PlayStation 4, Facebook, Privacy Concerns, new Player Profile

Screen shot of the future Play Station Player's Profile showing the player's actual name. SONY 2013

It's been now 3 months since we got that first taste of Play Station 4 and since Microsoft announced the controversial XBOX One. For once, Play Station learned from it mistakes gearing a presentation to warm up the gamer's interests.
Play Station 3 under the slogan "it just does it all" was introduced to us as an entertainment machine that plays games. The presentation of Play Station 4 minus the console was geared to attract us toward the console. It will come with one controller, one headset, Playstation Move dual camera and Mic. All that sound sweet, but there's a new way of playing that worries us those who grew playing the NES, the old school gamers, and specially those parents of the PS3, XBOX 360 and WII generation and is matter of safety and privacy.

PRIVACY CONCERNS

For Once, playstation was the first to unveil a player's profile linked to Facebook together with full name and  picture. Let's see a real life event. Marty004872 has connected his PS4 account to Marty Stewart. He jumps into a Call of Duty Ghosts lobby and get into a shouting match with some guy. This some guy quit the game and jump to the computer and make a search on Marty Stewart a 17yo man. Unfortunately Marty has his father in Facebook. The angry gamer now googles George Stewart and returns an address for the subject. Marty is unaware he has a target on his head.
The event above doesn't represent a real family but may be a real event in the future. Guys like Marty and myself have created fancy names to hide our real self. Connecting our real names to our gamer tags is not the way to go. Let's add more to this issue. I posted a video on Youtube then onto my facebook a MW3 sniping massacre 10 Kills no death. While on YouTUBE I received views and likes, on Facebook it was ignored. NOT EVERYBODY IN FACEBOOK CARES WHAT I DO IN GAMING.
So what should Play Station do? Let's no deny that the new player profile looks futuristic and they should keep it. However, there has to be a little tweek done to the player's profile. When the player decide to connect Facebook, first the player should create a page for the gamer tag. In this case Marty004872 should create a Facebook page under the same name. PS4 should make a tweak to the software, add a drop box where would ask "Connect as:" now Mr Stewart can pick to connect the page to PS4 and still maintain his privacy. Would be nice if Sony worked with Facebook about socializing. Let's say Marty004872 add Xcalibur007828 to his Playstation friends, the next time Marty logs in to the facebook page for Marty00472, Xcalibur007828 should appear as suggested pages to follow. Just like the pages we follow. When Marty Stewart is connected as Marty Stewart this page is not suggested but is suggested when he's Marty00472. I think is a great way to keep gamers connected, busy looking at friends' achievements and postings. OF COURSE that the current feature of showing the Facebook friends who play certain games and are on Facebook should port toward PS4. Currently if you play Black Ops 2 or Modern Warfare 3 you can see who in facebook plays the game. It would only show you the person's gamer tag.

If you agree with the views expressed in this article don't hesitate to tweet it to @sony or @playstation as well as send the link to playstation facebook and youtube page. It will be greatly appreciated

Let me know your opinion on this matter and other future gaming matters.

How clear do we see our internet needs? (Clear internet review)

Clear wireless connection speed in Brooklyn NY

In this world of high traffic of information is good to know that there are many choices out there. However, we have to be very careful with what we get into.

This month I went through the unfortunate event of losing my internet connection entirely. I was looking for other options and this company definitely called my attention. Their modem is super small which allow me to hold it in one hand and nobody even notice that I'm carrying an internet modem with me. Something else that called my attention was the fact that it was $49.99. Ok I understand, it's somewhat regular to expensive price for internet in the USA. In the case of Clear Wireless it was expensive. At this stage of Technology DSL the fastest internet introduced after the death of 56KB/s Dial up is currently 14.99/mo to 30.00 a month. It's still pretty decent speed compared to some services. So what can you expect of $49.99? the best internet possible.

IMW-C910W Clear hotspot limited edition

I like to always look at all sides of stuff and so let's take a look at the good and the bad of having Clear Wireless internet services.
PROS

• The modem is super small it fits perfectly on pockets, bag or similar packaging
• Ease of acquisition. I got mine out of the supermarket down the street, it available almost everywhere you can pretty much shop it with your bread. Watch out, don't eat it with your bread.
• Ease to sign up I didn't even show an ID 
• No contract so I can quit any time which I actually did
• Take it on the road. Since it uses 4G signal, this device can be taken on the road, let's say you have low data plan on your cellphone and you still need a GPS system which you don't have on your car but your cellphone do, this is a great tool to take on the road
• Flat rate just like any regular internet
• Good for web browsing

CONS
I felt cheated I was promised I could game online games like call of duty for example. I was promised somewhere I read about 7MB/s download speed. I barely made it past 2MB/s and that was in New York City. The picture above showing the speed was taken when I was using nothing but my computer. I was told I could plug up to 8 devices on this internet, I plugged my computer and some sites were loading at some decent speed, I decided to watch Netflix at the same time on my playstation. I saw the system reloading the movie for better quality. I ended up watching the movie in Standard definition despite being HD, then I decided to give my cellphone data plan a break by switching to WiFi mode. At this point I am amazed to see how slow google is actually loading. If you want to test how slow your connection is, just try to load google.com the simplest website in the world which is pretty much a blank screen with couple of buttons. By the time my girlfriend plugged in her Nook tablet, I lost connection or couldn't connect to the server in many cases.
I called customer support and the service was extremely horrible, I ended up super upset and hanging up the phone on the guy's face literally.
After so much bad service, I couldn't believe that 15 days after officially started my internet plan I got a survey which I filled up with honest answers including I'm not recommending this service to my friends and family. I went as far as to say that this technology would be loved in 2001 making Clear the best internet provider in the planet but not in 2013.
Horrible for video streaming: I pretty much stopped all activities on youtube including uploading videos. It took me 1 hour and a half to upload a 5 minutes video to youtube.
When I was done with them I couldn't find a cancel button, I had to call them again. This time thankfully some very sweet young lady answered the phone. Instead of me saying I'm done, I'm out, maybe 5 minutes and that's it. I went 15 minutes into this conversation I felt I was smoothly being pushed into keeping the service despite having a faster internet at home. I basically told her my new service provider, my speeds and OH yeah since she got me a little pissed with that, I compared my new speed with the old speed.

Optimun Online my new-old provider. Notice the speed jump

Remember I told you I took the speed check with the hotspot from Clear and my computer only? Well this one is more unfair I had 2 cellphones, my PS3 and the computer plugged to the wireless and a smart TV to the wired connection. I am not the sole user of this I don't know who else was connected. I am not promoting Optimum online, you can get very similar speeds with Time Warner Cable (in New York, check with your provider to see what they can offer) However this isn't even the fastest yes I have internet faster than 62% of USA but there's a group that is faster that's Verizon Fios customers, also even faster as fast as 1GB/s is Google Fiber (available only in Kansas as of now) Google Fiber cost about $70/mo and 120/mo with TV. I have a cheaper, when unbundled is about U$54.99/mo. Ok I was paying $49.99/mo, Wasn't I supposed to get at least 9MB/s down per 1.00MB/s up and justify the missing speed on the fact that I can take this internet to the road?
Another lesson I learned during internet downtime which was actually caused for a faulty wireless router is that  wireless routers get old, they are not intended to be used by our children and grandchildren (supposing you are 16-30 with not kids yet) I have the very same service from last month and last month when I ran the speed test I was getting 7MB/s downstream per 0.95MB/s upstream. The router in use was a 10 years old WRT54GL from Linksys and I didn't know the wireless modems had a top speed which was reached. I'm now using a Netgear N600 which actually has a top wireless speed of 300MB/s so don't cheat yourself away of speed you are paying for, make sure you know what's your router's speed, specially when is at least 5 years old.

In conclusion, Clear has a lot to improve on if they mean to compete and or be relevant in this advanced world. Youtube, and many others video sites are very popular for any person with access to the internet and if they can't get what they want, there would be more blogs about this popping up every single minute. Be very careful what you pick, invest your money wisely.

Modern Warfare 3 Broken again?

It's being one more year, one more Call Of Duty have been released. Black Ops 2 is out to a great month, yet Modern Warfare 3 find ways to still surprise. During one of my gameplays the system went crazy giving me 15999XP per kill on Kill Confirmed instead of the usual 50XP. As you can appreciate in the video below, there's nothing special about the gameplay in fact I was checking at the scoreboard too much which caused me to be standing like an idiot in the middle of a fight yet a regular kill was worth 15999XP. That happened this November 19th. The video is not high quality it was recorded with a Galaxy S 3 cellphone rather than a game capture device but you can definitely appreciate how broken MW3 is about to get. After the game I contacted Infinity Ward via twitter. This is the beauty of our times you can even contact the president directly if you like. I explained the issue and I didn't have the problem after that. My stats were reset as they were before playing that game, the loss was taken off my records and I was put back to Prestige 12 level 40. Oh, I went way back in time and played Black Ops and it seemed like it was the game that was released this year. It ran smoothly and no glitch. Two years ago when Black Ops was released, MW2 was unplayable. I entered a game at level 27 no prestige. Found a lobby full of invincible people, people walking on imaginary ladders, flying around, no custom class just switch gun and is all the guns of the game, camping outside the map's walls. Played that game and when I was done with a ridiculous 5-17 I got promoted to the last prestige and last level. Never again played modern warfare 2. This year, MW3 seem to start giving problems.

Many of you reading don't care because U$60.00 is like change to your pockets, but correct me if I'm wrong. The game is rated M-17 meaning only people over 17 should play it, yet 14-16yo are predominant as well as those between 17-40. Let's focus on those 14-16yo kids. They go to school all year then work all summer long to get their Play Station, or Xbox or which ever console they prefer. Young people tend to go overboard. So instead of $60.00 they pay $120 for the Elite version. that's a lot of money specially when you worked your summer with a boss you possibly didn't like that much then end up disappointed because your game don't work a year later. Come on Infinity Ward. It gets worse for others. Most Modern Warfare 3 lobbies are full of holiday shoppers again around ages 14-19 they got their MW3, possibly Black Ops during Christmas and are anxious to get Black Ops 2 this Christmas. The only game they have now is MW3 and they get this crappy issue. It's it fair? Leave me your opinion below and visit my new YouTube Channel coming HD pretty soon. Thanks for your time.