Xiph.org Explains Digital Media

Ever wonder how a song gets from the guitar to an MP3, or video gets from the camera to your screen? Sure, everyone knows that an MP3 takes up less space than a WAV file because of “compression,” but do you know exactly what compression is?

Xiph.org, which is responsible for all the Ogg media projects (including Vorbis, and Theora), has put together a video which explains just about everything you want to know about digital video and audio, including what “frame rate” is, what a “gamma curve” is, why CRT sets use RGB, and explains everything from the invention of the telegraph to the latest in video computer files.

It’s a very informative watch, and it would have saved me a lot of headaches back when I had to explain concepts such as “interlacing” to coworkers.

It also uses HTML5 and the <video> tag to display the video, but they also provide a downloadable format in WebM and Ogg Theora.


16-bit ALU in Minecraft

On one hand, this guy has produced a VERY impressive working 16-bit arithmetic logic unit (which performs arithmetic and logical operations in your CPU).

On the other hand, there’s something just fundamentally wrong in running an ALU on a CPU to power an operating system to render a 3D environment for a video game where you implement an ALU. (And by “wrong,” we mean “awesome.”)

Poop Powered Lamp

At a dogpark in Cambridge, Massachusettes, Matthew Mazzota installed a gaslamp powered by methane generated from dog poop.

Burning the methane, which is 30 times more potent as a greenhouse gas than carbon dioxide, helps the environment, he said. And with dogs dropping tons of poop in cities everywhere, he thinks the idea of using its untapped power has broad appeal.

Broad appeal… FOR ME TO POOP ON!

A Personality Test for Gamers

Okay, we’ve all seen those personality tests which supposedly measure what type of person you are, the most common one being the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator, which was based on the theories of Carl Jung, and the least common one being “What type of hat are you?”

BrainHex logoThis personality test, created by International Hobo, is designed to see what type of gamer you are – that is, what type of challenges that you look for when you play video games, and therefore what types of games make you happy.

One of the things that I noticed was that while my old roommate and I were both avid gamers, we only rarely enjoyed the same games. I liked Half Life 2 but not Halo; he liked Shadow Complex but not Splosion Man, I liked Oblivion but not Fable, and he did vice versa. And he really didn’t understand why I’d play through Arkham Asylum on “Easy” then go on to play an impossibly hard retro game like MegaMan 9.

We were just different types of gamers – he would probably be more of an “Achiever” type, while I usually end up on the Socialiser side of the scale.

Anyway, this type of classification is useful in finding out what games will engage you, specifically, rather than just be generally “good.”

Nintendo Announces Release Date for 3DS

Nintendo’s 3DS is coming! Just in time for the holiday season—oh, wait. No. Scratch that. Just in time for right after the holidays, sometime in February. If you’re in Japan. For the rest of us we get to wait until March, during that rich retail period around St. Patrick’s Day.

So clearly I have some issues with the proliferation of 3-D gimmicks running amok in gaming, film, and TV as of late. I won’t dispute that I’m a little, shall we say, opinionated on the subject (not to mention 3D stuff gives me quite the headache). So here, yet again, we see a company putting a whole bunch of eggs in one basket (perhaps Yoshi eggs) in the hopes that 3-D is really going to make a difference.

Why do I think that? Sure, the 3DS was announced at E3, and lots of people are excited. But here’s the thing: I think Nintendo really missed the mark on this one. And it looks like they know it. For instance, according to the New York Times, they have cut their full-year income estimate more than by half—from 200 billion yen down to 90 billion yen. The Times reports: “It mainly cited the strong value of the yen against other currencies, which erodes its overseas earnings.” Still, that’s a huge change in forecast this late in the season, and is likely related to the fact the 3DS really isn’t going to be making any waves until next year. Providing they stay on schedule.

In the realm of hand-held devices—now facing some sincere competition by iPhones, iPods, and Android phones—the old DS, which is six years old (practically a dinosaur in this market), may be losing its hold on the market. While technically the DS has outsold even the iPhone, forecasts aren’t looking so hot. Says the Times:

In the six years since the DS hand-held machine was introduced, Nintendo has sold 132 million units, more than twice the number of Sony PlayStation Portables sold over a comparable period… In comparison, Apple said in July that cumulative sales of iPhones, iPads and iPod Touches had reached 100 million; the earliest of those, the iPhone, was introduced in 2007.

Okay, so we get that the DS needs a makeover. And I’m sure Nintendo is well aware of this. I really want Nintendo to blow this out of the water, really I do. I was raised a Nintendo fangirl. But is 3-D really the way to go? The details show a mix of good and bad. For instance, the 3DS doesn’t require 3-D glasses. It’s got two screens, the top being reserved for 3D images and the bottom being a stylus touch we’re familiar with. However, as the picture demonstrates, it really doesn’t look all that different from previous incarnations at all. For a six-year evolution it’s pretty tame and kind of clunky looking.

And that’s not the mention the pricetag: a hefty $300 with current rates. Coupled with a post-holiday release, well, let’s just hope the payoff isn’t in another castle.

[Image: Nintendo]

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