Guitar Hero's Rock Band Future

Let's face it. Guitar Hero is really just Dance Dance Revolution for air guitarists and couch potatoes. Don't get me wrong: I'm not knocking it. It's a lot of fun; but that's what it is. It's just learning patterns and repeating them back. Rock Band is a significant expansion on the Guitar Hero concept; but it's still basically the same idea: Repeat patterns to win points. Easy to learn, somewhat difficult to master; but wholly uncreative. While it may feel edifying to some, I have to wonder: Ok, what's next? We have these instruments, with triggers and note selection keys. And our game platforms are fully broadband and media enabled...

What if you used the highly-engaging Rock Band guitar, drums and mic controllers, and even the song content; but added the ability for players to make up new "riffs" to customize the songs, or even write their own songs using riffs, hits, loops and phrases from other songs?

Now take it a step further: What if the broadband-enabled game decks were linked-and-synced over the 'Net so that ad hoc bands could have "jam sessions" using their own sets of riffs, samples, loops, etc? The game decks could fill in varying degrees of musicianship - including quantizing rhythms as needed. By turning up the skill dial, these "rock bands" could do more and more of the musicianship themselves, including drum fills, real vocals and guitar solos (!!). Uh oh. It's not sounding so good? Dial down the skill level a bit, and the game smooths out the rough edges, and adds in more rhythmic and melodic assistance. So, for example, guitar soloing could range from triggering samples of riffs to actually using the fret buttons and strum sensor to create various types of real solos in a particular style and key (which can be transformed and transposed automatically to suit the current style of music being played, of course).

Wondering about latency? The game decks are generating/playing back the loops, samples, etc. All that's being transmitted/received are the trigger events, and possibly vocal audio streams. Online PC games have been sync'ing hundreds rapid-fire trigger events per second for the better part of a decade now. Latency won't be a problem.

Once people own the controllers, and the game decks, and the broadband, it's but a small step to add features to future Rock Band/Guitar Hero game titles enabling kids and adults alike to participate in the thrill of creating their own music, and forming ad hoc "bands" with anyone on the planet, at any time. Why this hasn't already been done is what I'm wondering.

First Take: gOS Linux v1

After seeing some nice-looking screenshots from the spanking new gOS variant of Ubuntu Linux, I just had to give it a try. gOS is preloaded on a new line of "green" PC's from Everex, which are sold by Walmart for $199. This "green" machine boasts a ridiculously low current draw of 10 watts - about 1/10th what competing Intel- and AMD-based desktops draw. Green indeed; but what about this new operating system? What's all the fuss about?
gOS is a stripped-down version of Ubuntu "Gutsy Gibbon" wrapped in a beautifully designed lightweight window manager. The interface prominently features huge, highly-visible icons arranged along the lower edge of the desktop.
gOS is a mashup of the iPhone, OS X, Windows XP and Magic Cap (remember that one?) Rather than make the user figure out where the programs are, these huge, friendly colorful icons take you directly where you want to go, whether it's to a website such as Facebook, or to play some music with Rhythm Box. This is the first non-embedded operating system I've seen that overtly pushes direct links to web applications as the main toolset (vs desktop apps). This makes a great deal of sense for many users. I believe gOS is pointing the way forward for the next generation of web-centric operating systems (formerly known as "thin clients.) The desktop PC isn't dead yet; but it's on life support.
Clicking on one of the cheerful web application icons fires up Firefox and takes you to your destination very quickly. Since gOS is actually Ubuntu under the hood, I had the now-familiar problems with wireless network drivers. My trusty Dell E1505 has the Broadcom wireless chipset, which requires considerable effort and cleverness to get working with Ubuntu. Grrr.
OS X Leopard users will feel at home with gOS. The launch icons arranged at the bottom of the desktop are very similar to the Dock in OS X. The window title bar icons are nearly identical to OS X (three small round window control icons in left side of title bar).
However, clicking the friendly-looking green leaf icon in the lower left corner pops up a "Start" menu just like Windows. Double-clicking the title bar of a window toggles a window shade roll-up - a familiar and welcome function for getting windows out of the way quickly. Minimizing to the lower tray area is fine; but no window titles are included, making it confusing which Firefox icon is connected to which web page. There's no slick mouse-hover thumbnailing like Vista or Ubuntu's Beryl. This is a lightweight window manager, favoring speed over "everything and the kitchen sink" slickness.
Barry's Bottom Line: Could my Mom use gOS happily? Yes, if I set it up for her and got the drivers figured out in advance. The simplicity of the icon-driven web-centric features would be very attractive to many computer users, though it's not really ideal for power users: I had several problems getting common Ubuntu packages to run correctly (although many did run just fine).
I'm giving gOS a thumbs up. Its iPhone-like slickness makes me want to buy one of the Everex "green" PC's to see how the whole package stacks up (with the drivers and codecs installed).

gOS is what the future looks like.