Technology News

Therese Poletti’s Tech Tales: Teens just aren’t that into Twitter

American teenagers and young adults — a group known to market researchers as “the Millennials” — just aren’t that into Twitter, writes Therese Poletti.

Therese Poletti’s Tech Tales: Teens just aren’t that into Twitter

American teenagers and young adults — a group known to market researchers as “the Millennials” — just aren’t that into Twitter, writes Therese Poletti.

Welcome the Chinese New Year with Kai-Lan on the DS

Next Sunday is a holiday of wonder and celebration. No, not Valentine’s Day! It’s the first day of the Chinese New Year. (2010: Year of the Tiger!) Perhaps the most important holiday in Chinese culture, the New Year is an opportunity to celebrate, exchange gifts, and reconnect with family and friends.

The makers of Ni Hao, Kai-Lan have made a charming Nintendo DS game, Ni Hao, Kai-Lan: New Year’s Celebration that will introduce fans of the show to some of the traditions associated with the Chinese New Year. The game is organized around the activities of a single day: waking up friends, going shopping for New Year’s clothes, cooking special food, playing music, making lanterns and a dragon mask, eating, being in a parade, and watching fireworks.

As in the tv show, Kai-Lan exhorts the player to join in the preparations for the holiday. Each of these activities is cleverly turned into a matching game, whether of shapes or colors or pictures. For example, here’s a screenshot (from the game’s website) of one of the cooking activities:

Most of Kai-Lan’s friends are along for the celebration. There is a moment of anxiety, when they’re concerned that they are too young to participate in the parade, but–at the risk of giving away a spoiler–everything works out. At the end of the game, players should be familiar with many of the different activities associated with the New Year.

The game uses most of the DS’s controls: at various points you tap and draw on the screen, and talk and blow into the microphone.

It is worth noting that game is pitched at *quite* young children: Preschoolers are the sweet spot. 5-year-olds might enjoy the game a few times, especially if they watch the show, but it’s definitely too simple for 6-year-olds.

Wired: Familiar characters and voices from the popular show; well-conceived story; dead-simple gameplay for young children or novice gameplayers.

Tired: Surprisingly little actual information about the traditions, or even related language, is conveyed in the game. (The Amazon listing for the game claims you can learn Mandarin from it, which would take a miracle.)

Other Ni Hao, Kai-Lan posts at GeekDad, all by Jonathan Liu:

• “Learning Chinese with Ni Hao, Kai-Lan“
• “Ni Hao, Jade-Lianna: GeekDad Interviews the Voice of Kai-Lan“
• “Have a Super Game Day with Kai-Lan for the Wii“

Nook In Physical Stores By Valentine’s Day

After rushing an unfinished v1.0 product onto the market to cash-in on the holiday shopping season, and then failing to meet the demand of of online orders, Barnes & Noble has finally caught up enough to offer the Nook e-book reader in its physical stores.

The cynical cash-in this time is Valentine’s Day, and Nooks will be in stores by mid-week this week so you can show your love in the traditional American manner: spending money. To help you in this romantic endeavor, B&N will tomorrow switch on an online store locator to let you check stocks in your local store.

Also getting properly underway is the B&N in-store Wi-Fi, free for use with the Nook. You can grab free content when in store and even flash your Nook at the counter staff to get a 10% discount on CD purchases. This last assumes that e-book users still buy silver disks with music on them.

And what will I be buying the Lady for Valentine’s Day? Nothing. I’m saving up for an iPad. If she’s lucky, I might let her touch it.

Nook eBook Readers in Stock This Week in Barnes & Noble Stores Just in Time for Valentine’s Day [B&N]

See Also:

• Barnes & Noble Improves Nook With Firmware Update
• Nook Will Be Sold (Almost) Only Online
• Barnes & Noble Unveils Kindle-Killing, Dual-Screen 'Nook' E-Reader …

Five Great Geeky Chick Flicks for Valentine’s Day

Image: www.thetimetravelerswifemovie.com

In a year when the top chick flicks involve vampires, it’s hard to say what makes a geeky chick flicks stand out from the rest of the genre. But it’s safe to say geek women are drawn to films with intelligent dialogue, an interesting premise, a strong female lead and a leading man who’s quirky but charming. (Good-looking doesn’t hurt either.)

Here are five of my personal geeky romantic favorites, in five different categories: separated by time; separated by death; shades of the supernatural; fun and silly adventures; and alternate realities. All are out on DVD, so you can pick out one or two of your favorites, open up the chocolates and snuggle up in front of the home screen with your favorite geek:

1. The Time Travelers Wife
Sure it’s got time travel paradoxes galore. (Would the main characters have become a couple if the time traveler hadn’t begun wooing his future wife when she was just a little girl and he was a mature man who had already known her for years?) But the movie won my heart by incorporating many of the novel’s best little throwaway lines into the script. (I especially love the scene where Eric Bana cracks wise while bursting out, Hulk-like, from some way-too-small effeminate clothes he’s pinched to cover his time-traveling nakedness.) Still, it’s the chemistry between Bana and Rachel McAdams that makes this a love story of the first order. (For what it’s worth, my husband even concedes this is one chick flick he found interesting enough to stay awake through.)

2. Truly Madly Deeply
Ghost with Demi Moore and Patrick Swayze may have been there first, but this is the dead-husband-comes-back movie for the geek crowd. First off, you’ve got Alan Rickman as the dead husband, Jamie. Severus Snape he’s not, but Jamie is still a whiner lacking in social skills. Even in death he’s too self-absorbed to ask his widow Nina (Juliet Stevenson) before inviting all his dead friends over to hang out. Sound familiar, ladies?

Gerard Butler (with his shirt on) and Emmy Rossum in The Phantom of the Opera

3. Phantom of the Opera
You pick your ghoul, I’ll pick mine. I’m actually not a big fan of Gerard Butler, who plays the Phantom, and Emmy Rossum as the ingénue with the big voice may be a little too readily led astray by her guardian, the diabolical Miranda Richardson. But the kids and I enjoyed reading the novel so much that I was willing to give it a try. First I was grabbed by Andrew Lloyd Webber’s music, and then by the setting – the Paris Opera, with more dark nooks and crannies than you can shake a stick at. And who wouldn’t want a candelabra-lit lake passageway in their basement?

4. Pirates of the Caribbean
When this one came out I was more than happy to take the kids to the theater. Johnny Depp is sexy even at his most ridiculous; even Geoffrey Rush had a certainly Captain Hook-like appeal (nothing against Orlando Bloom, either). Why is this film geeky? Well, I have a theory that what made this movie work was the Keira Knightley character. It’s her dream to be a pirate, and the story is told from her point of view. Without Elizabeth, it’s just a story of a bunch of smelly drunk guys and some skeletons.

5. Minority Report
I love Minority Report. It’s got that whole Tom Cruise/Steven Spielberg/Philip K. Dick thing going for it, to the nth degree. Talk about scifi world-building – Spielberg made this movie extra creepy by using futuristic technology that was actually not that far away. (How long before the signs in The Gap start talking to you through your iPhone?) Maybe it’s not really a love story, but it is about a man and his family. And to us GeekMoms, that’s as sexy as it gets.

Perform Engineering Calculations in the Palm of Your Hand

Image: MultiEducator, Inc.

Are you an engineer who wishes they had access to some work-related calculations out in the field? A series of handy new apps may offer what you need. The Formulator Series by MultiEducator, Inc. is a series of iPhone/iPod Touch apps designed and packaged for a variety of engineering and other professionals. Depending on the application you choose, there are many formulas, calculations, regulatory codes and industrial code requirements included.

I volunteered to review a free copy of the Civil Engineer app, since my husband has been a registered professional civil engineer for 8 1/2 years. I knew he could give me some great expert input. I looked around the app first, and noticed many things I learned in high school math classes, but most of the rest was industry specific calculations with which I had no experience.

The main calculation categories for the Civil Engineer app are area formulas, beam, bridge, column, conversion, elevator, piles, piping, plates, roads, shear, soil, structural steel and wood. These are listed in the Contents, accessible at the bottom of the screen. Then each of those categories is broken down further, listing many different subcategories. Other options at the bottom of the screen include Recents (for recent calculations), Favorites (which you can set), Saved (where you can access specific number calculations you have saved in the past) and Search (very useful, since there are so many calculations included in the program). In Search, when you start typing in your search term, it immediately starts listing possible calculations to use.

Once you find the calculation you need, input the numbers for the asked-for variables, and it gives you the result with units. Once you have a result, you can see the definition of the formula, add it to favorites, save the calculation or email the entire result.

Image: MultiEducator, Inc.

Both my husband and I found some mistakes in the program. Perusing the area formulas, I noticed that some of the shapes were listed in the singular, and some in the plural. In another area, they talk about Hazen-Williams friction head loss, but they list it as Hazen William friction head loss. They definitely need a proofreader who is an actual engineer to go back through their program. There are so many special terms specific to the industry that a specialist is needed for this task.

The program doesn’t always use standard industry terminology, spelling things out like “cubic feet per second” instead of just saying CFS. This takes up a lot more room on an already very crowded screen. The program also sometimes uses terms like “cubic feet a second” which isn’t the way most people say it. Also, the program says “circular curve” instead of “horizontal curve” and “parabolic curve” instead of “vertical curve.” Some of the options could be a lot more clear. It talks about the area of a pyramid or area of a sphere when they really mean surface area.

There are some sections with plenty of useful formulas, such as the beam section, and some with very few, such as for roads, bridges, soils, drainage and simple things like grade and distance. For horizontal curves and vertical curves, for example, it has about 1/3 of what it needs. My husband said that it looks like it is designed for structural engineers, based on what is included. The app doesn’t have a unit conversion from square feet to acres, which is the single most common conversion that my husband uses. So you’d have to do multiple calculations to make it all work, since there is no apparent way to send the result of one calculation to an input field of another. Also, there are missing conversions: they have a conversion for gallons to cubic feet, but not cubic feet to gallons.

Image: MultiEducator, Inc.

The Civil Engineering app is by no means comprehensive, but it is a handy app that could save some time out in the field. You would have more than a calculator at hand, so you’d be able to do much more complicated calculations. To improve the program, my husband’s suggestion is to get the formulas in the book that is given out at the FE (Fundamentals of Engineering) exam (formerly the EIT), and that would be a good start for the formula list.

I asked him if it was a program he would use. His answer, “Probably, but not frequently. Most of the equations I use regularly I know off the top of my head.” He thought it would be helpful for a brand new engineer, or perhaps one in school. Would he pay .99 for it? “Yes.”

My husband thought that the big problem with this app is that it is a function solver, not an equation solver. A function will say, “Give me a couple of inputs and I will solve for one particular answer.” An equation allows you to input all but one of the variables and it will solve for the one you’re missing. This is a big difference. Because of what options are available in this app, you often triple your work to get the information you need. If it was an equation solver, you could just plug in what you have and get what you need.

The Formulator Series includes apps for architects, building engineers, builders, carpenters, civil engineers, electricians, environmental engineers, finance and business people, HVAC professionals, hydraulic engineers, mechanical engineers, plumbers and real estate investors. I can only assume that these other apps have similar strengths and weaknesses.

Individual apps are available for .99 to .99. They have about 100 of what they consider the most commonly used formulas. The professional packages are available for .99 to .99. These are bundled with the full regulations and also have the formulas from the individual apps.

Wired: It gives a lot of calculations that you might need quickly. Might be great for new engineers or engineering students. Good price.

Tired: It is by no means comprehensive. There are large gaps in what it covers. It seems to need some proofreading and more explanation.

Bottom line: A good start to a program that with a number of updates and enhancements could be a great program.

RPG Battle Maps Square Off: Battle Graph Dry Erase Boards

Battle Graph boards in use. Photo: Michael Harrison

Running battles in combat-centric role-playing games can be as painful as stepping on a caltrop. You’re either depending on the Gamemaster to keep the entire scene in his or her head, or you’re constantly drawing and erasing the map on a ratty piece of graph paper. I’ve seen groups use Lego minifigs, chess pieces and even jelly beans. While the DIY crowd can certainly save a buck or two and keep using confections, many gamers are seeking out more polished solutions. There are a host of battle map options, ranging in price from a few to a few hundred bucks. Over the next few weeks, I’ll look at the ways that tabletop RPGers have taken the battle map to the next level.

First up, Battle Graph Dry Erase Boards. These are the spiritual successor to a product no longer in production, called Tact-Tiles, which were solid plastic boards with a dry-erase coating on one side. Best of all, Tact-Tiles were modular and locked together to form a massive surface that could be used for large scale battles or dungeon crawls. Unfortunately, the company that made Tact-Tiles, BC Products, went out of business. Now you’re lucky if you can find Tact-Tiles on eBay, and when you do, be prepared to shell out upwards of 0 for a set.

Brian Davison, owner of Longtooth Games, saw the need for a replacement. Last spring, he released Battle Graph Dry Erase Boards to the gaming community, and there was much rejoicing. Unfortunately, before posting this review, I found out that Battle Graphs are no longer being manufactured. I wanted to get the word out on them, anyway, because they are a good product and there might be a way you can save them! Hit the jump to find out more.

Before their halt in production, Battle Graphs came four tiles to a set. Unlike the solid plastic Tact-Tiles, Battle Graphs are made of a particle board material. One side is coated with a white dry erase surface. Each tile is 10″x10″ and is gridded with 10×10 squares. The grids are actually scored into the surface, which makes for a built-in ruler when drawing dungeon walls. Just be careful not to get any moisture on the scores, because it can seep under the dry erase surface and cause some nasty damage.

Because of the way the four tiles interlock, you’ll end up with a total of 19×20 squares per four tile set. The interlocking tabs and blanks will provide slightly more or less room, depending on their location.

We put Battle Graphs to the test during my weekly Dungeons & Dragons game. Typically we use a combination of D&D Dungeon Tiles, Paizo Flip-Mats, and dry erase battle mats. The modular nature of the Battle Graphs was helpful in maintaining a “fog of war” style reveal in the dungeon crawl. We did notice that some of the tiles didn’t lock together very tightly and the gap between them was larger than it needed to be, but it did mean that miniatures didn’t go flying whenever we had to shift the tiles around.

My group likes pretty pictures on our battlefield. Unless your GM is a better artist than I am–and excels in the medium of dry erase–you’re not likely to win any awards for realism. A blank battle mat does give the GM more control over the encounter, which can certainly make up for poor visual verisimilitude. Even if you do have to keep reminding the players that the oddly shaped blob is a bridge, not a gelatinous cube.

The tiles are durable and portable, which means you won’t feel guilty chucking them in your backpack on your way to your FLGS. In a half year of use and cleaning only with paper towels or dry erasers, the Battle Graph boards have no ghosting whatsoever. The white dry erase surface is high quality but the other side is unprotected. As in, not waterproof. And Mountain Dew is made of mostly water. So if someone spills their drink, the Battle Graph boards are just as vulnerable as your Player’s Handbook.

Unfortunately, Brian Davison has hit some issues with the production of the Battle Graphs. As stated on the website:

“We are currently unable to continue the manufacture of our Battlegraph Dry Erase Boards. We are continuing our efforts to find financial support to get things up and running. If you are an interested investor, I would love to talk with you.”

So if you’re interested in investing in a really cool game product, head on over to battlegraph.com and touch base with Brian. And for anyone else who wants to add a versatile piece of battle map technology to their game room, Battle Graph Dry Erase Boards gets the GeekDad Seal of Approval. Hit up eBay or wait ’til Longtooth gets back into action. If you get the chance to buy, I’d recommend picking up two sets, just so you can build a mega dungeon on the fly and utterly destroy amaze your players.

Wired: Great price tag (when they were for sale). Modular, durable dry erase surface lets you create awesome “fog-of-war” encounters for various tactical RPGs. Scored grids make for easy and accurate line drawing.

Tired: Out-of-production. Unprotected bottom surface and scores are not Mtn Dew friendly. Blank white slate can be bad for art-challenged GMs.

(Full Disclosure: I received a free set of Battle Graph Dry Erase Boards.)

ZoomIt: An SD Card-Reader for iPhone

ZoomIt does for the iPhone what Apple’s new camera connection kit will do for the iPad: It is a SD card reader which plugs into the dock connector and lets you transfer not just photos but all kinds of other media.

The ZoomIt dongle pairs with a free iPhone application to do its magic. Slot in the card, fire up the app and you’ll have access to documents, music and video along with the photos from your camera. These files can all be moved to a local storage area on the iPhone, but only the photos can be moved to and from the iPhone’s own photo albums.

The reader and the functionality are both sound, and isn’t far off what you’d pay for a pro card reader anyway. But the software is ugly as hell: You know the bundled crap you often get with a printer or scanner, something that seems to have been thrown together in an afternoon with ugly icons and weird, useless extra features? This is it. It even has a battery status indicator on screen — right below the iPhone’s own battery icon. Weird, right?

Still, if you shoot jpegs (the iPhone won’t show RAW images) then this could be a great way to back up images in the field and to view them in the iPhone’s great slideshow mode. Just squint, or look away, when you are using the app itself, lest you hurt your eyes.

Zoomit SD card reader [Zoomit]

After delays, Intel rolls out Tukwila chip

The new Itanium 9300 processor originally was slated to be released early in 2009 but that timetable slipped twice last year.

Foursquare goes Foodie with Zagat deal

Mobile location game Foursquare seems to be stepping into the spotlight after inking deals with Bravo TV and now restaurant rating experts Zagat. And soon, when you check in at certain Zagat-rated restaurants in major cities, you can get your Foodie badge on Foursquare.
Foursquare is a game that allows you to check in at [...]

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