Microsoft’s killer app for Xbox 360

Well Xbox 360’s killer app may have just arrived. After much hype and speculations Gears of War was officially released on 7th November. Till now i have only managed to see some movies of gameplay and graphics. But one thing is sure this game surely has mind numbing graphics, can’t wait to hack that chainsaw gun on few unfortunates.

You can’t tell anything until you have personally played a game. Well reviews have been coming from all over the net and they all agree this is Microsoft’s bet for coming early into the next gen console war. Sony might just have to bring some real awesome games to become the king of consoles. Microsoft can just relax now and hope that Halo 3 release goes according to plan, no delays whatsoever.
Check out some official scores from various sites.
IGN: 9.4/10
GameSpot: 9.6/10
1up: 100/100
TeamXbox: 9.6/10
DailyGame: 90/100
GameInformer: 95/100

Here’s what 1up had to say about the game and why they gave a perfect score:

Each stage is memorable. Even as I write this a week after beating the campaign, I can recall dozens of “oh wow” moments, like the first time I encountered the shrieking wretches (that horrible noise they make will haunt you for days). Or when the blind, hulking berserker was stalking me by sound and smell alone. Or the part where I was defending my old home from a Locust onslaught (it felt like a smaller scale, more domesticated version of Lord of the Rings’ Battle of Helm’s Deep). Or when I looked at the face of an apartment complex, and dozens of drones were firing at me through the windows, their muzzle flashes strobe-lighting the darkness like we were on a CNN newscast, live from some war-torn third-world country. Or the parts where I have to blow up propane tanks because staying in the light will keep the flesh-tearing Kryll at bay…. They all combine for an unforgettable adventure through 36 hectic, desperate hours of a group of soldiers’ lives.

If I had some money I would surely get a Xbox 360 and a copy of Gears of war. This game is simply stunning. Definitly this game was worth the wait.

More is good!! Or is it??

In what some might say raising the stakes in the competition & what some might term as unfair playing grounds, Microsoft has agreed to pay Universal Music a cut in every Zune MP3 player that it sells!! Its not clear how much will Universal Music get on the sale of the $250 MP3 player from Microsoft, which releases in the US next Tuesday, but it can be substantial amounts of $$ if the player takes off well.

Legal music download sites have been known to pay royalties to music companies, but music companies getting royalties in hardware sales is something new, & this might just heat things up a bit when Apple’s contract with Universal expires & re-negotiations take place. In order to keep up with competition & to get music labels to walk down their aisles, other music player & mobile phone manufacturers might just be forced to offer cuts in their hardware sales as well. So, whether this proves out to be a new dimension in music industry or a can of worms that becomes too much to handle, only time will tell!! :cowboy:

Hattip: Pocket-lint

The Nvidia 8800GTX

NVIDIA set to launch their new G80 Geforce 8800GTX and 8800GTS graphics cards this week, even if Nvidia hasn’t given hardware sites test subjects, i still managed to gather up some titbits from google. :whistle:

The 8800GTX is equipped with 768MB of GDDR3 video memory on a 384-bit memory bus. Its heard that the G80 chip runs at a cool 575 MHz and memory clocks at 900 MHz. Other features include 128-bit HDR 128-bit HDR with 16x anti-aliasing and NVIDIA’s Quantum Physics Engine. In the past the NVIDIA cards performed a little shaggily when anti-aliasing was turned on in single card configurations. Now with the 8800 series users can experience upto 16x anti-aliasing with a single card. :hug:

This card is a real monster at an inch and a half longer than the AMD ATI Radeon X1950 XTX based card. With this huge card you have to free up some expansion slots, it also requires two PCI express power connectors. One interesting feature is that it has two SLI bride connectors towards the edge of the card as typically a Geforce SLI cards has one SLI bridge connectors. With this two onboard connectors users will be able to connect upto three G80 8800 series cards. :hypnotised: I don’t think this kinda SLI configuration will be at my home. Dual SLI isn’t cheap, a triple SLI (In dreams). Yet as hardware is getting more powerful, this kinda thing will always show up. To compliment this triple SLI feature NVIDIA may announce there nForce 680i SLI and 650i SLI motherboard chipsets with the Geforce 8800 series.

Though NVIDIA recommends a 450watts power supply for a single Geforce 8800GTX, its just a matter of being safe rather than sorry. So a recommend PSU will be from good quality brands like Coolmaster, Zalman, but make sure that the PSU is SLI compatible for G80 series. :boxed:

But I feel sorry as I can’t benchmark this card. Could have managed to show some photos but can’t as those copyright fools won’t let me.:liar: Me signing of till new stuff pops up. :tup:

Quad core is here and kicking

Just hold tight this year Intel is definitely on AMD’s a**. Intel officially launched the world’s first quad core desktop processor code-named Kentsfield and officially called Core 2 Extreme QX6700 rated at (2.66GHz) :whistle:

Reputed hardware testing site Tomshardware is impressed at the performance of QX6700. The quad core zoomed past all the top of the line processors, biggest advantages being in the Premiere Pro 2, 3dsmax 8, yet still the real potential isn’t felt in the gaming department, especially in the Photoshop CS2 and Quake 4.

From Tomshardware:

Intel certainly beat AMD to the quad-core starting line, but this race is far from over. The market needs tight competition to assure reasonable performance at all price levels, so as we congratulate Intel on a job well done, let’s also hope that AMD is able to catch up quickly.

Yet the scores from Techspot have been more outstanding in few areas such as Adobe Photoshop CS2, measured 25% faster when compared to the Intel Core 2 Extreme x6800. The most notable was in the Pinnacle’s Studio Plus video editing software, where the quad chip jumped to a mind-numbing 78% faster than its dual-core predecessor. And another big leap being in 3D Studio Max which jumped to about 60%.

From Techspot:

Intel has done a fantastic job with their latest Core 2 Extreme QX6700 processor and while it was not all gleaming results, the QX6700 did excel where it had to. The thermal output of the QX6700 was very manageable at its default frequency of 2.66GHz though considerably higher than an equally clocked Core 2 Duo processor… As of now, the Core 2 Extreme QX6700 looks to be the most powerful processor on the market for use with power hungry Windows apps. When it comes to gaming, the Core 2 Duo E6700 is a much better choice, or for value the E6600 or even the E6300.

Even if opinions are divided, it’s unfair to say this processor is not all rounder. Actually it is way ahead of time. Still games and many applications haven’t been programmed to use dual core features. As soon as developers start making applications to the processors potential we will see the real scores, scores that will simply be jaw-dropping.

Now coming down to the compatibility issues, anyone who has invested in core duo 2 compatible motherboards should be happy that their LGA 775 will happily accept this range of processor, few may need BIOS updates if some problems arise. Oh but you have to shell out some $1000 for this piece of silicon and you also need a monster of a PC to really get every ounce of performance of this beast of a processor.

I’m a poor dude so can’t afford this processor for even testing purpose, can wait and watch rich dudes beefing up there desktops. Still I can hope that game developers like ID, Valve, Microsoft put some coding work and extract more out of this piece of silicon. Till then me just happy with my AMD box.

Core 2 Quadro Ready to Ravage the High-End [Toms Hardware]
Intel Core 2 Extreme QX6700 review: Quad Core is here! [Tech Spot]
Intel Core 2 Extreme QX6700 [Bit-Tech]
Intel core 2 extreme QX6700 Kentsfield Quad Core [hardcoreware.com]

2 million Firefox 2.0 downloads in 24hrs

Firefox again in the news with its official released of its brand new web browser Firefox 2.0. And why shouldn’t it be, Mozzila’s new browser has clocked 2million downloads in its first 24 hours of its public availability :hypnotised:.

Mozilla provided the following figures for its browser releases:

* Firefox 1.0: 1 million downloads in the first 24 hours.
* Firefox 1.5: 1.5 million downloads in the first 24 hours
* Firefox 2: 2 million (actually slightly more) people using Firefox 2 in the first 24 hours.

There is definitely increasing support for the browser and lot are anxious about how will Mozzila’s best will cope with Microsoft’s recently released Internet Explorer 7.The IE still has security issues in its browsers, Microsoft just can’t seem to make it bullet-proof. Now its just upto the extension/add-on community to quickly get up all extensions 2.x compatible.

The Classroom Comes Alive

The Massachusets Institute of Technology along with Microsoft Research have come up with a very interesting application for Tablet PC’s to simulate the mechanics of a situation. All that one has to do is chalk out the enviornment - wedges, pulleys, springs, pendulums, wheels, etc., give an indication of the forces on the system, and put technology to work. The computer will then simulate what should happen to the system. This is really cool stuff for Physics geeks.

Here is a video of the system at work:

Now, the great thing is that this isn’t some fancy system in the labs. In fact, if you have a tablet PC, you can try it out for yourself. The software is called MagicPaper and it is available for download from MIT’s iCampus website. So go get it now if you love exploring Physics. :bingo:

Don’t call it ‘Pod’

Heard of the latest paranoia? No? Ok, I’ll tell you, its from none other than the great Apple.

Apparently Apple thinks that if they trademark a word, they have an implied trademark on any words or phrases that can be derived from that word. Here in this case their trademark is ‘iPod’ and they have a serious delusion that they also own the rights to ‘pod’ so that no one else on earth can use ‘pod’ in any of their products or services or company names etc. irrespective of whether the supposed offender has anything to do with digital products or not. Apple has issued cease-and-desist orders against anyone using the words “Podcast Ready” and “myPodder” in their products or services claiming that the use of these words infringes its trademark!!

If thats not enough, Apple also doesn’t want anyone using the word “pod” even by those who don’t have anything to do with digital audio or MP3 players etc. In a case of extreme paranoia, Apple has paid a woman an undisclosed amount of money to make her rebrand her laptop bags which she was selling under the brandname of “TightPod” after sending a letter reminding her of the trademark violation that she’s causing with her brand!! And no, thats not enough!! In another case of idiocy & stupidness, Apple sent a cease-and-desist letter to a manufacturer named Mach 5 which has made a small device which keeps track of coins put in & tickets issued by an arcade machine and sends this data wirelessly to a PDA or a laptop, the only fault is that the manufacturer branded this cool nifty device as Profit Pod. Paul Miller of Engadget had a bit of jest up his sleeve on this when he wrote:

Apple seems to think the word “Pod”, plus the similar functionality of transmitting data to a computer, use with video games, and the fact that, in their words, “the PROFIT POD product is a small, flat, round corned rectangular device with a display screen”, make the Profit Pod a threat to that nifty brand name of theirs. We wouldn’t call it an iPod killer per se, but maybe these Mach 5 folks are on to something.

Don’t be surprised if Apple goes after your furniture maker because they sell “pods” or if Apple sends a cease-and-desist letter to George Lucas for his use of “pod racing” in the Star Wars!!

Hat tip: Macworld

They call this Security?

I’ve been using a pre-release build of Office 12 (12.0.3417.1005) for the past couple of months and recently the evaluation period of six months expired. I thought I would have had to switch back to Office 2003 but I really loved Office 12, especially Powerpoint and Outlook. So, I was looking to find a way to get by it, and eventually the way in which I bypassed the trial restriction was one of the oldest tricks in the book. One that I thought no longer worked!

All I did was change the computer’s date to one in which my trial was valid and it works! Surely, Microsoft had to have found a way to prevent this from happening. What’s more is that once Office is up and running, you can change your date back to what it really is and everything still works fine. I dont why where Microsoft’s anti-piracy billions are going if their latest software cannot prevent this from happening.

Screenshots

Software past Expiry

It works with a simple tweak!

If 2GB isn’t enough!!

The more storage space, the more rocking service it is. Or is it? Well, some do believe it to be the case, one of them being AOL. :eyebrow:

Since Gmail made its rocking debut two years back, Gmail has spelled trouble for others & itself in different ways, the most notable being that it offered just many hundred times the amount of free storage that was being normally offered by email giants Yahoo! and Hotmail. Both Hotmail and Yahoo were forced to increase their free offering to keep up as millions tried to get their hands on Gmail invites which was the only way to get a Gmail account & in fact its still the only way even after two years, not that it matters since millions are now using Gmail, having obtained an invite or two by crook or hook!!

Yahoo now offers 1GB, Windows Live Mail now offers 2GB, Gmail offers about 2.5GB, Lycos offer 3GB, but in its last desperate attempt to attract users, AOL is all set to offer 5GB of free storage space to its users from this september.

So will that matter much? Yeah it might considering what AOL has got next to offer. AOL will offer 50GB of storage space to its loyal customers who stick with its $26 per month dial-up connection!! Now that certainly is some space!! :bingo:

So will that fly now?? Many others have failed to stir up attention by offering more space after the initial bubble floated by Gmail burst, but still, AOL has hope, or so they think. We will just wait & watch!! :cowboy:

That was low!!

Ok, looking back, one can conclude that the last month was an all time low here at diGit Blog. We’ve gone high in past & last month we dipped to an all time low, just one lone post in a month!! :coffee:

But the reason is not that we’ve lost it, we still love tech, we still read & talk about it, we’ve kept up with the developments, its just that we got so entangled in the web of personal & professional lives that we just weren’t able to make it to the blog. The proof of my inactivity lies in my other blogs which also haven’t seen any or much action in the last few months!!

But ….. yes but, there’s always scope for improvement & so it is for us here as well at this moment. So lets just look forward to a new month filled with tech blogging!!! :tup: