Future Gaming

The future of gaming is something that may be hard to imagine but virtual reality is always in the loop.  Games up to now have stimulated one or two of our five senses.  We have improved graphics, physics, and facial expressions and can display the images on ultra-high resolution televisions (UHD).  The since of sight is stimulated here.  There are controllers that vibrate when something happens in the game which uses a small portion of the sense of touch.  The Kinect and PlayStation move have stepped closer to improving a sense of virtual reality but the two main player in virtual reality at the moment are;

1. Oculus Rift
2. Sony’s Project Morpheus

These new technologies are a step closer to giving the user an overall gaming experience much closer to the feeling of virtual reality.   They use headsets and controllers with motion tracking.  The headset practically cuts out any outside visual distractions and using the controllers with this gives an much greater sense of being in the game.

Check out a review below of Sony's Project Morpheus

I think there is a long way to go to make virtual reality in games a complete experience which simulates all the senses but these technologies are a big step in the right direction.  In another 20 years new technology combined with the leaps I expect in graphics will produce some truly amazing results.  It is exciting to think what may happen.

How gaming were introduced to me

The massive industry of gaming is driving the advancements in graphics and user experience in games.  There had been a fast and steady increase in these advancements.  If we go back twenty years the computing power was just a fraction of what we have now yet the size of chips and boards were much larger.  

One of the first games I ever played was fruity frank on the amstrad computer.  With the basic 2 dimensional graphics and limited movement options, this game still was incredibly addictive and was graphically at a level I never seen before.

These games came on an old cassette tape which required the game to be loaded from the cassette drive and be manually turned over during the "loading" process of the game.  This could take up to 90 minutes for some games which was quite painful and the game would often be left running for the day to avoid reloading the game.

It wasn't long before I got my first gaming console, the SNES (Super Nintendo Entertainment System) which introduced 3 dimensional games to me.  Loading times increased from 90 minutes to no more than 5 minutes.  This console made life so much easier, and was the cause of my first gaming blisters on my thumbs.

Many consoles came out after the release of the SNES in 1993 and each had an increase in the power and graphics just kept improving.  Also the artificial intelligence improved making the gaming experience more compelling.  

In the next post I will continue this topic and talk about the future of gaming.

Picking a Password and Password Security

There are so many things that require passwords theses day that remembering them can be a problem, because of this a lot of people pick there passwords poorly, but it is important that everyone should know how to choose a good password and keep it safe.

All passwords should be at least eight characters long and use a mixture of upper and lower case characters, numbers, punctuation and symbols. Passwords should never be words that can be found in a dictionary because of an attack method known as a dictionary attack, this is when software tools are used that can try every word in a dictionary or word list or both until your password is found. The same password should never be used for more than one thing, i.e. your computer password should not be the same as your email password.

Don’t ever choose a password based on personal information such as name, birth-date, wife’s name, phone number, address etc. Choose a password that can be remembered and avoid writing it down anywhere. Passwords should never be stored on a computer except in encrypted form and never emailed or sent through an unsecure channel.

Password generating software is available for free to make secure passwords and there are websites that will give you a rating as to how secure your password is. It should be made mandatory in a business environment that every employee should have to change their password regularly, I suggest at least once a month. A completely different password should be picked rather than just adding a number onto the old password; which is a fairly common practice.

If you need to write down passwords make sure the paper with the password is in a secure place that only you have access to; but writing down a password is a bad idea even if you think it will be stored securely. Be careful of entering a password when others are present and be sure no one is looking over your shoulder as you enter a password as ‘shoulder surfing’ is a common method of someone attaining your password. 

Television show review

This week we are asked to review a book, as I only ever read one book in my life I think its better I review something else.  As you can see from the title of this post this a TV-show review and I will review The Walking Dead.

The Walking Dead is a television series which was first aired in October 2010 on the AMC network.  It is based on the comic book series the walking dead.  It is set in modern day Atlanta, Georgia and set around the main character Rick Grimes (Andrew Lincoln) who is a sheriff.  

Recovering from a bullet wound after a shootout with criminals, he wakes from the coma and realises he had been there alone for some time, the flowers at the side of his bed are dried out and almost dead, the clock on the wall has stopped working and when he gets out of the bed he finds there is nobody else in the hospital, alive that is.

He realises pretty quickly he is in a zombie apocalypse and goes about searching for his family.  The series continues to test the abilities of his survival as he meets more people along the way.  There is some nail biting moments as each season the group loses some members while gaining more.

I never read the comics and wont either, I presume it tells the whole story or more importantly an ending.  Another reason not to read the comic at this stage but I can only imagine the series ending in one of two ways.  A cure to the epidemic or possible they all die.  Looking forward to finding out.

Thanks for reading.

Colm