Geekisms!: June 2013

Seems like all the negative feedback about the forthcoming Xbox One has finally gotten to Microsoft. In a post on the official Xbox website, Don Mattrick, Head of Interactive Entertainment Business at Microsoft announced changes to the new entertainment console that include no more 24 connection to the internet, no restrictions on who can borrow, lend or resell a game disk, and no more region locked consoles. In other words, they've reversed the main issues that people had with the Xbox One when it was announced.

So, I recently decided to carry out the Mapping with Google Online course which teaches one how to make the most of the tools Google has made available online for those who are interested in improving their skills with Google Maps. The reason I decided to do the course is because I have alwasy been disappointed with the lack of details about Nigeria on Google Maps. I felt with enough training, I could add some information to the maps and help provide more content on Nigeria to help map out the country well enough.

I'm almost through and though I have learnt a lot, it wasn't exactly what I expected. I got far more that I expected and learnt that mapping isn't just about getting locations right but also about telling a story with that information attached to the locations.

Anyways, part of my Maps project involves embedding a map I created with Google Maps Engine Lite, on a website, and that is the purpose of this post. I created a map of places to visit when in Abuja. It's not a very detailed map right now because I'm in kind of a hurry ( I swear I'll add more details later on) but here it is for those of you interested:

Plot Summary:

A young boy learns that he has extraordinary powers and is not of this Earth. As a young man, he journeys to discover where he came from and what he was sent here to do. But the hero in him must emerge if he is to save the world from annihilation and become the symbol of hope for all mankind.

My Review:

WOW!!

These words are thrown around interchangeably on a regular basis but they are not the same thing. For those who proudly identify as one of the above, its a bit annoying when you call us something we're not. So here's a little infographic to help with differentiating between nerds and geeks (and help you identify which of the two you are):

Book Description:

In the heart of Italy, Harvard professor of symbology Robert Langdon is drawn into a harrowing world centered on one of history’s most enduring and mysterious literary masterpieces . . . Dante’s Inferno.

Against this backdrop, Langdon battles a chilling adversary and grapples with an ingenious riddle that pulls him into a landscape of classic art, secret passageways, and futuristic science. Drawing from Dante’s dark epic poem, Langdon races to find answers and decide whom to trust . . . before the world is irrevocably altered.

Plot Summary: When the crew of the Enterprise is called back home, they find an unstoppable force of terror from within their own organization has detonated the fleet and everything it stands for, leaving our world in a state of crisis. With a personal score to settle, Captain Kirk leads a manhunt to a war-zone world to capture a one man weapon of mass destruction. As our heroes are propelled into an epic chess game of life and death, love will be challenged, friendships will be torn apart, and sacrifices must be made for the only family Kirk has left: his crew.

E3 has come and gone an as usual, there were more games on display than one man could play in a lifetime. I wasn't there but of course my favourite blogs and news sites kept me up to date with all the happenings at the event.

Of all the games that were announced and demoed at the expo, those listed below are the ones that really caught my attention. There were many others that should be on this list but I limited it to games that are more innovative, in no particular order:

Another must watch!!

In the year 2154 two classes of people exist: the very wealthy who live on a pristine man-made space station called Elysium, and the rest, who live on an overpopulated, ruined Earth. Secretary Rhodes, a government official, will stop at nothing to enforce anti-immigration laws and preserve the luxurious lifestyle of the citizens of Elysium. That doesn't stop the people of Earth from trying to get in, by any means they can. When unlucky Max is backed into a corner, he agrees to take on a daunting mission that if successful will not only save his life, but could bring equality to these polarized worlds.

The movie that shouldn't have been.

The Hobbit was a single children's book by J. R. R. Tolkein about the adventures of Bilbo Baggins and a prequel of sorts to the Lord of the Rings trilogy. Seeing as the LoTR movies were so popular, Warner Bros decided to give the Hobbit the same treatment, even going as far as stretching the story from the novel into 3 movies. Highly unnecessary if you ask me but then, there's money to be made so...

So, E3 is happening right now and the internet is flooded with gaming news but what most people will be taking note of is any news related to the next generation consoles from Microsoft and Sony and true to form, both companies let loose with a ton of news concerning their new consoles (and the old ones too).

Today, Microsoft has posted a series of articles detailing exactly the way that the Xbox One will handle a permanent internet connection requirement, how it allows users to trade and sell games and exactly how private your Kinect will let your house be. Many of the most titillating and specious rumors about how the Xbox One will handle these tricky situations has been proved false with this post.

Internet Connection

Most of them except the Internet connection requirement that is. That one is still going to raise some eyebrows. The Xbox One will let you play your ‘home console’ for 24 hours without an internet connection, then will require that you log on to continue playing. If you’re logged on to someone else’s console, you’ll have to check every hour. That’s even for single player games.

Plot Summary:

Since Dom (Diesel) and Brian's (Walker) Rio heist toppled a kingpin's empire and left their crew with $100 million, our heroes have scattered across the globe. But their inability to return home and living forever on the lam have left their lives incomplete. Meanwhile, Hobbs (Johnson) has been tracking an organization of lethally skilled mercenary drivers across 12 countries, whose mastermind (Evans) is aided by a ruthless second-in-command revealed to be the love Dom thought was dead, Letty (Rodriguez). The only way to stop the criminal outfit is to outmatch them at street level, so Hobbs asks Dom to assemble his elite team in London. Payment? Full pardons for all of them so they can return home and make their families whole again.

Just a week to go to the release of one of the most anticipated movies of the year: Man of Steel. Directed by Zack Snyder (300, The Watchmen) and produced by Christopher Nolan (The Dark Knight Rises, Inception), this movie gives a breath of fresh air to the story of one of the greatest superheroes of all time, Superman.

After the release of Halo 2, a lot of PC gamers were pissed off when Microsoft abandoned the Windows platform and refused to publish anything Halo-related for the PC. Well it seems Microsoft has changed their minds and decided to bring Halo back to the PC but not exactly in the way most expected.

On Tuesday, 21^st May, Microsoft announced the arrival of successor to its Xbox 360, the videogame console that had arguably won the war of dominance among the current generation of videogames for the past 8 years. There had been a lot of hype and build up to the day of the announcement especially since the other 2 major game console manufacturers (Sony and Nintendo) had already revealed their own products for the next generation. While Nintendo chose to pre-empt its competition by announcing and launching its console, the Wii-U a year earlier, that hasn’t exactly worked out well for it as sales are poor and video game developers are ignoring it.

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