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.

iPhone 4 to hit Canada (and elsewhere) July 30th

July 16, 2010 Doug Groves Bell, bumper, Death Grip, iPhone 4, press conference, Rogers, Telus5 Comments

In the iPhone 4 press conference, originally intended to address the Death Grip antenna issue some users are experiencing in the US, Apple also announced that the iPhone 4 will be coming to Canada on July 30th. We can only guess that Bell, Rogers and Telus will all have it launch day, unless Rogers is still the preferred carrier here. As of this writing, all three carriers were still reporting “Coming Soon”. On the antenna issue, when the phone is held ‘that way’, it causes a larger drop in signal…

Crackdown 2 review

July 16, 2010July 16, 2010 Doug Groves Billy Thomson, Crackdown 2, review, Ruffian Games, Xbox 360, Xbox Live1 Comment

When we got an early hands-on with Crackdown 2 back in May, I was enamoured with the game. You see, I was a huge fan of the original, and everything seemed in place to make Crackdown 2 bigger and better. In a lot of ways, Ruffian Games did build upon the original, but in their quest for pure gameplay, I couldn’t help but feel something was lacking.

Evan Ratliff interview

July 16, 2010July 16, 2010 Doug Groves Evan Ratliff, interview, James Donald Gatz, NXNE, NXNEi, Vanish, Wired, Wired Vanish4 Comments

Last year, Evan Ratliff went on the lam as an experiment for Wired magazine. The goal was to remain untraceable for 30 days, while assuming a new persona and maintaining an online and digital lifestyle. The reward for uncovering him was $5000 US. We caught up with Evan after his talk at NXNEi 2010.

The Social Network – trailer

July 15, 2010 Doug Groves Aaron Sorkin, David Fincher, facebook, Mark Zuckerberg, The Social Network, trailer1 Comment

We don’t post a lot of movie trailers here, but the first full length trailer for David Fincher’s “The Social Network”, about the rise of Facebook, is certainly worth it, just from a craftsmanship point of view. The choice of a choral version of “Creep” by Radiohead is brilliant. It also helps that the script (from the novel by Ben Mezrich) is written by the master of behind-the-scenes walking – talking character dramas, Aaron Sorkin.

Alan Moore Interview at The Quietus

July 15, 2010 Doug Groves Alan Moore, Lex Records, Magic, Quietus, Stool Pigeon, Unearthing, V for Vendetta, watchmen1 Comment

Alan Moore certainly doesn’t need an introduction to readers of RGB Filter. The prolific and literary comics writer who altered the superhero landscape with Watchmen almost 25 years ago, and continues to push the boundaries to this day. The Quietus has put online an interview with Alan Moore that originally ran in their sister publication The Stool Pigeon. The interview is a great read, that goes wide afield from the typical comic interview, and I highly recommend it. Everybody is becoming [a superhero]. In the past I’ve tried to say,…

Miguel Sternberg Interview

July 14, 2010 Doug Groves Crank, Guerrilla Gardening, Hand Eye Society, HandEye, interview, Miguel Sternberg, Pixel Art, Scott Pilgrim, Spooky Squid, TOJam9 Comments

Miguel of Spooky Squid Games came by the studio to give us a taste of Guerrilla Gardening: Seeds of Revolution, which looks fantastic (see the dev blog here). He also sat down with Alex in what was originally going to be a short interview, but turned out to be quite the discussion about his own work, indie game development and in particular, some great insights to the Toronto indie game scene.

There’s a TV for that – Samsung’s Connected TV message

July 12, 2010July 14, 2010 Doug Groves Connected TV, LinkStick, Samsung, Samsung Apps1 Comment

First shown off at CES back in January, it appears that Samsung is ready to make a huge push in the TV market with their web applications on newer model TV sets and Blu Ray players, under the name ‘Samsung Apps‘, not to be confused with the mobile phone Samsung Apps. To sell the point to consumers, they’re making a play on Apple’s “There’s an app for that” iPhone advertising, which, while not the most original approach, will probably resonate with consumers used to the ubiquitous phrase. This is…

App Inventor aims to democratize Android application development

July 12, 2010 Doug Groves Android, Android Market, App Inventor, google5 Comments

Google has just announced the beta of App Inventor, a new tool that makes development for Android easier than ever before. Instead of using a programming language, the App Inventor tool makes use of blocks of code that the user can manipulate and customize, and is based on MIT’s Open Blocks project. Although the interface looks very straight forward, Google mentions that amongst the predefined blocks are tools to access the various sensors found in Android phones, from GPS to accelerometer, and that this includes communication tools. The App Inventor…

Motorola BACKFLIP on Telus & QUENCH on Rogers

July 11, 2010July 12, 2010 Doug Groves Android, Android 2.1, Backflip, Bell, Dext, google, Motoblur, Motorola, Quench, Rogers, smartphone, Telus2 Comments

Unlike a good scotch, phone operating systems don’t age well, so writing a review for smartphones running Android 1.5 is a tough sell. This problem is exasperated when said phones are from the same manufacturer, have the same internals, same UI and same overall performance. That’s exactly the predicament in trying to discuss the Android based Backflip on Telus and Quench on Rogers. You see, I reviewed the Dext from Bell last month, and from a performance standpoint, they’re the same. The only real difference to an end user is…

Flying saucer on Roswell ranch captures international imagination

July 8, 2010 Doug Groves Aliens, cover up, i want to believe, pop culture, Project Mogul, Roswell, weather balloon6 Comments

It was 63 years ago today, on July 8th 1947, that the Roswell Daily Record ran the headline “RAAF Captures Flying Saucer On Ranch in Roswell Region”, which launched the most well-known UFO ‘cover up’ in modern history. Subsequently, the crash was attributed to that of a Project Mogul balloon loaded with crash test dummies and designed to detect Soviet atomic test blasts. Of course, one has to wonder why there would be crash test dummies on what’s supposed to be a high altitude, unmanned balloon, but outside of that…

Indie Fund wants to help bring your game to market

July 8, 2010 Doug Groves Braid, funding, Indie Fund, indie games, Johanthan Blow, thatgamecompany, World Of Goo1 Comment

The Indie Fund has been established by seven notable indie game developers, including (but not limited to) Braid creator Johnathan Blow, Ron Carmel and Kyle Gabler of World Of Goo fame as well as thatgamecompany co-founder Kellee Santiago. Their goal is to help the funding of independent game development by support projects financially. If you have a game at the prototype stage, and a video to go along with it, you can apply for funding right now. They’re certainly not looking to fund multi-million dollar Halo or Grand Theft Auto…

RED squashes major bug, EPIC and Scarlet back on track

July 6, 2010 Doug Groves digital cinema, EPIC, Jim Jannard, Red, reduser, Scarlet1 Comment

After a major delay to a major bug in their new designs, RED is back on track with the EPIC and Scarlet cameras. Originally estimated to come out in 2009, the delays on the new digital cinema cameras were hitting ValveTime levels of unpredictability. RED founder Jim Jannard had this to say in a post last night… …we have located the wicked, mean and nasty bug and our engineering team has put a bullet in the back of it’s head. That pesky bug has put us behind in our schedule…