A good read which is not just about Windows 8. The good news, and the potential for MSFT, are in the subtitle:

Windows 8, the PC giant’s new operating system, is stylish, award-winning, multi-platform – and critical to its future

But check out the “critical to its future” challenges:

Windows Phone took just 1.5% of the mobile operating system market in the third quarter of 2011, according to research firm Gartner, compared to over 50% for Android and 15% for Apple.

The danger for MSFT around the shift to tablets and the post-PC world:

Research firm IDC forecasts that in affluent western economies, desktop computer sales will slip from 57.8m a year in 2010 to 49.8m by 2015. Laptop sales dipped by some 7m in 2011; they are expected to recover this year, but go on to grow at a far slower pace than previously. Sales of tablets are heading the other way, rising from 17.6m in 2010 to 77.4m last year and a projected 326m in 2015.

Check that last sentence again. That’s 440% tablet growth year on year last year. And 420% more growth over the next 4 years.

On the Ballmer point: why is there not more outrage that the company’s stock is at the same price it was in… 1998?

Yes, there will be a future past iPhones and iPads, even though some have not caught up to the present of them. Good food for thought. Good focus on the actuality of human beings and human minds and human bodies. 

p.s. I’m back!!!

The Blog-Health-o-Meter™ reads This blog is doing awesome!.

Crunchy numbers

The average container ship can carry about 4,500 containers. This blog was viewed about 15,000 times in 2010. If each view were a shipping container, your blog would have filled about 3 fully loaded ships.

In 2010, there was 1 new post, growing the total archive of this blog to 150 posts.

The busiest day of the year was April 5th with 92 views. The most popular post that day was Wii versus PS3 versus XBox 360 market share data.

Where did they come from?

The top referring sites in 2010 were chris.pirillo.com, phrogram.com, digg.com, google.com, and bigextracash.com.

Some visitors came searching, mostly for different types of gamers, xbox market share, do video games kill, fangtooth fish, and most powerful gpu.

Attractions in 2010

These are the posts and pages that got the most views in 2010.

Wii versus PS3 versus XBox 360 market share data March 2007
50 comments

Shifting gaming demographics October 2006
4 comments

The world’s most powerful supercomputer is now a video game console March 2007
3 comments

Study says: There are SIX different types of gamers August 2006
1 comment

Do video games kill? March 2007

I have some suggestions that I’ve made before. Yes, I am offering solutions here at the top before presenting the article which (as people have been doing for 5 years) describes the problem.

Video games have ‘role in school’

No, parents and teachers will not like that suggestion. The data makes that point obvious. On the other hand, reality is not optional.

My conference presentation on this point from last year

Phrogram as presented at SIGGRAPH 2006

Kid’s Programming Language paper I presented at SIGGRAPH 2006

Here’s Business Week’s article describing the problem. Let’s solve it, shall we? It’s really not that hard. Computer science is fun.

June 17, 2008, 12:13PM EST
Schools’ Tech Curriculum Called ‘Boring’
Fewer and fewer kids in secondary schools choose to study computing, which threatens Britain’s tech future

by Natasha Lomas

The teaching of IT in secondary schools needs radically overhauling as it is putting kids off a career in technology, leading figures from academia and industry have warned.

The UK’s status as a world class IT nation is being threatened by a skills black hole which is getting bigger ever year as fewer and fewer kids choose to study computing.

Companies already have difficulty sourcing skilled IT staff—and government and industry bodies have warned thousands more skilled staff will be needed over the coming years to power the so called ‘knowledge economy’. But as numbers of computing students continue to drop off, the question is where is the talent going to come from?

Professor Lachlan MacKinnon, head of the school of computing and creative technologies at the University of Abertay, Dundee, has called for a radical overhauling of the curriculum in secondary schools as “boring” ICT classes which focus on Word and Excel are turning teenagers off IT as a career.

Deep technical skills are required to support the IT industry proper, which is not the same as learning the basic ICT skills that employees in all industries need nowadays, said MacKinnon.

The reality is that the IT industry needs more computing graduates than are currently being produced just to keep up with current demand—yet computer science student numbers have declined by around a quarter in the last three years so the future for UK IT looks very bleak indeed.

“We’re going to hell,” he warned. “It’s not a good place to be.”

Karen Price, CEO of tech industry skills body e-skills UK, also called for a radical overhaul of the curriculum in schools, warning: “The current curriculum is having an extremely negative impact on young people’s attitudes to IT.”

Price pointed out there’s been a 50 per cent drop in applications to computer science degrees over the last five years. “Young people are not choosing to study [computer sciences]. We’re sitting on a time-bomb, quite frankly,” she said.

According to Price, an A-level in computing is not a prerequisite for a single university computer science degree and she said this shows how little value is placed on secondary school IT qualifications.

Moreover, despite being vital to drive the UK’s knowledge economy, computing is not classed as a Stem subject (science, technology, engineering, maths), said MacKinnon, meaning higher education funding has been significantly cut back—to the tune of £100m in recent years.

Nor is IT eligible for SIV status (aka a strategically important and vulnerable subject) and the government support that would bring.

MacKinnon warned: “Without significant intervention higher education cannot meet growth targets [for the IT industry].” He called on the government to provide tax breaks and partner-with-industry to encourage internships and graduate entry schemes to get young talent into IT and help others transfer across from different industries.

The offshoring of entry level IT jobs has exacerbated the skills shortage by making it increasingly difficult for IT workers to gain the necessary experience to boost their skill level, he added. “Because we are not employing at entry level offshoring will kill our industry stone dead,” he warned.

Here’s the publisher page

Here’s the Wikipedia

Note the Wiki says they have “stopped distribution” while trying to sort out the controversy. I assume this is why the Amazon page says “ships in 3 to 5 weeks.” My guess is, the only place we’ll get a copy now is second hand, or black market.

Here’s the link to the hilarious 13 page (so far) thread on how Limbo of the Lost released using art blatantly stolen from Diablo II, Painkiller, Unreal Tournament 2003, Unreal Tournament 2004, Thief: Deadly Shadows, The Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind, Vampire: The Masquerade – Bloodlines, Silent Hill 4, Crysis and scenes from the 1997 film Spawn and Pirates of the Caribbean: At World’s End.

The evidence is right there in the thread: side by side shots from Limbo of the Lost and those they “borrowed” from. Links to the game’s trailers are also there, and seem so hilariously cheezy that the whole thing just might be an intentional joke or ploy. One would assume intentional on the part of the developers and designers, as opposed to the publisher…

Romans Used 20-Sided Dice Two Millennia Before D&D

Many of us geeks take great pride in the ability to recite the history of role-playing games based on the 20-sided die, but what about the history of the die itself? Apparently it predates the original Dungeons and Dragons by almost two millenia.

Christie’s, auctioneer to the rich and famous, sold a glass d20 from Roman times. It was included in a collection of other antiquities that sold in 2003. The markings on the die don’t appear to be either Arabic or Roman numerals, but it’s probably a safe bet that it was used in a game of chance. As the auction catalog notes that several polyhedral dice are known from the Roman era, but remarks, ” Modern scholarship has not yet established the game for which these dice were used.”

I wonder – how do you say “critical hit” in Latin? (Ed. note: “maxima plaga”)

The seller acquired this die from his father, who picked it up in the 1920s in Egypt. Sounds like the beginning of an Indiana Jones movie, doesn’t it?

And on that note, haven’t got a copy yet, but I have to check it out:

D&D 4rth edition has just released:

http://dnd4.com/

What interests me most about the new rules are the online tools, called (and sold) as DnD Insider. Check this out – about time, eh?

D&D Character Builder, a program that helps you create and manage your D&D characters. This program allows you to create a character for any D&D game, walking you through the process of rolling the dice and assigning your game statistics, as well as creating a visual version of your character using “paper doll” models and “drag and click” selections of armor and weapons. At the end, you can save your character and print out a character sheet, as well as go to any D&D tournament and call up your character for use, or use the character at the Virtual Gaming Table (see below). With this package, you get to create and store up to 10 different characters or up to 10 different versions of one character (your character at different levels), or some combination of the two.
•Exclusive D&D-related novels and short stories written by your favorite authors
•Real-World D&D Search Engines (find D&D gamers, game stores, tournaments, and events in your area)
•In-Game D&D Search Engines (find feats, spells, magic items, and other D&D-related topics)

Digital Gaming Table, a program that allows you to play D&D using the Internet as your kitchen table, with a viewable play surface, dice rolling, virtual miniatures, and voice chat. Now you don’t have to wait for your home gaming group to get together to play a game of D&D. You can still play your weekly face-to-face game, but now you can also play two or three more times a week by finding a game at the virtual table. Or, you might want to reconnect with your old gaming pals who long ago moved away-now you can all play together again on a regular basis!

How geeky is this? And this? And this?

Nintendo Wii popular choice for therapists, children
WICHITA FALLS, Texas — Jackson Peterson is running fast.

He’s running in place, moving his arms back and forth. So excited about the virtual race he is running that his physical therapist, Barbara Maxwell, is having trouble catching up with him — on screen, of course.

“Oh, there he goes, got him,” said Maxwell, a little winded after catching up to her client in one of the activities of the interactive Wii Fit, a popular video game on the Nintendo Wii console.

The North Texas Rehabilitation Center has recently adapted the highly interactive game console into its physical therapy program.

“It gets them moving, and it is something that is interacting with them; they don’t realize they are doing therapy,” said Susan Knowles-Martin, Director of Marketing and Development for the center.

According to an article in PT Magazine, a professional magazine of the American Physical Therapy Association, physical therapists around the nation have been introducing the Wii to patients. This has led to a dramatic increase in treatment compliance and a general upbeat attitude about therapy.

“It’s about making the therapy interactive and fun,” said Knowles-Martin, who explained that because of the large number of children treated at the center, the Wii has allowed them to make therapy sessions more fun.

“It’s perfect for a facility like this. Half of our clients are kids from 3 years old all the way up to teenagers,” she said.

The trick is in the motion. The Wii Fit uses a unique platform called the Wii Balance Board that can measure a user’s weight and center of gravity. The game has about 40 different activities, which include yoga, aerobics and various balance games which have allowed the therapists to target specific areas of concern.

“It’s a way to measure their progress,” said Lesa Enlow, director of programs, who was showing the game off to a group of students from Archer City High School visiting the facility.

“This balance stuff is hard,” said one of the students as he stood on his toes while attempting a high jump in the ski-jumping module of Wii Fit.

Enlow sees the Wii as a training tool that can adapt to the needs of their clients as well.

“It’s modifiable enough to where you can be disabled and still use it,” she said.

The Wii wireless controller can also be used as a handheld pointing device since it can detect acceleration and orientation in three dimensions. This allows for therapists to use the game controller to measure various types of movements, she said.

“We have a machine back there for wheelchair patients; the wheel simulates the turning and you can do the exact same thing with the Wii,” Knowles-Martin said. “Instead of keeping them in the gym, you can have them turn a steering wheel with the Wii and watch their wrist movement.”

The Wii also has other therapeutic uses. According to PT Magazine, rehabilitation clinics around the country are making use of the Wii fitness package for improving weight bearing and balance in patients following total knee replacement or back surgery.

So far it has been a hit with the younger clients like Jackson.

As his head moved from one side to the other, a little character on the screen was heading soccer balls back to the kicker.

“Wow! I got it,” he said as the 20 minutes of physical therapy came to an end.

Knowles-Martin said kids see the game as play instead of an extension of therapy.

“Since they have a shorter attention span, you have to incorporate play into therapy. If it’s not fun to them and they don’t know why they are doing it, they won’t do it,” she said. “With the Wii they can see how good they do and it gets them excited.”

Phrogram Programming for the Absolute Beginner

Full disclosure: I’m one of the guys who invented Phrogram and its predecessor, the Kid’s Programming Language. But I don’t get a cut on Ford’s book!

Gameforge AG is a privately held German company. They’ve been in business since 2003, and only have 90 employees. They just opened a San Francisco office.

They publish the most successful and popular browser-based game on the planet, OGame, and 26 other games.

Their active users number 10,000,000.

Their games run in 23 different languages, with users in 30 different countries around the world.

A couple of years ago I posted 2005 to 2010 projections for the game industry. Here’s the online drilldown from those projections:

Online gaming drilldown:

2010 long session market (eg MMOs) $4.82 billion
Compound Annual Growth Rate 26%

2010 mid session market $4.72 billion
Compound Annual Growth Rate 29%

2010 short session market (eg casual games) $2.5 billion
Compound Annual Growth Rate 34%

The short session market shows the largest growth, though all of the online markets are the hottest place in gaming growth. GameForge is completely focused on the online market, has a model that satisfies the short session market brilliantly, but that also engages users all the way up to the long session market. I think it’s fair to say they dominate the browser-based market – if you have other games or companies you’d like to suggest as competitors there, please do post a comment. Because GameForge is privately held, I haven’t found any revenues for them – but I am going to conservatively guess they are on the order of $10,000,000 a month, or $120,000,000 a year. The key question for them is how successful they are in converting free users (all their games can be played for free) into customers who pay for upgrades that allow them to play the games more successfully. My estimate is based on the conversion percentage being 5 to 10%. Whatever their revenues, I am quite sure their growth is better than those very high projections for the industry, since they are so succesful within the industry.

The only weakness I’ve seen so far is they haven’t also enabled good mobile access to their games. When people can also play from their cell phone browsers, GameForge will hook way more users, way more solidly. Surely they are working on that.

More about their gaming and revenue models in a later post. Meantime, if you haven’t yet, check out OGame, or any others they publish that look interesting. I’m in Universe 27 in OGame, btw, as Tor. Send me a note.