Fuinneoige as gaeilge

If the latent gaeilgeoir inside you is bursting to get out, Microsoft has released some new software to translate Windows XP into Irish. Forget the Start button, now you can hit Tosaigh to crash your machine, erm, I mean control your computer.

As if that weren't enough, the busy bees in Sandyford have promised an Irish translation pack for Office 2003 by about September. And unlike that farce down in Dingle - where all the road signs were converted to Irish at taxpayers' expense and despite locals' opposition - none of it will cost you a bean. The download is free from Microsoft.

Mining Google

Google has many hidden depths that few people ever exploit. Did you know it's a calculator, a dictionary and a library? Or that you can search just a particular site using Google's eyes?

There are tons of ways to customise and narrow your query to produce more effective results and this page from Google Guide tells you how.

Podcasts for the masses

Tipped as the next big thing to replace live radio, podcasting got a shove into the mainstream today when Apple as promised released the latest version of iTunes with the automatic downloading of radio built in.

Podcasting enables users to subscribe to regular "broadcasts" - anything from amateur talk shows to segments from commercial stations - which are then downloaded to your computer every time a new show is made available. From there, it's a simple step to have it copied across to your MP3 player for listening whenever.

Existing software could do almost exactly the same but of course iTunes makes the process slicker and easier. Apple reckons it lists 3,000 podcasts in its directory, a couple of which are by the Mac maker itself. Don't get too excited, though, most are by unknowns and few if any include music for licensing reasons.

Interestingly, several hidden clues within the iTunes program suggest an iTunes phone is imminent.

Apple also streamlined the iPod line-up today, cutting the top end to just two models, both now with colour screens, with capacities of 20GB and 60GB. Shame the battery life shows no sign of improvement - it's still pegged at about 15 hours.

Everybody wants a piece of the iPod action

The M:robe 100 (note the pretentious name) from camera maker Olympus is another wannabe iPod killer which, like all others before it, can't get the whole package right to dethrone the king.

Read the full review of this stylish MP3 player in today's paper. While it's flawed enough, don't even consider buying its big brother, the M:robe 500i, a pointless merger of MP3 player and camera.

There's also a quick look at Creative's PC-based answer to the EyeToy motion-capture camera. The Gamestar bundle includes one of its low-end webcams with the kid-friendly software. Anyone under 10 will like it but it's too simplistic for an older crew.

In games, we wonder what exactly Rockstar was doing these past eight months while porting Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas to Xbox and PC. Polishing the graphics and some of the more annoying gameplay elements certainly wasn't among the priorities. And yet still it transcends its failings to become a must-play piece of entertainment full of brilliantly written dialogue and challenging tasks.

Also reviewed is Medal of Honor: European Assault (PS2/Xbox), which revives the besmirched good name of the MOH series but becomes frustratingly difficult in later levels. Finally, Moto GP4 (PS2) is no doubt an accurate representation of the sport but feels lifeless and sterile.

Batman Beginners

Thanks to Electronic Arts for the prizes - the winners of the Batman Begins competition in the Herald of two weeks ago are:

Garrett Concannon, from Beaumont, Michael Houston, from Rathfarnham, Anthony Flanagan, from Roscommon, Jean Fleming, from Artane, and John Hayes, from Dublin 7.

Each gets a copy of the Batman Begins game in the format of their choice.

Nokia gets religion on simplicity

In today's paper, read about Nokia's belated conversion to the doctrine of simplicity. The Finns have launched a range of four phones which were as notable for unfussy design as for the fact that they were all sliders or folding handsets.

In games, Tekken 5 is a value-packed beat-em-up which kicks up a storm. Batman Begins looks promising but leads the player by the nose far too often. And Bomberman Hardball looks like a GBA party game that's ended up on the PS2 shelf by mistake

Lower-cost broadband - at a price

Eircom continues its tinkering at the margins to drive broadband adoption with a new version of its high-speed service launched today. Priced at €25 a month (though a promotional rate of €20 applies for the first six months), Eircom Broadband Time (ooh, snappy name, the marketing guys worked overtime on that one!) gives you 20 hours a month of the standard broadband service. After that, each tick of the minute hand will cost four cent.

Though 'Time' is superficially attractive for moderately active users, Eircom would have been far better off following the model in other countries where low-end products are based on a download allowance rather the number of minutes online. Remember, you will be charged for idle time spent, say, reading web pages or e-mails unless you take the impractical step of disconnecting every time you want to pause a while.

The bods at Ireland Offline get it right when they point out that metered internet access belongs in the dark ages.

"Eircom are introducing entirely artificial pricing mechanisms with this product. Unlike a phone call, it costs eircom nothing for a broadband connection to be permanently connected," said IO's Aidan Whyte.

The likes of BT are dependent on Eircom's network for its broadband, so it will fall to other operators such as Irish Broadband to provide a realistic low-end service.

Crack'd Windows

The gaping flaws just keep on coming in everyone's favourite operating system. The monthly bug squashes from Microsoft for June include a few whoppers which fall into the critical category.

Hit the Windows Update site for the cure for your sad addiction to the world's most insecure operating system.

Mac users: not so fast. There're some fixes waiting for you too.

A fake Bond

This week’s column in the paper rounds up the trickle of games on release in the past fortnight. First up we have the GoldenEye-styled Cold Winter, an 18-rated FPS for PS2 and Xbox. In many ways, it’s a bog-standard spy shooter but the levels are dotted with collapsible environments to rain destruction down on enemies. It looks and sounds sharp too but overall the cliché count is high.

Midnight Club 3: Dub Edition eases up on the crazy difficulty of MC2 plus the cheesy dialogue is pared to a minimum – everything else is pretty much what you’d expect from a racer, save the occasionally bland graphics. Lacks the euphoric traffic crashes of Burnout 3, though.

Just in time for the end of the French Open (oh, OK, a few days after), the on-court antics of Roland Garros 2005 have an unmistakable familiarity. The subtitle (Powered by Smash Court Tennis) gives the game away, RG2005 is a rebadged and lightly tweaked edition of Smash Court Tennis Pro 2, released last year. Don’t be sucked in, unless you can’t find SCTP2 in the bargain bins somewhere.

Anonymous flirting

This time last year lots of online media outlets got suckered into covering a new craze called toothing, where tons of people, mainly Brits, were allegedly hooking up for anonymous sex by using the broadcast features available in their Bluetooth phones.

The idea was that you created a saucy message and tried to send it to anyone whose phone was set to receive. It’s technically possible, of course, but devious scammers went one further by setting up a chat site where “toothers” were supposed to be gathering to discuss their conquests, reinforcing the impression this was a cult phenomenon in the making. It later emerged that the whole thing was a hoax – no one who actually scored in this manner could be found.

Undaunted, Nokia has jumped into the fray with its clever (and free) Sensor application. For now, it works on only a handful of the Finns’ phones – but this could be big.

Sensor creates a personal, portable “home page” – chiefly a photo and brief message – which your phone constantly broadcasts over Bluetooth. Anyone else with Sensor can view the page – and decide to send you back a message. Anonymous flirting ahoy!

If Nokia can quickly bring Sensor to as many of its phones as possible, soon we could have whole nightclubs and bars full of people pimping themselves via their phones.

Siemens pays to hang up on mobile

After denying for months that its mobile-phone unit was on the chopping block, Siemens has flogged the floundering brand to Far East outfit Ben Q.

New phones will continue to be badged Siemens for some time at least but most interesting about the deal is that the Germans are actually paying €250m to Ben Q to take the division off their hands. Log On never went to economics school but surely shome mistake?

More free content on Vodafone 3G

All credit to Vodafone for bringing more free content to 3G. Hot on the heels of gratis clips from this year’s GAA Football and Hurling Championships, the mavens at Ireland’s only 3G operator have stumped up daily highlights from Big Brother.

Now you can be party to the moronic, taste-free antics of the C4 crackheads without ever going near a TV. Voda is banking on you racking up a few bob on your bill by dipping into other BB content such “news” and “gossip”.

Let’s hope it works better than some of Live’s ropier multimedia. And I further wish you’re not stuck experiencing it on Nokia’s frustratingly buggy 6630 – a state of play for which neither Nokia nor Vodafone wants to take responsibility despite the pair of them flogging the handset off to unsuspecting punters as cheaply as poss.

Apple cherry-picks concessions

Apple has been forced into a grudging lawsuit settlement in the US over the longevity of the iPod battery - but Irish owners can forget about the deal being extended to this side of the pond.

After being hit with a fusillade of class-action suits claiming the juice runs out far quicker when iPods begin to age, Apple agreed last week to extend warranties and offer discount vouchers to any dissatisfied customers – in the US only.

So Log On inquired of Apple Ireland whether the same fair treatment would apply here – as many of us owners of early iPods have discovered similar problems. For good measure, we also asked whether the local arm would begin to accept iPods for recycling – with a small voucher in return – as its American counterpart is also doing.

The response from country manager Liam Donohoe was terse: “These are US-only implementations. Any customer who has concerns about the functionality of their iPod should contact Apple Care.”

In other words, “we’ve conceded the iPod battery life was overstated in the US but the rest of the world can go flagellate themselves”.

Nokia's little computer ... and Batman

In today's paper, read about Nokia's 9300 smartphone, an attempt to make its powerful but bulky Communicator range into more of a mainstream product. It has a few rough edges but the beautiful screen hidden inside is a lot of compensation.

You can also enter a competition to win a copy of game-of-the-movie Batman Begins (format of your choice) if you can answer a simple question. What??! You need a clue? Riigghtt ... who plays the lead in BB? Try looking at the Internet Movie Database, why don't you?

Reviewed in games is Area 51, a reasonably engaging FPS (PS2/Xbox) which fall short of its ambition. Singstar Popworld (PS2) is an expansion pack for the fun karaoke game - but its song collection is as much miss as hit. Monster Hunster (PS2) is a bizarre RPG/hack'n'slash with hidden depths but many people won't be able to overlook the frustrating controls and camera. Finally, GunGriffon: Allied Strike (Xbox) is a no-budget rip-off of MechAssault.

Intel inside indeed

And lo, it came to pass - Apple has confirmed it is going to jump ship to use Intel chips. The transition will take a couple of years but CEO Steve Jobs has promised the first Mac running on Pentium-type processors within 12 months.

It begs a lot of questions, such as: Will gearheads be able to build Mac clones from cheap PC parts? Probably not very easily. Will Macs be cheaper? Unlikely. Will get they faster? Definitely.

The full report on today's speech is here.

Hell freezes over - Apple cosies up to Intel

It's been bandied about as a rumour for weeks but now CNet and the Wall Street Journal have reported as fact that Apple is switching to use Intel's Pentium D chips to replace the PowerPC processor from IBM which has been at the core of Apple's computers since 1994.

All will be revealed tomorrow when Apple boss Steve Jobs delivers his keynote at the Worldwide Developers Conference in San Francisco. If true, it's frankly flabbergasting given the difficulty in getting the Mac OS to run smoothly on a new processor (even though Jobs in typical hyperbolic mode claimed recently it would be a piece of cake).

Wired News writer Leander Kahney theorises that the move is part of Apple's attempt to take control of the online movie market - because the Pentium D chips have built-in security measures to ensure digital rights are adhered to. He points out that emulation software from a guy that used to work with Jobs would allegedly enables Mac software to run on Pentium chips with no loss of performance. A good trick if it were true.

Stay tuned for more details.

Lansdowne gets hot

Maybe it's a case of what-took-you-so-long? but Eircom - big sponsor of the FAI, etc, remember? - has finally wired up Lansdowne Road with a wireless hotspot. This takes its tally of Irish hotspots to 300, though about half of those are phone boxes in the open air - let's face it, not too many people are going to pull out their laptops for a bit of surfing al fresco, even if it is free.

The Lansdowne spot is not free, however, and requires a subscription, which like all of the competing offerings isn't exactly cheap. It could be a godsend for reporters and photographers covering sports events, though.

The 20 things wrong with games

Over at Pointlesswasteoftime, David Wong makes an impassioned, intelligent assessment of what's wrong with videogames today. He's put together a Gamer's Manifesto of 20 things that could be improved or innovations that could drive the medium forward.

Why hasn't AI become dramatically smarter at a time when graphics are sprinting ahead of what they were 10 years ago? Why strive for realism in gameplay only to introduce arbitrary, invisible physical barriers? Why are there no new genres? And 17 more like that...

To his credit, Wong attempts to answer his own questions and rates the chances of anything coming of his manifesto.

Go there now, it's a top read.