iPhone 3Gs, and OS 3.0
Welcome to the world of the Apple fanboy. There life is simple, eat sleep and breath apple. And there christmas? Well the WWDC (WorldWide Developers Conference) of course! This year was as usuall highly anticipated. The new iPhone has been on the lips of every gadget head in the word for quite some time now, and we all eagerly anticipated its launch. Along with that the release of OS 3.0 (the operating system for iPhone/Touch).
So I shall start with the 3Gs. What’s new? Well looking at it you will struggle to tell it apart from the 3g. But thats not a bad thing, owning a white one myself i can tell you its a gorgeous piece of tech. So as for the internals of this thing. Lets start geeky, with its proccessing power. If you take a trip over to Apples Website you will see immediatly the title “iPhone 3Gs, the most powerful iPhone yet”. S, standing for speed is not just for show, Apple gave us these figures: “2.1x faster to launch Messages, 2.4x to load SimCity, 3.6x faster to load an Excel attachment, 2.9x faster to load a large website.”. So thats all great then. Indeed, with my personal experience of the 3G one thing it can sometimes lack in is proccessing power. More speed? The iPhone now supports HSDPA (speeds of up to 7.2mbps) were applicable. So what else is there, well in the speech they talked about how the vast amount of photo’s on Flickr are from iPhones! So, the camera is now 3megapixel with auto focus and auto contrast. It uses a very nice system were u tap on the part of the picture that you want it to focus! What also can it do? Video, finally you can record it. 30FPS is not bad for a phone. These features can be intergrated into applications of course. All tasty. Voice control is a nice touch (no pun intended) for example “Call dave” or “play The Killers” or maybe more interestingly you can ask “Whats playing?” and it will tell you. Other features: Support for Nike+, increased battery time and available in 32GB.
More interesting, is OS 3.0. Not only are turn by turn directions there. But they are provided by TomTom! Yay! MMS, copy and paste, message forwarding. All of it was known before. But being an iPhone owner, i cant wait to see it in action! Out June 17th. as for the new iPhone, thats out on the 19th.
Jason.
HD on a budget, is it possible?
High Definition is a must have when purchasing a new TV, but not all of us have over £1000 to blow on a big flash 1080p monster. However, does buying a HD screen on a budget neccesarily leave you with a budget picture?
Let me start from my own experience. I’ve been around several HD televisions. Some cheap, some stupidly expensive. And, if your spending £1500 on a TV, its undoubtably going to be better than a £500 unit. However, with the likes of Sky and Virgin only transmitting pictures in 720p, is this going to affect the ordinary user? 1080p is only usefull to the gamer or the fussy blueray viewer in my opionion, and, unfortunatly for my bank balance I am fussy when it comes to picture quality.
So when i had about £500 to spend on a big TV, i had some issues. For a start i couldnt really get a good high end TV. So i researched, and, finally picked this TV. The Toshiba 32XV555DB. For a start, it was bang on budget from Currys. And it was 1080p. And as for the picture? Out of the box, brilliant. After i tweeked it, even better. If I’m honest i didn’t expect to be bowled over by this unit, but i was. Anything i throw at this TV and it works it’s magic. Even my standard Sky box through a Scart cable, and the picture is brilliant. However it’s not just Toshiba who made a fantastic budget unit. No matter how many different LG’s I see, at any price. They excel in picture quality. So my advice would be to go for one of these, failing that a Philips.
However, a brand I’ve had numerous disappointments with when it’s at this budget? Samsung. Yes, shock horror, the LCD king just can’t do budget TV’s (I can almost feel the hatefull comments coming my way). Dont get me wrong, there high end TV’s (in particular the new range of LED units) are brilliant. But, my Dad recently bought a 37″ Samsung for £500. Yes his is bigger, but the picture quality suffers, badly. His friend has the 32″ version, also not brilliant. It handles the xbox/ps3 fine but when it comes to normal TV, it’s dull and colourless. If you really want a Samsung at this price, stick to the smaller screens, the resolution works so much better on them. I can imagine the 37″ version of my Toshiba is pretty poor aswell, although i havent seen it in action. The problem with samsung is they are sacrificing the screen resolution in order to cut the overall price of the unit down. So when you try to put it on a big screen its poor, even sitting for hours fiddling with the settings cant cure it. But I’m not saying Samsung are crap, they are just best at high end TV’s, and getting a second hand monster is your best bet if you really want one.
So what about REALLY low budgets? £200 upwards? Again LG seem to be topping that area. With some great units out there for a low price. At the time i bought my other HD TV (Goodmans without freeview) this was dirt cheap. And it shows, it’s impossible to place it on the wall because the picture is awfully dark. You almost have to stand up above it to see whats going on. Frustrating when your trying to play Call Of Duty etc. Also there are barely any settings to tweak this issue.
In conclusion, i think if your going to get a TV on the cheap, avoid cheap brands. And if your going for something in a 28″ upwards, avoid Samsung.
Jason.
PSP 3000 / Nintendo DSi Review
So here we are once again, confronted with a choice of two hand-held game consoles, from two of the biggest rivals,
Sony and Nintendo.
But with all the hype over the two pre-famed products we haven’t found much sense in any of the raving reviews. So here is a simple comparison of the pro’s and con’s of both the new consoles.
A brief look at the PSP 3000, first:
Pros:
1. Incredibly high resolution LCD screen
2. Wider colour gamut and anti-reflection technology… ..whatever that means.
3. The pixel response times have DOUBLED in the PSP 3000, meaning ghosting and blurring is almost impossible.
4. Same battery life as original PSP, the screen taking 7% more battery life but thanks to tweaking the other components the overall battery draw is almost exactly the same.
5. I’ll tell you now what anti-reflection technology is… because of course, I know these things, really. You remember sitting outside in the sun with a Game Boy? Remember how you couldn’t see a thing except for maybe your own puzzled face staring back at you? With the new anti-reflection technology, this has been reduced massively. Still very hard to see under direct sunlight, but in shaded and half-lit conditions it performed perfectly and I didn’t have to see my puzzled face any longer.
Cons: - Barely any.
1. Although, if you have the PSP 2000, this isn’t a MAJOR step up, merely an upgrade. Don’t immediately throw yourself into Currys with £199 and buy a bundle package, you might prefer to spend it on… i dunno… drugs.
Now for the DSi -
The DSi. Pretty awesome, I have waited a long long time for this (seeing as my DS broke) and I for one can tell you this is £150 well spent. Let’s have a look at the new design features, even though i’m sure many of you will already know them:
· The Camera. CAMERA? i hear you scream. That’s right though… in fact, there are TWO cameras in the DSi, one forward facing, and one staring right at you… both very good quality, and both very… smart, it has to be said.
· Both cameras are compatible with the Photo system options on the DSi. Things like making yourself purple, draining colour from objects, placing Mario Moustaches on your bewildered face, and distorting it all into a Dali version of your bedroom, are done effortlessly and easily with the Photo interface on the DSi.
· Sound. SOUND? I hear you once again scream. Actually, why did you scream sound? everything has sound, you ninny. The difference here being, the DSi is compatible with sound FILES, thanks to the new SD slot (I’ll get onto that later) enabling you to transfer sound files from your PC to your DSi within seconds. (not to mention the SD card will also fit into the Wii, bonus yay).
· A word of warning though: The DSi does not come with an SD card. These can be bought and will fit into PCs, laptops, Wiis, DSis, and also sandwiches, but we won’t go there.
· Another warning: I, for one, spent a long time trying to get my DSi to recognise the mp3 files i had put on my SD card. LISTEN UP. the DSi will read AAC files only (AAC files are the older more compatible music files) so make sure you create AAC versions of any mp3 tracks you want on your DSi. An easy way to do this is to use iTunes… right-clicking a song in iTunes and selecting ‘Create AAC Version’ will do just that for you.
· The DSi Shop.
· Yes, DSiWare! Just like WiiWare, using the DSi shop you can search through game and mini-game titles and buy them using DSi Shop Points (NOT Wii Shop points… these are not the same.)
§ Quick side-note: if you enter the DSi shop in the first month you purchased the console, you will be rewarded with a promotional 1000 free DSi Shop Points! I am not sure whether this will be dis-continued, but just to let you know that if you buy a DSi, get online A.S.A.P!
§ Another side-note: A WEB BROWSER (powered by Opera) is available FREE in the DSi Shop. is very workable, and isn’t limited to Phone-type web services.
· Of course, DS games are compatible with the DSi, and DSi games are not a reality. New games will still be DS/DS Lite compatible.
So, a summary of Pros:
1. Camera awesomeness
2. Music awesomeness
3. Touch-screen awesomeness
4. Compatibility awesomeness
5. 12% thinner body… awesomeness
6. and finally, general awesomeness.
Cons:
… *tumbleweed blows past*
Actually, a good con would be that the DSi doesn’t have the Game Boy Advance game slot, leaving some old-school Game Boy fans crying in agony.
So, two very NEW, very COOL hand-helds out in the open once again.
But after all this, don’t forget the iPod Touch / iPhone genius. Games, and even a Phone, as well as web/mail/music services, so don’t think bigger is better.
Both consoles can be bought in bundle or solo packages, prices vary for PSP 3000 and DSi set at £150 for now.
Thanks for reading! =)
Blood Monkey - Film
Blood Monkey. A supposed all-time classic, in which the main plot is a group of strangely strong gorillas go ape on some Chinese explorer and his team. I watched it all, although my eyelashes turned into lead in an attempt to stop me from watching anymore. The funny thing is, if I didn’t know it was a horror, i would have presumed it was actually a slapstick comedy.
To be blunt, it was awful. Like that feeling you get when you wake up in a skip, naked and burned in many places. Except we can all laugh at the latter in a few years, just like how we can all laugh at Diana, The McCanns, and now, Jade Goody! Huzzah!
Back to the point though, which is just how bad this film was.
I think the story would have been far more interesting, if, say, the explorers were Arab Ninjas, and the Apes, well, Robots with water cannons and potato guns.
This film was so poor that me and my band mate, who we can call ‘JiMmaY’ conceived a song based around its self-demise and failure. The song went a bit like this:
’Blood monkey is so funky,
please take my Kit-Kat Chunky,
even though we’re slightly drunk-ey,
these lyrics aren’t meant for Punk-ey’
Yes, a good stab at the movie made me feel better.
But the next time I see a Chinese explorer looking like he may be about to be assaulted by a hairy elephant, I’m going to make sure he looks a damn lot like an Arab Ninja.
If you have a free movie rental coupon from blockbusters don’t waste it on this toss (:
Samsung I8910 HD
Samsung have been on a bit of a role recently. First they bring out the New range of LED tv’s, and now this. The Samsung I8910 HD is being hailed as the worlds first mobile phone with HD video recording. Thats right, you can now record and watch High Definition content on your mobile! As another plus, i was looking through the small specsheet available on Samsungs Website and the media player support’s AAC music files! It also has a fantastic 3.7″ AMOLED screen (yes more samsung LED screen techonology). This makes it the largest AMOLED screen in the world. AMOLED is a variant of OLED screen technology, something thats been making geeks across the world trousers twitch for quite some time now. Other plus points? Well it has HSDPA technology, making it quite future proof. In england at least HSDPA hasn’t taken off, making it quite pointless (seeing as though most mobiles go out of date within a year). But I’m sure in other countries this is quite a nice feature.
So it would seem this is the perfect phone? Well, perhaps. Not to be critical of Samsung, but they have chosen to keep using the OS that you will find on other Samsung touch screens such as the Tocco. And this isn’t such a bad thing, its a great system. However i don’t believe its on par with say Android, or Apple’s iPhone OS. The Tocco in particular has been known to grind to a hault or freeze, so lets hope they’ve made improvments so it can handle the HD Video recording, and 8Megapixel still camera.
On the plus side, it’s probably going to be cheaper than an iPhone if you get it on contract. And the Samsung interface is much better than other manufacters, for example LG. So it looks as if this phone should be a great alternative to a HTC magic/dream or an iPhone. But, only time will tell.
Jason.
Swine Flu?
So yeah, Swine Flu. Kind of mysterious, don’t you think? I mean, hardly noticeable in Mexicans, being that the symptoms are fatigue, excessive sweating, vomiting and general ignorance of work. So no wonder that after the UK thought they would be nice and let hordes of diseased Britons back into our clean sanctuary we ended up with it too. The Japanese took care of it nicely. They all wore suits and masks in the airports, and checked for disease in every person returning from Mexico. In the U.S.A more extreme measures have been taken to ensure their survival… if a man sneezes in public he is shot.
What’s with all the half-arsed puns floating around, too? Almost more contagious than the virus itself… everywhere I turn I hear ‘Ham-demic’ this, ‘A-Pork-alypse’ that. ‘You should get some Oink-ment for that’ here, ‘I thought pigs couldn’t fly, but I’m sure that swine flu’ there.
I mean, come on, this isn’t going to be big. Unless of course, it IS, in which case, we will probably all be killed in a horrific plague of pig-shaped humans bleeding out of every orifice.
Thanks for laughing!