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Check out the Reuters TV segment below to see me further pontificate on all things Spore.

Spore’s main concepts, designing a creature and eventually building a habitat for it, are actually intellectually similar to The Sims, but the setting is much more abstract. It’s much harder to identify with a single-celled organism, or even an intelligent, technologically advanced Spore creature–they simply lack the sense of familiarity that made The Sims a crossover hit.

Spore also scales up in difficulty fairly quickly, and may leave casual gamers behind. The first two sections, swimming around as a single-celled organism, followed by an evolutionary spurt where you grow some legs and run around making friends with (or eating) other animals, are easy, almost arcade-like fun. Jumping into the third stage, where your creatures form a tribe and set off down the path of civilization, the game abruptly switches to a very traditional real-time strategy mode, requiring the player to manage several tribe members, gather resources, and work with, or against, rival tribes.

This is one of the hardest game types for casual players to get their heads around, and the game’s sparse onscreen tutorials will leave anyone not familiar with the conventions of the RTS genre lost (there’s an extensive in-game manual, called the Sporepedia, but that requires actual reading).

But despite the buzz, which includes full-page stories in the New York Times and numerous TV news segments, does Spore have a chance at mainstream video game success at the level of GTA4 or Guitar Hero (or The Sims)?

We’re sure Spore will be a best-seller, especially in its first few weeks of release, but if EA expects Sims-like sales, the company may end up being disappointed if early word-of-mouth paints the game as too difficult for mainstream gamers.

Just released in the U.S. on Sunday, September 7, Spore is Electronic Arts’ big holiday push for the still-alive PC gaming market. The game is from Will Wright, creator of the best-selling Sims and Sim City franchises, and developed by the same company, Maxis, so expectations are naturally high.

The Sims is one of the best-selling game series of all time, PC or console, and has sold more than 38 million copies in the U.S. (compared with about 12 million for World of Warcraft, the other current PC game tent pole). Non-core gamers, and even people who have never played a video game before, were able to get into The Sims because it allowed them to build virtual versions of the friends, family, neighborhood, etc. It had the appeal of the familiar, and became more of a 3D dollhouse than a serious game.

After spending the last week playing an early copy of the full game (where we created the Danosaurus, which lives on the planet Danlandia), we’re ready to say that Spore is a monumental achievement in game design, and a genuinely engaging experience, but at the same time, it may lack that mainstream accessibility needed to resonate with non-core gamers.

And as always, drop me a line or follow me on Twitter!

Hulu’s success has surprised me somewhat and in today’s video, I tell you exactly why..

“A Norwegian master of B moviemaking is thrilled someone would actually invest the time and effort to rip off one of his schlock extravaganzas so that the Porky’s crowd won’t have to do without this spring…and so on and so forth.”

As TechDirt is wont to say, that is straight from the, “exception-which-proves-the rule department.” Pierre-Joseph Proudhon would have loved that business model. Since it’s so uncool to be proprietary anymore, I’m sure the blog’s everythingshouldbefree-meister won’t mind a mild rewrite of that terribly tendentious lede. To wit:

So far the recording moguls have made nearly all the wrong moves. Maybe their cross-town neighbors will have better luck.

A director from Norway, whose movie credits include the critically acclaimed Agent Cody Banks as well as the unforgettable, One Night at McCool’s is thrilled someone thought so highly of his latest work as to pirate his latest oeuvre, Long Flat Balls 2. (Unfortunately, I missed the classic which preceded it.)

Then while eating lunch, a colleague pointed out this commentary by Mike Masnick at TechDirt and I laughed so hard I nearly passed a cheese sandwich through my nostrils:

OK, whatever. To each his own, I say. And I’m obviously having sport at Zwart’s expense. He’s not going to be confused with Bergmann or Felini but he is signed up to do a Pink Panther sequel in 2009.

There is a history to overcome. The movie and recording industries have been so willfully stupid about coexisting with new technology for so long that you knew this was coming. Truth be told, it’s hard to feel sorry about the extent of the popular blowback, even when it reaches such silly extremes. What’s more, Schumpeter was right about capitalism’s creatively destructive tendencies and Hollywood will have to figure out how to survive in a new era where technology can be its best friend or worst enemy.

Torrent Freak offered a translation of the comments made by the director, Harald Zwart, to the Nettavisen.no:

They're not long and flat, but they're balls.

“I think it’s perfectly fine that some people choose to post the movie online. It shows that people are interested in it. In the IT society of today it’s naive to think that this wouldn’t happen. We consider it a huge compliment. After all, what has happened is that someone has smuggled a camera into a theater and then recorded the whole movie.”

(Credit: Lizjones112 on Flickr)

Ah, now that’s more like it. Though back in the real world, I very much doubt most directors would be sanguine to learn that a goofball had ripped off their latest film. Unfortunately, creative people are unfairly paying for the sins of their corporate masters.

“While the folks back in Hollywood have acting (sic) as though people with camcorders were a huge threat to the movie business, it appears that some folks outside of the Hollywood machine recognize that it’s not such a bad thing at all…In fact, it appears his only real problem is that the quality of recording isn’t so great, though he notes that hopefully this will drive more people to the theater to see a better quality version. It’s nice to see more folks in the movie business recognizing that unauthorized copies aren’t the end of the world.

Yahoo’s board has decided Microsoft’s $31-per-share offer “massively undervalues” the company, according to a report in The Wall Street Journal. Yahoo is expected to formally reject Microsoft’s offer, the Journal reported.

CNET News.com’s Elinor Mills contributed to this report.

Update 11:00 a.m. PT: Representatives from Yahoo and Microsoft on Saturday declined to comment on the report.

But, if Yahoo does want to play hardball, it has bolstered its position. The report says that Yahoo has also adopted a so-called poison pill that means that the Internet company could force Microsoft into a proxy fight to replace the board before getting Yahoo shareholders to vote on its existing offer.

The Journal says that Yahoo will outline its position in a letter to Microsoft’s board on Monday.

In the report, it appears Yahoo is floating the idea that it might consider an offer of at least $40 a share. I’m not in the boardroom, but all of this–the leak, the wording–sounds like more of a negotiating tactic than a final rejection.

The desktop monitor market is driven largely by commercial purchases, as opposed to those by consumers. The U.S. is a mature market, and the upgrade process of switching to newer crops of LCD monitors is slower here than in a market such as China, where many businesses purchasing monitors over the next few years will be doing so for the first time.

China is poised to pass the United States in just three years to become the second-largest market for flat-panel monitors, according to a report released Tuesday by DisplaySearch. DisplaySearch is a market research company that tracks the display business.

As desktop PCs fall further out of favor in the U.S., peripheral manufacturers are having no problem picking up the slack elsewhere.

(Credit:
ViewSonic)

The EMEA region (which refers to Europe, the Middle East, and Africa) will continue to provide LCD monitor makers the most lucrative market, with just over 30 percent of all shipments heading there by 2011. Greater China will represent 22 percent of the worldwide monitor market, with the U.S. slipping to just under 18 percent of the market, according to DisplaySearch’s latest Quarterly Desktop Monitor Shipment and Forecast Report. Asia Pacific follows at 15.6 percent, and Latin America at 12.2 percent.

The display business generated $107 billion last year, which includes LCD TVs, monitors, and notebook displays. Though monitors are the second-most profitable LCD application, they’re actually the most popular in terms of number of units sold worldwide.

The article, which was briefly available here but is now apparently offline for a while, also makes the argument that full-bore IP and domain blocks may gradually fall off in favor of more refined filtering of actual content.

Aside from the fact that The Atlantic has made the lovely choice of freeing its content, the news to me was that China’s filtering system is working in reverse:

James Fallows, national correspondent for The Atlantic and a blogging resident of Beijing’s Chaoyang District, has written a good outline of how China’s online filtering apparatus works: “The Connection Has Been Reset.”

Xiao Qiang, an expert on Chinese media at the University of California at Berkeley journalism school, told me that the authorities have recently begun applying this kind of filtering in reverse. As Chinese-speaking people outside the country, perhaps academics or exiled dissidents, look for data on Chinese sites–say, public-health figures or news about a local protest–the GFW computers can monitor what they’re asking for and censor what they find.

(Credit:
Caroline McCarthy/CNET News.com)

Mike Huckabee, on videoconference, answers questions from the audience.

NEW YORK–MTV’s “Choose or Lose” pre-Super Tuesday event, co-hosted with MySpace and the Associated Press, marked my first time in a live studio audience. It sure has been a trip; there are cameras just about everywhere, and MTV packed us all in like sardines. Right above my head is a giant flashing red-and-blue lightning bolt; I’ve been trying to make sure I don’t smack against it.

Huckabee was the first candidate up, and the first question he asked was about how he would handle “sweeping change” like the sort that Democratic candidate Obama, a favorite among young voters, has promised. The former Arkansas governor focused on the economy, a theme that he retained through the rest of his answers. “Real change is all about making sure that the government knows it’s supposed to work for us, and not the other way around,” Huckabee answered, and started talking about shaking up the tax structure. “People in the student generation have a nine trillion dollar debt on top of their heads.”

Huckabee did seem slightly taken aback when he was asked to answer a question coming from a MySpaceIM user named “TurnMyLipsBlue.”

In between questions, moderators brought up live polling questions that were simultaneously conducted online as well as questions submitted through MySpace instant messages and MTV News’ Web site.

MTV News anchor Gideon Yago introduced the candidates, all of whom were dialed in via videoconference from around the country: Barack Obama from Minneapolis; Hillary Clinton from Tucson, Ariz.; Ron Paul from Victoria, Texas; and Mike Huckabee from Montgomery, Ala. The event was structured as a “dialogue,” not a debate, so each candidate answers questions individually.

Until you add a new account, you zip right to the desktop when you boot the OS, with no stop at the Welcome screen. Once you set up one or more new accounts, the default administrator disappears, though you can bring it back in both XP Home and Pro. (More on this below.)

When you restart Windows, you’ll see a new account labeled simply “Administrator.” The first time you log into this account, Windows will tell you that it’s preparing the desktop before the system’s default desktop appears. Click Start > Control Panel > User Accounts and Family Controls > Change your Windows password > Create a password for your account, enter your password twice, add a hint (if you wish), and click Create password. (If you use Control Panel’s classic view, the settings to create a password are in the User Accounts applet.)

You probably know about the “hidden” administrator account in Windows XP. It’s the only account on XP systems on which no other accounts have been created.

To disable this administrator account, follow the steps above to return to the Command Prompt in administrator mode, type net user administrator /active:no, press Enter, type exit, and press Enter again.

There’s a much simpler way to make this administrator account visible on the Welcome screen in XP Pro: Open the Tweak UI Powertoy, click Logon in the left pane, check Show “Administrator” on Welcome screen in the Settings window on the right, and click OK. Note that you’ll still have to log into this account and follow the steps above to add a password for it.

Give XP’s hidden administrator account a password
This administrator account is a well-documented security risk in Windows XP because by default it doesn’t have a password, which means anyone can log into your system via this account, change the passwords for all the other accounts, and perform other mischief. To give the account a password in XP Home, restart the PC, press F8 before Windows loads, select Safe Mode, and press Enter.

Tomorrow: Your options for moving Excel data to a Word document.

Vista ships with this account disabled, which is not such a bad thing because every user on the PC should have his or her own custom account, even if “every” translates to “one.”

Enable Windows Vista's backup administrator account from the Command Prompt.

Still, this back-up administrator account can come in handy if you encounter some problems logging into or otherwise using Vista. To enable it, right-click the Command Prompt on the Start menu (it is likely listed under Accessories), choose Run as administrator, type net user administrator /active:yes, and press Enter. You should see a message stating that the command completed successfully. Type exit and press Enter again to close the Command Prompt window.

The only selection will likely be Microsoft Windows XP. With this option highlighted, press Enter again. You’ll see a Welcome screen with an account labeled Administrator. Click this account, choose Yes at the warning, open the User Accounts applet in Control Panel, click the Administrator account again, choose Create a password, enter the new password twice, enter a hint (if you wish), and click Create Password. You may also be asked if you wish to make this account’s files private. Make your selection and click Finish.

Select the Logon option and check this option to add the hidden Administrator account to the Welcome screen in XP Pro.

SpinVox, a London-based company that offers voice mail-to-text conversion technology, doesn’t hide the fact that cell phones can be downright irritating at times. Today the company released the results of a poll of the most annoying cell phone practices as chosen by SpinVox users. Though most of the results aren’t particularly surprising–loud talkers topped the list–a few of the practices I never would have thought of as annoying.

The most amusing practice came in at no. 10 on the list. It was “can conversationalists,” or talkers who insist on having that all-important conversation in a public restroom. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, that’s just gross. The two practices that I didn’t expect to be on the list were “walk ‘n scrollers,” or people who scroll through their contacts list while walking through a public place, and “free samplers,” or users who test each of their phone’s ringtones with the volume turned up high (I admit I’ve been guilty of both). When I think about it, those do sound pretty annoying but I’d be more inclined to put driving with a cell phone, using a cell phone in a theater or at the gym, and obsessive Bluetooth users on the list.

For example, “taste blasters,” or people who showcase their musical taste through their ringtones, ranked above individuals who talk on the phone in restaurants (aka “chow chatters”). In my opinion, the latter is a far bigger breach of basic etiquette. Also, the study cited “spinal tappers,” or people who use a loud speakerphone, as more annoying as those insufferable fools who block a checkout or takeaway line while yakking on their phone. Again, I’d choose the latter as the more obnoxious.

SpinVox does offer suggestions for remedying each of the behaviors, but I’ve become more resigned to believe that annoying cell phone habits will never disappear completely. Still, I’d love to hear your comments on which cell phone practices you think are the worst.

(Credit:
CNET Networks)

[via MakeUseOf and LifeHacker]

It’s a free service that takes any PDF you can throw at it and reorders the pages and layout to be printable as a multipage booklet. For the sake of your clients, it’s even nice enough to send you back a copy that can be printed locally on other nonbooklet printing devices, free of any watermarks or other changes to the original PDF.

If you’re an office worker in the unfortunate position of having a lackluster printer that’s incapable of printing booklets, or have a general hatred of Acrobat’s built-in booklet making resources check out BookletCreator.

It’s worth noting the service chokes on password-protected PDFs, so if your file is protected (and you have the password) you should change the PDF security settings to “open” before attempting to run it through the system. Also, if you’re looking to only print out the first several pages of a document, it’ll let you tweak how many pages you want to print in increments of four.

Related:

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PDFMeNot lets users click PDF links without fear (or Acrobat)

PDF Hammer lets you tweak PDFs sans software