Linkapalooza - Fun & Games
Looks like it’s Fun And Games Day here at BKO today.
Let’s get the important stuff out of the way first: how long would YOU last chained to a bunk bed with a velociraptor? My score is 54 seconds, but I think I would have scored better if I had learned a few choke holds in my younger days.
Here’s a must-have toy: an RC race car that has a wireless camera built into the windshield so that you can experience the first-hand point-of-view of the car via a par of VR goggles. Here’s the demo video to show you what the experience is like:
Even though DVD sales have levelled off, it doesn’t look like the format is in any danger of dying out too soon. Nevertheless, this seemed like a clever niche product that should attract some people: full-length movies on a USB flash drive. The original “Ghostbusters” movie will be the first traditional Hollywood film released on USB flash media, according to this tech news website. Granted, “Ghostbusters” isn’t exactly a hot new release, but it was definitely a huge film in its day and has a lot of residual popularity. There are probably a gazillion similar older titles that could find some new sales by being marketed on USB sticks. The viewer can copy the film to their computer’s hard drive, but there’s DRM built into this (of course) that requires you to have the stick plugged in when you want to watch it. I can see this being very popular with business travelers who like to watch movies on their laptops while flying. And there’s also enough room left on the stick to load up some music, photos or other files, so it’s a bit more versatile than a pre-recorded DVD. The only thing that doesn’t work is the price point: £29.99 in the UK, which is well over $60. It needs to price out around $10, because these days you can buy a blank USB flash drive for about ten bucks and load your own movies and such, and it’s easy to find older movies in DVD bargain bins for $9.99.
Everybody seems to agree that the thing that separates the Wii video game console from the rest of the consoles on the market is the motion-sensitive game controller that makes you feel like you’re part of the game. We have been known to work up a bit of a sweat around here getting a little too intense swinging the remote when playing Wii baseball, and I swear I strained my wrist playing Wii bowling. But the haptic controller is sheer genius — the accelerometer in the iPhone is also turning into a platform for making fun games for that device as well. So why not extend the idea and make motion-controlled TV remotes? Instead of pressing the channel button, you just flick your wrist to flip through the 500 channels on your cable system, raise or lower volume, and so on. Sadly, this isn’t a real product yet, just a concept project from a company that has a whole bunch of cool ideas for digital media interaction.






FPV Racer (or airplane?)? WANT!!