Tag: Android

Review: Ouya

Ouya and ControllerModel: Ouya (sku: 8042042)

Website: https://www.ouya.tv/

MSRP: $99

I’ve waited to do this review.  Having funded the system during the original KickStarter campaign, I’ve had it for quite some time.  Truth be told the system, as originally delivered, was more than a little rough around the edges and the games available less than impressive.  I decided to allow some time for the software (and a few minor hardware) issues to be settled before forming my opinion.

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Movie Review: Android Insurrection

IMDB, Android Insurrection“Android Insurrection” on IMDB

Sci-fi, 90 Minutes, 2012

This a terrible movie full of terrible things.  But it is damn funny.  It’s not meant to be funny, but it’s damn funny.  Hard to watch, harder to follow and ridiculously difficult to take seriously, but damn funny.

It has all the problems of z-budget sci-fi.  Terrible sets, terrible green screen and terrible integration of the, honestly, actually pretty good CGI.  The whole movie gives the impression that one guy got pretty good at making robots on the computer and his dumbass friends decided that they would make such an awesome movie!

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Messing with Kids’ Heads: A Camp Phone

If you, like we, have successfully convinced your tweeny-bopper that two weeks at sleep-away camp is something for them (as opposed to money well-spent on yourself) you may well find yourself with more free time than usual.  We would like to humbly suggest that you spend some of that time and mess, freely and joyously, with their little heads.

Our daughter, for example, is at a Girl Scout camp that prohibits electronics and, especially, phones.  So in our first letter (daily letter writing being highly encouraged) we decided to send her a “Camp Phone”.  We grabbed a picture of her phone, some screen caps of her favorite apps, sized them all in CorelDraw (but anything would do) and printed the whole mess out on card-stock.

Some highlights:

  • She has a camera app!  Her instructions are: “Frame the shot, press the button and remember what you saw.”
  • She has a YouTube App!  All she has to do is point the phone at something interesting (like a cat or a baby) and watch.  This being version one, however, there’s no rewind.  Or fast forward or pause (unless your subject is really cooperative).
  • We included the “Off” button.  So that she can save power.
  • We’re so wealthy that we included two phones!  See how good we are to her?
  • There’s plenty of games – if you flip through the cards fast enough it looks like you’re winning!

The whole project took about two hours and that includes the pre-requisite fighting with the printer about paper settings.  Pretty cheap to simultaneously let your kid know that you’re thinking about them and completely annoy them.

Getting Excited for Ouya!

Ouya ConsoleAlmost a year ago I gave some strangers $100 of my money.  They promised me that within a year they would give me a small box that would change my life.  (Making it completely different from, but reminiscent of, the puzzle box that releases sadistic demons in HellRaiser.)

The box would allow me to play Android games in full 1080p on my giant TV.  It would give me a high-end wireless controller just as good as my other consoles.  It would use a Tegra 3, turn on almost instantly and feature XMBC thus giving my current go-to media player, the beloved PS3, a run for its money (or at least a chance to rest).  It would be completely open and you could try anything you like before you buy it.

I can’t stress enough: this was a big risk.  There was no guarantee that I would ever get this box.  But me and 60,000 other people gave them our money anyway, crossed our fingers, hid from our suspicious spouses and hoped.

It seems like forever ago but the Ouya is real.  The thing, the actual damn thing, will start shipping to people like me – better than that to people that are actually me! – in three short days.  It just struck me a few minutes ago how God Damn cool that is.