Should Computer Games Adapt To the Way You Play?

Source:    http://games.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=09/10/13/078247

jtogel writes“Many games use ‘rubberbanding’ to adapt to your skill level, making the game harder if you’re a better player and easier if you’re not. Just think of Mario Kart and the obvious ways it punishes you for driving too well by giving the people who are hopelessly behind you super-weapons to smack you with. It’s also very common to just increase the skill of the NPCs as you get better — see Oblivion. In my research group, we are working on slightly more sophisticated ways to adapt the game to you, including generating new level elements (PDF) based on your playing style (PDF). Now, the question becomes: is this a good thing at all? Some people would claim that adapting the game to you just rewards mediocrity (i.e. you don’t get rewarded for playing well). Others would say that it restricts the freedom of expression for the game designer. But still, game players have very different skill levels and skill sets when they come to a game, and we would like to cater to them all. And if you don’t see playing skill as one-dimensional, maybe it’s possible to do meaningful adaptation. What sort of game adaptation would you like to see?”

I think adaption should only be applied in a portion of the game, eg.  the start/intro, then the game adapts, and further on when you get better you actually get rewarded for getting relative better than you were before.

Review: Palm Pre 1400mAh Extended battery, Test Results – all things Pre – PreThinking

Review: Palm Pre 1400mAh Extended battery, Test Results – all things Pre – PreThinking.

Looks like there is hope for battery life on the pré

Unlock landscape email on Palm Pre via secret code

Gadgetsteria » Unlock landscape email on Palm Pre via secret code.

This is the secret way to landscape email viewing, but its not permanent. You have to write the code every time

SmarterMail – mail server to small biz

SmarterMail – At A Glance – Reviews by PC Magazine.

This email server could actually be handy for many small campagnies. 10 email accounts in the free version, and active-sync to mobile devices.

Opera Mini 5 Beta, free to download now

http://www.opera.com/mini/next/

This is a nice install on my Nokia 5800 XM, but the keyboard lack the ability to copy/paste with the native clipboard in the S60. Some Java scripts does not format well like the iPhone google reader site, but this is not different from the official 4.2 version. Other than that, the browser looks a lot better and still runs smooth. The password save feature is a really nice add-on and feels a lot like a desktop experience. Also the tab browsing makes the flow easier to swallow. Bottom line: it’s a good step toward a better experience.

Palm Pre: How to Take Screencaptures

Here is the link to the source Take Screencaptures

This article point out how to initiate a screencapture (screen shot) on the Palm Pre mobile phone. This is a very nice feature to have buildin the OS on a mobile phone. I don’t recall any other mobile OS to do this out of the box.

Palm webOS 1.0.3 update for the Pre

Taken from the Engadget comments by Jack:

Version information

Version: 1.0.3
Release date: 19 June 2009
Configuration: Sprint 1.5
New applications

No new applications in update 1.0.3

Feature changes to existing applications

Calendar
• Events created in your Google calendar—either in Calendar on your phone or in Google online—that contain a symbol or accented character in the event name can now synchronize. Previously, including a symbol or accented character in an event name prevented the event from synchronizing.
• Changes made to Google events on the phone now sync with Google online within a few minutes.
• The sync interval for Google events has been decreased from every few hours to every 15 minutes.

Clock
• If you create a weekday alarm on a weekend, the alarm sounds only on weekdays. Previously the alarm would sound on the weekend also.

Contacts
• Changes made to Google contacts on the phone now sync with Google online within a few minutes.
• The sync interval for Google contacts has been decreased from every few hours to every 15 minutes.

Email
• Power performance in areas where wireless coverage is sporadic or unavailable has been enhanced.
• Non-SSL Exchange ActiveSync (EAS) mail servers are now supported.

Other
• Miscellaneous updates for Email, Phone, and other applications.

Twitter client: Gravity on N97 as widget

The well known and pretty advanced twitter client for Symbian Phones is just getting transformed to a widget…

This widget version is just a early dev. stage, but I will look forward to  use the final version

Here is a concept widget from the dev.

Here is the Gravity homepage: http://mobileways.de/products/gravity/gravity/

Here is a picture of the N97 widget home screen with gravity icon and widget:

http://twitpic.com/7mktz

E-Ink Keyboard

http://www.symbian-guru.com/welcome/2009/06/e-ink-keyboards-rock-my-face-off.html

This mobile keyboard on the SGH-u750 Alias 2 has some new and nice features. Several different keyboard layouts supported in both landscape and portrait mode.

Twitter client with Facebook support: Seesmic DESKTOP

Seesmic DESKTOP

This is one of the best twitter clients I have used for my windows desktop, and then again, I have not used twitter that long. I tried just a few (round 5 clients on windows 4 on S60), and I must say that Seesmic was the winner for me at the windows platform. This was because it scales nice and intergrade facebook notifications and other features.

It also support mutiple twitter accounts and userlists mixed on both services, save searches with new post notifications and more.

It has some normal, but nice features like add (tiny) URL, image and shrink text. Also the facebook status can be updated like the twitter tweets.

The column look does look like the one known from TweetDeck, but I like this more, and one of the reasons is that twitter and facebook timelines can be mixed together in one timeline or it can be seperated into 2 columns. Also the twitter replies can be mixed and seperated.

Seesmic has also made some footage of the feature updates/changelog