I'm Delta Taph (Real Name: David Wilkinson), and this is my mini-blog! I'm a 12-year old ProBlogger from Manchester, in England.
23rd December 2006
I've been busying myself getting ready for Christmas! Not long left now. I've also written a few posts for Profy which I'll post about here.
14th December 2006
Today I was on BBC Radio Manchester and the BBC website. That was really cool! I may also be doing a feature on sometime around Christmas. No word on timings or anything yet, but it sounds great! I felt it was easier to do than the Five Live interview last week, despite this one actually being live! It was great when the weather lady off TV came in. Kind of a shock too! But she's very nice, just like on TV. She told me I was 'brilliant'. Not complaining! =D
13th December 2006
I've just been busy gearing up for tomorrow morning's interview. I've got my notes and all written. I've been listening to Eamonn's shows, and he's really quite funny.
Are you a frequent flier? Fancy a change from Heathrow to New York and back again? Well, if you have 2,000,000 frequent fliers tickets from all those boring business trips, why not go to space? If Space isn't your things, you could always go to New York from London for 90,000 tickets. Alan Watts, a 51-year old electrician from Middlesex, England, was contacted by Virgin and asked if he'd like to go to space, and that's just what he's done. When contacted by the team behind the Virgin Galactic SpaceShip2, Mr Watts apparently thought that it was 'a prank phone call'. When interviewed, Mr Watts said 'This will be the most thrilling experience of my life. The closest I've ever been to space was on the Space Mountain ride in Florida'. Mr Watts will be amongst the first people to fly on Virgin's new passenger aircraft which launches in 2009. The $100,000 journey is the equivelant of flying to the US from Heathrow 1st class 40 times.
The world's first fully recyclable roadster has been entered into the LA Auto Show's Design Challenge. The roadster, dubbed 'Recy' is made entirely out of wood, alloys, glass and metal. As good as it looks, I've not been struck down by a thunderbolt from the sky yelling at me 'But this car now!', and in general that's the way most of the press are taking it. It's an impressive idea, yes, but how much would something like this cost? And in the event of a crash, wouldn't the wood just squash you? What are the airbags going to be made out of... Metal!?!? It was a good idea like I said, but I think that Mercedes Benz have lost it here.
For the first time ever, an external USB HD-DVD drive is being made available to the public. It's a power hungry beast though, and requires at least a single core Pentium 4 3.2Ghz processor or an AMD 64 X2 2.2Ghz to run properly with HD-DVD continuous playback. My laptop should do this nicely, but Sony will probably be releasing some 'accident' which means Sony PCs can't play HD-DVDs or something stupid like that. The HP HD100 requires either an HDMI cable or an HDCP compliant DVI-D cable if you want to use it's output on external sources. The HD-DVD Rom drive failed in testing to burn DVDs aswell, which was quite a big dissapointment. The HD100 is due by the end of the year, and goes to show that when HP aren't hiring private detectives to snoop on equally as nosy journalists, or busy taking over leading gaming PC manufactures, then they can produce some decent stuff. No price is available yet, but expect it to be anywhere in the region of £250 ($500) - £600 ($1200). Rather vague, I know, but it's the best guess we've got.
After many reports that buyers of Sony's BWU-100A finding that the software provided doesn't actually work and companies still not quite grasping the fact that people won't buy products that don't work, Sony have now released some software for their BWU-100A Blu-Ray drive that should hopefully allow it to now play Blu-Ray commercial discs, which afterall, is what you bought it for isn't it? That was one long sentence. But at least this new software seems to work, providing you have a compatible HDCP compliant graphics card (something I'm very much against, but the world seems to love). Cyberlink have also released an update for LG's Blu-Ray drives aswell, so now all of you (yes, all 5 of you), will now have fully-functionable drives (hopefully). But people, this is Sony. Take everything with a pinch of salt. HD-DVD seems to be faring better again in the HD war, but you all know I'd say that anyway, because I've been back HD-DVD since the start. But seriously, who needs a gazillion gigabytes of storage on a single disc? The only advantage, would be to slap your whole Lord Of The Rings collection onto it.
Popular amongst many top computer enthusiasts magazines, websites and clans, the internationally famous Stanford University run program, Folding@Home has now got a revmap so it can harness the power of your GPU too! This is extremely good news for both those folders with powerful Radeon X19500XTXs and the University. Hopefully using this technology, the process of folding will be greatly sped up. To give you some example of how fast the increase will be, look at these figures. Intel Core 2 Duo = 25 Gigaflops. ATI Radeon X1900XTX = 375 Gigaflops. And as Vijay Pande rightly says, this is '20 to 40 times more power'. The people over at Stanford University have been very busy recently optimizing the algorithms in the GPU software, which is forecasted to give up to "10 to 15 times" more speed on top of the already amazing GPU performance figures. Currently, only the Radeon X1900 line works, next to have support added will be the X1950 and then the old X1800. No exact date on the release of support for the X1950/1800 but we're hoping it will be some time soon. And again, the world is showing that ATI just is better than Nvidia. You starting to agree with me now?
At Globa-Tech, we're now officialy partners with S.E.O.N.I in exchange for their great advertising campaigns. Hopefully this will bring many new visitors to Globa-Tech, and I hope you'll enjoy your stay. In return for their outstanding services, we'll be displaying the banner you see on the left and linking to S.E.O.N.I as a thankyou.
In other site related news, the guys over at OkWii.com obviously read my site, as they've linked to it here! TheGadgetBlog.com have actually stolen one of our articles entirely! With my permission though, of course. They've also had the courtesy to link back to us at the end. Here's the link to TheGadgetBlog.com's article.
This is great news for the site, but to tell you the truth, I had no idea how many of you were reading it! I knew I was getting a few thousand a week, but this is great! Shame I can't make any money of AdSense though. Nevermind though!
The PP01 is perfect for those of you who want to complete a customized house. Having already seen customized fridges and TVs, the PP01 makes a pleasant change. The PP01 can pick up standard FM Radio and DAB (Digital Radio) and resembles nothing more than a brightly coloured Nintendo DS Lite when closed. The flat, in-built speakers (residing behind the picture) will strike you down with awe. They manage to deliver outstanding quality sound behind a lovely photo finnish. The batteries last easily for 18 hours of continuous playback, and new reports suggest that 20 hours is even possible. Kudos to the team behind this radio from Intempo. You've really done an outstanding job here.
This is just a concept, but Ben-Q seem to be on the right lines here after their Black Box concept was greeted with great enthusiasm in the mobile community. Skashphone, Ubergizmo and many others have already written their own takes on the concept, all with a similar message. 'We love this phone.' And that being about the only thing they can agree on. The black will be a nice touch for the style conscious amongst you and business minded alike. Featuring a touch screen (as pictured), the Black Box clearly has many features. Video playback, contacts list, camera capability, calculator, texting (on a touchscreen? This will be interesting!), phone calls, timer, clock, battery life reader are just a few features that purportedly are bouncing around with the Black Box. If it's ever released, of course more things will be available, so don't worry. That said, research shows that 70% of Brits don't know 50% of the features in their gadgets. That's a rather shameful figure, for a supposedly developing nation. Ben-Q might be facing trouble of their own launching this phone anyway, after Ben-Q Mobile in Germany today announced that they were bankrupt. A great start to a great concept. Stay tuned for more on the upcoming Black Box.
This is a godsend for all of you who hate converting files on to your PSP and find it a right pain. Now, with the Neuros MPEG-4 Video Recorder 2, this is made easy. The £90 ($140) device comes with an open-source piece of software, 'The Core Pocket Media Player' for easy playing your newly converted videos on Windows Mobile/Windows CE/Palm OS devices. The NVR2 really is good. You can enjoy high-quality video (WQVGA - 368x208) on your PC and great quality music videos (QVGA - 320x240) on your beloved iPod. For the PSP, just insert your memory card into one of the provided slots and off you go! No PC required. For the iPod, a little more work is required. Providing that you have a sutable card reader on your PC and iTunes installed, this shouldn't be that tricky. Just drag the files off the card and into iTunes! Ripping movies from DVDs is simple. Hook up the NVR2 to one of the line-out ports on your DVD player, insert a memory card into the NVR2 and use the NVR2's on-screen menu to begin recording. For playback on the PSP, just take out the memory stick and insert it into the PSP, and your all set! I told you it was simple. I'm giving the NVR2 a 9 out of 10. A very good product all round. Available from Amazon or ThinkGeek.
Creative on a stick. Or should I have phrased it, creative is a stick? These brilliantly thought up USB Sticks are great looking and will make your boss laugh, because you promised to 'Bring in that work on a USB stick.' I doubt your boss would have thought you meant it so literally. The USB Sticks from Oooms show innovation at it's best. Measuring 2cm wide, by 2cm thick and standing proudly at 10cm tall, the USB sticks do the job nicely. Coming in sizes of 256MB, 512MB and 1GB, they're not the biggest, but there's no denying that they look great! The sticks ship in a nicely presented white gift box and prices range from €45 for the 256MB model, €60 for the 512MB stick, and €70 for the 1GB gizmo. If you're looking for best value for money, the 1GB is the obvious option, and is just enough to cater for the average persons needs. Check out these nifty logs over at their product page.
I'm a big fan of small, compact gadgets. But isn't this going a bit too far? This new phone, the Xun Chi 138 is without a doubt, the world's smallest phone. Measuring 670mm and wighing less than 55 grams, the 138 can be seen online here. Barely bigger than a battery and smaller than a bluetooth headset, the phone has no room for buttons so instead has a cool touchscreen and stylus. The phone has an impressive (for it's size) 1.3 megapixel camera and MP3 player built-in. It's a great design and the pictures are great! I'm hoping to see this phone in action soon, but reports suggest that this phone might not ever make it out of Asia. Pitty. I know of some guys in jail who could do with some phones. Perhaps they should've waited. Then they wouldn't have had to shove their phones up their butts then, and wouldn't have been publicy humiliated worldwide. If this phone ever does go English though, be guaranteed that we'll be bringing you one of the first reviews out there.
No word on pricing or a released date yet for anywhere in the world. Looks like a great phone. It's be ashame if it never made it.
This amazing piece of kit has come up completely out of the blue. There are some things that you could just never get rid of and this mad little device is one of them. It was a bit of a shock when it arrived this morning, as I had absolutely no idea what the thing was at all. But thanks to the instruction booklet I quickly worked it out. You didn't guess it, so don't pretend you did. It was a Desktop Music Composer. It turned out it was the winner ofthe Oppenheim Toy Award, and after trying it out myself, I can whole heartedly agree with that title. How does this work? Well, it's so simple, a baby could do it. This is often an expression used when things are fairly easy, but when I say this, I mean this. It's rather amazing really. Basically, you pick up these different coloured, different shaped things and then you start messing about with them, plopping them onto the white surface. When they're on the surface, the composer will create one of 1159 different sounds and lighting effects. It might be soothing, cosmic, deep base, keyboard, strings, or percussion. The cuboid can be programmed with up to five seconds of sound. The base unit can attatch to any device that has a mini-jack audio output. This includes iPods and lets you thouroughly mash up your favourite tune. Adjust the tempo, the pitch of a podcast perhaps, or make a piece echo scarily. It's completely up to you. The music is accompanied with some very nice lights which seem to be synced to keep in time. It's a bargain, the Desktop Music Composer, costing only $60 (£30) from Hammacher Schlemmer. See for yourself.
Apple are still filing their patents thick and fast. So are Microsoft, but Apple's are just so much more interesting. Apple has been granted tonnes of patents by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office recently, including one for a 'computing device with dynamic ornamental appearance.' Aka. a colour changing device.
The patent in question, number 7,113,196 is for a 'computing device with dynamic ornamental appearance.' It pertains to electronic devices capable of dynamically changing their ornamental or decorative appearance. In other words, it's like a changable iPod case, except forget sleeves, the device change colour itself! At one point, it was rumored that Apple was working on an iMac (or some sort of Mac) that could actually change colors at the user’s wish. This patent apparently involves such a device, meaning that the possibilty of a colour changing Mac should not be completely ruled out. Of course, this might just be to do with ambient lighting on an LCD screen. Who knows. Here’s an abstract from the highly interesting patent. 'The electronic devices generally include an illuminable housing. The illuminable housing, which includes at least one wall configured for the passage of light, is configured to enclose, cover and protect a light arrangement as well as functional components of the electronic device. The light arrangement, which generally includes one or more light sources, is configured to produce light for transmission through the light passing wall(s) of the illuminable housing. The transmitted light illuminates the wall(s) thus giving the wall a new appearance. That is, the transmitted light effectively alters the ornamental or decorative appearance of the electronic device. In most cases, the light is controlled so as to produce a light effect having specific characteristics or attributes. As such, the electronic device may be configured to provide additional feedback to the user of the electronic device and to give users the ability to personalize or change the look of their electronic device on an on-going basis. That is, a housing of the electronic device is active rather than passive, i.e., the housing has the ability to adapt and change. For example, the light may be used to exhibit a housing behavior that reflects the desires or moods of the user, that reflects inputs or outputs for the electronic device, or that reacts to tasks or events associated with operation of the electronic device.' This patent was first filed ages back on February 13, 2002. Its inventor is Duncan Kerr.
Info Rings. Are they the future? I'll let you decide, so first of all, I'll explain what they are. Info Rings are ordinary rings, except in them, they store data about the wearer. Birthday, hometown, friends, pets, hobbies, blogs, or whatever you want people to know about you. When people shake hands, these Info Rings will exchange data from one to the other, letting you 'friend' know what you want them to know about you. These things are so much better than ID cards and business cards. These rings look good, are smart and are would be alot easier to take around with you than a card. Cards get lost. Rings? Well, the worst that can happen is they'll fall down the plug hole. This is still a concept, but has been greeted with much enthusiasm for those who know about it. I'm all for it. This could most certainly be the future. You tell me what you think.
Is the Vaio C really just a Vaio Colour? Well, no. It's not. Don't think Sony is getting weak in it's laptop line by launching Blush Pink, Spring Green, Seashell White, Expresso Black and Urban Grey themed laptops. The white is beautiful. Trust me, I've seen a concept model. The black is also stunning. It's a deep, real black, not like them greyish looking Xbox 360 Fake Black photos we saw. The grey is nice, kind of silvery really, the green is also nice and compliments the Windows XP Olive Green Theme well. The pink is... Well, pink. Not something I'd want, but my sister tells me that she'd love one, if she could afford it. That said, it's a great value notebook, costing only $1350 (£680). What makes the laptop worth it though, is the fact that in manages to pack quite a hefty punch with it's Intel Core Duo 1.66Ghz Processor. Sporting only a 13.3" screen and not very souped up graphics capabilities, I wasn't impressed with gaming possibilitiies. Come on Sony! You can do better. The laptops supposedly hit the market in October, but with Sony's recent massive recall of batteries, delays are imminent.
WHAT THE HELL!?!?!? This is just wrong. Voodoo has been snapped up by HP for an undisclosed sum of cash. We're guessing it's a hell of a lot. This is almost an exact mirror of what happened when Alienware were bought by Dell. That didn't lead to good things for the game world other than Dell continuing to extend it's XPS gaming line of desktops. Could HP thinking about launching gaming PCs? We hope not. We'd love Voodoo, possibly our favourite custom-built PC manufacturer to keep on going as long as they can. They do quality cases, cutting, stenciling, etching, modding etc. all to a great standard. It would be a shame if they adopted HP's generally lousy tactics. This is a shock to the gaming world that will no doubt take a few days to sink in. I'm very peeved off, I hope we learn to cope with inevitable corporate takeovers for future.
Well... After joining the other 5 manufacturers who've issued recalls, Sony have made a HUGE announcement which affects the machine I'm typing on now. Ars Technica reports. 'Sony has finally bitten the bullet and issued a worldwide recall of all Sony-manufactured lithium-ion batteries used in notebook computers. Earlier in the day, Lenovo/IBM joined the ranks of Dell, Apple, and Toshiba in issuing a recall for all Sony batteries that ship with their notebooks. The Tokyo-based electronics manufacturer says that the recall is to address concerns regarding "recent overheating incidents," and that they are working with the Consumer Product Safety Commission to formulate a plan for the recall. They cite microscopic metal particles that enter the battery during the manufacturing process as the reason for the battery failures. The particles, they say, come into contact with other parts of the battery cell, causing the battery to short-circuit. Sony claims that these batteries would normally just power off, but in "rare cases" may overheat and cause flames. Indeed, flames have been the result of many Sony battery malfunctions in the news lately, most recently from a Lenovo ThinkPad bursting into flames at a Los Angeles airport just last week. Such dramatic incidents happening in airports or—even worse—in-flight have passengers and airlines getting antsy, with three airlines now putting wide restrictions on laptop use due to the recalls. Virgin Atlantic recently eased their restrictions on Dell and Apple laptops to just those whose batteries fit the list.' This is scary stuff in scary times. I'm not sending in my battery... NEVER! They shall not take my pride and joy from me... Never! Ever!
These baby's are probably the reason that Bill Gates never made it through university. At least it would have been if he'd been connected to the internet back then. He's about 90-something now, isn't he? Anyway, as I was saying, these tastebud-tingling sensations are so addictive that the whole jar can be gone without you registering what you're doing. Possibly one of the nicest mint flavoured caffeine sweets available, Rocket Chocolate never ceases to keep you alert and watchful of your surrounding. Perfect for staying up all night and working out why your ship's Hyperdrive seems to have failed you whilst your in the middle of a Klingon war zone. Each individually wrapped rocket contains 150mg of caffeine! 50 mints in a pack. $25. Get them from ThinkGeek now!
Well, that makes 5. Apple, Panasonic, Toshiba, Dell and now Lenovo/IBM. Remember how we reported that a IBM laptop exploded at an airport? Well, this is the cause for the recall. Better safe than sorry I suppose. Anyway, after the other days article about the laptop on fire, with two whole seconds of video footage, you should be afraid. I have nothing to say on the recall other than 'In your face IBM!' and that being about it. Hopefully the problem will be sorted out soon, and I'm glad to see that it's wiped the smirk of Lenovo's faces. If you're concerned your bettery might be affected by the 526,000 strong recall, you should contact your supplier and the Lenovo website for more info.
For bloggers, being slim and fit isn't exactly a top priority. I however do sports regulary to keep healthy, and was delighted to hear about the Geek-a-cycle from Slimgeek.com. This will hopefully encourage many of you to start exercising. Although this product is undeniably weird, it might be cool enough to sneak into some pro-bloggers workplaces (aka. Their desk/bed/table) It wouldn't fit under mine anyway, but as I said, I get enough exercise. This could be a godsend or a nightmare for many bloggers who all seem divided on this issue. SHould we be allowed to stuff our faces with caffeine-high products and mints all day or should we cycle? I'd love to try the cycling option, but I'm not willing to spend $350 for something that might only prove to annoy me.
FP3. I didn't understand it for a minute, then the cornyness dawned upon me. Horrified, I turned to write this post. Fisherprice have launched a 128MB $70 MP3 player named the FP3 (Fisher Price 3 - that's the corny bit I only just got). With rather simple, huge control buttons (as pictured) the FP3 player is quarely aimed at mouronic two year olds. Supposedly 'shock-proof' we highly doubt it will live up to the durability of the Samsung YP-K5. That was 'druability' in a nutshell - check it out here to see what I mean by that! Anyhow, the FP3 has a mini-LCD which does nothing useful, and a has a built-in volume limiting thingy for parents who can't stand any more 'barney the purple dinosaur and his 121 friends climed up a mountain last summers eve who met a big green dinosaur' junk. No kid in their right mind would want to be seen walking round with this gadget. Good-grief, NO! Trust me, I'd know... Trust Fisher Price. Pft! Yeah! Don't buy this... Please. These people give us all a bad name. MP3's should not be abused in this manner. Truly disgraceful.
If you're a bartender, be expecting your redundancy letter any day. The fabulous Richard from Gizmodo has got round to taking some great footage of the electronic bartender that can whip up a tequila better than a human (apparently). I wonder if it can salt the rim of my Margarita? See the video for yourself and decide if your going to tip off your local barman too.
And that's that. Rather impressive. Thanks again to Richard from Gizmodo.
There's a billiantly informative article over at GWN. The article consists of a whole load of pictures of Nintendo's new Nunchuck controller that will be used in conjunction with the Nintendo Wii. Nintendo also confirmed earlier this week that the Opera browser used on the Nintendo Wii would remain free until June 2007. The Press Release stated that, 'From July 2007, users can purchase the Opera browser using Wii points. Wii points are credits users can buy that allow them to add new games or the Opera browser to their Wii consoles. The number of Wii points required to purchase Opera has not yet been announced. With support for Flash and AJAX-based content such as Google maps, Wii users will benefit from a feature-rich Internet experience that is uniquely customized for the Wii. Opera for Wii boasts the same complete standards support as the Opera 9 Desktop browser, and includes the added functionality of “Zoom” and “Bookmarks”. The Wii remote control will also be an integral part of browsing, allowing users to intuitively control the Web with their Wii remotes.'
We've had some uber stylish fridges, some rather nice microwaves and even some phones which would look the part in your kitchen. Complete that feeling with this unique, magnetised, knife holding piece of art. Not strictly technology, no, but I thought you ought to be aware that if you were planning on buying the afformentioned, then this would look good too. It comes in red or black and comes with the five knives pictured. This includes a very sharp 8" bread knife and anoth 8" chef knife. There's also a well crafted 3.5" pearer, a 5" general purpose knife and an 8" carver. Works a treat cutting up that fat, plump turkey on Christmas day! Highly reccomended, even if it isn't technology. Get it from our favourite store ever, ThinkGeek, here.
Bluetooth is in, and for once, the 'in thing' is actually useful. Make the most of it by buying these great Fossil Bluetooth Watches! The four watches available range in price from $200 to $382 and will be available sometime in October (Except MBW-100 which is sometime in Q4). The top-end model has caller ID, music controls and comes in two colours. Stainless steel is standard on the high-end model, but black will be available for a limited period (the MBW-100 being the top-end model). The watch has a small OLED screen and just screams James Bond at passers by, without making you look like a tux-wearing, gun-wielding dare devil. The MBW-100 is jointly made by Sony Erricson aswell, so nothing can be going wrong there. Unless of course, they decide to start using some rather explosive batteries.
Asus has once again confirmed it's multi-format presence in the next-gen format war. After previously developing a rather hopeful looking Blu-Ray 5.25" drive for computers, they are now launching their Asus W2P Series laptops which will feature HD-DVD drives. Although not the first of their kind (having previously seen Acer and Toshiba launch HD-DVD laptops), this will go down well with many consumers, with Asus being one of the biggest names in laptop manufacturing. The laptop itself measures 395mm x 290mm x 35mm and weighs in at 3.3kg, meaning that it's not exactly the portable king of the world, but it's features make up for this. Sporting an Intel Core 2 Duo, an HDMI port, 2GB DDR2 533Mhz (Shame it couldn't have been better. Would have been nice to see a 1066Mhz model!) and a Mobility Radeon X1700 Graphics Chip, the PC would make a very good Media Centre PC. No word on pricing yet, but from what we've seen, expect the fans to be fairly noisy.
The latest iTunes launch, aside from fixing lots of bugs, has brought with it a fresh torent of rumours, mainly from the iPhone fanbase. It seems that either Apple is planning on launching their iPhone soon, or that some iTunes supporting mobile phone will be coming out sometime in the neat future. When disecting the code, the following lines are of particular interest to iPhone dreamers. '"4301.022" = " ^0 was not copied because the video format is not supported by the mobile phone ^1 ."; "4301.043" = "Are you sure you want to manually manage music and videos on your mobile phone? You will need to manually eject your mobile phone before it can be disconnected safely."; "4301.045" = "Are you sure you do not want to manually manage music and videos on your mobile phone? All existing content on the mobile phone ^1 will be replaced with content from your iTunes library.";' So as you can see, it's no wonder that people are getting giddy. Apple always make red herrings though, so don't get your hopes up.
There is are no words to describe the goings on at X06 today other than wild and feverish. Everyone is trying to get their say, and companies, journalists and developers alike are fighting for the limelight. For starters, Ensemble Studios are making a Halo RTS (Not Halo 3, that's still Bungie.) Peter Jackson (Wingnut Interactive... What the hell of a name is that?) is to be making a new Halo game (Not the RTS or Halo 3), and that the Halo film is making positive progress. It will be interesting to see if the now 5 Halo games + the film will end up clashing with their storylines, or if Microsoft and Bungie will be making sure that they all stay true to the plot or not.
Also, the HD-DVD Drive has been officialy, (And we mean officialy 100% now!) confirmed to be priced at $200 in the US. This doesn't mean that we'll be getting it at £100 though. But, the HD-DVD player comes with the Universal Remote and a copy of Peter Jackson's King Kong on HD-DVD. Think this is part of the same deal? It is. Life is so unfair! Good news for the 360 fanbase too! (This news will kill Sony fanboys though!) GTA IV: Episodes is to be a 360 exclusive along with Splinter Cell: Convicted and the long anticipated game BioShock is to be available on PC and Xbox 360 only. What's Sony got? Nothing, other than Metal Gear Solid 4. But some exclusive GTA content will get many gamers writhing in their seats. Seems like we now know who Rockstar is backing with their succesful Table Tennis launch for the 360 too! So, good news for 360 owners like myself! With Fable 2, Viva Pinata, Lost Planet, Alan Wake, Fifa '07, Forza Motorsports 2, Mass Effect, Fusion Frenzy and all these great sounding Halo titles lined up, it looks like we're in for quite a treating!
EDIT: After writing this article, I was inspired to go on and complete Halo 2 in legendary mode... again. I'm not rubbish gamer. Don't mess with the best, because you'll be messing with me. If anyone would like to challenge me on Xbox Live, feel free. I'll whoop you any day of the week.
Well... I'd be lying if I said that I didn't find this interesting. The new Buffalo Skype Certified keyboard looks like something that wouldn't look out of place on an intergalactic shuttle from something like the 'Hitchhikers Guide To The Galaxy'. What a classic remake. The dolphins singing at the beggining is brilliant! But this isn't a film reviews blog... Sorry. I'm straying from the point faster than ever.
Anyway, as I was saying, the new Buffalo Skype Certified keyboard has a neat looking built-in phone on the right hand side. Only if it wasn't corded, I would have already ordered one. Shame really, what with Bluetooth not exactly costing millions now-a-days aswell. Well at least the built-in speakers make up for this. The fact that it will only set you back $60 is great aswell. Still, I like wireless, and I'm sticking with the previously mentioned Kinsington Skype Desktop Loudspeaker Thing. That was even better, even if it did cost a bit more and I can't remeber the name. But I'm certainly not going to be buying a wired keyboard any time soon with all the great ones out there. Still, if you're short on desk space and don't mind the clutter of wires, this could be a great addition to your study or office.
I like pillows. I like iPods. So shouldn't there be an iPillow or something? Well thanks to the guys and gals over at KlearGear, now you too can have your very own iPod pillow. Measuring 16" and resembling nothing more than an iPod emblazened marshmallow, the iPillow packs in some nifty integrated speakers and has full MP3/CD Player/Computer compatibilty. Now you can lie in bed and listen to your iPod all night long. Only £9 ($18) too from KlearGear now! What a steal. I've ordered one! What did you expect me to do? Wait and listen to you guys ranting about how great they are?
Without further ado, let me wish Google a very happy 8th birthday! As you may, or may not know, this week is Google's birthday, so it's fitting that they should get a mention. Google plays a major part in day-to-day life, whether you use it directly or not. For example, you wouldn't even be reading this now if Google didn't exist, because Blogger is owned by... Google! To celebrate the occasion, if you visit the Google homepage, for today only, you'll notice a slightly different logo. A cake with five candles, some sprinkles and a cherry on top replaces the first 'O'. I think Google deserves a very happy birthday. Don't you? Afterall they give to us, they even provide incomes for alot of people. I make a bit of money myself, even if it is only 20 cent a day.
HAPPYBIRTHDAYGOOGLE!THANKSFOREVERYTHING!
EDIT: It appears that Weblogs Inc. isn't always the place to go for 'accurate' news. They're claiming that it's Google's 7th birthday, not eight! Nevermind. 12 year olds often out smart big companies, mainly because they're not in such a rush to get the job done and write more posts.
The Chrysler Sebring has alot of fancy features. At the moment, I have personal reasons to hate this company, but when I see things like this, I can't help but love them! The Sebring in particular, with all of the fancy new things it incorporates. The latest addition to this already jam-packed full car is the cup-holder system. Rather than just leave your drink sitting there, on a summers day, you can chill your coke, or on a winters morning, warm up your coffee. With all of these snazzy features, the Sebring is aimed primarily at the busy businessman who uses his car regulary, but wants a fancy piece of kit too. The Sebring certianly delivers if these cool features are anything to go by.
The Black Xbox 360 rumours fail to cease, but at least we can silence a few of them in this latest post. The image above, which caused arguments and rumours in so many forums about it's validity has been confirmed by a Microsoft employee to be not a prototype, but just a developers version of the console, from before it's initial release. Just like that green Nintendo Wii dev kit that I showed you, it's unlikely ever to be made into mass-production. That's not to say Microsoft aren't preparing the launch of a black 360, with the end of x06 tomorrow, we'll know soon enough.
Logitech has released their second generation of cordless 3.5mm jack headphones. The Logitech FreePulse headphones weigh in at a minute 60 grams and sport Enhanced Bluetooth 2.0 Data Rate Wireless Technology! Both of these things are major plus points and the base clearly benefits from the new bluetooth technology, becoming much more realistic and powerful. An impressive 10 meter range means that I can still be chatting on Skype half way accross the room, whilst I can be doing what I like, tidying my room or preparing an essay. With an RRP of $100, the Logitech FreePulse should launch in Europe and the US next month.
More laptops catching fire left right and center, but one man wasn't prepared to let his data go down with him. The moment the man saw smoke spilling from the underneath of his computer, he quickly flipped it upside down and ripped out the battery pack. Making contact with his hand, the flaming battery must have burnt him fairly badly considering the man hurled the battery pack out of the nearest window, leaving it to explode in the middle of his company carpark. From the picture above, you can see that the laptop must have reached a high enough temperature to have succesfuly melt away at the interior of the computer. Here at Globa-Tech, we highly reccomend that you DO NOT attempt to remove a flaming battery, but at the end of the days, it's your typing fingers, not mine. This whole firey battery shirade has been going on for ages now, I'm just hoping that the ordeal will end soon. It can't be that long before a house is burnt down, can it? Click here for an amazing MP4 of what this happened once this laptop's battery had flown out the window. Rather horrific, I think you'd agree. Video and news via The Register.
We reported yesterday that it was quite likely that Sony wouldd be selling some of their games as high as $85 or even $100. But today, Sonystyle shunned these comments by stating quite clearly that the retail price for top games such as Call Of Duty 3 would be $60. The full list can be viewed here. Just goes to show that not all rumours are right, but you probably guessed that after all of the things that were to supposed to show up at the 'Showime!' event which never did. But, that's the world of technology. Unpredictable as ever! Activision also backed Sony today, claiming that they intended to retail their games at $60 too. Other developers may even go lower suggest some sources, but this is unconfirmed.
Voice Recognition (VR) is all the rage, and is possibly Microsoft's biggest and most important trump card in their upcoming Windows Vista Operating System. But Daewoo obviously think that VR is great too, with their new microwave. The microwave has a 95% accuracy and get's better at VR the more you talk to it. This would be a great addition to your uber modern kitchen, assuming you could afford it. No prices have been announced, but it would be foolish to expect it to be anything less than what you'd be willing to pay. Wouldn't it just be quicker and easier to press them little buttons anyway? I suppose it's useful if you're watching a film in the room adjacent. You could stick in the popcorn, sit back down and yell at your kitchen appliance '3 minutes, medium setting' and off it would chug. When it's finished, all you'd have to do would be yell 'Open the door' and walk over there. But on both occasions, if you're there anyway, what really is the point? Still, a great sounding product that I can't wait to get my hands on. Available early sometime in '07.
We've seen water cooled cases, water cooled GPUs (aka. Radeon X1900XTX Toxic - Benchmark Thrasher) and so many water cooled products recently, that we've started to take them for granted. But I feel I must give the Thai Bangkok airport some credit for what they've pulled out the bag here. A world-class airport with no air conditiong? You must be joking! Nope... But they've taken water-cooling to a whole new level, replacing traditional air conditioning with fancy new water-cooled floors which keep the temperature at a steady 70 degrees farenheight all the time. The option is alot more eco-friendly than air-conditioning thanks to the Co-Generation Plant system in place. So if you plan to fly to Bankkik any time soon, make sure it's the rather spectacular Suvarnabhumi airport. It opens later this week.
The new Bendi Backlit Keyboard, available from Gadget Box for $54 is a bargain and a super piece of kit. Even if the feel of the keys isn't great, the fact that you can roll it up and shove it in your pocket is undeniably cool, especially with the bright blue backlit keys. The lighting is powerful, if not a bit too much so, but at least it relieves your eyes from straining too much in dark conditions. Made from silicone and highly waterproof, this keyboard combines many great things in one affordable package. All in all, a brilliant keyboard, but the blue lighting can get slightly overpowering after a bit of entensive typing. Get it from Gadget Box here.
If you're concerned about the threat of bird-flu, then you will be delighted to hear about Panasonic's new Bird-Flu killer. Just like an ordinary air filter (or so it seems), Panasonic's new Super-Alleru Buster Technology will be there! The world's next supposed 'wildfire-spreading, murderous pandemic', is not going to bleed all of humanity to death afterall (well obviously not bleed, but you get my point). The new technology can be applied to materials aswell as air filters and it is believed that this may be one of the medical breakthroughs of the century. If the technology goes into mass-production, being applied to clothing and such, then 99.999% of harmful diseases could be stopped in their tracks. SARs, Bird-Flu, the lot. All thanks to Panasonic for removing those nasty evil pathogenes from our already highly polluted air.
Onion Goggles are a novel idea from Broadway Pan Handler that supposedly keep your eyes tear free through the terrible chopping ordeal. I can't confirm personally whether or not these work, but scattered around are some glowing reviews of these 100% unfashionable goggles. If you're a cook, and aren't bothered about not making it into the World's best dressed, then these goggles are a must for you (assuming you like onions, which I don't). The goggles cost $20 and ship with a case to keep them clean and scratch free. Ideal if you've had enough from holding matches in your teeth while chopping, another way of avoiding watery eyes. With all that great stuff out of the way with and finished with, I feel I must make an urgent warning that at all costs must you make sure that you wear these in the privacy of your own home, not at your local cooking competition.
The Shots Licquor Console from J.PMeulendijks is the perfect modern (if not slightly pricy) way to hold your top ten favourite licquor or wine bottles. Not strictly technology related, but this drinks holder is most definitely an eye-catcher, that could quite easily rest an iPod stereo and mobile phone dock on top of it, without looking out of place in a geeks home. Apparently, this is also a rather novel way to store magazines, so I could quite easily stick the ten latest issues of Computing.co.uk in this stand without any problems. But that would only be if I was willing to shell out €800 ($1000 or £500). And quite frankly, no matter how useful and good looking this piece of furniture is, at the end of the day, it's not technology, so you shouldn't be spending this much on it. If it had a built-in weather station, or something cool like that, then I could understand, but as it can't make me a coffee, it can't show the weather, I can't play games on it and no LCD is in sight, no self-respecting geek would actually pay $1k for this. The console is coated in an industrial standard 'No-Scratch, No-Chip' gloss, so at least it won't break the day after you get it. Exclusively available at nu.
Apple. They're in the news again. Today they've been sueing people left right and center for using the word 'pod'. Podcasts, ProfitPods, TightPods, Japanesse sleeping pods, or generally any brand with the word 'pod' in. But that's not what I'm blogging about. What I'm blogging about is a rather new, nifty Musicmug. The Musicmug looks like any other mug at first glance. But before you pour your tea or cofee in, make sure that you look in the bottom at the rather well concealed charger. The music partially vents at the bottom while playing, but some reverberates inside the mug, giving a soft, toned down effect, not the echoing blurry playback you'd expect. The mug is an extremely clever speaker thingy, drawing power from the iPod itself. This means that you'll find your iPod running out slightly faster than usual, but it's a price that has to be paid for wireless playback. Still, it can't be much worse than having your headphones on at full blast. Can it? The mug has a clever sponge base, as to avoid scratches, and doesn't just support iPods. Any MP3 player that has a 3.5mm stereo jack will work, so long as it fits inside the mug. But how many MP3s are bigger than a full-size iPod? I can't think of that many. The Musicmug will be available in Japan for 3990 Yen. This is about $35 or £17.50. So it costs about the same as a couple of Frapuchinos. Not bad for this inoative little gadget.
Well, with the PS3s price coming down to $429 from the previously stated $515 and HDMI becoming standard on the lower-end model, Sony will be making a loss from selling their consoles. But, with the price they're charging for the games, they'll quickly earn that. It has been suggested by Sony that games will cost anything between $84 and $100! This is a rather large incresase over the Xbox 360's games like Rockstar's Table Tennis which is costing here, in the UK, a measley £15 from HMV. Sony claims that the high pricing will lead to quality games and is due to 'higher than expected development costs'. But this won't be a nice bonus for buyers of Gran Turismo HD, who'll have to buy their cars and tracks separately aswell now, will it? Sony fanboys are overlooking all these negative things and concentrating on the good points. But, then again, what's a fanboy for?
Forget those pictures that I was about to post of the new PS3 interface, a nice tipster has just alerted me of this following video. I should have noticed this when I went on yesterday and noticed the Black Xbox 360. Darvitt! Anyways, here it is. A three-minute PS3 interface video. It's not half as good as the Xbox 360s. Well, you might beg to differ.
And there you have it. Sony's rather cheap to make rip-off version of the PSP. Did I just say that? Sorry. I meant to say that it was 'Gamespot shares their insightful views about Sony's brand new, previously unseen UI'. But that would just be lying now, wouldn't it?
Yesterday it was a Super Mario cake, but to keep in line with the festivities, here's a quick little snippit of a guy playing two guitars to the theme of Super Mario. This is great for Nintendo. Free advertising without even asking! I could do with that!
How talented can you get? This guy is in other videos too. He really has a talent going. Check out his website for more.
If the Ferrari Fiorano 599 with the iPod dock wasn't enough, then perhaps the new Chrysler Sebring Sedan 2007 will do your musical taste buds justice. Featuring an LCD with a music downloads option, you can rip your favourite CD direct to your car! The download will then be stored onto the 20GB HDD. The MyGIG system can hold up to 1600 songs, eight photos and an address book. The system can also store 3D maps and has real-time traffic information via the Sirius Satellite Radio. Costing a whopping $1700, you'd find yourself better off getting an 80GB iPod and a top of the range GPS system. Still, a lovely idea. The only people I can see buying this though are car enthusiasts and very rich businessmen.
Today, Kinsington launched their new Skype friendly desktop loudspeaker. A great product for me, as I need to speak to people hands free, while I'm typing my blog for instance. So I can talk easily and be publishing articles as I do it. Great! So I tried out the newly launched Kinsington Vo300 for myself. My verdict, superb! With a great little LCD, I can scroll through my calls history, my saved numbers, or just manually type in a number. A great idea, presented in a great way. Costing only £50 ($95), the Vo300 Skype speakerphone is a bargain. Connect it via USB like the instructions say, and launch Skype to see how well it works for yourself. If hands-free/headset-free isn't your thing, then it's not much wasted. If you never try it though, you won't know what a great gadget you're missing. Essential for any Skype user.
This is without a doubt, the biggest scoop of the week. On several pages on popular website 'Gamespot', Best Buy adverts are showing up with black Xbox 360s on them. This is quite a revelation and strays away from all of what we've heard previously about Microsoft's marketing techniques. The 360 depicted could just be a case mod, or a photoshopped image, but it's still a breakthrough that a company such as Best Buy should show an image in an advert. Perhaps they just wanted clicks. I doubt we'll know, at least for a while anyway.
Airport security officials recently arrested a high school teacher when she attempted to board a passenger flight while carrying a Geometry box with slide rule, protractor, etc. Lee Hopkins calls the teacher a member of the 'Al-Gebra' movement charged for carrying weapons of maths instruction. Brilliant analogy. Now with every other item ranging from shaving razors to hair gels to toothpaste tubes banned from carrying inside the airplane and the ever changing airport security rules, have you ever imagined what the life of an airport screener would be like? Airport Security, an online Flash video game, gives you a virtual chance to play the role of ground security agent who frisk you and your hand-baggage before giving you entry to the airport boarding area. You are faced with a long queue of airline passengers and have to use the mouse to remove prohibited items from passengers and their luggage before sending them through the gate. And if you are not quick enough, the queue starts building up and so does the temper of the waiting passengers. Sourced from Labnol.
If you've been following the Google/Belgium conflict like myself, then you'd know that Belgium courts threatened Google with €500,000 fines per day that they didn't post a new court ruling on their Search, News and Images pages on Google.Be. So, rather than pay a hefty fine, Google let the Belgium people deface their website. Just check it out yourself, or look at the screenshot above.
Firefox 2 Beta 2 is out, and from the looks of things, Firefox 2 is good to go. As far as ourselves and Gadgetell can tell, new features include:
An inferface update & built-in phishing protection.
Enhanced search engine management and search suggestions for Google, Yahoo! and Answers.com.
Improvements to tabbed browsing, including the ability to re-open recently closed tabs.
Firefox will resume from where you left off after a system crash or browser restart.
Better support for previewing and subscribing to Web feeds.
Inline spell checking in Web forms.
The ability to create bookmarks with “Live Titles” for Web sites that offer microsummaries.
New Add-ons manager that simplifies management of extensions and themes.
Support for JavaScript 1.7 (you'll notice the difference on our homepage).
So, all in all, very good and happy news for the FF community and developers alike. Download version 1.5 now by clicking on the button in our sidebar! When FF2 is released, we'll let you know. Just click the button in the sidebar then like last time to download. Firefox really is safer than IE, honest. I've never got a virus whilst using FF, but have on more than one occasion using IE. Come to think of it, the people who I know who've had viruses have all used IE. After instructing them to use FF, none of them have had any problems. Funny that.
This may not sound terribly geekish or useful, but a new chopping board design by Jess Giffin and Tim Termeer is really quite the thing. Everyone on the block is talking about it, and they have good reason. This board has an in-built scale that can be seen on the picture, so you can be chopping away and then have a peak to see how much you have before throwing it in to your pan. This technology is really cutting edge, but it's a shame it doesn't come in black. Then again, they'd probably charge more. The board measures 10" x 15" and could be seen displayed at kitchen exhibitions worldwide. If this doesn't quite take your fancy, perhaps cake would.
That's right. I'm talking about cake on a technology website. I think I can be excused, taking into account that the cake is based on a video game. A Super Marrio Wedding cake infact. According to one of the wedding guests, the cake tasted rather 'Dense and suggary. Very candy-like, but not too sweet.' A good description! Click here to see for yourself. Now I want one of these for my Birthday!
Having just noticed that this will be my second post in two days to mention Italian car manufacturers, I won't drone on. Acer has long been rolling out their Ferrari branded laptops, but now Asus has teamed up with Lamborghini to create their VX1 laptop. With a Lambo logo stuck onto the case and a nice paintwork finish, the laptop doesn't actually look that bad. If you have a need for speed, and the Ferrari notebook just doesn't cut to the chase, then drive on over to Asus. The VX1 might not please Jeremy Clarkson (Lamborghini loving, computer killing Top-Gear presenter), but hopefully he won't be getting out his rocket launcher, but to those of us who like powerful machines, then this might do you fine. Packing in a Core 2 Duo T2500 processor clocked at 2.0Ghz and a whopping 512MB Nvidia GeForce Go 7400 VX GPU, this PC can race through graphics intesive benchmarks better than the Ferrari, but not hald as well as specially built gaming laptops. Still, decent graphics, a decent battery life and a slim case. The Intel 945P chipset works idealy with Core 2 and the other components, and in testing we didn't notice any significant problems. The laptop has 2GB DDR2 RAM, a multi-format type DVD-RAM RW and a rather shabbly 160GB IDE HDD. The built-in modem is hardly spectacular either, but what were you expecting? Four USB2 ports, multiple multi-format memory card readers and plenty of extra connectivity options make this laptop a nice choice.
IAD (Internet Addiction Disorder) has been around since 1995 according to scientists. How many people come by the disorder is unknown, but I for one am a sufferer, as is Seshi (Partially). Symptoms include:
A need for an ever increasing amount of time on the internet to achieve satisfaction or a dissatisfaction with the continued use of the same amount of time on the internet.
Two or more withdrawal symptoms developing within days, weeks, or up to a month after a reduction or cessation of internet use. These include distress or impairment of social, personal, or occupational functioning such that there is psychological or psychomotor agitation such as anxiety, restlessness, irritability, trembling, tremors, voluntary or involuntary typing movements of the fingers, obsessive thinking, fantasies, or dreams about the internet.
Internet engagement to relieve or avoid withdrawal symptoms.
Internet often accessed more often or for longer periods of time than was intended.
A significant amount of time is spent in activities related to internet use (for example, internet surfing).
Important social, occupational, or recreational activities eliminated or reduced due to internet use.
Risk of loss of a significant relationship, job, educational, or career opportunity due to excessive internet use.
Internet engagement used as a way of escaping problems or relieving feelings of guilt, helplessness, anxiety, or depression.
Concealing from or lying to family members about the extent of internet use.
Internet user driven to financial difficulty due to incurring unaffordable internet fees.
Thanks to The Register for pointing out that half of my visitors have IAD.
Yesterday was the web's official global celebration day. BBC News reports here. 'People around the world are coming together on Friday to celebrate the world wide web. Susan Crawford, the founder of OneWebDay, said she wanted people to reflect on how the web had changed their lives. The day will be marked with events taking place around the world, together with online activities. The organisers are planning to create what they hope will be the largest global online photo collaboration. Web users are being asked to tag their pictures with OneWebDay and upload them to photo-sharing sites Webshots and Flickr, to create global photo albums. The organisers are also encouraging people to post entries to their blogs on Friday which reflect on how the web has changed their lives.'
If you're a snowboarder and love to listen to music whilst flying down high peaks at 80mph, this hat is for you. Made by Audex, this ordinace padded hat has an in-built receiver and headphones, meaning that you can be asking your mum to pack you some sandwiches so they can be ready by the time you get to the bottom of the mountain. Bluetooth is great, so why not stick it in a hat? Nice idea, but not exactly the most stylish thing around. Still, I'd wear it. And if like me, you're disappointed that Apple and angelpoise charge you more for black versions of their prodcucts, you'll be glad to hear that you can pick up the black hat for the same amount as the white one. This is essential as dark colours absorb more heat, and at -20 celcius, you need all of the warmth you can get. Pick one up here, from the Motorola Motostore now for $180.
It's official, there are now photos available that prove the existence of Sony's Silver Concept PSP before it was removed from the line-up at Sony's Tokyo Gameshow. What does this mean now though? Will Sony not be releasing it? It would seem rather odd for them to not do so, as we've already got pictures of a Silver PSP cam, which may I add, is named 'PSP-j15003'. How sexy is that name? But to the point, why did Sony only briefly show the Silver PSP when the others (Blue, Red, Yellow and Camofluage) remain on display the whole time? Maybe we'll never know, but there are rumours that the Sony battery in it exploded. Highly unlikely of course, but with Sony, you can never be sure. So how many colours is that now anyway? Silver, Red, Blue, Yellow, Camoflauge, Pink and original black. That's at least 7. Surely they'll be running out of colours soon!
If you're worried that your kids aren't washing their hands thoroughly before meals, or whatever the case, then you might find yourself buying SquidSoap. Costing $16 for a pack of four, that works out at $4 each or just over £2. So, not really much more expensive than normal soap. What's so special about SquidSoap though? Well, for starters, just slap on the soap and it inks your hand (hence the name), and when they're clean, it'll come off! Genius! Or if you own a mansion. why not opt for Squidsoap.com's 24-pack? Afterall, it's only a measley $70.
As you can see, that rather dodgy video is displaying what SquidSoap does best, annoy kids. Click here to view the product page!
With all of these Apple rumours circulating the blogosphere, it's hard to know when to buy an Apple product, whether to wait, and see if the price of what you want, or something better comes out, or to snap up a cheap last-gen iPod or whether or not you should just go ahead and buy the best of the bunch, the new 80GB iPod. As you know, this is quite the conundrum. So, what do you do? Well, iLounge has pontificated the idea of the 'best' time to buy an Apple product and has some rather useful tips and hints here. 'The purchase of any Apple product can be made on a single question: does the product available today have the features that will satisfy me? If the answer is yes, buy it and enjoy it. If the answer is no, wait. But don't second-guess your decision or wait around for a replacement that may take years to arrive. If you buy soon after release, you'll have the longest opportunity to enjoy the features and performance before something else comes along and makes you envious.' That's a valid point, but if you buy the last-gen iPod wouldn't you save money? Just visit iLounge's guide for solutions to your Apple problems. Just click the link in the article and find your way to a stress-free Apple shooping trip. Now you can't say that very often.
I won't deny that calling a re-released line of video games 'Platinum' is completely un-original. The playstation did it, and it just shows what startling imaginations the folks over a Microsoft have. But to the point, Microsoft is planning on re-tailing platinum editions of it's best selling Xbox 360 games. Expect 'Kameo: Elements Of Power', 'Perfect Dark Zero' and 'Project Gotham Racing 3' to be in the platinum launch lineup. Platinum games look set to retails for half of what their non-platinum counterparts do. So we're looking at £20 from Amazon.co.uk or about $40 from American vendors. It's nice to see that we've not been forgotten! Now I can afford to buy some serious games!
If you can't afford a Nintendo DS, you can't get one in the colour you like or you're so in love that you'd be willing to carry one of these around , the Super-Mini DS Lite has just come out. Fully un-functionable and costing less than £1 ($2), these little cellphone clip-ons are a great reminder that your gaming pal/friend is sat at home charging because you forgot to take it on the plane. Buy them now from StrapYa if you speak Japanese.
Just to underline Steve Jobs' point about cars supporting iPods, Ferrari announced that their 599 Fiorano (the red car) will support iPods via an in-built dock as standard now. First announced at the Geneva Motor Show last year, the car has a top speed of 205mph (Measley compared to Hammond's rocket powered dragster!) and an intricately modelled chasis built on the 612 scagletti. Without a doubt, the car's 12V engine can punch holes through any time trial you give it. Still not as good looking as the lovely limited-edition (aka. 185 of them) Lamborghini Gallardo Nera (the black car). But I'm straying from the point. What I mean to say is, there are alot of lovely iPod supporting cars out there, but one with a specially made dock is worth a second look. Kudos to Ferrari.
Well, Amazon are turning out to be great for handing us useful information. First it was Microsoft's Vista pricing (Which Microsoft weren't happy about to say the least), and now, Amazon.co.uk is claiming that the Microsoft Zune is being built by Apple. Check it out yourself here. Of course it's wrong, but it doesn't stop it from being funny! I love it when things like this happen, but once again, Apple can't keep itself out of the news, even when it's about the Zune!
If you're as lazy as I am, you'll appreciate remotes more than anyone. When a good remote, a good TV and a good stand together, oeace can be felt at last as blood gushes through every inch of your body. Enough with the freaks yin & yan nonsense. The point is, we've found the perfect remote and TV, but no stand. Could this be about to change? The Robotic Chrome TV stand from Izyasam (An unheard of Turkish company) is a mind-boggling wonder in itself. The TV has a perfectly flat surface that can be hot-swapped for different sizes to adjust to your TV's needs. It doesn't matter if you have a 17" TV or a 70" TV, it should theoretically work. The inside of the stand features double-railing sustems to prevent the TV from shaking side to side while turning. Many a good stand lacks this, causing the TV to topple, therefore making it not good, so this was a nice edition. The stand has several in built features that can be controlled via remote. Digital clock, date, chronometer and alarm functions as well as voice recording and playback features. The controllability and adjustability of the TV is great with the ability to raise or lower the TV by 30cm and to turn it 45 degrees left or right. A good stand. I'm not sure where you can buy it though. I just love being sent stuff early to review!
I know that when seeing the price of the Xbox 360 campared to the PS3 I jumped to get it. But after taking in the price of the games, additional controllers and such, I was shelling out alot more than I was willing to. But now, thanks to N-Sider, if you're like me and plan on buying the Nintendo Wii on launch, they've put together a rather nifty calculator to help you work out the overall cost of your rig. Bring on the twilight princess! Click here to see what I'm on about. Unfortunatley, it's only for US and Canadian people at the moment, but hopefully a UK version will come soon. Go Wii! Go Wii!
If you fancy yourself as a keen photographer and would be willing to sacrifice $36,266 of your well earned cash for a camera, say hello to your dream partner (as promised from last post)! The Swiss made Seitz camera will hopefully be able to be spotted at Germany's upcoming Photokina expo. Let's wait and see. Don't expect to be buying it until early 2007. Or of course, you could pre-order. The camera creates a native 6x17 image and has an ISO range from 500 to 10,000 a shutter speed of 1/20,000th of a second (Wow! Could a Ferrari do this?) and a read-out speed of 300 megabytes a second. To store a camera full of images this big, I doubt that even your 64GB CompactFlash card would suffice. Therefore Seits has created a 'state-of-the-art-computer system'. So we're guessing that this isn't just any old Mac Mini sitting in some sad developers garage. If you can't afford the $36k+ plus camera, then why not by the non-movable Studio version? That's only $33,715, so you obviously won't be breaking the bank there. We hope to get some photos taken by this camera. Just make sure you're viewing from Goonhilly's 1Gbps connection else you'll be waiting half an hour.
Having just reported that Sony may be launching some new colours this Christmas, Sony have announced a PSP camera and, we've got one of the first shots here! Check it out! What colour? Silver... Yes! What colour was I hoping for this holiday season? Silver! Yes. When does this camera come out? November 2. That counts as Christmas! The release date is only for Japan at the moment though. Hardly impressive results in testing. It can shoot 640x400 images at 1.3 megapixels, or 480 x 272 30 frame-per-second motion JPEGs of up to 15 seconds each. Not exactly very long or big! What the hell! It's a portable video games console. Not a 160 megapixel camera! Yes... That's what I'm writing about next! The image of the cam has been watermarked to avoid other tech blogs stealing my pictures like has happened before.
Sony displayed some rather nifty design concepts for the PSP at the Toky Game Show a few weeks back, and boy, were they bad. The camoflauge PSP sucks liek action man style and the other three burn holes in your eyes whenever you look at them. See for yourself. Chances are, Sony is already producing these and are planning for a seasonal launch. Be on the lookout! But don't expect these tacky things to put you off the idea of a silver PSP. Surely it couldn't be worse... Right? That's if it even comes of course. All just speculation. Enjoy these horrific sights!
Nobody sane would buy a keyboard costing just less than $1200. Unless you're the military or government. But this keyboard from Stealth Computer speaks for itself... Still, how many £10 keyboards could you buy for this much? 60. So, not ideal for a large business to start dishing out to office workers. I'm not a fan of trackballs anyway. 'The Stealth Computer model 2000-DT-TB features 114-key functionality, including 24 function keys and a 10-key number pad. It is constructed using a highly rugged, stainless steel case and industrial silicone rubber pad, ensuring NEMA 4X protection. The 2000-DT-TB’s trackball pointing device is a completely sealed, 38mm optical unit. It features a removable ball for convenient cleaning, as well as an adjustable tension ring. The trackball is operated using stainless steel switches that are likewise sealed. In addition to left and right click functions, the 2000-DT-TB is built with a third, programmable button. The 2000-DT-TB is available with two PS/2 or USB cables.' Click here to see for yourself.
Richard Hammond is in a stable condition now at Leeds General Infirmary according to the BBC. On the BBC website, they say that'Mr Hammond, 36, was earlier moved out of intensive care at Leeds General Infirmary, where he has been since Wednesday, and doctors said he is making "satisfactory progress". Doctors also downgraded his condition from "serious but stable" to "stable". The doctors treating him have previously said they are "reasonably optimistic" he will make a good recovery. Mr Hammond's wife, Mindy, and Top Gear's other host, Mr Clarkson, have also been at his bedside. Mr Clarkson told the Sun newspaper that he had insulted Mr Hammond's driving skills - prompting a smile from Mr Hammond.' Jeremy Clarkson, who can be seen in the amusing video below has also had his fair share of publicity over the accident with him making many statements about Hammond. 'Mr Hammond had no visible injuries following the ordeal he had been through other than a black eye. Richard says that he wasn't trying to break the British speed record, so that's that'. He was less than 20mph off though... Surely he would have tried!
And that was Jeremy Clarkson having some fun with ammunition!
I was rather shocked yesterday to find out that a trojan horse had mean running on my computer since a few days before I started up this blog. Backdoor.PCClient.B is a nasty trojan which gets in through an un-patched hole in Internet Explorer. It was one of the rare occasions when I was using IE rather than FF, and the only reson being I was checking my hotmail e-mail account. Windows Live hates Firefox. I'm an extremely cautious user and never download anything if I can help it. Since that date, I've downloaded nothing, other than Google software. The trojan infected my machine through malicious code as far as I can tell, but I'd like to put Symantec right. They claim that 0-2 sites are infected with the code which installs this, but it can't be right. The only sites I've visited have been Google, Blogger, my own blog, tech blogs, BBC News, some tech stor es and Amazon. Symantec also claim that 0-49 people have been infected with this, but browsing around, and checking with ant-virus companies, I can see alot more have. Perhaps this shouldn't be a risk factor 1, but at least a 2. The trojan did no serious damage as far as I could tell, other than disabling my anti-virus software (Norton, which didn't patch the tojan for 9 days since it's release!) and trying to disable other security features. Now it's gone, I'm more wary than ever, but you guys ought to be aware. (Seshi, I hope you're reading this!)
Being a self-proclaimed geek, looking good is not one of my highest priorities, but with the launch of the Suunto t3 Watch, I can now look good and let my geekish gizmo dreams run wild. Costing $150 for the basic model, and $170 for the black-faced LCD (my personal favourite), the t3 incorporates a pedometer, GPS tracking, a cool stopwatch, a plain old digital alarm, a sleek heart rate monitor and terribly useful real-time calorie burning displays to show you exactly how much flab your burning off whilst playing that very demanding game on your snazzy Xbox 360. Just searching for Suunto t3 in Amazon shows you the variety of models and pads that can be bought to make the most out of your new watch. Pads sold separately for varying prices. Most of the features need these pads to work. Expect to shell out twice as much again for all of the features. You have been warned. Great watch though, and essential in any Geek's arsenal.
Although not a patch on our foam nukes that we reviewed after the opening of Globa-Tech, these Wooden working constructable pre-gunpowder warfare replicas offer great fun and a real chance to show you office who's boss. ThinkGeek is selling these here. Ballistas, trebuchets and catapult kits are all available. ThinkGeek reminds us that 'Though these kits are for educational purposes, they are functional. Care should be taken when constructing and using them. Don't use anything living as a target or projectile.' But what's the fun in that? 'In the days before gunpowder (at least in the west), folks had to find new and intriguing ways to throw death and destruction at each other. They started by throwing rocks, then progressed to hurling giant stones, and then to flinging boulders. The evolution of the machines used to accomplish this hurling is as intriguing as the things hurled. Many times trash and debris were lobbed over castle walls to rain down upon unsuspecting masses or invading armies. These kits let you bring back all the fun of flinging. Each one can assemble in just a few hours, and provides a fantastic scale model of an actual war weapon of yore. The catapult is perfect for chucking balls of paper and other small objects over cubicle walls. The trebuchet is better for long range targets (like the water cooler or networked printer). The ballista is excellent at laying down some old school cover fire. And, all you need to put them together are some strong fingers (or pliers), a cutting tool, and glue (not included). All three kits are perfect for showing your love of retro weaponry.' So... If you're too old for nukes, and can still remember the good old days of capital punishment, these highly fun, yet niggly to set-up and easy to brake kits may appeal to you.
I won't deny that I was rather shocked today as I got on a bus, (I usually am driven around by my own personal chaufer! Only joking...), and a blaster wielding stormtrooper look-a-like followed me. After pointing the gun to the bus driver, the man inside the constume had his head ripped off, only to reveal a rather sad, obviously single, 40-year old male grinning manickly at the passengers on the bus. It wasn't long before some people got up and threw him off, but the whole thing was quite an ordeal. After some extensive research, I discovered that the well-crafter stormtrooper suit had been made by Shepperton Design Studios, and the bus incident had been part of a trial test of walking round my local town in the suit. The helmet alone costs £300, the body armour £1000. You can pre-order this geekish wonder here, aswell as full details of the failed hi-jacking. Rather amusing really, I'm just glad that my chaufer had taken the day off!
Candyfloss. My favourite form of cavities.I was most pleased to hear that a candyfloss machine was arriving at our headquaters today from Firebox.com. The £35 ($70) wonder didn't dissapoint. Adding granulated sugar proved easy and we had candyflodd flying everywhere within minutes. As the machine heats up, the central head begins to spin, forcing liquid sugar through its tiny perforations. The instant the threads of sugar hit the air they cool and re-solidify, causing a web of sugary threads to develop in the bowl, wchich may I add is dishwasher friendly. All you have to do is gather up the yummy wisps on your candy floss cone and get munching. The whole process is really rather wondrous. I would reccomend this product to anyone with a sweet tooth, or a gamer in need of an instant sugar rush. That said, Marks & Spencers pancakes aren't bad with liberous amounts of lemon juice and sugar! But funfair candy owns. Buy this gizmo here or at Firebox.com.
UPDATE: I changed the link from 'Firefox.com' to 'Firebox.com'. My bad! Sorry for any inconvenience to you guys! Thanks Kevin for pointing this rather embarassing mistake out to me!
Gizmodo are reporting that Microsoft has just held a meeting to determine the initial selling price of the Zune. Originally it was going to be around $290, but with Apple's latest launch, the mole reported that originally Microsoft was going to undercut the 30GB iPod by $10 until Apple dropped the price. This might change however to a tiny $230. Microsoft is selling the device at a loss - similar to the Xbox 360 campaign in which MS sold games to make profit. This time MS is underpricing to gain as much market share as they can before the next iPod revamp and gain back money in the Zune Marketplace which will have been lost with the price of the MP3 itself. This however might not work, as new figures show that only 40% of iPod owners have ever downloaded songs from iTunes. They're still making a packet though! Nice tactics Microsoft, but do you think that Stevie is just going to let you waltz right onto the stage and steal his market? I don't think so. Be ready, the battle hasn't even begun and tensions are high.
We hear about alot of 'Exact replicas' here at the GTT office, and they're generally impressive 1:16 scale models. It was a great surprise however to hear about Pierre Scerri's 1:3 scale replica of the classic Ferrari 312PB portotype. When we hear of exact, we didn't realise at first that they ment quite this exact. Everything about the working replica is identical 100% to the original, right down to the perfectly engraved key shape (one third of the size of course), the engine (again, one third), the specially made one-third size fuel injection system and the seatbelt buckles. The car is a work of art, and for any kid like myself, is a dream. If you crash this beauty at 100mph though, that's 20,000 hours of manwork lost over a period of 15 years. No selling price has been announced, but we're guessing it'll be more than the car itself was.
Richard Hammond, the internationaly famous 'Braniac' and 'Top Gear' TV show presenter, has crashed while attempting to break the British landspeed record whilst fiming for Top Gear. Hammond was driving a rocketpowered dragster and was travelling at 280mph (4 times the British speed limit), when the car veered over onto grass by the runway, flipped and smashed into the ground at an extremely high speed. This happened at the RAF Elvington airfield near York. The BBC said in a statement that they were: 'Looking into all the factors of this accident and it would be inappropriate to comment further at this stage until we know the full situation.' The accident occured yesterday and was reported on the BBC News website at 7:20 yesterday. Images via BBC.
If you've ever fancied recharging your batteries by means of USB, this is for you. I'm getting these AA batteries for my sister for Christmas. She races through packs every few days, MP3, camera, there's always an excuse. But these little beauties could be her saviour! Simply flip the lid off the batteries and plug them in! They only pack the punch of AAA batteries, but this is because the USB connector takes up space and once the lid is added, it fits snugly into a space designed for AA batteries. Very nice idea from Moxia, and I hope to see it shipping soon. Again, with lots of good things, this is still only a concept, even though the creators reckon that they'll be seeing this in mass production before long.
The wolrd of Apple rumours has been fairly quiet since the initial explosion around the Showtime event. But now, the infamous Dinsey CEO, Bob Iger, who was last spotted stage stealing at the showtime event has come up at a conference saying that Apple's iTV may have a built-in HDD. 'It can also stream it live through the box to the TV or it has a small hard drive on it so they can download what you put on the device on your computer, on your iTunes, through the television set.' Looks like Bob blew the cover off Steve's secret weapon heh?
Also, Disney announced that selling their extremely popular movies (mainly Cars) thorugh iTunes, they have already manage to snatch a healthy $1,000,000 USD through the program, exceeding all expectations. This surprised many critics who thought that they wouldn't sell well until the widecreen, touchscreen iPod eventually arrives (if ever).
Have you ever spent a tonne of money updating your software, only to find that the new version sucks, and the old version was much easier to use and more flashy looking? Anyway, if this applies to you, check out OldVersion.com and you might be in luck. Even if their directory of files is a little small, it's a start and could go along way for those in need. Be sure to check it out! If you have any additions that you could add, contact them and let them know! I'm sure they'd appreciate it!
If you're like me, and get hundereds of pointless pressies for your birthday and christmas, then you might like what I about to review. Two things in fact. Nothingness, and a panic button for the keyboard. I'll start with the latter.
Arguably the most obvious key on any keyboard, when installed, the Panic Button is a vital - if somewhat pointless - addition to everyone's desk. It doesn't do anything of course, but you feel a lot better having a button to stab at when everything goes wrong whilst updating your blog or working on a webpage. I love the comments on I Want One Of Those for this item. One of them posted by 'G Bush, Washington DC' reads 'I stuck it on the keyboard with the pad provided. When I press it, nothing happens. Do I need special software?'
The second item, is nothing. No, I'm not joking. You can buy a specially packaged nothing, again from I Want One Of Those for £3.49. I dare say that the company making nothing is taking a roaring trade as nothing costs nothing (except packaging) to make! For some odd reason, this product is reccomended by the manufactures as suitable for 'Over 14s only.' This is presumably to avoid dissapointment and inevitable crying from anybody younger. Great present for making people appreciate what they already have!
The Angelpoise lamp was, without a doubt, the most popular lamp of the 20th century. Now, it's pretty much dead, with the average persons desk being lit by a laptop screen, glaring down providing light whilst enabling you to listen to music at the same time. But the angelpoise lamp could be making a comeback, with it's 70th birthday just around the corner. This is where the gargantuan lamp comes in. Not quite what you'd want on your desk, the lamp stands tall and proud as you can see (or not see if we're still expriencing technical troubles when you're reading this) in the picture on the right. If you want the lamp in vermillion or creme, you'll be charged £1234.04 (excluding VAT). You could buy a very nice computer for this much. Or, if you're a stlye freak and are willing to pay more for your favourite colour (Just like the black macbook heh?) then you'll be pleased to hear that the lamp comes in limited edition black, blue/purple and green/turquoise. Guess how much these cost? £1660.00 excluding VAT. So as you can see, only a minimal price difference!
Now that the pricing for Japan has been announced, the world can pretty much predict what the cost of Microsoft's upcoming Xbox 360 HD-DVD Drive will be. As I first predicted on hearing, the HD-DVD addon will be extremely cheap. I thought around $200 a couple of months back at the official release, but the price is looking more like $177 if you choose to convert the Japanese price of it. The pricing was leaked at the company's Tokyo Game Show press conference along with a Japanese release date of November 22. Also new, Microsoft announced that the Xbox 360 christams update will enable 1080P playback, presumably thorugh component (VGA) leads, rather than HDMI. No details are available for elsewhere in the world at the moment, be rest assured, we'll alert you when they do become public.
When Samsung said they believed their YP-K5 could withstand minor to moderate shocks, I don't think they were banking on a car running over their oh-so-lovely MP3 player. But, believe it or not, the song was still playing merrily after the audeal and the driver on the car declared 'mentally unstable'. Check out the video below.
If you work at home in your underware all day, this is the article that you've all been waiting for. Don't pretend you don't do it, we know you do. Anyway, to the point. 'As we move into a world that is more technological advanced, every aspect of our lives begin to reflect those changes. For instance more people are working from home and interacting with their co-workers via video conference calls. Suits are typically a requirement for those meetings, but won’t a business bib do the job? The business bibs allows you to fool your boss and co-workers into thinking that you’re wearing a suit when in fact it’s just a half suit. It’s perfect because for one thing you still don’t need to wear pants and it’s a shirt, tie and jacket all in one. Prices range from $135 to $150, but really what you’re paying for is a highly skilled personal shopper.' via Trendhunter. In otherwords, work from home in underwear and then, when you have a video call, slip this on and talk away, hoping that you remembered to face your webcam towards the upper part of your body.
Why use standard postage service when you're on the computer anyway? Why not just use your PC to send an e-mail anyway? I don't know, but I was reading me paper on the bus today as-per usual and found out that Royal Mail will be offering an online service to print barcodes onto your envelopes which act as stamps when scanned. This will hopefully mean less queues and more time on our forums. The barcode service is due to go live sometime soon, but I'm not convinced that this will be any better what so ever than plain old stamps. Lick 'n' stick. What could possibly be worng with that?
In the past few weeks, we've seen diamond TVs, diamond phones and pretty much everything that you can stick a shiny stone on. Just when we thought it was all over, the CEDIA event throws yet another unwanted thing to review at us. These chairs have real diamond plating and a built-in TV. Fully reclinable and all! These chairs are extremely comfy and very stylish, asuming you have a diamond remote handy to switch channels on your diamond HD-DVD player connected to your diamond HDTV in your diamond room. This may be a pretty cool seat, but I'm waiting for that diamond iPod that we heard rumours of a while ago. It's just asking to be robbed!
If you thought you had to splash out £900 on the latest Kentsfield quad-core Core 2 CPU from Intel to get yourself a dream PC, think again! Engadget reports that, 'While building a supercomputer has been whittled down to a science, Peakstream has developed a suite of applications that look towards those speedy PCI Express slots -- not the CPU socket -- for an extra boost of power. The company boldly states that a supercomputer can be created by harnessing the power of "common CPUs combined with the resources of modern graphics cards" to increase performance by "20x." This extreme form of load balancing exploits the tremendous potential housed in today's GPUs in order to schedule workloads, offload tasks onto the optimal processor(s), and manage calculations to minimize the queue of tasks to be completed. Granted, the biggest boon of a graphics processor is the extraordinary floating-point performance; for instance, ATi's X1950 XTX pumps out 750 GFLOPS in dual-graphics mode, while it'd take 31 Intel Xeon 5100 CPUs to crank out those same figures -- thus Peakstream feels that mathematical and computational applications (sorry, Doom fans) are best suited for its software. While having your own personal supercomputer churning those Engadget Folding@home cycles would be mighty impressive, the average joe isn't apt to drop $2,000 (per node) for Peakstream's suite.'
So, as you can tell, you're GPU may be replacing your CPU. Could this be the end of Intel? Could AMD be staring into that black hole of doom? Is this the rise of ATI? Or will Nvidia steal the spotlight. We'll be watching this drama carefully as it unfolds. Stay tuned!
If, like me, you love high-end mouses, then you'll be pleased to hear that you can pick up a Logitech G7 Wireless Laser mouse for only $30 after some rebates at Buy.com. This translates into roughly £15, which is a nice saving from the £80 that Amazon charge you. Click here to get this great mouse from Buy.com. I just had to share this, because for month, until just recently, the G7 has been my mouse of choice for gaming, net browsing and application creation.
You've been able to get coloured MP3 players, USB drives, CD players, laptops and pretty much everything in the world in varying colours. But when it comes to TVs, the selection of colours has always been lacking. But Sony's new Bravia XBR LCD panels ship with custom bevels which can be bought separately for $300. The colour range includes Arctic White, Pacific Blue, Velvet Black, Scarlet Red and Sienna Brown. The panels themselves, as with the bevels are highly overpriced, but they do look stunning up-close. For a 46-inch TV be prepared to pay $4300 USD. A slightly smaller 40-inch model will still set you back a hefty $3500. This is only justified by the stunning quality of their 1080P display, the look and feel of the TV itself and wide range of ports. Overall a lovely TV, if not a tad overpriced, it certainly compliments your room nicely, whatever the colour. The TV could be classed as a work of art itself. Well done Sony! Highly reccomended.
Sony has just released it's latest line of laptops, this time looking rather formidable rather than little weedy things that might catch fire at any moment. The Sony AR20 (the top-of-the-range model), the FE30 (mid-range) and the Vaio N10 (entry-level) laptops all have some nice features built-in to their well-made chassis. TechDigest says that 'If you've plans to shoot HD footage on your camcorder, you can edit and play it back on the AR20 - then burn it onto a Blu-ray disc. And of course, you can watch it on the 17-inch 1920 x 1200 resolution X-black LCD screen featuring full 1080p resolution. Other features include an integrated hybrid digital and analogue tuner and HDMI output (which should save you buying a standalone Blu-ray player), with the machine running on an Intel Core 2 Duo T7200 processor with 2GB of high speed DDR2 memory.' Sounds pretty impressive. I'm looking forward to seeing these laptops in action and then comparing them against my current Sony laptop. I'm guessing they'll wipe the floor with mine in the benchmarks. That said, I've got a pretty decent laptop.
Globa-Tech Today is very proud to present you with an exclusive interview. The guest is Jeff Foster. 'Who?' you say? Well, the man who created the MacTower hoax of course! Speaking for the first time since releasing the MacTower article, Jeff Foster told me the follwing.
ME: What first got you interested in the internet?
JEFF: That's a tough question, if only because my memory of that long ago isn't the best. What i do remember is my older sister constantly being on AOL; instant messaging. I remember the "bumbumBING!' every 3 seconds, followed by the "bumBINGdo" shortly after. (those are horrible written descriptions of the sounds, but it's the best i can come up with) Eventually i got interested in exactly what she was doing, and from there i suppose i got addicted.
ME: What was your first website?
JEFF: I think my first site was on a friend's server... www.staringatthesound.net/mc17 (way before the flaming lips thing) which was turned into www.neosats.net i believe (which are both long gone.) It was a little before the Blog thing really hit, and i remember it being just some info about me, some photography, etc.
ME: Can you list some websties that you're currently involved in?
JEFF: To be honest, i'd rather not. I feel like i generated like a thousand negative blog-karma points, and i'd rather not have any of the hatred pour out onto innocent bystanders. I'll mention that i'm working with a few local bands and local/national artists, a gallery down in Santa Fe, and a few other things right now.
ME: What is you current job?
JEFF: I'm currently working a handful of small web sites, and working 2 jobs on my college campus. (one of which is with the web department.)
ME: Why did you create the MacTower hoax?
JEFF: I've been thinking about the possibility of such a maching (macTower) ever since Apple released the MacPro, and decided i'd try my hand at starting an apple rumor. I was curious to see how people would react (to the idea, not so much the rumor) and i was sort of hoping i could get at least a few people excited about the prospect of a machine like that.
ME: Did you think that you'd get the publicity you did from Engadget?
JEFF: I wasn't really that surprised, engadget publishes just about anything. :)
ME: Were you surprised Engadget didn't spot your mistakes?
JEFF: To be fair, Engadget actually DID spot most of them.
ME: What was your reaction to the torrent of abuse you received from people much like myself?
JEFF: I expected a number of people to call me out, but what i didn't expect was all the outrageous hatred that ensued. It sort of cracks me up, but at the same time, depresses me a little. I'd rather not be associated with such a bunch of crazies just because i enjoy my mac, and i understand how off-putting it can be to people outside of the cult-of-mac.
ME: Do you plan on carrying on the 'The-Ish Blog'? You could get some serious hits!
JEFF: I didn't originally, but now i think i will. I dont really expect it to do all that well, but i like writing. If just 2 or 3 people end up subscribing to the RSS, i think it'll be worthwhile. :)
ME: Doesn't my site just own? (You can choose not to answer this one!)
JEFF: word. :)
And that, ladies and gentlemen, was Jeff Foster. I wonder how his blog will go... I'll sign up to his RSS feed just to make his day! Perhaps we could affiliate. That would be interesting. Anyway, I'll go back to reviewing products like I usually do now, but it's nice to have the occasional chat and interview someone.
If you're looking for a boost in stamina, anybody will tell you that Red Bull is the only way to go about it. Office-workers at the Red Bull London HQ obviously take this to heart and have taken the liberty to have slides installed rather than stairs and ping-pong tables replace their old, boring conference tables. Designed by Jump Studios, this has to be the ultimate office. Looks like that caffeinated, sugary water drink that we all love might not be that bad a place to work at afterall. Still, working at home owns all other jobs, but this is about as close as you can get.
Cookoo clocks are classics. They been around for deacades, even longer perhaps. I'm too young to know. But what I do know is that during WW2, they certainly didn't have mini-LCD displays on them aswell. Reddish designs, an Israeli based desgin group have done just that though and added a splash of tech into an old favourite. Take a look at Reddish's homepage for more information on these novel clocks.
Even though Apple has made it all the facts clear at their recent launchfest, some people aren't convinced. It is believed that Apple could still release a touchscreen iPod by Christmas. This would obivously dwarf the current iPod with it's capabilities and make the Microsoft Zune look completely dated. But sources at Think Secret seem to have heard that the touchscreen trinket might find its way to the market before this Christmas. An unconfirmed source claims that Apple is 'committing significant sources to completing the final specifications and that it may enter manufacturing by late October'. The rumour mill loves Apple and if their products continue to be dished out like this, consumers will too. Apple have nothing to lose. Microsoft have everything to lose. They really need to start airing some eye-catching adverts here in the UK. I went round my school today, asking who'd heard of the 'Zune' and out of 140 people in my year, 4 had. 2 thought it was a type of mobile phone, one a toaster, and the other quite rightly thought it was a souped-up overhyped MP4 player. Kudos to Noah for reading the newspaper on the bus. The picture you can see is only an artists impression of a touchscreen iPod, but as you can see, people are drawing alot of conclusions about upcoming features.
If you've ever wondered about the male restroom and it's rules, now is the chance to experience it first hand. 'Male Restroom Etiquette' is a video created using The Sims 2 Developers pack and is hilariously funny and informative video on where to stand in a restroom, why you shouldn't talk, and other things that you've been brought up doing, but never known why.
And for the record, I'd like to mention that there are some pretty impressive videos out there that have been created using The Sims 2. Not just a game, but a great video tool too it seems! Check out 'Reveal' below.
Some people must spend alot of time and effort into making these as you can see with the final video below. Very nicely done. It's a 'Highschool Musical'.
This is not a TV to be reckoned with. The LG 60PC1D 60-inch Plasma Display is not just only old 60" display (not that there are tonnes out there anyway). It has an integrated HD-DVR unit built into the TV that can hold up to 13 hours of HDTV or 63 hours of standard TV on it's 160GB HDD. The TV has built-in ATSC/NTSC/QAM tuners and sports a 7000:1 contrats ratio. The TV is now retailing in some parts of the US for $5,399. Expect it to retail for about £3000+ in the UK.
Now this is my idea of beautiful. Sony has uveiled their new mobile desktop combo in Europe. The US named Vaio LS1 TV/PC has been rebranded as the Vaio LA1 in Europe. The machine itself is a work of art. I would be proud to have one sitting on my desktop. The Europe version has an Intel 1.83GHz Core 2 Duo mobile processor, a 300GB SATA hard drive , a hybrid analog/digital TV tuner. The display is an X-Black 1,680 x 1,050, 19-inch montior powered by an Nvidia GeForce Go 7400 chip. The LA1 runs Windows XP Media Center Edition 2005 and scores low in gaming tests. It does however look very good and is more than capable of being a good media center PC. However, enthing made by Sony should be approached with caution. Especially after their recent reports of explosions, software problems, delays, bad customer service, etc. The list goes on. There's no denying though, that even if this system performs badly, it looks the part.
I'm surprised the laptop hasn't been arrested under the terroism act of 1999. Woah... I'm getting ahead of myself. When you're sitting in a departure lounge heading outward from London in this day and age, and your laptop explodes, the first thing that goes through your mind must be '****! I'm not a terrorist!' Luckily, a Gizmodo reader was there when a man's Sony powered IBM laptop did exploded.
'So we were waiting for a flight in the United lounge at LAX, the flight next to ours was heading to London and in the middle of final boarding, when suddenly this guy comes running the wrong way up the jetway, pushing other boarding passengers out of the way, he quickly drops his laptop on the floor and the thing immediately flares up like a giant firework for about 15 seconds, then catches fire. About a hundred other people in the lounge jumped up and began a mix of gawking and general panic, I clearly heard a few fleeing individuals saying something about terrorists. The fire burned for a minute while everybody just stared at it, then another flare up, this one much larger than the first, drove a larger group of gawkers away. Eventually, the high intensity flaring calmed down and a larger fire kicked in, all the while letting off a thick cloud of white smoke that was slowly filling the terminal. Finally, an employee came over with a fire extinguisher and put it out of its misery.
I spoke to the laptop owner (while getting close for some pictures!) and he said he his laptop was an IBM, that he had checked the battery against the recalls on the net and his battery wasn't a recall. I don't remember seeing any IBM laptops nuke themselves yet on Gizmodo, just MacBooks and Dells with Sony batteries, but it was a close call nonetheless. If that thing had fired off while that plane was in the air, who knows what would have happened.
Also, we got to overhear some of the not-so-computer-literate people on our flight talking about how laptop batteries can explode if you get too many viruses on your computer.'
Rather hilarious! Well, at least the last comment about viruses making laptops explode! Well done to Tom for brringing us this great news!
If you're half as stupid as me, you won't be able to cut in a straight line. That's why GetOrganized.com are now selling Laser-Guided scissors, the invention of the century. I will most certainly be buying these $20 USD cutters if I can get my hands on these, but I'm not sure hwat shipping will be like. Click here to get these nifty, helpful and generally cool cutting scissors.
Lots of things are retarded nowadays. But your latop isn't fire-retarded, so how do you protect it, if in the highly likely event of a Sony battery exploding? Well, these fire-retardent sleeves from Wrappers seem do do the job. During testing, they proved extremely fire-proof and might just save your un-insured typing fingers. These jumbocord covers are made from graphite granules embeded in quality corduroy. Only fitting the MacBook so far, but at super value of £19.50 ($36) these sleeves are sure to sell well. For an additional three pounds ($5.65), you can have your initials emroidered onto the fabric, to give it a personalised feel.
When you think of caffeine, if you think of coffee, you're not cool. If you think of Bawls Mints, the guarana powered, fizzy sugar infused sweets, then you are. At first glance, they look like ordinary mints. But once you try one, you'll know they're not. They definitely have a carbonated kick to them, just like the Bawls Drink. We put them to the test to see if these supposed super-mints perform in keeping a very tired me up for the night. WOW! These are truly better than that stinking caffiene soap, which I'm sure did no good what so-ever. Even still, it makes a good talking point. You can buy 300 mints for $10.99 from ThinkGeek.com
While you're there, make sure you have a peek at their Jolt Gum too. If not the best tasting, it certianly works aswell. You can get a six-pack of gum for $9.99. Very chewable, very caffeinated.
Google has given Picasa another new update. This time, it makes the software even more lcean and simple to use and patches a few bugs. It also adds some new tools to the software which have previously only been available on paid software. Being completely free software, Picasa is an ideal alternative to Microsoft's not so great 'Paint' that comes with windows. Truth be told, that is generally awful. Picasa can transfer pictures from your digital camera, organise them on the hard disk and perform editing. Picasa can scan your HDD(s) and compile all your images and then group them into folders. Image format support includes JPG, BMP, GIF, PNG, PSD, TIF and RAW, and it will also catalogue your movies (AVI, MPG, WMV, ASF, MOV). Picasa can display images in a folder as a slideshow, and images can be imported directly from your digital camera. Picasa Version 2 adds the ability to caption images, and share them through email or P2P networks. Other fancy new features include the ability to print your photos via third-party companies (Ofoto, Walmart etc), and the new feature of burning photos to CD and DVD. As always, Picasa can be downloaded from the right-hand sidebar along with our other reccomended software packages. They're all free and highly reccomended. And, when you download them, Google pays us money as a referer. So go ahead and get 'em!
When it comes to DAB Radios, they can be pretty darn small. But the Trinloc Fusion can officialy be crowned the world's smallest DAB Radio. 87.5mm (width), 37mm (height), 22mm (thickness) is miniature compared with the DAB Radio I have, but then again, mine plays CDs, tapes and what-not. That said, the Fusion has 1GB of storage and can play MP3s, WMAs, WAVs, OGGs and ADPCM (if any of you are using this, you don't deserve new technology). You can also upload photos, but expect resolutions that max out at 64x128. Hardly ideal. But for a small-form DAB device, it's not bad. It's price of €150 only helps push my desire to get one of these. Unfortunately, I'll have to wait until November, before I am graced with such a compact radio.
If you are looking for a novel way to have breakfast, you might try the Pop Art Toaster available at PopArtToaster.com The toaster comes with different presses for different occasions. A birthday press, train press, 'I Love You' press, cat press, plane press, car press, bike press, face press, flower press, sun press, and the list goes on. Unfortunately, the toast doesn't toast very well, but the picture does look good. 7 heat settings are applicable, if like on my first attempt, you find your toast rather uncooked or burnt. Nice product, and with a better design, it would be a nice addition to a modern kitchen.
Cambridge Soundworks are making a bid to take over the table-op music market. Yesterday, four models were announced, ranging from the 705 to the 745. All of the models come in black or white. The picture above is of the 745, the top of the range. It can play music to you extremely well through a variety of sources. AM/FM, CD, MP3 CD and even iPods or Zens can be accessed and music streamed through the speakers with the help of the dock on the right. The auxiliary input and a standard audio jack allow an even larger variety of devices to be connected, and played through the speakers. Award winning SoundWorks 2.1 speakers and subwoofer supply the great sound that can be heard, but would you pay $400 USD for a radio? Well, having heard this, I would.
In ten years time, chances are that this will be obsolete, but at the moment, it is amazing. Ever wanted the ultimate media centre PC? Well you'll be pleased. But if you think that you already have the ultimate media centre PC? Think again. 8GB DDR2 RAM, 8 DTV-Tuners, 4.5TB of Raid Storage, Dolby Home Theater Certified Audio, Hot Swappable Storage, the lot. I'll let you read the official specs sheet for yourself here, or you can read for main info below.
Intel Viiv Certified Platform utilizing Intel Core 2 Duo Processors
Up to 8GB DDR2 @ 677MHz or 4GB of DDR2 @ 800MHz Memory
Windows Media Center 2005, Vista Ultimate Ready
Also available with EnviveOS*
2 NTSC Tuners and 2 ATSC Tuners under MCE 2005
4 NTSC Tuners and 4 ATSC Tuners under EnviveOS*
500GB to 4.5TB (6 x 750GB SATAII) of Storage, RAID Optional
DVI/HDMI Video Output with HDCP Support, Optional
Dolby Home Theater Certified High Definition Audio featuring 7.1 Audio Output with SPDIF
Dual Layer DVD+/- RW Standard, Blu-ray Disc Drive optional, HD-DVD drive Available Late Q4 ‘06
Rack mounting Kit, Optional
Gigabit (10/100/1000 Mbits/sec) LAN powered by Intel, Additional NIC is Optional.
Built in VFD and IR receiver
If you can afford this, which may I add, I can't, you should get it. Even if it's only for bragging rights.
Good news for Nintendo fans and sensible people alike! Photos of the Nintendo Wii Developers Kit have arrived! As you can see they look rather snazzy, if not a bit green. But as companies are known for providing developers with colours that consumers never get, no worries there. The Wii is incredibly small as you can tell from the right-hand photo. It seems as if it could possibly pass of as a rather weird external HDD at first, but if you look closely, the logo becomes apparent. Kudos to the anonymous tipster who sent these photos in!
Nobody doubted that Zune rip-offs would be created, but Oriphe Industry Limited have already got theirs on the market. If you're thinking that they must have some new, super-quick design machinery, your saddly mistaken. Oriphe saw the leaked pictures of the Zune a few months back and set to work on creating their own version. It looks very much like a Zune aswell, with just a few minors details in design not quite right, and the fact that the largest model only holds 2GB of music. It supports AMW/MTV/MPEG/AVI/MP3/WMA/WAV/JPG files and plays them all back well. It also supports text eBooks, but not quite as would be expected. The player is compatible with Windows and Mac. Please don't tell us you're going to buy one though...
I've discovered a video of the new Microsoft Zune UI on YouTube. It seems to be as sleek as we were told by our moles and certianly looks good from here. Leave your thoughts on the comments section...
This doesn't matter too much, since only ten of you joined them, but we are having some major glitch on the Globa-Tech forums. Mostly it's just not being able to post (Which is slightly annoying) but there are some other things, like server errors, quoting errors, sign-up errors, everything really. Delta's working on it, but at the moment he can't figure out what's wrong. But if you can, please leave a comment. Help would be appreciated. We aplogize for any inconvienience caused.
Seshi
UPDATE: This is Delta. I've still not got it fixed. At least, I don't think I have. But all through this, I've been able to post. All I've managed to do is fix the forum clock. At least that's sorted, but posting is slightly more important.
For once, a nice dock that would actually look good around your home has been announced for your PSP. The Nodus Psyclone, as you might be able to tell, has a powerful integrated T-Amp, which improves sound quality for when you’re watching a UMD, listening to music, or viewing a movie. There's no way to play a game while it's docked, because of the tight space and awkward position it's in, but this isn't meant for gaming, it's meant for movies or music. Click here for the Press Release.
Microsoft announced that a Zune-branded phone was part of its upcoming Zune range. Yesterday, the media was graced with a presspack for the Zune and the launch itself, along with a tonne of information. Since then, it's all been a bit dull. The press emraced it at first and then started ditching it in favour of more iPod articles (us inlcuded!) Well... The iPod is just as good, if not better! It still deserves attention. But the fact that Microsoft is releasing a Zune Phone might be the key to their victory. That is something people have speculated about with Apple for a while, and just the other day, Apple filed a patent for a phone-device. It's possible that they might try and crash the Zune Phone launch in January like they did with the Zune launch the other day. It certainly worked then, I bet that Stevie boy is planning a repeat.
Not much info about the phone is known, except that with it, Microsoft are trying to target a large range of people. Businessmen, music lovers, public transport users, the lot. Music on a phone with Windows Mobile 5? Sounds good to me.
This my friends, is the future. All modern homes will have them if they're as good as they look. Instead of ahving a swithc, press in a button, and two more appear. Press them, and they disappear, and the light goes off, being replaced by one button. How much easier could it get? Okay, voice recognition lighting systems, but that wouldn't be easier for the designer, so I can settle with this. I like it, others don't. You decide for yourself. The Silicone switch system was developed by Ross McBride.
Very smooth design. Congratualtions Ross! People who didn't get the up/down design will now get only more confused with these weird nobbly things.
Brilliant for when your next door neighbours kids ruin your plants by kicking the ball over (that's been me before now)! But wouldn't you love to get your own back by messing with their setting and redoing everything that keeps their bank account safe from that international criminal accross the street? Well, I would, and that's why I'd love to redirect you to this brilliant list of default passwords used by router companies. I'm sure you'll only use these passwords to help your friend out when he asks for it. Yeah, that's it. Click here to see what I'm on about.
When two competitors square up to each other, trying to out-do each other yet keep prices low, the only real person who benefits is the consumer. So after our praising review of the Nespresso Aerocinni, we thought we'd stay on the lookout for more novel coffee machines. This one seems more up my street. Aside from making great coffee (Again, I hate coffee, so I got others to try it), it has a LCD weather display on the front. Now that's what I'm talking about! When you get up and can't be bothered watching the news, want an injection of caffiene, it's always useful to know how the day will treat you. Being $250 aswell, it's not bad value! Melitta is all to thank for this, and their ME1MSB Smart Brew Coffeemaker is the model in question. Definitely in my kitchen, I can tell you! It gets all of it's data from MSN's FM radio service and broadcasts it directly to you through the screen. Now all we need is a toaster that tells you the time. It's save us having to look at our shiny microwaves. Or even an RSS reading oven. That would be cool.
It shows that phone sellers are desparate now. I mean, bundling a phone with a $0.90 lip gloss that was probably part of a happy meal, I mean, come on! But Samsung obviously that making a phone pink and providing cheap lip gloss will sell well. Maybe it will, but I'm no girl, and to me it just seems a bit desparate. Then again, my sister would probably buy it, if she wasn't wasting all her money on clothes shopping. She doesn't even buy tech clothes! I'm ashamed... The Samsung S400i phone itself isn't that bad, and the lip gloss is also metter than I'm giving it credit for. It's Bourjois Effet 3D and is attached via a dongle to your spedial edition iMode pink thing. I can think of things that could be better attached to a phone, but a nice idea nevertheless.
Digg | Permalink | Posted by Davidat 1:48 PM.
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After many reports that buyers of Sony's BWU-100A finding that the software provided doesn't actually work and companies still not quite grasping the fact that people won't buy products that don't work, Sony have now released some software for their BWU-100A Blu-Ray drive that should hopefully allow it to now play Blu-Ray commercial discs, which afterall, is what you bought it for isn't it? That was one long sentence. But at least this new software seems to work, providing you have a compatible HDCP compliant graphics card (something I'm very much against, but the world seems to love). Cyberlink have also released an update for LG's Blu-Ray drives aswell, so now all of you (yes, all 5 of you), will now have fully-functionable drives (hopefully). But people, this is Sony. Take everything with a pinch of salt. HD-DVD seems to be faring better again in the HD war, but you all know I'd say that anyway, because I've been back HD-DVD since the start. But seriously, who needs a gazillion gigabytes of storage on a single disc? The only advantage, would be to slap your whole Lord Of The Rings collection onto it.
Pitty. I know of some guys in jail who could do with some phones. Perhaps they should've waited. Then they wouldn't have had to shove their phones up their butts then, and wouldn't have been publicy humiliated worldwide. If this phone ever does go English though, be guaranteed that we'll be bringing you one of the first reviews out there.
This amazing piece of kit has come up completely out of the blue. There are some things that you could just never get rid of and this mad little device is one of them. It was a bit of a shock when it arrived this morning, as I had absolutely no idea what the thing was at all. But thanks to the instruction booklet I quickly worked it out. You didn't guess it, so don't pretend you did. It was a Desktop Music Composer. It turned out it was the winner ofthe Oppenheim Toy Award, and after trying it out myself, I can whole heartedly agree with that title. How does this work? Well, it's so simple, a baby could do it. This is often an expression used when things are fairly easy, but when I say this, I mean this. It's rather amazing really. Basically, you pick up these different coloured, different shaped things and then you start messing about with them, plopping them onto the white surface. When they're on the surface, the composer will create one of 1159 different sounds and lighting effects. It might be soothing, cosmic, deep base, keyboard, strings, or percussion. The cuboid can be programmed with up to five seconds of sound. The base unit can attatch to any device that has a mini-jack audio output. This includes iPods and lets you thouroughly mash up your favourite tune. Adjust the tempo, the pitch of a podcast perhaps, or make a piece echo scarily. It's completely up to you. The music is accompanied with some very nice lights which seem to be synced to keep in time. It's a bargain, the Desktop Music Composer, costing only $60 (£30) from Hammacher Schlemmer. See for yourself.
FP3. I didn't understand it for a minute, then the cornyness dawned upon me. Horrified, I turned to write this post. Fisherprice have launched a 128MB $70 MP3 player named the FP3 (Fisher Price 3 - that's the corny bit I only just got). With rather simple, huge control buttons (as pictured) the FP3 player is quarely aimed at mouronic two year olds. Supposedly 'shock-proof' we highly doubt it will live up to the durability of the Samsung YP-K5. That was 'druability' in a nutshell - check it out here to see what I mean by that! Anyhow, the FP3 has a mini-LCD which does nothing useful, and a has a built-in volume limiting thingy for parents who can't stand any more 'barney the purple dinosaur and his 121 friends climed up a mountain last summers eve who met a big green dinosaur' junk. No kid in their right mind would want to be seen walking round with this gadget. Good-grief, NO! Trust me, I'd know... Trust Fisher Price. Pft! Yeah! Don't buy this... Please. These people give us all a bad name. MP3's should not be abused in this manner. Truly disgraceful.
We've seen water cooled cases, water cooled GPUs (aka. Radeon X1900XTX Toxic - Benchmark Thrasher) and so many water cooled products recently, that we've started to take them for granted. But I feel I must give the Thai Bangkok airport some credit for what they've pulled out the bag here. A world-class airport with no air conditiong? You must be joking! Nope... But they've taken water-cooling to a whole new level, replacing traditional air conditioning with fancy new water-cooled floors which keep the temperature at a steady 70 degrees farenheight all the time. The option is alot more eco-friendly than air-conditioning thanks to the Co-Generation Plant system in place. So if you plan to fly to Bankkik any time soon, make sure it's the rather spectacular Suvarnabhumi airport. It opens later this week.
If the Ferrari Fiorano 599 with the iPod dock wasn't enough, then perhaps the new Chrysler Sebring Sedan 2007 will do your musical taste buds justice. Featuring an LCD with a music downloads option, you can rip your favourite CD direct to your car! The download will then be stored onto the 20GB HDD. The MyGIG system can hold up to 1600 songs, eight photos and an address book. The system can also store 3D maps and has real-time traffic information via the Sirius Satellite Radio. Costing a whopping $1700, you'd find yourself better off getting an 80GB iPod and a top of the range GPS system. Still, a lovely idea. The only people I can see buying this though are car enthusiasts and very rich businessmen.
This is without a doubt, the biggest scoop of the week. On several pages on popular website 'Gamespot', Best Buy adverts are showing up with black Xbox 360s on them. This is quite a revelation and strays away from all of what we've heard previously about Microsoft's marketing techniques. The 360 depicted could just be a case mod, or a photoshopped image, but it's still a breakthrough that a company such as Best Buy should show an image in an advert. Perhaps they just wanted clicks. I doubt we'll know, at least for a while anyway.
An inferface update & built-in phishing protection.
Better support for previewing and subscribing to Web feeds.
That's right. I'm talking about cake on a technology website. I think I can be excused, taking into account that the cake is based on a video game. A Super Marrio Wedding cake infact. According to one of the wedding guests, the cake tasted rather 'Dense and suggary. Very candy-like, but not too sweet.' A good description! Click here to see for yourself. Now I want one of these for my Birthday!
I won't deny that calling a re-released line of video games 'Platinum' is completely un-original. The playstation did it, and it just shows what startling imaginations the folks over a Microsoft have. But to the point, Microsoft is planning on re-tailing platinum editions of it's best selling Xbox 360 games. Expect 'Kameo: Elements Of Power', 'Perfect Dark Zero' and 'Project Gotham Racing 3' to be in the platinum launch lineup. Platinum games look set to retails for half of what their non-platinum counterparts do. So we're looking at £20 from Amazon.co.uk or about $40 from American vendors. It's nice to see that we've not been forgotten! Now I can afford to buy some serious games!
Gizmodo are reporting that Microsoft has just held a meeting to determine the initial selling price of the Zune. Originally it was going to be around $290, but with Apple's latest launch, the mole reported that originally Microsoft was going to undercut the 30GB iPod by $10 until Apple dropped the price. This might change however to a tiny $230. Microsoft is selling the device at a loss - similar to the Xbox 360 campaign in which MS sold games to make profit. This time MS is underpricing to gain as much market share as they can before the next iPod revamp and gain back money in the Zune Marketplace which will have been lost with the price of the MP3 itself. This however might not work, as new figures show that only 40% of iPod owners have ever downloaded songs from iTunes. They're still making a packet though! Nice tactics Microsoft, but do you think that Stevie is just going to let you waltz right onto the stage and steal his market? I don't think so. Be ready, the battle hasn't even begun and tensions are high.
Richard Hammond, the internationaly famous 'Braniac' and 'Top Gear' TV show presenter, has crashed while attempting to break the British landspeed record whilst fiming for Top Gear. Hammond was driving a rocketpowered dragster and was travelling at 280mph (4 times the British speed limit), when the car veered over onto grass by the runway, flipped and smashed into the ground at an extremely high speed. This happened at the RAF Elvington airfield near York. The BBC said in a statement that they were: 'Looking into all the factors of this accident and it would be inappropriate to comment further at this stage until we know the full situation.' The accident occured yesterday and was reported on the BBC News website at 7:20 yesterday. Images via BBC.
If you're looking for a boost in stamina, anybody will tell you that Red Bull is the only way to go about it. Office-workers at the Red Bull London HQ obviously take this to heart and have taken the liberty to have slides installed rather than stairs and ping-pong tables replace their old, boring conference tables. Designed by Jump Studios, this has to be the ultimate office. Looks like that caffeinated, sugary water drink that we all love might not be that bad a place to work at afterall. Still, working at home owns all other jobs, but this is about as close as you can get.
