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Univ of Illinois conducts "Gaymer" survey
Ever wonder how sexual orientation might affect one's gaming preferences? A recent graduate of the University of Illinois, under the guidance of professor Dmitri Williams, is conducting a survey to find out to what extent (if at all) one's sexual preference can determine or affect what one plays. People of all sexual preferences are being asked to take this survey. All participants are anonymous and survey is estimated to take 25-45 minutes to complete (we finished in around 30 minutes). Game Politics has a brief interview with Jason Rockwood, the graduate conducting this survey, on why he thinks it is an important study (we are pretty interested, too, since a few Joystiq readers vowed to not buy Twilight Princess after Link was voted hottest male character by Out magazine). The chat with Rockwood also gives us our vocabulary word for the day: heteronormativity. Try using that phrase in conversation today.You can take the survey by clicking on the link below or by clicking on the adjacent image.
What do you think about the PS3 and Blu-ray?
We wanna know! Tell us about your thoughts concerning the PlayStation 3 and Blu-ray. It's hard to go a week without having someone say something about the issue, so here's your chance to finally throw down. Check out the poll below and see what's up. And no, you won't find an "Other" option for those of you not interested in purchasing the system. So what are you waiting for? Cast your vote and leave a comment![The poll is officially closed! Check the results here.]
Let's face it: Steve will have to step down sooner or later, too
With Gates' bombshell announcement last week that he will be stepping down from his full-time role at Microsoft in 2008 to spend more time with his Gates and Melinda Foundation charity org, I finally came to wonder: how much longer does Steve have at Apple? Both companies were started around the same time and have helped shape the industry as we see it today. That has to be exhausting work, especially for someone like Jobs whose design and management obsessions are now the stuff of legends. Steve already stepped down from his other company, Pixar, so he could spend more time at Apple - but I'm wondering how long that's going to last, and what it means for Apple's future.Plenty of articles are analyzing the impact of Gates leaving Microsoft, as it's a slightly different situation. Bill is their Senior Software Architect, not the CEO - that's Ballmer, and he'll apparently be staying on and doing the same, shall we say, 'bang-up job' he's been doing since he took that throne. But Steve Jobs is Apple's CEO, and famous for the amount of control he exacts over bringing his the company's visions to life. So what would a two-week's notice from Steve mean to Apple and its burgeoning market?Honestly, I don't know, and since I am but a lowly blogger, I'll leave it up to those six-figure analysts who 'are people who know people' to pen those pieces. But before those analysts start earning their keep, TUAW wants to hear your thoughts, dear readers: what do you think it will mean for the future of Apple and their products when Steve needs to call it a day?
Gamers speak up: Blu-ray is okay!
According to one community, fans looking forward to the PlayStation 3 say that bundling a Blu-ray player with the new console was a good move by Sony. A resounding 67% said they agree with the inclusion (granted it was only out of 1,120 votes). However the other third that voted thinks it would have been wise to have the option to choose it with or without Blu-ray.Whether Sony should have had two version of the console is neither here nor there. What really matters is what the gaming community thinks as a whole. Should Blu-ray have been optional or not? We've tackled this one before, but it would be very interesting to see the results played out on a wider poll. Expect one addressing this question to pop up next week and we'll get some formal numbers from our own community to see what you think.
iPod or drinking: students prefer iPod
We can't say that we're really surprised, but it would appear that this year's hundred-university student survey conducted by Student Monitor showed the iPod to run the show in terms of student desireability, even more so than getting soused. It's the first time in almost ten years that something besides drinking has reigned atop the survey, but we have to admit though, drinking has the odds stacked against it. We'll see what happens to the Apple's sweet spread when we lobby the government to raise the minimum buying age for iPods to 21, now won't we?[Thanks to everyone who sent this in]
IGN survey reveals gamers' habits
Do you listen to Gorillaz? Are you looking forward to X-Men: The Last Stand? Do you watch Family Guy and The Simpsons? And do you have a positive opinion of Google and Apple?According to a recent survey conducted through IGN.com by IGN's GamerMetrics, the answer to the above is "yes" for a large number of gamers. Describing IGN as having "one of the largest concentrated audiences of young males on the Internet", the survey's results show a fascinating slice of modern interests.Given that one of the arguments for in-game ads includes the fact that younger demographics don't watch much television, the number of gamers following Family Guy (68%) and The Simpsons (64%) may seem surprising. On the other hand, it would be interesting to see these results for different countries; the brand voting and TV choices show the American skew of the survey respondents.
Cox Communications mulling partnership with TiVo?
It's been over a year since we launched the TiVo Deathwatch, and not only is the company still alive and kicking, a new survey being conducted by Cox Communications may indicate that TiVo is about to enter into a partnership with the nation's third largest cable company. Thomas Hawk reports that users on on the TiVo Community Forum are buzzing about a questionnaire that was sent to Cox Enterprises customers who currently subscribe to one or more of the company's other services, but get their TV via satellite. Among a slew of questions about DVRs in general and TiVo specifically, is one which reads in part, "If Cox were to offer digital cable service with a TiVo branded DVR for about the same price as you are currently paying for satellite service each month, how likely would you be to switch from satellite TV to Cox cable that featured this TiVo branded DVR service?" Take this for what you will, but these questions would seem to indicate that the two companies are, at the very least, involved in backroom talks of some sort, and possibly even in the planning stages of building co-branded equipment. Combined with TiVo's recent courtroom victory over EchoStar, their current partnership with Comcast, and a surprising renewal of their service contract with DirecTV, a deal with Cox may be just the ammo we need to put the Deathwatch down for good.
Safari use up 76 percent
That's up 76 percent from last year. And we're still talking about a 3.19% browser market share, according to Net Applications. Of course, as stated on the Surfin' Safari blog, the hope (for Apple) is to see more WebKit-based browsers out there too. You may recall Nokia's S60 web browser is just such a beast. Whether or not a cell phone browser will make a dent in WebKit's market share? I'll let you decide that one. In the end, I can really only hope all this great market share business is going to make some developers out there (you know who you are) work a little harder to make their websites Safari-compatible. List the worst Safari offenders in the comments, and just ignore Google, where everything is beta. Besides, it could be worse: you could be using Opera.
New study on gaming needs your help
Brett Lantz needs your help. As a sociologist at the University of Notre Dame, Lantz is currently looking to "learn more about the different types of gamers out there and the impact of the games on how they see themselves." The first part of this endeavor includes an online survey in which we hope you have time to participate. In Lantz's words, "Your readers may find the survey interesting and perhaps a bit fun. The gamers that have already taken the survey have told me it was a positive experience for them. For what it's worth, I am not making any money off this project. Because little research has been previously conducted in this area, the responses of the gaming community are crucial in shaping future research in this area."The survey itself is approximately 40 questions in length and took us close to 15 minutes to complete. While you may find the first 20 or so questions pretty generic (how often you play games, what systems you own, etc.), the remainder (specifically, questions 23-27 and 28-36) raise some interesting points. We'd love to discuss the survey in more detail, but we do not want to ruin the surprise for you.
Roundup: what you are (or will be) doing with Windows on your Mac
While I'm sure the results will come as no surprise, I still wanted to do a roundup of our TUAW reader survey: What will you do with Windows on your Mac, as there were some interesting comments outside of the norm. Obviously, most of you are planning on using Windows solely to play games (which says something in and of itself about the utility of Windows), but I was more interested by the other uses you had in store, which include: AutoCAD/3D design .NET programming web development, testing IE sites those workplace-specific apps that simply don't have OS X counterparts - yet One commenter, Yaknowho, also brought up the idea of using Windows on a Mac to run some of the larger apps that haven't gone Universal yet, like Photoshop. I actually just touched on this topic over at The Unofficial Photoshop Weblog, where I found a few tests that show the MacBook Pro (ironically) not only runs Windows faster than most Core Duo PC notebooks, it also runs Photoshop - under Windows - faster than the competition as well.We live in a strange world when a Mac can run Windows faster than machines designed to run Windows.
VG Voters send Senate 20K notes; survey up
New members to the Video Game Voters Network received an e-mail this morning letting them know that nearly 20,000 messages were sent to U.S. Senators from concerned gamers in just over a week's time.What were basically sent were form letters, addressed to the appropriate Senators, telling them not to restrict video games, and concluding with the gaming voter's name and address at the end. It looks like the more effective mailing of handwritten letters will be left up to the concerned citizens themselves.Also noted in the e-mail was a survey meant to "help [them] better target and personalize the action alerts [they] send to you." While it's up to you whether you want to share your demographic information and gaming-blog contributions with a political network (even a game-oriented one), it would probably help refine the organization's strategy in who to approach for help and how. The full letter this blogger received follows.See also: Video Game Voters Network: 10,000 strong in first week VGVN's "Contact Congress/Your Senators!" page [with form letter]
XBL survey says...
It's alway nice when a massive corporation gives a damn about your opinion. Reader Ayein was asked to participate in this 38 question Microsoft-commissioned survey concerning Xbox Live and Xbox Live on the 360. Naturally, he sent us a link so the rest of us could give our two gamerscore points. Not sure what kind of sample they were shooting for, but I trust the results won't be skewed by a few thousand rabid fanboys bitching about delayed demos. The survey is pretty thorough with several opportunities to write in your own suggestions. If you ever wanted to tell MS what you want out of Live, here's your chance (Shameless plug: Be sure to tell the marketing eggheads you get your XBL news at Xbox360fanboy.com!).And now for an informal survey of my own: Was anybody else asked to participate and did you bother to fill this thing out? Do you think MS is asking the right questions? Did this survey give you any hints about the direction Live is headed?
Silly Sunday Survey: Intel Macs, buy now or wait?
A new Silly Sunday Survey is way overdue, so dear readers, we have one for your edification. Are you going to be buying (or have you already bought) one of the first generation Intel Macs (i.e. the MacBook Pro or the Duo Core iMacs)?I tend to avoid first revs of any Apple products, especially since I ordered a Cube seconds after Steve announced them and did the same thing for the Titanium Powerbooks, but that's just me. Sound off in the comments!
So it's really sports fans that are driving HDTV adoption
Or at least thats what the Sports Video Group's survey has uncovered (big surprise, with that name I really doubt the result was going to be most people get high definition for Discovery channel). The "Inside the mind of the HD sports fan" uncovered several statistics that will probably surprise very few of you. 39% of sports viewers are extremely disappointed when an event they want to watch is not in HD 22% will watch an event they otherwise would not have watched because it is in high definition Nearly 50% of HDTV owners cited sports as the reason for their purchase Hopefully the NBA is paying attention to studies like this, far too many times this season I've had to watch games in SD because they were not broadcast in high definition, or were not broadcast in HD nationally.
Survey: What was your first Apple product?
From everything we've heard, Apple had quite the strong holiday season, with lucky new Mac and iPod owners across the world. Top that off with snowballing buzz surrounding their (hopefully) imminent switch to Intel chips, and we thought it would be a good time to check in with our readers and ask: what was your first Apple-related product, and when did you get it?Let's get reminiscent. Was your first helping of Apple goodness a mere couple of weeks ago, when you picked up an iPod or AirPort Express over the holidays? Or are you (somehow) reading TUAW on your original Apple II? Whether you've been upgrading with every new Mac iteration through the years or you're still unpacking your first iMac with iSight, we'd like to hear when and what product brought you along for the ride on the Apple bandwagon.
