High Definition makes sense, it’s standard television made up to four times clearer and sharper. It was clearly a worthwhile piece of technology, definitely far from being another CES fad. Let’s just think about how important its been for gaming. If you really think about it, its signalled the death – or at the very least, steady incline – of PC gaming, now that consoles can match the fidelity. That’s probably more of a personal opinion than a fact but let’s be honest HD has had it’s part to play in the massive paradigm shift affecting the industry.

HD is great, let’s sing praises from the rooftops and the rest of it. However, the next evolution in home entertainment is something I’m struggling to get to grips with, 3D Television.

With films like Avatar and Up coming out recently, 3D is having a bit of a shocking resurgence. I could moan about how it never really works but let’s be honest it’s simply a gimmick, or at least that’s what its been traditionally perceived as. But these new TVs that are taking the Computer Entertainment Show in Las Vegas by storm, aren’t your traditional red and blue glassed affairs. The big disappointment is that they still require the use of glasses although this a slightly more advanced than multicoloured acetate glued to cardboard.

Instead of your normal 24 frames per second, the output will be doubled to 48. Then half of these frames will be the image from the left perspective and the other half will be from the right. Your glasses – that are synced up through the use of Bluetooth, Infrared or another similar Wireless Technology – will be then block the alternative side. So while the TV is outputting the left frame, the right eye will be blocked and vice versa. Obviously this will be happening 48 times per second so you shouldn’t really notice the flickering and the resulting image will appear to be coming at you, or at least that’s the theory. It’s all incredibly clever but it’s far from perfect.

Can you really picture “seeing pubs investing in the screens and football fans having a laugh, wearing the dark glasses, and enjoying a big match” as Sean Hannam would have you believe. I guess it’s not really that surprising that the last line in that Telegraph piece mentions headaches, I’m surprised they don’t cause epileptic fits.

Gaming in 3D has always been somewhat of a curiosity for me, however, I’ve only dabbled in occasional experiments – most of  them resulting in purple and green cluttered remains of ridiculous Trackmania circuits. Nevertheless, I really want to give this technology ago but as I mentioned in rant about networks the other day – all technology should be invisible, alternately flickering glasses aren’t exactly concealed.

Despite being amazingly clever, it’s far from being the obvious next step for home televisions. I’ll happily predict that the uptake will underwhelm companies as this one will peter out as being the first technology craze of the decade.

I have a weird relationship with Xbox Live. I happily pay every time my subscription runs out but I rarely use it, it’s more for trying out multiplayer modes that have been cobbed together at the last moment. That sounds stupid now that I think about it.

Anywhoo, today I finally caved and bought Modern Warfare 2 knowing that I could justify it by using my Xbox Live account. Buying something to validate something I’ve already bought, it makes sense and is not crazy in the least. I ripped off the shrink wrapping on the case and threw the disc in the drive along with busting out a brand spanking new headset.

I then attempted to use that Xbox Live account I’d neglected for so long only to find My NAT was set to strict. So I couldn’t get into any games and a brief foray into the world of Party Chat was met with disappointment when nobody could hear me.

So rather than spending the first 90 minutes of the game gunning down hapless foes who happen to fall in the middle of the venn diagram of ‘never playing the original’ and ‘being new to games altogether’, I ended up running diagnostic tests on a network. Obviously, I pursued opening the NAT up in an attempt to getting online and apparently the ghetto setup of wireless – Macbook – Xbox over Ethernet isn’t fixable.

I eventually busted out a 20 meter long ethernet cable and ran it through the house straight from the source. Still this isn’t the first time I’ve had problems with networks and I have to wonder why? Getting your device online should be the easiest 5 minutes of your life but the lack of a built in wireless receiver makes it more than troublesome.

I guess (trying to find the point of this rant) is that networks, and all technology, need to work invisibly. The man on the street who just wants to play some games online shouldn’t have to know what IP addresses, subnet masks or PPPoE connections are. Presumably the idea is that ethernet networks are so unreliable and fiddly that people just run out and hand over the £60 to Microsoft for a shiny wireless adapter. I thought about doing that, gladly I didn’t though.

Probably something that’s been posted all over the internet by now, but I think this relates to design quite well. Looks like it could be quite helpful for creative projects and I could see myself using it. Not sure if it will fully replace journals, moleskines or doing projects on paper but it’s probably the closest technology has gotten to replacing them. The one key thing will be how will it feel to write on, if it feels like writing on a screen, which is terrible, it probably won’t come close.

It’s all high concept stuff now but doesn’t seem to far from an iPhone but with two screens.