Tag Archives: Technology

GEF #18: E3

Google Earth Friday No Comments

Sorry this is a bit late, I was rather tired last night and angry at the terrible game England played in the world cup, but i digress.

 

This week was E3, a large gathering of game developers and companies trying to flog their latest 3D gaming whathaveyous, held in the Los Angeles Convention Centre strangely enough in Los Angeles, California.

 

 

Looking forward to Little Big Planet 2 mostly, Nintendo’s 3DS seems gimmicky like the Wii but going on how well the original DS sold, it could be equally as popular or just wait a year for Nintendo’s next revision of their handheld. As for Playstation Move, why not? Seems like good fun, widely supported and glows! Microsoft, go back to what you do best, making engaging hardcore game platforms, not some movement based controller that dilutes the reputation that you’ve built up and makes the experience more casual. Xbox was made for hardcore gamers and yes, I do dislike Xbox, as I am a Playstation man myself, but Microsoft have lost the plot.

 

End Rant, Wikipedia quote go!

The Electronic Entertainment Expo, commonly known as E3, is an annual trade show for the computer and video games industry presented by the Entertainment Software Association (ESA). It is used by many video game developers to show off their upcoming games and game-related hardware.

[Wikipedia]

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Sony end production of the Floppy Disk

SouthanUK General No Comments

 floppydisk

As the title says, Sony have finally ended production of the ever wonderful 3.5 inch Floppy disk.

 

I well remember the days of only being able to carry ~1.5MB of data around with me. Just look how far technology has come, I can carry 4GB in my pocket on a card many times smaller than the floppy disk. And for something that was developed in the 1970s to still have the popularity it does today is great.

 

Suddenly, a Wikipedia quote:

A floppy disk is a data storage medium that is composed of a disk of thin, flexible ("floppy") magnetic storage medium encased in a square or rectangular plastic shell.

[Wikipedia]

From: Telegraph

Phone woes

SouthanUK General No Comments

Due to the terrible build quality of the N95, the time to replace my phone draws close.


N97_main

The all evil, N97


Previously, I said I was getting the all new Nokia N97. However, after reading reviews and whatnot, it becomes apparent that its terrible. Underpowered for the operating system its running [Seriously, Nokia should drop Symbian, its old and buggy], causes the phone to slowdown and lock up at points. Gizmodo reviewed the phone and seems to share my sentiments in the terrible OS that is Symbian.


Still being rather loyal to Nokia after 10 years, I have come to expect quality phones from them. This was not the case with the Nokia N95 8GB that I bought less than 2 years ago.


Being a relatively light user of the mobile and treating it nicely, you would expect the phone to last at least a good 4 years or more. Currently my N95 has lost all its metallic surrounds on the buttons, chipped off metallic paint around the camera surround and has severe problems with the sliders. I can accept that the metallic paint would chip off over time, I found this with my Nokia 6680, but slider problems? From day 1? I know you’re thinking “Why didn’t you send it back?” but at the time I didn’t really notice the dodgy slider. However, after spending many hours trawling though various Nokia forums both unofficial and official, I noticed that this was a common thing with all the N95 8GBs.


Various other things bug the hell out of me; including the fact that it can take a good 10 seconds to open the text message application on the phone, frequent lockups/crashes with the YouTube app, crappy web browser and others.


Nokia-N900

Nokia N900 showing all


The next phone I hope to get will be the ever lovely Nokia N900.

“Nokia again?” I hear you ask. Well its Nokia again for a few reasons.

  1. I still trust that I will be getting a good phone
  2. Maemo 5 is the operating system of choice. A Debian based system, so essentially this is a pocket computer/phone.
  3. Touch screen, gotta love ’em.
  4. Windows Mobile just doesn’t cut it for me at the moment, although 7 series looks good.

So there are my reasons, I know a few of you [Mark 😛 ] love your WinMo/Android phones but I’m a Nokia man at heart [although I was nearly seduced by Samsung with their Omnia HD]


I’ve now got to find  Â£449 to buy it :/