Tech Stream
Posts Tagged ‘ 2009’
Tech Stream 035 – Year in Review
18 December 2009
Listen and download: MP3
What an incredible year to start covering technology news. I’ve heard 2009 described as being the “year of the internet”. And I’d have to agree. I spent a couple of weeks in the Solomon Islands and Japan where I lost access to the internet on my mobile and it really hit home just how important and valuable this connectivity was to me. So it’s no surprise that I’ve often been drawn to stories this year that related to how we connect with each other via the web. Sometimes this related to new mobile or PC technology. At other times it related to the underlying backbone of the network.
So in the Pacific we had more solid news about new undersea cables that could see the cost of internet access drop as speeds increase. The infrastructure isn’t yet in place though, and its still a struggle to access the kind of internet experience that most people in Australia, for example, now take for granted.
Domestically, here in Australia, we had two major announcements from the federal government – the splitting up of the country’s largest telecommunications provider, Telstra, as part of their National Broadband Network (NBN). And the government’s decision, the details of which became clearer this week, to filter banned content on the internet at an ISP level. Both of these stories are covered in the beginning of our special Year In Review program which you can listen to via the MP3 link above. Or continue reading on for more information.
Tech Stream 034
10 December 2009
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Video game designer David Jaffe provided the keynote speech via video link at GCAP 2009
The Tech Stream program this week is focused entirely on gaming. It was recorded at the Game Connect: Asia Pacific 2009 (GCAP) conference and expo which took place in Melbourne, Australia from the 6th to the 8th of December. Follow the MP3 link above to listen or continue reading for details.
Game Connect Asia Pacific 2009
8 December 2009
The puzzle game Blakely Van De Buckle’s Brass Cabaret being played in the Independent Gamers Exhibition at GCAP 2009. The game was produced by Powderkeg Entertainment.
I’m spending the beginning of this week at a gaming conference and expo in Melbourne. Game Connect: Asia Pacific (GCAP) is organised by the Game Developers’ Association of Australia (GDAA) and is an opportunity for people working in the gaming and interactive entertainment industry to network, share some new ideas and discuss some of the issues they’re facing. There has also been a focus on serious games, with education and health featuring heavily as themes on day one.
The GDAA Industry Awards took place at the end of day two and not surprisingly the runway smash Flight Control picked up a string of awards including “Best Game”. Firemint’s popular game for the iPhone and iPod Touch mobile platform has been downloaded from the iTunes App Store more than 1.5 million times. The President of the GDAA, Tom Crago, noted that “Flight Control has been a phenomenal success and has really been responsible for the creation of an entire new genre on iPhone. We’re very proud that this title was developed in Australia”. Heroes Over Europe from Transmission Games (which is no longer operating having closed down in October) also picked up three awards, including “Best Console Title”.
The Tech Stream program on Friday will be devoted to gaming and coverage of Game Connect: Asia Pacific 2009. Make sure you tune in, or subscribe to the podcast to hear it. In the meantime Mike Bantick has some good coverage over at iTWire, including an overview of the event and a story on the student produced games on show at GCAP.
I’ve also been asking people at the conference what their favourite game of 2009 was. What’s yours?
A Festival for the Indie Game
14 August 2009
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Photo from Flickr by gnackgnackgnack (Patrick Brosset).
I had a chance this week to meet with the co-director of Freeplay 2009, an independent games festival taking place today and tomorrow at the State Library in Melbourne. Paul Callaghan and his partner Eve Penford-Dennis are running the event for the first time and have pulled together over 20 guest speakers from a range of gaming and creative disciplines. Freeplay started in 2004 and exists, in their own words, to “provide opportunities for Victorian and interstate independent developers, educators, and industry practitioners to interact with each other and their audience in an environment designed to stimulate debate, share new ideas, explore theories, and take part in discussions on the creative direction of the medium.”
You can listen to the chat I had with Freeplay co-director Paul Callaghan, who is also a game developer and freelance writer himself, via the MP3 link at the top of this story. We talked, among other things, about changes in the local gaming industry since 2004 and the opportunities available to independent developers in Australia to pursue their creative interests and collaborate with creative people outside their industry.
Broadband growth driven by Asia
18 June 2009
The ICT expo CommunicAsia is taking place in Singapore this week and their daily newsbrief (pdf link) has some interesting stats on the growth of broadband take up in the region. Their figures indicate that broadband lines topped 429.2 million globally as of the end of the first quarter of 2009 with most of that growth being driven by Asia.
Tech Stream 014
22 May 2009
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Photo from Flickr by Jose Roberto.
We’ve got our head in the clouds this week in the Tech Stream. There’s a buzz around the term “cloud computing” and I lost count how many times it was mentioned at CeBIT Australia 2009 last week in Sydney. I spoke with two local businesses on the exhibition floor about how they’re providing solutions for those wishing to work “in the cloud” and luckily they both offered to explain what the term “cloud computing” actually means.
CeBIT: Innovate now
12 May 2009
I’ve spent the morning at CeBIT Australia 2009, which kicked off today in Sydney with a keynote address from Stephen Conroy, Australia’s Minister for Broadband, Communications and the Digital Economy. The Minister opened the trade fair by saying that technology and innovation would play a substantial part in the recovery from the current recession.
New Windows
6 May 2009
Microsoft’s much hyped, long-awaited new operating system, Windows 7, has been released to the public for testing. The “Release Candidate” version can be downloaded in English, German, Japanese, French, and Spanish but expires on the 1st of June 2010. They are recommending a certain level of tech-savviness or IT skills – the ability to properly backup your data for example, so think a little before jumping in at the deep end with an operating system that could still be buggy. But it will be the final testing version of the software before Microsoft ships it to computer makers to install on new PCs for sale. The release comes as Microsoft announces a second round of layoffs (their own beta-testers perhaps?) after disappointing financial results for the first quarter of 2009.
I think I’ll run a story on this in the Tech Stream radio program this week – so I’m keen to hear your thoughts on the new operating system, or whether you think sending out a beta version like this on such a grand scale is a good idea. Should they just release Windows 7 for free, now, in its current form, and continually upgrade and update it like many other OS and general software makers do?
Mobile phone trends for 2009
20 February 2009
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The GSMA Mobile World Congress has been taking place in Barcelona, Spain this week. It is the world’s largest exhibition of its kinds for the mobile industry and a chance for us to discover some of the hottest trends for 2009.
To speculate on the year ahead in mobile devices, I spoke with Emily Freeman, director of Mobilist, a mobile consulting business in Australia, and Zac Jacobs, from Dux Consulting, who also keeps a close eye on mobile gaming and trends in Asia.
For The Win – Video Gaming in 2009
10 February 2009
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Game and Watch: Not the future of gaming
Interactive entertainment – better known as video games or just plain old “games” – will be a big part of Tech Stream. So for our first program I thought we should look forward, into our digital crystal balls, and see what we can expect from the games and gaming world in 2009.
Australian gamers will be familiar, hopefully, with a great TV show called Good Game on ABC2. One of its presenters is Steven O’Donnel, who goes by his gaming nickname “Bajo”. I wanted his expert opinion on the year ahead so we hooked up for a chat. Bajo is getting pretty excited about what will happen with MMOs – massively multiplayer online games – in 2009. He’s also keeping an eye out for the sequal to Starcraft which we’ll try to review in coming months and its going to be another year big year for console gaming too. You can follow more gaming news and reviews at Good Game’s website.
