Technical Illusions let the Wookie win with CastAR projecting a new hope for AR and VR HMD fans sick of Oculus Rift "Ad" Nausea

Back in 1977 or even here and now in 2013  the entire might of George Lucas's Industrial Light and Magic could not reproduce the Episode IV holographic Star Wars chess experience for you in your life size Corellian freighter replica/shed  ...

With Technical Illusions' CastAR  head mounted display we may just be on the way to getting our holographic Star Wars Chess set or have the ability to go all Tony Stark with our design projects...with our very own AR Pepper Potts along for ride....hmmh.. and this.....is naturally why I backed them earlier last  week (that was sarcasm Palmer)

Following a well chronicled and daring escape, from The Valve Empire and freed from the chains of GabeN the Hutt (amicably), Jeri Ellsworth and Rick Johnson have been leading their own growing HMD rebellion as Technical Illusions.  One that offers a new hope to AR and VR fans everywhere..not least those currently suffering Rift Nausea type I and II* ..

* Rift Nausea : can now be separated into two distinct types : 
Type I : defn : nausea caused by use or the mere thought or memory of use of an Oculus Rift device and Type II : nausea caused by sufferers of Rift Hype,Tagging,Trolling and having to listen to Hare Riftnas chant "this will be fixed in the consumer version" 

We are around 2 to 3 years into the evolution of the consumer head mounted display. Even with all the hype and usual venture capitalist vultures encircling the ripening field of HMDs, the vast majority of the public that live outside tech and video game shows, remain nonplussed. And most "professional" reviewers have so little time with their review or show units they do not know how to categorize, let alone even set them up optimally..as for what they are for ..it is still a mystery to many..including their developers..John Carmack just discovered the possibilities of Android..for HMDS....fascinating...

So where then does CastAR fit into the evolution of the HMD?

The future of the head mounted display lies in combining both VR and AR .. This requires a radical HMD design and Technical Illusion's CastAR HMD is going to get there sooner than others....

The following highly technical  video (thanks to a friend for the vision) illuminates the road to AR and VR...

Hmmh..it will be interesting to see if Oculus start recruiting Japanese school kids ...for Rift Prototype 3 (of?).. Oi Oculus ..leave them kids alone.. 

In 2013 a fully functional HMD one that does what you want it to..remains more science fiction/fantasy than fact..

CastAR is another Kickstarter promoted product ... but this one  is different ...and so are we...For as you read this, in a post Oculus Rift hype world, people are actually savvy to the limitations of so called VR headsets and also to the whole Kickstarter experience. And so  I took some time to look over this Kickstarter offering..before jumping on the bandwagon..or writing about it..


Virtual Reality ... is a nice idea...but in 2013/14 that is all it is ...to the people that matter.. the end users...and a HMD accessing or software creating  it is as far off now as it ever was ...hyping VR does generate revenue for click hungry media though...like it did back in the early 90s..

But this does not mean we cannot get real about the state of HMDs and what they CAN do as opposed to what they MAY do in the future ... when they discover McDonald's is good for you...around the same time the first joint Chinese/Indian Mars bound astronauts set foot on Martian soil ..taking us along for the ride and having us experience those first steps with them through VR or be there with them through AR...on our sub scleral retinal projecting implants.. or Rift prototype 37 of ?...mustn't be biased to one form of HMD now ..should we ?

We know Zeiss, siliconmicrodisplay and Sony are evolving the HMD in a commercial not prototype space, in Sony's case with more than one HMD. We also await GLASS's mass arrival..And the entrance of Microsoft and the likes of Samsung mayhaps even Apple when Johnny Ives has some spare time with the diamond  chamfering machine  after finishing up on the iPad Air .. 

All these companies offer very different devices, that are intended to compete for a single space ...not your room or under your TV ..but your head ..

Some are VR, some are AR with a bit of VR .. but none are AR and VR 

All are largely singular personal experiences.

There exists then a space for a device that does both AR and VR and is multi user oriented and CastAR ticks all these boxes and comes with a wand...or wands..what happens when we cross the "streams" is going to be one of my first tests....

The combination of AR and VR in one device elevates this device beyond simple man cave trophy or youtube revenue TVRKING object...

So what in my experience of HMDs stands out about CastAR ? 


let's look at CastAR through raw resolution, Display , 3D generation and othe HMD usage lenses ... 

Resolution 
For VR Is 720p enough?For twin display HMDs raw or native resolution is not as relevant as the size of the pixels, a native 800 by 570 resolution Cinemizer OLED hmd can throw up a 3D 1080p scaled image that is more impressive than a native 1080p or 720p HMD ..like the ST1080 or HMZ series.. it does this through among other things a pixel density 7 times that of an Apple retina display.  Very few people are aware of this  because very few people use four different types of HMD regularly...

It does this also through maintaining a 16:9 screen ratio : the golden ratio for all your media to date

The CastAR can use this 16:9 screen ratio with a native or raw 720p 1280 by 720 resolution on each of it's custom pico projectors ...

At 720p native 16:9  we can scale even 1080p res content , games,movies , videos: NO WARPING required = no NAUSEA and no overheads for your GPU..or CPU...


So for VR content we are sorted, as long as the display or the projected display does not suffer from flicker or Rift lag,Rift latency or Rift blur or screen door..which it should not ...from what I can see ..

And as long as the VR clip on does not attempt to warp or magnify the image/field of view to one where these issues start surfacing ..as they have done with rival HMDs.

As for AR and projection , the distance from you and the reflective surface should mean you see none of the screen door or visible pixel nonsense that plagues the Rift .. 

Re the competition by September 2014 there will be native 4K dual screen HMDs , that is true 4K res per eye ..These will cost though and frankly I can't wait to save up ...siliconmicrodisplay had a 4K protoype almost two years ago you would be using  right now if not for the false VR dawn of Riftmania...  

Others will move to 1080p and beyond by that date as well...

Cost

CastAR is going to cost around a third of such devices and less than a Rift at retail , around a fifth of a  Google GLASS . Throw in all the additional add  ons though and it starts to get expensive....


Ergonomics and Weight 

Ergonomics and fitting ..   CastAR pops on like a pair of shades .. until I release my Brain Internet Display Interface (BINDI) this is the ideal that all HMDs should aim for .. Currently the only HMD that comes close to this is the Cinemizer OLED..

How the fitting and ergonomics change with the addition of the VR clip on will be interesting to see.

The target weight for the CastAR is 100g ... this is an ideal weight for any HMD .. atm the ST1080 and Cinemizer OLED hover around 180g .. anything over this and you are headed for complications that spout from ergonomics and weight issues..

You should never have to "tolerate" or learn to tolerate your HMD .. if you designed one that requires this in your end users ..you failed...try again...

Power 

CastAR appears to be powered through a USB connection ...hallelujah ... let freedom reign.. the smd ST1080 and Cinemizer OLED run from one USB connection ...and CastAR will do the same .. 

VR and AR  and  projected AR?   Yeah baby....

I have yet to see how the VR clip on works , but two 720p  projected/reflected displays should do well. 

Issues will arise if the clip on contains optics that seek to magnify the image to give a large field of view ... and if that field of view is to be warped a la the Rift .. which may lead to possible Ruft like nausea issues.

Myself I prefer a smaller FOV but crystal clear like the Cinemizer OLED and SMD ST1080 ...if the VR clip on gives a 100 inch display , this is pretty awesome and with the improved detail and lack of screen door/ visible pixels over the Rift design 

A Refreshing lack of Optics  

Well okay not total lack ... but there is far less work being done by your eyes here than  with other HMD designs .. And one of the claims for the CastAR is nausea free operation for AR use at least.

Head Tracking 

I have probably more experience of using head tracking with HMDS than most people , head tracking that works , being key.. a faster head tracker that has no application ... is just that ... a faster headtracker that has no application ..or use ...

Technical Illusions have their own head tracker solution. Currently I see it applied to moving around the reflective  surface for AR use...  I cannot say much till I try it out . But the light weight of the CastAR means it will be incredibly easy to combine with other forms of headtracking , say a Zeiss Cinemizer OLED head tracker which requires no additional software .. . I use one with a pair of shades often to control legacy 2D desktops .. and with other HMDs like the Rift and ST1080.. for VR

It should also be possible to combine forms of motion sensing with the updated Kinect in addition to the native head tracking.

Video Input 

HDMI  : we should be able to connect any source of HDMI to the CastAR... including Android, iOS and console 

3D generation : currently CastAR 3D generation as far as I can see is limited to Side By Side 3D 

However I can see this technology being adapted (okay I intend to adapt it) so we could  for different types of 3D .. and have the possibility of frame packed, over under or interleaved .. all running from Tridef 3D from your PC ..or your ...Android/iOS device... 

The Rebirth of Isometric gaming .. 

We could throw console 3D content at the Cast AR ... Final Fantasy Tactics ..(PSONE) just became holographic... and of course do the same from your iPad .. AR  Plants V Zombies  or roasting some AR projected sheep in projected AR  Powermonger , Syndicate Wars  .. wait .. Knightlore , and Alien 8 .. Batman and Robin ... (the Zx Spectrum versions) ..Diablo ...StarCraft  ... okay so you see why I had difficulty not not backing the purchase of two units? 

...or "oh my gosh" 10s of millions of kids playing AR Minecraft together ..or VR Minecraft...or just 10 sitting round a table playing the same Minecraft game ..

2D as well as 3D?

The two pico projector/display design should also mean that the CastAR can display 2D content, not just sbs 3D ... so your Windows 8 desktop or facebook page , your Twitter account ..basically let you do what you want to with it. Want a holographic phone call with  the 3D or 2D visage of your favourite celebrities mapped over your friends *or frenemies ..now that's possible...

Refreshing lack of "Celebrity" endorsement

The worst thing about the claimed coming of VR is the clan of self appointed celebrity luminaries endorsing or hyping the field..often with less accuracy in fact far less accuracy or relevance than the anime, referenced above. 

For any HMD to achieve mass uptake, it ..i.e. the product will have to enter a phase of real world self promotion ... without the need for people jumping out of planes , QuackCon speeches deriding competition or Reddit and MTBS3D troll armies (sometimes paid for) to trash rivals in an effort to draw attention away from obvious flaws in your latest prototype HMD ..  Companies are going to have to give users what they want and stop the celebrity VR Hype sermons..though if it generates clicks who cares ..right? 

Well people start to build up a picture of these luminaries delivering hype not product.. talking loudly about issues whilst others quietly go about solving them or walk around them.

CastAR feels different .. so different it seems to have silenced the Hare Riftnas ...for now...wait what am I saying they are already reacting hyping another prototype. 

As a result many people are backing CastAR that have difficulty backing the Oculus Rift..just go read the CastAR twitter feed.

So two to three years into the evolution of the consumer head mounted display we see  competition, collaboration and even a degree or respect between HMD camps coming to the field of HMDs.

Oh there is just one thing ... we have to wait till September 2014 for the CastAR , which they say will be close to retail product .. so none of this running round the video game show circuit for half a decade without releasing a product then.. or having our investment become obsolete as the developers release protohype for their next prototype and promise the world with a fabled "consumer version" 


By September 2014 the HMD scene will look very different to what we have now...CastAR will be one of the devices competing for your VR and AR time.  

A Sony VR HMD and anticipation for the HMZ-T4, a 4th Rift prototype if not retail or mayhaps the end for The Wonderful OVR , possible updates to the Cinemizer  and smd lines.. as well as GLASS being allowed to run free from Google's tentacles..

No one device is going to finalise or standardise VR or AR by 2014.

We are not quite at the Denno Coil stage.Not least because HMDs require tolerable 
hardware and useful  application ..

The application part is going to be decided by the users, not the developers or industry cognoscenti ... it was not so long ago that Apple and games were mutually exclusive ..all it takes is one app ..one useful relevant app 

And this killer AR and VR App,  may not be a game at all ...what VR and AR need is a Google ,twitter or Facebook moment ..where the HMD finally becomes indispensable for day to day use and ceases being just a revenue generation engine for promoters ..

This only happens when enough real world usage data feeds back to engineers/developers/VR philosophers moving  this field forward getting together solving problems instead of mitigating or reporting on them or pinning rosettes on the promise of them being solved by the next show.. or the next prototype...

Technical Illusions CastAR is one  product that can actually evolve the HMD to fit the user, I can see why GabeN and co shelved it .. for a walled garden alternative ... but their loss is the rest of the worlds gain ...and brings much needed competition to the consumer HMD field..

So if you are feeling brave and literally sick from TVRKING your Rift get on over to Technical Illusions home page and back the Kickstarter .... 

Something tells me the wait as a Kickstarter backer of CastAR is going to be far more pleasant and rewarding than that the whole Kickstarter Oculus Rift experience .. 

And Jerry and Rick .. some advice ... over the next year or so you will be asked one question over and over : and when people ask that most annoying question which is  ... "is this like the Rift" ... smile and respond with a resounding and celebratory " No "  and proceed to explain why ... you are going to get sick of this over the next 12 months ..

Oh and send JC some toilet role tubes with his set ... so he can attach them and get back that QuakeCon 2012 HMD feeling... 

I cannot wait to test the CastAR HMD out,though prior Kickstarter experience did have me holding out for a couple of days,  more on this as soon as I  get to try it ..

Battlefield 4 and EA to win the retail PC FPS war as Call of Duty Ghosts PC gamers are forced to play hacked code by Actiblunder's artificial 6GB Ghost RAM lock out ...

Remember, remember the 5th of November ... 6 GB Ram lock outs, no reason and Activision have lost the plot ...

They just handed EA many, many, many, many more Battlefield 4 players ...

First it is complete and utter nonsense to physically lock out any PC gamer , even if your game requires 32 gig of RAM, you still let people with 2 gig run software at lower specs....even if it is a slide show ..you let them run it ..  A PC is not a console ...( feel me Gabe?)

Unless you want to force sell the game with next gen consoles ..which is great .. but they are going to run the game at a paltry 1080p... even with more RAM ..or 720p 

I have to say Activision you guys suck A**e  .. Ghosts is already being played more in hacked code than in retail... and it is going to grow... 

COD is not a graphically intensive series, it has always run on every machine ..because consoles are always behind, by the time we get PC ( where COD began as a Medal of Honor wannabee) versions they easily run 25 to 30 FPS or more on even Intel IGPUS.... 

People may upgrade for new Cryengine, Unreal or Frostbite update ...but COD .. give us break ..it's a console to PC port ..not a lovingly crafted PC AAA game ... 

What is ridiculous, is we all know the game cannot require 6GB of non dedicated PC RAM , PC gaming relies on your GPU RAM ...the max of which is around 4GB .. most PC games are optimised to use GPUS with 2GB and then take hold of slower system RAM ... just like most of our video editing does these days , system RAM of this size is not even required by the most intensive professional graphics editing software .. or operating systems juggling 20 different full apps ... what the hell is COD doing ..raytracing in real time ?

It is not as if 6 GB is a standard configuration .. most people are still on 2, 4, 8 or 12 ..that memory arranged to work in quad channel, or dual channel configs .. 

And as I type people are already noting the game uses 2GB of RAM ... which is more than you will get on PS3 or Xbox 360 versions .. and likely the Xbox ONE 720p or PS4 1080p versions.. 


What is laughingly ludicrous is the fact that I have been playing Battlefield 4 , without breaking a sweat at 5120 by 1600 with 4GB of RAM on 5 year old hardware .. and I am sure could with Ghosts too ... without the startup lockout...

The PC is THE fastest growing platform for gaming, for retail gaming ... the median RAM at this point across tablets, PCS and Rigs will fall short of 6 GBs ... sure we can upgrade .. but lock outs are not on .. 

No one is going to upgrade their PC just to play COD ... that generation of gamers is going to go for the console versions .. 

But that is the point Actiblizzard need to recoup costs by making console sales as mandatory as possible ( the PC upgrade can cost more than Xbox or PS3 version of the game and console ) they hope to make money one last time with COD  exploiting old gen and next gen consoles ... and carry on making that money over the course of next year .. 

There is a console eclipse of sorts of going on, right now COD can sell on Xbox 360, Xbox ONE, PS4, PS3  with all these consoles orbits crossing in one small retail season..

none of which have the power to run COD or Battlefield 4 like my 5 year old RIG .. or yours ... (without the lockout) 

But by introducing this lock out .. which people have already worked around they have insured more  Call of Duty Ghosts will be THE most pirated COD game in history ...

It is time for some heads to Oscar Mike at Actiblizzard ... Gaming  and gaming media can always use less suits .. 

Myself I think they will release an official RAM requirement unlock ... once the Christmas sales period is over .. 

If you queued for this one I feel for you .. 

And who knows if such an Activision PC Care Package will be released ...

If you want to play Ghosts and have less than 6GB RAM Google is your friend ... even if Infinity Ward and Activision its seems  are not... 

All that hype and build up ... are they really that desperate to force PC gamers onto consoles ... ?  Something must be very wrong financially at Activision for them to act this way..

I am off to test some workarounds and take a cool hard clinical look at what is so .. very .. about this console to PC port that it is the first AAA game in recent history that locks out gamers... 

Maybe it's the fur rendering on Fido that done it... 

At the end of the day it isn't about how many of us work around or actually upgrade to run this game, (I am actually upgrading to edit video these days not game), what it is people , setting aside the fact of the  completely condescending manner in which Activision have shut out millions of PC gamers whose laptops, tablets, Macs and Rigs do not have 6GB of RAM. What it is people ... is that this whole thing was totally UNNECESSARY as the game runs in 2GB ... 

You would think a 1 Billion dollar franchise would have someone,somewhere with the balls to say that this is totally insulting towards the people who pay for your egos .. the public .. 

The taller they are ... the harder they fall ...come March next year ...another Titan will fall... there are bad vibes surrounding anything connected to or rooted in Infinity Ward... 

The sad thing is once millions pirate the game in anger, they are not going to go and buy nice new shiny Xbox ONE or PS4 to then pay £60 for the same game and another £60 for the season pass ... 

Over to you Infinity Ward ... show us some respect ..   if you got the b***s to .. walk up to one of your suits and tell them this is not on... 

Video of the game running with 4GB to follow .. and I cannot wait to meet some Infinity Ward and Activision people to discuss this further... 

Oh how EA and DICE must be deservedly laughing ... 






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Sony PlayStation 4 "What a Pile of Junk" : How Sony's poor quality control will hand the next gen console crown to Microsoft and Nintendo

Today is launch day for PS4, today I have spent around 14 hours dealing with my broken Players Edition PlayStation 4 .. being told my issues were insignificant and being made to feel as insignificant as those issues... 

This not the article I expected to write, but today did give me a chance to look at the PS4 and Sony .. from the perspective of gamers who having secured their launch day consoles  find they are in possession of what amounts to a pile of junk ... a dead on arrival console .. 

The experience allowed me to evaluate and study Sony's Customer care department too .. as well as raise  questions about  their quality control and attitude to anyone challenging that quality control...

Is Sony living off past reputations of quality? That's a £349 question...What was the last Sony product you bought that did not fail? What was the last product you bought that failed on starting up? 

I purchased the £450  Players Edition of the PS4 : took many pretty pictures and then discovered there was a screw loose inside the console ... which several hours of talking to Sony staff , removing the hard drive .. which comes off in a very cool way I might add .. still could not reveal ...  

here is how to test for a loose screw rattling in your launch day PlayStation  4... 

At this point I spent several hours trying to get through to Sony , on launch day to get a replacement .. so much time was spent .. the replacement is set to arrive 4 days after launch .. which kind of scuppers all the work and play I had planned for the PS4 .. including getting head tracking working with Kill Zone Shadowfall...and hmd testing 

I was told I would get a call back from a manager .. which I did several hours later. Apparently my console was deemed functional though obviously flawed and we went over the same issues I went over several hours ago for another hour or so .. so this is Sony Customer care .. apparently I had not suffered sufficient grief for any form of compensation ... 

So I went back to testing the console : which had by now shredded my £55 worth KillZone Shadowfall Blu Ray .. because as well as the loose screw rattling around the entire Blu Ray drive was FUBAR : as you can hear and see in the following video ...

I would much have preferred to be talking games ... or the consoles features, but I think it is most important for those at Sony to listen to some negative feedback ... I am not here to sell PS4s after all... that's the job of the less mavericky liberal gaming media ...

I can see people holding off buying both the Xbox ONE and PS4 , there may be an initial bump .. but it will taper off towards Christmas .. and with Sony treating core gamers this way .. it was obvious talking to Sony Customer care that I am not the only one in this situation and the delay in getting my replacement suggests many collections and deliveries with functioning consoles are being made .. with the likes of MCV reporting "official" lines on replacing consoles.. 

It takes hours to get through , the staff are not suffiiciently empowered to solve individual problems , talking to a manager did not expedite my replacement and 

frankly Sony are on their way out if their quality control continues in this manner .. opening up the hard disk cover reveals that FOX CONN logo .. familiar to so many of us .. and that does not inspire confidence in these enlightened times ..

Economies of scale are all well and good, but having product destroy itself and take out expensive games in the process is not a good business model, nor is making people who actually work and play on these devices wait 4 days after launch day, people who have pre ordered more than half a year in advance.. 

Picking up the PS4 I was surprised how light the whole box was , including the camera and extra joypad .. normally I would say this is the better design, in fact I am sure I have done, joking as you will see in my Xbox ONE review how that machine looks and weighs like an old VHS machine .. the thing is .. the ONE works , is as solid as a tank .. and although some people have reported Blu Ray drive problems ( maybe Sony supplied those too right?) the big M have at least offered people who missed out on the launch day due to faulty machines a game at least ...  Sony do not seem to care , I am in fact supposed to feel lucky that I am getting a replacement .. complete and utter nonsense ..

When you buy something you expect it to work , no one would buy a 2nd hand console with a broken blu ray drive and a rattling screw inside .. no one would sell it even ..

My launch day Player's edition PS4 not only has a screw loose inside, a blu ray drive that cannot read discs ( therefore I can play online according to Sony this makes a functional console) it actually destroys discs ... very expensive PS4 game discs ... how is this not significant enough for compensation ? Care to answer Mr Yoshida or House san? 

So what can we deduce?  Sony have severe and significant quality control, production issues ( an entire Blu Ray drive does not come apart in transit ..it has to be flawed at the point of console design or construction) and customer care issues .. with staff clearly overwhelmed .. and that signals a larger number of console failures than Sony expected ... not the normal amount some in the media are using to mitigate this Sony FUBAR event.

I also have no time for console manufacturers trying to blame retailers or delivery firms for the damage .. there is not outer damage to my console as you can see in the videos above (more to follow) ... I don't think there is any damage .. I think there is a design or manufacture flaw, in the Blu Ray drive assembly. one that Sony should take heed of..

We can also start to wonder if the PS4 overall has design flaws .. it is the first Sony console I have had that runs louder than it's rival Microsoft console .. now that is a change for the books... The heat exhausts right over the cables .. so you cook your HDMI , Ethernet optical cables .. There is no vent I can see over the hard disk or topside fan .. it runs significantly hotter than the Xbox ONE .. to the touch .. 

The next gen console war has only just begun, a long time ago I joked about the battle between the Microsoft XBox One VHS machine vs the Sony PS4 Betamax ..  

In the history of tech, there are instances where the better hardware fails ... just like Betamax.. is Sony about to not learn from history and fail again ? 

Well that is up to them and how they deal with the poor quality control and inconvenience they are causing to their customers .. 

Later today I will attempt to contact Sony Customer care again to see if the console having destroyed my KillZone disc and the blu ray drive being the cause actually qualifies for anything other than what comes across as a condescending replacement ...at their own pace ..which keeps changing .. depending on how much you complain ( in the wrong direction) 

Boy I must sound like a totally biased Xbox fan boy..... fascinating... absolutely fascinating..

Well Mr Yoshida and House .. over to you .. come back Kaz..... 4 the playahs .....if only 4 the playahs ... 

and next up:


Sony PlayStation 4 Launch FUBAR update : DOA replacements delayed by overwhelmed courier and tech support : Or how I learned to stop worrying about the Console War and love the Xbox One ...

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Windows 8.1 set up and test on dual touch screen Acer Iconia 6120 : The Touch is strong with this one but is it a Jedi yet?

I have tried every flavour of Windows 8 since the Sinofsky keynote, when the preview launched it was an OS based on touch and multitasking waiting for applications and hardware to arrive ... luckily I had around 5 tablet PCs to test it out on ..so I have been experimenting from the beginning ... and with every iteration from preview to RC to retail to now 8.1 it has not only evolved but evolved how I work and play...  

How well it works on dual screen tablets ( Courier ?) is fascinating , during the preview testing and development phase I got to ask Microsoft to include dual screen , dual touch screen optimisation and features .. 

And they delivered, I have been using Windows 8 with the Toshiba Libretto and Acer Iconia 6120 for sometime .. and once you have two touch screens at your disposal you are loathe to go back to the single life...

We'll get to how cool things get , in a moment, first this is how you set up and enable touch on both screens of your dual screen Windows 8.1 tablet : In this case the Acer Iconia, because my Toshiba Libretto has left me .. fickle things these dual screen tablets ...

Nothing is being streamed here, the Windows 8.1 installation is running native in hardware , the 6120s hardware ... and this is so significantly faster than Windows 7 for multi tasking it is off the scale ... running multiple browsers, IE 11 and Chrome both with  Youtube videos playing in HTML5 and Flash, simultaneously, multiple Windows 8 and desktop Apps all open and running and nothing slows it down on either of the two screens ... 

Witness then the true power of this fully operational Windows 8.1 Dual 14 inch 10 point touch screen tablet ... with the help of Green Ham in Space, Belligerent Aves and a miniature planet destroying simulation 

What I am really looking at here is the multi tasking and pane sizing features of Windows 8.1 ...and as you can see it is a lot of fun doing so .. the combinations of Metro and desktop Apps that you can come up with are endless. 

Windows 8.1 rocks your dual screen tablet and yes you can play Angry Birds Star Wars whilst playing Angry Birds Space ..whilst playing Tiny Deathstar and more 

Running a full screen hi res video from the net does not phase the action one bit ... there was a time using older OS PCs when opening two browser instances would grind the machine to a halt..

 There was another question I asked at the Windows 8 developer meeting I attended long ago .. the ability to run multiple apps and get them to interact moving data or items from one to another across the panes .. this is something I have to test one Xbox ONE mania subsides this weekend .. 

As for the Courier concept .. in Windows 8.1 Microsoft have the only OS that is optimized for dual touch screen tablets with pen and touch input and the power of full X86 .. 

I see the Courier and dual and triple touch screen set ups as eminently possible ..nay inevitable .. 

As of now the Acer Iconia 6120 is the most unique Windows 8.1 tablet  PC out there ... and if like me you have 4 games to get through ...well now you can get down to them in one go ...

More to follow as I explore Windows 8.1 features further ...boy are those Bitizens needy...

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Sony PlayStation 4 Launch FUBAR update : DOA replacements delayed by overwhelmed courier and tech support : Or how I learned to stop worrying about the Console War and love the Xbox One ...

CONTINUE? 

So today I spent some more quality time with Sony ... in emails and on the phone, at one point having to phone to remind them that they promised to phone me .. and what an interesting time it was ...

First a recap ...yesterday I spent the day with my new friends at Sony tech support chasing around a loose screw in my shiny new PlayStation 4 console ... it was decided it was a novel thing and perhaps I could live with it ...by the tech support ..oh these guys ... real jokers right? That was before it started making shredding noises when I inserted the KillZone Shadow Fall disk .. 

We engaged in interesting conversations and pondered great philosophical questions of the console age including " when is a dead console a dead console?"  and if one were to place a semi dead PS4 console and a cat in a box with a decaying poisonous isotope.. would that mean  the PS4 like Shroedingers cat would simultaneously be alive and dead but we could never tell what state ? That seems to be explanation the Sony tech support were giving me for the state of my launch day PS4...

Today one day later it was confirmed my console is no more.. Yesterday they did agree to replace it on Saturday, Monday then Tuesday ... entering the details after the phone call .. today I was told it would be collected on Wednesday and then looked at and maybe I would get a replacement several days (7 days) after that... they would also take the game and test that and maybe send another ... they would also be taking the piss n'est ce pas? This was AFTER I complained to the latest manager I was dealing with... one I was promised would expedite the matter but did not have the authority to do so as I found out or OK CONFIRMED several hours later...  

So phoning up to chase Sony had actually put me in a situation where THEY were going to take longer replace my console  or send a console and take my game!.. I don't know ...is this deliberate ? Are others being "threatened" with delayed console replacement if and when they complain?

Anyhoo I corrected the manager, and to his credit he confirmed my console would now be replaced on Tuesday .. so I was back where i started. 

To his credit he confirmed , the courier covering the replacements had been overwhelmed and on the launch day after a certain cut off point all replacements were knocked back after the weekend . This is why my replacement went from Saturday, to Monday to Tuesday and so have many others ..and beyond ...

They are hoping to have this FUBAR event solved sometime next week ...

The question is though why did no one hire a second courier? Damage is being done to Sony's reputation ....but how did this come about and how is this possible?

The answer is Sony's rigid hierarchy ... at each stage , a person can only do so much .. and that does not involve ..thinking outside the company guidelines ... so when you get through to the nice tech support they want to replace your console the next morning ...but they do not have the authority to do so ...so they pass you on to their manager who in turn cannot solve your problems because they do not have the authority to think outside guidelines and say solve a problem in real time like say employing more than one courier to deliver the stack of replacement PS4s .... 

Had they been able to,then I would be writing a very different article ... right now .. 

No .. the only people who can make such adjustments are the higher ups in head office ...but you know they will all be lauding up in post launch celebrations .. leaving the poor Sony workers defenceless against my retorts ...and of course with a mountain of replacement PS4s that are going nowhere soon..enough.. to quell the righteous anger of PS4 fans ...   

Would you believe even managers at tech support cannot handle compensation .. issues all of this has to be dealt with in writing to the "head office " the email . address and contact names of which I am still waiting for ... you know I am going right to the CEOs...

What I learnt today is the  hierarchical, compartmentalised   structure at Sony is a really potentially damaging aspect of their business model ... or it is deliberate ...so people can say I can only do so much ... which keeps complaints and problems away from higher ups...

There are obvious signs the Sony policy for replacement of DOA PS4s was going to run into problems... 

The use of only one courier to replace and collect the damaged PS4s ..  

The overwhelming number of failed consoles in the USA launch..

Strict staff guidelines that prevent them from expediting replacements 


Solutions 

You could hire more couriers to deliver the replacements and avoid further delays ... 

But this allegedly requires a higher up from HQ ... not available on the launch day it seems or bothered ...enough to check how the replacements were going or if the staff needed help... So who at Sony was in charge of the UK launch ? And why are they conspicuous by their absence ?

Tech staff need to stop blaming customers or patronising them ... we don't want sympathy ... we want what we paid for ... if Sony is not delivering on that ..someone outside Sony should investigate ..the issue is not one of Sony replacing faulty goods ...but why is Sony being allowed to introduce so many failed goods without adequate quality control ..using customers to pick out failed product when this should have been picked up back on the production line..We have rules against this sort of thing in the EU..

And by their own admittance (on line) Sony  seem to know about a significant batch of faulty PS4s... several signs point to this ... 

10000 DOA or faulty PS4s were in the USA launch pipe ... so we may see  a similar number for the EU launch ...perhaps more with an even larger user base .. Europe and it's dog loves the PlayStation brand...

Prominent Sony higher ups released pre launch day  PR blurb to  known sites announcing they were prepared for ...i.e EXPECTING mass failure rates... and had solid plans and stock to mitigate those launch issues ... except .. no one it seems managed to work out they needed adequate logistics to cater for that stack of failed PS4s... and the SOLE courier Sony had lined up was quickly overwhelmed by the demand for replacements..

The poor tech support guys and girls manning the trenches of the console war had no idea the number of failed consoles that were about to be uncovered ...through people having to buy them and try them ... and the thousands of faulty consoles having gotten by Sony Quality Control .. 

All whilst the higher ups from Yoshida san , to Mr House are in my personal experience of the Sony PlayStation 4 UK launch as hard to get hold of as that screw rattling around in my dead on arrival launch day PlayStation 4 ...

And the truth Ruth? The way Sony is structured such problems will only be redressed when higher ups get involved .. and I mean it's time to dish out some good will compensation ..you know Sony ...4 the players...

More to follow as I chase the higher ups...  

GAME OVER ?

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Windows 8.1 : Dual OS Augmented Asymmetrical Productivity : Using the cloud to bring fine Pen and touch editing control to desktop video editing with Adobe Premiere Pro CC , Sony Vegas Pro and Movie Maker

When looking at any hardware or software the first thing I like to ask is, how can I uses it  improve  or augment any of my daily otherwise mundane tasks? Windows 8  does so on many levels, with the 8.1 update promising to take this further ..  This being thegameveda , I am not going to quote features off Microsoft's PR sheet one by one like your run of the mill review and state job done ... No I like to be ahead of the cloud.. not under it, so, Daniel Jackson what cool things have I discovered I can get up to with the neato features  Windows 8.1 brings ... 

For starters Windows 8.1 use  truly shines when combined with the cloud and ...iOS 7 .. Yes Apple fans, you read that right .. 

Like for  instance cross OS  video editing ...

The iPad 3 for me was a revelation, I could take, edit and upload 1080p video without reaching for a desktop or laptop .. Aided and augmented by  the beautiful minimalist touch interface of iMovie ... iMovie became THE  thing I used the iPad for .. 

Windows 8.1 runs awesomely well on the iPad too..through Splashtop : Here I am editing video using Adobe Premiere Pro CC from my Windows 8.1 desktop on my old iPad 3 .. 

The majority of the videos you see me upload are edited this way .. through the cloud .. using Sony Vegas Pro, Adobe Premiere Pro, Windows Movie Maker but exploiting touch and the small portable form factor of the iPad...

You can't touch this ..?

Over on PC I have far more power and a desktop GPU, to crunch video with Open CL, dual 30 inch 2560 by 1600 monitors, but using video editing software with a mouse, trackpad and keyboard seems so 1970s..in fact  the UI hasn't changed much since the 80s ..... 

On the PC then when it comes to video editing...  I do not have performance issues ... I have input issues .. or so my therapist tells me...

But I tell him that user interfaces and control inputs need to evolve alongside faster hardware ..



Or can you ...?

Why not exploit Windows 8 multi pane and tasking, cloud asymmetry and pen and touch input ..to augment how we edit video ..?

You know ..use full desktop video editing software with the benefit of pen and touch and anywhere ..

Even if my 30 inch LCDs were touch based it is highly undesirable to use them as vertical touch screens or drag a pen across 60 inches of display ... And no I do not want to turn them into table tops either ..

I have a scenario where I edit video using a mundane mouse or keyboard set up on a powerful device that I have to be chained to .. 

My X220T has fairly powerful hardware and excellent pen and touch input, more importantly at 12.5 inches it is ultraportable .. which means I do not need to sit near my desktop or even turn on it's displays..

I want to exploit the power of a desktop on a tablet PC ..leaving the tablet PC to do other things.. we are going to run two separate instances of Windows 8.1 , one within another , one cloud based and one running on native hardware ..  with 0 slowdown ...

So how ? 

.. it takes seconds .. using Splashtop Streamer and Splashtop Windows 8 App .. I can take the power of my desktop running Premiere Pro, Sony Vegas Pro and erhh Movie Maker (laugh but it has it's uses) and AUGMENT and enhance video editing using Pen and touch input on my X220T .. 

Like so 

Things to note, streaming Adobe Premiere Pro or Sony Vegas Pro .. takes the load off the tablet you are using, you can thus use Windows 8.1 on the tablet and Windows 8.1 on the streamed side too .. 

This is enhanced and made  possible by Windows 8.1s new pane sizing features, in the iPad video above there is a point where I am running a 2560 by 1600 desktop with 3 panes, 2 Windows 8.1 Apps, IE 11 and Chrome browsers and Adobe Premiere Pro on one screen with no significant slow down ..   streaming to a Windows PC though we are:

Running  and exploiting Two Instances of Windows 8.1 on one  Windows tablet PC 

On the X220T or any Windows 8 Pro tablet you have lying around we can run two distinct Windows 8.1 instances and thanks to Windows 8.1 pane features we can get round the old Splashtop restriction of running full screen ... as within a Windows 8.1 pane Splashtop sees itself running in a full screen ... 

Alongside that streamed OS pane we can run our native Windows 8.1 installation on local hardware .. and thanks to the pane sizing feature ... run it alongside the streamed OS ... 

We could run OSX Mavericks streamed to that pane and have Windows 8.1 and OSX running alongside each other ..just give me time to save up for my Mac Pro cylinder/bin  ....or perhaps stream within streams ...to have many different Windows 8.1 instances running within each other... woahh ...deep .. spoon..? there is no spoon... 


Running  a 2560 by 1600 desktop on a 1366 by 768 tablet PC display : 

The streamed Windows 8.1 instance is working on my desktop , which has a far higher res than my tablet .. so why be held back by this physical limitation ...

See me adjust the res in the video ? I expected the screen to turn to garbage .. but it holds it's own .. all the text is legible ... now you have the advantage of hi res desktop , controlled by pen and touch on your otherwise GPU limited Windows 8.1 tablet PC .. 

But that is not all : 

Using Windows 8.1 panes we can run that  2560 by 1600 res cloud based Windows 8.1 instance alongside  a native resolution desktop on the same tablet screen ..  multiple OS instances at mixed resolutions .. like so :

So there you have it how we can use the Cloud and Splashtop , combined with Windows 8.1 new pane features to augment video edting with pen and touch .. 

Running multiple res operating systems connected through the cloud also opens up new horizons ..new ways of working. Windows 8.1 gives us powerful multi tasking opps in one instance , now we can have Windows installations running within Windows installations with independent desktop sizes ...

Beautiful Asymmetry 

Back in the day when Windows 8 was still alpha I noted I had it installed on several machines  .. those were X86  machines .., now though it is likely like me you have X86 OSX , iOS and Android devices. 

And in those dark ages it was assumed your hardware had to meet minimum specs and it's architecture would be designed to run a specific OS, now we live in very different times, where we expect everything everywhere ..and I find it is simple to achieve this  .. today I think nothing of running pro desktop productivity software or AAA Windows 8.1 games on my iPad or Android phone for that matter .or iGPU powered Windows 8 tablet ..  exploiting fine Pen and touch input .. and the power of asymmetrical cloud computing ... all of the streamed to devices are sorely under powered for serious productivity... but they have wonderful portability , touch screens and pen input , the desktops are over powered but chain you to them and a 70s UI control steadfastly adhering to an ancient Xerox doctrine ...so why not combine the best of each.. and enhance your routine tasks..?

Adobe and Sony will soon move  their productivity suites forwards using cloud based and touch features, the way we work and play with anything digital is evolving ...augmented even... and I get a kick out of getting  all these disparate rival hardware and software systems working together.... 

We have all the tools now for cross OS cloud based augmented productivity .. as always the user is ahead of the developer  .. finding a use for all this cool stuff now is what I like to do .. 

The future is not one in which we see Android vs iOS vs Windows vs OSX  or x86 vs RISC.. that is over, the future is one in which  all these devices work together for you ... 

And heck it's not even the future... it is the now ... 

Now if only PlayStation 4 and Xbox ONE could get along so well ... hmmmh ... I think I will test this tomorrow ..after all the launch line up is hardly inspiring...

this content is © and originated from thegameveda http://the-games-veda.blogspot.com/  if you are reading it from any other site that has not provided a link back it has been leached 

Worried your 30K Rig won't run the Star Citizen menu screen? Well why not buy and play EVERY Wing Commander and Privateer game for around $12 ?

Bored polishing your Star Citizen ID card ? Nonplussed at the delayed " Combat " Module ..? Sick of duct taping toilet roles together in an effort to win Chairman Roberts latest space ship design-a-thon?

There is as the cliche goes another hope...


Back in the day Chris and Erin Roberts would require the utmost devotion from Space Opera Combat Supplicants  ... the first thing above all would be the purchase of THE most expensive and beige PC hardware existing at that time ..  then only then once you added in the cost of a flight stick or two..not forgetting to hook it up to your Soundblaster card .. would you be deemed worthy of playing the technical marvels I am about to promote the sale of to you ...

this is not the view from a T 800 but a red filtered poignant intro shot .... I like to call the calm before the storm ...

For today  only (till the next sale ) you can OWN the entire Wing Commander Series on PC .. at 75% off  .. that's around $12 in 2013 money .. and this includes all your favourite PC game FMV stars ... like Biff from Back To the Future , him from Episode IV V VI ( and maybe IX ..or is it XI?) and the ever crazy Malcom Mcdowell as well as of course a very young Clive Owen ...Brian Blessed, Jurgen Prochnow , John Hurt and Christopher Walken .. and that last lots' just some of the cast that Erin Roberts got together for the FMV of Privateer 2 ... you see some shots of here 

Marvel at the power of Erin Roberts ... who got Clive Owen to wear eye liner... in a PC game FMV segment something which the great Spike Lee could not make him do .. .

Today of course we can run all these classics on our phones or the most humble of smart fridge displays ... 

These are pieces of collective gaming history that no gamer should be without , not least because, their production  costs alone destroyed what passed for PC gaming development at that time ... with hype and over blown dev team and media Pizza consumption and spiralling private investor costs rendering such games design unsustainable and eventually the 100+ strong developers with their ever expanding Pizza consumption.. unemployable... until ...that is until 20 or so years later they surfaced with Kickstarter backed projects... of which Star Citizen is the most anticipated and well backed ... by fans at least if not publishers..

Privateer 2 is a game where John Hurt gets to be your bar tender .. don't worry in the game you will see him in close up.. 

All very interesting  .. as our Chris has us dreaming/saving up for  18K triple 4K display PC Rigs and Virtual Reality headsets ...for Star Citizen the spiritual successor to the Wing Commander series ... 

the game runs depressingly slowly on my 10K rig .. just what do you have to do get a Roberts bros game running ? ..only kidding... all these games need slowing down ..

The causes of  the Wing Commander series, of which I include Privateer here ...  great successes and failures, which were to be honest not entirely due to an ever expanding lunch time Pizza budget,  rest in the series you can now pick up from Good Old Games... 

I hope the team at Roberts Space Industries ...many of them  like the rest of us now with PCs and smart Fridges able to run these games ... 20 years on ... take some time to reflect on the lessons that can be learnt from re playing these games .. 

Perhaps ...in their lunch breaks ... waiting for the pizza  to be delivered .. hopefully not as long as we are left waiting for our Star Citizen combat modules ... 

this content is © and originated from thegameveda http://the-games-veda.blogspot.com/  if you are reading it from any other site that has not provided a link back it has been leached