Nokia will be going all out to advertise its music store, including posting a 29 minute long video on video sharing sites such as YouTube, hoping that this worldwide marketing blitz will result in higher sales of N Series devices. Unfortunately, the results of such a move could prove negative as it is a well known fact that music doesn’t sell devices - it would be how useful or desirable an object would be that actually causes consumers to part with their money. Well, all the best to Nokia as they attempt to coerce folks into picking up their shiny new expensive handsets. Most folks will still prefer to listen to their MP3s on an iPod - that’s a given.

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Filed under: Videos and Screenshots, e-Distribution Games

Hidden away in a list of upcoming PSN releases at Tokyo Game Show was PixelJunk Monsters. There isn’t much known about the title, but if it’s anything like the newly-released PixelJunk Racers, it should bring back new retro 2D gameplay to PS3 audiences everywhere. We have to wonder if you play as the monster, or are are trying to defend yourself from the monster in these new pics — let the speculation begin.

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Filed under: Action & Adventure, Drama, Deals, Scripts & Screenwriting

Having just ‘wrapped up’ Pirates of the Caribbean (Is it really the end, or will we be inundated with extra sequels?), Jerry Bruckheimer has lined up his next action flick. This time, it’s free of the roaring “Yarr!” of swashbucklers, and instead, will deal with a sea of bullets. Variety has reported that Walt Disney Co. has picked up Jonathan Hensleigh’s action pitch, Nine Lives, for him to pen and Bruckheimer to produce. Hensleigh has a few directorial stints under his belt, including The Punisher, but he is most known for his screenwriting — he’s the pen behind Die Hard: With a Vengeance and Jumanji.

That’s not all. Hensleigh has a long history with Bruckheimer — he was an executive producer on Con Air, Armageddon, and Gone in Sixty Seconds, he wrote Armageddon along with J. J. Abrams, and he also rewrote the script for The Rock, although he was never officially credited. Considering the success of these films, I’d be very surprised if this drama, about a Manhattan detective called ‘Nine Lives’ who survives a slew of shootings while on duty, doesn’t pack a punch at the box office and rake in the cash. He had originally sold the project to Disney years ago, when he was interviewing for a writing job with The Young Indiana Jones Chronicles, but this deal, at $1.75 million, is just a bit sweeter. I wonder if other writers out there will start dusting off their old, forgotten scripts?

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Filed under: Cellphones

Merely three days after hearing of one user’s run-in with Apple over his unlocked iPhone, the company has released an official statement warning users that “unauthorized iPhone unlocking programs” could cause “irreparable damage to the iPhone’s software.” Furthermore, the firm stated that these apps could result in the handset becoming “permanently inoperable when a future Apple-supplied iPhone software update is installed” — you know, like the one coming “later this week” that includes the iTunes WiFi Music Store. As if that wasn’t bad enough, the release also notes that “unauthorized modifications to the iPhone’s software” violates the iPhone software license agreement and “voids the warranty.” Ouch.

[Via MacNN]

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Office Depot Featured Gadget: Xbox 360 Platinum System Packs the power to bring games to life!

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Filed under: Computers

Nine months after the much delayed, and much ballyhooed launch of Windows Vista, things are not looking good for Microsoft’s new operating system. Since its release, users have lodged a litany of complaints against Bill Gates’s new baby, including poor device and application compatibility, high hardware requirements, and frequent crashes.

In order to sell new computers, which more often than not come with Vista pre-installed, PC manufacturers and retailers are now offering to downgrade customers back to Windows XP. The U.K. electronics retailer Dabs.com now offers to install XP onto new Sony VAIO computers instead of Vista, with the option to switch back to Vista in the future. As we reported last April, Dell has also begun offering XP as an option over Vista, and even Microsoft itself recently made it easier for partner PC-makers to roll machines back to Windows XP.

But, there’s more bad news for the ailing operating system. DSG Internation, the company behind several large consumer electronics outlets in Europe (Dixon’s, Curry’s, and PC World among others) has been forced to severely discount Vista machines after lackluster sales. To add insult to injury, many mainstream manufacturers are now offering or preparing to offer the Linux operating system as an alternative to any flavor of Windows.

Microsoft’s Service Pack 1 for Vista is now available in limited beta tests. This first system update is critical for Vista since, traditionally, most businesses wait for the the release of the first service pack before migrating to a new version of Windows. If user complaints are not addressed in this update, many consumers may choose to skip Vista altogether. Considering the fact that Microsoft just ended support for Windows 98 last May, it’s possible people will remain with XP until something better comes along.

From Slashdot

Related Links:

• Help For Moving Into a New Vista PC
• Dell Selling Linux Based Computers
• Vista Sells 40 Million Copies
• Dell Goes Back to Windows XP

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Akshay Kumar is excited about his role in Bhool Bhulaiyya. The movie has a very different plot. It is based on the superstitions and beliefs that are held widely in India and across the globe. The other stars in the movie are Vidya Balan, Shiney Ahuja and Rajpal Yadav.

Bhool Bhulaiyya is a Psychological thriller set […]

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Oz-IA ran over the weekend in Sydney and it was a fantastic event.

There were some really interesting presentations, and while I didn’t get to all of them, without doubt the most interesting for me was User Research in Virtual Worlds, a presentation I highlighted earlier as being one I wanted to see.

Gary Bunker and Gabriele Hermansson, both from Hyro, spoke for close to an hour about their experiences in setting up and running an experimental focus group within Second Life.

Now that virtual worlds (such as SecondLife and World of Warcraft) are becoming vastly more popular, Hyro set out to build a research platform that would allow us to research users within those worlds, not only for their experiences there but also for their needs outside of it. We wanted to know if we could use virtual research – focus groups, interviews and user testing – in a practical way in design projects requiring complex user input. We also wanted to understand how user behavior would change between real-world and virtual forums.

Going into the presentation I was somewhat skeptical about how they might have conducted the evaluation, but by the end of the session I was really very engaged and intrigued.

The Focus group in Second Life was conducted as a trial to test its feasibility for future use, and as such a second focus group was conducted in parallel, in the physical world. This allowed them to benchmark the findings gathered in Second Life against those that were recorded during the traditional focus group session.

The Session in Second Life was run similarly to how we would conduct a focus group ‘in real life’. Participants were recruited (as they teleported in), screened and scheduled for the session just as we normally would.

During the session, participants signed a code of conduct and consent forms, and received instructions on how the session would be run. ‘Virtual Participants’ were recruited from both Australia and the UK, with the focus group being recorded with a media camera and chat logger.

Things that worked

• There was a high level of feedback
• Participants were comfortable
• There was a good level of interaction with the participants
• The focus group had an international reach, which was a requirement of the testing
• Findings of the online session matched those recorded in the offline session

Things that didn’t work so well

• Online sessions took about one and a half times as long (i.e. 1.5 hrs online and 1hr offline)
• There were multiple conversation threads running at the same time, which were difficult to track
• The response time of some participants was slow
• It was confusing if participants weren’t identified directly by name during discussion, as it was at times difficult to indicate who the focus group facilitator was addressing

Lessons Learned

• Fewer participants (maximum 4) would be easier to manage
• There was a need for more facilitators than usual (minimum two)
• More time was required than usual
• Using coloured text instead of everyone having the same colour would be useful, particularly between facilitators and participants
• Payment to participants must be immediate in the virtual world or people get nervous
• It’s essential (as in the real world) that the screener isn’t leading, as it’s impossible to know what the participants are really like
• Get the right people – open, talkative, respectful and interested
• Facilitators must be able to type quickly, multitask and know the platform
• Give a focused response – use the participants name when addressing them
• Summarise the participants feedback so that they know you have heard and understood them (eye contact isn’t possible online)
• Be clear that you’ve finished talking about a particular topic and that you’re moving on to the next one.

From my perspective, the biggest barrier to entry would be setting up the virtual space and building the focus group facilities online. As an independent consultant, that’s a massive effort that I’m unlikely to invest in. Even for smaller companies it’s a huge amount of work.

But it is interesting… *very interesting*.

It’s an example of how technology is allowing us to change the way we work. No doubt there are a lot of questions about the validity of the participants recruited for the Second Life Focus Group. But I’m a firm believer that most of what happens online can happen offline and vice versa. I’ve interviewed a few doubtful characters myself over the last few years, despite rigorous screeners. So Hyro’s report that results from the virtual focus group were very similar to that of the real life focus group is a good sign and perhaps not too much of a surprise after all.

This article provided by sitepoint.com.

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Filed under: Magazines, How To

We all know we’re supposed to wash our fruits and vegetables before we cook or eat them, but how do you know how much washing is enough? And should you use soap or is water plenty? The editors over at Cook’s Illustrated recently took on this question, washing apples and pears with four different methods. They discovered that using a scrub brush with water was fairly effective, removing 85% of bacteria, but that using a solution of one part vinegar to three parts water was the best. That method removed 98% of the bacteria.

A good way of keeping that vinegar around is to fill a spray bottle with the stuff and leave it by the sink. Simply spritz the item that needs to be cleaned with a little bit of the solution and rinse off with cold water. Ninety-eight percent clean fruits and veggies will result!

Via NPR
(Thanks for the tip, Megan!)

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Created by Angela Chang, Zstretch is a fabric device that can capture the richness of active touch interactions for controlling music interactions. Much of the prior work on integrating electronics with textiles focused on rigid, exact places for touching the fabric, rather than supporting the many actions our hands and bodies can create. The project explores how to support the large range of forces that people apply when interacting with fabric.

Paper for Nime 2007

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