On Tuesday morning we saw the release of the latest installment of Bungie Lab’s future-war simulation, Halo 3 - Believe. Early sales reports for the title suggest opening day takings of around US$140M which is akin or in most cases eclipses the equivalent Hollywood blockbuster. Check out the website devoted to the game (especially the unique and resplendent model demonstration) and you’ll see it looks strikingly like a blockbuster film site.

With regard to the computer gaming industry, I think we’re currently witnessing something akin to the introduction of Talkies (Movies with sound) in the 1930s, which brought about massive changes to the entertainment industry. At the time the ‘new’ technology of talking pictures resulted in a changing in the guard for leading actors (who were still merely the salaried property of the studios they worked for, and in many cases foreign language actors who simply couldn’t work any longer once dialogue was introduced) as well as a general shift in the popularity of the medium which had until that point been a poor-man’s-theatre.

As the technology progressed, the interest (and thus the revenues) were provided not by those infatuated with the tech itself, but rather the artistry that was offered. In other words, by the time we were done with Buster Keaton and Shirley Temple, we were whetting our inner-thespian appetites with Brando and Hoffman. Similarly, as the technology behind today’s games progresses, the genre of the story and the spine-tingling plot points are moving units. In Halo 3, each of the bad guys you face has an artificial intelligence including some 10,000 rules that they abide by, creating some of the most eerily realistic game-play to date (not to mention the formidable online component of the game which pits you against other humans).

Now while the introduction of talkies did indeed kill the silent movie, and despite Halo’s takings making Spiderman 3 look like a failed Sundance Indie flick about a nun fostering a goat, It would be silly to suggest the death of TV or Film was nigh. Rather I think what we’re witnessing is the embryonic stages of an entirely new media platform (I say this being fully aware that the gaming industry is some 30 years old), one that represents the convergence of internet and TV, gaming and internet, and Australians and their living rooms. It’s just that now our theaters just happen to be the Xbox 360s, Playstation 3s and Nintendo Wii’s of this world. Again, I’m not talking about a mainstream shift here, but it must be significant when revenues like US$140M are in the offing.

In the 1930s the end-goal for the studios was to own their own theaters, and draw retail revenues from these while keeping their ‘talent’ costs to a minimum. However twenty years on - as speaking-stars like Clark Gable and Gary Cooper came to popularity and hugely determined box-office takings - the same studios were court-challenged by these actors to be free to work on other studio projects, thus giving birth to ’star power’ and shifting the balance of influence in Hollywood. As a result of this (and a downturn during the second world war) the studios divested themselves of the theaters they owned, and thus introduced licensing fees (and later merchandising).

I wonder, short of an AI character breaking free and demanding equal pay, what kind of challenges the gaming studios of the 2020’s will face.

– Ben Prendergast

I’ve been in a bit of a funk of late, a special project I’ve been working on for almost a year has come to its conclusion, I’ve taken on a new non-caffeine/sugar/alcohol diet (yes I know I’ve previously espoused the virtues of said stimulants) and I’m at a point in my career where paranoia and anxiety usually meet opportunity.

I know it’s not uncommon to feel displaced or “spread-thin” when there are so many changes in ones professional life, I’ve been here before and I’ll be here again! However this week I went back to basics and adopted the business school mantra “what gets measured gets managed” to get a sense for how my life was tracking. And it worked! But how do you account for life? Is there a Personal Profit and Loss? Yes there is, you just need to measure the oblique.

Measure your Success
- When was your last career-defining moment?
- When was your last personal victory?
- You were just out of high school, how close have you come toward your aspiration?
- Remember that tyrant boss (you know the one), do they cast the same mental duress they once did?

Measure your Career
- What % of your income is derived for a source that makes you smile (in one way or another?)
- How often do you converse with customers (or at least someone on the front line) and resolve real issues?
- How often do you sit and work through your current personal/business promotion (advertising, resumes, bios, folios), and account for its success?
- Are you now in a position you lusted-over five years ago?

Measure your Efficiency
- Do 20% of your customers take 80% of your unpaid “support” effort?
- What % of your weekly to-do list is checked at the end of the week?
- Do you spend more than an hour a day in idle break-time?
- Are you working more than 80 hours a week, when 60 will do?

Measure your Mind/Body balance
- What % of your time is spent on physical vs mental exertion?
- Is your waistline over the diabetes-risk limit?
- What % of your lunch/dinners are with friends vs customers vs staff?
- What % of your time is spent on your “other passion” (you have one, yes?)

Measure your Perceptions
- What % of your dealings with customers are praise/criticism?
- When were you last talked about?
- Do you overstate your import with customers/staff/colleagues?
- Are you a David Brent or a Tim Canterbury?
It doesn’t take a mid-life crisis to galvanize action, all it takes is a little creative criticism to put things in perspective.

– Ben Prendergast

I’d like to make a confession this week that potentially jeapardises my eco-warrior status. I hope you can all forgive me, but you see I’m a seriously mad car nut.Nary a weekend passes where I haven’t tinkered, reengineered, raced, or polished my current weapon of choice (a highly-tuned Subaru STi), much to the chagrin of my wife (and conversely the excitement of my two young boys). I’m sure that this obsession with modifying my car stems from my little-scientist leanings, and while my car was already capable of face-reshaping torque from the factory, I just like to push things to their limits. I’m sure I’m not alone, the club I’m involved with has around 700 Members.

However, I’m also seriously mad for my planet, and herein lies the dilemma. Should I wish to continue to feed by petrol-headed-inner-child (I call him Gavin), I’ll need to either a) reengineer the Earth, or b) find greener motoring alternatives. The latter is the option I’m considering, so whether you’ll be buying a fleet for your staff, impressing your hippy girlfriend, or just want to get ahead of the curve, I present you the Ben Prendergast Approved Face-Mashing Whips for Tomorrows Entrepreneurs ™

1. The Tesla Roaster
http://www.teslamotors.com/
0-100 in 5 Seconds
250km range
180kw & a constant 220nm torque
1 hour charge time on 3-phase
3 hours charge on grid power

Kicking off is the Tesla Roadster, championed by the Governator himself, with sexy curves and a 0-100 time of around 4 seconds, you can cruise hollywood boulevard safe in the knowledge you’re not contributing to LaLa’s smog.

2. The Venturi Fetish
http://www.venturifetish.fr/fetish.html
0-100 in 5 Seconds
250km range
180kw & a constant 220nm torque
1 hour charge time on 3-phase
3 hours charge on grid power

Ahh the French, who create cars as they would a fine Creme Brulee (deliciously sweet innards with a fiery exterior), and who then use names befitting a car that pre-adolescent boys might pin on their wall. Take for example the Venturi Fetish, an all carbon-fiber electirc car with an electric-tuned chassis that places the engine in the back and the heavier batteries in the middle for better weight distribution and presumably handling. And just look at those curves, even the bonnet looks like a map of Tassy, mon amie!

3. Lightning Electric Car
http://www.lightningcarcompany.com/
0-100 in sub 4 seconds
400km range
520kw power
250kph+ Top speed

And where one frenchman treads there’s usually a Brit in tow, most often with a stiff upper c-panel. From the mother-land comes the Lightning Electric car, a 313 kilowatt beast with its design origins somewhere between TVR tuscan and Jaguar XLR. You can certainly see that that the Lightning mimics its petrol-fed predecessors, and rightly so given the car will catapult you to a top speed of 250 K/PH after dispensing with the first 100 in under 4 seconds. Hey, what!? I seem to have misplaced my colon back on the M4 good chap!

4. Audio R10 Lemans Bio Deisel
Audi World
BioDeisel
0-100 in 3 Seconds
300km range
180kw & 220nm torque
Charge time: as quick as your pit crew

You’re not likely to lease a fleet of these for your sales team, but perhaps you the CEO might consider a bum-frying race-track monster to ferry the Mrs in? I’ve included this because just as the technology of Formula One cars trickle down to the humble sedan, the R10 will attempt the next Lemans race on bio-diesel at the end of the month and as a result we might find that the interim class of green cars come to fruition via the bio-deisel path before their electric cousins.

5. The Zap-X
Zap Cars
0-100 in sub 4 seconds
563km range
480kw power
250kph+ Top speed
10-Minute Charge Time

Which brings us to the ZAP-X. Promising “one of the most advanced electric cars ever developed”, the Californian-based ZAP (Zero Air Pollution) has teamed with Lotus Engineering to produce the ZAP-X. With a range the envy of your great aunts Mazda 121 and a 10-minute charge-time the ZAP-X would be the first electric car to mirror the capabilities of the family sedan (e.g. interstate trips).

Should it look anything like the Lotus Exige, I’ll take mine in Black, and work on getting some extra batteries in there somewhere…

– Ben Prendergast

This morning we see another round of releases with the new Nano, Classic, and Touch versions being released.

Heading up the charge is the wonderful iPod Touch in 8gb ($419) and 16gb ($549) variants. The iPod Touch is a widescreen video-audio-web extravaganza, effectively the iPhone without the Phone. In an Apple first however, the product includes full iTunes Store support, so now you can download that latest album anywhere you like. I do wonder however if 16gb is enough for people to shift across from their larger capacity iPods.

Which brings us to the update to the iPod, now called the iPod Classic, now available in a massive 160gb storage capacity and starting at $349AUD. This is my choice for an ultra-portable music device, but more so as a removable backup device for all my files. Now with Coverflow (a really great way to browse your collection by album art) and in black and metallic finishes, its just a little it sexy!

Finally we see the replacement to the popular iPod Nano, which has historically been a strong Holiday season seller, and now features a redesign including a 2″ display for Video, from $199. Now my kids can get their Wiggles on in audio AND video, and I get my plasma back! **Wiggles frantic pointing hand motion**

– Ben Prendergast

The Apple machine continues to satiate the tech-hungry among us, and this week we’re in readiness for another announcement.

A number of rumours abound as to the content of the release, including a new ipod nano, an update to the iphone, wireless access for ipods, Apple announcing its own record label with Jay Z, and even the much anticipated release of the Beatles backcatalogue.

My money is on an iphone-esque ipod (with a 3.5″ screen and somewhere around 120gb of storage), but Apple just love brand by association so don’t be surprised if the Beatles back-catalogue is also announced. This rumour is made especially feasible given the John Lennon catalogue was recently secured, and that the tagline for the Sept 5th announcement is “The beat goes on”. Too clever by half!

While my guitar gently weeps, I wonder what the boffins at Cupertino think of some of the extraneous points of interest around the web, such as the sim-hack for the iPhone to enable any non-AT&T sim to use the phone, or the Google Phone a hotly anticipated iPhone competitor.

No doubt Steve Jobs will point to Apple’s stellar rise in the telecoms market with the iPhone outselling ALL other smartphones in the US for July (which counted for nearly 2% of US mobile handset sales) and present a big ingratiating graph showing what you and I already knew (the iPhone is a hit).

To whit, some of the statistical data is interesting, MacRumours (via Cellular-news) reports: 57% of iPhones bought in July were U.S. consumers 35 years or younger, with a 52/48 Male/Female split, and 1/4 of iPhone purchases switched to AT&T from another provider.

I’d imagine that those telcos in the Australian market looking to sway market share are now looking a little more seriously at the iPhone contract. I would be.

– Ben Prendergast

We just launched the new version of our Project Management Software, Copper 2008.

The origins behind this latest version can be dated back five or six years ago when we first started looking at building a web-based collaboration tool for a (now defunct) design studio. Back then, as now, we wanted a simple tool that did 20% of what the other tools like MS Project did, but did it in a fashion that was inclusive, intuitive, and helpful. That we were a design studio capable of building a nice interface was a handy piece of luck, given our latest interface is perhaps still a key differentiator to other products on the market.At that time I had really keen ideas on what a good collaboration tool would do, but budgetary and time constraints meant that our early versions were always light on with features. Our first license sold in November 2002, for $99. Now, our flagship Enterprise version starts at $2999 and is world-class as evidenced by its amazing customer-base.

Over the years however our ‘customer requests’ list has slowly been eclipsed by our ‘offered features’ list, and we’ve come to build a product that people rely on daily to run their consultancies, just as we do. I’m sure (as our early ’soft launch’ figures would suggest) that some of you will come to discover this tool thinking it was a spring chicken, offered by a fledgling silicone valley company interested only in the opportunity for that next round of funding!

However I’m proud to say we’ve been profitable and self-funded since that very first license sale, and to this day the CEO reviews every single piece of feedback offered. In short, I’m proud of our customer base, and proud of our little team’s effort in bringing this new version to fruition.

For the first time in six years I can truly say that we’re offering a product with unique features not found in any other software tool. For example the latest version offers a ‘business defrag’ a function by which you can review and manage your entire resource pool workload, creating the same kind of incremental efficiencies for your business as Norton did with your hard drive 20 years ago.

Add this to the formidable set of features that gel together beautifully and you’ll forgive me doting on my little six year old as I send it out into the world, they grow up so fast!

For more info or a demo visit http://www.copperproject.com

Here is the launch email with pics etc

– Ben Prendergast