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.

Halo 2600 kicks it old school

August 5, 2010August 5, 2010 Doug Groves Atari, Atari 2600, Ed Fries, Figure Prints, Halo, Halo 2600, Microsoft, Microsoft Game Studios, Xbox23 Comments

Ed Fries, who helped get Microsoft Game Studios get of the ground, and was a seminal part of the original Xbox project at Redmond, has kind of come full circle, then back again. Although he’s currently involved in a number of other gaming projects, it’s this little diversion called Hal0 2600 that is worth checking out. It’s a full fledged Atari 2600 adaptation of Halo… sadly it doesn’t include Warthog levels, as for some strange reason, the 128 bytes of RAM wasn’t quite enough… The thing you need to realize…

Acer launches new line of Aspire notebooks in Canada

August 5, 2010August 5, 2010 Doug Groves Acer, Acer Arcade, Acer Nplify, AS5745, AS7745, Aspire, ATI Mobility Radeon, blu ray, canada, Core i3, Core i5, Core i7, Intel, launch, notebook7 Comments

If you were in the market for a new notebook, but the thin and light category just doesn’t have the oomph you need, don’t worry. Along with the new TimelineX notebooks announced yesterday, Acer’s also announced the AS5745 and AS 7745, of those who want some additional horsepower. The AS5745 Series sports a 15.6″ 1366 x 768 display, while the AS7745 has a larger 17.3″ 1600×900 screen. Some systems will be available with Blu-ray and ATI Mobility Radeon GPUs (5650 or 5850). For those who need to make sure ALL…

Acer launches new TimelineX thin and light notebooks in Canada

August 4, 2010August 4, 2010 Doug Groves 1830T, 3820T, 5820T, Acer, Aspire, ATI Mobility Radeon, canada, Intel Core i3, Intel Core i5, launch, LED backlit, Microsoft, notebook, Thin & Light, TimelineX, Windows 72 Comments

It’s been a while since we’ve seen a update to Acer’s Timeline series of thin and light notebooks. In fact, when they launched in North America, they weren’t officially known as Timeline machines at all, but the rather more pedestrian model numbers, such as the AS1410, which we took a look at last September. At the time, the AS1410 represented a great value for someone looking for something more powerful than a netbook, without the bulk that a more traditional notebook. Due to the ultra low voltage CPUs in the…

Inception via Donald Duck

August 4, 2010July 30, 2014 Doug Groves Disney, Donald Duck, humor, Inception, Movie Mash Up, photoshop fun, Scrooge McDuck6 Comments

If you’re wondering what this poster is about, blame Videogum. Yesterday, they posted an article about this Scrooge McDuck comic book, which has some startling similarities to Christopher Nolan’s film Inception… Read on if you dare the tongue in cheek spoiler alert…

Three free games, and more, for Playstation Plus subscribers

August 4, 2010August 4, 2010 Doug Groves Capybara Games, Critter Crunch, DLC, free games, Gaming, Kahoots, Playstation Plus, PS3, PSN, Syphon Filter, Toronto1 Comment

During E3 2010, Sony announced Playstation Plus, their paid subscription model to match Xbox LIVE. Since one can already game online for free with PSN, there seemed to be little incentive to pony up the $50 US/year for Playstation Plus, which added the capability to cross game chat, and the promise of exclusive and free content. It looks like Sony has stepped up to the plate on the latter, and is delivering some solid free content to Plus members, including Critter Crunch, from Toronto based Capybara Games. There’s a whole…

Virgin HTC Legend review

August 3, 2010August 3, 2010 Doug Groves Android, Bell, canada, Eclair, Friend Stream, google, HTC, HTC Legend, HTC Sense, review, Sense, Sense UI, Virgin Canada3 Comments

HTC, once known as the go-to company for Windows Mobile devices made a wise business decision to embrace Google’s Android operating system from the very beginning, with the original G1. Since that time, they’ve put out an almost dizzying array of phones on the platform, many of them running HTCs custom Sense interface, which first appeared on the HTC Hero. The HTC Legend, currently available on Bell and Virgin in Canada, is very much an updated version of the Hero, with a more polished design and a more current version…

Toronto After Dark Film Festival announces lineup

July 30, 2010 Doug Groves Bloor Cinema, Doghouse, festival, Film, horror, I Spit On Your Grave, Jake West, sci-fi, TADFF, The Last Lovecraft, Toronto After Dark Film Festival2 Comments

The Toronto After Dark Film Festival has opened its online box office and released their 2010 lineup. This is the 5th year for the TADFF, which runs from August 13th to 20th at the legendary Bloor Cinema. TADFF’s eclectic mix of horror, sci-fi and other genre pictures often includes a number of films that rarely get Canadian screening, and it’s good to see they’re keeping up with that tradition. Although the whole lineup is solid, like every year, there are a few films in particular that stand out. This time…

Gateway refreshes NV5 line for social networking mavens

July 30, 2010July 29, 2010 Doug Groves Acer, facebook, Flickr, Gateway, Laptop, NV5, social networking5 Comments

Along with the announcement of the ID Series notebooks, Gateway has updated their NV5 series laptops, and they’re aiming for those who like their social networking to be a single touch away. All NV5 laptops will sport a 15.6 inch 1366×768 LED backlit screen, and will come in a variety of AMD CPU and memory configurations up to 4GB (all expandable to 8GB), with pricing starting at $499.99 The interesting new feature is a new social networking button that calls up… an integrated “social networking” button that allows customers to…

Gateway launches new ID Series Notebook

July 30, 2010July 29, 2010 Doug Groves Acer, Core i3, Core i5, Core i7, Gateway, ID Series, ID49, ID59, ID79, Intel, notebook, Nvidia, Nvidia Optimus, silver3 Comments

Gateway has just announced the ID Series of notebooks, with silver shells and a funky blue touchpad that glows when touched. The silver casing actually appears to be quite understated in the provided photos. The 3 models all sport Ultrabright LED-backlit displays, and vary in size from 14 to 17.3 inches. The smaller ID49 (14 inch) and ID59 (15.6 inch) share very similar specs with Core i3 and Core i5 options, 4GB of memory (expandable to 8GB) and 1366×768 resolution displays. Some models will also include the Nvidia Optimus technology,…

Halo: Reach – The Battle Begins trailer

July 29, 2010 Doug Groves Bungie, campaign, Halo, Halo: Reach, Limited Edition, trailer, video, Xbox 360, Xbox Live8 Comments

A new trailer was launched today for Halo: Reach, and this time around, it’s focusing more on the dramatic elements than the multiplayer gameplay. Although thoroughly impressed with the multiplayer beta that came out in the spring, it’s good to see some more focus on the single player story. Gamers have logged millions of hours of game time on the Xbox Live servers, but for me, the Halo series has always been about the epic space opera. There are few game franchises that manage to capture that sense of scale…

Acer’s new computer line up – all things great and small

July 28, 2010July 28, 2010 Doug Groves Acer, Acer Aspire, Acer Predator, Aspire, Athlon II, ATI, computer, Core i3, Core i5, desktop, Gaming, HTPC, M3, Nvidia, Predator, Radeon, X34 Comments

Acer, a company that’s grown from relative obscurity outside the DIY computer building community to the world’s number 2 computer maker in just a few short years, has announced three new desktop line ups for Canada, covering the spectrum from the small form factor X3 series to the monstrous Predator gaming rig. Playing the mama bear role, is the more traditional M3. The Acer Aspire M3 series is a standard desktop tower, and will come with AMD Athlon II or Intel Core i3 / Core i5 processors and ATI Radeon…

CRTC launches public consultation on internet and telephony

July 28, 2010 Doug Groves canada, CRTC, Internet, Obligation to Serve, online rights, public consultation1 Comment

Last Friday, the CRTC launched a new public consultation to get feedback from Canadians on their telephone and internet services. Being cynical about the impact of such a public consultation, especially one with the title Obligation to Serve, would be the easy approach, given some of the CRTC’s past decisions regarding internet services. I’ll try not to be though, and suggest that everyone visit the public page and speak their mind. You can catch the full announcement after the break…