CKOHLER

Treating myself to some Italian this fine Friday evening. I’m looking forward to a nice, relaxing weekend of video games, movies and being generally lazy.

Apple’s World Wide Developer’s Conference Keynote was held yesterday and as usual, I eagerly followed along in real time. iPhone Alley offered a real time audio stream from a laptop in the audience. Even though the quality was terribly piss poor, it was still better than simply reading a slew of blog posts. However, I still followed along on MacRumors.com and at NeoGAF to see photos and humorous commentary as they came in.

Note to Apple: Just stream your damn keynote live next time… even if it’s just audio. If you don’t, someone else is going to attempt it so it might as well just be you. That way, you can at least exert some control over the quality of the broadcast.

This year’s keynote focused solely on the iPhone and its supporting services. After the keynote there was a shorter session, not publicly available, detailing Apple’s next version of the Mac OS X operating system dubbed Snow Leopard. Read on for my thoughts of the topics covered in the first keynote.

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Being almost ten years old, my old car was on its way out. So, I decided this week that it was time for a new car to last me anther decade and hopefully beyond. I’d actually been researching cars for over a month and the Honda Civic was clearly the best value in its class. It didn’t hurt either that it comes in a sleek, futuristic styling.

Check out my Flickr album for more high resolution photos including some of the high-tech interior.

Here’s a idea I’ve been kicking around that maybe an iPhone developer out there might find useful. I was thinking about how racing games might be controlled on the iPhone and the most obvious answer is that you would tilt the iPhone from side to side like a steering wheel. However, when you do this it makes the game a little awkward to play because the screen and visual would tilt as well.

So, I got the idea that whenever the accelerometer detected horizontal tilting of the device, it would then rotate the visuals in the opposite direction to keep the game’s horizon line level with the player’s. This would make the iPhone feel more like a real steering wheel since the iPhone would appear to the player to turn independently of the game visuals. I’ve created the following video to demonstrate this concept.

• View on Vimeo
• View YouTube

My tax refund was starting to burn a small hole in my pocket so I picked up a Nintendo DS Lite yesterday. I had owned an original DS for a few years but I eventually donated it to my nephew. I’ve wanted a DS Lite ever since then but never enough to actually go out and buy one. Now they sell a slick looking red model called the “Crimson Black” which is the one I ended up buying. It’s very stylish. At first, I thought it was almost too small and I had some trouble holding it comfortably. Once I adjusted to it, I found I actually prefer it. The screen is simply incredible. I knew it would be brighter than the original DS but until you actually see it, you don’t realize just how much. I’ve started compiling a list of DS games I’ve missed out on over the past few years that I’m eagerly wanting to try. I may look into a GameFly account as there isn’t a better way to rent DS games around here that I know of.

Speaking of DS games, the other thing that convinced me to pick up the system was Seth sending me SMS messages about how fun the new Pokemon Diamond and Pearl is. At first, I figured he just wanted someone to trade pokemon with. However, after I got the game I have to admit it is rather addictive. I had tried playing the Gameboy Advance version of Pokemon once but I never could get into it. This new Diamond version on the other hand is really pulling me in. Granted, the RPG aspects do feel dated and the game is geared more towards kids than your average game but I can overlook these issues and simply enjoy it for what it is: a fun battle/collection game. It is rare to find an RPG where you actually look forward to random battles. What’s more, this game features a slew of Internet enabled features such as online trading, online battling and more. It even supports voice chat which is very impressive for a handheld gaming system. I’m looking forward to trying these features out.