Using the interface for the first time can be a bit overwhelming. The added 3rd dimension to the layout means the plain evenness, that the original dashboard had, is broken up.

After the update is installed you can customise your avatar. Whilst doing this, you can control the expression on the avatar’s face as well as being able to make him/her spin and get dizzy (try this one to extreme for an even funnier outcome!). After customising your avatar

you can take a picture of it and set it as your gamerpic.

The party feature works well allowing up to eight people chat regardless of the game or activity they are doing. Another party feature is Photoparty, however, ease of access to this feature doesn’t seem to be a priority. At present, the Photoparty component has to be downloaded (20MB approx). Once downloaded where can one activate it from? Well at the moment there is a tile for Photoparty under the Spotlight menu, but this section seems like an area where features and games are advertised, rather than long-term fixed menus. So unless Photoparty is going to stay in the Spotlight section forever, it will need a more intuitive menu position as I was ignoring this area when initially looking for Photoparty (why would it be in such a place?). A better place to move the link would be to Picture Library or the Party menus within the Guide (which is where I first started looking).

To download Photoparty you can go to the Spotlight menu and go into the Photoparty tile. If you don’t already have it installed, you will be asked if you want to download it. Once downloaded you can go to Play Now. When you want to start a Photoparty session at another time, just go back to the Spotlight menu to open up the Photoparty download screen, as you already have it just go to Play Now.

Games can be installed to the hard drive and to facilitate this is you are a frequent installer is the ability to change the start up behaviour when you insert a game disc. Previously, when putting a game in the drive tray and closing it, the game would start up. Now you can choose to stop this autoplay, leaving you to choose to install or start the game for the menus. Another start up option offered is to start the Xbox 360 in Media Center, handy if using the console as a media extender.

With the 3D avatar comes the 3D appearance of the friends list and other menus. As with the old dashboard, themes are still a feature and four of them come with the NXE update: Xbox 360; Day; Night and Spectrum. Give them a go and check out change in the Friends List when using the Night theme. When friends are in a party with you, you will see their avatars on the friends list in a group standing around you, sometimes they will do Mexican waves and other expressions. Other friends playing the same games will show up in a group standing next to each other also. Offline friends are represented by a snoozing avatar.

To make use of the avatars, games will be available and updates available for some that are already out eg: Uno. One game that makes use of avatars is A Kingdom for Keflings, a trial is available so check this out but you’ll have to go via the Marketplace rather than the link on the Inside Xbox menu which prompts you to buy the game only.

One feature I’ve seen a few people asking for in the past is the ability to remove games with 0 gamerpoints and demos. This wish has been granted.

I have a gripe or two with the new interface regarding the new layout and the excessive sub-menus. Lets take themes as this is the most obvious one. Now, a little while ago, I was looking to see what free themes were available for the new dashboard so looking at the top level of the dashboard menu we have the options:

Welcome
Inside Xbox
Friends
Video Marketplace
Game Marketplace
My Xbox
Spotlight

Out of these options which would you go into for a theme? Nothing seems obvious, there is a Game Marketplace and a Video Marketplace, there is some differentiation so may be a theme/gamerpic marketplace would be logical, especially as not all themes and gamerpics are game based, but it isn’t there.

The next logical place to check might be to check the Game Marketplace anyway even if it isn’t glaringly obvious. Maybe a rename to Live Marketplace or just Marketplace would be more appropriate.

Within Game Marketplace we have the Themes & Gamer Pictures section, lets go into that. Here we have four sub-sections:

New Arrivals
All Themes & Gamer Pictures
Gamer Pictures
Premium Themes

So where would the free themes go? If one wanted a free theme they would have to trawl through the All Themes & Gamer Pictures section which is broken down into even more sub-sections game-by-game!

Another unfortunate thing besides the Photoparty and themes accessibility is the delay of the Primtime feature. Players would have been able to take part in gameshow style events one of theme being 100 to 1. I read a rumour that this will be released in the new year as it didn’t make the NXE launch.

Unfortunately, being in the UK, I don’t have access to Netflix, only a second rate streaming service from a BT Vision box. The experience in this case would probably be the same as using the Media Centre feature with a PC where the Xbox would be a media extender.

Overall it brings a much needed refresh to the old Xbox 360 dashboard but not one that is without its quirks and shortcomings, not least having a 3D friends list means seeing less friends’ names on the screen at one time. The problems are cancelled out by the addition of new features and improved accessibility in some areas. Once feedback is received on problems and things that could be made better (any idea where feedback can be left), I’m sure that changes will be made in a future update. Read up more about the NXE update at the following links:

NXE install – majornelson.com
Avatars – majornelson.com
Netflix and NXE – gamerscoreblog.com
NXE HDD vs DVD load times – eurogamer.net

Hi. This is a new post for my blog from my mobile. I’m using dial2do. Great new service where you can dictate what you want to post to blog, text or email. You can check it out at www.dial2do.com.

Powered by . ]]> http://www.techstatic.net/2008/11/hi-this-is-a/feed/ http://www.techstatic.net/2008/10/xbox-360-autumn-fall-update-november-19/ http://www.techstatic.net/2008/10/xbox-360-autumn-fall-update-november-19/#comments Fri, 10 Oct 2008 11:54:04 +0000 viran http://www.techstatic.net/2008/10/xbox-360-autumn-fall-update-november-19/ At the Tokyo Game Show, it was announced by John Shappert that the Dashboard update for the Xbox 360 will be released on November 19, 2008. I look forward to this update primarily due to the party feature announced at E3 earlier in the year.

Gaming on the Xbox with a few friends and family sometimes requires co-ordination skills, especially when connecting to games throws up problems you might expect on the PC. At present, users can only chat from the dashboard with one person and to speak to others they must initiate a chat session and switch to the next person whilst the former sits twiddling their thumbs. Imagine this scenario if one or more of your group cannot get into a game and are all sending chat invites for your attention. You might as well keep your phone nearby or sign-in to a messenger app. Now a number of people can form a party from the dashboard to view photos and chat together. The party can also go into a game from the dashboard as a group, providing all members have the game. This leads to a more connected and seamless experience, which should have been a feature from the start. Once released we just have to see how seamless it is, if NAT problems will cause party connection problems as in multiplayer lobbies where some users cannot connect to others.

Other features of note include the new Avatars on the Gamercard. Appearing to be heavily inspired by the Wii’s Miis, the Xbox’s Avatars can also be customised with mention of new items being available for them. Whilst a considerable number of items are already available to apply to the Avatars, no doubt this will provide an additional stream of income with people buying new clothing and accessories for their Avatars, maybe there will be Horse Armour too! Users will also be able to take a picture of their Avatar and use that as their Gamer Picture. The addition of Avatars goes hand-in-hand with the redesign of the Dashboard interface overall. The navigation method is similar to Sony’s XMB with button presses in the X and Y axes to move through the menus. Rather than left and right through the main menus and up and down to go through the sub sections, the Xbox Dashboard will use up and down for the main sections with left and right for sub sections.

Users in the US will have access to Netflix connectivity. Having an account with Netflix will let users rent and download films directly to the Xbox 360.

Another feature I look forward to is the ability to copy games directly to the console’s hard drive to reduce loading times and noise from a spinning disc. I for one am looking forward to this due to the noise reduction factor as I do not have the leisure of turning up the volume on the TV as is often flippantly advised. One caveat is that the game disc must be in the drive to prove you have the game, at least it doesn’t check if you bought or borrowed the game

Penny Arcade Expo (PAX) runs from the 29th to the 31st of August at the Washington State Convention & Trade Centre.

Links: Major Nelson, Penny Arcade Expo
Keywords: Xbox 360 Dashboard Autumn Fall Update Major Nelson PAX Penny Arcade Expo

The existing d-pad is well regarded as providing the controllability experienced when trying to use a mobile phone in sub-zero temperatures whilst wearing gloves that haven’t protected you from frostbite. Ok, it isn’t that bad but the way the d-pad design on the Xbox 360 pad works is the same as a traditional d-pad below on the circuit board but above that it’s a little different.

Rather than having a cross pad with the traditional up, down, left and right buttons, or individual buttons impacting the rubber pads below, the Xbox 360 ultilises a rubbish rocker motion. This rocking gives the impression that it is really an analogue control with a d-pad on top. The d-pad’s plastic moulding gives the user a clumsy interaction with this rocker pretending to be a d-pad, often invoking another direction if not precisely hitting the direction intended at the very tip.

Microsoft has confirmed the new controller, which looks the same as existing Xbox 360 controllers, which will now have increased sensitivity, detecting button presses in 32 directions. No doubt it will still have the rubbish rocking motion. Eurogamer have been told the controller is a limited edition available in Europe, Latin America and Asia, until it sells out.

Links: Eurogamer original article - confirmation - pictures
Keywords: Xbox 360, Controller, D-Pad, Microsoft

Cuil, which other sites make a point of letting you know is pronounced ‘cool’ and is apparently an old Irish word for knowledge. Cuil will no-doubt be seen as an up-coming contender to rival Google because of the team behind it. Cuil’s founders are Tom Costello and Anna Patterson, a husband and wife team whose histories consist of significant search-technology experience. Anna Patterson, along with Russell Power (VP of Engineering and Founder) and Louis Monier (VP of Products), have come from Google to make Cuil a success.

The way Cuil is supposed to differ isn’t just the number of pages indexed and results, as the index isn’t fully established, but the relevance of results. Cuil can work out the different meanings behind a search, the example given on their FAQs page is for jaguar: would that be the car, the cat or the operating system? The results of these homophones and concepts are separated into tabs. This will allow users to select the appropriate tab to ‘drill down’ into their search results, rather than editing the search to specify just cats for example: jaguar -car -operating -system +cat. The results of searches are also displayed in columns, one can choose between two or three columns from an easily accessible link in the bottom right corner of the screen rather than buried in a preferences page, the same applies for the Safe Search option in the top right corner on any results page.

Another perk of using Cuil, for those concerned about requests from certain authorites for site visitor logs,  is that Cuil doesn’t keep any information on their users’ search activities.

A quick test shows that while Cuil hasn’t indexed as much of the Internet as Google (either that or it is showing more relevant results), it does come up with the goods in some…and not-some cases.

A search for ‘techstatic’, the name of this not-very-popular-blog, has been around for a year or so and should feature in Google, which it does but does it appear in Cuil?

Cuil: 233 results
Google: 808
MSN: 41,500,000 (?!?!?)

While MSN claimed it had a whopping 41.5million results, of the first page results, ten in total, seven were relevant with the reference to techstatic being in the domain, site title, text on the page and in the file name. The remainder of the results were from tech and static appearing separately on the sites somewhere.

Of Google’s first 10 results on the first page, all were relevant to the word techstatic. The first few results that had priority had techstatic in the domain name, following that were results where techstatic appeared in the page title and finally results where techstatic appeared on the page.

Cuil: The first page in three column layout displayed 11 results. The first was a Zlio shop with the subdomain techstatic. Another two results refer to the Zlio shop also but not once does techstatic.net come up, neither do any other pages with techstatic in their titles. It looks like techstatic.net hasn’t been indexed yet but the techstatic backup blog at wordpress.com has been indexed, although this didn’t appear in the first ten pages of results!

Give it some time, Cuil might be the go-to search engine Google used to be during the early days of search, especially if you are looking for something when Google’s results may be full of solutions from popular sites requiring membership (Experts Exchange, anybody?).

Cuil, Ars-Technica

Do you prefer your N95 to not make any noise but want it to vibrate on the General Profile when you receive a text message? Just create a 2 or 3 second silent audio file and set it as the text alert sound. You can use something like Audacity or Windows Sound Recorder to make the silent file.

If you can’t be bothered, you can use the file I have created: N95 Silent Message Tone. It’s a silent mp3 file which sets off 3 buzzes on my N95. Give it a try!

Version 20.0.0.015
13-11-07
RM-159
Changes/improvements made from MCU SW v12.0.013 to v 20.0.015:
New Features

• Maps application version updated (Nokia Maps 1.0)
• GetNGI (Games)
• Music shop
• OTA WMDRM (Windows Media Digital Rights Management)
• Active standby search
• Video ringing tone
• ODP (On Demand Paging)
• DVFS (Dynamic Voltage and Frequency Scaling)
• Switch application version updated

Changes and improvements

• General stability improved.
• Several localization errors corrected.
• Various application help files updated.
• Default language not always read from SIM correctly.
• Volume side keys don’t work in all situations.
• WLAN wizard can’t always connect to secure WLAN network.
• Cannot edit or delete access points if lot of WLAN access points created.
• Midlet icon may be shown twice after installation in some cases.
• Midlet suite upgrade doesn’t work correctly if amount of midlets in suite has changed.
• Streaming aspect ratio is not correct if QTSS server doesn’t provide Framesize tag in SDP.
• Key presses are sometimes missed.
• Connection dropped easily in crowded WLAN environment.
• Cannot pre-configure push email application in variant.
• OTA configuration containing an unknown parameter is ignored by device.
• Call divert icon disappear after power cycle.
• UPnP interoperability improved.

Browser

• Dropdown list not opened if size is defined.
• Large images in web page are not rendered correctly after scrolling.
• Flashlite memory management improved.
• Cannot access to SIM phonebook if device language is set to Chinese.
• Cannot add Chinese characters to input/search box in browser.
• Real One Player may show invalid default name for some downloaded videos.
• RSS-links does not work anymore if article was downloaded from web feeds.
• Improved handling of large web pages.

Media Player

• Streaming doesn’t always continue after long pause.
• Some m4a files cause music library to crash.
• Album art not shown for WMA files if picture size is over 64 KB.

Gallery

• Image editor closes on attempting to edit and send an image a second time.
• Cannot upload images to online share if lots of images stored in device.
• Image viewer crash when opening malformed JPEG file.
• Thumbnail creation speed of big video files improved.

Messaging

• Cannot have non-ascii characters in mailbox name.
• Reduced character coding -option in text message settings doesn’t work as expected.
• MMS presentation not saved to draft folder is exiting application with end key.
• IM client allows empty alias.

VoIP

• Device may reset if moving out of WLAN coverage during VOIP call.
• Cannot register to VOIP if found WLAN connection is too weak.
• VOIP doesn’t re-register if going momentarily our of WLAN coverage.
• Automatic connection to SIP server fails often if started device in offline mode.
• VoIP call can’t be established when multiple profiles with same realm.

Camera

• Video recording with front camera may freeze the device.

Telephony

• Device may restart if receiving voice call during ongoing video call.
• Unable to create call after successful balance query.

Streaming

• Maximum limit for streaming bandwidth for UMTS and WLAN increased from 999kb.

Voice Mail

• Call divert indicator disappear in device is restarted.

Navigation

• Improvement to Location API performance if lots of landmarks in device.

Bugs/Complaints

• Tracking feature removed from Nokia Maps application.
• Some people have reported issues with the Search application upon removing their memory card.
• Some people have reported issues with not being able to connect to their PC via USB cable after update.
• Call log bug STILL alive (where the call log represents every call as a mobile call).
• Some people are complaining that picture quality has been degraded.

[UPDATE] As I was going through the phone’s settings one by one restoring my tones and programs, scrolling through the list of files to select my ringtone I noticed that one of the video clips appeared! The preview of the video clip worked so I set it as the ringtone. YES! N95s on v20.0.15 can now use video ringtones without having to rely on third-party software! Also, there is a new visualisation available called Circles in Music Player.

After the rumours and the pictures of new firmware, finally v20.0.015 is available for download!

Obvious changes are:
New search bar on the standby/home screen for the new Search 4.00 app
Nokia Share Online 2.07.37 installed
Nokia Maps v1.2 (wk37 b05) installed
My Nokia app.
N-Gage launcher app - get trials and the N-Gage app when released from here
New Music Folder containing Music Player, Radio (new icon), New Podcasting App and Music Store link.
Menu icons shuffled around - Office and Media folders now in Applications folder.
Themes icons gone from Tools folder.
Transfer app renamed to Switch.

The word on the forums is that Demand Paging is included in this release so I tried my best to force a memory error out of the N95 on v20.0.15. I ran the Music Player and left it playing a track, fired up Nokia Maps, opened the web browser and loaded up a page over wi-fi, ran a search, opened the gallery, started the radio (no music) and then took a picture with the camera. All this and the phone didn’t throw up the memory error!

Having installed the venerable Dr Jukka’s Y-Tasks with Memory Status plugin, I was pleased to see 29MB of RAM free after startup. This remained after running a few apps such as Y-Tasks and Antony Pranata’s Screenshot. The amount of free memory, if I remember correctly, used to be around 14-18Mb at startup on v12 firmware. Bare in mind the higher availablility of ram is due to paging, basically what PCs do, where they write data to the hard drive and use that as a temporary memory for running processes.

The camera is faster at getting your images sorted out and ready for the next shot. There is also a grid overlay to allow you to frame your shots. Unfortunately the camera software doesn’t remember what setting or profile you last used such as the flash being off. Every time the camera is fired up, it reverts to the Auto scene mode.

Links: WOM World, All About Symbian, Nokia Software Updater (UK)

The latest iteration becomes cheaper not just as a result of cheaper manufacturing, but due to cutting down of some features that not all users may need.

The changes include a 40GB hard drive, 2 USB ports instead of 4, has no built in memory card reader and backward compatibility hardware has been removed. The unit goes on sale October 10th at £299.

The newer model doesn’t massively threaten Microsoft’s Xbox 360, whose prices have dropped without the need for a cut back, with newer high capacity and limited editions taking the place of the original Premium price-point. If however, you are looking for a cheap HD movie player the

On the other-hand, the 60GB PlayStation will see an actual price drop from £425 to £349 and will be more than a match for the equivalent Xbox 360 Elite when purchased with the external HD-DVD drive which comes out more expensive than the PS3.

According to a quote on the BBC News article, Ray Maguire, head of PlayStation UK said the release of the 40GB PS3 was a “strategic decision”. Yes, strategic…to get some sales in for Christmas and gain ground on the other consoles.

Links: BBC News: Sony offer cut-price PlayStation