Archive for the 'Technology' Category

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Gaming News in Review

lik-sang logo

A lot of gaming news has happened while I was away, so I thought I’d summerise it all.

  • Sony sues games importer Lik-Sang out of existence. Sony originally filed a motion against Lik-Sang in August of 2005 for exporting PSP’s to the UK before the release of the console there. Just last week a high court judge in London ruled that the sales were illegal in Europe and blocked them, even though Lik-Sang argued they broke no Hong Kong laws.
    Last week, Pascal Clarysse, Marketing Manager of Lik-Sang.com argued; “Fighting multiple lawsuits in different countries at the same time and paying high premiums to expensive lawyers is an overwhelming situation for a small company like Lik Sang. Launching separate court actions with separate claims and different judges is completely unnecessary, except for the fact that it helps reaching one single target: outspend Lik-Sang to death. Pay beyond.” [link]
  • Could there be a Xbox 360 Dashboard update waiting for us in a weeks time. Xbox Live’s Major Nelson mentioned on his podcast that he has been testing out the Xbox 360 Wireless Communicator on his development kit, which has “excellent” sound quality. Major Nelson goes on to say that “even if you went to the store today and bought it, you couldn’t use it until you have the fall upgrade to the dashboard.” With the Wireless communicator being released on 31st October, it makes us wonder whether the dashboard update would be released on or before the 31st; and that day is just looming. [link] Major Nelson’s Podcast, mentioned at around 1:16:30.
  • Sony has cleared up good and bad things about the PS3. Some of the postive notes are: HD Movies can be stored on and played directly from the hard drive, although codec support is yet unknown; Reports are that within 10 seconds of selecting the movie from the menu, its playing. The bad sides include: no HD cables in the box for definite; PS3 does not upconvert DVD’s, and will not enhance PS1/PS2 game’s graphics; no included remote, one can be bought separately for $24.99, and uses bluetooth not IR, so say goodbye to your universal remote. [link]

I’m going to MacExpo!

macexpo logo

I got back from Hungary at around midnight of Sunday. I would have posted news on Monday and yesterday, as it was awfully busy in the tech world, but my copy of Ghost Recon: Advanced Warfighter arrived in the posted. So I ended playing it pretty much all day. It is a fantastic game, but more on that in a separate post.
So while I was looking through my emails, I remembered that I had been given a free ticket to MacExpo which starts tomorrow. As it so happens, the rest of the family are going to London for shopping, so I’m going as well, but to MacExpo. I will be taking lots and lots of photos, and I will try to blog about most of them. This week will be really bust for me! My camera isn’t back from repair yet, so I’ll be taking pictures with my K800i phone. It has a superb camera, though it often shows up quite a lot of noise. I’m going to try to set up my Flickr account so that I can send photos from my phone to it, which it then should post onto my blog. Hopefully it all goes well.
Other than that I have not much else to say, I have got a lot of news lined up, which I will try to all post today.

Europe to get another PS3 delay? (false)

ps3 at psm

After all the problems that Sony has stuffed us with, you’d think they’d have learnt by now to get things sorted out in time for the launch. But apparently it seems they haven’t learned a thing. Not only is the PS3 already been delayed for us in Europe, but we are supposed to suffer another delay?
According to the Spanish gaming site MeriStation Ken Kutaragi recently admitted that supply problems for Japan and North America could force the European PS3 launch to be delayed until May. This would mean that the Japanese and Americans might have their PS3′s nearly six months before the rest of the world. This has not been verified yet, so take it with a grain of salt. It is also worthwhile to note that Kutaragi also supposedly said that Sony has not modified its European launch plans at this time.

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UPDATE: Sony has come out and denied this story. A Sony spokesperson told GamesIndustry.biz: “Any reports of a further delay to the launch of the PS3 in Europe are categorically not true. We are still fully committed to a March 2007 launch date. Ken Kutaragi has not done any media briefings since the Tokyo Game Show, and the story is not true.” [link]

So the (RED) iPod nano really is here…

bono oprah

apple red ipod

The Chicago Tribune has posted a photo of Oprah and Bono checking out the new (RED) iPod nano’s at the Michigan Avenue Apple Store in Chicago. Not only that, but someone spotted the Apple Cube Store in NYC changing their Apple logo to a red one (photo here).
Also, on Apple’s website, they are now advertising the (RED) iPod, and have a link to the online Apple store to buy it. However, there is no mention of it on the online Apple store. Maybe they are just waiting until Bono and Oprah officially reveal it on TV. As you can see from Apple’s PR shot to the right, the nano is a more vivid red than the artists rendition. I think it looks really cool, and wouldn’t mind buying one (If I needed one), and it’s for a good cause.

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Apple to release a (RED) nano in conjunction with Bono!

red ipod mockup
Artists rendition of the iPod nano

Oprah and Bono are getting ready to unveil a new red-coloured iPod nano to support the PRODUCT(RED) scheme on TV tomorrow. The red nano is expected to debut tomorrow, in a 4GB model, for the same price as the other 4GB iPods ($199) and Apple has agreed to donate $10 from each nano sale to the PRODUCT(RED) charity.
Bono’s new charity is helping raise awareness of AIDS, and has partnered with many other companies such as Motorola, American Express and Converse. The income from the sale of each PRODUCT(RED) product is donated to The Global Fund, where it is destined to help women and children affected by HIV/AIDS in Africa.

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PS3 comes with composite cable and no high-def cables!

composite cable

It seems that Sony has decided to skimp with the cabling of the PS3. It has a blu-ray drive, the Cell processor and a HDMI port, everything needed to view High-def content, except the high-def cable. The latest issue of Japanese gaming magazine Famitsu reports on the cables that will be included with the Japanese version of the PS3. Those who buy 60 GB or 20 GB models will get a power cord, USB cable, ethernet cable and standard composite AV cable.
This is really disturbing. Sony are advertising the superiority over the 360 that it can play true 1080p high-def content, but it doesn’t even come with a high-def cable! Even the Xbox 360 comes with a basic component/composite combo. They could at least include it with the 60GB version. I am absolutely outraged! Even though I wouldn’t buy a PS3 anyway, but considering how Sony claim the PS3 to be better than the 360, and they skimp on ways like this, which doesn’t save much money anyway!

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Xbox 360 could get DivX support

360 divx

A Dutch Xbox 360 fan site (X-life) is reporting that Microsoft will be officially supporting the DivX and XviD formats within two months. This means that no 3rd party software will be needed to stream XviD and DivX files to the 360, and presumably, it also means that XviD encoded DVD’s will also be able to be played on the 360. However this is just a rumour so far, as it has not been confirmed by anyone else. The following excerpt, was translated from Dutch, during a Microsoft retailer training session.

After the event I had a short talk with the host and asked him whether there’d ever be support for DivX and Xvid playback. Much to my surprise, he started telling me that Microsoft is working hard to implement this and a firmware update is expected within 2 months allowing you to play DivX and Xvid directly on the 360.

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Links for 12/10/2006

egg cuber

The shorts for Thursday 12th October:

  • The EggCuber in action – above (video) [link]
  • It’s been four years, but Windows XP SP1 support ended on Monday [link]
  • Developers are from Mars, Programmers are from Venus [link]

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The Geekiest Licence Plates

uber licence plateopen source licence plate
1337 licence platelinux licence plate

Geek24.com went geek licence plate spotting (on Flickr of course), and found some very good ones. There are quite a lot of them; The above few are just some of the ones that I found funny. If you look in the comments of the article, you will find links to other pictures of similar types of licence plates. If you don’t get them, well then shame on you ;)

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Google buys YouTube for $1.65 billion!

google youtube logo

Yesterday Google announced what I think is the biggest news of the month, they bought YouTube. Yep, Google acquired another Web 2.0 company (remember Writely), this time for a massive $1.65 billion USD. And to think that some companies laughed at the thought that YouTube could ever be worth so much. I think most of us anticipated this move, as there had been a lot of buzz about this over the last week.
Google organised a short press conference call after the press release, which can be heard here. Read on for the full Google press release, and see TechCrunch’s post for the main notes of the call.

YouTube founders Chad Hurley and Steven Chen, have posted a video onto YouTube just to give a shout out to everyone on their thoughts, and what they hold for the future.

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