More Mac games at the Expo, Part 3

This is the final Mac games post of my 3-part series (read parts 1 and 2). There’s a whole bunch of companies makings games for the Mac who were demoing products at Macworld 08, and I wanted to mention just a few more.

Ambrosia is soon to release a really great-looking game called Aquaria that was described as an “ethereal action/adventure underwater fantasy game.” A guy not employed by Ambrosia had logged so many hours on their demo this week that they let him show me the game. It looked gorgeous. You play as a mermaid trying to reunite her people, who are scattered across what looks like a vast system of underwater caves. Can’t wait to play this game. Ambrosia is also putting out Multiwinia, a sequel to Darwinia, later this year.

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Green Tech at the Expo

Green Tech was by no means prominent at Macworld 08, but there was still a pretty good amount on display. Environmental sustainability has become a major concern when it comes to technology products. Computers and most other electronic devices consume lots of energy while they’re living and produce lots of waste when they die. Hazardous waste, in many cases. But nearly all of the major manufacturers have begun thinking through the lifecycle of their products and designing them to have as little an impact on the environment as possible – not only because of the demand for Green Tech in the marketplace, but also because it’s just plain old good business.

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More Mac games at the Expo, Part 1

I promised more coverage of the game offerings here at Macworld 08, and I’m delivering. This is going to be a three-part series of blogs detailing the plans that various companies have for games on the Mac in 2008.

I’m going to start with Aspyr. You may remember from my last post on Mac games at the Expo that they specialize in porting games from the PC to the Mac. They’ve got a huge year coming up, as their new releases are all big gaming franchises being made available for the first time on the Mac.

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Mac Games

Make Your Own Mac Games

Macworld Senior Editor Peter Cohen gave a presentation at MacWorld Expo today providing resources for Mac users to learn how to make their own games. The sites that he suggested were mostly for the creation of simple games but provided some options for more advanced users as well.

Here are the five sites that Cohen suggested would be good for guys (or gals) interested in making their own Mac games:

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Macworld 2008

Tech Tips for Teachers

There have been two presentations at MacWorld’s Users Conference which have focused on using today’s technology to be a better teacher. The one I went to yesterday was about Web 2.0 and its impact on e-Learning. The one I just came out of was on Teaching the Cybernetic Teen. Both of these presentations provided some great tips about how teachers can make use of the way that kids communicate through technology today to improve the way they educate those kids.

Here are some tech tips for teachers to take advantage of:

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Macworld 2008

Wikis: Where Collaboration Is Happening Today

The first two presentations that I went to today both focused a bit on collaboration. First, I went to Web 2.0 and E-Learning which had a segment about how online collaboration can benefit the classroom environment. Then I went to Collaborative Editing Tools and Techniques which focused on collaboration options for the publishing world, be it web publishing or print publishing. Although each of these presentations focused on multiple types of collaborative environments, they shared one strong suggestion in common. Both said that wikis could be successfully used as collaborative tools for essentially any environment.

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Macworld 2008

Girl Gamers at MacWorld

The first presentation of the Users Conference that I attended was this morning’s Vision Track presentation on the relationship between Web 2.0 and e-Learning. One of the things that speaker Nick Floro talked about was that educators can use gaming, especially interactive gaming platforms such as Second Life, to engage students who are used to dividing their attention amongst multiple things at once. (He explained how you can create classrooms in Second Life and use them to present video materials in a sort of online virtual interactive classroom).

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Accessories

MacWorld Gear and Accessories

Walking around MacWorld this week, I’ve rapidly learned that the laptop bag I use to hold my computer and notebooks and all of the other junk that I tote around isn’t really very comfortable. As a result, I found myself drawn to the many booths in Moscone West that were selling laptop bags. Once I’d turned my attention to that, I found that I was also pulled towards all of the different cases and accessories for other gadgets.

Here were some of my favorite accessories finds:

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Macworld 2008

MacBook Air’s unremovable battery

John Gruber posted a great first look at the MacBook Air, chiding the tech media about its enclosed battery, and I couldn’t agree more:

No swappable battery. I think this aspect is going to play out exactly as it has with the iPhone: (a) there’s going to be a ton of criticism from the gadget and tech press decrying this as a terrible decision; and (b) the vast majority of users don’t care and won’t mind the sealed battery at all. Seriously, the press is not going to shut up about this — you can’t go 10 feet in the Expo media room without hearing someone complain about it.

I personally like carrying an extra charged battery with me on long trips, but it wouldn’t keep me from buying an Air if I otherwise wanted one.

Amen, brother. Folks need to get their heads around this.

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Mac Games at the Expo

Mac gamers: the phrase is pretty much a contradiction of terms. Or at least it has been traditionally. There are actually some encouraging signs at this year’s Macworld Expo that the gaming industry is finally coming around to acknowledging Macs.

For one thing, there’s a grand-looking “Mac Games” pavilion. True, it isn’t quite bursting with game demos, but at least there are enough to allow for an entire Mac Games pavilion. They were all supplied by the few game developers that have booths at the Expo, so I’ll just describe the games by company.

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Mac Hardware

Hoo boy: The first day on the show floor

Aaah, there’s nothing quite like cruising the show floor at a big convention. It’s overwhelming, it’s over-stimulating, but it’s tons of fun. In the Expo’s South hall alone you’ve got major software application developers like Microsoft, Adobe, and Google all conducting tutorials and training seminars; you’ve got access to every iPod or iPhone accessory you ever wanted, and about 18 million more that you never knew you wanted, from big names like Samsung and Shure right down to local retailers from all over the country; and of course you’ve got the Apple store as the giant hub of it all.

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