• 15Apr 08

  Do We Really Need a New Nintendo DS?

  Do we need another version of the Nintendo DS that isn't just a lipstick-colored eye-catcher wrapped around the same-ol-same-ol hardware? How about the ability to play back music and movies either via increased local storage, wireless streaming, or perhaps even both, along with a new slot for external hardware plugins? The wireless streaming bit's my own speculation, but the original rumor about media playback and the plugin slot was started by Hirokazu Hamamura of magazine publisher Enterbrain. Last week you maybe read about a "new and improved" Nintendo DS showing up at E3 in July? That was these guys.

  How credible is Hamamura's claim? No one knows. We on the one hand have Nintendo of America president Reggie Fils-Aime stirring up hype like "All I can tell you is what we announce during E3 is gonna be fantastic." On the other, we have the fact that Nintendo last updated the DS in 2006--two years after the original in 2004--along with Nintendo's history of updating its portables at two year intervals back and through its GameBoy line. With Apple's iPhone hypothetically vying for handheld gamers' coin and Sony's PlayStation Portable in the ascendant (it's actually outselling the DS in Japan) 2008 certainly wouldn't be too soon for Nintendo to give it's gaming mainstay a booster shot.

  The current Nintendo DS dubbed the "DS Lite" and true to its name (smaller, cute as a button, etc.) but functionally identical to the original DS, set the handheld world ablaze. Since 2004, it's sold around 70 million units worldwide, making it the second bestselling platform going after Sony's PlayStation 2.

  You could certainly make the existing DS Lite "lighter," but I doubt anyone would notice, and it's possible to make something like this too light. People associate a certain amount of heft with quality, and the DS Lite already feels a little flimsy and breakable to me -- especially around the hinges -- compared to the PSP.

  The question, then, is whether anyone's really going to care if they can use their DS as an audio-video playback device. Most of you with audio needs have miniscule iPods (my Shuffle's the size of a postage stamp), don't particularly care to watch movies on tiny 2-3 inch screens that run any longer than a YouTube clip, and by the way, didn't we already see portable movie playback fail with Sony's attempt to put movies on UMD discs? Let's get serious. It's been possible for years to load movies on PSP memory sticks, but I don't know anyone who does it regularly. I'll be on a plane to Budapest come Wednesday toting both my DS and PSP, but even in economy class the airlines make it so easy to watch dozens of the latest movies and TV shows on the backs of the seat in front of you that squinting at a handheld electronic device for hours at a time sounds about as appealing as having my eyeballs massaged with a leather strop.

  Now what would be interesting? Let's shoot the moon: A power boost, something that would let the DS compete directly with the PSP in raw horsepower. And how about a resolution bump for seconds? The current DS has two screens running at a mediocre 256 x 192 pixels. The PSP's single widescreen runs 480 x 272 pixels at up to 16.7 million colors. Wouldn't it be something if Nintendo released a "DS Advance" with two PSP-like screens and the processing oomph to deliver a game as complex as The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess in your pocket?

  • Posted Apr 15, 2008 10:09 am PT
  • Category: Technology
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• 15Apr 08

  Updated Web Browsers: Which One Works Best?

  Apple's Safari, Mozilla's Firefox 3, and Microsoft's Internet Explorer 8 duke it out to be the program you use most on your PC.

  Back when the earliest programs for viewing Web content simply browsed flat pages of images and text, the name browser truly fit the software.

  But yesterday's amateur pages have evolved into dynamic, content-rich portals and powerful online programs. For many online habitués, the do-it-all browser has become a PC's single most important program.

  Recognizing that fact, Apple's Safari, Microsoft's Internet Explorer, and Mozilla's Firefox are battling to win the nod as your browser of choice. So which one should you use--Safari 3.1, Firefox 3, or Internet Explorer 8?

  Apple's latest offering, Safari 3.1, preserves the company's signature focus on clean design and smooth usability, but it lacks any phishing or malware filters.

  For its part, Mozilla should have applied the finishing touches to Firefox 3 by the time you read this (I tested the feature-complete beta 5 release). From under-the-hood memory improvements to a major reworking for bookmarks, version 3 represents a big step forward.

  Whereas the new Firefox and Safari browsers are ready to roll, Microsoft's early beta of Internet Explorer 8 remains a work in progress. Bugs and rough edges are to be expected in a first beta intended for developers and testers. But IE 8 beta 1 provides a glimpse of new features such as WebSlices (which let sites create widgety snippets of information that you can view by clicking a bookmark button) and Activities (which add right-click menu options for looking up selected text and pages on map, translation and other sites) that will distinguish the browser Microsoft eventually releases.

  Firefox, IE, and Safari are the three most popular browsers, according to Internet usage statistics, but they aren't the only ones available. So I also took a separate look at two worthwhile, free programs--Flock and Opera.

  • Posted Apr 15, 2008 10:07 am PT
  • Category: Technology
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• 15Apr 08

  AOL Buys Search Company

  AOL acquired contextual search company Sphere, the ISP (Internet service provider) and portal company said Tuesday.

  The search technology of San Francisco-based Sphere allows publishers to aggregate content based on related subjects, such as video, audio and blog posts, in order to increase advertising exposure by driving page views.

  AOL did not release financial terms of the deal, nor did it say when it expected the deal to close.

  The Time Warner company is currently looking for an identity and new revenue streams as it disposes of its Internet access business. In March, it bought U.K.-based social networking site Bebo for US$850 million. Last week, it was linked to a possible deal with Yahoo as a way for that company to give shareholders options other than be acquired by Microsoft.

  • Posted Apr 15, 2008 10:00 am PT
  • Category: Technology
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