Monthly Archive for March, 2006

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Xbox 360 camera caught!

Published on Friday, March 3, 2006 in Gaming, Microsoft and Technology. Closed

The Xbox 360′s camera which hasn’t been revealed yet by Microsoft was seen at XFEST at an “Xbox Live Camera Demo Station”. Xbox 360 Fanboy’s “tipster sent in shots and descriptions from the three different demos on display at the event: “Xbox Live Camera Video Chat”, facial mapping software from digimask, even a tank game that incorporates video into the game!” How very exciting, now only if Microsoft actually released it to us. Seems like an interesting and doable idea, but I don’t think you would be having video chats with people on Xbox Live unless you knew them personally, because (and I hate to say this) but a lot of people on Xbox Live are 10 year olds shouting “I want my chocolate milk” (remember that?).

Tesco are introducing Apple Zones

Published on Friday, March 3, 2006 in Apple, Noteworthy and Technology. 1 Comment

I never knew about this, living in the UK near a few Tesco’s I thought I would have heard about this. Tesco introduced a new section to their Milton Keynes store a few weeks ago. Dubbed the ‘Apple Zone’, these sections devoted to Apple gear show off the iPod, iMac, many laptops and other Apple gear and accessories. Now they are planning to expand it to over 300 stores nationwide. “Tesco is initially extending the Apple trial to six stores as it prepares for a full roll-out“, initial reports say. This will mean a lot more people will be exposed to Apple gear during normal days, so maybe other people will start to realise how cool Macs are. I want to see one of these, so I hope it comes to my Tesco (Milton Keynes isn’t too far away but it is pointless making a trip there just for this).

DS Lite is released in Japan! (with photos)

Published on Thursday, March 2, 2006 in Gaming, Shorts, Technology and Wireless. Closed

The Nintendo DS Lite has now officially arrived in Japan. At 8:00 pm Eastern standard time, 10:00 am Japanese time, the upgraded portable gaming device was unleashed upon frenzied Japanese gamers throughout the country.
Those anticipating the arrival of the device were out in full force late last night (early this morning for us) as widespread shortages of Nintendo’s latest product are fully expected. In what has been described as an exceptionally cold night, riddled by freezing, raining conditions. The long lines traditionally associated with the release of a new gaming system started off slow, presumably due to the inhospitable weather conditions present in Japan, however accelerated greatly throughout the night.

In depth review of the MacBook Pro

Published on Thursday, March 2, 2006 in Apple, Shorts and Technology. 1 Comment

All in all, the MacBook Pro is an extremely solid machine that makes me happy to be back in the Apple Pro notebook world after a six month hiatus in 12″ iBook-land. The Intel switch has been an important step forward for Apple in general, but particularly for ensuring that its pro lines of hardware keep moving forward, technology-wise, and at a competitive rate. Unfortunately, however, most pro software is not yet available in Universal Binary and is not expected to be for a little while (Adobe is estimating sometime in 2007, for example), but Rosetta is usable enough to get by in the interim if you don’t mind the performance hit. Apple is still projecting its pro apps to be available in Universal Binary some time this month; we’ll know in short order if Apple hits the target. If so, the migration over to Intel hardware for graphic and video pros will probably start moving a little bit quicker.

Taking apart the new Intel Mac mini

Published on Thursday, March 2, 2006 in Apple, Noteworthy and Technology. Closed

Just as the new Mac mini was released, someone already managed to buy one and take it apart. There are a lot of high quality photos with a guide so you can take it apart too. One thing to note is that Apple have now moved the RAM slot so it is a bit harder to replace, you need some extra tweaking to get in there. The SATA drive is 2.5″ not 3.5″ like many people thought. There is a post on the MacWorld website which outlines the main parts of the mini.
On a related note, the first unboxing pics of the new Mac mini can be found here. There are lots of pictures of the mini, a setup and the actual packaging, which I think looks cooler!

Mac Mini inside a NES

Published on Wednesday, March 1, 2006 in Apple, Gaming, Noteworthy and Technology. Closed

This is a very cool mod. It has been done very well, and if you have an emulator running, you can use the controller ports! The power button on the NES puts the mini to sleep and the reset button ejects the CD tray (the slot loading drive from the original mini has been removed). The status light for the NES has been replaced with the white status LED from the mini, to show it is a Mac. Uber cool! I’ve never seen a mod that has been done this well.

Four versions of Vista on one disc

Published on Wednesday, March 1, 2006 in Microsoft, PC, Shorts, Software and Technology. Closed

According to ZDNet’s Ed Bott, the retail version of Windows Vista will include four of the OS’s six-plus flavors on a single DVD. The versions included on the DVD will be Vista Business, Home Basic, Home Premium, and Ultimate, and which version gets installed depends on how much the purchaser spends and what product key they use to install Vista. This is a good move on Microsoft’s part because it prevents retailers from having to stock four versions of the same product and promises an easy upgrade scenario called Windows Anytime Upgrade. If a user has Vista Home Basic installed and wants to upgrade to Premium, for example, they can just buy a product key for an upgrade fee and install the beefier version of Vista from the disc they already have. Perhaps not so good for Microsoft is the fact that it’s going to take hackers a couple weeks, tops, to figure out how to get those upgrades for free. [Download Squad]

Play Flash files on your PSP!

Published on Wednesday, March 1, 2006 in Gaming, Noteworthy, Software and Technology. Closed

“The current version supports most action script through version 7 and runs on 1.5 only. We are currently testing for 2.x PSPs and will announce when it is working on 2.x firmwares. If someone gets it working, be sure to let us know.” (Link) – [Thanks Make!]

The good folk at MAKE tested it out on a v1.5 PSP, and it runs, they have a lot of other pictures showing off a Chess game, calculator and others. Very cool if you ask me, as this way you can now run a lot of other games which can be modified to suit the PSP. With a program like Macromedia Flash MX you can make your own games as well. Choosing files is easy, and you can separate them into folders, if you have that many.

No Windows Live Mail or Messenger Invites yet

Published on Wednesday, March 1, 2006 in General. 2 Comments

A lot of people have still been asking me for invites for the Windows Live Mail and Windows Live Messenger Beta programs even though I have said I don’t have any. As soon as I get some (or any sort of beta invites) I will make a post about it and thosee who haven’t got any yet can make a post. Please only post your email once, and if you are genuinely interested because I only get 15.

The iPod Leather Case

Published on Wednesday, March 1, 2006 in Apple and Technology. 1 Comment

ipod leather case

One piece of news I forgot to mention yesterday was the leather case Apple is now selling for the iPods. By iPods, I mean the 30/60GB 5G iPod and the iPod nano. Every other iPod is now extinct so Apple won’t make it for them (which I’m sad about as I have a 4G iPod). These cases are hand crafted by Italian designers. Prices start at $100 (£69), so it’s pretty pricy considering it is only a sleeve case. There is a little fabric which allows you to pull out the iPod with ease, but you can’t control the iPod while it is in this sleeve (I don’t think it can be called a case). The only advantage of this is that it has an Apple logo and ‘iPod’ stamped into the cover. Other than that it is not too special.