Plugged into the net – Technology, gaming and Apple news
Andrew Escobar has managed to get his hands on some photos that allegedly come from inside Apple (there is an “Apple Development Team” sticker on the ‘Book). There is a flickr set that has quite a few photos of the packaging and the ‘Book itself. The packaging is really small, I guess they are trying to cut down on costs (as they did with the iPod). I want one!
This is a very comprehensive and detailed article which informs you of 10 reasons why you should consider switching to Vista and some other annoyances that may make you want to put down your credit card and think again. These are the areas covered:
I think Windows has become so bloated and slow, plus with all the virus and spyware around (that is not MS’ fault) I’d rather stick to OS X. My dad said that he will not purchase Vista for any of our Windows computer, partly because of the price and the specifications it requires to actually run on a computer (Google for it, you will be blown away!)
This is a pretty cool game made entirely in CSS. CSS can do some amazing things…
Some more details have arisen about the web browser that will be launched for the DS by Opera.
Armchair Empire recently interviewed Opera’s Executive Vice President of Devices, Scott Hedrick, about his company’s upcoming DS web browser. And while Hedrick opted to leave the juiciest details to be revealed by Nintendo at a later date, he was willing to offer up some new tidbits about the browser. [Joystiq]
The current version of Opera which they are still developing, allows users to surf the whole Interweb, however you can’t view flash content (Nintendo hasn’t commented or talked about possible upgrades). The browser will have two display settings. A fit-to-width mode and DS mode. The fit to width allows you to use both screens to span across pages, and the DS mode allows the top screen to view the web on, and the bottom screen can be used to ‘drag’ across he page to see which part you want to view. “Unfortunately, Hedrick was unable to comment on the Opera browser’s availability outside of Japan.” So we won’t know whether this will be Japan only or for the rest of the world.
I think it sounds like an interesting concept, but I still keep my opinion that the screen of the DS will be too small to do uch more than basic tasks like read email. I have a PSP and the browser is great, but even on that I find the screen (sometimes) limiting as the pages take a while to load and some page are quite large and I have to move back and forth to read content.
Members of the Mactel-Linux effort today announced that they have managed to boot Linux on a 17-inch iMac Core Duo, and devoted special thanks to one user in particular for his efforts. [digg]
So what is so great about this? Well the first step into getting Windows onto Intel macs. The more we know about this, the more we know about getting Windows onto intel macs. Though not much detail has been revealed, a guide should be up with more details on the weekend, for those daring few.
There are a lot of images on a Japanese website that shows comparison photos of the DS and the DS Lite. As well as these there are other photos of the DS Lite itself, and compared to the SP (it is thinner than!) as well as photos of the DS Lite taken apart. Seems pretty authentic to me.
Everyone went all crazy when the story was leaked that the first ever ‘virus’ was made for OS X. However this has been deemed inaccurate and untrue, it a ‘trojan’. For one you need to download the infected file (which claims to be screenshots of the new version of OS X, 10.5 ‘Leopard’) and double click the “latestpics.tgz” to uncompress it. Then you need to open the file that it created. The file has a screenshot embedded into it so it looks like a picture and when you clicked to open the file it would ask you to type in the admin password. This is the part which would stop people from ‘infecting’ the trojan in their machines. Since when would pictures ask you to type in your root password. Unless you are using root, this will come up, and quite frankly if you are root andyou open up such a thing that is your fault. So what does the ‘trojan’ do? Not much. Apart from trying “to propagate itself via iChat, and unintentionally prevent infected applications from running“. So this whole thing is nothing. It is just some people trying to claim fame.
It seems that this is more of a “proof of concept” implementation that could be utilized to actually do something in the future, depending on how successful it is, or it was simply done to garner attention/press.
You cannot simply “catch” the virus. Even if someone does send you the “latestpics.tgz” file, you cannot be infected unless you unarchive the file, and then open it.A few important points:
- This should probably be classified as a Trojan, not a virus, because it doesn’t self-propagate externally (though it could arguably be called a very non-virulent virus)
- It does not exploit any security holes; rather it uses “social engineering” to get the user to launch it on their system
- It requires the admin password if you’re not running as an admin user
- It has a bug in the code that prevents it from working as intended, which has the side-effect of preventing infected applications from launching
- It’s not particularly sophisticated
So it isn’t more than a PR stunt. Nothing to see here now, move along…
An article at Next-Generation (no idea how credible this is) states the fact that “according to well-placed industry sources” Sony will launch an Xbox Live killer called HUB. This will offer the same things as Xbox Live such as content download, chat and online play. The service is also designed to support the PSP (for online connectivity) as well as the PS3 itself.
Developers for the PS3 are speculating that the launch date for the PS3 is currently set to be September, and Sony is neither confirming nor denying these rumours. This speculation has led to believe that “September 16 would be a launch date in Japan (a Saturday before a national holiday) followed by September 21 in the U.S.” The article further states that Sony is going to be announcing HUB within the next few weeks.
Is in any part true? We won’t know until Sony officially says something because who knows how credible these ‘sources’ are (if there are any). This has been the biggest rumour so far concerning the PS3 release date and a Xbox Live killer service.
Nintendo released their Wi-Fi trailer a while ago, and up until now it didn’t seem very special. Well one person, saw that the word ‘revolution’ scrolled across the screen during the advert (as seen above). You can view the thing for yourself and see if you can spot it, it is quite faint in some areas, but the above image can help you. Props to Kirbutashi for the image posted on the comments at the Go Nintendo post (read more link).
I think this a a cool way of Nitendo advertising the revolution. Unlike Microsofts hex168 and orgigen360 contests which weren’t that subtle, this was and I congratulate Nintendo. Now if we could try out the DS that would be great!
This is not only cheap, but the case is durable and everything fits inside it neatly. In under 30 mins and for less than $40 you can make your own portable 360 carry case which holds the 360 + HDD, two wireless controllers, play and charge kit, HD A/V cable, power unit, CD case with games and has room for memory units and a wireless headset. Seems like a good option if your moving it around or taking it over to a friends house to play. Not only does it keep it safe but it looks cool too and you can make it yourself!