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.
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!
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.
The CLOUD. It’s been on everyone’s radar the past few years. Well, everyone in IT at least.
But even non-IT folks must’ve seen the topic at least once in the latest news, tucked somewhere in the Technology section or Business front-page even. It’s the future, and many resource articles have been strong in pointing out the high demand roles that will be coming in the near future. Cloud designer, network engineer, and infrastructure admin took the top spots for most sought position in the next year; while system admin and front-end support might take a hit.
And with that with last week’s BUILD conference hype on Windows 8 family, it’s easy to be excited to know where Server 8 will be in terms of cloud technology. Last week was interesting as Win8 blog pointed out the newly polished Hyper-V extension as it unleashed the potential for scalable virtualization (VMware is going to the dodo path unless they can come up with some serious feature and slashed cost – Hyper-V comes free with Server 8!), but Ars Technica’s cloud article took another step further: Server 8 – build for for the cloud.
The article goes in-depth on further Hyper-V enhancements (3 new management tools, bye-bye MMC!) and considering those features, it will streamlined the cloud infrastructure design (no more virtual NIC for clients and light-weight powershell on steroid management) with less 3rd party integration.
Now, there are basically 3 different type of clouds; public, private, and community (and a couple types of hybrid mixed in). Naturally Server 8 seems to be focused more on the private kind, but with the deployment of tablets and cellphones and other personal devices, it could spread itself into the public/community market as well. Private sector seems to be more concerned with security enhancements and compliance processes, and the nay-sayers (yes Linux folks, I’m looking at you) will point out Window’s sketchy past, but I’m pretty confident it will get pushed further regardless considering the benefits of Server 8.
To end, I’ll post a quote from Ars’ article on Hyper-V new spec:
Host machines can have up to 160 logical processors and 2TB RAM. Virtual machines can have up to 32 cores and 512GB RAM, and with the new VHDX file format, virtual disks can be up to 16TB big (up from the current 2TB). The number of machines supported on a host will be limited only by resource availability with no fixed ratios.
ps: Here’s a quick wiki on Cloud Computing just to throw it in there too. Wikipedia Cloud-Computing
After reading an article from Gizmodo (Google Smash!) I had to refresh my old speculation of one day Google will rule the world. Or at least, the Internet.
I was a big fan of the Big ‘G’ ever since Gmail came out (at that point I was still searching with Yahoo though) and eventually the dominance of Google’s search engine wins me over. Over the year, Google Map/Earth, translate tools, Chrome, and the plethora of functionalities added to the search engine and Gmail convinced me enough that yes, Google will be to the Internet what Microsoft is to Operating System. The conqueror.
That said, the most unexpected turn happened when Google released the Android OS. I was skeptic and reluctant to accept the fact that Google is now trying to venture to a different industry (sort-to-speak), picking up challenges from other contenders such as Apple and Microsoft. That’s when I believed that even Google has a limit! If it is such a brutal conqueror, I suppose it can only conquer its own land. Still very much respectable and feared, but it’s not as godly as I vision it to be just a few years back.
Or is it? After reading Giz’s article, I couldn’t help to think maybe – just maybe – I was wrong to lose my faith in Google. With Android picking up steam more than anyone can imagine merely 2 years ago, tablets are invading homes, offering fiber to cities in America, is there really a limit of what they can do?
With the purchase of YouTube and a good investment in their mobile department, Google will one day able to connect every single aspect of your life to the world wide web. Waking up to the internet radio, checking today’s schedule from the cloud through your phone, the cheapest gas price from your app, finding place to eat, doing your banking, entertainment, the list just go on and on.
Competition-wise? I think looking the past years Google managed to pick the right battle at the right time. They forge alliances with the right people and introduce the best solution to the most basic challenges. Sure, they don’t really have an eye-popping innovation like the iPhone… but they manage to (in my honest opinion) take the best of it, do it a step better, and sell more of it cheaper. What’s holding them back from doing that to every single product out there?
Time, that’s it.
A pain on my butt the past few months on the last few revisions of VLC players is the problem of skipping back when playing Matroska (.MKV) files. The problem is when it catches a chapter transition, it would skip back to the beginning of the video or the previous chapters.
So far, possible solutions are to manually skip ahead or fast forward right before chapter change, or really, just use Classic Media Player (CMP). But I’m not into switching VLC and other player when playing my videos, so I tried to find another solution.
And I finally find a working work-around! The source is here: VideoLAN Forum
To quote,
After tinkering around with some settings, I found a work-around to the problem.
1) Preferences -> show all settings
2) Input/Codecs -> Demuxers -> Matroska
3) Untick “Ordered Chapters”
I’ve tested it with VLC 1.1.5 to 1.1.7. The last step is to restart the player once you save the changes, and you’re good to go! Thank you, gaz090!
