Recent Comments:
Hori busts out arcade-style joysticks for the PS3 {Engadget}
Dec 13th 2006 5:48PM TRY BEFORE YOU BUY! Seriously, if you don't have a particular arcade game port in mind, and/or are not a hardcore arcade "enthusiast", be wary -- I have a very similar PS2 controller and was disappointed to realize that you don't get either analog stick (the stick usually controls the D-pad; if you're lucky you can toggle between left analog and the pad), plus the buttons usually aren't analog, plus they often don't support rumble (though I can't speak to those last two things for this particular product). If you were hoping to use this for 4-player Marvel UA or some such, don't count on it being adequate.
If you *are* an "enthusiast", I guarantee you that a
Researchers create super-sensitive robotic hand {Engadget}
Dec 13th 2006 5:41PM Let me know when I can buy one to assemble myself in kit form, preferably for under 200 bucks.
Microsoft busting onto robotics scene with Robotics Studio {Engadget}
Dec 13th 2006 5:33PM I had to spend a semester using the Zilog IDE -- one of the better single-product systems, I understand. Somebody mentioned earlier that MS's vulnerability is their user base, but it's also their biggest asset -- they get feedback constantly, and the have the money to do genuinely useful user studies. One-note companies like Zilog (yes, they make a number of different micros, etc., but they're nowhere near the scale of MS) struggle just to keep up fixing the bugs reported by current users. The latest version of their IDE looks like it was designed ten years ago. For that matter, it probably *was* designed around 1996, and only the internals have been updated since -- it works, why invest time and money in making it more user-friendly?
I would really welcome an attempt at a standard from a big gun like MS. I find Visual Studio to genuinely boost productivity over a simpler option like Textpad, and I don't have another 4 years to devote to getting an advanced degree in Emacs. The Visual Studio suite works for novices, and has enough power to sustain large projects too. I don't want to sound like a fanboy -- I'm not -- but as long as this stays free for hobbyists, I think it will really be a net force for good.
