We’re live at Ubisoft’s conference at E3 in Los Angeles…

We expect to see a lot of AssCreed 2, Red Steel 2, Tom Clancy and possibly DLC for Far Cry 2 from Ubi tonight. Stay tuned.

• 7:49 PM: Doug Aamoth Event starts at 5PM Pacific, 8PM Eastern. Stay tuned, we’ll be underway shortly.
• 7:56 PM: devindotcom Yo ho ho and a bottle of fun!
• 7:57 PM: devindotcom People are still sitting down. This huge, beautiful theater is packed to the rafters.
• 7:58 PM: devindotcom Ubi was the belle of the ball last year, so let’s hope they kick ass this year too. We know we’re gonna see some Assassin’s Creed 2… oh the announcer is piping up now
• 8:01 PM: devindotcom Okay!
• 8:02 PM: devindotcom It’s on, fools. We’ve just gotten a little taste of what’s to come.
• 8:02 PM: devindotcom “Good evening fellow nerds!”
• 8:03 PM: devindotcom This guy’s doing a “I’m a gamer .. but I have kids” schtick
• 8:03 PM: devindotcom The coolest thing in the room right now is this sweet crane cam.
• 8:03 PM: ThePeterHa Joel McHale is the Ubi MC for tonight
• 8:04 PM: devindotcom “Everyone at Ubisoft is a star. That’s why I don’t get to work there.”
• 8:04 PM: devindotcom One of the most recognizable athletes of all time coming up, apparently.
• 8:05 PM: ThePeterHa
• 8:05 PM: devindotcom Also a movie star coming on… but they’re being coy.
• 8:05 PM: devindotcom Lots of strangling coming up. And animals. Hopefully not both at the same time.
• 8:06 PM: devindotcom President and CEO, Yves Guillemot on stage
• 8:07 PM: ThePeterHa
• 8:07 PM: devindotcom Lots of talk about interconnection. Corporate strategy or new game tech?
• 8:08 PM: devindotcom From Convergence to confluence. Very exciting stuff here.
• 8:08 PM: devindotcom Uplay: brand new online destination
• 8:08 PM: ThePeterHa
• 8:09 PM: devindotcom Allow consumers to create and share screenshots, videos, walkthroughs, hints for friends, etc.
• 8:09 PM: devindotcom Screenshot’s username was “EwokLover”
• 8:10 PM: devindotcom Why not join forces with moviemakers? -instead of just adapting
• 8:10 PM: ThePeterHa
• 8:10 PM: devindotcom Avatar: the Game for instance
• 8:10 PM: ThePeterHa
• 8:11 PM: devindotcom Working with Peter Jackson, Steven Spielberg….
• 8:11 PM: devindotcom working on Tintin!
• 8:11 PM: devindotcom Tintiiiiiiin
• 8:11 PM: devindotcom Tintin + Assassin’s Creed would be the greatest game of all time
• 8:12 PM: devindotcom They’re very proud of their use of accessories and non-standard controllers – EndWar, Shaun White snowboarding etc.
• 8:13 PM: devindotcom Next step: making the interface disappear. What does this mean?!
• 8:13 PM: ThePeterHa
• 8:14 PM: devindotcom President of Montreal Studio talking about ‘confluence.’ He’s really excited about something they’ve been working on.
• 8:15 PM: devindotcom “Ubisoft Digital Arts,” crossing over into Hollywood. 300, Sin City etc.
• 8:16 PM: devindotcom They’ve been working closely with James Cameron on Avatar. More details tomorrow.
• 8:16 PM: ThePeterHa
• 8:16 PM: devindotcom They’ve worked on 100 effects shots for Avatar.
• 8:17 PM: ThePeterHa Ubisoft knows how to run a press conference
• 8:18 PM: devindotcom Using Ubisoft’s in-game effects and tools …. Assassin’s Creed movie using real game assets and in-engine stuff?!
• 8:18 PM: devindotcom An Assassin’s Creed movie would be…. mmm, withholding judgment.
• 8:19 PM: ThePeterHa
• 8:19 PM: devindotcom Guess who….
• 8:19 PM: devindotcom James Cameron!
• 8:19 PM: ThePeterHa
• 8:20 PM: ThePeterHa
• 8:20 PM: devindotcom James wrote the treatment for Avatar 14 years ago. The folks in charge said they couldn’t be done.
• 8:21 PM: ThePeterHa
• 8:21 PM: devindotcom Pioneering lots of different technology like special mocap stuff
• 8:22 PM: devindotcom 22nd century… on the “not a planet” Pandora… lush rainforest environments with incredible life-forms (beautiful and terrifying)
• 8:22 PM: devindotcom This guy is secretly (maybe not so secretly) a huge nerd
• 8:23 PM: devindotcom Human-alien hybrids called Avatars, hence the title
• 8:23 PM: devindotcom “Just to be clear, it’s not a Matrix type story”
• 8:24 PM: devindotcom Remote control human beings… wounded humans living vicariously through Avatars… man this is getting complicated as all hell
• 8:24 PM: devindotcom Sounds like the plot of a Space RPG. Smokin’ hot 10-foot blue aliens
• 8:24 PM: devindotcom “this battle at the end of the movie is the mother of all battles”
• 8:25 PM: ThePeterHa Did Cameron just make up his own elvish/klingon language?
• 8:25 PM: devindotcom Alien giants, flying “kraaa” vs. helicopters and guns, who would have guessed he was working with a video game developer on this thing?
• 8:25 PM: devindotcom Cameras took 9 years to develop
• 8:25 PM: devindotcom how is that possible, film has only been in production for 4 years
• 8:25 PM: devindotcom maybe it’s on Pandora time.
• 8:26 PM: devindotcom “We wanted to choose our video game partner verrrry carefully.” Decided on Ubisoft, and why not?
• 8:26 PM: ThePeterHa I change my mind about Google being Skynet. Ubisoft is Skynet.
• 8:26 PM: devindotcom Good point Peter. They’re going to hook up with iRobot and take over
• 8:27 PM: ThePeterHa *touches nose
• 8:27 PM: devindotcom *touches Peter’s nose
• 8:27 PM: devindotcom SHOW SOMETHING ALREADY
• 8:27 PM: ThePeterHa SHOW SOME VIDEO OR SOMETHING
• 8:27 PM: ThePeterHa SWEET JEEBUS
• 8:27 PM: ThePeterHa The game is not a slave to the movie
• 8:27 PM: devindotcom I am a slave to the movie
• 8:28 PM: ThePeterHa JC is totally nerding out over this thing.
• 8:28 PM: devindotcom Peter did you see the crane cam almost dink that camera guy? That’s trust
• 8:29 PM: devindotcom If we got a couple drinks in this guy he’d show us the whole thing
• 8:29 PM: devindotcom I think he can’t wait to get his baby out there. Hope it’s good or he’ll disappear forever.
• 8:29 PM: ThePeterHa OK, now I’m over it. SHOW SOMETHING!!!
• 8:31 PM: devindotcom I just checked under my seat for 3D glasses…. wishful thinking unfortunately.
• 8:31 PM: ThePeterHa
• 8:32 PM: devindotcom No spoilers in the game! It won’t be like King Kong then.
• 8:33 PM: devindotcom Cameron says it’s “the coolest game out there.” Thanks dad
• 8:33 PM: devindotcom Viper wolves?!
• 8:33 PM: ThePeterHa We’ll see the demo when E3 opens up the doors tomorrow at Ubi’s booth
• 8:33 PM: devindotcom And he’s outa here!
• 8:34 PM: devindotcom “there are so many French people backstage… it’s a little scary” Same thing out here.
• 8:35 PM: devindotcom He’s saying Red Steel 2 is way more exact. Mmm, we saw some of that with that tennis game in EA’s thing. Not quite, but decent.
• 8:35 PM: devindotcom Red Steel 2 trailer…. this one’s new.
• 8:36 PM: devindotcom I like the look of this game waaay better than the last one. It’s like Afro Samurai crossed with … I don’t know, Red STeel.
• 8:37 PM: devindotcom And there’s still no blood. I think that’s kind of ridiculous, especially with the otherwise stylized graphics.
• 8:37 PM: devindotcom Janson Vangenberghe and Roman Campos Oriola, Creative Director and Lead Game Designer respectively for Red Steel 2
• 8:37 PM: devindotcom They’re gonna demo it. Sweet.
• 8:38 PM: devindotcom This guy looks craaaazyyyy
• 8:38 PM: devindotcom Trigun, that’s what it reminds me of. Trigun with swords.
• 8:38 PM: devindotcom Okay, live demo running now. We’ll have video up ASAP after the event.
• 8:39 PM: devindotcom Opening sequence is tight. You’re being dragged behind a motorcyle
• 8:41 PM: devindotcom Sword position is mapped 1:1 to the position of the controller
• 8:41 PM: devindotcom The harder you actually slash, the more damage you do. Thank you, no more flicking
• 8:42 PM: devindotcom Guys blink and disappear like River City Ransom after you stab them to death
• 8:43 PM: devindotcom There’s simplified controls for noobs, more ‘customizable’ controls for experts
• 8:43 PM: devindotcom Bullet time stuff, looks fun.
• 8:43 PM: devindotcom Not to be macabre, but really it looks kind of weird without blood.
• 8:44 PM: ThePeterHa
• 8:45 PM: ThePeterHa
• 8:45 PM: devindotcom Fatality!
• 8:45 PM: devindotcom Red Steel 2 available at launch of Wii Motion Plus.
• 8:46 PM: devindotcom Sports stuff now. Get to the Creed!
• 8:46 PM: ThePeterHa That’s *bundled* with Wii Motion Plus, Devin.
• 8:46 PM: ThePeterHa I interviewed Shaun White!
• 8:46 PM: devindotcom Oops, I misspelled bundled as “available”
• 8:47 PM: devindotcom New Shaun White game. We’ve got a skit intro here.
• 8:48 PM: devindotcom Shaun White Snowboarding: World Stage
• 8:48 PM: ThePeterHa Available this coming holiday season
• 8:48 PM: ThePeterHa Ubi soccer game coming
• 8:49 PM: ThePeterHa Pele on the Wii, I think.
• 8:49 PM: ThePeterHa Pele is here!
• 8:49 PM: devindotcom Pele, he’s here
• 8:50 PM: devindotcom Everybody’s cheering and stuff but this guy is probably used to even more fanfare
• 8:50 PM: devindotcom Pele 3d model looking preeeeetty weird
• 8:51 PM: ThePeterHa
• 8:51 PM: devindotcom Pele: “I don’t speak english.” MC: “Well you’re doing a pretty good job right now”
• 8:52 PM: devindotcom Pele: “I’m very happy to be here… I’m very happy to be working with Ubisoft” Well that’s good
• 8:52 PM: ThePeterHa
• 8:52 PM: ThePeterHa Why isn’t Nicholas here translating for us?
• 8:52 PM: devindotcom You mean Carlos?
• 8:52 PM: ThePeterHa Yes
• 8:54 PM: devindotcom Seems like a nice guy.
• 8:54 PM: devindotcom Academy of Champiooons
• 8:56 PM: devindotcom Soccer philosophy. Too much to transcribe. Sneak preview of the game playing…………now
• 8:56 PM: devindotcom what, this looks insane
• 8:56 PM: devindotcom it’s like those GBA sports games crossed with… harry potter, crossed with the corpse bride
• 8:57 PM: devindotcom cinematic trailer though. no gameplay
• 8:57 PM: devindotcom Academy of Champions Football, only for Wii
• 8:59 PM: ThePeterHa
• 8:59 PM: ThePeterHa Coming in 2009
• 8:59 PM: ThePeterHa
• 9:00 PM: devindotcom We’re covering this way better than the other guys by the way.
• 9:00 PM: devindotcom Producer and Creative Director of Splinter Cell, Alex Parizeau and Max Beland
• 9:00 PM: devindotcom Talking about Splinter Cell: Conviction
• 9:01 PM: devindotcom Trailer showing now. Spoiler warning since I haven’t played Double Agent
• 9:03 PM: devindotcom Looks good. I always wanted to tear around as Sam Fisher instead of creeping.
• 9:04 PM: devindotcom All the Ubi guys have the same general fashion sense
• 9:04 PM: devindotcom untucked, dark sport coat, non formal shoes… is that the dress code in France?
• 9:05 PM: devindotcom They’re going to play it now. Demo time, we’ll get that up for you shortly. MC: “I’m gonna go backstage and freak out.”
• 9:06 PM: devindotcom Interrogation mini-game. very sadistic. Urinal smashing. Breaking of stall doors…. story elements being told to you are “projected” on the surroundings.
• 9:07 PM: devindotcom Real gameplay starts now. Looks great. Good lighting. Very cinematic.
• 9:07 PM: devindotcom That was brutal. You move a lot faster.
• 9:08 PM: devindotcom Nice climbing. Not as good as Altair though. Ooh, shooting through window while hanging onto it. You’ll see the video soon.
• 9:10 PM: devindotcom Has a sort of “augmented reality” look to it. Less immersive but possibly better for gameplay.
• 9:11 PM: devindotcom He just did something to a guy’s face, twice.
• 9:11 PM: devindotcom Very thrilling! Nice bookcases in this mansion too.
• 9:12 PM: devindotcom Oops. captured. It’s over! Looks great.
• 9:12 PM: ThePeterHa We’ll have over six minutes of gameplay footage coming soon
• 9:13 PM: ThePeterHa Available this Fall for the Xbox 360 and PC
• 9:14 PM: devindotcom Trailer for a … I’m not sure. I’ll get back to you.
• 9:15 PM: devindotcom Steely-eyed men mug at each other! Tanks roll under your fingers! I think this is a “concept”
• 9:16 PM: devindotcom What, it’s real? “Ruse”
• 9:16 PM: devindotcom Looks like Battleship on a Surface.
• 9:17 PM: devindotcom Battery is suffering. Come on Assassin’s Creed!
• 9:17 PM: devindotcom Ah. Ubisoft is leading the way in casual games. We’ll just take a brief break here.
• 9:25 PM: devindotcom That was… tweeny.
• 9:25 PM: devindotcom They’re still going.
• 9:30 PM: devindotcom Camera-based fitness game… I’ll believe it when I see it though. Looks sort of idealized.
• 9:30 PM: devindotcom The lady in the movie didn’t need a lot of work though.
• 9:31 PM: devindotcom
• 9:31 PM: devindotcom More raving rabbids.
• 9:31 PM: devindotcom Rabbids Go Home. We’ve got dancing rabbids here.
• 9:32 PM: devindotcom We’ll have video of that later… in the meantime, BRB.
• 9:37 PM: devindotcom Not sure what’s going on, we’re abusing these little rabbids living inside the Wiimote. It’s actually pretty funny.
• 9:38 PM: devindotcom Hmm, you’re rolling around collecting things, and the moon is involved. Not like Katamari Damacy at all…
• 9:39 PM: devindotcom Battery warning. We’ll have video, don’t worry.
• 9:49 PM: devindotcom Nice long press conference. Battery almost gone. TMNT smash brothers-type game, some project from the creator of Rez and Lumines.
• 9:50 PM: devindotcom Okay. Assassin’s Creed 2 being talked about. Come on little battery!
• 9:50 PM: devindotcom November 17.
• 9:50 PM: devindotcom HERE WOe
• 9:50 PM: devindotcom go
• 9:51 PM: devindotcom Takes place in Venice during the Renaissance…!?
• 9:51 PM: devindotcom Festival… ladies…
• 9:51 PM: devindotcom it’s a cinematic trailer, no gameplay yet
• 9:52 PM: devindotcom Masque Ball. Just saw an assassinish boot.
• 9:52 PM: devindotcom Oh he’s so dead
• 9:53 PM: devindotcom Lots of Altair-looking guy running around in Italy…. looks stylish.
• 9:54 PM: devindotcom He’s got a gun!
• 9:54 PM: devindotcom Assassin’s got a gun. No less lethal than the throwing knives i suppose.
• 9:54 PM: devindotcom it’s over!
• 9:55 PM: devindotcom The whole thing is on video. We’ll get it uploaded toot sweet.
• 9:55 PM: devindotcom Thanks for reading, everyone. We’re off to find food and an outlet.

The iPhone 3.0 Announcement has come to an (abrupt) end. So how did Apple fare according to our Scorecard? Well, as you can see there is still room for improvement, but slighty better than expected – 75 out of 120 possible points. Here is the specific point breakdown:

• Background Apps? No. = 0
• Push? Yes. = 10
• Copy, Cut, and Paste? Finally!  = 20
• MMS? Yup. = 15
• Video Recording? Uh, nope. = 0
• Bluetooth enhancements? Yes – 5 for stereo, 2.5 for “BT Bonjour.” = 7.5
• Flash? Negatory. = 0
• Landscape? All over the joint! = 10
• Tethering? Sorta – up to the carriers. = 7.5
• 8 things we can’t stand? Bonus points for Search! = 5
• Grand total = 75 / 120

Be sure to check out tonight’s airing of Attack of the Show on G4 TV because CrunchGear will be featured around 8:20 PM ET to talk about what’s going on at CES this year. Tune in!

Attack of the Show

 
10:32 – Tony Bennett is on stage. And we’re done.
10:31 – 15 Grammy Award winning artist is about to come on.
10:30 – Sync music across iPhone and Mac/PC whether you buy it on your iPhone or desktop. Starts today.

10:29 – iTunes music store on the iPhone now works over 3G!
10:28 – Next thing has to do with the iPhone.

10:27 – Plus: DRM free, 256 Kbps AAC encoding. major music companies are on board. 8 million songs are DRM free. By the end of the quarter all 10 million songs will be DRM-free. ALL SONGS!
10:25 – Price: 3 pricing tiers: 69 cents, 99 cents and $1.29. Coming in April.
10:25 – Six billion songs sold. Over 10 million songs. Over 75 million accounts with linked credit cards.
10:24 – One last thing. iTunes!
10:24 – We’re done. I think.

10:22 – One configuration. $2799. 17-inch LED display, 2.66GHz proc, 4GB of RAM, 320GB HDD. Ships later this month.
10:21 – 9600GT lasts seven hours. The 9400M will hold up to eight.
10:20 – Lasts up to five years so it’s a GREEN laptop.

 
10:18 – Adaptive charging reduces the wear and tear or recharging.
10:17 – Rather than cylindrical shape batteries they have these flat panel cells. Lithium Polymer battery.
10:17 – 40 percent larger battery but doesn’t weigh anymore than other batteries.
10:16 – Up to 8 hours. 1000 recharges.

10:15 – Longest lasting battery is in the 17-inch model. Video with engineers showing now.
10:15 – 2.93GHz proc, up to 8GB DDR3 RAM, geforce 9400m 9600m gt, 320 gb hdd, up to 256 gb ssd
10:13 – 17-inch anti-glare option with metal bezel. No glass screen.
10:12 – 0.98 inches thin. 6.6 pounds. 1900×1200 resolution. 700:1 contrast ratio. 60 percent greater color gamut.
10:11 – For the last 8 months the MacBook has been the number one selling laptop.
10:11 – Unibody 17-inch model.
10:10 – Launches today. One more thing! New 17-inch MacBook Pro!

10:10 – Free Beta for now. Paid service later.
10:07 – Multiple people can view and edit documents. Everyone can leave notes for everyone else to see. Microsoft Office users can view docs no problemo.
10:04 – Easily upload and notify, view docs online, share, edit and download. Demo is up now.
10:03 – iWork.com allows you to share your documents and is coming soon as a Beta.

10:02 – Mac Box Set is $169 and has Leopard, iWork and iLife in one package. Ships later this month.
10:02 – $79 upgrade or $99 for the family. iWork ‘09 is $50 when buying a new Mac. Ships starting today.

10:00 – Charts with multiple axis. Charts updated in your Pages documents. "Linked Charts"
9:59 – More powerful functions and formulas. List of all functions available like Excel.
9:59 – Categorize by specific columns now.
9:58 – Numbers ‘09 is getting an update. Listened to customers. There are now Table categories.

9:55 – Pages ‘09 – full screen mode. Dynamic Outline (outline view). Mail merge with Numbers. Mathtype and EndNote integrated. 40 new templates.
9:55 – Portrait mode shows slide and notes. Landscope mode shows the slide that’s upcoming as well as the slide you’re on. Swipe to move forward.

9:54 – 95 cents.
9:54 – Keynote remote app for the iPhone and/or iPod Touch over Wi-Fi.
9:53 – "Chart animations" and "New themes"
9:52 – There are swing tansitions (Obama!), anagram transitions encompass "Text Transitions"
9:51 – "Object transition" iPod Nanos are displayed in a row. They slowly drop off the screen and then album covers slowly replace them.
Just a fancy transition.
9:50 – Keynote now has "Magic Move"
This is the second thing for today.

9:49 – iWork ‘09 is being updated.
9:48 – iWeb and iDVD are also being updated. Upgrade is $79. Family pack upgrade is $99 up to five comps. Shipping later this month.


9:47 – Artists give a background on the song they’re going to teach you. John Fogerty’s demo is now playing.
9:46 – $4.99/lesson.
9:45 – Sarah Maclachlan. Ryan Tedder. Norah Jones. All on the piano teaching you how to play their tracks.
9:45 – Artists lessons. John Fogerty, Colbie Caillat. Patrick Stump. Sting.
9:44 – 9 basic lessons for guitar and piano.
9:43 – A guitar demo shows a video of a dude teaching you to play the guitar with the fretboard displaying as well. I think the tutor’s name is Tim.
9:42 – Garage Band ‘09 now has instrument lessons.

9:40 – iMovie is super polished and looks professional.
9:39 – Video transitions are neat.

9:38 – Those effects include an "aging" effect that makes your video look super old school.
9:37 – You can video effects and slow down a segment of video like a fast moving animal or person and slow it down within the main video you’re editing.
9:36 – Whoa crazy. The video jittering fix (stabilization) actually works really well.
For example: If you have two videos of the same scene but with differing angles you can stitch them together for a smooth transition like in Hollywood!
9:33 – Precision Editor allows you to transition separate videos together in an extremely precise manner.
Oh sweet. When you skim a video you can grab a segment of it and drop it on top of another video and just select the audio to overlay.

9:31 – The new drop down menu in iMovie looks surprisingly like the new BlackBerry OS.
Randy Ubillos, Chief Architect of Video Apps is on stage to give a demo of iMovie.
9:30 – iMovie smooths out some video jitter.
"Precision Editor" for more precise editing along the timeline.

9:29 – "So much depth and so much power. This is going to be the video editing software that people want."

9:28 – iMovie is being updated.
9:27 – iPhoto ‘09 demo is over. I think I’ll start using iPhoto once the update gets pushed out. I think they’re going to talk about apps more than anything.

9:26 – In iPhoto all your images have pins that show up on a map within iPhoto to show you where everything was taken.
9:25 – If your older images don’t have geotagging info you can input a bit of data and iPhoto tags the rest of the photos with that location on the map within iPhoto.


9:23 – iPhoto uses face detection to auto-detect people you pick going forward. It works quite well. Wonder how it does with multiple faces. You can create a "smart album" that picks people based on your preference and shows images of them together.

Schiller is now giving a demo. When you upload an image you can tag people’s faces so iPhoto knows who is who and automatically detects certain people going forward.


There’s a travel book photo album theme that includes maps of where your images are taken based on getoagging info.
9:19 –

Sync with your iPhone and iPod Touch.
Whoa. Crazy themes do 3D twisting transitions. Pretty cool stuff.
Setup slideshows. Pick music or themes to go along with your images from within iPhoto.

Flickr uploader has built-in geotagging.
iPhoto has integrated Facebook and Flickr uploading.

Places also integrates satellite imagery into iPhoto.

Getting maps from Google Map service. Long and lat pinpoint specific locations.
9:13 – Gives the longitude and latitude. Duh.
Places uses GPS geotagging.
Next up is Places.
Sort through tons of images that iLife thinks is you or your gf/bf, etc.
Face recognition – Finds images of people iLife thinks is the person you’re categorizing.
Adding two new Events: Faces is one. Cork-board with thumbnails of people. Face detection is used.
What’s new with iLife ‘09? Brand new verison of iPhoto.
9:07 – Entire new version of iLife ‘09. Two more things to talk about.
9:07 – Macs grew twice as fast as the PC market.
9:06 – Mac will be the focus. 9.7 million Macs were sold in FY 2008.
9:06 – I Love Apple! "People love the Apple store. They love touching our junk’ or something like that.
9:05 – This keynote is going to blow. I guarantee it!
9:05 – There is so much going on at Apple. All these incredible stores. Look at the Beijing store. *snore*
9:04 – Schiller is on stage. "I can’t tell you how much I appreciate you all showing up."
9:03 – The woman sitting next to me is using an actual cassette tape recorder. She has no business being here.
9:03 – MobileCrunch intern Jeremy is handling images for us this keynote.
9:02 – I really hate Coldplay.
9:00 – We’re about to start. They’re telling us to turn our phones off. They’re playing that damn Coldplay song from the MacBook video.

8:54 – We’re in.
8:14 – FYI. Schiller is Apple’s senior vice president of Worldwide Product Marketing. From CrunchBase:

Philip Schiller is Apple’s senior vice president of Worldwide Product Marketing and reports to Apple’s CEO. Schiller is a member of Apple’s Executive Team and is responsible for the company’s Product Marketing, Developer Relations, and Business Marketing programs. Since rejoining Apple in April 1997, Schiller has helped the company return to its role as a technology innovator, delivering breakthrough products such as the iMac, MacBook, Airport, Xserve, Mac OS X, Safari, AppleTV, iPod and iPhone.

Schiller has over twenty four years of marketing and management experience including seventeen years at Apple in various marketing management positions. Prior to Apple, Schiller served as Vice President of Product Marketing at Macromedia, Inc. of San Francisco, CA; as Director of Product Marketing at FirePower Systems, Inc. of Menlo Park, CA; as an Information Technology Manager at Nolan, Norton & Company of Lexington, MA; and as a Programmer and Systems Analyst at Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston, MA.

8:07 – Peter Ha sends this first image. A huge MacBook bigger than the Earth?

This Friday, we the editors of CrunchGear will be hosting our Gala Online Awards Ceremony complete with dancing bears, punch, and whirling mirror balls. Until then, we invite you, the reading public, to select your favorite – and least favorite – gear of 2008 in our formal 2008 Reader’s Choice Awards. Click through to make your end-of-year picks.

The rules are simple: vote. A pop-up from Survey Monkey should have just appeared. If you want to add something, leave a comment. If enough people want to change the category, we’ll add or delete the item.

Thanks for a great year and I hope you guys enjoy this chance to tell us your favorite gear of 2008.

Here’s the direct link to the poll if the pop-up gets eaten by your browser: http://www.surveymonkey.com/s.aspx?sm=KXyijkyrSOxY0czoMUgHTQ%3d%3d

What better way to toughen up the Wii than with a Nerf game?
NASCAR and LittleBigPlanet team up
Homestar Extra: Sega Toys’ Homestar Planetarium gets an upgrade
Princess Leia pumpkin idea for last-minute carvers
Blockbuster’s Top 10 Nightmare-Maker Movies list, do you agree?

At CEATEC 2008, Fujisoft for the first time presented their “Ulexit” video player for embedded devices. The company will use its technology for “Minna-no (everybody’s) Theater Wii”, a video-on-demand service for the Nintendo Wii.

A Fujisoft representative told me the service goes online in December 2008 in Japan. Asked whether Everybody’s Theater Wii will ever be available outside this country, she said: “We haven’t decided that yet.”, which translates to “no”.

Fujisoft’s Ulexit player supports MPEG2, WMV, MPEG4 and H.264. Japanese Wii owners will be able to watch animes, movies, music programs and documentaries via their console and have to pay up to 400 Wii points for each download.

Individually, though, I’m sure they’re very helpful. I’ve heard stories of army engineers who have cried upon seeing their robot destroyed or irreparably damaged by a mine or RPG blast. Noble as it is, it is precisely that kind of emotion that will lead humanity to defeat in the coming Robocalypse.

Update: Yeah, that was autoplaying. Sorry. Video now inside!

[video borrowed from iRobot]

Peter Ha is reporting live from a Motorola conference where they’ve just unveiled two new Bluetooth headsets. Their latest, the Motopure H15, was found to have the best overall audio quality from independent tester Metrico. It has next gen Crystaltalk noise reduction for a more natural sounding voice and it is wind-resistant. There are dynamically adjusting speakers built-in and a RapidConnect flip design.

The ‘phones have multipoint dual pairing that let you connect two phones at once for 4.5 hour talk time. A 15 minute charge equals 1 hour talk time and a desktop charging stand is included. The black styling is reminiscent of the PEBL.

The next model is the Motorola H780 with multipoint pairing, 7 hour talk time, candybar shaped. Both headsets ranked 1 and 2 in independent testing.

More as we get it.

Here is some unadulterated audio between Peter Ha and I using the headsets.

Download audio file (motopure.mp3)

We’re reporting to you live from Apple’s “Let’s Rock” Event in the Yerba Buena Center in sunny SFO. Click through to start viewing the live feed.

The flight is full from what I’m told and Aircell had plenty of people on hand at the gate to promote the service. Exactly how many folks will utilize the service is unknown at this point. I’ll be using my MacBook Pro, iPhone 3G and T-Mobile BlackBerry Curve along with one other smartphone that’s Wi-Fi enabled. I’m in economy so it’s going to be a tight squeeze. Hopefully the lady sitting in front of me won’t lean her seat back, but that’s doubtful. I’ve already got my laptop on my lap as is and it’s not pleasant. I wish one of the manufacturers who I requested a sub-notebook/netbook from had gotten back to me. I’m looking at you Lenovo, HP, Asus, MSI and Dell.

The service unavailable splash screen reveals that Gogo won’t work below 10,000 feet and is only available within the continental U.S. I will individually test all my devices and then simultaneously to see what sort of bandwidth I’m getting.

Speed tests after the jump.

So far Speedtest.net is giving me 1,748 kbps down and roughly 290kbps up.

Another test reveals similar results.

This one’s not so good.

One more test on the laptop and I’ll start testing my iPhone 3G and BlackBerry Curve.

So far so good, folks. The aircrafts are 767s and not 727s. If you’re on a flight for more than three hours than I think $13 is worth it. The only caveat here is that American Airlines only supports cigarette lighter adapters, so I’m screwed in about an hour when my battery dies. FastMac was supposed to send me an extended battery weeks ago, but they’ve failed to do so. Virgin America on the other hand has normal outlets.

I just tried out the service on my iPhone 3G and it worked well. You have to sign off from each device to export the service to another. It’s a pain, but there for a reason. I’ll get video or time how long it takes to download an app from the app store.

I’m currently on Skype, AIM, and MSN messenger. I tried calling someone over VoIP on Skype but it dropped after five seconds. Service has been good so far. There were a few spots where the connection was sluggish, but otherwise it’s been rock solid.

I’m currently watching Doug’s review on YouTube and there’s no lag for a five-minute video.

One clever IMer just asked me:

and here’s a question, feel free to write about it, if you were to commit a crime, lets say hack something stupid via the wi-fi on flight, where would they extradite you to?

We’ll get the answer soon. Also, I know you’re all wondering how they’re blocking VoIP calls. We’ll have that answer soon.

Oh great! The f*cking stewardess flight attendant just spilled water on my laptop!

VoIP calls are sort of going through, but nothing can be heard on either end. Former CG editor Josh Goldman just tried calling said they heard some sort of “digital tune.”

My laptop is going dark in less than 10, so I’m switching to iPhone 3G and/or BlackBerry Curve.

I’ll be back shortly, folks. Leave you questions in comments and I’ll do my best to get them answered.

4:18PM EST – Switched from my dead laptop to my BB. The switchover was easy but I didn’t get a connection for a few minutes. E-mail, browser and BB messenger are all working flawlessly.

To answer your question about VoIP calls I just spoke with Jack Blumenstein, the president and ceo of Aircell. They’ve restricted the packets that enable voip calls but clearly haven’t blocked skype altogether. Connections can be made that may or may not last a few seconds but the audio then becomes garbled.

Just made a call over UMA on my BlackBerry to my brother and it went through. Lasted about a minute. Will get a wav file to post on the site.

The connection is now garbled.

To all the commenters who are telling me to plug in: All outlets need cig lighter adapters. Feh.
5:06PM EST – Update: blackberry uma connection is spotty
Aircell’s tech guy had his nokia n810 and it was running fine
He said bb’s UMA is a problem and they’re working to resolve it now
Also, any winmo device with wifi will work regardless regardless of the devices listed on the gogo site

Cool. Gogo service automatically shuts off when it goes below 10k feet

6:03PM EST – Brief layover in LAX before jumping on a flight back. Leave questions in comments.

6:31PM EST – Bandwidth is prioritized, so if you’re juicing the network by watching video or downloading then your connection gets slower but it won’t stop and other passenger won’t be affected.

One passenger was watching basebll games through sling on the outbound flight.

Just left LAX and I’m back online. I have roughly one hour of laptop juice left, so please feel free to leave a comment or AIM me at crunchtips.

Going to watch some video on fancast and see what it does to my bandwidth.

7:40PM EDT
Currently watching this episode of Family Guy. Bandwidth is holding steady. Guess there aren’t too many people using Gogo right now.

7:42PM EDT
RE: VPN. Folks from Aircell are telling me that it’s up to your IT department based on how strong the Wi-Fi connection needs to be. I know a couple AA execs were connected over VPN on the outbound flight from JFK to LAX.

Do you guys want to know anything else?

[Devin says: Peter and I played this little fridge magnet game. Worked fine, so no upstream issues.]

Facebook chatting with the boss, MA, now.

Just ran four fancast streams and bandwidth went down a bit.

Running three Hulu streams with no noticeable lag on any of the streams. Trying to Bit Torrent, but I’ve got zilch going down or up.

Spoke too soon. My streams are getting choppy.

8:15PM EDT
I have roughly 15 minutes left of juice on my laptop. Better get your questions in now.

8:17PM EDT
Torrenting a 233MB file now with download speeds ranging from 0B/s to 3.1Kbps with nothing uploading.

8:25PM EDT
Well, that’s it for me, folks. My laptop is about to kick the can, so I’ll be switching over to my BlackBerry/iPhone 3G for the remainder of the flight. Feel free to email me at peter at crunchgear dot com with any questions and I’ll do my best to get them answered.

I’m getting the dirt on this right now but it seems that Pat Phelan of MaxRoam just unlocked his iPhone 3G and will be giving away the app shortly.

UPDATE – False alarm. It wasn’t a software unlock, it’s the old physical SIM card unlock.

Good luck, Rich. Save me a seat.

PS- Due to some technical difficulties resulting from live blogging in the Mojave, the video interview we took is FUBAR at the moment, but we’ll see what we can do to fix that once we get back to LAX.

Isn’t she beautiful?

Borderlands
Upcoming co-op game with up to four players. The Borderlands is the lawless outlands of space. One certain section of the demo I just saw looked like Halo. You just walk around and shoot “Scags” and collect items from these spacey looking treasure chests. Kinda meh so far. This is actually kind of cool. Your player retains all weapons and skills built up even when you jump from one co-op game to another. They’re geeking out over the weapons. Shotgun dismembers enemies and spews body parts everywhere. Kind of cool.

2K Sports coming up

NHL 2K9
Wii
New fighting engine. “It’s fun!” Demo coming in a couple weeks. “It’s really fun!” Wiimote is your hockey stick. Duh. Wiimote and nunchuck are used when fighting and driving the Zamboni. Use the pointer to select which player you pass to and you can link passes in advance, which is exclusive to the Wii.

I like hockey but I’ve never been into hockey video games. What about you guys?

Xbox 360
September 2008 launch.

NBA 2K9
I reviewed NCAA 2K8 a while back and it’s fun, so I’m looking forward to NBA 2K9. They’re showing a trailer right now. October 2008 launch. I wonder if 2K Sports can compete with EA’s NBA title? Dynamic DNA is a pretty rad feature. It’s 80 percent done.

Haven’t had time to recharge from the Nintendo press conference, so I may be signing off a little prematurely. I’ll update this post when I have time to recharge.

I guess that’s it.

Update: Full press release for GTA: Chinatown Wars after the jump.

Reggie says the Wii was never a fad. Imitation is just around the corner, he says.
10:07AM I think we’re wrapping up.

Miyamoto is going to play the cowbell in the 4-player demo. They’re playing the Mario theme. Awesome. Will have video shortly.

You can record your performances and edit certain segments. Can play up to 4 players simultaneously.
Orchestra mode.


50 different instruments. Just flail around and it’ll play automatically for you. Playing the violin looks fun. the bigger strokes you take the louder it gets.
Miyamoto is playing a sax with just the WiiMote.
9:54AM Launching this holiday season is Wii Music. Utilizes the Wii balance board, nunchuck and Wiimote (drums).

Launching next Spring.
Jet skiing, tossing frisbee to a dog and sword fighting are three of the games available.
Round 2 goes to Cammie.
Reggie and Cammie are about to have a sword fight. Cammie just got pwned and Reggie referred to himself as the Reginator.

Reggie is on a jet ski using the nunchuck and Wiimote.
Cammie is demoing the game. She has a frisbee that she just threw and it chorked since she didn’t throw it very well. It detects her wrist motion more accurately. Her dog grabbed the frisbee out of the air.
WiiMotionPlus and extended sleeve will be included with Wii Sports Resort.
9:47Am WiiMotionPlus will redefine the Wiimote. Allow for better accuracy.


DS is coming into the kitchen. Already acts as a cookbook in Japan. Arrives in November in the US.
9:44AM DS and air travel hooking up. You can find out baggage carousel number and gate for transfers being tested now.
Grand Theft Auto Chinatown Wars coming this Winter. Modern day Liberty City.
New Pokemon Ranger something game for DS launching November 10 in the US.


Song sharing for GHOT Decades between DS units.
Spore is coming to the DS too.
GH On Tour Decades is coming soon.
9:39AM In 2007 the Nintendo DS was sold almost equally between men and women. Guitar Hero on Tour sold 300k copies in its first week.
Call of Duty World at War. Coming soon.
Rayman Raving Rabbits TV Party. Surf the skies (outerspace?) with the Wii balance board. Use it as sled. Coming Fall 2008.
Nintendo is focused on three new games. Star Wars The Clone Wars. Head-to-head lightsaber duals. Coming Holiday 2008.
9:35AM Wii library contains more games than other consoles in its first 19 months.
9:34AM Nintendo focused on the core gamers to keep them on the system with Metroid and Mario games and then built out other games to attract new gamers with games, like Wii Fit and Wii Sports.
NPD numbers for June should reflect that the Wii is the best selling game console in its first 19 months, says Reggie.

Female celebrity endorsements boosted sales of DS games.
Pokemon Mystery Dungeon was a hot seller for Nintendo as well as Mario & Sonic which pushed 29 percent of sales ahead of last year.
Nintendo DS sales are up 12 percent from last year.

Total DS worldwide sales will be over 100 million systems by next year.
10 million Wiis sold and 20 million DSs sold.
9:28AM Animal Crossing and WiiSpeak by the end of the year, says Reggie.


9:26Am Wii Speak allows you to speak with others anywhere else.
It’s a realistic world witha 24 hour clock. ANimals get up and go to bed with the sun. You can sell items in the city and find out what other players are doing. You can visit the beauty salon to change your hair style. Communication is key for this game. You can write letters and send pictures to other players via message board and email and mobile phones.
Katsuya Eguchi video now being shown. Animal Crossing is coming to the Wii.
9:22AM Nintendo is constantly changing to be a pioneer and leader.
9:20AM Guitar Hero 3 version of Wii pwns all others.
Europeans are buying 200k DSs every week.
The user base has expanded. Pictures of old ladies at the rest home and a younger woman playing DS at the salon being shown.
Nintendo wants to meet these needs. New Mario and Zelda games in the future. (duh)
‘Players only seek new titles with better graphics and game play.’
Nintendo is now selling games with a long life. I think that’s what he said.

9:14 Global President Satoru Owata (sp?) is now on stage.
Exclusively for Wii by year end.
Cammie is playing as Shaun in the halfpipe. He’s such a carrot top.

9:11AM Ubisoft developed.

Shaun White is on stage demoing Shaun White Snowboarding.
Babbling on about playing video games to impress her kids.
Cammie Dunaway is now on stage with her Mii on the screen.
9:06AM Getting started. Cheesy music and video being played. “We promise to keep the world smiling.”

8:47AM PDT Devin and I are seated. Another 12 minutes or so.
8:21AM PDT Devin and I are in the Kodak Theater waiting for the start of the Nintendo press conference that’s set to start at 9AM PDT. Lots of people mulling around and drinking free coffee that tastes like poo. Check back in 40 minutes or so.

NEW YORK—(BUSINESS WIRE)—Rockstar Games, a publishing label of Take-Two Interactive Software, Inc. (NASDAQ: TTWO), is proud to announce Grand Theft Auto: Chinatown Wars. Developed by Rockstar Leeds in conjunction with series creators Rockstar North, Grand Theft Auto: Chinatown Wars will be available on the Nintendo DS™ in North America and Europe this winter.

“This is a game that will deliver a rich, fast-paced and intense ‘Grand Theft Auto’ experience that will be truly unique to Nintendo’s handheld platform,” said Sam Houser, Founder of Rockstar Games. “Rockstar Leeds, along with the team at Rockstar North, has built upon a decade of progressive design on Grand Theft Auto, and has created something fundamentally fresh and immersive.”

Grand Theft Auto: Chinatown Wars is an entirely original entry into the critically acclaimed Grand Theft Auto series, and brings a new level of interactivity to its sprawling open environments. With the use of the DS touch screen, players will navigate their way through the streets as they uncover the truth behind an epic tale of crime and corruption within the Triad crime syndicate, delivering the unprecedented amount of depth that has become a true trademark of the franchise.

For more information about Grand Theft Auto: Chinatown Wars, visit: http://www.rockstargames.com/chinatownwars

Gameplay is different every time. “Director” dynamically changes atmosphere and gameplay. Devin will check this out tomorrow.

Valve is up. Left 4 Dead splash screen. Co-op, first person horror game. Experience a scary action movie with your friends. Dynamic shared narrative achieved with procedurarlly generated character performance. 1-4 players.

Not much revealed in the trailer.
PC first, console second.
4:11PM Bioware! Dragon Age: Origins. My battery might die soon.

Need for Speed, Tiger Woods and Monopoly coming soon.
Scrabble will be upgraded in the coming weeks to play against friends over Wi-Fi.
Using the accelerometer. Ya, ya.
4:08PM Talking about the iPhone as a platform for gaming. App store has Tetris, Sudoku and Scrabble from EA. We wrote about that last week.

Challenge you friends based on challenges you’ve just completed that your friend might not have unlocked. Social networking for gamers. Yay!
4:06 Shawn Fanning from Rupture is now on stage.

EA Nucleus helps pull all of your online gaming together. Even connecting your mobile profile with your console profiles. Nucleus will be in 25 titles by 2009.

EA is serious about the Wii.

Peter Moore just pwnd Natalie. He birdied and she’s putting for par. Bloops. Bogey.

3:57PM Demo of Tiger Woods 09 All Play being played by Peter Moore.

LPGA pro Natalie Gulbis is on stage.

New line of sports games coming. Talking about All Play, which I covered a couple weeks back. The FIFA Soccer 09 ALL PLAY title still lacks a cover model.

Hot zones break down the court so you know where a player’s hot spots are.

Live demo between Lakers and Celtics. Bill Walton is commentating. Ripping on the Lakers.
Player tendencies, like driving down the lane right or left. Tony Parker demo likes to go left. But that can change as the season goes on. Player DNA breaks down player preferences. Team DNA: how players play together. Talking about Kevin Garnett’s move to the Celtics and how that trade affected

Dynamic DNA (real world analytics used by NBA teams) brings in fresh data every day for teams and players for NBA LIVE 09. It will update every single day.

Bill Walton! BiG RED!!! He helped my home town Blazers win a championship. FYI.
Talking about Madden and NBA Live. Boring.
3:43PM Peter Moore is now on stage.
Coming September 7, 2008.

Spore creatures can now mate.
Spore have teamed up with SETI Institute.
Robots or humans were never demoed but fans have used the existing parts to create them. Planes, boats, helicopters and other random stuff have been created.
What the heck is Spore? Heh. 100K creatures were created in 22 hours and 1 million were done in about a week.
Spore Creature Creator is at the top of the charts at the end of June.
3:32PM Will Wright from Spore on the stage.
This game looks amazing. Crowd clapping after trailer.

Mirror’s Edge demo. Once it’s over you can see the full demo from the beginning.

3:25PM: Dice is creating Mirror’s Edge. Demo on PS3 being shown.

Game is coming to Xbox 360 and PS3 on October 21, 2008.
Laser targeting is spread out with three points of contact.
I think I just wet myself. Holy crap. This thing is scary.
You’ll have to tear the zombies apart limb from limb. There’s a really cool HUD system. Life meter is on your back, like a backpack.
3:17PM Dead Space is being talked about now.
Do people still play Sims?
Sims 3 trailer being shown.


3:15PM Network here at the Orpheum is going in and out. Pics coming soon.
3:15PM Sims 2 Store Beta coming. Download the entire game digitally. Sims 3 coming in January.
3:13PM Coming in January 2009. Don’t worry. Pics are coming.

3:12PM SimAnimals demo. a hand just lifted up a bear. The bear is now chasing a squirell. Weird. WTF?!
3:11PM New Sims game. SimAnimals!
3:10PM No hype. They’re going to have the creators who built the games speak instead of stupid number like Microsoft did earlier today.
3:09PM John Ricitiello is on the stage.
3:07PM Looks like casual gaming will be talked about a lot today.
3:06PM Here we go.
3:03PM Still waiting. They’re telling us to “turn off our PDAs and cell phones.” Yeah right.
2:47PM Devin and I are seated. Starting in about 13 minutes.

First 45 minutes of the press conference.

Update: I’m updating with all the Qik videos I took. I’ll label them accordingly.

12:06 – And we’re out… Thanks for visiting.
12:04 - Final Fantasy 13. north america and europe coming soon.

11:59 – Games for Windows.
Video should be back up.

11:57 – Square Enix releasing Star Ocean: The Last Remnant. RPG. 11/20/08
11:50 – Rock Band 2 coming in September. 84 songs on the soundtrack including Guns and Roses. Bob Dylan (!!!). Tangled Up in Blue. WHY BOB WHY! 20 bonus tracks. Rock Band tracks can be exported to Rock Band 2. Over 500 playable songs.
11:46 – Duffy now performing “Mercy” live.
11:44 – New Karaoke game with light-up microphones. Called Lips. Connect the Zune to the 360 to sing karaoke on those tracks. Motion sensitive. Available around the holidays.

11:41 – xbox 360 gamers worldwide will download three new REM tracks from their upcoming album and Metallica is joining GH universe. gh3 download for box 360 gamers is coming first, gh world tour coming later.
11:40 – guitar hero music – studio make and share music. GH Tunes – a platform for new bands.
11:39 – Guitar Hero World Tour with touch slide guitar. 8-player battle of the bands. Wireless drums.
Looks like Qik is back up
11:37 – New game: You’re in the Movies – act out scenes in movies and then you can compile them together into a bigger movie.
11:26 – 1,000 titles available (games) by end of year
Qik stream is buffering. Sorry.
11:23 – Netflix coming to XBox 360. Free to Netflix subscribers. Share Netflix with your live party. Live streaming for everyone in your party.
11:22 – South Park game.
11:21 – Portal: Still Alive on XBox Live arcade.
11:19 – New Geometry Wars. Galaga Legions
11:17 – play 1 vs 100 and win real prizes. Games Channel. Uno Rush.
11:16 – XBox Live Prime Time. You can star in your own game show.
11:14 – Live party. 8 friends chatting and interacting. Chatting all at once. Photo sharing.
11:13 – Avatars – cute Mii-alikes that will pop into games.
MGM and Constantin Films available today for Europe.
NBC and Universal Studios are on board with Xbox Live. Content available today.
5 new members join Xbox Live every minute (I think that’s what he said)
Xbox 360 will sell more consoles than PS3. How? Prices for everyone and through the best online experience.
New 5-player co-op mode dubbed Horde.
Aborting Qik. Going to text. Refresh this page for updates.
10:55 – Locust can now sink cities.
10:54 – Epic Games design director. GoW2 response is tremendous.
10:54 – Gears of War 2. Peter Ha just peed.
10:53 – Fable 2 coming in October
If you’re having trouble with the video, pop over to the Qik site.
10:51 – Your networked friends can join you in the game.
10:50 – Same concept – growth and improvement over time.
10:49 – Fable 2 is done and soon available.
10:48 – Resident Evil 5 launches March 13, 2009.
10:30 – Getting settled.

More Gears of War 2 footage.

Peter and Devin are coming to you live from the E3 XBox briefing in Los Angeles. Stay tuned for some red hot gaming action courtesy of Microsoft at 1:30pm ET, 10:30a PT.

Read all of our upcoming E3 2008 coverage here.

More videos and photos inside, friends!

• There are armed guards to protect the store/phones

• No phones will be removed from the stockroom until they’ve been paid for

• Training has been going on for the past few months

• Celebs don’t get special treatment