Monthly Archive for October, 2005
After all the speculation and whatnot, Apple has released the OS X 10.4.3 update into the wild. You can now download it. The file size is 97MB for users who are updating from 10.4.2 (like me) but if you’re a 10.4 and 10.4.1 user then it maybe more. According to Apple, this update includes fixes for: “AFP, SMB/CIFS, NFS and FTP network file services, AirPort and Bluetooth wireless access, Core Graphics, Core Audio, Core Image, and RAW camera support, disc recording when creating and burning media, .Mac sync services, Spotlight indexing and searching, Dashboard widgets: Dictionary, Flight Tracker, Stickies, and Unit Converter, Address Book, AppleScript, Automator, Dictionary, Font Book, iCal, iSync, Mail, and Safari applications, Disk Utility, Keychain Access, Migration Assistant, and Software Update, compatibility with third party applications and devices, and previous standalone security updates.”
I’m downloading now: Progress 67MB out of the 97MB (about 2 minutes remaining) Get your update via Software Update on your Mac.
This is truly horrifying 
. I previously mentioned a site, SmashMyiPod.com, which is “dedicated in raising $400 to buy and iPod and destroy it inside the Apple Store they bought it from“. I was bit skeptic seeing the early photos which looked like they weren’t taken inside the Apple Store. Now I know why, they were chucked out from the Apple Store after their little ‘demo’. The video shows the guy walking in a buying the iPod, then his friend walks up, throws it to the ground and starts stomping on it with his foot. After they get chucked from the Apple Store they get a sledgehammer and batter the iPod to pieces. A few photos then follow showing the smashed iPod. Watch the video for yourself here.
It looks like they weren’t cheating on people with buying a 4G iPod as the video looks legit. But they did say they raised more money than they needed, which they probably kept themselves. Anyway the video is still fun and scary to watch 
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read more (page with links to the video)
Macenstein‘s sources report that the Tiger update to 10.4.3 should be happening sometimes this weekend. The update is expected to be around 100MB and contain fixes for nearly all the bugs in 10.4.2 and some that it didn’t fix. As soon as I get home from Hungary I will run Software Update and see if it has been released. I haven’t experienced any ‘bugs’ in my installation of Tiger even though this update is supposed to contain the most fixes an update has ever had. My mini runs smoothly and I have never ever had a problem with it. It has never crashed and the only time I;ve ever had to force quit an application was with the Beta 1 and Beta 2 releases of Firefox 1.5. Other than that I’ve been sailing smoothly. A lot of people are the same way, but unfortunately there is a small minority who exhibit some problems with their version of OS X. The updates are as follows:
Key updates to the Core Image, OpenGL and CoreGraphics are expected, largely in support of new features found in Front Row, Aperture, and Photo Booth. Numerous smaller tweaks to just about everything ranging from iChat to Safari are rumored to be included as well, but no major new functionality is expected.
Linking in with the previous post about Japanese Internet speeds, a Japanese power company achieved a rate of 1 Terabit per second. They used a 2 Hour movie to test speeds, coming in at 1/2 a second to trasmit the whole file. It is “the world’s fastest speed achieved with fibre-optic cables“. Cool, eh?
Kansai Electric used fibre-optic cables on power-transmitting steel towers to achieve the speed of one terabit per second, which is more than 100 times faster than inter-city data transmissions currently in use, a spokesman says.
The company, Japan’s second-largest power supplier, has not decided when to put the technology into practical use but says it is possible that it would come in 2010 or later.
I would kill for those speeds. Imagine internet browsing and downloading. File downloads would be (almost) instantaneous. But piracy would also increase because of the speeds. There would be noneed for bittorrent if everyone were to have these speeds. But we are far of that, if we ever see it reach the consumer stage.
I have been looking to see when My Xbox will go live, well now it has. This lets you create and view your Gamercard (mine seen above) which you can use on the 360 when it comes out. It also lets you see which of your friends are online (I have 20), what games they’re playing, your gamerscore (which you can build up when the 360 comes out) and more. As you can see above I have no rep or any gamerpoints because the 360 isn’t out yet so I can’t build them up! The Xbox.com website is now updates, putting into place the new design and features. The design is much better and overall a lot more cooler than it was before.
If you are an Xbox Live! subscriber and want to create your own ‘My Xbox’ then visit here, and then click the big link on the right that says ‘Sign Up’.
My Xbox (UK)
News is a bit dry today 
Anyway I found this interesting article that shows the development of internet in countries. Japan’s internet is already upto 40Mpbs.
China has more than 28 million broadband lines with a penetration rate of only 2 per cent. South Korea leads the world with a broadband penetration rate of more than 25 percent and Japan boasts the fastest available residential Internet service with speeds up to 40 Mbps.
I haven’t talked about the PS3 in a long time because of all the news around the Xbox 360 and the Nintendo Revolution. This is quite big news, but it seems fake. Engadget says that they received the “tip from some guy who kind of knows somebody who is friends with a dude at Joystiq who posted about a 1UP story linking to a Japanese blog called CoolGamer that 1UP says has been pretty spot on with gaming news in the past.” I still think it is fake. Sony have been laying it low with the news about the PS3 for a while and I don’t think they are ready to launch the PS3 during the Spring 2006. If they do then they would only do it to try and gain some of the market with the Xbox 360 lanching soon (Dec 2nd in the UK) and I could see them having problems with the PS3 if they try to push it out of the door too soon. Engadget also says “‘Spring’ could mean as late as June 20th” and if it was that late that would be around the Revolution release date that has been floating around the ‘net but not confimed if it is true.
I didn’t want to have a picture of Bill Gates here so I used the Windows logo instead.
This article tells you 14 interesting facts about Bill gates that you most likely didn’t know. There is a short excerpt below, so if it interests you then read on.
8. In Harvard he got bored and passed most of his time programming and playing poker.
9. Gates told his teachers in university he would be a millionaire by age 30
10. Gates turned into a billionaire at age 31.
11. One of his teachers said about him “Bill was an amazing programmer, but a disgusting person”.
I just found this while looking over the posts on Joystiq on the past couple of days and I found it really interesting. Nick Puleo (from Evil Avatar) had a look at at the Xbox 360 kiosk in the Phillipsburg (NJ) Wal-Mart. He wanted to see what sort of juicy content he could take from the 360 with the memory card he received at a recent NYC media event. He was in for a surprise. It has been noted that all Xbox 360 kiosks will be shipping with a Samsung 23″ HDTV LCD but he found that the Xbox 360 was locked on to a resolution of 480i (on an LCD that has a native resolution of 720p). To quote Joystiq “it’s ugly, folks“. As for the memory card, you can only download 4 dashboard themes. Not very exciting. Lets hope Microsoft will distribute more content by the launch as no-one would be very interested in getting different themes, which would either already come with the Xbox as standard, or would be downloadable via Xbox Live.
This is huge:
“As of early October this year, we had agreed with all key partners that a global ship date of June 2006 was achievable,” said one of SPOnG ‘s several sources associated with the Revolution manufacturing process. “Nintendo will get the launch in Japan and America and Europe as close as possible. It will be like the Xbox 360 launch, only tighter.”
If this is indeed true, which it sounds like then the Revolution maybe launched near to the time of the PS3. This could mean even more people buying the Revolution instead of the PS3. The PS3 will cost more and may not be 100% backwards compatible like the new PSTwo. Since the Revolution had been announced it has been bilding up hype, and I can definitely imagine people getting this instead of the PS3. It is easier to convince parents to buy this as it may sell for as little as $99. Lets hope we get sme concrete information, directly from Nintendo to confirm this. Until then I’ll leave you all to wonder.