Getting tired of those pocket cameras? Have the budget to grab a “real” camera this holiday season?
Read on this article for the recommended guide list: Gizmodo
Buying Camera’s not your thing? How about checking out Wired’s 2009 Wish List if you need an idea to grab a special something for that special someone. Wired’s List
Due to its popularity and infamy for being one of the most frequently asked question, I present you a nice quick little guide from pcstats: PCstats.com
Oh, and you know what? We’re only a month away from Christmas! Do you know what that means??
That’s right. Boxing day flyers. Keep your eyes out! 
Had a different word than “unbelievably” in my head, but probably I should keep the blog PG-rated, eh?
Since the previous post had Steve Vai on it, and having him as my #2 best guitarist in my list (Satriani tops that list, thankyouverymuch) I thought I google’d my favourite Vai song, “For the love of God”. Before I saw this video, I thought to myself; I can’t see how a human manage to make a piece of musical instrument sounds so amazing so maybe when I see him actually playing it live, it will be less amazing and more realistic. Well, I was wrong. That guy IS amazing. I have goosebumps everytime I hear this song.
So the idea is to have a bunch of animators around the world pitch in here and there using an application in Facebook, and have a couple really cool artist to fill the sound, and squeeze it to a 5-minute short movie. The resourcing is not called outsourcing, but crowdsourcing. Now that’s new. The short clip will be played along with the release of the animation movie, planet 51, tomorrow. Read the article here: Wired Article.
But for the rest of us who can’t wait to see a glimpse of it, please feast your eyes on the trailer below. Two thumbs up.
No, seriously. Cat brain. Apparently IBM has managed to reverse-engineered and simulate the complexity of a feline’s brain. The team also mentioned that it’s a very huge step towards opening the pandora box of Artifical Inteligence: the human brain. And the scariest part? According to one of the scientest, Darmendhra Modha, following the advancement of processing power, they will have enough firepower to simulate our brain by 2019. That’s, uh… barely 10 years from now. Ten, short years. Better rewatch my Terminators DVD collection…
Read more: Popular Mechanics, MercuryNews, Gizmodo
On less scarier news, Square-Trade – an after-trade warranties company – released the analysis of their research of the most robust brand of laptop, based on the frequency of their warranty-claimed over 3 years and 30,000 laptops. If you think Apple is top-spot, then think again.
Read the full article: InfoWorld
Last but not least, Nvidia’s latest offering to the gaming industry, the Geforce100 – codename Fermi – is getting ready to be released. There’s only speculation and rumours so far, but apparently one of the staff twitted (I really should have a twitter)(no I don’t) a picture of a running card. Dx11 capable? Oh yes please. Picture below.
Read here: Endgadget
And here’s something to cap everything off: new Mario games for Wii. Man, now I really wish I have a Wii. Old school FTW!! This game is sooo full of win
Wired Article
First off, awesome AMD-powered Jaguar/Cray machine crunches 1.759 PetaFlops (that’s trillions) to grab the top spot of IBM’s Top-500 SuperComputers. Compared to Intel’s latest incarnation – i7 – calculating at a measly 70GigaFlops, or 0.000007 PetaFlops…. Interestingly enough, AMD CPUs grab the top 3 position in the top-500 Supercomputer race, but Intel conquered over 80% of the 500 SPC listed! Totally awesome climate simulation video below, and more detailed articles here: Wired’s article, Bit-Tech.net article
On a different news, there’s MIT’s new robot-driver-helper, AIDA (Affective Intelligent Driving Agent) who accompanies you while you drive. The goal is for AIDA to “analyze our driving habits, keeping track of frequent routes and destinations to provide real-time traffic info and make friendly suggestions along the way”
More details on AIDA: Wired
Last is Phillips latest invention on kitchen utilities that are military-green anodized aluminiums. Finally a kitchen appliance that both me and the wife will fight for.
Go… the new systems programming language from Google… sounds neat.
Promotional short clip video:
Full (1-hour) seminar video:
More info:
Is it just me or I’ve been tailing lotsa Google last few weeks…
Managed to bump myself into this fine document while reading Fedora 11’s (12 coming out in 5 days with IPV6? Schweet!) documentation. This document (I believe) was meant to lay out a concise, yet complete, overview of security in a Linux environment. Yet, as I read it more, it seems to cover many basic tutorials and prevention techniques applicable to any Operating Systems! Sure, some specific tools or tricks are meant for Fedora core only, but with a little bit of effort, even a MS Windows home user can learn a thing or two.
All in all, it’s a good read if you’re interested in computer security and would like to know more than what a DoS stands for in terms of a hack, or you’re not sure whether turning off the encryption in your wireless network at home is a good idea or not.
For full single-HTML version: read here
So apparently 4G is the new “G” these days. I was reading some news the other day and apparently the US have been trying to mainstream the next generation of 3G and 2G used widely in the cellular world. The biggest changes that I noticed was the faster speed (we’re talking up to 100Mbit here if you’re moving, and faster if you’re stationed), support of IPv6 (/yawn, maybe its about time), and a very spectral efficient network.
It’s been utilized in the form of mobile internet, quite a hype lately here in Canada. These are those thumbdrive-size gadget you plugged in your laptop, and voila! You have Internet anywhere (within a service area – which are usually the same as the provider’s cellular area). The technology is based on the existing high-speed cellular data network, but I’ve always assumed they’re on the 3G network. Apparently, newer ones (Verizon, to start with in the US) is already on 4G. Now the trick is to put a powerful enough processor on the phones itself to process the gushing, streaming, data… More 4G tech specs: Wikipedia
Moving on, is the new MiFi. No, you read that right, it’s not WiFi… it’s MiFi. Go ahead, Google it…
The basic idea is a device that convert an existing cellular network, and turn it to a good-ole’ Wifi available to anybody within the vicinity. The device is currently make use 3G network, but considering “mobile internet devices” are starting to migrate to 4G, I suspect the same with Mifi. The one advantage over mobile-net is it is share-able, due to its WiFi traits. In an essence, it’s basically a wireless router that uses the cellular network as its WAN. New devices are popping out, like this Verizon MiFi 2000, and they’re about $300 a pop. Unfortunately, just like mobile internet services, they require a monthly plan. Ugh…
Last but not least, if you’re not confused enough with all these new term…. Zyxel (a personal favourite company of mine since it also provide an extremely robust corporate-level Firewall Router series, named Zywall) introduced a Mobile Wireless Router. Read about it here: Zyxel MWR222
Wait, would that make it the same thing as MiFi? Well, not quite. This device is capable to work as a mobile internet device I mentioned earlier in this post AND MiFi AND regular wireless router! So basically what it does is it’s able to work as a wired router (plug a modem to the wired WAN port), a wireless router (beam that WAN connection wirelessly through b/g/n), a mobile internet device (absorb the 3G and 4G – when it becomes available – network and transform it into a regular Internet connection), and MiFi (turn that 3G/4G network into Wireless b/g/n). Phew!
In an essence, this is pretty much a wireless router that will work ANYWHERE. Now how’s that for change?
O yeah, here we go… I haven’t done this in a while….. Music post!!
Coz Borderlands [PC Game] is so darn cool…
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Soundtrack music lovers? Check this out:
http://soundtracks-mp3.blogspot.com/
Rawr. Awesome site.
To begin with, Call Of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 is out on PC. It’s one of the most anticipated FPS of the year, with the prequel (Modern Warfare 1) scoring multitude of awards last year, massing thousands of twitchy-finger addict gamers blasting each other through the net…. myself included. The single-player content was worthy of the awards alone, but the multiplayer was the pinnacle of the game. No, the whole Call Of Duty series. And thus, continuing its legacy, MW2’s multiplayer was one of the most anticipated fragfest of the year.
Or was it? With Infinity Ward removing a dedicated server altogether, many players are actually boycotting the game (yes, again, myself included), since it takes away the capabilities to schedule matches and playing favourites on certain servers. That being said, early reports been saying MW2 copies are flying off the shelves… they flew so fast that certain “sites” already made it available online. Anybody willing to download over 11Gb of illegal content in order to save $60CAD and missing the multiplayer altogether? I know I won’t.
Moving on from MW2, I still can’t get enough time to grab myself a copy of it since I’m still stuck enjoying Borderland thoroughly. I posted some videos a couple days ago, and it *IS* as fun as the trailer. For full review, click here.
The last game that definitely grab my attention is Shattered Horizon. If you’re a true PC gamer, than you would’ve heard the name Futuremark; the company that created the famous 3dMark benchmark series. Well, it’s the same company.
So is it just another FPS? Actually, yes. With one glaringly obvious unique touch: zero-gravity. For more info, check out the trailer below, or read here for a review. Yummy.
So Turbine (developer of the MMORPG game, LordOfTheRingsOnline) threw a LOTRO-themed pumpkin carving contest. Read on the link to see the full gallery… but darn, those are some nice carvings!
Think you know how exactly a water droplet falls and merge with a bigger body of water? Well, think again after you read the following article…. Water Droplet High Speed Camera – video below
RIM and Adobe seems to be collaborating. Can we finally see Flash applications on mobile devices?? Read on here: RIM and Adobe Partnership
Last one is image gallery of Hoover Dam’s nearly-finished bypass project…. Gallery
Could it be? Finally, a decent game-to-movie adaptation?
Well, the trailer seems to make my mouth drool just fine………
