Bigmouth Strikes Again: Carrie Marshall's blog

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Category: Technology

Shiny gadgets and clever computers

  • What supermarkets can tell us about videogames

    I’m sure I’ve mentioned this before, but one of my pet theories is that you can tell the shape of consumer technology by going to the supermarket. Supermarkets care very much about making money, so they don’t stock what they don’t think they can sell – so for example Blu-Ray is still conspicuous by its absence, and films on Sony’s UMD format barely appeared before disappearing again. So it’s interesting (to me, at least) to see what the three big supermarkets in my area are up to with videogames.

    In the last couple of weeks, all three big chains – Tesco, Asda and Morrison’s – have changed their games aisles. Previously you’d find three equal sections: Wii/DS, Xbox/PC and PS3/PS2. Now, all three supermarkets have reshuffled things. The winner? Nintendo’s Wii. In my local Tesco it has two sections to itself, with a third section shared between the Xbox, PS3 and DS titles. PS2 and PC are relegated to the bargain buckets.

    The reason is obvious: supermarkets make money from Wii games in a way they don’t from more serious consoles. Maybe it’s because Xbox and PS3 gamers buy online, or go the preowned route (I do the latter, which is why I’m currently being irritated by Army of Two before turning to Mirror’s Edge). Or maybe it’s because the Wii market dovetails nicely with the typical supermarket buyer, who doesn’t read Edge and who hasn’t heard of Metacritic. Whatever the reason, it’s proof that Nintendo has cleverly carved itself a whole new niche in gaming: games for people who aren’t gamers.

    While we’re on the subject of supermarkets, my printer needed a pair of ink cartridges last week. It worked out £2 cheaper to buy a new, better printer with ink in it than to replace the cartridges in my existing one. If you had any doubt that the money’s in the ink and that printer firms sell hardware like Gillette sells razors…

  • Google + Twitter: good for them, bad for us

    Opinions? I gots ’em! Me on Techradar:

    The problem is that far too many online services haven’t a clue how they’re going to make money, and in many cases the business plan appears to be a single sentence: “Get bought by Google”.

    Twitter arguably falls into that category, because it’s yet to find a way of generating significant income. That’s not a big problem if, like Twitter, the sites are doing something new, but if they’re competing against existing businesses then it’s bad news for the wider economy.

  • Is MP3HD the future of digital music?

    Er, probably not.

    MP3HD is a lossless format, which means it delivers a perfect digital copy of the original audio – but it manages to do it more efficiently than WAV or AIFF files, which can be massive…

    We’ve been here before. Nearly eight years ago Thomson announced a new, higher quality kind of MP3 called MP3Pro.

    Like MP3HD, it was backwards compatible, so your files would play on any MP3-supporting program or device; like MP3HD, it offered better sound quality by combining a high quality and low quality version in the same file. If your device didn’t support MP3Pro you’d get the low quality one; if it did, you’d get the high quality one. It was very clever, and with the exception of MusicMatch Radio, hardly anybody used it.

  • Maybe it’s time for the public sector to run Linux

    Me, on Techradar: GhostNet is a wake-up call. Upgrade Windows or switch to Linux.

    Compromising old Windows boxes is like stealing candy from a baby. Compromising Linux boxes is more like stealing candy from a baby that’s locked away in a subterranean vault with armed robot guards, packs of savage Rottweilers and lots of Indiana Jones-style traps. On the moon.

  • Windows 7 Starter Edition: no, no, no

    Techradar:

    Starter Edition is essentially Windows 7 with a completely arbitrary three-application limit. This restriction is “designed to ensure that users get the best possible performance” from their netbook. That’s kind, isn’t it? Why not go the whole hog and slap the Windows 7 logo on MS-DOS? That’d go like lightning!

  • Worried about privacy? Forget about Street View

    Me, on Techradar:

    Before we pay too much attention to the headlines and the soundbytes, though, we should perhaps wonder if there are more sinister invasions of privacy than a Google car taking shots in the street.

    For example, we could start with newspapers.

  • Techradar: No news is bad news, more browser battling

    New stuff on Techradar: Local news is dying – and why you should care.

    It’s not an either/or thing: knowing about the latest tech from across the pond doesn’t mean you don’t care about what’s happening in your town. But you can only care about things you know about.

    Also, I’ve updated the browser battle piece to cover the new Chrome 2 beta and the final release of Internet Explorer 8. I still think Firefox is the best everyday browser (on PC) right now, but Chrome 2 is seriously bloody quick. On slower PCs or netbooks, that’s the one I’d go for.

  • Techradar: Chrome 2 and iPhone 3

    There’s a new beta of Chrome 2. It’s fast, but there are still a few things missing.

    Also: iPhone 3.0 – it’s all about the apps.

    It helps if you remember that the iPhone isn’t really a phone. It’s a portable computer that just happens to make phone calls, an operating system that’s going to be available on 30 million devices.

    What’s important isn’t what Apple is adding for end users, but what it’s giving developers. With version 3.0, they’ve just been given a whole bunch of new toys to play with

  • Techradar: who’s Google’s butler?

    It’s all going a bit Batman. Who’s going to keep Google on the straight and narrow?

    We’re not suggesting that Google’s founders dress up like animals and beat up bad guys in their spare time, although if they do then we’d love to see the evidence. But online, Google is developing superpowers – and sooner or later, those powers will turn Google to the dark side.

  • Techradar: Browsers, browsers, browsers

    A whole bunch of browser-related things up on Techradar today. First of all: Come in Internet Explorer, your time is up:

    Imagine if the browser wars were a horse race. Safari’s owner is a bit up himself, but the horse is young, sleek and hungry. Chrome is probably still a little bit too young, but he’s fast and full of potential. Firefox turns up late as always, but it’s the bookies’ and the public’s favourite. And Internet Explorer is a donkey.

    It’s the result of two lots of tests, one of which compared Safari, Firefox, Chrome and IE on a reasonably well-specced PC, and one which looked at Netbooks (sorry, I meant to update the link days ago). Internet Explorer did badly in both of them:

    If browsers were cars, it seems that Safari would be a Bugatti Veyron while Internet Explorer would be a knackered old Austin Allegro. Towing a caravan. On fire.