Skulltrail sounds like a game machine platform if ever there was.  Yet Skulltrail is the name Intel has given its new server-class motherboard... that has been tweaked for the "enthusiast" market.  Read that as "game machine" platform.

Quite a few people (no, unfortunately not me!) got a peak of the new hardware at the fall Intel Developer's Forum, where Skulltrail was still in the pre-production phase.  But it was far enough along for those who saw it to come away with a good idea of its power.  I especially like the fact that it is configured with dual 45nm quad-core processors, for an impressive eight core total.

You can find more information along with some revealing benchmarks here.  It's fitting that after so many years of being belittled as "not serious" computers, game machines are now being built from the ground up with such capable hardware cores.

- Hap Aziz

I admit that I still feel like a little kid on Christmas morning.  Only at this point in my life, the gifts I hope for are quite a bit more sophisticated.  I'd love to hear what you receive this holiday season as part of your family traditions.

Digital cameras?  Computers?  Cell phones?  Robots?  There are so many wonderful gadgets on the market!

As for me, I've hinted to my wife that an iPod Touch looks especially sweet....

- Hap Aziz

This past Saturday I attended a birthday party held at the DisneyQuest “indoor interactive theme park” in Orlando, Florida.  Essentially, this interactive theme park is a mega-game arcade filling several floors with classic video games, pinball machines and air hockey tables, and a wide range of virtual reality simulations and multi-sensory video environments that place the game player in roller coasters, river raft rides, pirate ship battles, and many other imaginative settings.

The funny thing is that I repeatedly felt drawn back to the classic arcade games from my youth: Centipede, PacMan, Joust, Frogger, and—one of my all time favorites—Zaxxon (that’s me getting tons of freeplay).  The question of why so many people keep returning to the older video games has always fascinated me.  Sure, there’s the element of nostalgia for these classics, but the phenomenon is much more than that (especially for the kids that weren’t even born when these machines were all the rage).  The idea that game play is more important than graphics is almost heretical in this age of super-computing videogame systems.  Yet, that’s what seems to be at the heart of the matter: A game with superior game play will invariably capture a person’s imagination and keep it for a much longer period of time.  Read here, here, and here for some more in-depth discussion on the topic.

For game players this creates an interesting dilemma regarding where to spend your money and your time: on the visual masterpiece or on the satisfying blend of challenge versus playability?  The same dilemma holds true for game designers: where should they spend their finite development resources?  My personal preference is in playing games that are easy to get into (little to no learning curve) and play to some form of completion in a very short period of time.  In creating games, I tend to enjoy the process of creating logical puzzles—not necessarily abstract, but that can be woven into the fabric of a game story, for example.

Overall, I think we are seeing a wide range of games the spans one end of the visuals/gameplay spectrum to the other.  And that’s a good thing, as the market for this type of entertainment is tremendously large and continuously growing.  Perhaps nearly as much fun for me as playing those old arcade classics at DisneyQuest was watching what all the different game players chose to try.  My little six year old daughter loves her Wii and Playstation and PC for playing games at home (She’ll find a Wii version of the Ben 10 video game under the tree Christmas morning.) 

But at DisneyQuest she was all about air hockey and ski ball. 

And playing with me.

- Hap Aziz

One of the things I love about computer technology related fields, is that the list of potential jobs is always changing—and usually expanding.  It never seems to be a static list that you open up once with relative certainty the list will be unchanged years or even months into the future.  A big reason for the ongoing changes is the relentless pace of change of the technology itself.  Most of us know the popular form of Moore’s Law that goes something like this, “the processing power of computers will double every 18 months.”  (Now, that’s not what Moore actually said.  His original statement had more to do with transistor density on a chip, but you get the point.)

The thing is, with that much change happening that frequently, the types of careers in computer technology fields has to be quite diverse.  And the good news is that it is.  Check the post 10 Hot Computer Driven Careers.  This piece gives a really good look at how to go non-traditional in the IT field.

One of the nice things about our programs at Rasmussen is that we’ve actually positioned ourselves to support students that want to try out the “road less traveled” from the traditional.  I encourage you to read the article and think a little bit about those 10 hot careers.  Then get back to me here and share your thoughts with me in the blog.  If you’re a student, I’d be really interested in knowing if any of those other career options are anything that you might consider.

- Hap Aziz

The idea of publishing dedicated console games has always called to computer programmers, and I'm no exception. In fact, some of the early computers I programmed on (TI-99/4a, C64, Atari 800XL, and, of course, the Amiga) were very console-like in their support of sprites, bit-planes, screen resolutions, and so on. However, actual dedicated gaming consoles were much more difficult to develop for--that is, without getting into serious home-brew activity. (I remember my first 3DO, and I had no desire to crack that console open.)

Enter the HYDRA Game Development Kit. This hw/sw package allows you to write some pretty sophisticated video games using a C-like language by interfacing the kit to your own PC. You can also write directly to the HYDRA without a PC using a derivative of the BASIC language. That's a quick way to get a taste of console programming!

At the cost of $199, the kit comes with quite a bit, including:

• HYDRA console w/128k EEPROM and a variety of I/O options
• PS/2 Mouse and Mini Keyboard
• Nintendo-compatible gamepad
• USB programming cable
• 128k Re-programmable game card to store your games and applications
• Blank "Experimenter" card to design your own add-on hardware
• Book and CD-ROM of source code to support your coding efforts

Be sure to check out the XGameStation website for more details. Honestly, this looks like quite a neat little package. 

I’d love to find this under the tree on Christmas morning!

- Hap Aziz

Of the next generation video game consoles, Sony's Playstation 3 is regarded to have the most advanced technology, while Microsoft's Xbox 360 has been on the market the longest and has the largest selection of software titles. Yet it is Nintendo's Wii that is currently outselling both its competitors combined, earlier this year posting about twice the sales of the Xbox and nearly four times the sales of the PS3.

There are several contributing factors to explain this (one of them being cost). One of the more distinctive components of the Wii is the console's wireless, motion-sensitive controller: the Wiimote. This controller represents a significant advance in interaction technology, allowing the player to control gameplay through actual physical motion that, in many cases, mimics the real-life activities being simulated. Tennis? Hold and use the Wiimote just as you would a regular tennis racket. Bowling? Swing your arm with the Wiimote with the right finesse to score that strike. But beyond the more obvious play activities, the Wiimote can even be used for surgery simulations, complete with haptic feedback.

The beauty of the Wiimote is that it may be used as an interactive input device for the Second Life virtual world, facilitating the construction of ultra-realistic training simulations for the corporate and higher education marketspaces. Wired Magazine recently published an article entitled "Wii + Second Life = New Training Simulator" in which such possibilities are discussed. The article is worth a read for its exploration of combining these technologies. Clearly as we enter the arena of high-stakes training and education, we will need to develop new techniques to serve ever-increasing learner populations with restricted resources. What's not so clear is how we will meet the challenge of delivery.

- Hap Aziz