Do you play First Person Shooter games? Do you feel that your 7.1 speakers is not enough? Do you feel your three 32″ LED multi-monitors setup with 3D Vision is not immersive? Do you duck, evade, and (hoping that you can) jump when you play these games? Do you feel the need of having – literally – “bullets” flying by your ears as you play Battlefield 3?
Well, throw out your gaming chair and get rid of your monitors. And play in one of these bad boys, Kotaku article: FPS Simulator.
Video below.
I usually pulls out of topics like these, but when I bump to this Calvin & Hobbes pic, I knew I had to post this:
The original article is in Gawker article here, where it points out Americans are in it for 10 more years before their income level can be back to where it was 10 years ago. That’s a total of 20 years of income pit.
What happened to the tax-the-rich plan? Calvin & Hobbes know best.
Ok, is it just me or anybody else notices that at this rate, there will be 2 maybe 3 major companies that owns every piece of technology that we use? I’m fairly sure it’s part of staying in the competition against Google’s relentless dominations, but Microsoft $8.5billion bid to purchase Skype in May this year is now approved by the EU. After being approved by the Department of Justice in June, EU has finally sanctioned the bid noticing “Skype is not an Enterprise solution”.
If you can imagine the possibility of having the developer of the number 1 software maker in the world combined with the most popular communication tools in the Internet, I think it’s hard not to be excited. Microsoft has their own technology being used with Live Messenger, but it’s a far cry of Skype’s PC-to-Landline capability, browser integration, subscription plan, hardware integration (Samsung and Sony has Skype TV in the works, complete with embedded webcam and microphone). If we can have such functions built into Windows, perhaps also merge Live ID (which at Windows 8, will become your PC credentials as well) with Skype user ID, that’s a fantastic step toward unifying (for better or worse) a global credential. Less password to remember and the right step toward integrating technology even deeper with our daily lives.
Of course, not only aiming at Google who’s been trying to merge all of our Internet experience through one pipe, this deal puts Microsoft smack dab into the fight of Cisco and Avaya; the two biggest companies in the IP-phone industry for business. The past decade have seen the IT competition peaked at the dot-com bubble, burst, spiral downs to mobile app industry boom, and mega-corporation going neck-to-neck.
In the end, I believe the best thing to do for those companies is to remember that if we mind the balance (and limit) between technology integration and advancement, and a healthy competition, the winner at the end of the day is always the customers.
Additional NewYorkTimes article
Update: Well that didn’t take long. It’s now finally official. Skype is a division of Microsoft.
Seems like Netflix is getting beefed for shows. I was never one to subscribed to Netflix since the options are fairly dissapointing to say the least. Movies are old and rarely ever blockbusters. TV Shows are couple seasons old and not the ones I watch.
But Warner Bros. and CBS apparently just signed a deal with them to bring on CW Shows. This includes The Supernatural, Vampire Diaries, Nikita, and 90210. I have to say, if anything, I’m up for rewatching The Supernatural all over again! And if Netflix will be streaming them, then I don’t see why I can’t subscribe.
Just off the news with Xbox will support TV providers too! Looks like IPTV is indeed the way of the future.
Sort of. So it got official: Kotaku Article
Xbox will be upgraded with a new menu and it will include collaboration with major TV networks. While US gets HBO and SyFy, Canada got Rogers On Demand, Maple Leafs TV, UFC, MSN to name a few. Not too shabby. But how much will it costs?
Only time will tell if this is the new trend or not, but there’s at least 1 thing I’m excited about: integration with Kinect. Check the ad video below.
Speaking of CERN and the Large Hadron Collider on my last post, coincidentally, something nothing short of a breakthrough was announced yesterday. A particle was shot and it was recorded to reach a speed faster than light. Oh yes. Faster than the speed of light. Strike one, Einstein.
Well, not quite yet. The scientist – Dr. Antonio Eridato – who lead the team in CERN saw this result nearly 3 years ago, and since it was such a find, he decided to repeat it again… 15,000 times more. And finally, yesterday he announced his findings and asked the community of the world (read: everybody!) to be another set of eyes and proof read his team’s results. He will post his result later and will have a web-seminar to discuss the result.
So are we closer to time-travel and warp speed, Captain Kirk?
In the world today, there are currently many type of robots with different kind of purposes. One of them is a robot “mule”. It helps us by carrying heavy objects to a particular destination. Not to be confused with a mechanical “mule” (example: a forklift), the term robot here is defined as an autonomous entity, meaning it does not need a user to operate. And there are a few of these robots exist and used today, but most of them are in a factory environment. It carries materials and objects on a predetermined path in a predetermined time or speed. An advanced version is one that are able to sense its surrounding and actively modify it’s journey accordingly. We call this capability as the artificial intelligence, and it is the most challenging design for these robots.
The “BigDog” is the latest invention that I just came across today and it is quite the impressive machine. It is a quad-pedal (four-legged) robot that are able to carry heavy objects and traverse a path in rough terrain where the classic wheel/thread design cannot. I’ll let the video below explains it as the BigDog is able to go through snow, mud, hills and more… and even got kicked somewhere in the process!
I’ve always liked The Big Bang Theory series. The show includes many references to topics that I hold dear (Sci-Fi, video games, general geekness) so I could really crack up on most of its jokes. The show is so funny that even my wife (who took Engineering classes in College but not a huge sci-fi fan)(but understand that her husband is a sci-fi gamer geek) enjoys it too (albeit the occasional “what did he mean, honey?” questions). One of the huge thing I like about the show is the real-world of the jokes – sci-fi comics are based on real comics, shows are real shows, games (and its console) are not some made-for-show titles, etc. And to top it off, the physic terms are familiar (though I can only understand probably 1% of it) and the world application are real (iPhone apps on one episode, visiting CERN’s LHC on another).
So I was pretty excited when I read Wired’s article interviewing the Science-Consultant of the show. Guess what? Nearly all physic theories (main casts are theoretical physicists) are based on real science! The guy’s name is David Saltzberg, and he’s the one responsible that any science that goes on air on TBBT is valid. He’s not a script-writer but he does goes through all the details, even adds all the white-board scribbles that the cast goes through in each episodes! You can read the whole interview here at Wired’s article that explains how he was recruited to the show and more details in his role, but here’s a short quote from that article about his background:
Saltzberg, 44, has a bachelor’s in physics from Princeton University, where he worked on the Cyclotron. He has a Ph.D. in physics from the University of Chicago and did his post-doc at CERN, the European nuclear research center. These days, when he’s not reading show scripts, he teaches a full course load at UCLA. In his free time he flies scientific balloons in Antarctica and uses hiatuses from the show to hop over to Switzerland to work on the Large Hadron Collider.
Oh, and he also has his own blog at The Big Blog Theory. He posts more details on each episode’s science, and more often than not, explore even deeper. If you’re in any way interested in (fun!) physics and/or math and know the difference between electrons and protons, you can read it here.
PS: Amy Farrah Fowler is one of the cast of the show and she a Ph. D. in neurobiology. She is played by Mayim Bialik which has a PhD in Neuroscience… 
*squeeee*… is pretty much all I can say.
If I may, I like to announce that I’m NOT a big gaming aficionados. Sure, I tried many games, enjoyed many of them, and love the idea of immersing myself in a fantasy of my choice. Imagine watching a movie you like AND you can interact in it. (Not to mention it’s $50 or so for 20-60 hours of entertainment. Much better than movies.) But I don’t spent 20+ hours a week on them, nor can I recite all the new releases for the next 8-months, nor do I sleep dreaming the perfect configuration for Diablo 3. Or at least, not anymore.
That said, there are 6 games that I can safely say define my gaming experience. 3 of them are short-lived, but extremely memorable nonetheless: Deus Ex, Duke Nukem Forever, and Splinter Cell. They are the games that are able to pull the player in and redefine the whole genre for generations. The other 3 are games that I spent months (if not years) on EACH of them, perfecting my character development, engaging the community, and competing (semi-)professionally. They redefine how I describe gaming in general and taught me many things I wouldn’t learn elsewhere. They are Star Wars Galaxies, Battlefield 2, and Lord Of The Rings Online. Now on these 3, I can safely say I’m an aficionados.
But I’ve moved on. I’ve played them to death (nearly literally) and I’ve grown out of them. I’ve enjoyed them, but unlike most dedicated gamers I met in those games, I know there’s more to life than inside Middle-Earth.
However, in one week’s time, I will be getting my gaming instinct rekindled. Battlefield 3 Beta is out. If you notice, Battlefield is the only FPS (First Person Shooter) game in the second category of games mentioned above, and it’s rarity should be noted. In this MMO-heavy (Massively Multiplayer Online) category, not many people stay on FPS games for years. With the exception of the quick-pick-up-and-play Counter-Strike, Battlefield 2 is probably the only other long-standing game. And it’s for a good reason: It has character progression, great gameplay mechanics, and large maps with various combat vehicles in it. Really, what else do you need in a good FPS game? Good story, sure. But good story doesn’t always implies re-playability values. Enjoy it once, and you’re done. But great game play with permanent progression? Formula of success.
You can always just Google Battlefield 3, but to summarize, it it an FPS team-based game where they pit 2 teams of a maximum 64-people in total in 5 different game modes on large maps that include a huge variety of vehicles. Or you can just watch the video below.
Well what are you waiting for? Go sign-up for the BETA!
BUM DUM DUM BUM DUM DUM
More updates on Windows 8 that made me want it even more!
First off is the highly discussed no-plugin IE10. So the story is IE10 will have have 2 front-end: one for the Metro UI, another for standard desktop. The Metro UI front-end will be a no-plugin browser, which means it does not (or rather, cannot) installs plugin such as Adobe Flash or (even Microsoft own language) Silverlight. And as such, relies heavily on HTML 5 coding – for example, YouTube is known for their Flash-based video player, but they also have an HTML front-end which is the reason your iPhone/iPad can stream YouTube videos.
I think the biggest difference is the performance of the browser and this advantage will outweighs the disadvantages of running plugin-free – namely having restricted from certain websites who relies on such plugin. IE-Blog actually has a post that goes in-depth for browser comparison and early findings, you can read that here. However, remember that IE10 will also have the desktop front end which will still run with plugin. So the biggest impact will be running IE10 in portable devices such as tablet or phone. Now if you consider all iPhones cannot runs Flash, it doesn’t sound like the end of the world anymore. The performance of a plugin-free browser, however, is a rare feature that end-users can actually notice. It is so noticeable that starting IE9, Microsoft adds a new feature that can detect slow browsing experience due to add-on plugin and prompt the user with options to disable it. Definitely a feature I can’t wait to get my hands on. I wonder if they would have an IE10 preview for Windows 7…
Second update is also from Ars Technica article: Reset, Refresh and Windows To Go. The articles explains how Reset and Refresh can be beneficial for the IT controllers, but I believe it would be just as beneficial for the end-users. The Refresh feature is like the Refresh button on your browser. It refresh what you’re doing. Your content won’t be changed and some programs will remain, but everything else will be refreshed. Reset is like going to Internet Options in IE, Advanced, and hit the “Restore IE to its original settings” button. All programs will be removed, you data and everything will be reset. It’s pretty much near “reset to factory default” button, which is not what you want to do on a daily basis, but if you have all your documents on a separate folder, it’s a much better (and faster) alternative to reinstalling Windows.
Next up is Windows To Go from the same article. Now this is interesting. I guess Microsoft took a few hint from Knoppix or Bart CD. Windows To Go is basically a Windows in a stick. You can load Windows in a USB stick, plug it in any PC and runs (optionally, pre-configured) Windows from it. This has been done by Windows to a certain extent, and some custom tools are floating around the interweb for Windows 7 as well. The biggest different is (aside that it’s officially supported) is the architecture of the tool. In general and a very high overview, it’s not going to copy the OS files to your local drive and run it from live Memory (ie. Windows 7 USB recovery mode); it actually going to run ON the USB itself (ie. BartPE, but not Knoppix). The difference is you can work on it, save files on it (which will be saved on the USB) and modify it (and save the changes on the USB) which can be a blessing for IT admin wanting their staff to work on a specific environment remotely. The cherry on top is the fact it won’t blue screen on you if you suddenly yank the stick out of the PC. It will actually give you a minute to plug it back in or it will properly shutdown. Sweet!
The only problem of course (nothing’s perfect, eh?) is this is an “enterprise-oriented” feature, which might translate having this feature available only for the premium flavour of Windows 8. But, as usual, only time will tell.
