Microsoft Windows XP Downgrade Rights Extended

Microsoft Windows XP Downgrade Rights Extended

Author JoeDigital | 12.07.2010 | Category Computers, Windows

It was announced today that Microsoft would extend the downgrade rights from windows 7 to windows XP for another 10 years. If that is right it means that the Windows XP extended support would need to be further extended to cover this new extended downgrade rights. This comes as no surprise as Microsoft has extended the EOL for Windows XP many times amass the large number of corporate
customers that refuse to “upgrade” to Windows 7 (or Vista).

http://www.computerworld.com/s/article/9179109/Microsoft_extends_Windows_XP_downgrade_rights_until_2020

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How to Train your Dragon Movie Review

Author edokun | 28.03.2010 | Category Movies

Dreamworks has a solid product with How to Train Your Dragon. Loosely based on the novel of the same name by Cressida Cowell, this movie version makes for a refreshing take in dragon folklore.

With allusions to the tales of yore, the cartoony caricature driven CGI world created here does more than stir the imagination. It harkens to a potential saga in the making. With more books in this series, there is potential to adapt the later novels. And the altered storyline is something that writer Chris Sanders is not too worried about.

This veteran in the animation scene is better known for his work in the Lilo & Stitch series, and he repeats his winning formula for Dreamworks. If one looks carefully, Toothless the dragon looks a bit like the alien Stitch.

And instead of a girl meeting an extraterrestrial, the tale takes a spin in a world of fantasy where a young boy, Hiccup (Jay Baruchel) encounters a dragon. His Viking village is at war with the entire dragon race and in order to train the next generation to fight against them, Hiccup goes to school.

Little do his classmates know, he is rehabilitating a serpentine beast behind everyone’s back. But it’s a question of who is training who, and those moments are particularly engaging. Just like Lilo and Stitch, there are a few adorable moments as the two bond.

When they take to the air, the aerial aerobatics they undertake are more breathtaking than what Avatar can do. James Cameron can learn from this film.

Photo-realism can only go so far, and the cartoony flavour helps to make this movie particularly enjoyable for the one important message it delivers—it’s possible to make alliances.

And no battle can come out scar-free. This touch of realism is important and this helps make for a solid film.

***** out of 5

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3DTV’s Future

Author edokun | 29.01.2010 | Category Computers

Are consumers ready to embrace a new style of watching TV?  Everyone is talking about 3DTVs and it’s the next most hyped thing next to Avatar. Nexus Newspaper has a great article looking at 3DTV’s introduction to the consumer market this year, penned by one our own staff writers!

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Cool and Unique watch by phosphorwatches

Author JoeDigital | 18.11.2009 | Category Computers

So your looking for a new cool LED watch, one that is both unique but subtle. Well take a look this way at a new watch by phosphorwatches.com. This unique and styleish time piece sports technology that is rare in watches and is sure to turn heads with its sleek look. Based on “E-Ink” the same type of technology used in Amazon Kindle and Sony ereader the display has a very book like font to it, unlike regular LCD watches that have an absolute streight edges. Having e-ink technology in the watch allows the user to instantly change the appearance of the watch dail as well as present the date and time information.

An elegant curved watch case houses a distinctive digital display that fits comfortably on your wrist. The bright, high contrast E Ink electronic paper display insures readability day or night and allows you to select between differing watch dial modes to match whatever style fits your mood.

The Phosphor watch also has a contured case that wraps around your wrist to give a great fit and feel. If you are looking for a great Christmas gift this year thetechnologyblog.net highly recommends the Phosphor E Ink Digital Hour Clock Watch Stainless Steel

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Cool Watches from Tokyo Flash

Author JoeDigital | 04.11.2009 | Category Japanese Gadgets

Looking for a cool LED watch? tokyoflash is having a sale on most of its unique and ultra fashionable watches. One of the most amazing watches in the tokyoflash line-up right now is the Negative and the Keisan. The Negative has an “always on” LCD display and one of the most sophisticated designs Tokyoflash has to offer. The Keisan on the other hand is a streamlined one motioned design that is both cool and streamlined. Even if they cant read the time it will be a eye catcher both in the board room and the dance floor. Check out the Ultra cool watches at http://www.tokyoflash.com

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Mineral Oil Submerged Computer

Author cobster | 17.10.2009 | Category Computers

Ive seen it all, Now we have a mineral oil submerged cooling system by Puget Systems.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PtufuXLvOok] 

From Puget Systems Homepage: http://www.pugetsystems.com/submerged.php

“We built this system because with all the oil cooled projects out there, no one built a system that looked good and functioned well! After seeing all the other projects, we had a lot of ideas of how we could do it better and more easily. Many projects used vegetable oil, which would go rancid after a short time. The mineral oil does not have this problem, and is completely clear. We also wanted to use an appropriate enclosure — the Toms Hardware system used a clear acrylic case, and they had to painstakingly seal each rear connector to keep the oil from leaking. We wanted to put the ports on top to solve that problem the simple way. Other people have built systems in aquariums before, but they were always oversized and square. When we found the Eclipse System 6 Aquarium, we were excited to see an aquarium that was absolutely perfect in size — you couldn’t go any smaller. In addition, we had questions about performance and long term effects. Our initial tests, which we go over below, answer the questions about cooling performance. At the bottom of the page, we’ve posted subsequent follow ups after a few months and even a year, to let you know how a system like this performs in the long term.”

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Learn all the Facebook Chat Symbols

Author cobster | 17.10.2009 | Category World Wide Web

Cool free Facebook smiley face pictures and keyboard text emoticons – keyboard Text face smiley. Smiley is the emoticon icon to express your happyness, sadness or whatever you feel. We’ve got free cool emoticons smiley icons here! You can use them on social networking sites like facebook or myspace in some chat, icq or msn. It’s like pictures of smiley faces just a bit more original. =) Type codes (smiley text) on your keyboard required or just quote these free msn emoticons to input text msn smileys. Surely it’s fantastic collection of social networking and Facebook chat smileys for im (internet messangers) and chats! Most of Facebook emoticons depicted here are easy to input on your keyboard. Though some use Unicode symbols or keyboard alt codes for symbols. Other characters can be found here: Facebook symbols.

Goto http://knopok.net/a/facebook-smileys

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WII’s Next Big hit for Nintendo? Super Mario Brothers.

Author cobster | 17.10.2009 | Category Video Games

It’s retro right down to the box art.

(Credit: Nintendo) This holiday season, amid an economy that’s still in the tank, game companies are stingier with their first-party release schedule. In fact, each of the Big Three (Sony, Microsoft, Nintendo) are only targeting one or two games for their systems before Christmas. Nintendo has one single title that’s prominent for the Nintendo Wii, and that’s New Super Mario Bros. Wii.

We got a chance to play one or two of the side-scrolling title’s multiplayer modes awhile back, but we didn’t know whether Mario’s home console return to 2D platforming would also feature a single-player mode that had as much going for it as old-school favorites like Super Mario World.

After last night’s playthrough and a discussion with Mario creator Shigeru Miyamoto (translated via Nintendo of America’s Bill Trinen), the answer to that question is undoubtedly yes.

Mr. Miyamoto answered questions regarding his new game, in particular why it’s a 2D game when Super Mario Galaxy achieved such great success both critically and financially as a 3D Wii title.

According to Miyamoto, who participated in a reporter’s roundtable Thursday night in New York City, what makes a Mario game is being “simple to control and easy to understand.” The multiplayer modes of New Super Mario Bros. Wii include both four-player competitive Smash Bros.-inspired modes such as Coin Battle, as well as hop-in four-player co-op throughout the entire single-player story mode of the game.

“We wanted the game to appeal to and be accessible to as wide an audience as possible, and because we wanted to make it multiplayer, we felt that the original concept for Mario Bros. was the one best suited to multiplayer gameplay,” Miyamoto added. “Multiplayer platforming is much better suited to a 2-D environment versus a 3-D one.” He was referring specifically to same-room gaming as opposed to online gaming, raising a point that we’ve often thought about with the Wii–namely, other than Wii Sports, that there just aren’t a great number of multiplayer games for the console.

Miyamoto went on to explain how New Super Mario Bros. Wii and next year’s upcoming sequel to Super Mario Galaxy were simultaneously co-developed as two separate ways to look at the Mario experience on the Wii. One is a natural evolution of Mario’s recent 3D efforts, while New Super Mario Bros. is unabashedly retro, even down to its box design and cover art.

“The game stems from 8-bit Mario,” Miyamoto admitted, although he also claims the original Mario was always intended to be a two-player co-op experience. With the DS game New Super Mario Bros., Miyamoto said he “tried a balance of level difficulty that would still satisfy long time Mario fans,” but found the balance “hard to do.”

The new Mario game allows players to be as proactive or casual as they want, according to Miyamoto and Nintendo. They mean this quite literally: the game triggers a “Super Guide” option after the player dies eight times, which is a video showing exactly how to make it through the level. The player can jump in at any time, or even skip the level entirely. It’s a controversial idea to the hard-core, but Miyamoto stressed that it needn’t be used, and wouldn’t be a great idea in all games. “A lot of people buy strategy guides or go online–we incorporated it within the game itself,” Miyamoto explained, adding that the Super Guide “doesn’t show secret areas or how to get star coins.”

Amusing developer and tester-made “expert” videos were also shown that can also be unlocked by collecting hidden Star Coins, showing off how much extra can be applied to certain levels with a little extra hard-core effort.

It seems that Miyamoto’s greatest pride is in how this game enables a meeting between hard-core and casual players, and how same-room “living room” multiplayer, as opposed to online play, can be a source of old-fashioned fun. “The more advanced can carry novice gamers through levels,” Miyamoto said, and referred to his observations testing the game with focus groups. “What we noticed was when people played alone they had a very serious look on their face and they were working very hard trying to figure out their way through a level…but as soon as we had multiple people playing the game, their expressions changed dramatically, and all of a sudden they had smiles on their faces,” noting that “some of the people playing multiplayer can have a really good time without playing much of anything.”

While some might fault Nintendo for not making New Super Mario Bros. Wii into WiiWare DLC (for the record, Miyamoto claims he prefers things in boxes), the playtest afterwards confirmed that this game is exactly what an old-school Nintendo fan or a retro-obsessed Mario lover would want–it’s a full Mario game through and through. Strangely, it eschews many of the Wii’s prime features–it’s controlled exclusively using the nunchuck-less Wii-mote turned on its side, and doesn’t use Wii MotionPlus–but that could be an appeal for many Wii owners, not a hindrance. It doesn’t reinvent the wheel, but it adds enough tributes and new wrinkles (like an ice flower power-up) to make it worth the visit. Come to think of it, New Super Mario Bros. Wii might be the only Nintendo Wii game besides Wii Sports to successfully blend hardcore gaming, casual appeal, and multiplayer into one package. If Wii owners agree with that sentiment, then Nintendo’s destined to be printing money once again this holiday.

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“Suicidal Astronaut Wanted” says Craiglist Ad

Author cobster | 17.10.2009 | Category Technology

Craigslist ad seeks

Just because there’s a recession, it doesn’t mean you can’t find your dream job. So allow me to direct your boundless ambition toward an ad on Craigslist’s Calgary site.

While many people scour Craigslist to see if Starbucks or Bed, Bath and Beyond might be seeking additions to their cheery teams, the poster of this ad is searching for an altogether more adventurous type, proudly announcing “Astronaut Needed (Northern Alberta).” Is that the cough of a million scoffs I hear? Perhaps. But this is truly an interesting opportunity, to say the least. Just look at the first, enticing sentence of the ad: “Astronaut needed for experimental flight to Titan.”

Perhaps you might be concerned that this ad was not, in fact, placed by NASA. Please, let me put your mind into horizontal mode. The advertiser assures all applicants that he has been “working on this project for near 40 years.” Indeed, the only reason he is seeking an Armstrong for his flight is that he himself seems to have weaker limbs now that the years have passed.

You might also be wondering what kind of craft will shuttle you into orbit. Well, again, I can be your Xanax. The advertiser declares that his secret craft is “the result of my professional experience and imagination while serving the U.S. military in advanced aeronautics as a scientist.” You see, this man is a veritable expert in his field. This spaceship enjoys “a revolutionary propulsion system and its fuselage is fabricated with the most advanced material.”

Surely, you can have no more concerns. Surely, you are ready to reply to this advertisement, beaming at the idea that you will soon be beamed into the great beyond. Well, in the interests of full disclosure, let me draw your attention to some of the finer details. In the advertiser’s own persuasive and humane words: “I am certain you will make it safely to Titan but there will not be enough fuel to get home. This is for someone unique that has always wanted to see the universe first-hand and has perhaps a terminal view on life here at home. Here’s your shot at romantic history.”

Yes, that’s right. You won’t be coming back. At all. Ever. So perhaps you might want to check what the nightlife is like on Titan. Because that might be the only way you could really create romantic history.

Should I have failed to deter you from applying for your life’s (and death’s) dream, do note that the job specs declare that you should be no taller than 5 feet 10 inches and “relatively slim.” One imagines that any appearances in a Ralph Lauren advertisement might enhance your chances of being chosen.

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Linux Foundation aims to boost membership with new perks

Author cobster | 15.10.2009 | Category Linux

In an effort to expand its ranks, the Linux Foundation has improved its selection of perks for members. New perks include hardware discounts and the availability of a lifetime e-mail forwarding account at the linux.com domain.

The LF was formed in 2007 when the Open Source Development Labs merged with the Free Standards Group. The organization is responsible for maintaining the Linux Standard Base (LSB) project and also employs Linux creator Linus Torvalds. The group has largely been funded by its corporate sponsors, which include many of the largest companies in the technology industry. Last year, the LF launched an individual membership program, inviting Linux enthusiasts to pay annual dues for various privileges.

Members receive a linux.com e-mail forwarding account and discounts on various conferences hosted by the foundation. The LF obtained the linux.com domain from SourceForge, Inc. earlier this year and has been transforming it into an information hub and social network for the Linux community. The e-mail addresses are not permanent, however, and could disappear if the user neglects to pay the annual dues.

In a bid to increase its membership, the foundation has added several new perks. One of the changes is that users can now pay a flat one-time fee to make the e-mail address permanent. Existing members can get the lifetime e-mail address for $150. New members can get a package of one-year membership and lifetime e-mail for $250. Regular annual dues are $99. Another significant new perk is hardware discounts from Dell, HP, and Lenovo.

I’ve been eyeing Dell’s new 537s with Ubuntu, so I decided to put the new Linux Foundation membership discount to the test. The discount is offered through Dell’s Employee Purchase Program (EPP). Ironically, I had serious difficulty finding the Linux-based computers through Dell’s EPP storefront (you can’t get the discount if you just aim your browser directly at dell.com/ubuntu). “Linux” isn’t included in the “Operating System” filter at the EPP portal (though, surprisingly, FreeDOS is). I eventually found the tiny “Open-Source PCs” link towards the bottom of the left-hand column. The discount from Dell is roughly 7 percent, but it’s a pretty nice deal because it stacks with other discounts and coupon codes.

Members also get discounts on O’Reilly and No Starch Press books, Linux Journal Subscriptions, and some ThinkGeek.com purchases. For Linux enthusiasts who regularly buy computer hardware and other discounted stuff, the $99 membership fee could pay for itself pretty quickly. The lifetime e-mail offering, on the other hand, doesn’t seem all that appealing. $150 is a lot to pay for a mere forwarding service.

As the economic downturn compels people to close their wallets, nonprofit organizations have been exploring ways to entice supporters to continue contributing financial resources. Some open source groups have come up with interesting solutions. The GNOME Foundation, for example, has a special Friends of GNOME program that allows contributors to “adopt” their favorite GNOME hacker by supplying a small monthly donation. The Participatory Culture Foundation, the organization behind the Miro media player, launched a program that allows donors to adopt a line of code. The LF membership program lacks the cuteness and novelty of those approaches, but it makes up for it by offering pretty solid perks.

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