LIVEdigitally

Monthly Archives: October 2004

EHX Fall 2004: Pelham Sloane

Posted on by

Pelham Sloane is a UK-based company that sells a series of “all-in-one PCs” where the only visible element of the computer is the LCD screen, with an optional keyboard. The LCD features a touch-screen interface, which really does change the way you interact with a PC.Our primary reason for mentioning this unit is to reinforce the message that the face of computing is changing, as PCs are being used for more and more purposes in the home. One of the Pelham Sloane PCs features a HDTV tuner card with PVR capabilities. The other is positioned as a kitchen device.

If you are interested in a slim-profile PC, or the touchscreen appeals to you, go take a look at what this innovative company is up to. If not, keep your eyes open for more and more creative interpretations of how you expect to see computers in your home in the future.

Pictures of the products (click on the image for a full-screen view):
Company booth

Kitchen unit:

HDTV unit:

TV POKER review

Posted on by

 TV POKER, from Senario, brings Texas Hold’em from the card table to the TV set. The system comes with a small “console” and six controllers, and allows for one to six players to play against each other or the computer. I spent a bit of time trying out the solo play mode, as well as with a few groups of friends, including my weekly poker buddies.

The unit is nicely packaged, with one section containing the console, and the other the six controllers. Setup is easy, the only parts you must provide are the TV set and the batteries (4 AA, not included) – the console has AV cables built into the unit, which was a nice convenience. The controllers easily plug into the console, in fact the connectors seemed to use the same interface as the old Atari 2600 – probably not intentional, but a nice homage nonetheless.

The controllers are lightweight, and have a simple LCD interface and a single LED to indicate whose turn it is. Only two buttons are used for the gameplay, “Select” and “OK”, which for the most part, are exactly enough.

Here are some pictures of the supplied packaging (click on the image for a full-screen view):

The console:

Controllers:

I referenced the Atari 2600 before in a positive way. Unfortunately, when it comes to the graphics and sounds, TV POKER is a reminder of those times. The graphics are very lacking, even for a game that doesn’t really need to emphasize graphics. I don’t really think this is a major criteria for making a quality game, and in fact, I believe that most modern video games are too visual effects driven and lacking in gameplay. However, the poor quality of visuals in TV POKER made it feel somewhat cheap. Not quite janky, but a little too close for comfort.

Sound effects (again, NOT important in the grand scheme of things) were almost comical. The background music sounded like someone was playing the soundtrack from Seinfeld, in reverse and n the wrong key. The digitized “crowd noise” was a nice plus, although it did get on my nerves after a while, and while you can disable it, you must make the decision before the game starts. I recommend muting your TV volume and playing something else in the background. Or just whistling.

Here are some screenshots (click on the image for a full-screen view):


For new players, or for very casual situations, the game play is good enough. As I watched each new user interact with TV POKER, they were generally able to pick up a controller and play with no instruction. The gameplay is very straightforward, with the TV screen showing the “public” action, such as the size of the pot, whose turn it is, and the community cards. Your controller’s LED lights up when it’s your turn, and the LCD screen displays your hole cards. Interaction is pretty easy, you push the “Select” button until the action you want to take is highlighted on your LCD screen, then push “OK”. That’s pretty much all there is to playing TV POKER.

Here’s our problem area. The gameplay has some problems. Some of them are based in the user interface, and are mere nuisances. The more serious ones have to do with the logic of the poker play itself. For the on-screen interface, my biggest complaint is that, when it’s your turn to act, the display does not tell you how much the current bet is. In fact, there is no way to find this out. This fact, combined with the sluggish response of the controller, caused us to have a lot of erratic folding and calling “all-ins” during our test games. Once we caught on, we worked around it, but it was very annoying, and a glaring mistake in the user interface design. Also, I found it odd that you could only see your hold cards when it was your turn – at all other times, your LCD screen remains blank.

The bigger issues have to do with flaws in the poker game. If you are purely looking at this for lighthearted play, or want a fun intro to the game, they can probably be overlooked, and you should continue to the next section. However, if you are considering this for any kind of “real” poker play, here are the most critical problems to the gameplay:

  • In solo mode, the computer opponents will call just about every bet, and will often raise completely erratically. I could find no logic or pattern, whatsoever, to the computer play.
  • You are unable to raise when posting the big blinds.
  • In “no-limit” mode, the interface for raising only allows you to raise the amount of the big blinds, or to go all-in. No in-betweens.Here are some more screenshots (click on the image for a full-screen view):


    Let me start by saying, I really, really, wanted to like the TV POKER game more than I did. Some of my friends did get a big kick out of it, and said they would use it some fun play. For me, I felt the unit just had too many problems.

    At the end of the day, as a frequent poker player, I found the novelty of TV POKER insufficient to get me to switch from a deck of cards and my poker chips, but I can see the unit achieving some good success. Especially right now, with the game leveraging some of the most popular trends around.

    If you are up for some fun, want a new toy, and aren’t playing much poker already, then absolutely, give it a shot.

    Links

  • Official Senario site
  • Buy TV POKER
  • Buy Poker Chips
  • Buy Poker Books

    • Texas Hold'Em by Phil Hellmuth

    Posted on by


    Texas Hold ‘Em by Phil Hellmuth (THEPH from this point forward) lets you play Texas Hold ‘Em poker anywhere you carry your cell phone. The game is playable on a large variety of phones from CellularOne, Verizon Wireless, and a handful of other carriers. I used a Motorola V810 phone, with service from Verizon, for my tests of the game.

    For those of you who have not had the chance to see him in person or on TV, Phil Hellmuth is a great player to watch. He’s not just a solid player (he won his first WSOP championship at age 24), but he brings a lot of… personality to the table as well. When I first heard Phil was lending his persona to a cell phone-based poker game, I was quite surprised by it. Hopefully he won’t have the same bad luck the sports pros get when they hit the covers of the EA Sports games (if you don’t know what I’m talking about, to keep it short, many of the players who end up on the box covers of EA Sports’ great video games tend to get injured in their next season – weird, but there is quite a bit of coincidental truth to it).

    The first gameplay mode of THEPH lets you play solo against some virtual opponents. Solo play consists of four modes: limit hold ’em, pot limit play, no limit play, and “Play Phil No-Limit” mode. The first three work as expected, and the fourth is a fun twist on a computer-driven no limit hold’em game: it comes with a very aggressive computer player. I didn’t quite figure out the formula, but basically the “Phil” player had a strong tendency to check-raise, or put in massive raises on the turn or river. Between me and Phil, we muscled out the other computer characters time and time again. It reminded me of Doyle Brunson’s comment about how he could win most ‘home games’ without ever looking at his cards.

    The multiplayer mode worked extremely smoothly, much to my delight. Once you select a type of game (limit, no-limit, etc), you simply browse a list of tables by number of players, select a table, and go. The gameplay was quite fast, fast enough that the action resembled a real poker game. Not only that, there were a lot of people playing, so there was never a delay in waiting for a game. The multiplayer system has some well-designed features for finding your friends or inviting new players to the game. Also, a “Find Phil” option lets you play with Phil Hellmuth himself, but alas, he was not around to point out the massive flaws in my game.

    While I can’t say the solo play mode was a competent technical “trainer”, it was definitely fun, and something I’d continue to play from time to time. I did find myself trying to make sure I was always doing better than “virtual Hellmuth”, and had some satisfaction picturing him tilt on a lucky draw here and there.

    For THEPH’s multiplayer mode, it was definitely a good experience, and if I had no airtime considerations, I think I’d end up playing a decent amount. It was just… fun! I found it especially rewarding when I made the Top 10 list on the company’s Web site – a huge perk (although some cash would be nice).

    If I have to point out a downside to the game, I was a bit disappointed with a few aspects of the GUI. Most important, the game never made it clear as to how much it was to call the current bet – if I looked away for even a moment, I’d often be completely unaware as to whether I was calling a big blind or an all-in. Huge problem, but easily fixable. Some other irritations included not knowing who had bet, and a poorly implemented timeout for betting. Again, all fixable issues, and only the first one was a major obstacle for the game.

    The other problem I had with the game was related to my connection. Maybe it was the phone I was using. Maybe it was Verizon. Maybe it was the game. I have no idea, but my phone kept getting disconnected from the network. Normally this would be a showstopper in my books, but the programmers at Summus were clearly aware this could happen. When the phone disconnected, a few seconds later the game would cause it to reconnect, and the gameplay continued without missing a beat. Nice recovery to a potentially disastrous situation.

    For $2.99/mo, there are very few games or applications available today on cell phones that are a better value than this one. Unless, of course, you intensely dislike poker (in which case, I am impressed you’ve read this far). It’s definitely a better use of your money than downloading another ringtone by Chingy, Usher, or Outkast. Trust me on that one.

    Links:

  • Official THEPH Web site
  • Phil Hellmuth’s site
  • Poker Chips
  • Poker Books

    • Sony LocationFree TV review

    Posted on by

    One of the “hot new things” of this and next year is the ability to watch TV from locations other than the home. A variety of companies are launching new products, services, and even Web sites, all designed to enable you to view TV shows from wherever you are, whenever you want it. Even Sony believes this market is hot enough to launch a new category of devices, called LocationFree TVs. Over the past week, I’ve had the chance to use Sony’s new LocationFree TV (the LF-X1 model, with the 12.1″ screen) to watch TV wirelessly in and out of my home, with mixed results.

    For those of you unfamiliar with the device, it comes in two parts: the LCD screen and a base station. The first is a flat-panel LCD screen, about the size of a typical laptop, designed to enable wireless TV access from any wireless network or wifi hotspot. The base station is connected to your home network as well as your AV device(s) and/or cable feed. I connected the base station to my home wireless network and my DirecTV-TiVo combination unit. 

    In my opinion, the easiest part of setup was the physical connections. The box and connectors were clearly labeled “AV input” and “network”, and used all standard cables. The base station allows you to connect two different devices, such as a satellite receiver and a DVD player, but I chose to just use my DirecTV-TiVo unit. My first moment of disappointment in the experience was when I realized that the unit did not come with any cables (other than power and the infrared emitter). For fifteen hundred dollars, you’d think Sony could include some simple cables. Thankfully, being the kind of guy I am, I went to my storage closet to pull out everything I’d need.

    I connected the output of my TiVo to the AV1 input on the base station, and then connected the AV output from the base station to my AV receiver. The only other connection to the TiVo unit was the IR blaster, which is used to send outgoing infrared (remote control) signals to the TiVo. Setting up the network is likely the big stumbling block for most people. Even though the device offers wireless TV in the home, if you want to watch your LocationFree TV from out of the house, you must be hard-wired into the unit from your home network. Luckily I have Ethernet access near my stereo setup, otherwise I’d have hit a bit of a snag.

    Next, I powered everything up, and turned on the LCD screen. In typical consumer electronics style, I was shown a menu with seven main options (TV/Video, Web, E-mail, Album, Basic, Monitor, Base Station), plus a “back” and “exit” button. At this point, I really think Sony would benefit from a “setup wizard” to guide the user through the setup process. I clicked on “TV/Video” to start, where I had three new choices: Channel Settings, Remote Settings, Picture/Sound. Hmmm. As a person who is very familiar with these devices and technologies, I knew to continue to setup the Remote, but I have a feeling that a lot of users would already be quite frustrated by this point.

    Within the Remote Settings option I was able to configure the IR blaster, using a fairly intuitive screen, and when I was done I encountered another major usability flaw in the Sony user interface (or GUI). At the end of the setup, rather than have a satisfying “OK” button in the middle of the screen, I had to hunt around to find a small “back” button hidden in the bottom left corner. In fact, at no point anywhere in the settings menus does the device ever inform you that everything is set up, or you are done. You must click “exit” from the settings menu to start watching TV, even the first time you use the device.

    Here are a couple of screenshots of some of the setup screens (click on the image for a full-screen view):

    The bottom line: If you are not comfortable hooking up a VCR or a DVD player, you will have trouble with the base station. The LCD setup screens will probably leave you fairly frustrated, but with enough trial and error (and consulting the manual), you’ll probably figure it out eventually. Overall, I felt it was an unnecessarily complex setup process.

    The in-home experience of the LocationFree TV was, for the most part, quite enjoyable. The video signal quality was better than good enough to enjoy (screenshots are below), and the device performed as I was hoping it would. I had a few issues with range in-home, as there were times when the screen would go blank and it would display an error that I was out of range of the base station. Unfortunately, this happened sometimes when I was as close as 5 feet away, so I believe other factors (possibly the microwave, cordless phone, or something else?) that disrupted the signal, although these occurrences were not too frequent. The process of fine-tuning some of the AV and networking settings were very unpleasant, but you are able to configure the device to use specified frequencies or channels if you have the know-how.

    The battery life of the unit was around 90 minutes, which was quite disappointing, because it meant I had to carry the power adapter from room to room. Aside from that, both my wife and I found ourselves using the LocationFree TV throughout our apartment. One big perk for me involved using the unit during a bright day when I wasn’t really able to watch my projector.

    The device has several pre-designed control layouts for interacting with external devices, such as my DirecTV-TiVo. The “DVR” menu has controls to replicate most of the buttons on the remote. When you tap on the LCD screen, a control pane appears to the right of the TV viewing area. Tapping on any control sends the IR signal from the base station to the external device, which then reacts as if you had pressed the remote control. While most of the controls I needed to use my TiVo were present, the ones I found myself needing the most was the page up/down buttons for browsing lists of shows. The most conspicuous missing buttons were the lack of channel numbers, a very bizarre element to leave out. It made manual channel changing impossible, and since I don’t often like to browse the 200+ channels I receive, I really only used the device to watch pre-recorded shows.

    Controlling the TiVo was a bit tricky, since there was a 5 second latency between pushing a button and seeing the result. I typically overshot most fast-forwarding by about 45 seconds and had to hit the “replay” button many times to get to the right spot. Frustrating, but I can’t see much of a way around this issue.

    The single worst experience about the GUI for TV viewing was figuring out how to get rid of the controls pane once it appears. First I tried tapping in the TV area, since that’s how it appeared in the first place. No luck. Next, I tried all sorts of other areas in the top region of the screen, which were all apparently dead spots. After a long while, I realized the “X” in the upper right corner of the pane, which “closed” the controls window.

    This to me represents the consistent flaw in product design for “converged” devices – PC GUI metaphors (such as “back” or closing windows) need to be constantly reevaluated before used in different environments, especially touch-screen or 10-foot-GUI situations.

    Screenshots of watching TV and the controls pane (click on the image for a full-screen view):




    The bottom line: Better than expected picture quality throughout the home, but short battery life and intermittent connectivity issues put a big damper on the value. Again, user interfaces need a lot of clean-up to make the experience satisfactory.

    A big part of the product’s appeal is the ability to use the LCD screen from any wireless LAN or wifi hotspot and watch (and control) your TV. As much as the in-home quality exceeded my expectations, the out-of-home quality was so bad, I can only use one word to describe it: unwatchable.

    First, the process of configuring Internet (WAN) access to the device was definitely not something for the average consumer. If you have never before set up port forwarding, dynamic DNS, or static IP addresses, you will not, under any circumstances, be able to get this thing running. That said, if you are familiar with such terms, aside from the incredibly clumsy and frustrating UI, the setup process was fairly straightforward. Also, selecting and connecting to a wireless network from the LCD unit was pretty simple.

    Once setup, however, figuring out how to watch over the Internet was a bit confusing. From the TV GUI, you have to start by clicking a “NetAV” button at the bottom of the screen. After that, the screen displays “connecting”, “authenticating”, then “buffering” alerts, until the TV streaming begins. The first time I tried, this took about 45 seconds, and then a partial screen image appeared, followed by a bit of audio, then just a still image. About 30 seconds later, I got another frame or two of the picture, with a smattering of audio, then nothing again.

    I proceeded to click the “rate” button, which displayed a dialog giving options from 1 to 5, and a poorly worded warning that switching to/from “level 1” requires a reconnect. Not sure what this meant, I tried level 3. A few seconds later I was treated to a few more video frames, and the audio signal became nearly stable. I dropped the quality to level 2, which wasn’t much better. Expecting the worst, I switched to level 1. The unit disconnected, reconnected, re-authenticated, and re-buffered, and then displayed the TV equivalent of Atari 2600 video quality.

    Screenshots of “level 1” video (click on the image for a full-screen view):


    Level 2:

    Level 3:

    Level 5:

    Some WAN setup screens:

    The bottom line: It just doesn’t work. I ended up trying multiple wifi hot-spots or wireless networks, and could never find a single viable connection, despite having 384Kbps upstream from my DSL line (which is better than the average DSL installation provides). I cannot, at all, recommend using the LocationFree TV outside the home.

    In addition to being a TV, the LCD screen also offers Web browsing, email, photo album, and, of course, painting, capabilities. I’m not quite sure what the paint feature is for, other than for people who are so bored with TV and the Internet that they feel the need to express themselves artistically. I’m not going to spend more time on the paint feature – it’s silly and frivolous, and my hunch is that some engineer said “You know, I could easily build a paint feature” and with the traditional consumer electronics manufacturer mentality of “ooh, more features means better products,” tah-dah, we have LocationFree Paint. You can see my drawing below. For $5 on PayPal, I’ll send you a signed copy.

    The email application is pretty run-of-the mill, and works about the same as any typical Web-based email program. The interface includes an onscreen keyboard (image below), which included a few shortcut keys like “www.”, “.com”, and “http://”. Wow, I thought, some actual GUI design work! Of course, they forgot to have a mechanism for you to indicate you are actually done typing; you actually push a button labeled “close” to enter the text you have typed. I think I’d rather stick to gmail, and use the Web browser interface.

    The Web browser is robust enough for a “lite” application, although no replacement for a full-featured browser. The Flash player worked for the few sites I tried it out, and all Web sites I viewed worked as expected. The UI included a convenient tabbed interface, which leaves me stunned that Sony beat Microsoft to include this in their browser. All-in-all, the browser was good enough to use for most Web surfing needs, but the onscreen keyboard remains the biggest drawback. As a Canadian, I did like the shortcut for “.ca”, although I would love to see Sony let the user customize their shortcuts.

    The photo album feature lets you browse photos or watch slideshows. You can easily combine this feature with the handy “screen capture” button (which is how I generated all the images for this review, by the way) to grab images from your favorite shows. Naturally, as a Sony device, the LCD unit has a memory stick slot, although copying images to/from a memory stick was a little more painful than it should be. Also, while it took about 6 hard-to-follow steps, I was able to email a still image directly from the photo album as an attachment.

    Here are a couple of screenshots of some of the email screens (click on the image for a full-screen view):


    The famous onscreen keyboard:

    Photo album:


    “A Swan at Sunrise”

    The bottom line: I am mixed on all the fringe functionality. If I had no laptops, I think I’d appreciate the email/web browsing capabilities a lot more. I can see some use for the features, and they are fairly well implemented, but they should be regarded purely as extras.

    As an in-home wireless flat-panel TV, it’s a great product.

    As an out-of-home “location-free” TV, it fails miserably.

    The product promises to “set you free to live beyond the living room” which it does to some degree, but definitely not with the ease and simplicity I would hope for. It’s very pricey, and has very limited capabilities.

    For almost $1500, I think it is an absurd value proposition. If I want a mobile solution, I could buy a media center laptop, and get much more functionality and a much better GUI. If I want flat panel TVs in my home, I could buy THREE 15″ displays and put them around my home.

    Fundamentally, even if it was much, much cheaper, I still think it’s a bizarre approach to solving the problem of portable TV access. Am I really supposed to carry this with me on business trips? It’s actually heavier than my laptop, with half the resolution, and none of the functionality.

    With regards to enabling remote access to content, my recommendation right now is to wait. As I’ve stated in previous articles, I don’t think the various “portable media center” or “media to go” solutions are good ideas either, and there isn’t much else on the market just yet.

    The bottom line: Save your $1500 for now, and wait for some more intuitive and natural solutions to getting your TV, location-free.

    Links

  • Official Sony site
  • Buy on Amazon