Recent Comments:
Win a Magellan Roadmate 1400 satnav and 'Baja: Edge of Control' for the Xbox 360! {Engadget}
Sep 30th 2008 9:10AM I kinda want that game. Looks pretty fun. Yay for a 2000:1 chance of winning! Hey, it's Much better than the loto
New modeling technology breathes life into animation {Engadget}
Aug 19th 2008 11:08AM The biggest problem here is the same as they have had in the past. Of course you can match facial targets to the exact same face. I mean, that's a challenge, but it can be done. But as soon as you put those targets on something with a different shaped face it looks Terrible. I was still feeling uncomfortable watching this one. For one, she over exaggerates most of what she is saying, so it doesn't look like a regular person at all. Maybe fine for someone like Jim Carey or any other overly animated comedian, but terrible for anything with drama. What I saw there weren't Subtle movements at all.
I think the 2020 is more correct than you think. If they are writing software to help most of this out, it'll take a while. If someone was going to hand tweak the animation's subtlties, then maybe 2010. I think the guy is right on when he's saying another 12 years and we might be where we want.
A good example of the strangeness would actually be reanimating familiar, but dead, actors. Imagine what they would look like with someone else's facial mannerisms. It's creepy as hell. It's worse when we know what they should look like, but it still feel awkward when we are looking at an animated character we don't know when it is trying to be realistic.
Psystar says it is "definitely still shipping" its Mac clones {Engadget}
Aug 14th 2008 5:11PM Who says Everyone wants to use it? How do you know Psystar doesn't just really Hate mac for overpricing their crap, and also hate MSoft? Since mac is ridiculously overpriced it's never going to actually compete with Msoft. If more companies like psystar existed it might be more available to the masses allowing it to compete on a larger scale. Msoft would only own businesses with more than 20 or so people do to it's cost effectiveness.
I know both OS's fairly well, and I'd have to admit I'm much more of a Microsoft fan than Mac. Once you actually learn how to use the computer it's Much more friendly when things don't work. And no matter What OS you use, you Will have problems where things just aren't working. That's just do to people making software and not doing it perfectly.
And who says Macs are that much better looking? Remember the first imacs? Trendy yes, pretty, no. Look at them now and say their pretty without lying. What I'll say for Mac is they make a solid case for some of their products. The inside is well designed, although since most of the machines can really only be upgraded once or so there's not much point. And most of the people who upgrade their machines are too dumb to do it themselves so they take it to a mac store to have someone else do it, so there doesn't seem to be much of a point to all that effort.
Other manufacturers are doing great jobs designing the insides of cases also. It's just only one of their cases, out of probably 15 or so, is any good. At work on of my dells is great inside, the other model blows chunks (and it's kind of ugly too).
I don't see why Mac doesn't just Not sell the OS and charge a subscription fee to run the software like many other software companies are moving to. that way you always have the newest you can run, if you want it, and they don't have problems with companies like Psystar.
I just hate Apple, the company, for so many reasons so I kind of grin at the fact that someone is trying to stick it to them.
The Bill Day giveaway (part 3) - Zune 80GB (black) {Engadget}
Jun 27th 2008 5:45PM Windows ME. I'm a big fan of the BSOD. lol
just kidding. It's all about XPpro x64 for me.
Lawsuit forces Microsoft to stay mum about Xbox Live status {Engadget}
Jan 15th 2008 9:05AM I agree with mike. I think this guy put an extra "g" in his name there on accident.
That's not economics at all. Simple economics will tell you if you pay for a service and you end up not receiving it then you get your money back. That doesn't give you a right to sue.
The only reason you should be able to sue is if you have damages. I think any non-money-grubbing human being will tell you that emotional stress does not constitute fiscal damages. The fact that M$ was even willing to give us all something for the annoyance is just amazing. I'm guessing no one will get anything, however, because something like that helps admit fault so now they'll probably keep their free stuff to themselves.
I'd totally be in on a class action suit if someone wanted to start in on these three guys. Just for the principle. I say sue them for one dollar for every person they pissed off. Doesn't sound like much, and wouldn't really do any of us much good, but it'd help stop things like this happening in the future. Idiots just suing because they think they can make bank off someone else that has money. I don't think that would happen, but it sure would make them think twice about suing pointlessly again and pissing a bunch of people off.
CES 2008 ultimate swag bag giveaway: like a Xmas stocking in January {Engadget}
Jan 11th 2008 8:21AM I like the ipod dock fridge.
Polycom ships HDX 4000 / 8000 HD video conferencing systems {Engadget}
Dec 12th 2007 2:14PM It's got tons of options and the quality is good, but the interface of the actual video screens is not attractive. It's just the video in a blue border. It's wasting space at the edge of the screen and between boxes and you can't put one video on top of another.
they should take note that people really like rounded corners and things that looks a bit softer when dealing with just some rectangles up on screen.
we took a look at a lesser quality Sony model and, although much less useable, the interface looked quite nice. The sony one was dumb though because you couldn't see the video when you were messing with settings or viewing packet loss. That's one really nice thing about the polycom. That and you can also control it completely from a remote computer via the internet.
You better run a dedicated line, or run a network bridge for these at larger locations with more bandwidth, for these bad boys though. It'll suck up All your bandwidth.
Also, if you are going over seas and don't pay for dedicated oversea bandwidth then don't even bother. We'll need to upgrade ours here to use these, and we probably will.
Windows 7 feature request list leaks out {Engadget}
Nov 12th 2007 4:30PM installation mode: something that stops pretty much every single service from interfering with things like hardware installs, software updates, and other things that might like to be left alone. Lots of software I use doesn't like things like antivirus software, firewalls, and a few things like that. I'd like a quick way to shut that all off. Preferably without a restart.
A quick, one button, way to get rid of all windows warnings. And every windows warning better have a damn checkbox that reads, "never show this annoying popup again!"
Envision introduces 24-inch G416 LCD monitor {Engadget}
Nov 12th 2007 3:25PM This seems to be the first sub 1000 dollar guy with these sort of specs that i've seen here.
Am I missing the crappiness or something? Sounds pretty good to me. So many monitors are just HD. Kind of sucks if you actually want to edit HD stuff. this at least gives you a couple hundred pixels for some tools at the bottom. And it's not so big you can't run two of them.
Wal-Mart now selling Toshiba's A2 HD DVD player for $198? {Engadget}
Oct 25th 2007 9:09AM well if history repeats itself (betamax and laser disc) then it would end up being BlueRay that end up sinking. Only that betamax and laser disc, at the time, were the superior format. Right now the features, or at least possible features, of HDDVD are superior so maybe Sony will finally strong arm their way into the market.
I do have a hatred of Sony, and I'm rooting against them, but since I am also money conscious I'm going to wait until one format actually has a significant majority for the titles released. Currently they are neck in neck. I could care less about which is selling better. That makes no difference to me. I'm not riding the coat tails of people who are paying that much for a movie anyway. I want the titles to be supported.
If it were up to me there would be no exclusivity of the formats. Distribute the movies in both formats and let the consumers decide which they want. Oh wait, then the majority would buy HDDVD and Sony would yet another format battle.
Here's to hoping the format war begins to end shortly after Christmas. I predict it will start the end when the financial numbers are released in Feb/March.
