As each year goes by, all the gadgets and gizmos get smaller and smaller. And more and more start to become obsolete. You would never think that the cable box could disappear. Well, think again.
The wonderful folks over at Microsoft has showed us that the process of elimination has begun. With the most recent update, the Xbox 360 will now be able to do more than just play video games, watching movies using Netflix. Besides Hulu Plus, there will be more selections of what you can watch now on your system. MSNBC’s The Today Show and Epix, cable movie channel, are a couple of the first channels to be added. More are expected to join, such as Youtube, DailyMotion, and HBO GO (coming sometime in 2012) are just some the the channels coming.
Of course, not all are free. You need an Xbox Live Gold membership to be able to use the new features, which is understandable. That is the easy part. There are, and will be some channels that you will need separate service accounts to use, such as Netflix and HBO GO. Now if you think you can get rid of you cable provider, hold on for now.Verizon FIOS and Comcast Xfinity will be bringing their services to Xbox, but not until later. Verizon will be using the gaming system as a limited set top box, which will start later this month. Comcast is hoping to have their system ready by early 2012. They will be offering ther “On-Demand” services, but not live television.
The other part of this update is for the Kinect. With advanced terchnology now at hand, you will now have the ability to search through your xbox using voice activation. The system uses Bing search engine to find what you are looking for. With everything squeezing into our Xbox 360, certain products like Boxee and Google TV might have some good competition.
There is not one person who can say they have not played the game of Twister. It is a game that brings families and friends together…literally. You would never think that the game could be played on an Xbox360. Well, Twister is about to get a major makeover.
Majesco, who has had big hits such as Zumba Fitness and Cooking Mama, is bringing Twister to Xbox 360′s Kinect. However, it will be nothing like the actual game. There will be not mat and no spinner. So the question that comes to mind is, how do you play the game of Twister without the 2 most important pieces? ”This is using your full body as a game piece” said Christina Glorioso, Majesco’s chief marketing officer.
Twister Mania, the official name of the game for Kinect, will have 3 different modes, and 16 different ways to play the game. You can have up to 8 players at a time. The new version of the game brings so much more than just spin and contort. Twister Mania will be releasing sometime in November 1, 2011. Although Kinect games are becoming more and more popular, we will have to see how much success this will be. For $49.99, you will be able to enjoy the fun game of Twister Mania.
With the success of Mortal Kombat, how could they make the game more interesting. By putting in one of the most infamous horror villains known, Freddy Krueger.
The boogeyman himself comes to the Netherrealm to face off with the likes of Scorpion and Shao Khan. For $5, or 400 Microsoft Points, Freddy can be yours to control. Unfortunatley, you can not wake up to get away from Freddy. The only flaw I see in the design is his bladed gloves. In the movies, he only has one, but in the game he has two. When you watch the preview, it is almost like he could be Wolverine, dressed up like Krueger.
Microsoft announced at Comic-Con last week that 343 Industries will be adding another trilogy to the Halo franchise. Frank O’ Connor, Franchise Director, revealed that for the past two years, they have secretly been working on Halo 4 for 2 years. O’ Connor admitted that it was a relief to finally reveal the project.
They currently do not have an exact release date for Halo 4, however, they do know it will be sometime next year.
343 industries has has grabbed game designers who have worked on some of the best games to date. They aquired the talents of Chris Haluke, lead designer of “Killzone 3″, Kynan Pearson, and Jason Berh, who have both worked on the “Metroid Prime” series.
Along with the new trilogy, 343 is also remaking Halo: Combat Evolved. It will have redesigned levels, better graphics, and it will also have multiplayer features as well. The release of Combat Evolved will be on November 15. It will be the 10 year anniversary of when the first Halo was released. Along with the game release, novels based on the game will also be released in the fall.
343 Industries is also looking for some new talent to work with. If you want to be part of it, make sure to stop by their website.
I feel bad for Skype, well as much as I can feel bad about any business that was just purchased for a sum I will never see in my life. 8.5 billion in cash. the company has been passed around a lot. it seems the service is great but the marriage had its problems. And to be honest ebay always seemed like the wrong fit for a telephony company.
Working with and being part of Microsoft could be a fantastic transition for Skype. between skype coming to Kinect, Xbox and windows mobile platforms. It does leave the support for the software on other platforms in doubt. Not that a company with Microsoft’s footprint couldn’t do it but rather that any delay will be seen as a slight.
Being that I’m nto a heavy user of the service I won’t be using any sleep but I honestly hope for good things for Skype.
A week ago, Sony shut down the PlayStation Network, stating that it was for maintenance, and that it would only last no more than two days. Finally the truth came out…PSN was hacked, and personal information was compromised. Although, Sony is still unsure whether or not the credit card information of all the users was jeopardized.
In a recent post on Playstaion’s blog site, Patrick Seybold, who is Sr. Director of Corporate Communications & Social Media, released a statement reassuring users that the company is working around the clock to resolve the issues. He goes on to elaborate on the situation, what they are doing to fix the security problems, and also informs you on what to do to prevent further damage to your information.
Sony suspected that Anonymous, a group well-known for their hacking ability, was at fault. However, a statement was released by the group saying, ”While it could be the case that other Anons have acted by themselves, AnonOps was not related to this incident and does not take responsibility for whatever has happened.”
With PlayStation Network being shut down, Microsoft could get a boost in sales. Despite the fact that PSN has been running for over 4 years, Xbox Live has been running for almost 9 years, never having any type of security breach. And although you can never anticipate the situation that Sony is in right now, it sure is making Microsoft look really good.
This is a beautiful piece of geekery, Imagine taking the time to upgrade through every single instance of windows OS from Dos 5.0 (A prerequisite for Windows 1.01) to Windows 7.
Remarkably this is actually possible, so if by some miracle of time travel you had an 80 gb hard disk from the age where “640k aught to be enough for anyone” I could go straight through, and most of the programs would retain their ability to work.
i do have one small complaint about the video The Upgrade Chain goes like this.
This chain rightly leaves out Windows NT and the entire line, but it chooses to include Windows 2000 which was sold as a windows NT professional OS, the correct chain should have read
I’m not happy with WindowsME either, in fact it was quite possibly their worst attempt at anything, ever. But it still needs to be there. Windows 2000 was a wonderful and stable OS, but it wasn’t a consumer OS.
Still watch the video and enjoy. You wonder why windows users complain about backwards compatibility when its not there, because they are used to it. Apple makes no promises like that. In fact a video like this is impossible with apple, because of the PPC – Intel switch. And probably a couple of other reasons as well, I’d still like to see an attempt.
I’m sure if you are even passingly interested in technology news you are probably aware that we are once again on the cusp of a big Apple event. This happens every year to some degree. Since the world went gaga for the iPod some time back this means tons of media coverage. Even the morning news shows now tart up a 4 day old story as Tech Bytes and feed it to the masses.
The iPod, the iPhone, iMac, iaM tired of it. Even the i fixture in front of the word speaks less of original thinking and more of branding, and its fast becoming hackneyed
I like a machine that does what it is supposed to do, hopefully with as much transparency as possible and then goes about its business. I have never been one to give in to devotion or cultish following of any tech products. At their core they are purchases to be made, or not. Ecosystems to support, as someone in tech support, and liars. All products lie to you either through omission, or through outright deception. Read the rest of this entry »
Today’s show has a ton of great content stretching from Russian UFO’s to Green tech in Fed Ex. We cover a nifty product sent into the podcast to review as well as a couple other finer articles and points in caffeinated living.
Consider this a Little FYI for those of you looking forward to Windows 7, and those who are trying to understand why we have so many issues with compatibility between XP and Vista.
From what I gather in XP, Microsoft let people put files anywhere, programmers, coders, applications, whoever cared to write anything for XP you could store files wherever in the hierarchy permissions and best practices be damned. The same went for how you pulled information from the operating system, access any file you like and go for the gusto! This was great for quick and dirty coding but horrible for security and conformity. When Microsoft laid out the groundwork for Vistathey moved towards focusing on standards, best practices, and security. This caused some issues.
Jumping ahead to Windows 7 after my quick look it looks to be the same. However here is the big change. Vista coughed up a lung when it found files out of place, or programs tried to interact with the OS in a way they weren’t supposed to, it couldn’t deal with them. Programs broke willy nilly allover the place, and the place was a wreck. In Windows 7, a new feature called XP mode will enable programs to work within a sandbox, so they can store files in places where they would like, to a certain extent I’m sure, and then drop back out of XP / Sandbox mode for the rest of the OS to work correctly. XP mode is designed to be an insulated environment which gives you security and functionality at the same time.
Moving forward Microsoft will be focusing on pressing developers to work within API’s, and place nice with the file system. But until everyone is on the same page I think XP mode, whether you understand what its doing or not is goign to make people a lot happier with the next version of Windows.
The sad thing about this whole mess is that Microsoft gets all the blame while the people who wrote sloppy code get to throw a fit.
I hope this little blub goes a ways to explain the issues that are out ther right now, and please if you think I’m off base throw down in the comments.
Hat tip to Chuck for bringing the issue up in the comments of CaffiNation 336 and getting me thinking.
Lots of things happening on today’s show, and this is the second show I’m recording today the mother’s Day episode recorded with my Mom will air this coming Sunday morning be sure not to miss it. But for this show we have a ton of great news cobbled together for your listening enjoyment. There is a lot of talk about movies, Goats, video games, corporate mergers, the At symbol and tons of news about coffee.
In other news the weather is starting to effect everyone around here, from the weathermen who aren’t quite as happy about rain events as the used to be to the arks being built on hills all around us. At this point we can hope for sun, or even just a dry day.
As each year goes by, all the gadgets and gizmos get smaller and smaller. And more and more start to become obsolete. You would never think that the cable box could disappear. Well, think again.
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