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Molyneux: Milo will boast collective object recognition, accept half-eaten fruit
From a four-by-four pixel face, to a loyal pooch, to an inquisitive youth -- that's the path Peter Molyneux has taken in his quest to find life within technology. "Right, can we dare to create a character which anybody interacting with that character would truly believe was alive?" the renowned designer recently asked attendees of the annual BAFTA Video Game Lecture (transcribed by The Guardian). Harnessing the motion-sensitive camera in Microsoft's Project Natal, Molyneux hopes to breathe that life into a young boy -- or girl! -- named Milo (or Millie!). While he admits that much of it is "smoke and mirrors and tricks," he provided some interesting insight into the technology put to use behind the scenes. It seems Milo won't just recognize you (his imaginary, otherworldly friend), but everyday objects as well. "Firstly the process of scanning is really lovely, you just reach your arm up, you can also scan in three dimensional objects, for example if you are eating an apple you can give that apple to Milo and he will carry on eating the apple," the Lionhead lead explained. But will Milo scan candy held aloft by strangers?"Or the other thing that is amazing about this technology and this is the online portion of inspiration, we are collecting continuing to collect and improve his object recognition skills." If his plans come to fruition, Molyneux envisions "all the Milos that will be released" feeding their observations into a centralized recognition of "everything in the world." To Skynet alarmists: Have you seen this boy?
Project Natal: How Dimitri met Milo
In a March 2008 interview with GamersGlobal, renowned designer Peter Molyneux divulged few details on "Dimitri," an "experimental thing" which he claimed was given life by a mysterious discovery. "And then it moved from that experiment to a moment in time that happened six months ago when a discovery was made, and this discovery has been so exciting that it has lead to Lionhead focusing on it and sculpting a game around that," he said at the time. "I think that discovery is so significant ... This discovery has lead us to start a game and that game will be on the front cover of Nature magazines and Science magazines."According to Microsoft Game Studios head Phil Spencer, the discovery was actually "the right platform for an ambitious software idea" -- namely Project Natal, Microsoft's forthcoming motion control system for the Xbox 360. "Peter [Molyneux] and I saw the first [Natal] prototype about 2 years ago," Spencer recently told Develop. "He focused on what people want to do in this environment, and that's where a project of Lionhead's, called Dimitri, become Milo – the team's previous idea took on a whole new lease of life with Natal." Now that we've become acquainted with "Dimitri" in his new, boyish form, we can lay the old codeword to rest and attempt to discern the reality within Molyneux's enthusiastic words. Though we're undecided on Milo's future as a Popular Mechanics cover model, we're fairly confident he'll wind up on Game Informer sooner or later. Shall we file this under Molyknew or Molyno?
IGN shows us Milo's future
Concept and execution are two totally different worlds. Although the concept and initial presentation of Lionhead Studios' Milo blew everyone away at E3 2009, what does fate have in store for the little digital boy's longterm execution? IGN attempts to answer that question in a little sketch they put together. We all know Milo will lose his innocence once he's in the hands of normal people, but just how bad will it become? Check out the video after the break.
E3 2009 highlights: The Xbox roundup
E3 was brütal! If you blinked, for a split/second, you missed something. Even if you were trine to keep up, it was a blur -- staying a.wake like that, you only pushed yourself to the brink of your own dark void. That's where Joystiq comes in; to crackdown on the madness; to reach out ... with conviction -- phew! Crysis averted. We've scoured the dark corners and survived the inferno to piece together this roundup of all things Xbox at E3. Why? Just 'cause we love you. So, draw nier and shift your eyes past the break.
Taking a walk with Milo, Molyneux's Project Natal 'game'
Tonight, I got an incredibly brief chance to test out Microsoft's Project Natal camera technology with Peter Molyneux's "Milo," along with three other E3 judges. In the brief time allotted to the group, we experienced many of the same moments shown during Microsoft's keynote earlier in the day: introducing ourselves to Milo, being recognized by Milo, taking a brief walk to the pier, donning a pair of goggles, and running our fingers through the water. Before any of us would interact with Milo, Lionhead's Claire – seen above in a still from the E3 Milo video – had a brief, but natural, exchange with Milo. It began with Milo recognizing her face and addressing her by name.Once Claire's portion was over, we took Milo out for a spin. For my part, I walked with Milo over to the pier, grabbed the goggles that he threw at me, performatively snatching at the air, having already seen the video during the earlier keynote presentation. To put them "on" I had to make loops with my thumbs and pointer fingers and wrap them around my eyes. A guide on the bottom of the screen instructed me to make them just so. Goggles on, I leaned over the pier and splashed a reflection of myself in the water. I could drag a finger around or make a larger splash with my hand. I could even ripple the water by "lowering" my head towards the screen. And that was about it for my section (see above: brief!). But the most impressive thing I saw happened next.
Peter Molyneux shows 'Milo' for Project Natal
Lionhead founder and famed game designer Peter Molyneux took the stage at Microsoft's E3 press conference to demonstrate "Milo," a virtual boy who interacts with players via the Project Natal motion camera. After introducing the project, Molyneux presented a video of a Lionhead staffer speaking with Milo, who reacted to what she said -- and even wrote on a piece of paper held up to the screen ... like a real person. Following the video, Molyneux addressed what was likely a considerable amount of doubt as to the simulation's validity saying that it will be demo'd in real time behind closed doors during E3. He said that Lionhead has been tinkering with Project Natal for several months, and that he feels "what developers do with Natal will change the landscape of games." We'll ask Milo what he thinks of that later in the week.
TUAW Interview: Milo Bird of Phantom Fish
On Tuesday, Phantom Fish released an update to Byline, its Google Reader-slash-offline browser app for iPhone and iPod touch. Byline's developer, Milo Bird, has been hard at work since Byline 1.0 was released, making improvements to the app based on his users' feedback. Last week, Milo took some time out of his vacation to New York to sit down with us (virtually) and talk about Byline and the app development process. Does Google make it easy to develop an app that interfaces with Google Reader? Yes and no. The API for accessing Google Reader is straightforward and well-designed, so from a practical point of view it's quite pleasant to work with. However, it's not formally supported by Google, so there's no official documentation. The API has been around for years now and is in use by a large number of third-party apps, so there are several sources of unofficial documentation, but working out the nuances does involve fumbling around in the dark a bit.
Byline 2.0 update a huge improvement: adds tag support, mini browser
Phantom Fish yesterday updated Byline to version 2.0, adding functionality to browse by tag, and a spiffy new wood-grain interface. I briefly reviewed Byline 1.0 in July, but wanted to re-visit the application after the update. Byline 2.0 is a Google Reader client and offline browser for the iPhone and iPod touch. After having used beta versions for the last few weeks, I can say with certainty that this update takes Byline head and shoulders above the first version. Byline 2.0 is faster than both version 1.0 and Google Reader's MobileSafari-optimized interface. Articles are now grouped in folders according to tags you've already set up in Google Reader. You can mark whole folders of items as read, and save items to your phone by starring them. The app doesn't show a splash screen at startup, but instead a "blank" version of the interface, which gives the illusion that the app is hanging for a short period of time. As soon as the list of folders appears, however, loading items was zippy on my iPod touch (connected via WiFi, of course).
