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.
Tonight’s show is a pleasant mix of fun tech and wonderful caffeinated stories. We have Coffee in film, a hilariously SFW view of the adult industry and Sony… well being sony. Netflix, Nintendo and a Baby link also show up
A video game that consists of a high school cheerleader, who kills zombies with a bedazzled chainsaw, is something…different.
Grasshopper Manufacture Inc, who are known for mostly doing Japanese games, has teamed up with American writer and filmmaker James Gunn. They are developing a game, where a California high school cheerleader, Juliet Starling, has to fight off hoardes of zombies, led by “Zombie rock and roll lords.
Sounds pretty similiar to another high school cheerleader from late 1990′s, but instead of zombies, there were vampires. I think her name was Buffy, the Vampire Slayer. With all the pizzazz and candy, this will certainly be an interesting game to play.
With the release date sometime in 2012, Lollipop Chainsaw is still in development.
What is on tap for tonight? Well we have Pacman fever, a little USB Joy and some wonderful Coffee News. We dive deep into the tin foil hat world of Area 51, and explore the wonders of Lord of the Rings and Star Trek. . Also a bit of a personal experience with Tea, and the tribulations of pricing. Learning Japanese made easy and fun and a little Macyver to sweeten the pot.
It has been over 3 weeks since PSN was attacked, with over 77 million user information being comprimised. They planned on having the system back up this week. However, Sony is now apologizing, asking for more time. What makes things worse, is the fact that they are being vague.
Since the beginning of the issue, Sony has been beating around the bush with details on the situation, and what they are doing to fix the problem. They have even tried to divert things by putting blame on the infamous hacking group known as Anonymous. However, Anonymous denied any involvement in the attack, issuing a statement “Sony, I am Disappoint.”
Yesterday, May 10, Sony’s Sr. Director, Patrick Seybold, issued another statement apologizing for the inconvenience and asking for more time: “I know you all want to know exactly when the services will be restored. At this time, I can’t give you an exact date, as it will likely be at least a few more days. We’re terribly sorry for the inconvenience and appreciate your patience as we work through this process.”
Sony needs to start answering some questions, and take ownership in what went wrong. If they don’t, PSN users will lose faith in the company, and decide to abandon ship.
With Playstation Network still offline, Sony is strongly pointing the finger at Anonymous, an internet hacking group. If you are unfamiliar with the group, they are recently known for attacking the Sony website in response to the lawsuit against George Hotz, who was able to hack into the Playstaion 3, and record the process on his blog. Although they admit to the website attack, they deny any involvement into the disastrous outage of the Playstation Network, which was hacked, with over 77 million user information being stolen. However, they have problems of their own.
Over the weekend, Anonymous’ IRC (Internet Relay Chat) server, AnonOps, was hit by a “denial-of-service” attack. It ended with some of the IRC servers being taken over. They come to find out that the person who caused the attack was one of their own. His name is “Ryan,” who was a former IRC Operator.
While it is unclear as to the reasons why he attacked the group, but some suggest that Ryan was power-hungry and wanted to take control of AnonOps. Another suggestion is that he was not happy with the structure of the leadership. It is believed that Ryan favored the idea proving yourself before being able to take advantage of tools like “Low Orbit Ion Cannon,’ which is an open source network attack application; the “denial-of-service” is a LOIC tool.
What is causing the alienation between Anonymous and AnonOps IRC servers? A few Anonymous members argued that the owners of the AnonOps IRC servers, and the tools they use, were starting to suffer a slight case of megalomania, seeing as their names were bouncing around the internet. There were also accusations of the small group making all of the decisions about who Anonymous would attack without involving the rest of the group in them.
Since the IRC used to discuss plans for their activities, AnonOps are going to have to find another means of communication to talk about their devious plans. If they are looking for any suggestions, might I suggest GoToMeeting.com
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.
Tonight We’re Talking about Pacman, Nintendo, Wii, Sony, iPads, iPhones, Beverages, Coffee Tea and Bacon Beer, Invisible sharks, and walls of plants. With so many off the wall topics you need to listen in to get a handle on all of them.
On today’s show we discuss the video rundown from last week, Lasers, Darth Vader, Knock off Toys, Google drops a lawn ornament, Steve Jobs defends his ideas, and The Grill gets its due.
Due to E3 happening this week there are a ton of news items floating around about video games in general i roll through a general discussion about a couple of things in the industry as well as take a look at some of the cooler announcements. We also look at lawnmowers, peek and Windows 7 and see whats trending in the world of Caffeine.
Overall the show is a bit front loaded, but no less awesome we are running today’s episode on a good deal of coffee, but what else is new? Like a Indy race this episode is open wheeled. I’m getting a little tired of the show note format i was using so i’m trying to go off the reservation a bit more with these episodes. Still delivering fresh and new content but not necessarily being tied down to one article on a topic.
Please let me know which style you prefer? Links galore, or freewheeling discussion. I’m probably going to stick with a mix for now.
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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