Plugged into the net – Technology, gaming and Apple news
This is really cool, using a special dual coloured origami paper you can create a Yoda. The image above shows the Yoda created by Fumiaki Kawahata. It looks like it will take ages and you need to have skill and accuracy but it is worth while. You will end up with a really cool Master Yoda origami.
read more (.pdf)
This quite detailed tutorial shows you how to create a fake software box in photoshop. You can also use it in Macromedia Fireworks, although not all the options will be in the same place. This is good if you are selling software as it “gives off the impression that you are an established business and is an asthetically pleasing way of presenting your software or application“. This is pretty cool, read further if you are interested.
If you are annoyed at how expensive the Memory Stick’s are from Sony, and you can’t even go more than 1GB then this solution is for you. A huge exposed circuitry provides you a converter, so you stick in your cheap 2GB Compact Flash card and off you go. It has even been tested with a 6GB Microdrive. The PSP recognises both, with their fill capacities! But they really need to work out a good case, otherwise no one will buy it, the PSP won’t be portable anymore. Seriously, you won’t carry this round if it has a bulky case or if it was exposed like this, would you?
It looks like the Mac Mini’s are being updates, secretly. If you order your Mac Mini from the online Apple Store, you may get a new bumped up Mini, or an older one. They will arrive in the same boxes and labels, so you won’t know until you turn it on. The reason Apple are doing this is to enable them to clear the stock out of the older models before they announce the newer ones. This way they can sell it for the same price. Unfair 
Just as I got mine a month ago a newer one is out! The Mac Mini’s are being updated from 1.42GHz (the model that I have) to 1.5GHz and from 1.25GHz to 1.33GHz. The SuperDrive model will now have a 8x SuperDrive instead of a 4x. The Mac mini’s graphics card remains an ATI Radeon 9200 but now features double the VRAM at 64MB. The video card still can’t support Mac OS X 10.4 Tiger’s Core Image technology The hard drives have also been upgraded to 5400 rpm instead of 4200 rpm. Finally, the new Mac mini features Bluetooth 2.0+EDR support and the Bluetooth software is version 1.6.3f2 (the previous Mac mini used 1.6.0f2) with firmware version 3.1965 (previously 2.1586).
Essentially, customers are promised that the Mac mini they purchase will have specifications “at least” equal to the label, but that their system may exceed those. Customers who purchase a new Mac mini to find they ended up with the older configuration will not be able to return the system in the hopes of getting the newer configuration without paying a restocking fee.
So they are playing a game…
Microsoft is now claiming that their new Windows Vista will boot in 2 to 3 seconds. Er, I don’t think so. Microsoft, do you think people are stupid? As Engadget points “you’re lucky if your machine boots in six minutes or shuts down in two“. What ever their radical claims are I don’t think it will work. They could mean anything by ‘boot’. There is no way a Microsoft OS would boot that fast. It takes a couple of seconds just to pass the BIOS, and with all the crap eye candy they have added it cannot boot that fast. Anyway Microsoft have an article on their website about this booting.
So I posted last week about the Treo 700w and how Engadget managed to get their hand on one. Well yesterday the Treo was officially announced. They didn’t have any special details that we didn’t already know about, but one bad thing is that the screen’s resolution is 240 x 240 and not 320 x 320. This is a shame, as it would have certainly made a lot more people buy it.
They haven’t announced an official naming scheme for the device quite yet, and are currently referring to it affectionately as the “Treo smartphone on Windows Mobile.” They’re opening up the Q&A now with the warning that they won’t be announcing any further specs or pricing at this time. When pressed on release schedule, Palm President and CEO Ed Colligan indicated “very early next year.”
The prime reason the Google home page is so bare is due to the fact that the founders didn’t know HTML and just wanted a quick interface. Infact it was noted that the submit button was a long time coming and hitting the RETURN key was the only way to burst Google into life.
There are lots of other cool facts. If you use Google at all, it is an interesting read. Check it out.
A wired version of the Xbox 360 controller has been sold on eBay for $91. So some stupid guy has bought for around £46 a controller to a system which isn’t even out yet. Sure they could use it with a PC (if it worked), but still why pay that much when the console will be out in 2 months, at which they could get it at quarter the price?
As for how the seller acquired it, he says:
I got one when I attended a game developer’s conference hosted by Microsoft.
I wonder if this is really how he got it. I didn’t think that Microsoft would be just ‘giving away’ controllers. Wouldn’t they give away the 360 Developers Console. What use would it be to developers just a controller?
The entire building is a parking machine. Just drive your car into the bay. Each bay rotates through the building to maximize usage of space. Your parking ticket will retrieve your car back to the bottom bay. You back out your car onto the rotating circle. It will turn your car so you can drive out straight!
This is really cool. But one thing I am worried about is what they will do with my car. I want it kept safe and I want assurance that nothing will happen with it. Check out the link below for more images of wierd Japanese vending machines, including a fried foods vending machine, with pictures.
