Monthly Archives: January 2010

Have a happy period, iPad

Completely ignoring my Apple iToaster idea, bespectacled pencil Steve Jobs has finally laid waste to years of tablet speculation by bringing out the Apple iPad.

So big it takes up an entire wall.

Ignoring the name that sounds like the most technologically advanced sanitary towel, this new product from, soon to be religious cult, Apple no longer seem content with branding everything they create with a half-eaten fruit and feel the need to make everything look like an iPhone. The iPad is the latest in an explosion of new Tablet PCs – devices which blur the line between netbook and smartphone as they boast the convenience of the latter with the performance of the former. Apple, as expected, declined to unveil this at CES in front of their undoubtedly jealous rivals and staged yet another overhyped product launch in which Steve Jobs walked the huddled masses through the device.

The iPad is, of course, a touchscreen tablet computer that runs Apple’s 1GHz “A4” processor, the first device to do so and, indeed, the first time in recent years Apple have developed a processor rather than sliding between AMD and Intel like an overexcited horse on ice-skates. 1024×786 resolution screen means good video playback but not full HD (or 3D, they’ve missed a trick). It also comes with a choice of 16GB, 32GB or 64GB flash memory capacity and a battery claiming up to 10 hours of use time and more than a month in standby time. Now, I don’t know a lot about batteries, but that’s quite a discrepancy.

Under the hard stuff, we have the OS which appears to be simply a variation on the iPhone OS – similar icons and support for iPhone apps, upscaled to fit the larger screen, and a choice of buying it with or without 3G and needing a data plan. I suppose not including the same OS you would get on a computer presents this more as a leisure device, which is at odds with the unwritten apparent application of tablets which is to replace netbooks as a portable, work device (illustrated helpfully by Steve Jobs and some handy graphics involving a middleground and falling words at the keynote speech, the netbook was crushed by the mere name iPad).

One of the biggest problems I see with the iPad, is the lack of Flash support in-browser, which absolutely fucks the idea of this being used as either a leisure device OR a work device. Using it as a leisure device, in this age of the internet, means web browsing, and that’s made a whole lot harder when the platform that a big chunk of the web is built on isn’t supported. This will also affect is as a business device given that any company worth it’s bisto does publicity and presentations in big shiny flash videos. Sure, Apple were kind enough to offer us a scraping of flash in the stuff we do most (namely BBC iPlayer and YouTube) but this device absolutely needs Flash support or it’s going to have problems; other tablets support flash, within months (if not weeks) Adobe will release their mobile flash plugin and I’ll be able to view Flash content on my Palm Pre, but the iPhone won’t support this. Apple, stop being petty, get your shit together, let Adobe pass it’s mobile flash for the iPhone and please your obsessive, salavating hounds of fanboydom or……well nothing. Admitedly, nothing will happen to damage the sales of the iPhone, or even the iPad, without Flash because most don’t understand it. While people see and know the term “Flash Player” bandied around on the web, usually in those few seconds before it kicks in on a YouTube video, but few understand what it is or understand when you mention it doesn’t support it. Someone I know, on mentioning that there’s no Flash support, replied knowingly ‘Oh that’s ok, I always take photos in the day’. Typical.

Typing, of course, is handled by an onscreen keyboard and this, I feel, is where the iPad, and indeed the whole tablet concept, falls down. At the keynote speech Jobs demonstrated it by resting the device flat on his lap and typed facing straight down. This is one of the major flaws I see with tablets, in that, to do anything worthwhile involving typing you need to suffer excruciating neckstrain and it just isn’t worth it when you can have a netbook. Laptops were designed with hinges below the screen for a reason. It’s not all bad, however, because in a very Apple-like move, Jobs announced a keyboard that can dock with the tablet making it, that’s right children, a sodding computer. If I were to own one, I wager it’d spend a lot of time sitting docked (and plugged in) on my desk and be used as a second computer.

I actually feel that this device is pretty under-spec, it’s supposedly a work-on-the-go device with all the things you’d need, yet it runs a measly 1GHz processor. Apple fanboys will tear the tape away from their mouths (I got pissed off with the 3GS and started kidnapping them, is anyone complaining?) to tell me that a slower processor doesn’t matter in an Apple environment because it the OS runs faster and more efficiently. Excuse me while I wipe yet another cliché that Jobs tries to sell from my ears and call bullshit on that. Sure, Windows is bloated but I cannot allow you to say that, even if that were true of Apple, a 1GHz processor would run at a bearable speed, it just doesn’t gel.

Obviously the rumours of this device have been around since Duke Nukem Forever was in pre-production but, for the most part, these have been dashed. The toenails of rumour-man were getting so long that it’s good Apple have decided to clip them (I’m not sure what made me think of that metaphor, I must cut my toenails), but it’s a shame because some of the aforementioned rumours, which is now relegated to rank of “made up bullshit”, were quite intriguing and would’ve made the device really stand out, like if it had run Mac OSX (which of course they couldn’t do otherwise it would be a Mac and have the price to show that). Instead of introducing an entirely new looking device, the “big iPhone” look makes sense I guess but putting it on a larger and definitely not pocket-sized device confuses the idea of a phone handset. It’s hardly surprising that Apple wanted to spread this form factor as a brand having managed to do so with every other possible aspect (even with music, going so far as to create their own DRM a few years back), but I think they needed a new look to set out this device as the laptop-smartphone ‘middle ground’ they’re so fond of and not merely an extension on the latter. The screen is laced with a black edge bigger than Steve Jobs’ piggy bank, so the whole things feels like they’ve compromised a lot of screen real-estate for the purposes of the iPhone-look. I would’ve gone with a screen touching the very edges of the device, but that’s merely to feed my uber sci-fi technolust.

What advantages does this tablet have over every other tablet that were announced at CES last year. Apple’s unsubtle timing with the Creation event clearly generated enough hype to overshadow the devices announced in Vegas so that anyone contemplating a tablet will automatically think of Apple. To be honest, there’s nothing that would feasibly set this apart, I was privy a little while ago to some of the visuals of the OS that made it onto the final unveiling and they did make me salivate, but unless it’s in practise I can’t say anything. The eBook reader interface was what I liked the most, but it’s worth mentioning us Bulldogs won’t get native eBook support, and bear in mind that it lacks the e-Ink screen. Maybe it’s because I’m a tech writer, but if I was going to buy a tablet I’d feasibly look at my options and include the iPad as a contender, but not automatically assume it was best and blindly buy it.

Scarily though, fanboys wouldn’t be quite so discerning, and it doesn’t really matter what this device does because there’s already a market who would’ve bought it a month ago. Creator of Digg and co-host of Revision3 show Diggnation, Kevin Rose did a survey a few weeks ago essentially saying that if Jobs said we have a tablet and told you nothing else about spec, features or price but just said that you can order it now, would you buy now? Shockingly, around 30% of the people who took the poll essentially said “Yes, I trust Steve Jobs and would buy right away”. Apple’s hold on these obsessive Apple fanboys is so absolute that regardless of how tablet computers fare in the future, Apple will always have customers.

I like this device, I have to confess, but I think the target of tablet computers in general need changing, and will probably do so organically as these devices become commercially available. These devices are being touted as a replacement for netbooks, as a portable yet functional device, but they won’t work like that; a functional device needs a keyboard that you can use without breaking your neck. I think that these devices will become perfect gadgets, not for “on the go”, but for “around the house”. I can picture myself sitting down on a sofa in the morning with a coffee to read some news, read a book, check my email – but not work.

Though I lose any future Apple-bruising points for saying this, and risk being called an Apple-polisher, but I may actually buy this, or I may buy some other tablet if it’s got a better spec, but this is pretty good. It’s being sold in the US for $500, which equates to around £300ish in the UK, so it’s a relatively cheap device for Apple. However, for the reasons I mentioned above I’d only go for the WiFi one rather than shelling out for another data plan.

But I’m not using that fucking onscreen keyboard…

P.S. I apologise for the lateness of this post, I’ve been quite ill this week and had to wait for my thumping headache and nausea to subside momentarily so I could read the keynote coverage. Night.

CES 2010 – The Geek Synapse

Hey all, this is my roundup of the tech being shown off at CES in Las Vegas this year, this is the article I’m writing for Spark* and won’t need to submit until Tuesday so any feedback or corrections would be appreciated. I wanted to talk about more stuff but I was fairly limited on the word-count so I’ll probably talk about each of the topics covered in more detail later on for a post.

CES 2010
Mat Greenfield

Amongst the glitz, glamour and gambling geriatrics of Las Vegas, January saw the arrival of the biggest technology trade shows of the year, the Consumer Electronics Show, parading the latest innovative, shiniest and weirdest tech that bespectacled geeks and corporate suits have to offer. Unfortunately, the Spark* budget didn’t quite stretch to shipping me off to Sin City to attend the show in person, but I’ve still managed to put together a round-up of all the gadgetry-goodness that you’ll be craving in 2010.

New mobile phones were an inescapable point of intrigue this year, as Google showed off their first handset – the Nexus One. While Google have had their Android OS on the market for some time now, this is the first phone that they have designed themselves, with the aim to sell it directly to consumers SIM-free rather than going through network providers. Motorola demonstrated their quirky new phone, the Backflip, a phone with a full QWERTY keyboard on the back that you can flip out rather than the traditional slider. Both these phones are gimmicky and otherwise unremarkable 3G touchscreen handsets, the former dripping with hype, having been promoted far and wide as the “Google Phone”, but lacking any particularly groundbreaking features that set it apart from its HTC cousins. Relatively unknown phone manufacturer ‘Sonim’ garnered more publicity than they’d hoped when they challenged BBC Click reporter Dan Simmons to break the “unbreakable phone”, who subsequently rendered it inoperable by smashing it on the corner of a fish tank.

Netbooks, having well and truly embedded themselves into the realm of the everyday use device, were less innovation and more preservation this year. Asus announcing nothing new to their eeePC range but more carbon-copy models that have barely changed since the last CES besides slightly new cases and more names totally unrelated to their use or purpose (i.e. the Seashell or the Surf with no discernible beach link). The only major innovation on the show-floor here was the theatrics of Alienware in demonstrating their M11x gaming netbook, the first small laptop with sufficient graphics and processing power to run all the usual niche features of a gaming laptop, like customisable case lighting, without breaking your spine when carrying it, a definite plus.

While the turn of the decade didn’t see the invention and full-scale integration of flying cars that we’ve been promised since the mid-eighties, Ford have done their bit in making modern cars seem a little more Futurama by introducing Sync. A user interface fully integrated into the car, allowing you full scale control and customisation, allowing you to almost totally change your displays on the dashboard, console or any display around the car. Along with advanced phone synchronisation via Bluetooth, voice commands, navigation and, most importantly, cup holders.

Other tech treats from CES included the Powermat wireless charging technology, an adorable TV screen embedded in a toy polar bear from Hanspree, media streamer the Boxee Box, more information on Microsoft’s Project Natal, seeking to rid the gaming world of controllers and a NIMble microwave with a touchscreen Android phone built into it – for some reason.

Surprising no-one this year was the appearance of new eBook reader models, devices that can store and display digital books with e-ink screens to avoid eyestrain and glare. To take on the Amazon Kindle, Samsung wasted no time in announcing a range of eReaders, the E101 and E6 models come in 10-inch and 6-inch displays, have built-in Wifi and touchscreen and support ePub formats which allow flexibility with ebook stores instead of tying you to a device’s store. Entourage’s eDGe eReader is a clever dual-screen device has an e-ink screen attached to a tablet computer, allowing integration between the two devices, such as opening links, searching for references and viewing images in colour from the eBook page on the tablet screen. The Que ProReader set itself apart by being “a professional tool, not a leisure device”, which explains it’s cumbersome A4-page screen size, 3G internet and news subscription feature on the home screen. This costly device would look more at home on the desk of a pristine office, not hastily crammed into a bag and would certainly awkward to carry around or read on. The Copia Ocean 9 eReader seeks to turn digital-literature into the next Facebook with social network features built into the device, allowing discussions and reviews between other people reading the same books as you. But if all these different models and features are too much to handle, the simple jetBook Lite solves that issue with a simple, cheap and no-thrills eReader, with 100 free pre-loaded books to get you going, or Bookeen’s small Cybook Opus. It seems that, with the 2009 showing just how profitable the eBook market can be, companies are eager to write their own chapter, unfortunately their desperation to stand out has lead to many bringing out overly expensive and impractical devices that will not, in the most part, stand up to everyday use.

Keeping up with 2010’s futuristic theme, the appearance of several new Tablet PCs at CES this year exploded the ‘don’t need but really want’ synapse in every gadget-geek’s brain. These new devices blur the line between netbook and smartphone, boasting the processing power of the former with the convenience of the latter; even though they can seldom fit in pockets. Dell showed off their Mini 5 Tablet Concept, a prototype device that so closely resembles a smartphone and even runs Android, though Dell were adamant that this qualifies as a genuine computing device and not a phone, despite needing a data plan SIM card to surf the web and its ability to take calls. Microsoft boss Steve Ballmer made an unusually reserved appearance at a keynote speech to talk about new slate computers running Windows 7, with particular focus on the HP Slate, a touchscreen device tailored for the OS. Lenovo came out with their Ideapad UI, a sleek touchscreen tablet that runs a Linux OS for 3G web browsing and on-the-go usage, but also comes with a keyboard attached to a laptop-esque casing. Sliding the tablet into this case instantly turns it into a Windows 7 machine for more intensive work and solving the onscreen keyboard problem that, for many tablet-adopters, will be a bitter pill. Though Apple has been rumoured to be developing a tablet computer since Steve Jobs had hair, the company was, as per usual, absent from the proceedings in Las Vegas. But did, last week, send out invitations for an event on January 27^th to the US press emblazoned “Come See Our New Creation!” so, with ever more persistent rumours and the explosion in tablets so huge it can be seen from space, odds are that Apple will announce their tablet as this goes to print; I apologise if it turns out they announced a new line of toasters.

With the release of Avatar at the end of 2009, 3D films are officially here to stay, and CES was packed with displays showing how home-cinema will handle the new format. Sharp paraded their 3D “quad-pixel” technology adding yellow to the RGB configuration that’s happily been in place for years, whereas Samsung triumphantly brandished (and rotated simply for emphasis) their pencil-thin 0.3 inch display. Panasonic are perhaps the company embracing 3D the most, announcing the best quality 3D-HD television at CES and showing off their 3D camcorders. Panasonic even announced a partnership with US satellite service DirecTV, which will allow broadcast of 3D HD content to homes in the States, as will Sky in Britain later on. Unfortunately, enjoying the new format almost definitely means you’ll need a new TV, new cabling and a new receiver, meaning that (like HD) it will take a few years to become widely used; if it takes off successfully at all.

Yeah I know this isn’t rounded off particularly well but the article had to be in four sections and I don’t know how my editor wants them arranged, but didn’t mention any sort of closer so yeah.

Feedback please! Much love.

Apple – “Come see our latest media circus”

Apple has cock-teased fanboys of the universe by sending out invitations for an event on January 27th to the US Press, emblazoned “come see our new creation”. Suggesting that (having thought themselves too good for CES) they plan to announce, unveil and, no doubt, parade a new tablet PC; complete with Steve Jobs seeking constant validation from the assembled journalists by saying “isn’t that cool?” every twenty seconds like an insecure parrot.

The reason that they are probably going to announce a tablet pc is because it’s been rumoured since Steve Jobs had hair and we’ve had so-called “leaks” of information suggesting they will do so. Despite the rumour persistence and it’s prior lack of grounding, the explosion of tablets, slates or any variation on that title suggests that now they want to get in on it. Tech websites have been inundated with “leaks” of details on the gadget, as well as (quite ironically) a leaked e-mail about their procedure in leaking details to titillate the geek proletarians. Furthermore, the exponential growth of the Malus-domestica empire (thank you Wikipedia) means that they won’t want to let a market open up without their input, letting another company build up the dominance that they have in the smartphone market in a, albeit delicious, rotation of bureau, wherein they now have to struggle to overthrow the tablet King.

However, for the purpose of merely playing the atheist-devil’s advocate, this is why they might not announce a tablet. Firstly, such a device will be nearly indistinguishable from an iPhone and, unless they find some sort of amazing new feature, they needn’t bother. Secondly, Apple have a habit of letting a new market settle down, look at the problems that the current devices have and then pull out a trump card. Before the iPhone, Windows Mobile owned the market and there was almost no alternative – now every Thomas, William and Harrison company has some OS or device out, ever since Apple started it off; yet none of them have usurped the leader of the crusade, who did very well first time. The leaks could easily be a way to throw people off the scent of their latest gadget, it seems very odd that Apple would enter a market this quickly, let alone with a brand new gadget. Rather than bringing out a Flip-killer, they stuck a camera on the iPod Nano. Rather than bringing out a games console, they promoted the iPod Touch more as a gaming device than a music player. History has shown that Apple usually has to ridiculously confident in their new product to release it as a whole new gadget rather than piggyback it on something they’ve already bought out. I think it’s reasonable to assume that they’re not simply gluing something new onto something old this time, due simply to the hype instead of waiting until MacWorld of WWDC as usual.

Now, it’s clear that Apple have worked up enough media hype that they have to follow through with something truly groundbreaking come January 27th. Whether or not Apple will manage to follow through remains to be seen, but past experience tells me they probably will. If it IS a tablet, then it has to be something truly remarkable to tell it apart from simply a fat iPhone, or any other Tablet PC announced last week, but if it isn’t then it has to be some equally, if not more, astounding to live up to the hype that they’ve created. Either way, this should be fun to watch!

Frankly, I’m still anticipating a new line of “Apple Toasters”.

Totally Fucking Forgot!

Hey guys, you may remember that between pieces I occasionally post brief gadget squees or updates in my tech life – usually on Twitter – or on my blog if it’s something bigger. There have been two big gadget alterations that I’ve forgotten to mention in the past two weeks.

Firstly, you may also remember that around New Year I was writing about weighing up the iPhone, Palm Pre and Android Phones to decide which one to buy. After much deliberation, and a trip to O2 to try the phones on display and piss off the salespeople, I chose the Palm Pre as my new phone. Sure, the devices build quality could be improved a bit, and the app store needs a lot of work (helped by the fact that the store is to start accepting paid apps, giving developers an actual reason to write for it), but it’s a fantastic device, with the physical keyboard which I adore.

Secondly, my eeePC that I’ve been using since before I bought this blog is back in general service. After increasingly prominent bugs and problems making it useable, but very frustrating, my friend Alex convinced me to install Windows 7 on it in place of the heavily-tweaked for “simplicity” Linux distribution, Xandros. Apparently me and UNIX disagree very much on what the basic needs of a computer user are that convinced them to create an OS so simple it didn’t even call Firefox by it’s name; simply web. I was persuaded mainly by the fact that my current bout of lectures are very boring and having Windows 7 means that myself, Alex and several other people on my course can play Worms: Armageddon during the lecture; an increasingly common trend that we’re convinced will have the whole course doing so by the end of term. With my other friend, Steve, having a phone that can run as a wifi hotspot, we can play undetected by the University network; they don’t care about us not paying attention in lectures, just as long as we’re not chocking their network in the process. Now that I’ve had a few days to let the OS adjust to my netbook, it runs surprisingly well, albeit with a paging file that makes up for the insufficient 1Gb RAM my netbook packs under the hood. I’ve even got Aero which makes the side of me that’s part-magpie giddy with anticipation.

I had a post summarising CES in the works, but I got an e-mail from my editor at Spark* asking for a roundup and my style of blog writing, greatly differing from my style of newspaper writing, will not allow me to simply e-mail a copy. To avoid repetition, and for the sake of avian-icide with one article of masonry, I will relent on the post until I have one suited to edited-publication sensibilities. However, given that the paper comes out every other Friday and there was one out today (with my Twitterati article finally), unless I am hindered once more by procrastination, I will finish it long before it goes to print, so you lucky son of a bitches get a preview.

Now I’m off to collect shiny things.

Might even brighten up my gloomy flat

I’ve even managed a Chuckle Brothers joke

Since Christmas 2008, I have had the complete set of Sherlock Holmes stories in my pile of books to read. However, given the size of it I have always kept it as the crowning glory at the end of my tottering literary heap. However, as my book pile is far from a static object, I have been distracted and many other books have queue-jumped, leaving my Complete Sherlock Holmes by Arthur Conan Doyle gathering dust at the bottom. Ironic then that such was my anticipation to read such a fantastic work (one of my principal aims in life is to read as many of the classic novels as possible), I neglected it so that I could enjoy it without the hanging-on of another upcoming book…

But now, reliving my A-Level English Literature days, I have seen the film rather than read the book (I know it’s not a direct adaptation of any story, allow me a cheap metaphor!).

However, though I am going to write about the film, which I loved, I feel unqualified (having yet to read the books) to speak with authority on it as an adaptation, not that that has ever stopped me, I am going to flex my cynicism muscles and resolve simply to take the piss out of it. This is mainly because I have been reading Screen Burn by Charlie Brooker, one of my main writing influences, and what to test his style. I did, despite the uncharacteristic callousness I am about to adopt, enjoy this film immensely. Right, and scene……

Did you know that Arthur Conan Doyle had meant for his two characters, the best literary double-act since Rosencrantz and Guildenstern, Detective Sherlock Holmes and Dr. John Watson, to be men of around mid-thirties? Clearly Guy Ritchie did (aren’t you a little ashamed that you didn’t know something that Guy Ritchie did? My advice: kill yourself) and the Downey/Law pairing brought precisely the correct amount of brotherly love, exasperation and faint homoeroticism that made them believable as lifelong friends.

In yet another adaptation of a much-loved literary character, Robert Downey Junior, a man for whom I have an inexplicable urge to suffocate with a toilet brush made of his own stupid stubble usually, actually pulls off a decent performance in the title role. He’s no Basil Rathbone, even Jeremy Brett (who, to me, is as much the “definitive Holmes” as Lorraine Kelly is the definitive celebrity paedophile) would make Downey shit himself and then tell Jude Law precisely what the condition of his lower intestine is like based on the smell.

In many ways, Downey has the easy job, playing Holmes as a smirking ejaculation of wit and charisma. Though Holmes only drops the smugness (making me want to choke Downey all the more) for one brief moment to assume Downey’s only other facial expression, contemplative. The only reason he was chosen for Iron Man is that he could convincingly pull off the enigmatic Tony Stark with his face smirk before they realised and put in many more scenes behind the mask, so nobody would notice that his face has the emotive range of much harder role is that of Watson, played here by Dane-playing/Aftershave-promoting Jude Law. The good doctor is put in a previously unseen number of different positions, he is in love and balancing his future marriage (and unequivocal boredom, let’s be honest) and his clear knowledge that Holmes needs him, having to choose between helping his friend and what he wants. Law gives a flawless performance and, combined with credit to the script writing, you can sympathise and understand why Watson still helps the smarmy bastard and comprehend their mismatched friendship.

The love-interest, Irene Adler, is played by the offputtingly-young Rachel McAdams. They needed to have a young, sexy femme fatalé of course, but could they really not find someone else who didn’t make Holmes look like he’s a dirty old man. Downey’s stupid tiny-beard didn’t help the sense that he was about to flash her, or negate, when they kissed, the awkward and slightly sickened feeling that you get from something like watching the Chuckle Brothers host a kids game show. Then again, Jude Law did have the moustache to match!

Visually, this film somehow manages to make Industrial-Revolution-era London seem remarkably vibrant and innovative, while still retaining the characteristic smog and grime that we come to expect. This is all down to the detail, simply by the poster you can tell that both Holmes and Watson wear very detailed clothing, and the interior scenes, such as the duo’s apartment, is so finely decorated that I’d wager we only saw half the set in shot and could spend a good few days exploring all the objects left. It combines the steam-power of Victorian Britain with the steam-punk of modern culture (coats circa Matrix et al) and makes a compelling and visually delicious setting.

The villain is Lord Blackwood, a walking and talking advert for the multiple applications of engine oil, including hair styling and making coats look extra shiny, who couldn’t be more quintessential villain if he tried. The villain that we REALLY wanted to see, Professor Moriarty (for the geeks, The Master to Holmes’ Doctor), remains in the shadows, seen twice and his identity finally revealed in a manner so bleeding obvious it doesn’t even warrant a spoiler alert. The conclusion of the film, that is: the foiling of Blackwood’s plot, is over incredibly quickly – but then it’s not really the action sequences that the Baker Street Irregulars are there for, it’s the scene where Holmes details how he unravelled the mystery that here fleshed the film’s two-hour running time well and has made Holmes such an icon – the deerstalker probably helped too.

The setup of a sequel is so obvious that I half expected Downey to sit down with a pipe (no opium use by Holmes for a 12A rating I guess) and a magnifying glass and speculate aloud about the release date of the sequel and who would play Moriarty – really get the feel of interactivity. As I mentioned, Moriarty was heard but not seen, hiding in the shadows simply because they haven’t case him yet – rumours of Brad Pitt will only escape my scorn if he can pull off a British accent properly; if Downey can do it, anyone can.

My main concern in this film was the worry that they turned Holmes from a logical, observant and deductive genius into an action hero, which wasn’t helped by the trailer consisting of mostly explosions, gun-fire, stunts and, worse of all, magic. These fears were intermittent throughout, for a “modern audience” (in other words the people you see bellowing at pigeons outside clubs at 3 in the morning) and a Guy Ritchie film, you’d expect a lot of stunts and action sequences, which where there (though notably not exactly absent from the books either). I could forgive this as long as the original character traits are retained, a few more added I could handle, and I wasn’t disappointed. The best scene in the movie is when Downey puts his constantly arrogant face to good use as Holmes recounts the clues littered throughout the film that helped him reveal Blackwood’s fraudulence, but it wasn’t as delightfully subtle as the books. The whole fun of reading mystery novels is that the author is giving you clues in the text, in the way it’s written, minor details and subtle nuances that allow the reader to try and deduce the mystery themselves. Of course, this format cannot be emulated quite so well in motion picture, but this is done about as well as it could’ve been.

A valiant effort, making as much use of the format as possible to emulate the feel of the original. As a film it’s spectacular, as an adaptation of the characters it’s very good and true to the text, Ritchie has (by degrees) achieved what many would struggle with, combining classic literature with modern film goer expectations without betraying the original – kudos.

Now where’s my deerstalker gone?

Nexus Hubbubery

Whenever there’s a consumer electronic’s show, I can’t afford to go. Nor am I famous enough to be specifically invited, nor do I work for any big publication willing to send me out there to cover it for freesies. But if I was, say, in Las Vegas right now for the Consumer Electronics Show (CES), I’d have to be organised which, as you may’ve noticed, I’m not very good at yet, but I plan to start working on that………..sometime. I hate going through the tech websites at this time of year because all of them are so loaded with information and reports that you can nary keep up. I generally wait until it’s all over, then go through the collective stories and pick out ones that interest me – a dubious method for a current tech news blog – but this story cannot be ignored.

Google, who you would’ve thought had already dipped their toe in the smartphone waters, found it tepid and thrown it’s considerable weight into the clear blue; splashing up it’s Android OS, prevalent in the smartphone market simply for the amount of devices it’s on. It seems that they’ve gotten jealous of the amount of money HTC has made on handsets, providing their open-source OS must’ve been relatively cheap, and decided to build their own pool – “shocking” the tech world by unveiling their new phone – the Nexus One.

This smartphone will, unsuprisingly, run Google’s Android OS and, to be honest, doesn’t seem to have anything that I’d be persuaded by. Sure it’s perfect synergy – other companies made the handsets, Google made the OS and then the two were welded together like some hideous Frankenstein’s Monster smartphone – and if Google has control of both, you’d get the impression that the handset and OS would be optimised for one another. Indeed, the handset is reportedly much faster and runs far better than other Android phones, but past experience shows that this does not mean Google know what to do.

Remember, this is the first time Google have released ANYTHING entirely hardware based and making their debut with something as intricate, market-refined and closely scrutinised as a phone handset, and then having to “deal” with the heavy publicity after some scallywag “leaked” pictures of the handset late last year – by which I mean creating so much hubbubery – seems like a strange idea and, if I’m honest, the general result of that is that the handset will be crap.

Microsoft was sitting pretty for a long time as the only real contender in the smartphone OS market, whilst sitting pretty much on their arse the whole time. Apple released the iPhone with it’s own OS and inadvertedly inspired companies to release their own. Apart from this, regular phones have almost always come loaded with an OS designed and made by the handset manufacturer, and they usually take a few generations before they become comfortable on the hardware. Because Google release an OS first and their handset second will mean that they will spend a few generations with a good OS but a crap phone and the result will remain out of sync rather than allowing both aspects to be refined simultaneously.

That’s a view you could take but I think Google have played a blinder here. Rather than sink their own capital into a handset to test the waters (I’m back to that awkward swimming pool analogy) of their own software, they’ve lent it out to other manufacturers to get their “Google phone” publicised and tested out their OS, found that it’s become immensely popular and now feel that the OS has had enough time, enough tweaks, enough alterations to release hardware that will cater to the needs of the OS, as defined by the user this whole time. HTC, the most prolific conoceur of Android-laden handsets, has been little more than a vehicle for testing. Everyone whose bought an Android handset so far has been an unwitting beta tester for kind old Uncle Google lending out their OS, smiling warmly and saying “have that on me!”. Now cracks the noble heart and dawneth the second stage of Google’s master plan. I will not be suprised at all if, in the next few months, Google halts provision of Android to other manufacturers and begins allowing Android only on their own handsets, to create the sense of exclusivity that iPhone and Palm Pre have with their Operating Systems.

Of course, I maintain that Google doesn’t know enough about the hardware aspect to make a phone that will live up to the OS. I anticipate there will be many complaints about the phone being sluggish to load and other similar problems with the hardware once it’s in the hands of the user rather than being flashed around by some marketing executive in a Google-coloured suit. Although, I wouldn’t buy anything from a man who dressed like Colin Baker.

Their catchprase for this phone is also baffling, “Web meets Phone”? – the web met the phone in 2001, they’ve already married, had kids, grown apart, have increasingly frequent arguments and only stay together for the sake of their kids little 3G and his retarded older brother WAP.

Either I’m Getting Smarter…

Yesterday evening saw the return of Hustle, written by Eastenders-cliché-machine Tony Jordan who, despite my mockery, actually doesn’t do too badly from time to time. The show, now in it’s sixth series, wasted no time in settling back into it’s usual display of surreal situations, brilliant acting-in-acting, plot twists and a setting apparentely so small they seem to always be able to pop off to have a contemplative stare into the Thames (pseudo-deep pricks), but no bizarre use of “bullet-time” in this episode; which I’m slightly disappointed about.

I’ve been a fan of Hustle from, literally, the very beginning and was immediately enthralled as the show grabbed me by the vernacticules for the entire first and second series. I never managed to anticipate what seemingly irrelevant movement or action would be the thing that saved the team from (as Ash says in this episode, “it’s all about misdirection”)

It’s beautifully acted, Robert Vaughn as Albert is hollywood royalty playing hollywood royalty playing anything else. Like all the performers, Vaughn has to switch between several different personas, usually in the same episode. For example, last night he was playing the good-old wise, kind yet powerful Albert everyone loves, switching to Albert playing a man with his nose so far up his arse he could smell his own earwax, switching to Albert-mentor, to Albert playing a soft-spoken art professor, to Albert playing a bumbling gold expert (I’m borrowing from other episodes now but you get the idea). Adrian Lester, too, as Mickey, had to alternate between American-throated businessman and Londoner(ish)-voiced bruiser several times, which was superb on his part. Stellar performance, as we always expect, from Robert Glenister as Ash and Kelly Adams as Emma, topped off with a passable performance by Eastenders-baby Matt Di Angelo as Sean. No matter how many prepubescent stubble-beards you grow, Matt, you’ll still be Deano Wicks and look about twelve. That aside, it’d be perfect if they weren’t given such wooden and stale lines from writer Tony Jordan, a man who clearly doesn’t get enough misery at home so decides to chuck it in front of every television in the country on Eastenders. Besides Hustle and Eastenders, one of Jordan’s best known works is Life on Mars, starring Philip Glenister (whose brother plays Ash in Hustle, Jordan likes his Glenisters and, frankly, who can blame him), showing how Jordan has just enough imagination to write a intensely intruiging concept and generally follow through with action and ideas but fails piteously with dialogue and evidentely runs out of ideas pretty fast so reuses old formats, like so…

It’s getting a tad repetitive, at least once a series there seems to be someone trying to catch the team who has, apparentely, outwitted the best grifters in London. They have some sort of informal meet with Mickey, wherein they smile smugly and bask in their deluded confidence, there’s another Thames-adjacent discussion with Albert when the supposed Grifter-Yoda warns Mickey not to do anything, knowing that Mickey will be spurred on by his pride. Mickey will have a sudden burst of inspiration, grin inanely at the camera for a second, then wipe-cut to the team gathered in a hotel room, where Mickey says something unexpected. The con apparentely continues precisely as expected, on the teams part, often interspliced with some apparent scheming of this year’s newcomer-conman-catcher. Something will go wrong and you think the team have lost the money, or the mark, or (more often) their very liberty, before Mickey makes a big reveal of something that happened off-camera to demonstrate that they’ve got the money and tied up all the loose ends. Job Done.

In case you didn’t see it, that’s basically how last night’s episode played out.

The dialogue is so bland and ineffectual that I genuinely believe that in episodes of this format, you could watch the episode entirely on mute, turn the sound back on for the last five minutes and gain a palpable comprehension of what’s happened and how it was resolved.

When they aren’t doing this tired format, however, there are some generally original ideas for cons. Perhaps my favourite episode showed the team convincing a London newsrag that they have found the Queen Mother’s long-lost son, with a genuinely tense episode and one of the best plot twists of the show. Alas, that may’ve been one of the last times that the show has genuinely suprised me. Tony Jordan is clearly more of an ideas man, shame he decides to make them talk as well…

It’s also losing it’s signature characteristics that made it such a hit originally – there’s the bullet-time stuff that I’ve already mentioned, that recognisable theme tune from the first four series, breaking the fourth wall and bollocks-on-the-table surrealism. In the second episode of the first series, Mickey and Danny convinced the mark to part with his hard-swindled cash with a dance number, obviously it was meant to be symbolic of how they dazzled the mark and was undoubtedly more interesting than any dialogue that Jordan had prepared from his post-it note line bible, but the level of genius from early episodes is unmatched these days. If the second episode doesn’t involve naked hula-hoops and woodland creatures playing Scrabble in space, I’m switching off. I kid, of course, because shows have to change and develop, look at Doctor Who, but in the old days the weekly mindfuck of the episode would make up, indeed disguise, the terrible conversational writings of Tony Jordan – now it’s unashamedly obvious.

The problem is that, over the years, the plot twists have become more and more predictable; at least they have to me. Over the years I’ve watched episodes with a beady eye and thought to myself “that’s the hint at the ending” and, more often that not in the last two series, I’ve been correct, I even half-guessed last night’s twist. BUT when I spoke to someone else about this, someone who had only just started watching it, he disagreed with me. So, I’m more attentive or I’m obsessive enough to have watched the show long enough to spot an unusual camera shot, either I’m getting smarter or the show’s getting more predictable (I’m torn here between my own arrogance and my poignant skill at self-deprecation so I’ll leave you to make up your own joke there). The shows technical “re-boot” last year started on a high, admitedly, and did take me by suprise, but (lately) seldom does Tony Jordan manage a consistent run of genuine twists; Agatha Christie he ain’t.

Ok, it seems odd to criticise a show that I love so much, both now and before, and long may it remain on our screens. Pains me to say it, but I actually think that Tony Jordan makes the show, metaphorically as well as literally, to the extent that no plot twist would be quite so delicious in the hands of someone else, nor the ideas quite so ludicrously brilliant, it’s a fantastic show and I hope it keeps getting made. Shame the all-dialogue scenes are just like Twitter – you know they’re there and that they’re talking, but you can anticipate the point of it and you really just….don’t…..care.

LONG LIVE HUSTLE!

;

It sits there…

On your keyboard…

You can deploy it with one swift movement of your finger…

It usurps it’s oft-used cousin for non-shift use…

It rudely ingratiates itself with your spell-checker and appears…

But you accept it’s intrusion…

It gives writers-blocked bloggers something to write about…

It’s clearly there to do something important…

……………………………………………………………..But you have no idea what!

I am talking about the semi-colon.

(This post is quintessentially a dull topic but I hope I’ve injected enough useful information and humour to make it worth reading.)

Though I am far from the psychotic grammatical pedantry of Lynne Truss, as a writer I have to consider grammar. The other day, when I was making the umpteenth alteration to my Twitterati article for Spark*, I closed up another sentence with my usual brilliant wit and insight when, to my utmost shock and dismay, the dreaded green line of grammar appeared, not under a single or a few words, but under my entire sentance. This is where my own Truss-esque obsessiveness lies, my perfectionist brain was beating me senseless and urging me to find the source of this affront to my creative genius that my computer was accusing me of. After several pointless spell-check messages I eventually managed to wrangle the sentence into acceptance by a binary-mind, all but one word. My considerable ego would take a knock here, dear reader, as the solution to this lay not in an unusual syntax, but the lack of a symbol following the word, the most curious of symbols…………it looked, well, like this: ;.

Now, I realise that writing about how confused I was by a simple notational tool (one that, for all I know, may be common knowledge to all) may, and probably will, lose me any and all credibility I may hold as a writer in the future. But nevertheless my hand itches while not holding a pen and I have nothing to write about, so this is the best I can do. But it strikes me that, over the course of my entire life, of which some thirteen years of education in the matter of the English Language and it’s use reside, I have never been given a clear demonstration of the correct use of a semicolon.

I have to consider, why is it that a so vapidly used symbol considered more important than it’s cousin, the colon, to the extent that it smugly doesn’t require the midwife-Shiftkey to bring it forth? As many techies will know, the semicolon is a staple in many programming languages as a statement terminator – that is, it tells the program when one command has ended – so my semicolon has not been starved these many years. But, I surmised, this cannot be it’s lot in life, this cannot be what it was meant to do. Given that, in the days of settling the tedious standards of computing, the QWERTY layout was designed with the geek well and truly in mind – easy access to the semicolon would save valuable, and (through some laborious coding) calculable, man seconds in writing programs, at a time when it was thought that the home computer wouldn’t be used by anyone who doesn’t know, or indeed have wet dreams about, the most efficient way to >32-bit floating point integers in memory. Despite the millions of programs that have been scrapped as “mysteriously non-functional” due simply to one missing ; – this seems to be the most logical answer to the dominance.

In her book, Eats, Shoots & Leaves: The Zero Tolerance Approach to Punctuation (which I recentely reviewed), self-professed punctuation promoter Lynne Truss goes into detail about the use of the semicolon, but in a way that simply made me bemused as her Punctuation Communism (a phrase I coined in my review) rather than actually taking notes at the correct use. I recall a quote she used, however, by Virginia Woolf about how semicolons can be addictive and she’s absolutely right. Since I noticed my semi-deficiency (fill in your own joke there), I have striven…….stroved…….strived to include them whenever I can, to the point that in proof-reading I have to fight my addiction to remove it, with limited success. I should mention here that I have a split personality disorder, this is hard as a writer as it stops me from focusing on one thing or staying in one mind about something; but it does make proof reading a lot easier.

Determined that I should have absolutely no gaps in my knowledge…………….of anything………..I set new awork and investigated the use of the mysterious mark; and came up short. For the life of me I still have no definite idea of what it does (despite using it not twenty-three words ago). Despite trawling many tens of sites (I have a short attention spa…….), it was impossible to quickly get a clear and definite idea of ALL it’s uses, as far as I can tell it can be used to tack small sentences onto the end of the previous one, assuming there is a thematic link, which is currently the only way I have been using it. I say that I can’t get a definitive idea because whenever I think I’ve seized the semi-colon by the scruff of it’s neck and beaten it into submission, another possible use comes to it’s aid in the form of a different, or sometimes contradictory, use in something I read; I know Lynne Truss gave a detailed list of it’s uses but my review copy is back in the library.

So, the mystery of the semicolon goes on, but it is no matter. The use of the semicolon is of little importance, both because I can still say precisely what I mean to without it and because my ignorance appears to be mostly shared, the really amazing thing about this little mental adventure that you and I, dear reader, have shared is this…

I can write 1000 words about anything!

Doctor Who – The End of Time, Part Two

This review couldn’t be more spoilery, so watch the episode before you read. You have been warned!

Right then, now that I have successfully reassembled my mind, I can review David Tennant’s swansong (or should that be oodsong?) as The Doctor in the New Years Day Special of ‘Doctor Who’.

This was a mixed bag for me, as a way of seeing the Tenth Doctor off this works very well, as a story it was puzzling at best. The appearance of the Time Lords, which I hoped would be an ongoing resurrection, instead turned out to be a flashback, of sorts, into the Time War; oblique Eighth Doctor reference and all. As best I can understand it, The Master’s samba-beating-brain was a signal across time to the link between him and the Time Lords, the latter trapped within the Time Lock, the former having escaped the war and, thus, the lock. The Time Lords then used that diamond to signal The Master and, having seen the events that the two time-lords are in, prompt him to bring them back through the Immortality Gate. In doing so, The Master inadventedly breaks the lock and brings through a monstrous menagerie of ghoulies from the War (albeit ones we don’t see so kinda detracts the threat). But, after some to-and-fro-ing with a gun, The Doctor flips a switch and sends it all back, and when they try to stop him The Master steps in and thunders them back. That summary itself shows why it was a bit of a weak plot, if the Time Lords had even moved around a bit more we’d see them as more dangerous but the five of them standing still didn’t do it for me, neither did the appearance of Gallifrey in the sky. The brevity with which we see the planet as well as the inaction of the Time Lords didn’t make it feel like much of a threat, and the fact that Rassilon (I think that’s who Timothy Dalton was playing) instantly made The Master his bitch undermined him as well. I’m not going to be a fanboy about continuity but it felt as though a lot of it didn’t make sense.

However, I did think it was a fantastic episode, and here’s why. Though the story was weak it was the perfect blend of Russell T. Davies good techniques and a lack of his bad ones, granted the old habit of making the stakes too high and then not being able to hold the story up to a satisfying resolution was still there, but the companions returned (which I like to see) but didn’t get too involved or crowd up the scenes in any way. The fleeting cameo appearances of the companions paid tribute to the Tenth Doctor, but didn’t get overly sentimental or get in the way – harkening back to previous regenerations where there’d be a clip or a small appearance of past characters – but was better in that it was an actual visitation. With Jack’s appearance you can almost hear RTD get out one last reunitive ejaculation as he finally fufills his ambition of getting all the big monsters in one place, and I’m a tad confused about wether Donna actually remembered or not, but I guess not, and we return to a flogging of the proverbial deceased stallion with one last appearance from Rose, but I suppose if you’re doing a Tenth Doctor recap, you can hardly miss her out! While we’re on the subject, when the hell did Martha and Mickey get married? Last I heard she was married to that bloke from that episode.

More of a break from RTD tradition was Ten’s attitude throughout the action. Whenever the Time Lords have been mentioned, or when The Master last returned, poor David Tennant was lumped with a lot of emotive acting and not as much comedy. I’m glad to see that was avoided and the episode sums up his Doctor well, without resorting to the doe-eyed “lonely god” crap. The escape where The Doctor is tied down, I felt, was fantastic and needed, as well as the pre-escape sequence when The Doctor’s charisma and humour shines through.

The regeneration, as it often turns out to be, was the gemstone of the episode, and whetted every fanboys appetite for the next series. I was a bit disappointed at Ten’s last line was something so piteous, and hoped he’d have something to trump Christopher Eccleson’s last lines as The Ninth Doctor. However, I agree with RTD when he says that every other Doctor (when they have a decent sendoff), has a heroic acceptance of their death, having such a reaction is both quite unlike The Doctor and tragically realistic, with a sad (yet still somewhat stoic) goodbye. Another RTD staple in the ability of The Doctor to see off a massive threat unharmed and be killed by the simplest act, albeit saving Wilf’s life. The “He will knock four times” stuff was a master-stroke that didn’t involve The Master, but was Wilf knocking (four times) on the door of the chamber he was sealed in, asking The Doctor for his release before it flooded with radiation due to recent events – the only way to do so by sealing himself in the other chamber.

I think all will agree that David Tennant’s Doctor went out in a literal blaze of glory, when he describes the sheer amount of radiation that will impact the chamber he sets himself up for a violent end, one that conveniently destroys most of the TARDIS interior so that the next series’ new TARDIS set can rise from the ashes.

Matt Smith, starting his Who-career as the Eleventh Doctor, was not what I was expecting. His first face as The Doctor, a look of a man who has just had a lead pipe rammed up his arse (which reminds me of last night really, happy new year by the way) and then standing a bit hunched and flinching at the explosions on the TARDIS (which I think might’ve been more of a suprised actor than a suprised Doctor), was peculiar. He also begins rattling off quotes and quirks of The Doctor we’ve just said a three-hour goodbye to and, other than ‘Geronimo’ (which you can instantly tell is going to be a catchphrase), we didn’t get a real idea of how this Doctor will be other than comparable to the Tenth. I heard that the outgoing and incoming head writers had an agreement that when Ten faded off the screen, to be replaced by Eleven, RTD would also stop writing lines for Doctor Who and every word, from the very first, Eleven spluttered would be SM’s, so it’s odd that rather than begin crafting entirely new dialogue, they stuck to the old ways, unless it’s supposed to be some sort of transitionary thing that we’ll find out about come Series 5.

But, as we often do at the start of a new year, and as Doctor Who often prompts us to do, we must look to the future. Matt Smith wasted no time in getting his catchphrase in, as you can see in this trailer for Series 5 (no new interior TARDIS shots yet dammit!)

Roll on Series 5!

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