Windows 7 is Microsoft's biggest product launch of the year. Unsurprisingly for a multi billion dollar multinational company, Microsoft is pushing the latest version of Windows with a varied and well-funded marketing campaign. More surprising are some of the embarrassingly cringe inducing marketing events, such as encouraging ordinary people to host their own Windows 7 launch parties.
Another bizarre promotion is the Windows 7 Burger King Whopper, a version of the famous hamburger consisting of seven beef patties. Yes, seven.
This huge burger will only be available in Japan. We can't read Japanese, so we're not sure what the text on the official Japanese website says, but photos of the actual burger on Flickr look far less appetising than the official promotional picture.
We're not against the occasional meat guzzling indulgence, but this towering monstrosity of processed dead cow seems obscene to us. Microsoft should be ashamed of itself for promoting the over consumption of a highly calorific fast food product when governments in developed countries are trying to encourage healthier lifestyles to reduce the spiraling costs of coronary heart disease and obesity on public health budgets.
The promotion is especially egregious when considered in the context of the current food crisis. Increased demand for meat in China and India has helped push up prices for other staple foods to the point where poor people in other developing countries can no longer afford them and run the risk of malnutrition as a result. Ironically, the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, headed by Microsoft's co-founder, is working to alleviate hunger and malnutrition in developing nations by promoting and funding more sustainable and productive agricultural methods.
Admittedly, no-one will die of starvation in Africa if an overeager Windows fan or two in Japan buys a Windows 7 Whopper. Still, it's a very poorly thought out marketing promotion given the very serious problems the world faces in food consumption and production.
Like most people, I enjoy food. However, just like most people I'm also too lazy and too used to instant gratification to learn how to cook well enough to satisfy my own demanding taste buds. Thankfully, I'm spoilt for choice thanks to London's huge range of restaurants, ranging from inexpensive falafel canteens to high-end haute cuisine private dining rooms.
I don't often get to mix my embarrassingly intimate love of technology and restaurants unless I decide to ignore my dining companion by indulging in a game of Scrabble on my iPhone. Unless, that is, I go to Inamo, a Japanese restaurant in London's Soho area. Although don't go shopping beforehand, as they don't have a cloakroom which is annoyingly inconvenient.
Inamo's main gimmick is that you place your order using a computer instead of a waiter. The computer is built into the base of your table, but instead of a monitor, the screen image is projected onto the table surface from a larger overhead projector. A small circular touchpad built into the corner of the table allows you to move a cursor to navigate a rather cramped icon-based interface for viewing the menu. Read a brief description, look at a very large, but low resolution picture of each dish before clicking on the items you want, sending your order electronically to the kitchen.
If you need help, you can click a button to call a server which you'll need to do if you accidentally order a wrong item and need it removed from your bill which is far too easy to do inadvertently. Once you're done, you can play games such as tic-tac-toe or battleships, view a map of the local area, change the computer's desktop wallpaper which doubles as a virtual tablecloth and request your bill. It's all mildly distracting for a few minutes until I got bored and decided to gaze at the dimly lit and tastefully, if unimaginatively, decorated interior.
It's all very amusing, but the computerised ordering system is a bit of a missed opportunity. Although it lets you watch a webcam of the kitchen, the footage is too grainy, small and uninstructive if you're really interested in how your food is prepared. Since the servers who attended me on my visit were unable to answer some basic questions about my meal (Is the tuna line or net caught? Is the wagyu beef Japanese or American? Is the projector DLP or LCD?), then the computer should have this information on file. Except it doesn't.
Even more annoying is the rather hit and miss quality of the actual food. Although Inamo is nominally Japanese, its cuisine is really pan-Asian fusion which is a pretentious way of saying the chefs have nicked ingredients and dishes from all over and then mashed them together. The chunks of tuna in the tuna tartare weren't large or absorbent enough to soak up the flavour of the raw quail egg, fruit and alcohol dressing. The smoky, nutty taste of the black faced lamb was pleasing, but the coarse, crumbly texture was a little odd.
The salmon and avocado ceviche was largely a triumph. Although the buttery creaminess of both the fish and fruit blended together wonderfully and then enhanced by the bitterness of the citrus dressing, the effect was spoilt by some poorly chosen cuts of salmon and avocado. The undoubted highlight of the meal was the delightfully fluffy, creamy pana cotta flavoured with a hint of basil and a healthy dose of mango.
The bottom line is that Inamo isn't really a restaurant. It's a place for posers that happens to serve alright-ish food. Posers who are easily impressed by a half-baked computerised waitering system that needs to be sent back. If you really want Japanese food in stylish surroundings, Tsunami in Clapham or Fitzrovia are far better.
I've spent the last couple of months locating malicious websites and testing anti-virus software, and one thing that's very clear is that fake anti-virus programs are all over the place. The ones we've seen tend to install themselves automatically, as a 'drive-by download', although it's perfectly possible to download and install them directly from certain websites intentionally.
When Symantec announced that it has identified 250 different types we thought it might be useful to write a news story about it and to use video footage taken in our virus lab to illustrate what these fake anti-virus programs look like. As you'll see if you click through to the story, they are pretty convincing!
There are some fascinating industrial processes behind the technology we use every day. This week, I took the opportunity to tour HP's inkjet cartridge factory near Dublin in Ireland, which manufactures most of the integrated (combined ink tank and print head) HP ink cartridges used in Europe. Here's how it works.
Zone 1
Zone 1 is the first part of the "dry loop", where the ink cartridges are assembled before filling. Here we see foam-packed tri-colour cartridges on their way to having their lids fitted.
The empty ink cartridge bodies move along an automated production line to be packed with a dense foam, manufacturered by a third party. The foam will later hold the ink, a little like the wadding that holds the fuel in in a Zippo lighter. The foam's specific density means that the ink reaches the print head at the correct rate though capillary action.
Black cartridges have just a single chamber into which a piece of foam is forced. Tri-colour cartridges have three chambers containing three separate pieces of foam. Before the foam goes in, a filter is inserted. This sits between the foam and the print head to prevent large solid particles from getting through and clogging the head. Tri-colour cartridges have additional seals to prevent the different colours bleeding into each other from adjacent chambers.
A 2D matrix is laser etched on to the cartridge so it can be tracked through every stage of the production process. Finally, a lid is joined to each cartridge. The lids contain either one (for black cartridges) or three (for tri-colour cartridges) filling valves which will later be used to inject the ink. The lid is attached using an ultra-sonic welding process. A lid is placed on a cartridge and held in position. A high-frequency vibration is then applied to the interface between the two parts, exciting the molecules at the join until they melt together.
Zone 2
The cartridge bodies are conveyed to Zone 2, the second part of the dry loop, the print head is joined to the cartridge. The processes carried out here are slower and more delicate than those in Zone 1, so HP's factory has two separate Zone 2 stations, which each run at half the speed of Zone 1, to handle its output.
The only function of this zone is to attach the print head, which shoots the ink out on to the page, and the flex circuit that allows the printer to communicate with the cartridge. These are manufactured in a clean room elsewhere in the same factory complex. Each print head contains microscopic channels that allow ink to flow from the cartridge to a reservoir and from there into the print head's ink firing chamber. The surface of the print head is covered by a palladium orifice sheet which contains the tiny holes through which ink is fired on to the page.
In Zone 2, each cartridge is coated with adhesive in the area where the print head and flex are to be located. The print head and flex, which are already joined together, are adhered to the cartridge. The alignment of the head and of the contacts on each flex are checked using a camera by an automated system. This ensures that they are correctly positioned to within a few microns.
Zone 3
In Zone 3, also called the wet loop, fully assembled cartridges are fed into a machine that can fill four cartridges every six seconds. A vacuum is then applied to remove the air from the filled cartridges. This forces the ink into position at the bottom of the cartridge and helps to keep it fresh. As the ink in the cartridge is used, the cartridge will take on air through the filling valves. A label is applied over the valves. Grooves in the plastic lid are designed to optimise the passage of air into the cartridge when required.
Each cartridge is sent through a printer which prints a test pattern to ensure that everything functions correctly. The print head is then cleaned and sealed with a strip of tape before being sent to packaging.
Packaging and Testing
A print head is checked for microscopic imperfections.
The final stage of the production line is a packaging machine that puts each cartridge into the foil wrapper that is familiar to HP inkjet users across the world. The cartridges are later shipped to an external factory to be boxed.
At every stage of the assembly process, the cartridges go through an electrical contact test to ensure their functionality. At the end, a random sampling of cartridges is taken to be fully checked by humans, rather than machines.
These randomly selected cartridges (also called "pens" in HP's internal terminology) are tested to see if they can withstand being bumped around during shipping and handling, have their functionality tested in high altitude conditions, or are simply printed to end of life (EOL) - the point at which they run out. An autopsy area means that spent and failed cartridges can be dismantled and checked.
Print heads are tested in front of slow-motion micro video equipment which allows the directionality and dynamics of their ink release system to be checked at a microscopic level.
Once a batch of cartriges has been packaged, checked and confirmed as functional, they'll soon be boxed and on their way to shops across Europe. Within two years - the cartridges carry an expiry date - almost all will have found use in an HP printer.
I finally got my Google Wave invite today - not from Google, sadly, but from an acquaintance on Twitter. Twitter has been awash with offers of Wave invites, which usually consist of a link and a requirement to re-tweet the offer, ensuring that searches for "wave invites" are spammed with the same rash of offers, all of which are fake offers designed to generate traffic, and hence ad revenue, for the spammer.
Anyway, Wave itself is rather boring at the moment. It's like the first fax machine: on its own, it's completely useless. Add another fax machine, and the value and utility of the first one doubles. As you add more fax machines, each one becomes more useful and valuable. This is known as the network effect, and is one of the guiding principles behind most Internet ventures.
So my lonely Wave account, connected to two people I know on Twitter (but don't communicate with regularly) is pretty useless. I can't communicate with - or "ping" - any of my regular contacts, as they don't yet have invites. I'm wondering why Google hasn't made Wave backwards-compatible with email to start with, so that I can at least email people I know and see our emails in Wave. This is how GMail is meant to work, with threaded "conversations" grouped by subject line. Google's definitely missed a trick here. In the next few days - hopefully - I'll get some invites of my own, and plan to invite my regular correspondents, and maybe then I'll be able to see what Wave can really do. At the moment, though, it's like a lonely fax machine.
I recently discovered a new label for myself. I am, apparently, a "gaymer". Before anyone starts thinking about cider, I should probably mention that it's a combination of "gay" and "gamer". Yeah. As far as atrocities against the English language go, it's not good, is it?
The term has been around for quite a while as a catchall for LGBT gamers. I've been spared knowledge of it until now, probably thanks to my infrequent forum use. However, it's been drawn to my attention by the New Gaymer Survey, the second of its kind. Composed by a master's degree student of video game design, the poll looks into a largely invisible minority in an audience that is generally characterised as being (a) straight and (b) male. The survey includes detailed questions about gaming style, console and computer ownership, preferred genres and awareness of recent titles with homosexual situtations or characters.
Sexuality in games is arguably a bit of a non-issue, particularly if your character's primary interaction with the world involves blowing it up. It's of more significance in titles with a detailed plot or open game world.
Origin's classic RPGs, particularly Ultima VI and VII, were among my first brushes with homosexuality in gameland. Not only could I play as a female character but I could also have (sometimes inadvisable) off-screen sex with either gender. I was a teenager at the time – things like that seemed important. I blame the hormones. It wasn't a major plot point and the gay option was no more (or less) of a problem than the straight one. It was just a tiny detail that made a surprisingly big difference to my experience of the games.
A similar approach is taken by a much more recent release. Bethesda's Fallout 3 features what is possibly the most unsatisfying sexual encounter in modern gaming (you don't get to see anything and it has no effect on the plot or your conversational options), but you can experience it regardless of your character's gender. It doesn't matter, nor should it.
Probably the best current example of equality of gender and sexual orientation is in Lionhead Studios' Fable II. In its brilliant open world, you can form sexual, emotional and marital relationships with members of either or both genders. Courtship works in exactly the same way for both (that would be through trinkets and flattery – much like real life, then). The same can be said for The Sims 3, although not even my Sim's hot girlfriend could get me past the soap-opera grade tedium or generate any actual interest in the game.
Being able to choose my sexuality and gender have an effect on the sense of immersion I experience with a plot-oriented game. That particularly applies to RPGs, where I like to create characters who are basically myself, only with a sword, more muscles and optional scales.
Although it's nice to feel that my sexual orientation hasn't been sanitised out of a game world, gay content isn't enough to redeem a weak or uninteresting game. Its absence certainly doesn't put me off playing a title that is otherwise tight, action-packed and well-written.
It's always good to see gamers being treated as the diverse collection of adults we actually are. The continued inclusion of realistic and age-appropriately portrayed gay characters only reinforces gamers' diversity and maturity as a group.
It's always fun knocking someone off their pedestal and it's even better kicking someone when they're down. Everyone's favourite whipping boy at the moment is Apple, thanks to the success of the iPod and iPhone. Whether you're Charlie Brooker or a disgruntled iPhone app developer, everyone loves to complain about Apple whether it's deserved or not. Apple also deserves credit when it's due though.
I have a MacBook Pro 15in laptop that I use around Shopper's offices. Unfortunately it's also one of the models afflicted with a faulty Nvidia graphics chip that can cause the display to malfunction, a problem shared by other laptop manufacturers.
I duly booked a Saturday appointment at the Genius Bar in Apple's London Regent Street store to have my laptop diagnosed and booked in for repair, a process which took about 10 minutes. I resigned myself to living without my MacBook Pro for the estimated seven days it would take for the laptop's motherboard to be replaced.
I was therefore surprised to discover that my laptop was repaired and ready for collection the following Monday – only two days after dropping it off. The quick turnaround was all the more remarkable since it was a Bank Holiday weekend where an extra delay to the replacement would have been expected.
So far, my MacBook Pro has been problem-free. If every computer manufacturer could provide such conscientious customer service then we'd all have to find something else to complain about.
There's a wide range of political opinion represented here at Shopper, we don’t share it with you though, because we're IT journalists and not political commentators. Despite our varied leanings, however, we do generally tend to agree that Charlie Brooker, a regular columnist for the Guardian, is a man worth listening to.
If you never read the Guardian, then you may have encountered his Screenwipe series on BBC2 or his Channel 4 'Big Brother with zombies' mini-series – Dead Set. Most of Brooker's latest content has concentrated on explaining and analysing the production methods of TV, but he started his career as a games journalist. This means it comes as no surprise when last night he presented a one-off show called Gameswipe as part of the BBC 4's excellent Electric Revolution season (more details at www.bbc.co.uk/bbcfour).
I won't go into too much detail here of what Brooker discusses on the show, as you can watch it for yourself on iPlayer. However, it did seem at bit unsure about its target audience. Was it aimed at those who already play games, who wouldn't need the basic explanations of genre; or to educate those who know little about them, and possibly hold the kind of preconceptions that Brooker rallies against. Brooker explains that TV has always given games a hard time, though it's surprising then he never ascribes part of this rough treatment to the fact that they are a simple competitor for our time spent in front of the gogglebox.
The show has short pieces on many of Brooker's favourites old games, and longer pieces about newer releases. It's nearly identical to Screenwipe in both tone and content, so those who don't like his rather angry and unflinching commentary won’t be won over. This I felt was a missed opportunity, as Brooker's bare-faced honestly about the violent nature of many games will simply support the opinions of many as to the gaming sector as a whole.
The show did have its high points, though. It was great to see Brooker lamenting and celebrating our own gaming past, with Eighties classics like Manic Miner discussed as well as global superstars such as Mario and Sonic. It would have been positive to also note the ongoing strength of our games development industry.
Sadly there simply wasn't enough time to cover that, and many other important issues surrounding games, the media and the UK. Gameswipe's broad sweep did prove one thing though, that a regular series of in-depth discussions into gaming is needed. There have been plenty of good programmes on film, architecture, art and literature on BBC Four – with the channel being the best use of the extra broadcasting space allowed by digital TV. Now I'd like to see a season of programmes, some by Brooker and some not, to cover this ever-burgeoning and important are; as a leisure activity, industry and dare I say it, artform.
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