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: Reach release date announced

May 25, 2010May 25, 2010 Doug Groves beta, Bungie, Halo, Halo: Reach, release date, Xbox, Xbox 3600 comment

Now that the beta for Halo: Reach has run its course, Bungie has announced that the full game will be coming out September 14, 2010. I wouldn’t be surprised if Bungie collected a LOT of debugging information during the beta, either. In less than 3 weeks, the beta run saw over 2.7 million users log 16 million hours and 1.1 billion kills. That’s over a kill a minute, if you’re curious. “It’s exceeded our expectations,” said Bungie Studios community director Brian Jarrard. “Our only real perspective going into this was…

Server changeover

May 25, 2010May 25, 2010 Doug Groves 3 Comments

Still working out the kinks, but it’s made the transition

TCAF 2010 – Jim Munroe Interview

May 22, 2010June 2, 2010 Doug Groves interview, Jim Munroe, Show, Sword Of My Mouth, TCAF, TCAF 20101 Comment

Alex interviews Jim Munroe, writer of Sword Of My Mouth, the follow-up to Therefore Repent, a graphic novel about those left behind after the Rapture. You can also read the first 22 pages of Sword online for free here.

Fable III adds Windows to its world

May 21, 2010May 21, 2010 Doug Groves DLC, Fable III, Lionhead Studios, PC gaming, Peter Molyneux, Xbox 360, Xbox Live0 comment

It seems there’s a lot of news coming out of Peter Molyneux and Lionhead Studios regarding Fable III recently. The latest is that Fable III will be available not only on the Xbox 360, but the PC as well. On the 360 there will be both a standard and the limited edition for the hardcore fans of the franchise. On the PC, it will be available both at retail and as a download via the awkwardly named Games on Demand on Games for Windows – LIVE. I’m not knocking the…

SITE NEWS: Maintenance

May 20, 2010May 20, 2010 Doug Groves 3 Comments

We’re in the process of backing up, and moving the site to more robust server solution to accomodate the increased traffic flow. There may be sporadic outages, and occasional weirdness. Hang on, things should be back to full speed, and then some, over the next 24 hours.

Like Those Shiny iDevices? You May Not Like How They’re Made…

May 20, 2010 Doug Groves Apple, Foxconn, Gizmodo, iPad, iPhone, IT Nerd4 Comments

Apple’s least favorite bloggers Gizmodo.com have re-posted a story from the Southern Weekly newspaper who sent undercover reporter Liu Zhi Yi into Foxconn Inc who makes Apple iPods, iPhones, and the like for Apple. The factory has had a rash of suicides in the last little while and the company has hired everything from counselors to Buddhist monks to try and deal this this. Here’s what the reporter found: During his 28 days of investigation, Liu Zhi Yi was shocked to discover how the factory workers live in a sort…

TCAF 2010 – Mathew Kumar Interview

May 19, 2010June 2, 2010 Doug Groves interview, Mathew Kumar, Show, TCAF, TCAF 2010, video, video games1 Comment

In the first of what will be a series of interview and panel videos from TCAF, Alex interviews Mathew Kumar, publisher of exp. magazine at this year’s Toronto Comic Arts Festival.

Google launches open source, royalty free WebM video

May 19, 2010 Doug Groves Flash, google, Google I/O, Matroska, Ogg, On2, VP8, WebM0 comment

Although Google’s plans to release an open-source video codec was widely discussed in the tech community for some time, the big G has made it official. Google’s acquisition of On2 and their video codec has become WebM. According to the announcement during Google I/O conference, WebM is a container based on the popular Matroska, with VP8 video and Ogg audio streams packaged inside. What makes WebM compelling is that Google has decided to make it both open source and royalty free, which could set it up to be the HTML5…

Alan Wake review

May 18, 2010May 19, 2010 Doug Groves Alan Wake, Bright Falls, DLC, Remedy Entertainmet, review, The Signal, Xbox 3601 Comment

Alan Wake, the new thriller game from Remedy exclusively on the Xbox 360, has been a long time in the making. In fact, the last game Remedy put out was the classic 3rd person shooter Max Payne 2, a good seven years ago. This time around, the focus is less on all out action and more on giving the viewer (erm – the player) the creeps. Does it pay off?

The People vs. George Lucas Interview

May 16, 2010May 16, 2010 Doug Groves Alexandre O. Phillipe, Documentary, George Lucas, Hot Docs, interview, Robert Muratore, Show, Star Wars, The People vs. George Lucas4 Comments

Alexandre O. Philippe and Robert Muratore, makers of the documentary “The People vs. George Lucas“, came by the studio while in town for the recent Hot Docs screenings. What was originally going to be a short interview turned into a wide ranging discussion on Star Wars fandom, the process of making the film and a whole lot more. You can also check out our review here.

Mobilicity officially announces their plans, and they’re pretty good

May 15, 2010May 15, 2010 Doug Groves Blackberry Bold 9700, HTC, Mobilicity, unlimited plan1 Comment

Mobilicity is the latest of the new mobile carriers to officially announce their plans in the Canadian marketplace. As we mentioned before, Mobilicity (should be launching in June has offiically opened it’s doors). Yesterday they launched their site, phone line up and plans, which include an all-you-can eat option for $65/month. Like Wind Mobile, who was first out of the gate after the spectrum auction, Mobilicity advertises the fact that there are no contacts, no hidden fees and no subsidized phones. The only thing extra on your bill is taxes….

Google accidentally collected WiFi data

May 14, 2010May 15, 2010 Doug Groves google, privacy, Street View0 comment

In their recent blog update, Google admitted that they inadvertently gathered data from unencrypted WiFi networks, using the Street View cars as the collectors. This comes about a month after Germany’s data protection agency (DPA) in Hamburg started looking more closely at what the Street View vehicles were doing, after it was discovered that the cars were logging access points. Google initially reported that they were merely collecting the locations of access points as they snapped photos and mapped building, but as it turns out, they were actually collecting payload…