I have finally gotten round to write a prediction list. This one is for the upcoming Macworld 2007 Expo that is happening in San Francisco on January 9 – 12. So what do I think big Stevie will announce, well here they are:

• iWork and iLife ‘07 – This one is a definite. Every year Apple announce the release of a new version of their iLife and iWork suite, and every year it has been at Macworld. I think largely iWork will remain the same, except (hopefully) a spreadsheet application will also be intergrated. Maybe called ‘Numbers’ (as the old rumours have put it). iLife will get upgrades, but nothing too major.
• Detailed iTV information – I think this one is also a definite. More specific information about the iTV; such as it’s actual name, as I hardly think Apple would keep such a name. I couldn’t imagine the legal battles that would ensue from the UK’s ITV TV channel, and maybe Elgato with their eyeTV software (not same spelling but it is a homophone). Other information such as its actual price, maybe a HDD inbuilt with PVR — a feature I’m sure many people would love — functionality, maybe a 802.11n wireless. Release date will be soon, if not the same day.
• Leopard ship date – This will most likely be announced, maybe available to buy quite soon. A lot of people have been waiting for this, including me, and I will most likely be getting it. I don’t care that it will probably have bugs, and some software will be incompatible, I want it! I just hope that my mac mini can handle it ok. It seems to have been under a lot of pressure lately, and has begun to slow down some bit, even with a 1GB memory upgrade.
• iPhone – But it won’t be called the iPhone — Apple will user some other name, because of Linksys’ iPhone. It seems that everyone has been talking about it, and a lot of people want it, even though not a peep has come out of Cupertino at all. Kevin Rose seems to think it will happen with his inside information, 4GB and 8GB, flash memory, slide out keyboard, maybe touchscreen. I personally don’t want one. My current SonyEricsson K800i works just fine for me. It has a fantastic camera, nice big screen, plenty of memory, and works with my Mac — effortless syncing.
• iPod revisions – It’s been ages since Appl last updated the iPod , so it’s about time. Nothing too major, maybe making it thinner/smaller, slightly longer battery life, and a software update for some enhancements. I don’t expect a widescreen ‘video’ iPod at all.
• iTunes 8 – Or maybe a smaller update, but I think Apple will have HD content. This is the year of high-def (for the second year running ) and with Apple’s high-def trailers, I think Apple will jump aboard the ship and have high-def movies from Disney.
• Core 2 Duo Mac mini – I think Apple will keep one Core Duo just for the pricing scheme, however you will be able to buy the updated Core 2 Duo Mac minis. A similar thing happened with the MacBook. It’s bound to happen.

I think that’s most of it. There will be a one more thing, however I think it will be the iPhone, or maybe Apple actually announcing the early availablity of Leopard. Just maybe…

The way I connect my Xbox 360 to my LCD Screen, is using Elgato’s EyeTV Hybrid tuner and the EyeTV software. This works fine, however the picture produced is only SD. I wasn’t happy with the way the picture looked, especially on my 17″ Dell Monitor. I looked around the net and I found a page with lots of details on the wiring on how to connect a component (PbPrY) to a VGA out. After spending lots of time working out what pins go where and stripping all the cables, connecting them all together, it ended up not working. I double checked the leads with a multimeter, and everything was fine, all the cables were connected the right way. My Dell screen just showed: “Error: Cannot display input mode”.
I searched over the internet, and I found the problem was listed on the original page I visited. The problem is, the cable doesn’t convert the PbPrY signal to a VGA, it just hooks it up to the VGA. This means your input device has to support component input, which my LCD obviously didn’t. Converting the signal is much more complicated and requires IC’s and software. All that work for nothing! I even cut my finger! Let’s hope I can put the cable to good use somehow else.

Part deux of the gaming news round-up over the last few weeks.

• Could the Wii not support game saves to SD memory cards? According to the manual it is, but not according to the console itself. That’s what Joystiq found out. Lets hope Nintendo fix this in time for the release, as we wouldn’t want to replay an entire game when at your friends house, do we? [link]
• Engadget’s Wii software walkthrough video and gameplay walkthrough videos allow you to see what it would be like if you owned a Wii. Shortly it will come true for a lot of people, or at least we hope.
• Microsoft revealed the HD download service for US Xbox 360 owners. These will allow you to download 720p HD TV shows from CBS, Comedy Central VH1 and more. Deleted TV shows can be re-downloaded for free in either HD or SD. Movies are ‘rent-only’, whereby you have two weeks to watch a movie, but after you start watching, you have 24 hours to finish the film. After that the film will no longer play. During the 24-hours, you can watch the film an unlimited number of times. [link]
• Engadget open the retail version of the Xbox 360 HD-DVD player and have a play around with it, naturally with tons of photos (above) [link]
• The PS3 gets dismantled before it is even in circulation. The four part videos take you through a detailed disassemblement of the PS3 showing the CPU, heatsink, the blu-ray drive, etc. [part 1] [part 2] [part 3] [part 4]
• PS3 kiosk is a fake! The PS3 behind the glass in retail outlets are not even functional, no, it seems that Sony may be scared of the PS3 overheating or exploding, so they placed a separate version enclosed in the kiosk. The actual console is very well ventilated to make sure the heat dissipates as much as possible. My, my… [link]
• Size comparison of the Wii, the PS3 and the Xbox 360. The PS3 is the largest, and the Wii is the smallest (though it’s not like we didn’t know that) [link]
• The Xbox 360 HD-DVD player is fully functional in PC’s. Hook it up using the USB, and some Toshiba drivers you can not only view the files on the HD-DVD, but if your PC can handle it, it can also play back the movie. Nice. What’s more, the Mac recognises the drive instantaneously without any drivers, but there is no software to playback the video. Oh well! [link]
• A DVD ‘enhanced’ version of the Wii will be released to the US and Japan in the 2nd half of 2007. The current Wii’s contain the DVD drive, however they do not have the software capable to play movies. The most likely reason for not including the software, is to avoid licencing fees which would increase the price of the console. [link]

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]

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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In an effort to try and whip Sony in the HD war, Microsoft forgot to mention the fact that 1080p on the 360, won’t be so simple. Depending on the method you’re using to connect your 360 to your set, you will get different outcomes of games and movies. A Microsoft insider, on the AVS Forum, cleared it up for us all; for 1080p in all categories, you’ll have to buy a VGA cable, and not a HDMI cable.

Using your 360 with component cables:

• Xbox 360 games will be upscaled to 1080p, and games which are 1080p native (none yet) will run without a hitch.
• HD-DVDs will run at a maximum of 1080i, which is due to the AACS DRM implemented into HD-DVDs.
• DVDs will only play at 480p (ouch!), due to the CSS inside DVDs, which prevents upscaling any higher.

Using your 360 with a VGA cable:

• You’re all set, as DVDs, games, as well as HD-DVDs will display in full 1080p.

That is really underhanded for Microsoft to not tell us about this, as many people use the component HD cable that comes with the 360 to play games in high-def. I too use the component cable, and it all looks so good. Our Sony TV, actually doesn’t have a VGA input, but has 1 HDMI, which we use for Sky HD.
This really irittates me, as not only would it be good to finally have a good up-scaling DVD player, but we would have to buy a cable, for which not many TV’s support. Granted, there are TV’s which will have VGA inputs, but most don’t. Most have DVI, which is pure digital (while VGA converts analogue to digital), though you can get an adapter for that. Our TV doesn’t have DVI (hey it’s a good TV!), but we do have a DVI – HDMI converter. You may say that I could use the HDMI slot, as I wouldn’t be watching Sky the same time as playing on my 360, but then I would have 3 cables, the 360 VGA cable, a VGA to DVI cable, and our DVI to HDMI cable. I don’t know about you but all that converting doesn’t seem like a good idea, and I don’t know whether it would work anyway, because of the HDMI at the end.
Leave it to Microsoft to make such a stupid move.

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Shorts for 24 September 2006.

• Amazon UK attribute the Zune to “Apple Computer”, recently fixed it (above) [link]
• Xbox 360 add-on HD-DVD drive adds 1080p, for $170, to be released on November 22nd in Japan [link]
• Digital fingerprint lock broken by MythBusters’ photocopied fingerprint! (video) [link]

Today’s shorts for 21 September 2006.

• USBCell provides a rechargeable NiMH battery in the shape of an AA battery to use in normal devices (above) [link]
• Office 2007 details revealed for Mac, including new UI, with the ‘ribbon’ from Office 2007 for Window [link]
• Microsoft steals Zune P2P idea from WeedShare? [link]
• Apple sells 125,000 movies on the iTunes store within the first week of its launch [link]
• iTV has Hard-Drive, well according to Disney’s Iger, the answer is yes! [link]

Before I get to my other posts, there has been a lot of Wii information released today, and I don’t have the time to post about them all, so I’ll give you the lowdown:

• USA TODAY have posted an article detailed the release information of the Wii, as well as the box that will be used (above). [link]
• Games downloaded to the virtual console, will be tied to a user’s Wii account, so that in the event of something happening and all the games are lost, then they can all be re-downloaded for free. [link]
• USB storage is initially limited to flash drives, and USB hard-drive support is not yet included, however they have not yet planned any USB hard drive compatibility yet. [link]
• First-party Wii titles (ie, produced by Nintendo) will be region-free, however whether 3rd party games will be locked, is upto the manufacturer. It is not yet known though whether GameCube titles, which are region locked, will play in all Wiis, though they are supposedly fully compatible. [link]
• The Wii will not be supporting DVD playback of films. Kerrin Kaplan, Nintendo of America’s vice president of marketing and corporate affairs confirmed with IGN today. The decision was made because it made the Wii cheaper, and that most people already have DVD players, so there is no need for the function. [link]
• Wii Sports, which is bundled with the Wii, will include Tennis, Baseball, Golf, Bowling and Boxing. [link]

That about covers it! I told you there was a lot, I’ll bring you more news as it comes as European pricing has not yet been disclosed.

Although this is a couple of days old, I thought I should blog about it because it is really unique. You may have seen somewhere on the internet, devices that are portable versions of old consoles — ie, the N64, NES, etc — well this is like that, except it is unbelievably small. Folded up it seems smaller than the 360 itself, with a full keyboard and 17″ High-Def monitor. Now that is true portable gaming! Ben Heckendorn has created this masterpiece which is 2.8″ thick and weighs14 pounds. It also has a built-in WiFi adapter as well as a water cooling system, for noiseless gaming. And he all did this in 3 months!
On Ben’s site you can go to the final page and view the finished pictures, or browse through the four pages which detail his steps with plenty of pictures. This is one article which is definitely worth reading.

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Engadget were at Apple’s “It’s Showtime” press event today and they were able to get hands on with all the new releases, including the iTV prototype, which was a big shocker. Check out the links for all the juicy pictures.

• 2G iPod nano hands-on [link]
• 5G iPod v2 hands-on [link]
• iTV hands-on [link]
• iPod Shuffle and new headphones hands-on [link]

They all look really good, and I’m even impressed with the iTV, even though that hasn’t been officially released. I’m still not sure about the shuffle though, however I do like the nano now. I do want to try them out, but my nearest Apple store is in Birmingham and we won’t go there for no reason just to visit an Apple Store. The other one is in London, and I don’t think we’ll visit it for a while. The other ‘tech’ shops around town are pretty rubbish. They wouldn’t have the new iPods for a while. The Currys.digital shop still has the iPod nano labelled under Hard-disk player. The obviously don’t know anything, but I was amazed to see a MacBook there. I tried it out and it was very fast, I really want one now. After I finished playing with it, one of the store clerks went and started that god-awful screensaver thing they have. I hate those so much; they aren’t really going to get customers to buy the product if they can’t test it.

This is the one product which hasn’t been released, as in it is not on Apple’s website. The name iTV is not official yet, so it is subject to change. I think that is good because iTV sounds a bit plain, and similiar to Elgato’s EyeTV line of products. So people could get confused. Down to the details:

• It looks like a flatter Mac mini.
• No power brick, but there is USB 2, Ethernet, 802.11 Wireless, HDMI, Component and RCA jacks as well as optical audio.
• Controlled via the Apple remote.
• Hooks up directly to your TV, set-top box or other input device.
• An enhanced version of Front Row, with windows media centre style browsing. The right hand side has menu and the left has images.
• “You can do movie trailers form Apple.com right from your couch. This is big screen over the internet, live as we watch. [demo]“
• Movies, TV Shows, Music, Podcasts, and Photos
• Coming Q1 of 2007
• Works with Macs and PCs
• $299

As Apple doesn’t have an official page, I’ll link you to Engadget’s live coverage of the “It’s Showtime!” event.
This certainly seems like a very interesting idea and because of the price point even more so. Now we just have to wait for it to come out, doh!
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The new version of iTunes has a lot of new features, you can find a good walkthrough of the main features at TUAW. These are the main enhancements:

• TV Shows are available in h.264, in 640 x 480 which is up from 320 x 240.
• You can update your iPod from right inside iTunes now, you don’t need to go to Preferences. You can say, “I want to sync the 10 most recent unwatched episides of all my TV shows.”
• You can sync content between multiple computers as long as you have the same iTMS account and both the computers are authorised.
• Coverflow mode allows you to scroll through the artwork of your music as if it was on a shelf.
• Music Artwork can be downloaded free from Apple, and it will fill up all the missing artwork in your library!
• “Today we’re starting out with films from Disney, Pixar, Touchstone, and Miramax – four studios owned by Disney. Today we’re making over 70 films agvailable online today including Pirates of the Caribbean. They’ll be available the same day they’re out on DVD.“
• New movies will be $12.99 if you pre-order them or buy them during the first week. Other movies are $9.99. The movie store is integrated into iTunes and you can preview new releases in album cover flow mode. They will also be at 640 x 480 with Dolby Surround Sound. Initially it will be for the US only, but it will go international in 2007.
• Games for iPod are $4.99 and only work with the 5G iPod (old and updated).
• A refined look with sections for music, other content, playlists etc. It is not really too big, but it allows iTunes to flow more seamlessley. You have to see for yourself, it is hard to describe.

It is available for download now. I think that’s virtually it, I’ll update it if I find anything else.

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This morning I woke up at around 9:30 with a nasty headache (I went to a party last night ) and I couldn’t go back to sleep so I went downstairs. Just as I stepped into the living room the phone rang. The Sky Technician was calling to say that he’ll be here between 10AM-2PM. 2 minutes after ten and I hear a knock on the door, shure enough he was here and ready to install the high-def Sky Box. He changed the old LNB on the Satellite Dish so that you can now view one channel and record the other. He also set up the box, made sure everything was right and gave the system a spin. All in all, it toom around an hour to get everything in working order, The instruction manual says it has a 300GB hard-drive, with 160GB for personal use, but I don’t know whether that’s true or not. What would the system need 140GB for? Who cares, that 160GB is good enough for our family, capable of 30 hours of HD content storage and 80 hours of standard def.
I was amazed with some of the things it had (physically). There are 2 USB2 ports and an Ethernet port which currently can’t be used for anything, as Sky are currently planning later use for it. But here’s what gobsmacked me: a SATA port so that you can connect your own hard drive to it, if there isn’t enough space. That’s so awsome from Sky, and I can’t believe they did such a thing. The manual claims it works, but having no SATA drives at home I can’t test it out. I’ll be giving the system a fuller review later on, but the picture is so amazing. I watched the Iran vs Portugal match on BBC HD and it looked so nice; it certainly made the SD version look like toast! I’ve taken a few photos of the ‘event’ so click the link below to take a look.

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• For the US, they pay $599 for the ‘Premium’ PS3, which is around £316. If you take £316 away from £425 you get £109. So we pay £109 more than the US pays for the PS3.
• For the rest of Europe, they pay €599 which is around £405. Take £405 away from £425 to get £20. So we pay £20 more than the rest of the Europeans.

That is the pricing with other countries, now compare it to the price of the 360 and you can see how ludicrous it becomes.

• The 360 ‘Premium’ is £279. Take away £279 from £425 to get £146. The UK PS3 costs £146 more than the UK Premium 360!
• The Core 360 is £209. Take away £209 from £425 which leaves you with £216. The UK PS3 costs £216 more than the UK Core 360!

See? I honestly don’t understand how they can think that people will pay so much. You can’t use the whole High-Def gaming excuse for the UK because HDTV marketshare is so low, and HD content is aswell (High-Def satelite only just launched) that the people who would want to buy it won’t be able to take advantage of the PS3’s ‘awsome’ graphics. Most people will just buy it for the games. I am a part of a few families in our town that actually have HDTV’s (our Sony Bravia can only support 720p native – 1366 by 768 resolution), and even if you do it probably wouldn’t support 1080p or 1080i natively, so it would have to downsample the image, which ruins the whole point! To top that off, a Sony rep actually says that it is a bargain! This is an outrage, people in the UK don’t think that £425 is a bargian, in fact they consider it a bloody fortune

“I don’t think it’s an expensive machine; I think actually, it’s probably a cheap machine … If you think a Blu-Ray player by itself might be GBP 600-700, and we’re coming in at just GBP 425 – it’s a bargain.“

NOTE: I forgot to mention that Sony will not be releasing a lower priced version of the PS3 in the UK. The £425 PS3 is the only version that will be available to buy. So the situation is even worse, only a high-priced PS3 of which most people won’t be able to use that 1080p resolution anyway!

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Microsoft has confirmed at E3 today the addon HD-DVD player for the Xbox 360. It is going to be an optional add-on that runs via the USB 2 port on the 360. Interestingly, Microsoft didn’t slag off Blu-ray saying it wasn’t as good as HD-DVD, nor did they praise HD-DVD (much) either. Microsoft calls the quality of the two formats “a wash in terms of video quality,” and they say that the main diffrerence between the two will be the price. This probably means that the HD-DVD drive will be a bargain, to convince people to buy it. Adding that to the price of the 360 and it’s features it seems a pretty good deal generally and for those who don’t want to for out the $1k for the current HD-DVD players. But how will it rival against the PS3, which will have Blu-ray built in for only $399, but that will only be out in November (unless it gets delayed ike Vista).

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Images have been aired on the Internet by Xbox360galaxy.com, who got their hands on a 360 Camera flier. It lists a lot of interesting specs including “gesture recognition”. The full spec is listed below.

• USB 2.0 bus-powered device
• Smooth, near DV quality video up to VGA 640×480 at 30 FPS
• High def images: still photos up to SVGA 1280×960 (1.3Mp)
• Manually adjustable variable focus: 2 feet to infinity
• Field of View: 43°
• On board image processor
• Digital zoom, cropping
• Auto exposure, white balance, gamma correction, sharpness
• Long (~9 feet) cable to reach around large TVs
• Includes a headset for great audio

This seems similar to the EyeToy — not the specs, but how it interacts with the games. I can just imagine feeling really stupid because I’m punching into the air! We’ll have to wait until Microsoft releases it and lets us have a go. On a separate note, I don’t really like look of the camera. It looks very 1980’s (like an old B/W tube tv).

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If you are into tech, like me, you are cursed [or blessed, depending on how you look at it] with wondering how everything works, sometimes you aren’t even able to enjoy things because you’re pondering what is going on behind the scenes. Well today I plan on answering one of your questions [if you didn’t already know] how movies are played in the movie theatre.
Being a Senior in high school I need to rack up some dough for college next year, because after all in a few months I’ll be a poor college student, so I decided to have one of the coolest jobs offered where I live, the projectionist at the movie theatre.

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