Christopher Griffith

This blog is being archived for the time being. Because of the time put into these blogs were more than what most people will have interest in reading, and due to personal time constraints this blog is being taken offline.

For now…

There is news brewing of how the next arcade game you will see at your local mall or bar will be Guitar Hero Arcade.  Activision, Raw Thrills and Konami have joined forces to produce one of the already best selling arcade games. It may seem odd that Activison and Konami are working together even though they have competing products( if you consider rock revolution competing against guitar hero), but there final product will reflect upon how it was a perfect match for such a game.

Guitar Hero Arcade is mainly based off of guitar hero 3, due to the fact World Tour was still in production at the time. Still, there are influences of World Tour on the arcade version; for example the new sleak looking guitars, just without the solo pad at the bottom. Of course certain content was neutered, like character customization, or else everyone would have to spend half an hour to customize their character before playing, just for it to be modified by the next player.

The game play will remain almost unchanged but the downloadable content will still be in place. Instead of it being chosen by the player though, it’s chosen by the owner. Which means that you may not have the same songs to play every where you go, adding a little freedom to the game.

Overall it seems like Guitar Hero Arcade will be the hit of the arcade world in the upcoming months. The first wave will hit the malls and bars by February, which will be the true field test. Personally I believe it will do great considering it can attract almost anyone with it’s allure. it’s similar to a less annoying karaoke bar, allowing everyone from show-offs, drunks to the social awkward, interact in a fun social environment while those around them either cheer for them or mock them.

The only thing I would be worried about for these games is the guitars themselves. The World Tour ones can easily break with normal wear and tear, the Arcade versions better be made out of cast iron with a titanium chain to the console or else there can be a lot of destruction (but I imagine there would be a lot of destruction with a cast iron guitar as well). Other than that small concern of mine, it seems that this could be one of the best arcade games thought up, hopefully the final product is as good as the hype.

(based off: http://multiplayerblog.mtv.com/2008/12/08/guitar-hero-arcade-based-on-guitar-hero-3)

Sci-fi Movies always show in the future, that we can control our computers completely by what we say or simply our gestures. Even in the newly released Iron Man movie, Tony Stark’s uses his eyes to control his advanced suit.  The question is, how soon can I get that technology? guess what, it’s here (sorta).

A new software development package allows the use of objects that are seen by a webcam to control what is on your screen! Appropriately called ‘Touchless’, allows for the anyone to make their own programs to be controlled by specified markers specified by the user (Basically something that stands out from the room around you, like a pop can or bouncy ball and so on). I am not too much of a coder, so I was unsure if this was anything other to me than a cool video, but when I downloaded their zip file, it came with the demo used in their video.

The demo instantly made me stop everything else and try it out. I found out pretty quick that my cheap webcam made me have some limitations with the smoothness of the drawing demo, and the markers I chose sometimes acted strangely, but that didn’t stop me. Instead of pointing the camera at me and trying to draw stuff (tried that and it would sometimes think my face was the object) , I aimed it at my desk and found two objects to use that were black and white.

The hard part was setting up the two markers, they really do need to be in high contrast to the background and at an optimal distance for your webcam. I attempted to use everything to get a good marker, a multi-colored bouncy ball, a pencil, a quarter, a spoon… in the end I used a little black ‘thing’ and a white cap from a bottle of Advil.

So I tried out all four demos and even though they seemed simple, they were impressive in their own ways. I was able to move the map around just as they showed in their movie, play pong with myself (don’t quote me on that one), and even write my name.

It didn’t even take that long to set up, from start to finish of me playing around was about 15 minutes, 30 mins if you count the 15 minutes for me writing this blog. the program of course wasn’t perfect, little glitchy finding objects at times, but I would still give it a nine out of ten. What really impressed me: What it could actually do, even as a demo. I was able to set it up in less than 5 minutes. It’s free. It’s not just a demo of what this technology can do, its the software kit so that anyone can make programs that utilize it. I also thought it was cool that it was released on my birthday .

I would recommend you try it out yourself (if you have a webcam), you can download it from their site at: http://www.codeplex.com/touchless

A story that caught my eye was about a new style of browser from Japan. It is noted several times that it is currently only in the alpha phase, which tells me that it works…sorta. As a man that likes to stay on the leading edge of technology I quickly downloaded it and tried it out. The first thing to note about it is that it has all three browser engines built it (Gecko, Trident, and WebKit)! That means from one browser, you can view how the other browsers (i.e. Firefox, Safari, Internet Explorer, Opera) will display something.

Right out of the box, it looks very plain and overwhelming. I quickly ran to their site and downloaded a cosmic theme and then looked for any add on, and then found out that none exist yet (but they are claiming a high import ability of firefox and IE add-ons) Feeling the real effects of an alpha version started in. At that point I started messing around with it to see what I did and didn’t like, and also how fast I could break the browser. I have been able to crash every other browser I have used from loading too many sites at a time, bad plug-ins and so on (or for internet explorer clicking on the icon to start it can sometimes be fatal). And I was amazed that it was actually taking me a while to crash it. I am able to run twenty tabs and Lunascape only uses 35K of my memory (with the gecko engine), whereas firefox with 8 tabs running at the same time was costing me 125K, this made a nice impression on me fast.

The next nice thing I noticed was that unlike other browsers, its tabbing system simply makes another row below the first and so on and so forth, unlike smaller tabs making an endless list to either side. The disadvantage of this is if you are like me and what to have thousands of tabs open at a time, the page then will become continuously smaller.

While playing around I found a lot of features built in that other browsers need add-ons for. It has the equivalent of Firefox’s all in one sidebar and No-Script built in! It also has a quick link at the bottom to adjust settings on the fly, from (un)blocking java apps, scripts, downloads, video and so on to  work offline and zoom features.

So at points it was convenient and natural, but overall, it seems that there is too much going on. It has a built in RSS feed display where the tabs are, moving the mouse over any of the items in the side bar will make it jolt out and block your view of part of a web page. It also is more annoying that IE the first time you run it, because it will default to the trident engine, it will ask all of IE’s security questions, then some of their own for certain items. It is set to always start in and run in your system tray which is a turn off to me. It also is very ‘blocky’ and the search feature seems very cluttered with too many options to comprehend.

So overall I would give it an average rating, a bit above IE because it is customizable and you can use Gecko or WebKit, but would not recommend it as your everyday browser. It has the potential to become a competitor of safari, opera and chrome, but I doubt at it’s level it will be able to ever (at least for the next decade) compete with the market share of firefox or IE (they hover around 45% each while the others clock in around 3% each). Specifically for a targeted user, it would be for a web developer.

For designing some web pages myself I have already used the ability to switch between engines by right clicking on the tab excessively. Which has also saved me some time in the coding of my CSS. (It’s always amazed me that Trident has a huge backing from Microsoft, yet Gecko can still kicks its rear in the ability to display CSS).

So for right now, its a cool browser if you are willing to put some time to get it set up and want to use it for web development or keeping on the edge of the technological world. If you are not, I would recommend waiting for the actual release, or maybe a bit later than that as well.

If you do want to download it, it’s available straight from their website at http://www.lunascape.tv/ .

Finally after 3 years of a long and challenging road, the USB Promoter Group has released the specifications for SuperSpeed USB , which will be more commonly known as USB 3.0.  This along with the previous announcement of Wireless USB, will greatly further the development and implementation of technology that relies on the USB standards.

I think this is great news for the technical and non-technical community; we will now be able to connect to peripheral devices much faster, and wirelessly.  How fast?  The press is speculating that it will be able to transfer 25 Gigabytes in 70 seconds, approximately 350 megabytes per second.  Whereas USB 2.0  is currently clocking in at 14 minutes to transfer the 25 Gigs (about 30 megabytes per second), proving USB 3.0 is a substantial improvement over USB 2.0.

These speeds are very impressive, but keep in mind that products using USB 3.0 will probably not hit the market until late 2009 into 2010. Par for the course, Microsoft will probably be behind the ball with compatibility of USB 3.0 in its next operating system (Windows 7). In a press release on November 6th, Microsoft representative Lars Giusti stated “Because the current USB 3.0 spec is currently not signed off, we’re challenged and we won’t have support for USB 3.0 in Windows 7 at RTM (release to manufacturing).”

So as of now it will be awhile until we will see USB 3.0 on the market, but it’s refreshing to know that it’s on the way.

This last week was a very tough loss against the Iowa Hawkeyes.  The biggest factor in my opinion was the weather, although the coaching staff is also very responsible.  I feel that this is the case because the team was unable to execute on the plays called.  This was, in my humble opinion, was related to the health of Daryll Clark.  I am not attempting to take away from the contribution that he has provided to this team because he has been fantastic for the most part, but I think he was still a bit woozy from the concussion he sustained against Ohio State.  There is further evidence to support this in the use of the Wildcat formation (which I was pleased to see).  It just seems like too much of a coincidence to see it rolled out right after Clark’s concussion.  I feel that this was used to limit the number of plays in which Clark would run, thus limiting the number of hits he might sustain.  This is a good strategy, but in that case I think that it may have been smarter to play Devlin and allow Clark more time to get his health back.  Whether this would have resulted in a different outcome is uncertain though.  Overall, this game is very reminiscent of the 1999 game against Minnesota in which we also suffered a loss on a field.  The final score was the same as well.  What I find interesting about this is that the season seems eerily similar to many previous seasons under Joe Paterno.  The win over Ohio State can draw comparisons to the 1978 victory over them in the regards that we beat a highly touted true freshman quaterback who we attempted to get in our recruiting class also.  The end of the game reminded me of the 1987 Fiesta Bowl against Miami.  On the final drive of this game Pryor had a huge completion to a wide open reciever along the left sideline.  This is somewhat similar to the Testaverde completion to Bennie Blades in the Fiesta Bowl.  Both helped spark a drive down the field that looked like the end for PSU.  But as we know, both games resulted in a PSU win via an interception thrown into coverage.  A final though; enjoy these last two games (and a bowl game) as it may be the last season in which Joe Paterno is at the helm.  The media seems to know something that we don’t (see the montage of Joe during the OSU game and the NBC Sports slideshow entitled “Paterno Throughout the Years” )

And now to pick this Saturday’s games -

12:00 PM ET No. 11 Ohio State at Illinois - Ohio State (not the same Illini team as last year, Pryor is coming into his own)

12:00 PM ET Rutgers at South Florida - South Florida (Rutgers is awful, Selvie will have a monster game against Teel)

12:00 PM ET Northwestern at Michigan - Northwestern (Bacher and Sutton are very underrated, this year’s edition of UM is among the worst)

12:00 PM ET Duke at Clemson - Duke (Duke wins a close one)

12:00 PM ET Notre Dame at Navy - Notre Dame (Weiss keeps his job for another week)

12:03 PM ET Indiana at No. 8 Penn State - No pick due to bias

12:03 PM ET Purdue at Iowa - Iowa (Shonn Greene goes for over 100 yards for an 11th straight week)

12:30 PM ET No. 3 Texas at Kansas - Texas (McCoy and co. win by at least 3 scores)

12:30 PM ET No. 10 Georgia at Auburn - UGA (Auburn’s D should hold but they get no help on O)

1:00 PM ET Middle Tennessee State at Western Kentucky - MTSU (The Raiders should easily beat the Hilltoppers in their last year under provisional status.  Check out the WKU mascot Big Red, he is awesome)

2:00 PM ET New Mexico at Colorado State - CSU (The Rams should win a close one in this late season conference game against the Lobos)

2:00 PM ET Louisiana-Monroe at Mississippi - Ole Miss (The Warhawks should be no match for the Jevan Snead led Rebels)

2:00 PM ET Toledo at Western Michigan - Toledo (The Rockets are playing well this year, the Broncos on the other hand are not)

2:30 PM ET Utah State at Louisiana Tech - LA Tech (The Bulldogs should easily trounce the Aggies in the conference match-up)

3:00 PM ET East Carolina at Southern Miss - ECU (The offseason loss of Jeff Bower hurt Southern Miss big time, look for the Pirates to win handily)

3:00 PM ET UAB at Tulane - Tulane (UAB has yet to get back on track after Hackney went pro a few years back)

3:30 PM ET No. 25 South Carolina at No. 4 Florida - Florida (The ‘ole Ballcoach comes back to his alma mater, the Florida O should score a lot and their D will smother the Gamecocks offense)

3:30 PM ET No. 16 North Carolina at Maryland - UNC (Cam Sexton is playing great, though the Terps come to play against ranked opponents.  This ACC showdown should be a nailbiter)

3:30 PM ET No. 17 Brigham Young at Air Force - BYU (BYU wins handily, Hall has another great game)

3:30 PM ET No. 24 Wake Forest at North Carolina State - Wake (Wake should beat Tom O’Brien’s team as they inch closer to the ACC title game)

3:30 PM ET California at Oregon State - Oregon State (OSU comes to play as they know they are in control of the PAC 10 right now)

3:30 PM ET Minnesota at Wisconsin - Minnesota (Look for Adam Weber to exploit a weak Wiscy secondary)

3:35 PM ET Nebraska at Kansas State - Nebraska (The Huskers should pick up a win, though the Wildcats will come in fired up with the announcement of Ron Prince’s departure at the end of the season)

4:00 PM ET Louisiana-Lafayette at Florida Atlantic - Louisiana-Lafayette (The Ragin’-Cajuns should play pretty well against the Schnellenberger coached Owls)

4:05 PM ET Texas A&M at Baylor - Baylor (Look for the Bears to win this Big XII matchup against a weak Aggies squad)

4:05 PM ET San Jose State at Nevada - San Jose State (The Spartans should beat the Pistol offense of Chris Ault)

4:30 PM ET UCF at Marshall - UCF (The Golden Knights should win a close one in Huntington)

5:00 PM ET No. 9 Boise State at Idaho - BSU (Look for Boise State to roll as they eye a BCS berth and potentially a shot at the national title)

5:00 PM ET New Mexico State at Fresno State - FSU (The Fresno State D should get back on track against the Holbrook led Aggies.  Lonyae Miller and Tom Branstater should have a great game against a weak D)

5:30 PM ET Washington State at Arizona State - ASU (The Sun Devils should win handily against one of the worst teams in D-1A)

6:30 PM ET Arizona at Oregon - Arizona (Willy Tuitama should come out with all cylinders firing as the Wildcats look to make a statement against their conference foes)

6:40 PM ET No. 12 Missouri at Iowa State - Mizzou (Mizzou hopes to stay on track for the Big XII championship game, though it’s always tough going into Jack Trice Stadium)

7:00 PM ET No. 6 USC at Stanford - USC (USC’s defense is playing lights out and is looking at a potential shut-out)

7:00 PM ET Connecticut at Syracuse - UCONN (The nation’s leading rusher against a poor defense?  Easy choice)

7:45 PM ET Mississippi State at No. 1 Alabama - ‘Bama (Sylvester Croom will have his boys ready to go but the Tide will prove to be too much, especially in the first half)

8:00 PM ET No. 13 Oklahoma State at Colorado - OSU (The Cowboys are playing great ball right now, this should be an easy win.  It will be interesting to see if the Boulder weather will affect their offense though)

8:00 PM ET Boston College at No. 19 Florida State - FSU (Bowden should pick up his 381st career victory, though with the suspension of 5 players Jagodzinski’s squad has a chance.  This should be an exciting game)

8:00 PM ET Troy at No. 20 LSU - LSU (The Tigers should win this game handily)

8:00 PM ET No. 23 Tulsa at Houston - Tulsa (Look for the Golden Hurricanes to pass all over a rebuilding Houston team)

8:00 PM ET Vanderbilt at Kentucky - UK (UK could win this against a Vandy team that has shown an inability to score)

8:06 PM ET No. 7 Utah at San Diego State - Utah (Brian Johnson and the Utes look to a potential conference title, BCS berth and a shot at a national title as they play the Aztecs.  The Utes should have this game in hand by the 2nd Quarter)

9:05 PM ET Southern Methodist at UTEP - UTEP (UTEP easily handles one of the worst teams in D-1A)

10:15 PM ET UCLA at Washington - UCLA (UCLA should put up a decent amount of points against a weak Husky team though Husky Stadium’s noise may be a factor)

Hello readers, this is Matthew Avery, the new contributor to this blog.  I will discuss issues concerning Penn State, focusing specifically on, but not limited to, the Nittany Lion football team.  I hope to provide insight into the state of recruiting, game analysis and more.  The first post will be going up during the week and will be about the loss at Iowa this weekend, its implications and a round up of games around the country.  I look forward to providing this information and I hope you’ll enjoy it.

Hello everyone, I am Chris Griffith, and this is my first post on my newly revised site and I am ecstatic about it! I have never been anything close to a writer or blogger, so this is my first step into unknown territory.

This new site is all about what I feel, what I have done and what I want to give back to the world. My first goal for the blog especially is to stay diligent, to show the opinions of both myself and my peers in relation to specific topics and the world in general. I will focus on topics that concern me either direct or indirectly, but also stretch to any other topics that I find interesting. I will also host the work of Matt Avery, a peer of mine who is an excellent source on college football. He will be keeping us up to date weekly of the important happenings in the college football world, and in the off season he will be switching to other sports and topics.

Ultimately the goal of this blog is to keep you informed and entertained, keep Matt and I vigilant of our surroundings and letting us all learn something interesting along the way.