OtterBox Blues

I eagerly anticipated the arrival of an OtterBox protective case for my new Samsung smartphone.  My sister has one for her phone which is similar to mine.  The phone, that is.  Amongst all the rave reviews I had heard about the OtterBox, not once did I hear that there are two type of OtterBox cases: The Defender Series and the Commuter Series.  I received the latter.

As I opened the box I saw right away that this one was different.  I had been expecting a front and a back that snap together with a built in screen cover.  What I got instead was a rubber layer that grabs the sides and covers the back, a hard plastic layer that covers most of the rubber, and a separate stick-on screen protector.  First disappointment.

"Oh well," I thought.  "Lets try it."

I have one of these sticker type screen protectors on my Kobo Touch, so I'm familiar with the concept.  This one refused to go on straight.  It is also very under-size, the edges of the sticker clearly visible all the way around.  It looks cheap!

Worse still, where the Kobo has a matte screen, my phone has a very glossy screen.  Every flaw in the application is immediately and glaringly obvious.  I have tried cleaning and reapplying the protector four times now.  Somehow a little speck of dust always finds it's way under there.

I would be tempted to just go without the sticker except for three things.  One, the rubber forms a wavy frame around the screen.  Two, the plastic has rough unfinished edges.  And three, most infuriatingly, the screen on my phone (supposedly made of scratch proof glass) already has scratches. . .

I'm done.  This one goes back tomorrow.  I hope the Defender is better because these are supposed to be the best cases available.

Angry Birds In Space

Hmm, Angry Birds goes retro sci-fi. . .

Yesterday I downloaded the demo for Angry Birds: Space.  I admit that I did so with some prejudice, expecting perhaps a simple palette swap.  Afterall, as Penny-Arcade so aptly illustrated, how could the usual sling shot physics work in space?

Well, I'm happy to report that it does work!  While there are some levels where gravity plays no role, most levels are built around small planetoids complete with their own gravity and atmosphere.  This makes for some complex and interesting trajectories.  Rovio has added a short predictive line to the interface to help you place your shot, but the larger and more complex the level, the less this line will help.

The atmosphere is an interesting element.  Mostly it serves to show where the effect of gravity begins, but it also is essential to the pigs who can not survive in the vacuum of space.  There is no explanation as to how the birds are able to survive in space (or why the slingshot's planetoid does not have gravity), but pigs must either live within a planetoid's atmosphere or within a small bubble of air.  Should that bubble pop, the pig will flash freeze and then shatter.

The pigs in bubbles, especially when placed above the atmosphere of a planetoid, are oddly reminiscent of the star child from 2001: A Space Odyssey.  On some levels though, the bubbles are given antennae and are clearly meant to represent old school space helmets.

As an added bonus, you can pop the bubbles on the level selection menu and freeze the pigs there as well.

There has been a sprite swap for the birds in order to bring the retro sci-fi theme together.  The red birds have been given a black mask, the blue birds a lightning cap.  The yellow birds, which are not used in the demo but shown in the cut-scene, are now purple with a Cyclops-esque visor.  The black birds have been dressed in orange suits with wide round collar and they have been given a ponytail that is lit on fire like a fuse.  The big red birds, which also do not feature in the demo, are now big green birds (no relation to boomerang birds).

There is also a bonus level included with the demo that pays tribute to Space Invaders.

Final Thoughts

I installed and played this demo on my computer.  I'm not sure how these expansive levels will look on a tiny iPhone or smaller android phone.

There also seemed to be a long wait at the end of the level of each level.  Presumably this is due to the complex physics.

All in all, I'd say that this is a great addition to the Angry Birds franchise.

Read an E-Book Week

Just a heads up, this is currently Read an E-Book Week. Go on over to the website to find links to a large number of free eBooks.

Ebook Giveaway

Michael A. Stackpole is giving away ebook versions of A Gathering Evil through Amazon for one day only. Open to all world regions!

E Ink at CES 2012

This is Interesting.

North America's First Colour E Ink E-Reader

Today is the 'Expected' ship date for what is being advertised as North America's first Colour E Ink e-Reader, the ETACO jetBook Color. Guess they ship on Sundays in some parts of the world. . .

I've been waiting for colour e-ink for several years now. It's one of the main reasons why I waited so long to buy my first e-reader. Of course, six and a half months after I gave up waiting, look what they roll out.

Yet, the ETACO is not exactly what I was waiting for anyway.

You see, there are several promising technologies that have been announced over the past several years. For instance, there is the Mirasol screen, utilized by the Kyobo e-reader that was recently released in Korea (not to be confused with the Kobo e-Reader). Supposedly inspired by iridescent butterfly wings, Mirasol uses tiny electrically controlled mirrors. Besides the colour capabilities, this screen will refresh faster than current black and grey E Ink.

Even more promising is the Liquavista screen that was purchased by Samsung a year ago. This screen uses electrowetting technology. It promises far faster refresh rates, fast enough to watch video, and lower energy consumption. It is also easier and cheaper to make.

So how does North America's first colour e-Reader stack up? It uses an older technology that relies on several layers of colour filters layered over an ordinary E Ink screen. This has several disadvantages since it has many of the same deficiencies of a regular E Ink screen as well as having all those extra layers for the light to pass through, which ultimately produces a dimmer, less distinct image.

Still, the jetBook Color has been available in Europe for some time now and it was deemed popular enough to bring over here. I'd be interested in seeing one, but I'm not rushing out to pay $520 dollars for one.

Six Months With the Kobo Touch

According to the receipt that I found yesterday, I have now (as of today) owned my Kobo Touch for six months. Coincidentally, a new firmware version has also been released today.

At the time, the Kobo Touch seemed like the right choice. I had considered buying the first Kobo eReader since it was cheaper than a Sony and it didn't lock you in like Kindle, but several things held me back. The biggest thing was that change was promised to be on the horizon. "Price drops by Christmas," they said, "colour e-ink next year. . ."

Of course, those promises were broken. So by the time the Kobo released a new touchscreen I was tired of waiting and ready to buy a device just to 'get me by' until the good stuff came out.

By and large, the Kobo has worked. Most of the time. Right off the bat the reading experience wasn't great. There was little support for sideloaded content (the main reason I bought the thing) but you could read with it. It just wasn't very easy. There wasn't much control over how the text was displayed and the 'page' number would often overlap the text. Through quite a few firmware updates all this has changed, of course.

But the story doesn't end there. It hasn't always been an uphill experience. With each firmware 'update' it seems that new bugs are introduced. Sometimes old bugs come back. There was one bug that cut off the last line of text on every page. There was one bug that broke the functionality of SDHC memory cards for some users. There was even a bug that caused some Kobo databases to become corrupt forcing constant 'factory resets'.

Currently, the only bug that really bothers me is that it will sometimes not turn the page when I tap the screen, a second tap will then turn two pages. This bug has been around for a long time. . .

I hope that the new firmware I just installed will fix this, but I doubt it. It isn't listed as one of the fixes. Also, there is still no way to organize the library into collections or shelves.

Conclusion: while buggy and often frustrating, it works. Still, I can really only recommend the Kobo Touch to users who won't mind mucking through CSS and XHTML to make their books work, or who can hack the Linux based firmware. Furthermore, within the last six months, new ereaders have come on the market that are priced competitively with the Kobo. Sony and Kindle (Amazon) both offer much better customer support and can pump far more resources into their software updates.