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Mac OS X Leopard demo videos a'plenty
As excited as I am for the iPhone, I'm just as excited for Mac OS X Leopard - that's why I have to thank TUAW reader Uros for sending us a link to a big ol' batch of Leopard demo videos posted at Brightcove, a video sharing service. Demoed in the videos are features like Screen Sharing, Cover Flow, Parental Controls, new screensavers and even some interesting new stuff in Preview. Most of this stuff isn't too groundbreaking on the scale of, say, Spaces, but the devil is in the details for me and it's really interesting to see some of the handy new features that unfortunately couldn't make it into Steve's keynotes. For example: Leopard's new Dictionary app can also search Wikipedia, right from within Dictionary itself. If you're interested in seeing more of Leopard in action, these videos might satisfy your appetite - at least until Apple orders them to be taken down, of course.
DJ Max Portable DS spotted in the wiki
Update: As expected, the Wikipedia entry has been removed. The short life of the exceedingly dubious DJ Max Portable DS is over, suffering from a fatal "speedy deletion," and with it, our hopes of getting a North American DJ Max release, regardless of console!A new Wikipedia entry (marked for "speedy deletion") appears to contain details about a DS version of DJ Max Portable, South Korean developer Pentavision's Beatmania-like rhythm action game. While the entry claims to have culled its info from an announcement posted on the Pentavision website (reproduced on Wikipedia), a quick trip to the company page led to a dead end, as did an email to the address listed there. According to Wikipedia, DS's DJ Max will be nearly identical to the pair of existing PSP titles, which have enjoyed a cult following among importers with dainty fingers. The entirely suspect image accompanying the entry suggests that the DS version will contain an "Online Battle" mode, which is a key component of Pentavision's PC MMO DJMAX, from which the handheld series is descended. Neither the PSP original nor its sequel includes such a mode.DJ Max Portable DS is purportedly scheduled for release (in Korea) this September and would include an English-language option. "We think that the Nintendo console will bring the game to more players, because the Nintendo handheld has more sales than the PSP," declares a reported translation of the announcement. Sounds like flamebait, not a press release.
Ironcoder V results
Ironcoder is a Mac software developer competition inspired by the cult Japanese television cooking show Iron Chef in which Mac developers have about a weekend to produce a cool piece of software based on a particular API and theme. The latest contest was Ironcoder V and featured the ScreenSaver.framework API with the theme "Life." The results are in, and the winner this time around is Ben Gottlieb, whose winning entry, WikiPath, displays a series of Wikipedia pages by following a random path (though the links) beginning from the Wikipedia entry on Life. The results page offers the winning entry plus several runners up for free download.[Via GusMueller Blog]
Blizz Prez Mike Morhaime, #4 on PC World's Most Important People on the Web
As you might imagine, we here at WoW Insider love World of Warcraft. It's the greatest thing to come along since at least Diablo. Blizzard is a great company, and when it comes to computer gaming, you could solidly make the argument that nobody does it better than they do.But when PC World announced their "Most Important People on the Web" list today, I was surprised to see, right there in between the inventor of Bittorrent and Jimbo Wales of Wikipedia, Mike Morhaime, President of Blizzard Entertainment as the 4th Most Important Person on the Internet (a big jump up from a previous list). PC World cites WoW's huge player base and Blizzard's profits of $1.5 billion a year (not to mention all the money floating around WoW's black market services), but does the president of a videogame company really deserve to be two slots down from Steve Jobs, in between the man who basically created an anonymous peer-to-peer sharing system and the man who's developing the definitive online collection of knowledge?Call me cynical, but I say no. WoW may have influence over a lot of people, but Blizzard is using that influence to nerf druids and tweak raid bosses, not affect the Internet population. Then again, the guy did appear in animated form on South Park, and Jimbo Wales has never done that. We should all know by now that these lists are just a cheap way of encouraging discussion (and attention), but Morhaime's inclusion on the list means that WoW's ascent into our culture isn't done yet.
Wikipedia battle over iPhone trademark
There's something deeply fascinating about article debates at Wikipedia; reading the intricate threads is like eavesdropping on a librarian's convention where the punch has been spiked with PCP. The tumult du jour is the involved discussion on the appropriate naming and disposition of the iPhone article.It seems that the rational question of "What do we put at the wikipedia.org/wiki/iPhone page: the Apple product, the Cisco/Linksys product, or a disambiguation of the two products?" has led to fear, thence to anger and naturally to suffering. The commotion and disagreement apparently attracted the attention of some Cisco employees, who attempted to right the perceived injustice and were promptly chastised. The whole affair has resulted in the virtual lockdown of the iPhone page while tempers and keyboards cool off.If you want a taste of the secret sauce that helps Wikipedia manage as a self-regulating community, check out the conventions on the naming of articles. Highly gripping; couldn't put it down.Thanks Adam!
Bitter fanboys shred Nintendo's Wikipedia entry
Rumor has it that yesterday, some angry non-Nintendo fans (i.e. crazy people) randomly decided to attack the Ninty Wikipedia page for ... well, we won't call it massive damage. More like laughable damage. "nintendo sucks!!!!!!!!1111?" Wow! That's very convincing. Let's sell those DS games and cancel those Wii preorders, guys. Is that the urge to go play PSP or is it just a case of the giggles? It's so hard to tell the difference ....Yes, we know, this is a very silly story about a very silly person, but it's just so funny that we couldn't resist it.
Phil Collins + GTA = win [Update 1]
Philip David Charles Collins (born January 30, 1951 in Chiswick, London) is an English rock and pop musician. He is sometimes known as the lead singer and drummer of progressive rock group Genesis and as a Grammy and Academy Award-winning solo artist. He also commonly goes by the nickname "Philly Cheesteaks." However, Phil "The Man" Collins is best known for his role in Grand Theft Auto: Vice City Stories for the PSP. He can be seen in a new trailer on IGN, singing smooth melodies in the violence-stricken Vice City. His affiliation with organized crime is unknown at this time, but may be revealed when the game hits retailers in one week. [Update 1: Phil Collins IS PLAYABLE!!! "You can also take Mr. Collins into the deathmatch arena and kick some arse Genesis-style. Source: CVG]
WikiPod brings (some of) Wikipedia to your iPod
Being the highly edumicated folks we are, we prefer to lug a complete set of the Encyclopedia Britannica in a cart wherever we go, but we suppose the proletariat might prefer something a bit more convenient. For them there's this new "WikiPod" script from Matt Swann that pulls down a wiki page, along with all of the pages it links to -- and all the pages they link to and so forth -- until it hits the maximum megabytes you specify, or bumps up against Apple's 1000 note limit for the iPod. Of course, if you've got an older iPod, you could always run Encyclopedia on iPod Linux, or you could just bust out your phone and utilize one of the numerous mobile Wiki solutions, but whatevs. We figure the perfect solution to all this would be a Linux-based Apple iPod phone, but we suppose that might be asking a lot.
Pathway - Wikipedia research tool
If you're like me, Wikipedia is your go-to site for all things research and definition. Read something in an article you don't understand? Wikipedia! Friend use an obscure TLA? Wikipedia! There is almost no end to the community edited encyclopedia's usefulness. Most visits I make to Wikipedia are just quick fact checking and the like, but every now and then I am pressed to do some good old fashioned actual research; the kind grandpa used to do in the library. For those situations, Pathway is my new best friend. Pathway is a desktop interface for Wikipedia that not only lets you view wiki pages, but keeps a history of the pages you view, and displays your history in a sexy-sexy data map. I've only just started playing with Pathway, but its sleek look, original features, and light usage footprint have already earned it a cozy new home in my Applications folder.
Video games and Wikipedia, perfect together
We love Wikipedia. Whether it's worlds inside games, worlds inside comics about games, or blogs about games, Wikipedia's got what every video game fanboy needs: an endless stream of entries ... that you can edit.A short bit at the end of a recent MTV News column tipped us off to a recent article in erudite periodical The Atlantic Monthly covering the "most-edited articles" on Wikipedia. While video games might not be able to rack up Jesus or George W. numbers (Dubya's twice as popular as Jesus!), RuneScape made a seriously strong showing at number 8! So how did a humble, Java-powered MMORPG rack up nearly 11K edits? Vandalism!Like Jesus, Islam, Christianity, and Britney Spears, video games inspire a sort of religious fervor. Of course, no company or brand is more familiar with this sort of devotion than The Big N, whose Wii console beat out Pope Benedict XVI to the number 19 spot (take that!).For more on the popularity of gaming properties on Wikipedia, check out Wikimedia's top-100 most viewed charts for August. Again, the Wii comes in strong at number 11, with Fable, PlayStation 3, Final Fantasy VII, Mortal Kombat, and GameFAQs bringing up the rear. Depending on the relevance you would ascribe to Wikipedia's search results, a cursory glance puts gaming near the forefront of online interests -- up there with current events, television, and sex (yup, even on Wikipedia).Read - The Atlantic Monthly on Wikipedia [via MTV News]Read - Top 100 viewed Wikipedia articles [via Calacanis]
Wii ranks high on Wiki listing
Over at the WikiCharts Top 100 for the month of August, Nintendo's Wii is ranked number 13. Not too bad for the console, managing to be beaten out by only two sexual phrases (this is the internet, after all). With a 27,750 views-a-day average, the Wikipedia entry for the Wii could stand to do better. Maybe we should seek the aid of one Stephen Colbert? [Thanks Andrew Yoon!]
Entertainment Weekly honors Joystiq in top 25 list
While we're physically unable to pat ourselves on the back (freak DDR accident, y'know), we thought there might be some interest in seeing your favorite game blog (read: that's us, guys) in dead tree format. We've been selected by the good people at Entertainment Weekly as one of their "25 favorite online entertainment sites!" Part of the gig required us sending in a handful of our favorite online entertainment sites. We chose: the superlative Game Politics, the entertaining and promising GameVideos.com, and the more entertaining than it ought to be Wikipedia. Other notable sites we chose that didn't make the cut included The Escapist, Gamasutra, Gamerankings, and YTMND; some of our choices, namely Wonderland and Penny Arcade, were already chosen by other sites (thankfully); and still others, like Clive Thompson's excellent CollisionDetection.net, we mistakenly left off our list entirely. (Disclosure: Entertainment Weekly is published by Time which is owned by Time Warner who were purchased by AOL to create AOL Time Warner; of course, AOL owns Weblogs, Inc. who in turn own Joystiq, so if you really wanted to be cynical you could follow that corporate trail to a gray, lonely place we call Nepotism. Us, we're going to keep trying to be the best gaming blog on the internet regardless!)
That unique "new Mac" smell
You all know what I'm talking about: the moment you tear open your new Mac and are greeted by that complex combination of a "little bit of plastic bag with a hint of lindenberry followed by a rush of Styrofoam." We all love it. Just like every other Apple product I've purchased new, my MacBook features that same unique scent.I'd forgotten how much I missed it. I purchased my last Mac (a 15" Titanium PowerBook) second hand, from a smoker. Then I spilt a glass of wine on the keyboard which made it pong of cheap rosé. Needless to say, my MacBook smells significantly better than my old Mac. Its scent is amongst my most favorite smells and in my opinion it is second only to the smell of napalm in the morning.Knowing this, you'll understand my disappointment after I Googled "that new Mac smell" and found that research suggests that the smell emanating from new gadgets is very unhealthy. Wikipedia's entry on a similar feature found in cars, "that new car smell", links to research that likens the odor to sniffing glue. There's also an article from 2004 on Geek.com that recounts evidence that toxic fire retardant chemicals found in computers can be transferred to dust. Although the article says that "two of the chemicals in question (penta and octa-brominated diphenyl) have already been banned and will no longer be used in production by the end of this year," I'm forced to reconsider my love of the smell of new Macs.Does anyone have any information that would restore my confidence in my new Mac's smell?
WoW terminology explained
If the city's Trade and LookingForGroup channels go past you in a blur of indecipherable acronyms, this glossary might help. Part of Wikipedia -- and thus publicly editable if you disagree with a particular word, or want to add one -- it covers a lot of the WoW-specific terminology that crops up.It can be hard to simply ask "What on earth is UBRS" in chat, so it's useful to have somewhere to go when those inevitable moments of confusion do happen.
Timeline of Macintosh computers
This is officially cool, mostly because I say so. Wikipedia has a graphic that charts the timeline of Macintosh computers which shows the time length that particular models were (currently are) in production. The coolest part is that you can click on a model name, and it takes you to that Mac's Wikipedia entry.
Wikipedia gaming collaborations: spread your knowledge
Ever worry that all your knowledge of gaming history and minutiae is going to waste in the dusty recesses of your brain? Itching to flex your research, copywriting or editorial skills? If so, there's a Wikipedia project which might tickle your fancy.The "Gaming Collaboration of the Week" is an endeavour to "improve the quality of Wikipedia's computer and video game articles through widespread cooperative editing"--there are plenty of articles that need some attention, so the project should continue for some time. This week's subject is Bioforge; can you help?[Via AFK Gamer]
Wikipedia on your iPod
Way back in 1993, I can remember purchasing the entire works of Shakespeare on a CD-ROM to help me in a college course I was taking. I also had the printed works, but the CD-ROM allowed me to do keyword or character searches in a way the printed text didn't. For me, it was a breakthrough in how I was using computers to access content in a different way. The CD-ROM was accessible with hyper-links to other content on the disc which is notable because before the World Wide Web, hyper-links were really only being used in content like this Shakespeare CD-ROM (and in HyperStudio and HyperCard projects). It was my experience with this CD-ROM and gophering into the University of Minnesota's system to study 1990 Census data that opened my eyes to the coming World Wide Web explosion.My point is that while content doesn't actually change much over the years, the way in which we access it does. And today, I've learned of yet another interesting way we access content. You can now get the Wikipedia on your iPod. [Note: this requires you to install Linux on your iPod].The Wikipedia is the free, online, open-source encyclopedia. I've been consulting it for years, particularly for entries that likely wouldn't appear in a traditional encyclopedia. Since Wikipedia content is all user-contributed, it tends to be significantly more up-to-date than traditional sources. Some people worry about the accuracy of the Wikipedia's content, but I've never found it to be a problem.
