Whether it's hardware, software, or vaporware, there's no shortage of intense hype for new products and technologies at E3. But beyond the breathless product demonstrations, the reality doesn't always live up to the promise (not that this is all that different from any other part of the tech industry). Even having gotten a close-up, in-person look at some of these big buzz-worthy introductions at E3, it's hard to separate fact from hype, although one thing is obvious: only a handful of these hardware developments are even close to actually being released.
An idealized view of Project Natal
Project Natal, the Xbox 360's motion-sensing camera add-on, certainly has potential, but the promo video for it Microsoft showed off was purely a work of science fiction. In it, a happy family enjoys multimedia content, chats with friends, and plays complex interactive games without a controller, just using their bodies. The actual playable demos were a few generations behind that, more reminiscent of the Sony Eye Toy accessory for the PS2--the main example was a simple game where players bat a ball back at the screen by swatting at the air, with just enough lag to be annoying. We're very excited about the potential of this new motion-sensing, face-and-voice-recognizing, camera add-on, but for now the gulf between the reality and prerendered video is sizable.
Any joke you've got about Milo the virtual boy--we've heard it 10 times already this week.
A much-hyped software package that uses the Project Natal hardware, Milo was presented as a virtual onscreen boy who could recognize you and carry on an intelligent conversation. The demo video was impressive, but obviously shot in a tightly controlled environment with clearly scripted responses. Talking to several people who got a chance to try out talking to Milo in person behind closed doors, the responses were uniformly disappointed, describing the supposedly realistic Milo similar to a Tamagotchi virtual pet, with only very basic interactivity. Milo was created by Peter Molyneux, a game designer infamous for over-promising and under-delivering, with ambitious but flawed projects such as Fable and Black & White.
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We swear, there's no reading required to expand your musical horizons these days. Well...aside from this article, at least.
(Credit: Donald Bell/CNET Networks)
When you're young, new music is everywhere: radio, Facebook profiles, borrowed iPods, or even burned CDs. It's not hard to find tunes you love. The music appetites of 13- to 21-year-olds are voracious and the consequences of being musically unhip can be punishing.
Then something happens: you get older; work a full-time job; get married; have a mortgage; have children; adopt a particularly demanding parrot; and so on. You wake up one day and realize your taste in music hasn't budged since your early '20s and the prospect of discovering good, new music now seems like an overwhelming chore, fraught with disappointment. I know, I'm living proof.
We're all familiar with the long, depressing list of activities that seemed easy in youth that now take effort. Fortunately, finding good music isn't as tough as working off that middle-age gut. Since its inception, the Internet has helped us--mostly illegally--discover new music. Finally, tools for legal and efficient online music discovery are hitting their stride.
To help you help yourself, we've collected our favorite techniques to help the lazy, hurried, or unhip (or, face it, aging) connect with good, new music.
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(Credit:
ThinkGeek)
So it finally happened. The "Optimus Maximus"--the most-hyped keyboard of all time--is now for sale to the consuming public as promised. To which we have only one response: ThinkGeek?
We don't have anything against the gadget peddler, mind you--it was just a little surprising to see a $1,589.99 product being sold by a retailer that's better known for such products as USB rocket launchers. On its "What's New" page, for instance, the vaunted Maximus is sandwiched between a "Dueling Space Marines Copter Set" and a pair of "Speed Racer Mini R/C Cars."
Not that we have anything against such items, of course. We just thought that Art Lebedev, the uber-keyboard's Russia-based purveyor, might have opted for a higher-end distributor for its crown jewel. Which, by the way, is selling for around $25 more than the oft-quoted price for the version that allows all 113 keys to be programmed separately. Just to show we're paying attention.
(Credit:
Art Lebedev)
We're almost reluctant to post this because it's been promised (and not delivered) for so long. But, with our luck, the Optimus Maximus OLED keyboard will come out on schedule, and we'll be lambasted for not having passed along the news.
"We begin shipping Optimus Maximus keyboards to those who ordered it last year," creator Art Lebedev announced today on its Optimus Project blog. To further show they mean business, according to Gizmodo, the first "Optimus Configurator" software is now available for download, for both the Mac and PC. All hail the most-hyped keyboard in the history of humankind.
Every few years, some new technology or application comes along that everyone's sure will miraculously conquer every obstacle in its path and, in some ludicrously short time period, make existing technology obsolete. And then, long after all the media hype fades away and investors' checkbooks disappear, well, nothing happens.
So what? Who cares? Why bother talking about our industry's bombs, the next big things that weren't? Well, for one thing, it's interesting to note how hungry we all are for news about new technology. It gets us excited. We complain about media hype, but love the hype.
It's also fascinating how existing technology has this way of hanging on by its fingernails way past the point of its predicted obsolescence. More importantly, we learn more from mistakes than we do from successes. That's part of the scientific method: hypothesis, test, learn, repeat until you get it right.
Lastly, those who ignore history are doomed to repeat it. Those are all good enough reasons for me. So here are my top 10 technology flops. But first, some ground rules. I stuck to the last 50 years or so. And I avoided specific company products. We've heard enough about the IBM PCjr, Apple Newton, Microsoft Bob, and OS2 to last 10 lifetimes. ... Read more
(Credit:
Art Lebedev)
We really don't like posting about the "Optimus Maximus" keyboard. There, we said it. Despite our admitted fascination with odd keyboards, the hype over this one got out of hand long ago.
Still, we aim to please here at Crave. So even though we've resisted posting every incremental detail about this Russian-made peripheral, we feel obligated to pass along this report that the Op-Max can be had for much less than the original $1,564 price--$462.27 to be exact, according to Gizmodo.
The difference in functionality is more than cosmetic, however: Instead of 113 programmable keys, this stripped-down version has only one "active button," the space bar. You can apparently get 10 smart keys for more than twice the cost of the bargain model, at $1,000. (We're not sure how that equation works, but we flunked math.) That keyless "OrbiTouch" keyboard is looking better all the time.
With the release of the iPhone, Apple completed what some are calling the most hyped product launch in technology history. Whether or not that's true, there's no doubt that the frenzy has reached epic proportions, with constant articles, photo galleries and commentary in this and countless other publications. But the iPhone is hardly the only tech product to launch with a high hype factor and heavy expectations. Here's a look back at some of the other high-profile launches that got the tech industry talking.
Here, Steve Wozniak, a man who knows something about changing the world, rides the Segway, the product that was supposed to change the world but didn't.
(Credit:
Engadget)
It takes some doing to create a significant buzz among jaded bloggers, but BMW has managed to do just that (and just as it had planned, we assume). The minicontroversy centers on a special Flash page that teases what looks to be some kind of uberdevice that "touts the ability to play MP3s, DVDs and CDs, has USB and Bluetooth connectivity options, can recognize voice commands, and has a 65,000-color LCD to boot," according to Engadget.
The question, of course, is universal: What is it? And BMW has done little to answer it, naturally, thereby heightening the curiosity factor. Autoblog, for one, asked why an automaker would want to get into personal electronics.
It may not be as much of a stretch as it seems. As we all know, co-branding of everything from laptops to cell phones has been common among luxury car companies for some time. The test will be whether BMW is actually designing and manufacturing this device itself--whatever it is.
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