Posts Tagged ‘microsoft’

Wii Sports Boxing, Meet The Z Cam

// February 28th, 2008 // No Comments » // Fun Whatnot

This IGN video is a good taste of what the ZCam from 3DV Systems is all about. However, the videos on their site show the broad conceptual usage of such a device. Basically, this camera has full 3D sensing capability at 60 fps. Additionally, it has depth cut off, so you can configure it to ignore things beyond a certain depth of field.

Some big player will buy this company and their technology. The only question is who? Microsoft? Sony? Nintendo? Sony already has the Eye Toy, but this steps the game up to another level. Nintendo is clearly interested in innovative control with everything they are pushing both with the Wii and the DS. However, I think Microsoft will jump on this. The XBox has not dipped into this market yet at all. Plus, the videos show tons of Windows Vista applications and PC integration. I think this is an almost inevitable acquisition.

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Connect360 - iLife Meets XBox 360

// January 10th, 2008 // 1 Comment » // Fun Whatnot

connect360I knew you could connect a Windows Media Center PC to your XBox 360 to extend the available content, but my primary machine at home is a Mac running OS X. This means all the fun media (movies, music, and pictures) is all on there. So after a bit of searching I turned up the absolutely amazing Connect360 by Nullriver Software.

So how exactly does it work and what does it do?

The iTunes integration allows you to browse and play your iTunes music by song, artist, album, genre or playlist. As expected, this allows support for listening to your iTunes songs while playing a game. It even updates your iTunes play count and play date for songs played on your Xbox 360.

In addition, Connect360 supports streaming of live Internet radio broadcasts by simply addind any station to a playlist

As for iPhoto, you can view your photo library, browse by photo album or watch a slideshow.

Any movies in your movie folder become available for viewing in full screen.

Connect360 supports the following formats:

MP3, AAC, WAV, AIFF and Apple Lossless for Music. For Photos, Connect360 supports: JPEG, RAW, GIF, PNG, BMP and TIFF. For video streaming, currently only WMV+WMA, AVI (DIVX/XVID), H.264 and MPEG4 files are supported (in MP4 and MOV containers).

On top of all this sweetness, it also does “automagic transcoding”. With this feature, it can do on-the-fly automatic transcoding of many formats so that you can enjoy even more content on you Xbox 360.

As for setup, you drop a new control panel on your Mac and this Connect360 software will automatically detect your Xbox 360 and in turn your 360 will automatically detect your Mac and the media made available to it.

The demo is free, and the full version is merely $20, so if you have this setup, try it out, you won’t be sorry.

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Google Presently?

// February 7th, 2007 // 4 Comments » // Technology Bits

Garett Rogers on ZDNet points out an interesting section of the Google language file in Google Docs.

PLAIN TEXT
JavaScript:
  1. var MSG_VIEW_PRESENTATION="View presentation";
  2. var MSG_PRESENTATION_SETTINGS="Presentation settings";
  3. var MSG_DOC_TO_PRESENTATION="Convert document to presentation";
  4. var MSG_DOC_TO_PRESENTATION_HINT="Once your document is converted to a presentation, you can insert slide breaks using Insert> Slide from the main menu.";
  5. var MSG_PRESENTATION_TO_DOC="Convert presentation to document";
  6. var MSG_POPUP_BLOCKER="Presently is unable to launch your presentation in full-screen mode. Check your pop-up blocker settings.";
  7. var MSG_NEW_SLIDE_TITLE="New Slide";
  8. var MSG_UNSUPPORTED_BROWSER="Unsupported Browser Presently doesn't support Opera and will not function properly. Would you like to continue anyway?";
  9. var MSG_SLIDE_INDEX="Slide %1 of %2: %3";
  10. var MSG_NEXT="Next";
  11. var MSG_NEXT_HINT="Space, Enter, N";
  12. var MSG_PREV="Previous";
  13. var MSG_PREV_HINT="Backspace, Del, P";
  14. var MSG_ZOOM_IN="Zoom in";
  15. var MSG_ZOOM_OUT="Zoom out";
  16. var MSG_ZOOM_RESET="Zoom reset";
  17. var MSG_TOGGLE_AUTOFIT="Toggle AutoFit";
  18. var MSG_PICK_THEME="Choose theme:";
  19. var MSG_THEME_BLANK="Blank";
  20. var MSG_THEME_GOOGLE="Google";
  21. var MSG_THEME_LIQUID="Liquid";
  22. var MSG_THEME_MONOCHROME="Monochrome";
  23. var MSG_TOGGLE_TOOLBAR="Hide/show toolbar";
  24. var MSG_EXIT_PRESENTATION="Exit presentation";
  25. var MSG_END_OF_PRESENTATION="End of presentation. Are you sure you want to exit?";

This tips the hand and shows they are intending to have an application called "Presently" and it will have theme capabilities. We would assume it will export and import from Microsoft Powerpoint...

On a side note, Google has already reacted to this by pulling the above quoted language from the file.

google, presently, presentation, google docs, google presently, google, powerpoint, microsoft, microsoft powerpoint, javascript, garett rogers, zdnet

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Time to Boycott AT&T

// June 24th, 2006 // 4 Comments » // Technology Bits

Quoting SFGate.com:

AT&T has issued an updated privacy policy that takes effect Friday. The changes are significant because they appear to give the telecom giant more latitude when it comes to sharing customers' personal data with government officials.

The new policy says that AT&T -- not customers -- owns customers' confidential info and can use it "to protect its legitimate business interests, safeguard others, or respond to legal process."

The policy also indicates that AT&T will track the viewing habits of customers of its new video service -- something that cable and satellite providers are prohibited from doing.

Moreover, AT&T (formerly known as SBC) is requiring customers to agree to its updated privacy policy as a condition for service

One more company destroying personal freedoms and abusing their customers. I'll have to add AT&T to my list of companies I hate and avoid doing business with when possible. They join the "good" company of Sony, Microsoft, and Delta.

sony, microsoft, delta, at&t, att, privacy

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Google Spreadsheets Sneak Peek

// June 6th, 2006 // 4 Comments » // Other Web, Technology Bits

Google Spreadsheets

I just signed up for the trial version of Google Spreadsheets. At this point the screenshots look pretty cool, I'm sure the interface will be similarly sweet. With Writely purchased and calendar launched, I'm basically free of Microsoft Office all together these days.

calendar, google, google calendar, google spreadsheet, microsoft, spreadsheet, writely

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XBox 360 Hack

// May 23rd, 2006 // 2 Comments » // Fun Whatnot, My Stuff

XBox Hack

From an Engadget article it appears that making copies of 360 games is now a real possibility. The hack involves taking a part your DVD burner so you can switch disks without ejecting. Considering dual layer DVDs are now under $2.00, making backups of your games might be worthwhile.

Of course you also need to do a fairly complicated firmware hack so your backups will boot.

In some ways this actually makes me want to have an Xbox 360. There is something very satisfying about modifying hardware to do things it wasn't intended for. However, the only new system I'll be buying this year is the Nintendo Wii.

firmware, firmware hack, hack, microsoft, nintendo, nintendo wii, xbox, xbox 360, xbox 360 hack

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Nintendo Rules E3

// May 14th, 2006 // 9 Comments » // Fun Whatnot, My Stuff

While I got excited about a new Smash Brothers game, this was only the first in a series of things that excite me about Nintendo's next generation console. Over the course of the show, The Big N showed why the Wii was once code named Revolution.

At one point during E3 the wait to get your hands on the Nintendo Wii reached 6 hours, while many said you could walk up and play the PS3 at any time. Much of this could be related to PS3's extraordinary launch price ($499 or $599). Additionally, Sony's announcement of adding tilt sensors to their controller seemed like last minute copy cating of Nintendo's amazing new controller scheme. Additionally, game footage they showed did not look significantly better than Microsoft's Xbox 360 games which have already hit the market. These things left PS3 the clear loser of E3.

As for Microsoft, they seemed to show some exciting new potential with their online services and integration with wireless devices. However, the potential for excitement here is less than with Nintendo primarily because there is still so much to learn about the Wii.

The clear confirming moment that indicated Nintendo's victory was in Sony's second idea theft, but this time they stole Microsoft's idea. Peter Moore of Microsoft took a jab at PS3 by stating "They're going to buy an Xbox and they're going to buy a Wii... for the price of one PS3". Later, PS3 executive Phil Harrison said to GamePro: "I think Nintendo will be the second system consumers purchase after PlayStation 3".

This confirms one thing they both agree on, people will be buying Nintendo's system, even if they may have the purchase order screwy, or I wonder, why bother with either Xbox or PS3?

Anyway, I'll be keeping a close eye on what we can expect to see on launch day for the Wii. Since I'm compiling the info for myself from many new sources, I'll happily share it with you here.

console, consoles, game, games, microsoft, nintendo, playstation, playstation 3, ps3, revolution, sony, video games, wii, xbox, xbox 360

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