A Definition of Meta.....

Driving Laguna Seca in a Corvette ZR1 on a PSP, while driving around Laguna Seca in a Corvette ZR1.....

Track Days without the Track

Once you get your car on the track, you're kind of addicted for what I presume to be the rest of your life. Not a week goes by when I don't think about lines around the track, what it feels like to get that super smooth trail brake rotation at the perfect moment, or how to eek out another couple of milliseconds off a lap time.

Given I can't be on the track every day (or week, or even month), something has to fill the void. A few drives in the mountains, and the occasional early morning heel-toe downshift coming in to work help, as does video games. Not just any video games, but car racing games. And this year looks like it's gonna be an epic.

There's two main franchises in the racing world that go more for the realistic approach to driving (than a pure arcade, blast around having fun approach) - Forza and Gran Turismo. Forza 3 and Gran Turismo 5 are both coming out this year, and with this weeks E3 conference, a couple of trailers were released. Check them out below, and see which one you fancy.....

Oh, and my name is Aaron, and I'm a car loving geek.....

You are the controller

Welcome to the future, courtesy of the XBox 360. (and thanks to Tonks for showing me this)

Dream Home Setup

And it's a bargain half price just in time for Christmas. Unfortunately, half price is still nearly 10 grand, so it won't be going on the list for me.

iPhone Analysts Missing the Point?

I have a vested interested in Apple stocks shooting up to unbelievable levels, as I own some, and it would help soothe the pain of the last few months performance on the stock market. OK, disclaimer over, even though I didn't need to do one in the first place.

There seems to be a lot of stock analysts who started off the week (or the last 18 months I guess) continually pinging the iPhone as something that will never work for business users. With today's announcement that it's going to support ActiveSynch and Exchange out of the box, it's got one business user here who's likely to move over once he can justify spending money on two different phones in one year (and yes, 3G would help make my decision a lot easier), and I suspect a lot more out there in the so-called business world (but do people really differentiate between their work and other life anymore, especially if they need a business phone that connects them to the office full time?).

Some of the analysts are still now saying that business users won't switch due to the lack of a tactile qwerty keyboard. I'm sure some won't, but I bet it's not everyone. I've tried typing on an iPhone, and it was a lot better than I thought it would be (and I never manage to get a full sentence right on my BlackJack II anyway, so not much difference there).

But, and it's a big but, I think the biggest part of todays news wasn't the business support - the iPhone will get new users in the business world who had been holding out, but there was a whole new market segment that appeared magically today - Gaming (and I mean real games, not Tetris).

If anyone saw a couple of the possibilities in the presentations today, you know it's going to be a pretty perfect platform for mobile gaming. Apart from pretty impressive frame rates (and the gorgeous graphics) to make games look pretty, the API for the motion sensor makes this the new mobile Wii. There are so many possibilities out there for this thing, and if it's as easy to develop on as they say, we just witnessed the next generation of gaming without even realizing.

So, I think Research in Motion has a(nother) viable competitor, but the real company who should be worried is Nintendo - the DS is great, but there's no movies or music. And if you could have a Wii for the road, that fits neatly in your pocket and makes phonecalls, wouldn't that be cooler? The PSP held me captive for a good few years with it's fantastic screen and decent games, but it ain't got no motion sensor.

Isn't gaming one of the big new markets the analysts watch these days? Didn't Microsoft sink a couple of billion into getting the XBOX to be accepted as a kick-ass system (even if the red flashing lights of death always appear at some point)? Didn't Sony help win the HD format war with the PS3? Don't Nokia come out with a crappy N-Gage every couple of years, trying to get us to pretend gaming on a phone would be the next big thing? Well, I think today, gaming on a phone just became the next big thing.

Drive like Stig

Well, not exactly, but at least (virtually) on the same track. It's been announced that the track used in one of my favourite programs (Top Gear), by the mysterious driver named Stig will be one of the tracks in Gran Turismo 5. Don't get too excited though - it doesn't come out until Christmas next year.

Sega Rally is Back

Well, not quite yet, but it's looking good for when it does make it. Not only does it take advantage of the new consoles (PS3 and XBOX360) to bring lots of realistic pretty pictures, the developers have somehow built into the physics the effect of driving cars on the track. Not really surprising you might say - all the good racing games vary the grip with the type of track and/or weather - dry concrete is less slippy than snow covered mud for example. However, Sega has taken it a step further, so that the car actually has an effect on the track - that ridge you left in the mud on lap one is there to throw you off course on lap 2 if you're not paying attention. What this means is that there are unlikely to be 2 laps the same, ever. Anyway, the guy from Sega explains and demos it a lot better than I do, so listen to him...

Pool Games

Summer is almost upon us (although if you ask me, as soon as we get our first 80 degree day, it's already here in my book), so now is the time to start planning your poolside entertainment.

This golf game is the current leader, although back in the old days, a decent book, or maybe my gameboy was enough to get me out long enough to turn lobster red.

Anyway, 50 bucks for hours of entertainment.