What has Windows 8 Consumer Preview Changed?
Windows 8 is a radical new version of Windows which has just been released into a free to download consumer preview version. You may remember my previous article about the developer preview where I said that Windows 8 needs a lot of work to get it optimised for regular PCs as well as touch screen devices. After a bit of time playing around with the new version, I think that Microsoft has almost achieved this goal although there are a few minor problems which make some processes a lot slower than they should be.
The idea behind Windows 8 is to unify all of Microsoft's products - PCs, tablets, mobile phones and XBox. They will share an OS which is more or less the same between devices and all of your settings should be synced between the devices meaning you can move from one to the other and continue where you left off. In theory this idea sounds pretty cool but in practice you realise that this basically means that the OS has to be optimised for use with many different input methods and be just as easy to use no matter what device you choose.
Top 5 Innovations from the Printing Industry in 2012
Every year there is endless excitement about new Macbooks, smartphones, Kindles and iPads. Not many people get excited about printers. Ever since the desktop printer became ubiquitous, it seems like printers have changed very little, and printing technology is nothing to get excited about. You may not know that the printing industry is actually changing very rapidly and several innovations are destined to touch your life in significant ways. Here are five that made significant progress in 2012.
- Flexapex While this innovation didn’t make any new headlines, Apex patented and released a new technology for industrial printing. Mostly applicable to large-scale manufacturing, most of us won’t even notice the difference it makes. Over time, however, you will begin to see higher quality images on packaging and products you buy. Hopefully, Flexapex will bring cheaper prices to manufacturing as well.
- Unprinting
Ever needed to print a large document, only to be finished with it a few hours later? A few companies are now exploring “unprinting” – the ability to erase type from a page afterwords and make recycling much easier. With a machine smaller than most copiers, your office could eliminate the need for shredding and save yourself huge costs on paper.
- Canon offers a new option to printer cartridges in India
Printer cartridges are typically very expensive, and need to be replaced regularly. Manufacturers sell printers at or below cost on the assumption that they can charge high premiums on cartridges for the life of the printer. Meanwhile, they do their best to promote their quality over the remanufactured or recycled options offered by company’s like inkpal – until now. Epson just released a new brain child with an integrated tank system! Designed for use in India, the system could make color copies less than half a penny each, and black and white less than a quarter of a penny. If the right competition takes hold, maybe you will finally get some relief on your printing costs. Until then, there are toner cartridges out there that perform well, and cost much less than their OEM counterparts.
- Printing in 3D
The obvious candidate and the one that got the most media attention in 2012 was 3D printing. This isn’t because 3D printing was invented in 2012. It has existed in some form for over 20 years, but only recently has it gained enough traction to become practical. There are now 3D printers available for as little as $1,000 and the prices are dropping quickly. Once the cost falls a few hundred dollars more, a significant revolution will happen. You could soon find yourself printing small objects or devices in your living room rather than ordering them online. If constructing 3D models was never in your comfort zone, you can always take pictures of the object you want and let the computer create a model for you.
- E-ink and the rise of e-readers
The biggest news in 2012 was a carryover from the year before. E-ink, used in the screen of a Kindle or a Nook, is becoming much cheaper and better. Here, the highest credit goes the Nook, which has added faster refresh times and solved one of the biggest limitations of e-ink – how to read in the dark. Building LEDs around the edges of the display keeps the reading ease of e-ink while also making it possible to read at night. As e-readers and e-ink become more ubiquitous, expect this innovation to blend more with traditional printing until you see both technologies incorporated into the same documents.
How To: Move Photos from a Computer to an iPad without iTunes
One of the biggest dilemmas for those who have Apple products is the fact that you don't seem to be able to do everything you want to do with it. For example, with the iPad you have a camera connector accessory which allows you to connect your camera to the iPad via USB and copy photos across reasonably easily. So you think to yourself, this should work if I plug a USB stick directly into it and copy photos from my computer across to the iPad. But it isn't as easy as you first think, there is a process which you have to follow before this can be done which I will show you in this article.
The iPad can recognise USB flash drives through the camera connector but can only import photos and videos through it. In order to achieve this you need to trick the iPad into thinking that you have connected a camera directly so as to import the photos.
What you need:
- An iPad
- A USB Camera Connector kit for iPad
- A USB Flash Drive
- A Computer - preferably with Windows (not essential)
- Bulk File Rename Utility
What to Do:
1. First, get everything you need together
2. Now find the photos you want to copy over on your computer and put them in one folder. The iPad will only recognise the photos if the file name is exactly 8 characters which should be fine if the photos are copied from your camera and haven't been renamed. If you have renamed your files to something different, don't panic! A simple utility exists which can rename your files easily. If you open Bulk Rename Utility and navigate to the folder where you kept your photos, you get a screen like this:
Does the New PSP (NGP) Pose Any Threat to the iPod Touch?
Sony's main competitor for the PSP2 is the Nintendo 3DS but then you go onto think, the iPod Touch has a pretty large gaming presence with heaps of support from developers who are willing to create new and innovative games for the iPod Touch. The PSP2 is actually very similar to the iPod Touch in terms of things which it is supposed to do. No doubt it will be able to play music and video as well as awesome games but is pure power enough to beat both Nintendo and Apple? Based on the previous generation, the Nintendo DS sales far surpassed that of the PSP yet it was technologically inferior. Sure it has a touch screen but it wasn't amazing. The same thing could happen with the iPod Touch vs PSP2.
Obviously, Apple has the whole logo thing guaranteeing popularity for the product but the PSP2 boasts graphical power comparable to the PS3 and touchpads on the back and the front basically adding a whole new dimension to gaming. Having not really seen the interface of the new PSP, I can't comment on whther or not it is better than iOS but the familiarity of iOS will give it the upperhand. As more console games such as FIFA are released on iPod Touch, it has become more and more orientated towards gaming.
An iPod is something most people carry with them all the time. If you could fit games with good graphics and length on it then clearly there is a huge potential to use it as a handheld gaming device. Rumour has it that Apple could upgrade the already decent A4 processor with a dual core A5 processor making it an even more capable gaming machine. So how can the PSP2 compete with a device with so much exposure already?
The PSP2 and other handheld gaming devices hold several advantages over the iPod Touch. Firstly, there is the fact that it actually has physical buttons which makes a game so much more playable. Touch games are incredibly playable with the iPod Touch, often using innovative interfaces but when it comes to first person shooters and sports games, you need to have physical buttons. Personally, I cannot play those sorts of games on the iPod Touch even though others can manage.
Secondly, the iPod Touch doesn't really have the support of hardcore gamers and PlayStation exclusive games. The PlayStation has been around for a long time and over this time it has built a huge base of supporters and game series which everyone likes. Some games which will come out on the PSP2 include Resistance, Little Big Planet and Call of Duty which are games that will probably never come to iPod Touch.
Finally, the PSP2 outdoes the iPod Touch in specifications. The 5 inch OLED touch screen looks amazing, the physical buttons and dual analog sticks add so much more control to the game. As well as this, current PSP games and PS1 classics will be able to be played on the device. Add connectivity to social networks and you have a pretty good looking gaming device.
There is the matter that people will not want to carry a million devices in their pockets. If a phone can replace a handheld gaming device and an mp3 player well, people will take it. So the PSP2 has to be something pretty awesome to convince people to use it.
Playstation Move First Impressions
I had a go at the new Playstation Move today and I must say I wasn't really sure what to expect. I have a lot of friends who have a Nintendo Wii and when visiting them, I thought it was really cool but they said it gets incredibly boring after a little while. The main problem being that the games are for little kids. The Playstation move has a pretty good selection of games out right now and I played both Sports Champions and Start the Party. Sports Champions seems like such a rip off of Wii Sports but after playing it, I noticed it was so much better. Firstly, the graphics are very impressive and it really immerses you in the game as opposed too Wii's cartoonish, childish graphics. Secondly, as many of you know, the Move controller is supposed to be more accurate than the Wii's. This accuracy makes a huge difference to the game experience, for example when playing table tennis, your movements exactly match that of playing the real game. Tilting your hand slightly will allow you to put more spin on it etc. A large problem with the Wii controller was the fact that you could easily cheat with it. You can just randomly wiggle your wrist and you will get a good score. The accuracy of the Move means you cannot do this anymore. As well as this, the vibration of the Move controller adds another aspect of depth to the gameplay. When hitting a ball, you can actually feel the ball hitting your racket making the game seem very realistic.
Overall, the Move is an excellent system and offers considerable advantages over the Wii controller, which it is quite obviously trying to compete with. However, I don't think that people will be switching from Wii to Playstation but rather, Playstation owners will have motion controls added to games to add more gameplay features for existing owners. The starter pack is also a great deal, including everything you need. Unfortunately the game included in the starter pack is merely a collection of demos rather than full games so don't get confused by the term starter disc. You still need to buy a game!
New iPods!!!!
Apple has just released their newest line of iPods right on time. Obviously, like every other blog out there I have to get my point of view across.
Firstly, there's the new iPod Nano which is actually nano this time around. Unfortunately they have replaced the click wheel with a multi-touch screen which can fit four icons on it. In my opinion it seems kind of gimmicky but I am sure Apple will prove me wrong with this being the next must have gift. The new Ipod Touch, as predicted will include all the new features of the iPhone 4 except for the phone, making it just an "i". As well this there is a new iPod shuffle which has the same button arrangement as the first gen shuffle but it is in the shape of a square. I guess they realised that a buttonless design was just plain stupid.
UPDATE: You may notice the bad photoshop job when you look at the apple logo in the reflection of the iPod Touch
How Apple’s iPad Fits into the Office
Sure, the iPad is a great device for Web surfing, book reading, and movie watching. But it's also getting a lot of interest in corporations as a possible business device for field forces, nurses and doctors in hospitals, and knowledge workers in the office and on the go.
That interest is obvious from the top iPad downloads from the Apple App Store, where Citrix Receiver, an app that makes the iPad a portal to server-based apps such as Microsoft Office and SharePoint, has stayed in the top five almost every day. Also in that top-downloads list are Apple's iWork productivity trio (Pages, Numbers, and Keynote) and two Microsoft Office-compatible productivity apps (Quickoffice Mobile Connect Suite and DataViz Documents to Go Premium).
I decided to see how well the iPad could fit into a business environment. The short answer: awkwardly, but with lots of promise. (Note that all the apps mentioned here are available through InfoWorld's "no-junk business iPhone and iPad app finder" Web page.)
The iPad is very portable and has long battery life (six to eight hours in my experience, although the more networking you do via Wi-Fi, 3G, or Bluetooth, the less time you get). So it is very appealing as a laptop replacement, at least for short trips. For many users, it can indeed replace a laptop. Which users? Certainly those whose lives revolve around email, Web access, and basic office productivity work. For other users, it depends greatly on the software availability for your work tasks.
Here's what you can do, and what could get in your way.
Read the Full Story at PCWorld
The Fascination of Apple
One of the largest technology companies on this planet is Apple. They are the creators of many of the products we use in our everyday lives such as the iPod and the iPhone. Whenever Apple releases a new product, they have a lot of market hype. Every technology blog, including this one, has to report on Apple's latest product. They were the ones who made having a lowercase "i" in front of a product name cool. On top of this, I notice a large traffic increase whenever a new Apple product has been released. Apple's Macs are far from the worlds most popular computers, this title goes to Dell. But for some reason, every time a new Apple product is released there is more hype surrounding it than any other product. People wait in nerve wracking anticipation when Steve Jobs hosts another keynote and journalists from around the world wait to be one of the first to hear about Apple's latest product. Whenever Apple does release a new product, you want to buy it. often it has its limitations but you still want to buy it. It just looks so cool. You merely have to a take a trip to your local Apple store to experience this feeling. But what is the reason for people's fascination with Apple, so much so that no matter what product Apple releases, you can guarantee a line will stretch for miles and it will be sold out in every store within a couple of days.
Review: Playstation Network Movies
Introduction
Recently, Sony released a movies store on their Playstation 3 where you can buy or rent the latest and not so latest movies. I was able to test this service out just recently and here is my review of it.
Pros
- Easy, inexpensive delivery service
- Integrated into the PSN store without an additional download
- Has both HD and SD movies for people with not enough download limit
- Movie rental service is convenient
- Decent video and sound quality
Cons
- 5.1 channel surround sound is not activated by default
- HD movies are not 1080p
Review
I rented three movies, Surrogates, Invictus and 2012. I found the delivery method was easy but on my 2Mbps connection, the movie took about 8 hours to download which is a bit of a pain. This means you have to plan ahead of time. Conveniently, Sony does give you an option to play the movie while it is downloading but the download is so slow that it will keep pausing the movie.
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