.
The hot new Nano with video has created quite the stir since its release just a few short weeks ago. This super small 3rd gen iPod literally fits in the palm of your hands! With five stylin' colors to choose from, a 2-inch screen and 4GB and 8GB models, it's no wonder why they are flying off the shelves like hot cakes. Starting at $149.
The Flip Video Ultra Series by Pure Digital Technologies includes all the features you need in a compact, pocket-sized cam. The new Flip comes with built-in software for direct uploading to AOL and YouTube, captures high-quality sound and video footage and is available in chic colors like lime green, pink, orange, black and white. The 60-minute (2GB) model is priced at $179.99 and is available in four colors -- white, black, orange and pink, while the 30-minute (1GB) model is $149.99 and comes in white and black. Overall an easy to use fun mini-camcorder!
The earphone cable wraps are one of those inventions that may look fairly simplistic, but yet they provide a convenient place for you to stow away your earphones! Just wrap your cords around the cable wrap and clip wherever you want and your cords will stay free from tangles! Available in lots of cool colors for only $15 each.
The Janine King laptop sleeves are fashionable laptop cases that come fully customizable to suit your individual taste. All designs have waterproof padding and are triple stitched for extra durability. Prices range from $40 to $50.