Debbie Timmins
Here are all the Zath articles written by Debbie Timmins...
uDraw Tablet Controller For Nintendo Wii Preview
March 26, 2011
Zath spent an evening at the Imagination Gallery in London last week, courtesy of THQ. The occasion? The launch of their new Wii peripheral; the uDraw Tablet.
As you might expect, the uDraw is a drawing tablet for the Nintendo Wii, aimed squarely at children. At 9″x7″x1.5″ (approx 23x18x4cm) it’s big to draw on comfortably in your lap while still being portable. It’s also wireless, hooked up to the Wii by plugging in a standard Wii Remote.
The docking space for the remote fits snugly, with enough space around to keep those connecting cables nicely tucked away. The tablet itself is powered by the Wii Remote’s batteries so there’s no need to worry on that account.
Continue reading »BAFTA Video Games Awards 2011 – GAME Award Nominations For The Public Vote!
February 16, 2011
Since the 2011 Film British Academy of Film and Television Arts Awards aired over the weekend (our heartfelt congrats to The King’s Speech), it now seems like the perfect time to discuss the Video Gaming BAFTA Awards, which will be held on 16th March 2011 – amazing to think that it’s already nearly a year since the BAFTA Video Games Awards 2010.
The nominees for the GAME Award 2010 were announced last week. 10 games are shortlisted by a BAFTA panel and the winner is chosen by public vote. It’s worth remembering that the BAFTAs also aim to reward innovation and excellence, not just entertainment value. Here are our thoughts on this year’s shortlist:
Continue reading »Lomography Sprocket Rocket Film Camera Launched (Analogue Panoramic Photos)
November 6, 2010
Lover of lomography? Pleasured by panoramas? You’ll be ecstatic over the new Lomography Sprocket Rocket.
London’s Lomography Gallery played host to the launch of the Sprocket Rocket this week; a new lomographic camera that offers panoramic shots. This lovely piece of kit comes with the option to include sprockets, should that be your wish. For the uninitiated, here’s a quick introduction to the lomography movement.
Continue reading »Your Shape: Fitness Evolved Preview – Exercise Better With Xbox 360 Kinect Than Wii Fit?
October 15, 2010
The line-up for the Xbox 360 Kinect‘s November 10th launch just keeps expanding. I was invited to London’s Soho Hotel this week to try out Ubisoft’s new lifestyle Kinect game, Your Shape: Fitness Evolved.
First impression: The Kinect camera clearly has some sort of terrible convex mirror effect.
Nope. The camera is fine, more’s the pity. On with the game!
Fitness Evolved has a number of modes as follows:
Continue reading »Knomo Vichy Laptop Bag Review
October 12, 2010
Ladies, have you been looking for a stylish bag that looks good AND keeps your laptop safe? I discovered Knomo recently, a London-based copany that creates beautiful high-quality handbag and shoulder bags specially designed for gadgets. I bought myself a classic leather Vichy laptop bag and it’s every bit as fabulous as I’d hoped.
The Vichy is a lovely leather brief bag with no less than thirteen(!) separate pockets to organise your things. It fits a 13-inch laptop, such as a MacBook Pro with charger cable and loads of room to spare for your personal organiser, pen, phone, lipstick, eyeliner, spare tights and all those other essentials for the savvy businesswoman on the move.
Continue reading »Jane McGonigal, Games Researcher Speaking At ‘The School Of Life’ On 24th October
October 6, 2010
The outstanding creator of Halo 2 promo game ilovebees and games researcher Jane McGonigal is coming to London in October to talk at The School of Life about productivity. Here at Zath we’re always interested in making things better so we’ll be checking it out. In the meantime, we thought we’d have a look at her TED talk from earlier this year.
McGonigal has some really interesting ideas on how to harness gameplay for the greater good. Did you know that by February 2010 the human race had spent 5.93 million years playing World of Warcraft? Or that by the age of 21 the average person growing up in a country with a strong gaming culture has amassed 10,000 hours of online gaming experience? That’s the equivalent to 8 years of formal schooling. McGonigal proposes that we use the gaming staples of positive feedback and something she calls “blissful productivity” to harness that time and put it to good use.
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