Microsoft Connect, home of Microsoft’s betas including Vista has some interesting CSS values. The first line in the .css is commented “fix for the IE 1px-off margin error”, followed by a value called “.StupidIEMarginHack “. [digg]
Monthly Archive for March, 2006
I think that this update was made by Apple to compete with Dell’s UltraSharp 3007WFP which had a higher specification up until now. CNET did a review recently comparing the two, and although Apple’s 30″ Cinema Display beat Dell’s for better colour accuracy and sharpness, Dell did a good job. The Dell screen has better features (more ports and adjustability) and had smoother text production than Apple’s Cinema Display.
So what exactly did Apple change? They updated the brightness of the screen to 400cd/m2 from 270 and upped the contrast ratio to 700:1 from 400:1. Now the technical specs (apart from the ports, etc) of the Cinema Display match Dell’s 30″ monster exactly. Coincidence? I think not.
There is a Flickr group up that contains hundreds of photos of items relating to the PS3. Images from E3 ’05 and GDC ’06 of the keynotes and the many booths that showcase the PS3. If you are interested at all in the PS3 I recommend you check it out, there are some worthwhile images of the UI of the OS (it runs on Linux!), the dev box and images from the games.
Awhile back I posted about the new search results interface Google was supposedly testing. I can definitely confirm that today. This blog post describes how to set a new cookie in Firefox that will force Google to display the new results page for you. Since the instructions are a little off (and took me some fiddling to make them to work), here’s my version:[...] In the comments reader Whosawhatsis has posted an easier way to accomplish the same thing without installing any extensions. Try that first. [Download Squad]
Worked for me (in Safari and Firefox)!
As I have been quite busy lately with some other ‘work’ I haven’t been making many blog posts lately. I will try to get back into my normal frequency (2-3 posts a day) as soon as I can. So I missed out on an opportunity to post this piece of news on the actual day. As of 24th March 2006, OS X has been going strong for 5 years. That’s 4 versions of OS X while MS has released one! Ars Technica take a look at the past and what happened to OS X over all these years.
The above image reminds us of the good old days when OS X was still in it’s public beta and people could spend $20 to try out the revised, albeit very buggy (hence the beta), OS. This was when Apple had moved the Apple logo to the centre (what were hey thinking), but due to all the complaints they moved it back, Thank God. It is taken from GUIdebook’s OS X page, here.
You can’t get more simple than the Galvanic Skin Response [GSR] sensor. It is just a cut 9V LEGO motor wire and some aluminum foil wrapped around your fingers with tape. I was inspired by talks by Mindfest panelists Karen Wilkinson and Mike Petrich who talked about using this type of sensor. The theory is that; the more relaxed you are the dryer your skin is and so the higher the skin’s electrical resistance. When you are under stress your hand sweats and then the resistance goes down.
This is really cool. Now anyone can make their own lie detector for not much money (assuming you already have a LEGO mindstorms kit). Nice hack!
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[Photo Credit: Revolution Report]
Much has happened since yesterday in Revolution news, so I thought I’d put it all in one place. First of all, at GDC (Gamer Develpers Conference) in San Jose, Nintendo had put out a Revolution on display behind a plexi-glass container. 
This is what is assumed to be the final design of the console itself. RevolutionReport snapped a few photos of it on display in a wide variety of angles, including one image where it was compared with a DS. From what I can see, it looks small, just longer than the DS it seems to be a minute console. On the back of the console there are two USB ports, a AV port and a DC in. The mysterious ports in the patent filing are missing (perhaps they will reveal this later?) The words ‘Revolution’ have also disappeared from the console and only the Nintendo logo is there. Maybe this is because it will be re-named?
The second piece of news fits in well with the last question. An Engadget reader (Helmut) sent in a photo (right) of what is apparently the new name of the Revolution, ‘Nintendo Go’, with some Japanese text (confirmed to make sense). Because of all the hype and fakery (remember the Nitendo ON?) around the Revolution I think this is fake, but we will have to wait and see if Nintendo does anything. Now that the Nintendo keynote is history, we can only assume that Nintendo may make a press release of the new name, or announce it alongside the release of the actual console.
The last news is the actual keynote. Both Joystiq and the Revolution Report did some good blogging of the Keynote. I will quickly run over the main things that happened.
- No big Revolution announcement (such as a name change).
- New fun game for DS ‘Brain Age’ to exercise the brain (logic game).
- Nintendo DS Zelda confirmed: Phantom Hourglass.
- Revolution download game library includes games from the Sega Genesis, NES, SNES and N64.
- Iwata (Nintendo President) ends the keynote with “At Nintendo, we do not run from risk, we run to it“.
So the keynote didn’t announce anything big for the Revolution, but the Brain Age game sounds fun and entertaining for the DS. Leave it to Nintendo to come up with such imaginitive ideas. I wish I had a DS…
[Photo credit: Dan Bowles]
Could this be a deliberate easter egg on Apple’s part? I don’t know what you see, but to me it looks like the light given off by the Mighty Mouse looks like a mouse or a rabbit depending on how you view it. I checked it with my and yes, it does do that. Plenty of other people have also confirmed it, so this raises a question: was this done on purpose by the good folks at Apple, or is it a mistake? I am inclined to believe this was done on purpose by Apple, as they have hidden many gems into OS X, other Apple Software (such as Final Cut) and even iPods. I do have to say that I was quite suspicious of this as I never really saw it before and I have been using my Mighty Mouse for over 6 months. I guess I didn’t really look at the light very much! Needless to say, this is an interesting thing and I think these things is what makes Apple so special (and different to Microsoft).
I’ll be sort of live blogging the event, ready to upload as soon as I can get back to civilization across the street. There’s a display up on stage of the history of Sony consoles: the PlayStation, PSone, PlayStation 2, PS2 slim, PSP, and–of course–the PlayStation 3.
[10:36] GDC director Jamil Moledina takes the stage. Says Phil Harrison is going to “deliver the goods.” The “ultimate Sony insider.” Phil takes the stage. Beyond the box: hardware/software/audience.
Ever wonder what 3000 iBooks looks like? Or how you might go about configuring them? What if you only had three days to do it? Apple consultant Jaron Brass has an amazing gallery of photos. [TUAW]