Archive for category Gadgets
A lot has happened since the last time I posted
Posted by Malcolm Micallef in Electronics, Future, Gadgets, Games, General, Smart Phones, Technology on August 8, 2010
It’s been around 2 months since I last posted a post on this site.
So the world is still around. Nothing much has changed. I am officially a 23 year old and having back problems. That has more to do with the horrible chairs at work than my age but I am still going strong. My half life 3 announcement was completely wrong but hopefully it will still happen since its one of my favourite FPS games of all time.
The buzz word in technology is 3D has I predicted in a post some time ago. It seems that one in every 4 or 5 movies can be seen in 3D at the cinemas. So far the only good 3D movie I have seen is Avatar. It was obvious that for Clash of the Titans the 3D version was just added to try encourage people go to the cinema. Right now I will always prefer HD over 3D.
Though the next 3D movie I will watch will be Piranha 3D. It will probably be a stupid movie with a very bad story line but I expect it to be full of funny scary scenes so it might be worth watching it in 3D. The nudity and all the bikinis are just an extra positive (Trailer: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GT1XUWMqQq0).
When the porn industry backs a technology that is when the technology becomes mainstream. Happened recently with Bluray disks and now 3D has their backing. This is bad news for Flash because they are embracing HTML5 but that is a whole other story. Probably right now I seem like a porn addict.
3D is also popping out in the wild. Samsung and Panasonic pushing their very expensive 3D home solutions which require glasses. Nintendo releasing their new DS which is 3D, requires no glasses and most importantly affordable. You do not need to sell and organ or your first born to buy this gadget. The screens have a poor viewing angle but that is not a problem since to play you need to look directly at the screen. The screens the DS uses is produced by Sharp. Sharp realised that they are leading the way with this technology and hence are now releasing the first 3D smartphone by the end of this year.
Chelsea just lost against Manchester United in the Community Shield so not the best start of this year season but it could be worse and there was a spark from the Chelsea team not like the other boring games from preseason. They should be able to beat WBA next week. Even Sky now are showing the games in 3D. Maybe the next TV I buy will be a 3D flat screen…
Once work dies down I can start working on my side projects again 
My Smart Phone Story…. so far….
Posted by Malcolm Micallef in Gadgets, Rants, Technology on February 18, 2010
I have owned a number of mobile devices so far in my life. I have changed them mostly because I destroyed the device or the device got stolen. I think I might have gone through maybe 4-5 devices so far.
My current phone is the Nokia N97 and it’s the second smart phone I ever owned. I purchased this phone in August of 2009. I decided to buy the phone (even though to the bad press around it) because my first smart phone was the Nokia N78 and till this day the phone surpasses my expectations.
If any of you are asking why did I upgrade from my N78 to the N97 it was because the phone went swimming for me. I had purchased a new phone without trying to switch on the N78 and till this day the phone functions correctly. The keypad sticks sometimes but it is still capable of phone calls (speaker and microphone) and even the GPS and the WIFI chip works.
Notion Ink Adam Tablet
Posted by Malcolm Micallef in Gadgets, Technology on February 9, 2010
At the moment I do not really see why I would use a tablet computer. A touch screen laptop with a rotating screen sounds very appealing to me but a tablet doesn’t. It is way too start calling devices iPad killers. However, if I had to buy a tablet I would prefer Notion Ink’s Adam Tablet.
This tablet is powered by the Android, a very popular OS for phones and larger devices. It uses the next generation NVIDIA Tegra chipset with a Pixel Qi display. The Tegra is an incrediable chipset allowing devices to process full HD video streams while only using a little power. Combine this with the high tech display unit, which uses considerably less power and you start to understand why this device is much more appealing than an iPad.
This unit is not only more powerful than the iPad (capable of outputting full HD movies andplaying more graphic intensive games, the iPad can only handle 576p/480p) but the battery life is considerably longer than the iPad. Rohan Shravan, the CEO, suggested that the battery life of this device could be 2-3x longer than that what the iPad manages. According to Jobs the iPad manages 10hrs so this would be in the range of 20-30 hours.
Next week there is the Mobile World Congress where further details about this tablet will be announced. There will also be a demonstration of the Adam running flash; something that the iPad can’t do and probably won’t ever manage to do because of the closed user experience on the device.
During the conference Adam should be announcing an Applications Competition, similar to Google’s Android Developer Challenge. This will encourage software developers to design applications for the Adam tablet. It’s been suggested that there will be over 1 million Us Dollars in prizes to give away.
Continue reading to watch an old demonstration of the device in action.
The future of mobiles and our pockets…
Posted by Malcolm Micallef in Future, Gadgets, Smart Phones, Technology on February 1, 2010
All this iPad, Droid, Nexus and N900 talk made me start thinking today about the future of mobile phones. In this post I attached two videos.
Check out the videos after the jump.
Read the rest of this entry »
Dedicated GPS Units are now useless
Posted by Malcolm Micallef in Gadgets, Smart Phones, Technology on January 30, 2010
Streetview Navigation
Garmin and friends have been critically wounded by the iron mongers Google and Nokia. Recently Google announced that Google Maps on GPS enabled smartphones will provide free navigation. This meant that any smartphone with GPS was capable of directing you anywhere around the world. The only down fall of the Google Maps application was the fact that it needed a constant internet connection to the internet. This had it down falls for some but for most of the planet would be able to use it.
Further iPad details
Posted by Malcolm Micallef in Gadgets, Technology on January 28, 2010
After a day to think about the iPad and reflect on possible uses I have decided that it is going to be a huge success.
- Firstly it’s an Apple product and whatever they seem to be doing nowadays generates trucks load of cash.
- It’s not expensive (priced at 500 US Dollars).
- Great Battery life.
- People for some reason I can’t comprehend love iTunes.
- The ideal device for Multitouch technology
This device is attempting to seek and destroy all laptop and netbooks on a global scale. The iPad has declared war on all laptop based products.
Apple Tablet has been released and its … iPad
Posted by Malcolm Micallef in Gadgets, Technology on January 27, 2010
Its official the tablet all Apple fantics and other people has been announced by Steve Jobs. So far from what I can see is that the device has a 10 inch screen, with a ratio between 4:3 and 16:10. The tablet uses a 1Ghz Apple CPU. It runs a version of iPhone OS which allows the device to run iPhone applications without any modification to the application. The device has the same features as its smaller (but older) brother (iPhone). It is capable of WIFI, Bluetooth, has an accelerometer, compass, speaker, and mic. According to Jobs it is capable of 10 hours of use, which I have to admit is very impressive. Though from what I read so far the device does not support flash. So it really seems the best way to describe the iPad at the moment is as the younger brother who managed to get into a statch of anabolic steroids….
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