Back to Business.

Those aware would have known (can check into my very few first posts) that I have been waiting for a few months now to begin my government assisted business course initiative which will consist of up to 13 weeks (7 weeks minimum) the aim of this all would be to have myself starting a full time business in the field I so enjoy… Computers; Building, Upgrading, Refurbishing and Servicing as well as starting an E business where I’d sell hardware PC parts online at great prices.

I’m currently in my second day as I type this and I do have a positive output towards how it is going thus far, great teachers, environment is helpful and I’m starting to look at my business structure more effectively. I do look forward to what I can put into this course and what it will give me back in the sense of my business and the decisions I make from what I’ve learned.

I will keep an update on how this all plays out as well as implementing what I learn progressively here on my blog also ;)

Keep checking my blog out for more.

Enable both Aero and Glass in Vista Home Basic

Tips for people who are stuck up with Vista Home Basic OEM version.


Well i've read in most in most articles across the web to enable the Aero in Vista Home Basic.

1) Run "regedit"
2) Navigate to "Hkey_Current_User \ Software \ Microsoft \ Windows \ DWM"
3) Change the value of the entry Composition to 1
4) Change the value of the entry CompositionPolicy to 0.
5) Now restart the computer.
6) Now go to Control Panel > Personalization > Window Color and Appearance.
7) When you are on Aero Standard you should now be able to see a color picker with sliders for choosing the colour of the Glass window decorations.

Well this only enables Aero in Vista Home Basic, not the 'Glass effect' like most people want. I tried to Google ways to get the 'Glass effect' but all give the same hack which never ends in the 'Glass Effect'.

You could always install WindowBlinds 6 ---> It's a shareware thing (not good idea imho).

But there is one free app available called Glass2k. Anyone interested in having 'Glass Effect' in their Vista Home Basic can download this free software from
here.

Microsoft: 88 Million Copies of Vista Shipped

Woah 88 million copies, should note that a majority of those copies were pre-installed OEM versions.

Despite underwhelming consumers and being snubbed by enterprises, Windows Vista's numbers keep growing, with Microsoft Corp. saying Thursday that it has now shipped 88 million copies of the operating system, almost double the number of copies of XP in the same amount of time at its launch.

In late July, Microsoft said it had hit the 60 million shipment mark with Vista.

Microsoft had previously said that it had shipped 20 million copies of Vista in its first month and 40 million copies of Vista in the first 100 days.

Microsoft credited Vista with helping it beat Wall Street expectations and raise financial projections for the rest of the year. The company reported revenue of US$13.76 billion for the first quarter ended Sept. 30, up 27 percent from the same quarter in 2006.

Revenue in its client segment, which includes all consumer versions of Windows, was $4.14 billion, edging out the $4.11 billion in revenue from the Microsoft Business Division where Office is produced.

CFO Chris Liddell credited strong sales in emerging markets, due in part to anti-piracy and legalization programs there.

Client revenues, however, did not top those of the first calendar quarter this year, when Vista was officially launched. Revenues at that time were $5.32 billion.

Three-quarters of the copies sold of Vista were higher-priced 'premium' versions, compared to 59 percent of the copies of Windows -- primarily XP -- available a year ago.

The 88 million figure mostly includes Vista-installed PCs bought by consumers and small businesses, as well as packaged copies of Vista sold in stores or online.

It does exclude the tens of millions of Windows corporate volume licenses. There, many enterprises continue to hold off on deploying Vista, acknowledged CFO Chris Liddell, though he expects them to start deploying it when Vista Service Pack 1's arrival in the first quarter of next year.

Nevertheless, revenue from companies renewing their volume licenses for Windows, which gives them the right to upgrade to Vista, was up 27 percent.

Source

Windows and Halo boost Microsoft

Microsoft has seen strong quarterly profits, thanks to demand for its Windows operating system and its popular Halo 3 video game.

The software giant saw net profit rise 23% to $4.29bn from $3.48bn a year earlier, during its first financial quarter, beating expectations.

Revenue added 27% to $13.76bn over the three months to 30 September.

The firm also raised its yearly forecast. Shares rose 11% in after-hours trade, to more than $35.

Morningstar analyst Toan Tran described the results as a "blowout quarter".

"I think Microsoft is going to have a fabulous second quarter. Worldwide PC demand is still very strong and is going to benefit Windows and Office," he added.

"With the holiday season, we're going to have demand for Xbox 360, and for Halo 3 so the second quarter is shaping up to be fabulous for Microsoft."

Outlook

Revenue from Microsoft's Windows Vista operating system grew 25% from a year earlier, hitting $4.14bn while sales climbed 20% to $4.11bn.

Meanwhile the firm's entertainment and devices arm saw revenue climb to $1.93bn - nearly double that seen in the first fiscal quarter of 2006, helped by the Halo 3 game as well as the Xbox consoles on which the game is played.

Looking ahead the firm raised its forecast for the financial year to $58.8bn in sales from a previous estimate of between $56.8bn and $57.8bn.

The results come the same day that Microsoft announced it had paid $240m (£117m) to buy a 1.6% stake in Facebook.

The deal means Microsoft will sell internet ads for Facebook outside the US.

Source

Samsung Cancels Blu-ray Player, Delays Dual-Mode Unit

Samsung confirmed Wednesday that it was canceling one of its Blu-ray players, while delaying its dual-format model until the end of the year.

The Blu-ray-only BD-P2400 was set to debut at a price point of $649 USD. However, the device was essentially the same as the $100 cheaper BD-P1400, save for the addition of HQV video processing.

In an increasingly muddied market for high-definition players where there appears to be no apparent winner for the foreseeable future, Samsung's move might not be all that surprising. It could be making this move to focus on getting its own dual-format player out, the BD-UP5000. While the player was originally supposed to be released in October, the company now says it will not be released until mid- to late December.

Another reason could be that Samsung wished to ensure its set-top box was BD Profile 1.1-compliant, which is a requirement of all players after October 31. While the unit will not ship with the new code, a firmware update in January will enable playback of discs that fit that profile.

Source

Nokia N95 8GB now shipping

Finnish fone fabricator Nokia has now begun shipping its updated N95 mobile phone.

The 8GB N95 boasts 8GB of built-in memory, a 5 megapixel camera with Carl Zeiss optics, built-in A-GPS, WLAN, HSDPA and an innovative(?) 2-way slide. The N95 also features an all-important 2.8" (240 x 320) QVGA display that works great with GPS, Java games and Internet browsing.

The black, hot and heavy (129 g) N95 8GB is set to cost 560 euros without taxes.(WTF!)

Asus announces Silent Square EVO CPU cooler.

After the Silent Knight II, Asus has unveiled yet another cooler said to be perfect for keeping the temperatures of quad-core CPUs as low as possible. The Silent Square EVO works with Intel LGA 775 and AMD 939/940/AM2 sockets and features a "wave-shaped" double side fin design, a copper base and five copper heat pipes can efficiently transfer the heat to the fins.

The fan with which the Silent Square comes equipped is positioned inside the frame of the heatsink and measures 92×92×25mm. The fan spins its blades at 22dBA. The whole cooler and nothing but the cooler weights in 745 grams. A price tag for the new cooling solution has not been announced.

Eric Traut talks and demos Windows 7 and MinWin.

Microsoft’s distinguished engineer Eric Traut gave a presentation at the University of Illinois about Microsoft’s virtualisation technology and also mentioned Windows 7 - the next version of Windows after Vista. Believe it or not it was on video. Whilst the presentation is not directly about Windows 7, it does contain a demonstration of MinWin - an internal project to build the most efficient Windows kernel which will in turn be used in Windows 7.

The presentation (WMV) goes for approximately 1 hour and includes a very deep look into hyper visors. If you think Windows at its core is bloated, think again.

The 8 minute segment has been clipped out which Eric focuses on Windows 7 specifically to make it easier to watch.

Full WMV video (1 hour & 6 minutes)

Windows 7 Footage (8 minutes)

Want Vista SP1 Beta but you are not a certified tester?

That's right! There is a hack available that will permit you to access, download and install the official release of Windows Vista Service Pack 1 straight from Microsoft.

The first service pack for Vista was initially released in pre-beta stage in mid July 2007, concomitantly with the original preview of Windows XP Service Pack 3. Microsoft subsequently dropped another pre-beta version of Vista SP1 in August and revealed that the first fully-fledged beta for the service pack would be delivered by the end of September. And the fact of the matter is that in the last week of the past month, the beta of Windows Vista SP1 Build 6001.16659 was open to in excess of 12,000 testers.

A public beta of Windows Vista SP1 is expected sometime near the moment Microsoft will make available the first Release Candidate for the service pack, but the company has offered no timetable in this sense. The final version of Vista SP1 is currently planned for launch in the first quarter of 2008, following the release of Windows Server 2008, at the end of February. In this context, in excess of 70 million Vista users are locked out of the beta testing process of Vista SP1. The Beta Build 6001.16659 of the service pack has been leaked to peer-to-peer file sharing networks but downloading the refresh as a torrent is not even close to an option. However, a hack that will permit users to grab the official Vista SP1 Beta Build 6001.16659 right from the Microsoft Windows Updates server, is.

All you have to do is a little registry hack, as exemplified by GHacks. Open a notepad file and copy paste the following code. Make sure to save the file with a name similar to the one that follows: WindowsVistaSP1_Beta_Hack.cmd. In the file format area of the dialog box do not select .txt but opt for All Files instead.

CODE
@echo off
reg add HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\WindowsUpdate\VistaSp1 /v Beta1 /t REG_SZ /d a2c3c14a-9586-4d37-9aaa-79fbd64069d2 /f
reg add HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Wow6432Node\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\WindowsUpdate\VistaSP1 /v Beta1 /t REG_SZ /d a2c3c14a-9586-4d37-9aaa-79fbd64069d2 /f

echo Vista SP1 registry key has been set. Please check for updates in Windows Update.

Then navigate to the location where you saved the file and right click it in order to select the Run as administrator from the contextual menu that will pop up. In this manner you will launch the registry hack with administrative privileges, otherwise the changes that the file is designed to introduce to the Windows Vista registry will fail. Microsoft is delivering the first beta for Windows Vista SP1 through the Windows Update infrastructure and the registry hack will render WU to display the refresh as available for download.

Following the execution of the WindowsVistaSP1_Beta_Hack.cmd and the associated registry alterations, run Windows Update in Vista. You will come across update KB935509 and you have to download and install it. After reboot make your way to Windows Update again and this time grab and deploy update KB937287. After yet another restart you will be able to find a third update – KB938371. The next time you boot into your copy of Vista and access Windows Update you will be able to find Windows Vista Service Pack 1 Beta.

Source

Sony and Blu-ray have lost their exclusivity in JB Hi-Fi stores with the announcement that effective from November, the major retailer will start selling HD DVD players and content. The big winner is Toshiba, with JB Hi-Fi Marketing Director Scott Browning conceding that it was the exclusive Paramount content deal with HD DVD that swung him over to the HD DVD format.

Back in February this year at the launch of the Blu-ray Disc Working Group, Browning said that JB Hi-Fi would only sell Blu-ray hardware and software because of the strength of the format.

But in an interview with SmartHouse today Browning said, "We have come to the conclusion that cutting the consumer out of a HD DVD opportunity was not right, as content is critical and the move by Paramount to support HD DVD exclusively influenced our decision. In addition, Toshiba is a strong brand and we are currently...

Source

IBM, AMD, Nvidia & Intel Talk The Future Of Gaming Processors

Last Thursday in San Francisco, Cadence held a roundtable discussion with high-level staff responsible for some of the most crucial processors in the gaming space.

According to AMD's Feldstein, who led the design for the Xbox 360 GPU, "The great thing about game console chips is that you're not bound by the linear path the PC has to take -- the dictators who say where the PC is going, like Microsoft." Feldstein even said Microsoft behaves differently when it comes to the 360. "You're also looking at a longer time. You're looking at something that has to live for years rather than months. It's a closed environment, you don't have the open factors of PC. It's a great place to prototype and design."

Setting the tone for his comments throughout the session, Intel's Randy Stude, whose company has no current console products since the cease in production of the original Xbox, argued that consoles do not help with innovation. "Throw Moore's Law out of the window when you talk about consoles -- except every five or ten years when one comes out. Moore's Law applies to the PC industry."
However, IBM's Jim Kahle, chief architect of the Cell project which resulted in the processor for the PS3, disagreed totally. "Moore's Law is about density, and density applies to cost. On consoles you're trying to get the cost down."

Peddie then posed the question that Stude argued earlier -- can consoles be considered a place for innovation in processing?

Feldstein said, "360 is where we got our 'go forward' architecture. You can make interesting tradeoffs in these convergence devices. If you don't oversize your system you have a system that attacks the problem -- especially in the game consoles, more entertainment."
Feldstein suggests that since game development has made a major shift to consoles, so too does chip innovation. "If you talk to [software] developers today, their prime target is the console first. This is almost universal. Then they spread it out to the PC. I don't think it was this way five years ago. This year they're starting to go to the consoles first, because it's a more consistent place to play games."

Feldstein talked practicals. "Cost downs are a real pain if you were Intel or AMD doing new processors, because you can't change anything." As processors shrink, "significant parts change. If you're doing an Xbox or a Sony, everything has to be consistent, the last game has to [run] the same as the first game that was bought. NVIDIA and AMD, we're so hell-bent to do the performance and the density and you have to restrain yourself because things have to stay the same." However, when questioned about the AMD GPU's role in the Xbox 360's billion-dollar unreliability issues, Feldstein demurred comment.

Source

Over 200 Developers Working On Metal Gear Solid 4

Meta Gear Solid 4! One of the biggest games (if not the largest) that will hit the PS3 has over 200 developers working on the title, this game will certainly move many PS3 consoles and with the price drop I'm more than certain the new 40Gb SKU's along with MGS4 is aimed to please even the most harsh critic. Do not forget that Kojima productions also plan on implementing the most with the Dual Shock 3 controller for our gaming pleasure also.

Talking as part of an in-depth interview published on Gamasutra today, Kojima Productions' Ryan Payton has revealed that there are over 200 developers working to complete Metal Gear Solid 4 for PlayStation 3, also commenting on the game's use of DualShock 3.

"But the game is definitely under a lot of pressure, because the way things are turning out, this could be the first "must have" PlayStation 3 title on store shelves. Or, if not the first, then the second or the third. So, in that sense, there's a lot relying on it. People at Sony know that, and we've got literally 200 guys working on this title, day and night, making sure that it's perfect."

"This will be the premiere DualShock 3 supporting game coming out within the next six months. Gran Turismo 5 is, I'm sure, going to be impressive, but we've got some things that I can't talk about that people are going to really dig."

Source

Drive advance fuels terabyte era.

A single hard drive with four terabytes of storage (4TB) could be a reality by 2011, thanks to a nanotechnology breakthrough by Japanese firm Hitachi.


The company has successfully managed to shrink the read-write head of a hard drive to two thousand times smaller than the width of a human hair.

The smaller head can read greater densities of data stored on the disk.
Hitachi said the advance would fuel the "terabyte era", with a 4TB drive able to hold more than a million songs.

Xbox 360 Arcade Unboxed: It Has HDMI!!

Well it seems a New Xbox 360 SKU (Stock Keeping Unit) is going to be replacing the Xbox 360 Core SKU currently available on the market. A warm welcome considering this new SKU will house not only some new revisions hopefully doing away the Red Rings of Death but also a HDMI port for those wanting optimal connectivity to their HDTV units.

Note: Great for those who dislike a lot of cables causing clutter as HDMI passes Video and Sound information through the single cable.

One should be aware these units will make their way into the American and Canadian markets before they hit our shores (here in Australia), here's some more info on the matter.

Thanks to Emanuel, an intrepid tipster who went above and beyond the call of duty, we managed to get a full unboxing of the Xbox 360 Arcade before Microsoft has even been able to send out a press release about the thing. Whenever the console officially lands, you can expect to pick up the hard drive free console for $279.99, which includes a 256MB Memory Card, a Wireless controller, an HDMI port minus the cable, and a disc that includes copies of Xbox LIVE Arcade games Boom Boom Rocket, Feeding Frenzy, Luxor 2, Pac-Man Championship Demo, and Uno.

Source

New Features Discovered in XP SP3: Is It Better Than Vista?

The principal reason given for the tremendous under-the-hood changes to Windows unveiled early this year in Vista was the need to overhaul the security model.

Indeed, Vista has proven to be a generally more secure operating system, though some vulnerabilities that apply to ordinary software impact Vista users just as much as any other.

But now, software analysts testing the latest build 3205 of the beta for Windows XP Service Pack 3 are discovering a wealth of genuinely new features - not just patches and security updates (although there are literally over a thousand of those), but services that could substantially improve system security without overhauling the kernel like in Vista.

According to preliminary reports from Neosmart, testers there found evidence that the company is hardening XP's network security with added features.

One of these features had actually been on Microsoft's list for some time, and might actually have caused problems for customers had it been omitted: Network Access Protection (NAP), which is due to be managed by the forthcoming Windows Server 2008. This new service disallows network clients from accessing a WS2K8 server without passing a minimum "health screening," which checks for the presence of updates and service packs (including SP3) and disallows access to failing clients until they upgrade.

When NAP's inclusion in WS2K8 was first confirmed in late August, a Microsoft spokesperson contacted BetaNews to make sure we reported it wasn't just for Windows Server and just for Vista. We assumed that meant it would find its way to XP as well, though the spokesperson declined to be pressed further at that time.

A one-two punch involving a rollout of WS2K8 and XP SP3 in the first half of next year -- which is Microsoft's current plan -- could pave the way for a hardening of endpoint security on Windows networks, at least somewhat. Contributing to that hardening will be the inclusion of new cryptographic algorithms in the kernel, by means of Kernel Mode Cryptographic Module (KMCM). Coupled with access policies provided by NAP, admins could theoretically implement a new, second layer of policies for encrypted communications and authentication between network peers, provided by Triple-DES algorithms accessible through the kernel.

In other words, enterprises that previously have had trouble embracing the idea of deploying across-the-board encryption may feel more comfortable trying it out, now that KMCM is a baseline feature. It premiered in Windows 2000, and its first implementation in a Windows client was for the first edition of Vista.

Neosmart also discovered evidence of hardening of Windows' IP stack, including the inclusion of Microsoft's new "black hole router" detection scheme. Way back in 1990, the IETF implemented a way for routers to detect in advance the shortest path to send a large number of datagrams, without having to fragment them too seriously along the way. The plan was referred to as Path Maximum Transmission Unit (PMTU), with the objective being for sending routers to seek receiving routers that mangle fewer datagrams.

As it turned out, some receiving routers that were pegged by sending ones as PMTU members were responding to datagrams with "do not fragment" messages by simply throwing them out. These were referred to as "black hole routers," and have been a perennial plague to streaming operations. The new router detection scheme enables IP routers along the way to flag misbehaving PMTU candidates in advance and steer around them.

This is a feature that Microsoft has updated just last month, and which it might not have had to include with XP SP3 to please customers. So its inclusion is being treated as an indication there are developers at Microsoft who are still willing to treat XP seriously, perhaps extending its viable lifetime well into 2009.

Source

BitTorrent moves from piracy to video streaming

BitTorrent Inc, which was co-founded by the developer of a software program widely used to share pirated music and video over the Web, plans to start helping media companies stream videos over the Internet.


The company unveiled the service on Tuesday (Oct 9), six years after its chief executive, Bram Cohen, created the BitTorrent peer-to-peer file-sharing technology.


BitTorrent is one of two key technologies used for trading files over the Web. The other, Gnutella, works using software programs including Limewire and MP3 Rocket.


While the BitTorrent software has been notorious as a tool for piracy, Cohen said he spent three years working to find ways to commercialize the technology.


Source

Blog Action Day!

As some of you have noticed over the months that I've been blogging here, I've never really discussed anything about the environment. Well today I was part of the Blog Action Day, where I blogged something about what matters to me concerning the environment. My blog was about Blackle.

Please check it out and comment on it here or there if you wish.

Images of 40Gb PS3 (Available Thursday in Australia)

Curious to see what the new PS3 40GB looks like? Here are actual, photographed in detail, shots of an unveiling of the new 40GB PS3.

One observation I made was that it seems the 40Gb revision may be using a 65nm (Nano Metre) Cell and RSX chipsets, for those who are unaware the Cell is the CPU and the RSX is the GPU used inside the PS3.

Vista is getting better...slowly ;)

A lot has been written about how Microsoft released Windows Vista too early and with too many bugs to make is a feasible platform for people looking for a relatively hassle-free platform.

If you liked being at the cutting edge then I’m sure you’d be happy to live with the bugs, but if happened to be looking a stable work platform, the general opinion was that it was best to stick with XP for a while. Now though, things are changing. Vista is getting better … slowly.

Vista is getting better ... slowlyOver the past few weeks we’ve not only seen a beta for the long awaited SP1 fall into the hands of a small pool of beta testers (of which I’m one), we’ve also seen a fair few compatibility, performance and reliability releases, specifically KB938979, KB938194 and KB941649.

I’ve installed all these updates onto several systems in the lab and what I’m noticing is that while KB938979 and KB938194 resulted in very litter overall benefit (the main benefit came from KB938979 and the fix to the “estimated time remaining” when copying or moving large files bug, but this was more of an annoyance rather than a critical problem), I’m seeing considerable improvement to both performance and reliability after installing SP1 and KB941649 on all systems. In particular, Vista startup times are improved considerably and overall reliability is infinitely better. What’s even better is that there’s no sign on a downside to applying these patches.

Several cynics have commented on the timing of these releases and wonder if they have anything to do with the imminent release of Mac OS X Leopard. While it’s easy to entertain such theories, I don’t put too much stock in them. It takes time to identify and fix issues, especially within a complex OS such as Vista. We’re not yet at the year mark since Vista went RTM so it’s still early days. Should Microsoft have been faster and more aggressive in releasing patches is a point worth debating, but that’s history now, what matters is that we’re starting to see real progress being done in bringing Vista up to scratch. Some areas are still waiting to be fixed (for example, I can easily replicate the network transfer speed bug on a fully patched SP1 beta version of Vista), I’m pleased with the progress I’m seeing.

While I’ve been highly critical of Vista as it was when it went RTM back in November of 2006, With the bundle of patches already released and Vista SP1 now on the horizon, I’m starting to see light at the end of the dark tunnel that I’ve been in for the past eleven months … and I’m hopeful that it’s not a train coming in the opposite direction!

Source

My Note: I've seen some major stability changes with Vista SP1 and I must say that there is a considerable improvement, those of you who are Beta testing know what I mean when I say that. :)

40Gb PS3 $699.00AUD RRP!

Well it seems that there was weight to my previous articles about a new PS3 surfacing. Even with the claims of JB Hi-fi store staff, some people just wanted to wait upon Sony to verify the claims. The funny thing was, Sony would deny any reports of a new 40Gb revision unit until October 5th where they now have not only confirmed but you can take a quick look at the unit (click on source for more).

Source

KEY DIFFERENCES BETWEEN NEW 40GB & OLD 60GB PS3



The fact that this unit no longer supports PS2 game playback may upset many more than the issue of this unit not playing Super Audio CD's or known as SACD (didn't really take off) as Sony has always been about keeping their backwards compatibility catalogue. Playstation has around 15 years of gaming under their belts and 7-8 years were in the PS2 generation, fact is games are still in production for the PS2. One should note ALL PS1 games are compatible with the console.

Some other hardware features not found in this model when compared to the 60Gb & 80Gb (American and Japanese versions) configurations is that this has 2USB points and no card readers...

This console in my honest opinion is more for those not concerned with playing PS2 games but wanting a cheaper entry unit into Sony's next gen gaming. I am considering this purchase and hoping I can still pick one up for at least $650.00AUD as I stated in my last post on the matter.

It's one of the cheapest Blu-ray movie players on the market, plays High definition games, free online multiplayer, Wi-fi (802.11b/g), Bluetooth, Mozilla Internet browser, Linux capabilities (can install Linux O/S distros) and an observation I made, it may also be using the new 65Nano Metre Cell & RSX chipsets which could explain why Sony have used less ventilation holes on this unit than its older 60/80Gb variations.

A good buy in my opinion!

Ten Tips for Buying TVs

A very imformative piece, I found this great for myself and for others when asking advice!

1) Right Connection – The first question Silver says shoppers should ask is whether the superstore or specialty retail store has a delivery service that will properly connect and calibrate your TV. “Ask if they understand how to make HDMI work, because ideally you should be getting that, but it’s still novel, still buggy,” Silver says.

2) Lighting Matters - Though it may be difficult depending on the shopping environment, make sure you can view the set in lighting similar to your home’s lighting. Is your room usually bright? Go LCD. Dark? Try plasma or a projector. In between? Microdisplays, especially for value in screen size delivered per dollars spent, Silver says.

3) Where’s the View? – Speaking of microdisplays, or rear-projection TVs (RPTV), there is a catch, Silver notes: limited viewing angles. LCDs and RPTVs don’t have as broad viewing angles as plasma, so make sure you can control the angle both horizontally and vertically if you’re considering those technologies, he says. “Room lighting and viewing angles are absolute considerations, and you can’t recover from a mistake there.”

4) Have Discs, Will Travel – Don’t rely on what the stores are displaying for movies; bring your own demo material. Suggestions: something real, something familiar. A digitized Pixar movie like Cars or Toy Story is easy to make look great, Silver says, but doesn’t offer real-life brights, darks and dynamic range of colors the human eye sees every day. “Charlotte Gray with Cate Blanchette, go to the very last chapter where there are bright scenes, dark scenes—challenging scenes. The original Matrix is spectacular in HD DVD, and Kingdom of Heaven is good in Blu-ray,” Silver says.

5) Sweet Concert, Man – Another telling piece of demo material? Concert DVDs. “They’re notoriously tough because they’re dark, and it’s not film-based, it’s video,” he adds. “Dark scenes in a concert shouldn’t be full of little wormy things moving around.”

6) Be Suspect of Specs – We can give you chart after chart of manufacturer specifications, but Silver says let your eyes be the true denominator. If you have five sets lined up in a row, look for the best black levels and truest colors, even if you’re weighing 720p-resolution HDTVs against 1080p models.

7) A la Mode – TVs are shipped in “torch” mode, according to Silver, where blues are accentuated and colors in general are oversaturated. Combat this by making sure your TV’s menu includes modes “that have the words pro, theater, movie and warm.”

8) Go Big – Silver’s simple rule on what size TV: The biggest you can afford. “We believe a big picture is 35-millimeter film,” he says. “Take all the rules you’ve ever heard [for measuring the ratio of screen size to viewing distance] and throw them away. I guarantee your screen at home is too small.”

9) Good Memory – Different content sources produce pictures that need varying levels of adjustment to look good on your TV, so check that it has discrete memory per input. That means your set will remember what settings go with what connection, whether it’s cable, VHS, DVD, Blu-ray, Xbox 360 and more.

10) Darkness Rules – Since Silver can’t stress enough the importance of black levels in an image, we’ll say it again, this time with an analogy. He says to think about it like the differences of black levels in photography of daily newspapers compared with those of a monthly magazine.

Source

Australian 40GB PS3 unoffically confirmed (Confirmed by JB Hi-Fi store staff)

Australian 40GB PS3 unoffically confirmed (UPDATE: Confirmed by JB Hi-Fi store staff)

We've had word come through from a great source outside Sony that the 40GB PS3 is definitely on its way to Australia, and the release timing fits well with the Best Buy leaks discussed by the mothership.

The docs we've seen put the 40GB PS3 at $699, with a release date of October 11. If you haven't taken a closer look at the specs just yet because you didn't expect it to come this way, America's FCC revealed plenty of the more subtle hardware changes. -Seamus Byrne

(UPDATE - Wed, 4.59pm: A reader called up their friendly neighbourhood JB Hi-Fi and had the price and date confirmed by two separate members of the floor staff. So we're willing to call next Thursday a very safe bet for a new PS3. -SB)
Posted on October 3, 2007 12:30 PM

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PlayStation Home: 10 minutes Of New Video Footage

If you check out my previous post on Sony's 'Home' service which is much like Second Life I discussed some really neat features the service has on offer and also my take on the array of options and possibilities.

Well here is new footage of the PlayStation Home Avatar customization options and also new footage of the apartment wallpaper options a brief look at Home Square and a look a the proximity sound feature for video displays in home.

Video 1

Video 2

Thoughts and opinions...

Bungie Leaving Microsoft!? (RUMOR)

A huge rumor is floating around that Halo developer Bungie may be seperating from its owner Microsoft. However it is based on a email someone claims to have received from "A friend of mine who has someone close that works at Bungie". According to the email Microsoft is letting Bungie split as a thank you for the billion $ Halo franchise, with Microsoft keeping the rights to it. This rumour seems way too crazy to be true, as the loss for Microsoft would be huge. It's in the news and it's causing uproar all over the internet as it's doing the rounds.

seattlepi

The email is as follows :

"So heres my big secret. You should google Bungie + Microsoft + separation this week.
You know that big ol BILLION dollar franchise Bungie has created for Microsoft, to show their appreciate Microsoft is letting Bungie leave. Of course Microsoft gets to keep all rights to the Halo franchise, but as today Bungie no longer part of Microsoft. Ask anyone who works there to search the global address book, they're no longer in there. Microsoft was supposed to release the press release today but if they wait till the 10/6 the impact wont effect the quarterly results. However today is the actual official date and the day the NDAs expire, however you still didn't hear this from me."

"Apparently MS just wants Bungie to make Halo for the rest of their natural days, and Bungie doesn't like how MS is constantly trying to "handle" everything they do; the way they market their games, the way they interact with their fans (basically the fact that they do appreciate their fans), and how stingie they are with the profits (comparable to the rest of the industry). So as of today they are their own independent entity. They'll probably make Halo 4 for Microsoft, however hey are also free to create new intellectual properties for whatever system they want. (Even though they prefer the xbox platform)"

"What a way to say thank you."

Considering that Microsoft owns Bungie (they paid $50m USD for Bungie)I'd take this with two grains of salt.

PlayStation 3 getting holiday makeover!

Well this one has been through the rumor mill however it seems that this may have some legs to stand on.



From arstechnica.com:

In the meantime, you can see what Sony has done: the company has focused on reducing the cost of building the PS3 while also closely watching how sales of lower-priced units are doing. The time is ripe for a new PS3 model to hit the scene, and we strongly believe that the company is about to launch a $399 PS3 in time for the holiday season. We've been hearing rumors to this effect for some time, but now the evidence of a new PlayStation 3 configuration is almost undeniable: an FCC filing details a new model number for the system.

What this new model number means is impossible to know for sure; the FCC filing leaves out pictures to "avoid premature release of sensitive information prior to marketing or release of the product to the public." The product description tells us that there is no difference in the wireless configuration, CPU, or Bluetooth aspects of this new PlayStation 3. The information that details the differences has been conveniently left out of the released paperwork, for the aforementioned reason.

We also have a date to pin this information to: our sources tell us that the $399 PlayStation 3 hardware will launch on, or before, November 16. We're confident in this information, as our sources in this area have always given us accurate information in the past. The "sensitive information" in the FCC filing will go public 45 days from September 4, unless something changes.

In the race for supremacy Sony has fallen behind against the XBOX 360, many people have held back mainly due to price of the Sony Playstation 3 whilst others are not impressed with the games currently available.

One thing is for certain, I hope these PS3's (if the hype is true) will hit the shores of Australia sometime early next year as I'd honestly love to pick one up @ around the $650AUD mark like I did the XBOX 360 when that too retailed for $400USD ($650AUD).

More as it happens...