Xbox Live's Major Nelson : Gadgets

A quick trip to Akihabara

Major Nelson — Tue, 07 Oct 2008 09:07:31 GMT

I had a little spare time today, so I went with Albert from the LIVE team (who has been on my show in the past) over to Akihabara, also known as ‘Electric Town.’ While Albert was looking for vintage Japanese action figures, I was taking photos of the amusing gadgets I came across. I have uploaded some to my Flickr if you want a small taste of what you may find in the tiny shops around this section of Tokyo.

See Surface on MSNBC

Major Nelson — Mon, 08 Sep 2008 23:56:31 GMT

If you’re a political junkie, keep an eye on MSNBC TV which is using Surface as another tool to show how things are going in the election. The Surface team has a post on what they’ve been working on, including a clip of it being used by NBC News political director Chuck Todd. It’s actually really interesting to see how they’re using Surface on the air to explain and graphically show the way the US political systems work.

Getting connected at E3

Major Nelson — Tue, 22 Jul 2008 03:36:00 GMT

One of the challenges of going to a major convention like CES or E3 is connectivity. When you take a large group of hyperconnected geeks and slam them all in one hotel, odds are the hotel network just can’t handle the load of the equipment that the temporary residents travel with. This was precisely the problem I ran into last week in LA. One of the official E3 hotels was jam-packed with attendees and their equipment. In the evenings, when I tested my speed I was getting an average of 150k down and about 75 k up. Not good. In addition, the Xbox.com and Inside Xbox team was stationed at the hotel as well, and we were pushing some fairly large video files back up to the Redmond offices to be processed and put on the service.

Clearly the connection was not going to work.

I was chatting with the Xbox events team that had set up E3 and made them aware of the problem…they said, ‘Oh…we have an Internet guy that can probably help.’ Later that day, I received a call from Mark. I told him what I was up against and he said he’d be right over. After surveying the hotel and looking at the surrounding buildings, he said he would have have a ‘very fast’ connection set up for our team within 12 hours. It would all be legal and licensed, and with the cooperation of the hotel. Twelve hours for all that? I was intrigued. Sure enough, by the next morning my team was online with a VERY fast connection. How fast? 5500 kb/s down and 4800 kb/s up. When I asked him how he did it…he outlined what he had to do. While there is much more to it, here is basically how it went down, directly from an email Mark sent me ealier today:

From the 1 Gbps feed on the rooftop of an apartment building across the freeway we used a custom 2.4 Ghz mesh radio to get from one part of the roof to another. One of these devices also acted as the NAT router/firewall. From the corner of the apartment building roof to you we used Ligowave 5 Ghz point to point radios that are built into the panel antennas. All of the traffic from the Hotel to the 1 Gbps feed was encrypted by using a VPN which the radios do naturally. The apartment roof is part of a 1 Gbps ring around downtown Los Angeles using Freespace optics (ie lasers) which terminates in a building which houses the largest carrier hotel/interconnect point in Southern California. Their normal use is to provide internet and VOIP to tenants in the apartment buildings.

Where there is a will, there is a way. One of the common questions is how much did this cost. Let’s just say, it was not as expensive as you may think and completely worth it in order to keep the operation going and to deliver the video you saw last week.

If you find yourself in Southern California, and you need a fast internet connection….give Mark a call.

I was unable to get a shot of the freespace optics (the ‘laser beam’) but you can see some photos of the set up on my Flickr

My Sirius radio car installation (and what I listen to)

Major Nelson — Thu, 12 Jun 2008 04:05:00 GMT

Since I appear each week on Sirius Radio (Maxim Channel 108) on the ‘Level Up’ show about video games, I thought I should finally get Sirius in my car. After all, the traffic can be brutal in Seattle and this would certainly help pass the time. While I already have a Stiletto 100 at home (with an external antenna mounted on my house) I decided to take the plunge for the car, which I seem to be spending a great deal of time due to said traffic.

I decided early on that I did not want to take a portable unit and just use the AUX jack on my ‘07 Prius. I wanted to do it the right way and I wanted an installation that is integrated with my factory installed JBL audio system. For about $150, I was able to get the SCC1 and the TOY-SC1 that was exactly what I was looking for. The SCC1 is the part that receives the satellite signal and connects to the TOY-SC1, which allows my headunit to control the Sirius signal. (You need both parts.)

I wanted to the install to be even better, so instead of mounting the antenna on the top of the car, I decided to do something a little more interesting: I mounted the antenna INSIDE the rear fin of the Prius. Since the fin is fiberglass and hollow I was able to mount it inside which, in addition to protecting it from the elements or theft, also relieves me from having am unsightly wart on the top of my car.
I decided go this route after chatting with an old radio engineer I used to work with (and who now works in engineering at Sirius) told me that my reception won't suffer greatly (if at all.) I do wish that this unit had the ability to tell me the signal strength, so I could know what's going on...but oh well.

So far it works great…completely seamless in to the car's audio system and a ton of channels to listen to while I am in traffic. Currently, this unit gives me 18 presets, which I have set as:

1 (8) Big 80's
2 (12) Super Shuffle
3 (14) Classic Vinyl
4 (30 Coffee House
5 (33) Area 33
6 (34) Boombox
7 (53) Soul Town
8 (72) Pure Jazz
9 (75) Siriusly Sinatra
10 (100) Howard 100
11 (108) Maxim
12 (118) Radio Classics
13 (120) ESPN Radio
14 (130) Bloomberg Radio
15 (132) CNN Headline News
16 (134) NPR Now
17 (141) BBC World Service News
18 (156) Seattle traffic/weather

I would post pictures, but that is the beauty of this installation…you can’t tell at all. Pictures would therefore be pointless. If you have a Toyota, Lexus or Scion (made after 2004) and you are looking for a way to expand you audio universe, I highly recommend this approach. Let me know if you have any questions.

Surface Demo (Boston area)

Major Nelson — Fri, 09 Nov 2007 17:43:23 GMT

If you are interested in Surface and you live in the Boston area, head over to the Sheraton Boston Hotel (39 Dalton Street) tomorrow (November 10th) from 10am to 3pm. The surface team will have three Surface for you to ~~play around with~~ test. Not sure if you want to go? Head over to the Surface site and watch the vidoes, then I’ll bet you want to head down and get your own hands on time with it. This event is free and open to the public.

[Via the Surface blog]

[Sheraton Boston Hotel website]

If you decide to go down, please come back and post your Surface thoughts.

New Zunes

Major Nelson — Wed, 03 Oct 2007 17:07:00 GMT

The new Zune’s were just announced. You can see ‘em over at Zune.net. Cnet has a write up on some of the new features, including (finally) podcasting support.

Game Controller holder

Major Nelson — Wed, 05 Sep 2007 19:33:22 GMT

On my show this week, I was talking about the game controller holder on the wall of my office. A number of you asked for more details and where you could purchase one. Head over to ArmoryTech.com for details and reviews. This is a nice little unit that is platform agnostic, and works well with all types of controllers.

Thanks to Randy (the inventor) for sending one my way.

Anyone pick up an iPhone today?

Major Nelson — Fri, 29 Jun 2007 14:16:25 GMT

If so, post your review.

Announcing Microsoft Surface

Major Nelson — Wed, 30 May 2007 06:02:00 GMT

That’s the big rumor that was burning through the web today. Todd over at the Seattle PI has a write up on the official announcement tonight, and more importantly…videos (like the one above) that demonstrate the concept. Here are more stories on Surface from Google News.

Edit: On10.net has a video posted as well. Here is the official site on Microsoft.com

Deepfish

Major Nelson — Thu, 29 Mar 2007 04:21:50 GMT

It’s a new browser for your Windows Mobile device, and it’s called Deepfish. Take a look at the video, and grab the free download if this is your thing.

New Zune site online

Major Nelson — Thu, 02 Nov 2006 17:24:31 GMT

I am heading out of New England and back to Seattle soon (via Dulles) and just got an email from the Zune team that their new site is now live. Initially, the Zune will only be available in the US, with more regions planned for the future. Check it out if you want to see details on the device and the accessories.

Posted from Gate 21, Bradley International Aiport

Times Reader

Major Nelson — Thu, 05 Oct 2006 06:22:00 GMT

One thing I always missed about living in New England was going to my local bagel shop in the morning and grab a hot salt bagel, and a copy of the New York Times to start my day. When I moved to the Northwest, I changed my morning routine…but still missed the Times. Yea, I know I can always hit Nytimes.com, but it just wasn’t the same. Right before I left for my global trip a few weeks back, I was invited into the beta program for the Times Reader. It’s an application based approach that allows you to, among other things, read the ‘paper’ off-line (great for when I had a crappy connection in Barcelona) as well as a few other helpful features. I was happy to find out tonight that the Times Reader beta program is now open to the public. The application uses a new MS technology called ‘Windows Presentation Foundation’ that is pretty nice, and much better then the Zinio reader I have used to in the past to read e-magazines or e-newspapers. The Time Reader is free, so give it a try and tell me what you think. (Note: You’ll need to create a free Nytimes.com account in order to download and use the application.)

XB Stream

Major Nelson — Fri, 15 Sep 2006 04:39:00 GMT

I just noticed XB Stream has been released. While I have not tried this yet, it looks like you can stream audio and text XML feeds to your Xbox 360. (Kind of like TVersity) Let me know if you install this and if it works well.

Disclaimer: install and use at your own risk

Edit: Turns out that this application downloads something on the order of the 30-previous shows of the default podcasts upon install. This is not a good use of bandwidth and is killing some of the podcasters out there, since many folks won't listen to the older shows. I have contacted the author and asked him to change the way the application works. Until this is fixed, I can not recommend you install this application and have removed the link.

Update: The author has made a fix that resolves the 'downloading a ton of back podcasts' issue, and he recommends that you download the updated version here as soon as you can.

Zune

Major Nelson — Thu, 14 Sep 2006 19:46:00 GMT

Wonder what J Allard has been up to? Contrary to popular belief he has not been living in the mountains in Montana working on his Gamerscore. Instead, J has has been hard at work on Zune. What’s Zune? It’s a new media player that we just announced. Details over at the ‘Zuneinsider’ blog, including colors (Black, White and Brown) and HDD space (30 GB) as well as some nifty wireless features to allow you to share your content. No news on the actual launch date or price yet though.

How to automatically stream podcasts (and more!) to your Xbox 360

Major Nelson — Wed, 09 Aug 2006 23:26:00 GMT

If you share music and pictures to your Xbox 360 from your PC, then you may want to take a look at TVersity. This is an app that let’s you ‘manage your Internet and home media’ and then share it with your Xbox 360 (or PSP.) That means you can actually set it up to grab podcasts (like mine) and have them automatically appear as a playlist on your Xbox 360 - all using the PC as a way to grab and manage the content. No need to download the audio on your computer, move it to a storage unit, and then plug it into the Xbox 360. As a bonus, you can also set it up to pull Flickr photos in as well!

I have no idea how well it works, but it looks interesting. Can someone give it a try and report back on your progress?

[TVirsity details & screen shots here]

Thanks for the pointer blog reader Roy.

My Nintendo DS Lite

Major Nelson — Thu, 01 Jun 2006 05:04:00 GMT

I was watching this story develop over at Joystiq earlier today when I got a hot tip via email from a blog reader that guess what? There was a store* in the Seattle area that broke the DS Lite street date as well, and they were selling them. He promptly game me the name and the address of the store. After work today, I decided to go on a little mission to see if I could walk away with a DS Lite a full 11–days before the official street date. After fighting with Seattle traffic for about 40–minutes, I arrived at the store…ready to go in for the kill. I walked into the store, and made my way towards the gaming/electronics section. Of course on a Tuesday night around dinner time, this place was kind dead to put it mildly. I wandered up to the video game case, and my heart sank as all I saw was a stack of Electric Blue DS’s. I frantically looked around the case and then just as I was about to give up hope…I saw it. Peeking out from below a stack of those Electric Blue units was a lone white case. Could it be? I crouched down…turned my head sideways to try and see if I was in luck. Sure enough, there it was in plain sight and in black and white on the side of the box: Nintendo DS Lite.

SCORE

Now, how to release it from this glass prison? I looked around for a sales person, but was only able to find a nice lady in an adjacent clothing department. I asked her if she could help me…she said no, but she would find someone. Now that I had found my prey, I was not about let it out of my site. Camping out at the glass case, I waited for the nice lady, or anyone to come help me.
So I waited.

60 seconds..
2–minutes.
4–minutes.
5–minutes

After about 8–minutes, a mid-20’s gentleman who clearly just finishing his dinner (hint: he was wiping his lips with a Subway napkin) wandered over and asked me if I’d like some help.

“Why yes, I’d like one of those” I said, pointing at the white box on the bottom of the stack. Either he was screwing with me or he was not watching my hand motions, but he grabbed one of the blue DS boxes and started to lock the case. “no no’ I said “I want that one…the white box.” Basically grabbing it out of the now unlocked case and handing it to him.

He took it and looked a the box, and then looked at me and said “wow, we’re selling a lot of these today, looks like you got the last one”

After paying the $129.00, I briskly walked out of the store and was on my way home with my shiny new Nintendo DS Lite.

Mission Accomplished.

To add a level of proof to my story, I posted some photos of my new toy next to my custom Xbox 360 hard drive to prove that yes, I really do have it in my hands.

Thanks to blog reader Mike who tipped me off, and thanks to the awfully nice store clerk who unwittingly sold me the embargoed unit.

Next: I need to get Reggie to sign it.

*To protect the retail establishment from getting in trouble, I am not going to say which store it was, but I will say that it a large chain store.