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70-gigapixel panorama of Budapest becomes world's largest digital photograph
It's just been a few months since a 45-gigapixel panorama of Dubai claimed the title of world's largest digital photograph, but it's now already been well and truly ousted -- the new king in town is this 70-gigapixel, 360-degree panorama of Budapest. As with other multi-gigapixel images, this one was no easy feat, and involved two 25-megapixel Sony A900 cameras fitted with 400mm Minolta lenses and 1.4X teleconverters, a robotic camera mount from 360world that got the shooting done over the course of two days, and two solid days of post-processing that resulted in a single 200GB file -- not to mention a 15-meter-long printed copy of the photograph for good measure. Of course, what's most impressive is the photo itself. Hit up the source link below and start zooming in.
Android 2.1 officially hits the T-Mobile Pulse -- in Hungary
We wouldn't have chalked up the little ol' Pulse from Huawei to be among the first devices to get upgraded from a 1.x build of Android to Eclair, but T-Mobile's Hungarian outpost (of all places) has taken the role of knight in shining armor in delivering the goods in the past few days. Happily, users of the Pulse in other locales will find no shortage of cooked ROMs on places like MoDaCo, so no one should get left behind here -- but still, T-Mobile UK, what gives? [Thanks to everyone who sent this in]
Hungary spanks America in Dragon Age: Origins contest
The dust from the 24-hour Dragon Age: Origins Warden's Quest tournament has begun to settle, and the sleep-deprived, blood-soaked winner has been declared: The team representing the nation of Hungary. The Hungarians trailed in the rankings until the fourth round of the contest, when they rallied to pass the BioWare Community team (who finished in second place). We guess you could say they were just Hungarier for victory than everyone else. America, however, must have only been slightly peckish, ending up with a disappointing ninth place (or next-to-last place) finish, and getting eliminated in the third round of the competition. This might be a small blow to our egos, but hey -- at least we're still better at dragon slaying than the Czech Republic and Slovakia. Booyah! [Via Kotaku]
Hungary gets another DTH satellite option in T-Home SatTV
Rather than pumping out yet another programming provider in Hungary, we'd suggest just adding more HD and lowering prices at the ones that already exist. But hey, what do we know? Starting this week, Hungarian citizens now have one more DTH satellite provider to choose from in T-Home SatTV, which taps into Spacecom's AMOS-3 satellite to provide "a large channel bouquet including four HD channels." There's no mention of exactly what high-def stations are included nor how pricey the service will be, but in the end, we suppose choice (and thus, competition) is a good thing.
Antenna Hugria launches high-def packs in Hungary, Olympics are a go
Although Hungarians have tasted HD in their homeland before, we're pretty sure having a full platter is much preferred. National broadcaster Antenna Hugária has just announced that it will be launching HDTV services via its Antenna Digital cable platform at the close of this month. Reportedly, the service will be available initially in Budapest and surrounding locales, though we aren't told if plans are in place to spread it elsewhere. Two new packages are slated to become available, the first of which includes National Geographic HD, Eurosport HD and m2; as for the second, you'll find HBO HD. Better still, those who subscribe to m2 HD will already have a ticket to the televised version of the 2008 Olympics in Beijing (in HD, of course). Prospective consumers will be asked to upgrade to an HD-capable set-top-box as well as hand over HU 990 per month ($6.16) for the first HD tier and HU 799 per month ($5.50) for HBO HD.
The Expendables: Guns blazing, everything exploding
Following Most Wanted Entertainment's unveiling of Mechanic Master, IGN investigated the Hungarian studio's site and dug up an interesting squad-based shooter in development -- The Expendables. Using the touchscreen, players guide "the world's lamest international private army" through 35 missions, blowing up almost everything in sight. As you can see in the trailer and screenshots, this doesn't look like the most polished game, but the character sprites (and the buzz-saw tractor) definitely have some charm to them. The Expendables actually reminds us of a faster-paced Syndicate. You remember Bullfrog's Syndicate, right? That series was tight. MWE hasn't yet announced whether it has managed to pick up a publisher for the title. We have a feeling that if the studio ever does find one, it will have to find a more useful implementation for the top screen. Not that skulls laughing and machine guns spitting out bullet casings aren't totally awesome.%Gallery-27212%[Via IGN]
Hello HD platform announced in Hungary
As interest in HD continues to build globally, Hungary is being introduced to the Hello HD service. Middleware developer Osmosys has teamed up with Advanced Digital Broadcast in order to deliver the Hungarian satellite and cable operator Hello HD Platform with an "end-to-end solution" for the nation's "first commercial high-definition offering." Unfortunately, we're not told what kind of HD programming viewers in the area can expect, but considering that the go-live date is set for May 1st, you won't be waiting long to find out.
History Channel debuts in Poland and Hungary
Relatively speaking, there's been quite a lot of HD action on the international front of late, and we're pleased to see that History (as it's known these days) will be taking its content to Central Europe. The channel will be debuting in both SD and HD in Poland and Hungary, and while Toya and UPC Polska will offer the standard-def feed in the former nation, Aster City will be delivering both feeds; in Hungary, UPC Hungary will host the SD version while T-Kabel broadcasts both. Best of all, it sounds as if History may cross over into neighboring countries as well in the upcoming months, so keep a close on your EPG if your carrier hasn't jumped in just yet.
Researchers devise tool for understanding dog barks, sort of
We've no idea what's up with Europe and its admittedly zany fascination with canine research, but not even two months after a team of Austrians claimed to have trained a litter to use computers, a crew from Hungary is now trumpeting its dog translation software. More specifically, Csaba Molnár (and colleagues) from Eötvös Loránd University have reportedly been able to create an application that can "identify and differentiate the acoustic features of dog barks, and classify them according to different contexts and individual dogs." The gurus began by feeding some 6,000 barks from 14 Hungarian sheepdogs in a half dozen situations to a computer, and during analysis, it was able to correctly classify the barks between 40 and 50-percent of the time. Granted, that's a heck of a lot better than any of us could do, so we suppose we can't yelp about the results too much.[Via TGDaily, image courtesy of CalgaryAgility]
Microsoft's Hungarian offices raided in antitrust probe
Microsoft's squeaky-clean image took quite a beating this week: not only was the company accused of "patent terrorism," its Hungarian offices were raided in an antitrust investigation. Hungarian officials at the state competition authority GVH say Microsoft abused its market position to put the squeeze on local distributors, and that the raid was necessary to find evidence of "a system of conditions or favors with the most significant software distributors" that made it "disadvantageous for them to sell competing products." The investigation is slated to take up to 180 days before authorities have to either file or ask for an extension. Microsoft says it's "cooperating fully," but hasn't issued any further comment -- which is interesting, because you'd think the PR staff would have some stock answers to European antitrust investigations by now.
