Coming soon . . . TV in 3D.

 
Have you noticed that more and more movies are being offered in 3D?  Guess what?  This year, the World Cup in being broadcast in 3D by ESPN.  Not only are movies being offered in 3D, but TV channels are coming as well.  Around May or June this year, DirecTV is offering existing HD members an update to their cable boxes, giving members CBS and FoxSports in 3D.  These are among the first to get the upgrade, with  others soon to be following suit.

   However, with the DirecTV upgrade package,  those ever-popular blue and red glasses will need to be present upon your face for any TV viewing.

   Not for long though: Philips Electronics is debuting the first 3D HDTV that doesn't need any eyewear to be watched.  Philips is utilizing some amazing technology (some of it coming from the very first color TVs) and bringing our tube-loving society to a whole new level.  The Philips WOWvx will be delivered in three sizes:  20",  42", and the not-so-wall-mountable 132" version.

   Here's the awesome part:  You don't need a 3D signal to view programs in 3D.  The TV has a built-in feature that takes a 2D high definition signal and converts it to 3D right on the spot.  Thus, giving you instant 3D House, The Office, Bones, etc.  There is no monthly fee for this option either.

   When you watch a movie in 3D, the movie has been built for only six different viewing angles.  That means that if you move out your seat, and out of the viewing angle, there is a high chance that the movie will become extremely blue and red, ha.  Philips is giving consumers 46 viewing angles, drastically increasing where one can watch the TV from without skewing the picture. Let's think about it this way:  The average viewer watches TV directly in front of it, at a 0 degree angle.  46 viewing angels the gives the viewer 23 degrees on either side that they can watch the TV and have it display correctly, which is great for large groups of people trying to watch all at the same time (Super Bowl, anyone?). 

   The current highest standard of viewing an HDTV is in 1080 pixels, the same as a computer monitor resolution of 1920 x 1080.  The 3D aspect of the Philips product is to bring the resolution to a whopping 3840×2160.  Nice.

   Currently, the only thing stopping the mass marketing of these TVs is the price (of course) which can be purchased at a cool  $10,950.  I think my wife's car cost less than that, ha (and she has the nicer one). 

   If you're on the fence about whether or not to purchase that new Samsung razor thin LED: Don't.  It's not worth it.  Unless of course you don't mind wearing glasses while watching your television.  The new thinner (the Philips is 5.12 inches thick), sleeker models will be categorized with the classic LCDs that most consumers have right now.  Save your hard earned paycheck for this TV and the others coming out soon that are very similar to it.  You won't regret it.


Cheers!


(photo courtesy of: Wired.com)

 

        

Pic of the Week!

Classic.

Apple delivers!

I'm writing this from a pc. Because I'm a pc. But Apple takes the cake for the best mouse to ever be designed. The Magic Mouse (MM) is Apple's newest mouse, totally eliminating all mouse buttons. [Price - $70]

The Magic Mouse has a four-month battery life, communicates via bluetooth, and a laser tracking pad on the bottom. Instead of pretending the buttons are there, like on a normal, two-button, scroll-wheel mouse, they're everywhere. Using a multi-touch system (see pic below for what that actually is), the user interface is literally anywhere on the mouse. It reacts to your actions in the most user-friendly (and adaptable) way I've ever seen. [See demonstration vid at bottom of this post.] If you're wondering how multi-touch (the same touch interface that apple portable media devices use) actually works, checks this out.

( This has everything one would expect when logically analyzing how a touch sensitive object works. But who does that? :0 )









But wait! What if us jealous pc's want in on this? Well, never to be left out, all too helpful pc owners have obtained the .exe's for the drivers on the mouse and made them available on the internet.
Step 1. Purchase the actual mouse at your local apple store.
Step 2. Go here.
- And that's about all I can say on this site, unless I want to get cited for telling people how to hack apple stuff's. lol.

Once again, to give credit where credit is definitely due, Apple has made a sleek, affordable, innovative product that many people should pick up. Now, as long as they don't start charging for anything (i.e. updates) afterwards...

Link to Magic Mouse demonstration vid:
Site


Cheers!

Pic of the Week!

Rofl. Too awesome.

Cheers!

New Post! Finally!

Well after much ado about something I have found time to again throw away to my rantings and ravings on this site. For the record, I have a life (which I wish consisted of more of this, haha). What's the big news in the video game industry? You probably have already purchased it. Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2.

The record breaking sequel to Modern Warfare debuted November 10 in stores and online. Shattering sales records everywhere (selling more than 4.7 million copies in 24 hours after its release), MW2 [Modern Warfare 2] has gamers of all kinds flocking to their local game stores and online Direct to Drive services to get the game as soon as possible. What the heck makes this game so delicious to the eyes? Let's take a quick look. At the PC version, of course.

PC Requirements:

Hard Drive Space: 16 GB free hard drive space
Operating System: Windows Vista/XP
Processor: AMD 64 3200+ or Intel Pentium 4 3.0GHz or better
RAM: 512 MB RAM (XP) / 1 GB RAM (VISTA)

Video Card: Shader 3.0 or better 256 MB nVidia GeForce 6600GT / ATI Radeon 1600XT or better

The PC version of the game offers better graphics (if your god-of-a-pc can do it) as usual, but for the average gamer, these specs are most definitely achievable. Infinity Ward always does a spectacular job of keeping things withing consumers reach, which helps them sell units as well as make the game more enjoyable for a wide audience. Some PC Screens:

..Go ahead. Tell me that the bottom one doesn't look ABSOLUTELY FANTASTIC. You simply can't.

As for gameplay, Infinity Ward wimped out a little (oh so little) bit for PC buyers. No dedicated servers are going to be allowed by users for any sort of leagues, mods, clans, etc. IW [Infinity Ward] has instead (in order to prevent piracy, ..yeah ok, like that's gonna work..) opted to host their own servers with all options including custom maps, for players. Matches will max out at 9v9 and will be admin'd by IW staff. That is the only way online multiplayer will work.

Co-op however, will remain the spec ops mode that was originally announced. And of course, no review is really necessary on the single player campaign. It, even more than the first MW, blows every other single player fps out of the water.

Definitely consider adding this one to your library if you haven't already. Available on 360, PS3 and PC. Infinity Ward once again produces a game of such high quality, nothing else will compare for at least a month after you finish it.

Cheers!

...Pic of the Week! =P

"Le Petit Prince" is a rover bot built to collect plant-type specimens on mars and care for them as well as study and survey their optimal growing conditions. The one-eyed spacebot is perhaps one of the coolest looking rovers ever produced.

( photo by Endgadget.com)

~Cheers!

Just Wanted You to Know

Hey everyone, I just wanted you all to know that you might have eaten a cloned steak in the past month or so.


Enjoy!

Almost Here

Hey everyone!

The Almost, another amazing band, has announced their sophomore album "Monster Monster" and Youtube has leaked at least two songs from it. Great stuff.

(Hands)

(Lonely Wheel)

Cheers!

New Relient K album out soon!

Hey all!

Forget and Not Slow Down comes out in 5 days! Some of the songs have leaked onto Youtube and Relient K is at their best.

( Therapy)
(Forget and Not Slow Down)
(I don't need a Soul)

Cheers!

Softmii'd

Woot! I have officially softmii'd my wii! It took about 6 hours to finish and get everything up and running, but it's working great now. What does Softmii'ing your wii do? Simple: it modifies (without any hardware mods or chips) the wii so that the official homebrew channel is created giving you loads of options (that I'll let you discover) to install/operate with the wii that could never have been done before (example; music player). If anyone is interested here are some links to get you started. This does require some technical savvy though as about 3.5 of my spent hours were me figuring what to do on my own. The guide helps with most of the major work, but inevitably people will run into their own special glitches, ha.

Here's the guide. Follow and read it carefully. (Link)
Here's a site that helped with the installation of non-HB Channel stuff. (Link)

Comment with any questions and I'll see if I can point you in the right direction if any problems arise.

Note: My wii is currently v4.1U (NTSC-U) and I have a successful installation of Softmii. You shouldn't have to worry about downgrading.