Author: Doug Groves

dougplanet.com is his personal blog, which is withering on the vine. If you poke around it, you’ll find out that he’s an animator and broadcast designer by trade, usually pushing pixels in either After Effects or Lightwave 3D. If he absolutely had to pick a favourite all time writer, it would be Harlan Ellison more days than any other. If you don’t know who Ellison is, then Doug weeps for you. Doug also likes long walks on the beach, mainly to collect improperly discarded medical waste for an undisclosed project of epic proportions.

Fallout New Vegas Magic Karma Pot

October 28, 2010November 2, 2010 Doug Groves Bethesda, bug, cheat, Fallout New Vegas, loot, PC gaming, PS3, video, Xbox 3604 Comments

Fallout New Vegas is a wonderful and at times frustrating time sink, and earning enough bottlecaps to afford all the items you need is an ongoing effort. If you’re like thousands of others scattered over the Mojave Wastelands, looking for a way to get by without having to earn your bottlecaps, you’ve probably turned to the chore of gambling, and even the best of you have probably been tempted to ‘steal’ the occasional item from a home or shop. Well, thanks to the easy demonstration below by YouTube user Erozlol,…

Chumby now available in Canada

October 27, 2010October 28, 2010 Doug Groves Chumby, Chumby Classic, Chumby One, internet alarm, Linux, open source, Sony, Sony Dash1 Comment

After years of waiting, the Chumby store is now taking orders from Canada, at a price of $120 US for the Chumby One. If you’re not familiar with Chumby, it started out about four years ago as a modified Linux OS customized to run on small screen hardware, specifically the Chumby hardware. The hardware itself is about the size of an alarm clock, but with a 3.5 inch colour touch screen, with the Chumby Classic encased in a soft leather and plastic casing, while the newer Chumby One in a…

Netflix dominates Canadian bandwidth usage but that’s okay

October 26, 2010October 28, 2010 Doug Groves ars technica, Netflix, Sandvine, streaming media3 Comments

Online streaming services are clearly starting to take hold in the minds of mainstream consumers, and if bandwidth usage is any indicator, Netflix is leading the charge. Shortly after launching their streaming only service here in Canada, Netflix accounted for 95% of all Canada’s network usage duing the peak time of about 9:30pm, according to broadband analysis firm Sandvine. This is an absolutely staggering number, but not surprising given the amount of pent up demand for just such a solution. Combined with a free month trial, it’s no surprise that…

Rogers Galaxy S Captivate finally available

October 25, 2010October 26, 2010 Doug Groves Captivate, Galaxy S, Galaxy S Captivate, Rogers, Samsung, smartphone, superphone3 Comments

It’s been a LONG time coming, but Rogers has finally made the Samsung Galaxy S Captivate available. Originally announced back when Sammy made the big Galaxy marketing push in August, it’s taken quite some time for the Captivate to hit Big Red. The Captivate ships with Android 2.1, but will get an update to 2.2 Froyo sometime between November and ‘early 2011’. The Captivate features Samsung’s 4 inch Super AMOLED scree, a 5 MPixel camera with 720p video recording and a 1GHz processor, and will start at $149.99 on some…

Rogers Samsung Focus: Hands On Video

October 25, 2010November 9, 2010 Doug Groves hands-on, Microsoft, Now hub, Samsung, Samsung Focus, smartphone, Super AMOLED, superphone, video, Windows Phone 73 Comments

When Windows Phone 7 launches in North America in early November, Rogers will be carrying the Samsung Focus, which is the thinnest of the launch devices. The Focus is very much in the styling of Samsung’s Galaxy S Android phones, including the absolutely stunning 4 inch Super AMOLED screen. One of the other traits the Focus carries over from the Galaxy S line is the light, plastic body.

Halo Ballet: Dance Dance Evolved?

October 22, 2010October 25, 2010 Doug Groves Bungie, Halo, Halorinas. Xbox 360, machinima, modern dance, The Music Gallery1 Comment

Miguel of Spooky Squid fame just passed on this link to the premiere of the Halo Ballet. Yes, as in the Bungie developed video game. This Sunday at The Music Gallery in Toronto, modern dancers will perform live choreographed machinima via networked Xbox 360s. X AVANT Festival — “Dance Dance Revolution™” featuring Halo Ballet™ + The Aperghis Suite + The Plunder Suite Modern dancers take on John Oswald, Georges Aperghis and the Halo™ video game environment Halo™ Ballet: Inspired by machinima — the repurposing of 3D graphics engines from video games…

Bell Samsung Galaxy Tab: Hands On Video

October 22, 2010October 28, 2010 Doug Groves Android, Android 2.2, Apple, Bell, Canadian, ebooks, eReader, Froyo, Galaxy Tab, google, Google Android, hands-on, iPad, Kobo, North American, Rogers, Samsung, tablet3 Comments

Although no official launch dates are announced, the Samsung Galaxy Tab is set to appear on both Rogers and Bell here in Canada, probably by the end of November. We had a chance to get our hands on one, and came away suitably impressed. The Android based tablet, seen as the second mainstream device in the tablet behind the iPad, sports a 7 inch 1024×600 display using Samsung’s Super LCD screen technology, making it about half the size of the iPad. Unlike the silver back of the European version, Samsung…

Gamercamp Lv2 – For Love Of The Game

October 21, 2010October 26, 2010 Doug Groves Brandon Boyer, event, Gamercamp, Gamercamp Lv2, Hand Eye Society, Mathew Kumar, Toronto, TORONTRON2 Comments

Gamercamp Lv2 marks the return of the festival that celebrates indie gaming in Toronto. Last years inaugural event sold out, and this year looks like it’s going to be even bigger. Spanning 2 days, Gamercamp kicks off at the Toronto Underground Cinema with a number of keynotes from developers and some short films on video games, curated by Brandon Boyer. Gamercamp 2010 is jammed with badassery: over two days, we’ve got 25 speakers, blazing new demos, 3 arcades including the amazing Torontrons created by Hand Eye, and even a PJs…

2010 Toronto Zombie Walk – UPDATED

October 20, 2010October 23, 2010 Doug Groves Bloor Cinema, event, GWAR, Oderus Urungus, Return of the Living Dead, The Von Drats, Toronto, Toronto Zombie Walk, zombie walk0 comment

Just a friendly reminder that the 8th annual Toronto Zombie Walk is only a few days away, starting Saturday October 23rd at pm. The mass of undead corpses seems to grow every year, and with that, the Zombie Walk now requires registration (online registration now closed – see the site for in-person registration), mainly for city logistics purposes. Although you can register on the day, your best bet is to register in advance to save time before the event. If my number is any indicator, they’ve already surpassed 6000 officially…

Assassin’s Creed Brotherhood multiplayer interview

October 19, 2010October 22, 2010 Doug Groves Assassin's Creed Brotherhood, Christophe Grandjean, DLC, interview, Microsoft, multiplayer, PC gaming, PS3, Sony, Ubisoft, Ubisoft Montreal, Xbox 3600 comment

Now that PS3 owners have had the pleasure of trying out the Assassin’s Creed Brotherhood multiplayer demo, Ubisoft has taken to showing off the different modes more openly, and discussing their plans going forward. The main challenge in multiplayer was to find game modes that actually work with the franchise. To keep in the spirit of the franchise, the players are actually Templars training in the Animus, running through various simulations, which represent the different multiplayer modes. We had a chance to talk with Christophe Grandjean of Ubisoft Montreal about…

SwagBag winner announced

October 19, 2010October 22, 2010 Doug Groves Caanan Grall, Camilla derrico, Fan Expo, Fan Expo 2010, Max Overacts, Nick Thornborrow, Robert Kirkman, Snakors Pizza, swag bag, Swag Bag 2010, SwagBag 2010, Tanpopo, The Anthology Project, The Chubby Bounty Hunter, The Walking Dead, Uyugomiak, winner1 Comment

We’ve taken all the entries from the site, Twitter and Facebook, put them in the hopper, and asked random.org to give us an answer. The SwagBag goes out to Matthew Goddard, who appears to have found us via The Comic Warehouse, from his comment. Congrats Matthew, and we’ll be in touch shortly. Here’s a list of what Matthew has won: The Waking Dead: Days Gone Bye trade paperback, to get prepped for the launch of the AMC series, and just one of the best ongoing comic series in recent memory….

LG Optimus Quantum Hands On: video

October 15, 2010October 21, 2010 Doug Groves Bell, hands-on, LAYAR, LG, Microsoft, Optimus Quantum, Panoramic Shot, Scan Search, slider, sneak peek, video, Windows Phone 7, WP7, Xbox Live4 Comments

We take a look at the LG Optimus Quantum Windows Phone 7 device with a slideout landscape QWERTY keyboard. The slide mechanism, while a bit stiff, also feels very solid, and still doable with one hand. When holding it in landscape mode, LG made sure that the screen portion was nice and light, so that there’s a solid balance while typing. In fact, when we first got our hands on the Optimus Quantum, it barely registered as a slider. The keyboard itself ranks up there with the HTC Touch Pro…