Wednesday, March 5, 2014

Halo: Taking Over the World

[One cell phone and Atari console at a time ...]

In this week's [or maybe just today's?] edition of "news Stephanie notices now only because she's married to a geek", I saw an article from TechCrunch about Microsoft's answer to Siri.

I know we all want some sort of personal assistant who knows what we need, when we need it, and can get it for us. Heck, if I had someone who could bring me coffee and do my paperwork and clean my house while I just played with Little Guy all day, that would be fantastic. And I know how hard it is to find a good assistant - I've actually worked as an admin assistant on several occasions, once for an executive director. [Do you know how hard it is to stay one step ahead of a boss who we all joked had more energy than the Energizer Bunny?!]

For some of us unfortunate souls, the closest we get to having a personal assistant is being good friends with apps like Remember the Milk, Evernote and Google Calender. [God bless those developers!]

Apparently, there are some people want a pseudo-friend who will organize their lives and talk to them, too, even if it's their OS wearing those shoes [wasn't there a movie nominated for an Oscar this year about that?].

Video gamers, say goodbye to Siri. Your new best friend [as long as you like Windows Mobile] is now Cortona.

Oh wait, she already was, wasn't she? For all those years you played Halo? [Or still play Halo?] 

Yeah, she's that creepy AI that helps you with the crazy amount of information you have to store whilst you're beating the bad guys.

Um, methinks I already have enough video games in my life without having my phone talk to me like a character from a giant gaming franchise that I'm pretty sure Mr. Dude could play through while blindfolded.

Thanks anyways, Microsoft. I'm sure it's the thought that counts.

In last week's edition of "news the family only pays attention to because they have a geek for a son", Mr. Dude's dad dropped off a photocopied article from the Smithsonian magazine. [Yes, he can be old-school like that. Photocopiers do still exist, people!]


The Scrabble rule in Mr. Dude's family is that if you can use it in a sentence, it's a legit word.

So now, thanks to someone who wanted to "demake" Halo by cramming it all into just 4KB of memory on an Atari 2600, I have a new word to use and hopefully score triple word points on. If only I could get Mr. Dude to play a game of Scrabble without taking 10 minutes for each turn ...

There. Now don't you feel so much more informed about the important events of the day?

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