Archive for the 'TV’s' Category

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The IT Crowd

Published on Monday, February 6, 2006 in Random Stuff, Technology and TV's. 1 Comment

Many of you may know about the new UK comedy show called “The IT Crowd”. It is a hilarious TV show airing here in the UK on Channel 4 which is about 2 IT guys in a company and a new girl who claims she can use computers on her CV (resume) but can’t and when she gets the job she cannot do anything. It is typical British humour. Either you like it or you don’t. But what is special about is that you can download it for free before it airs through the Channel 4 website. But for now Channel 4 have removed the first 2 episodes, so you can download it here. I have watched the first 2 episodes and I think it is fantastic. It is sort of like ‘Little Britain’.

SED technology could replace CRTs

Published on Sunday, February 5, 2006 in Technology and TV's. Closed

The SED, based on a new type of flat-panel display technology, was created through the merging of Canon’s proprietary electron-emission and microfabrication technologies with Toshiba’s CRT technology and mass-production tehcnologies for liquid crystal displays (LCDs) and semiconductors.
Like conventional CRTs, SEDs utilize the collision of electrons with a phosphor-coated screen to emit light. Electron emitters, which correspond to an electron gun in a CRT, are distributed in an amount equal to the number of pixels on the display.

Stewie is getting his own talk show

Published on Wednesday, January 25, 2006 in Podcasting and TV's. Closed

You know Stewie, the evil and extremely smart British baby on the series Family Guy, well he is getting his own radio talk show, sort of like a podcast. It is only for the internet so I see no reason for it not to be listed in iTunes and it will start sometime this year. “‘We think that the property is perfectly suited for that audience’ Fox Interactive Media president Ross Levinsohn said Tuesday”. I think so too. There are millions of Family Guy fans out there who would love to listen to this. If it was released as a podcast, or with at least an RSS feed I most certainly would. Family Guy is great, and has that quality that the Simpsons doesn’t. They are both great shows but Family Guy is funny in its own way (and so are the Simpsons).

Sub-Pixel Font Rendering

Published on Tuesday, January 24, 2006 in Noteworthy, Technology and TV's. Closed

I have never heard of this technique. But it is used to make pixes look a lot sharper without changing the monitor. This is how it works: Each pixel on a display is made out of 3 smaller sub pixels with the colours red, green and blue. Each colour is then adjusted to change the colour of the pixel overall. However this technique uses the sub pixels to make the edges of the letters look sharper.
On the above image the left side shows the normal letter and how it would look. The centre image uses anti-aliasing which is a technique that blurs the edges of letter into a greyer shade so that it looks better. However anti-aliasing can make small text look small and unreadable. The right image uses the sub-pixel font rendering to make the letter clearer and smoother.

By ‘borrowing’ sub-pixels from adjacent whole pixels, we can fine-tune the placement and width of typeface features with three times more horizontal accuracy then ever before! Our eyes cooperate by seeing only black and white, since the ‘borrowed’ sub-pixels are always adjacent to their complementary color pixels, which our eyes mix to form white!

It may say that you can’t see the colours, but on a few of the images they show it can be seen, though it is not very annoying. On another image the text looks extremely clear, a lot better than the non-sub-pixel one.

Xbox 360 could get Blu-Ray?

Published on Thursday, January 12, 2006 in Gaming, Microsoft, Shorts, Technology and TV's. Closed

Peter Moore had a recent interview with the Japanese website ITmedia where he admitted that the Xbox 360 could possibly see a Blu-ray external add-on. Even though it was announced at the Microsoft keynote at CES that the HD-DVD add-on would be coming soon for the Xbox 360, Moore said this isn’t certain. Because the 360 will be using an external add-on it allows Microsoft to adapt whatever the hell next-gen disc format that it wants. Moore did confirm the fact that Xbox 360s will never be shipping with any kind of next-gen drive already integrated into the console. Biggest twist of the year in the next-gen disc war? [Gizmodo UK]

Turn your old iPod into a video recorder and PVR

Published on Wednesday, January 4, 2006 in Apple, Noteworthy, Technology and TV's. Closed

The Details

3.6″ high quality LCD screen provides bright, vivid viewing.

Lightweight mobile design – iPod slips into the back of the iSee 360, creating a sleek, compact, all-in-one appearance.

Replaceable, rechargeable 2400mAh battery delivers 4 hours battery life, without using power from the iPod battery. AC adapter charges iSee and iPod at the same time.

User-friendly GUI lets you navigate quickly and easily.

Video in/Video out lets you record from your TV, VCR, or TiVo and playback on TV.

Multiple video formats include MPEG-2/4 and Windows Media 9/10.

Audio in/Audio out lets you record audio from any analog source, listen to audio on any external system.

The iSee 360 is a new product that promises to turn any iPod into a personal video recorder and playback device. This looks pretty cool. It has a 3.6″ color LCD screen on the front and your iPod docks into the back of the unit to store your recorded video. It does MPEG2/4 and Windows Media video formats and will cost about $249.00 USD. That price plus the cost of an older iPod puts it right in-line with some of the other hard disk based video player/recorders on the market.

My Xbox 360 and the setup

Published on Monday, December 26, 2005 in Gaming, General, Technology and TV's. 2 Comments

After playing myself silly hours on end I took some photos to share with you. The photo above shows the 360 with the faceplate and the wireless controller. Looks cool, eh? Click on for some more photos or click here to see the entire photoset on Flickr. I’ll be posting some of the good and bad points of the 360 soon. Check back later.
Continue reading ‘My Xbox 360 and the setup’

Getting to know your PC Interfaces

Published on Thursday, November 24, 2005 in PC, Technology and TV's. Closed

On Tom’s Hardware Guide they have a good guide on introducing you to all the cables that are inside and outside your computer as well as general video cables you would use in your TV.

Every computer system, whether a desktop PC or a notebook, includes a bunch of connectors, both inside and out. Can you recognize each and every one of them? Relevant handbooks, when they’re even available, are often poorly worded or insufficiently illustrated. This causes readers to lose their orientation and leads to confusion and frustration.

This comprehensive advisor is intended to function as a reference, aimed at helping newbies and experienced users alike. With numerous pictures and short explanations, we’ll tell you all about the slots, ports, and connectors you’ll find on your PC, and what kinds of devices typically attach (or plug in) to them.

So if you think this is for you then check it out. Even if you think you know it all you may not. I, for one, wasn’t that sure on S-ATA cables, nor did I know that SPDIF stood for ‘Sony/Phillips Digital Interfaces!

Joystiq’s 48 hour Xbox 360 marathon

Published on Saturday, November 19, 2005 in Gaming, Internet, Microsoft, PC, Technology, TV's and Wireless. Closed

With news being quite scarce this morning I have nothing interesting to blog about. But I remembered that last night Joystiq started their 48 hour, non-stop, Xbox 360 marathon. They have a retail version of the 360 to try out and play with. They will, step by step, build up their entertainment centre where the 360 will ‘live’ for this 48 hours. I have made a list of the posts they have so far. seen below.

This is all they have so far, but it has been interesting to read all the posts and see the good’s and bad’s of the 360 that they have found so far. I, for one, didn’t know that the special media remote in the 360 is only limited. I thought that came as a part of the premium pack. That was quite interesting to find out.

Joystiq’s Xbox 360 site

Screenshots from Xbox 360 games

Published on Friday, November 18, 2005 in Gaming, Internet, Microsoft, Technology and TV's. Closed

An article on CNET has tons of pictures from Xbox 360 games including Project Gotham Racing 3 (shown above), Perfect Dark Zero, Ghost Recon 3, Quake 4, Dead or Alive 4 and many more. There are lots of screenshots and from what I have seen they look pretty good. But I’m not going to judge just yet until I seen one for myself. You know how amazed people were to see how realistic the screenshots of the PS3 were, even though they were pre-rendered images, they have no idea what those are. I mean you wouldn’t be concentrating on a single bead of sweat in a game like Splinter Cell, would you?