Jun 14
Microsoft’s non-Kinect games seemed to largely focus on big franchises and, of course, guns. pOriginally posted at a href=”http://reviews.cnet.com/8301-21539_7-20007634-10391702.html” class=”origPostedBlog”E3 2010/a/p
Jun 14
Rumors are swirling around the Web that Apple plans to unveil a new application for its App Store that will allow customers to view and purchase products from its Apple Store. pOriginally posted at a href=”http://news.cnet.com/8301-13506_3-20007627-17.html” class=”origPostedBlog”The Digital Home/a/p
Jun 14
The Random International design studio debuts its latest interactive light sculpture “Swarm Light,” which transforms sound into animated light.
Jun 14
Launch of Boxee Box Delayed to November
Posted in: apple tv, boxee, Media Players, streaming, Today's Chili, video, web
The Boxee Box, a set-top box created in partnership with D-Link to host Boxee’s web video streaming software, is facing a setback.
The release of Boxee’s hardware has been pushed back to November from the earlier target of June.
“The original plan was to have the Box out by the end of Q2 (i.e. just about now), but that time-frame proved overly ambitious,” Boxee CEO Avner Ronen wrote on the company blog.
Boxee showed the gadget at the Consumer Electronics Show this year. The company didn’t reveal pricing for the device but said it estimates it to be around $200.
The delay is likely to pit the Boxee box squarely against Google TV. Google announced a set-top box platform based on the Android operating system that would integrate cable TV programming with web video. Google has partnered with Sony, Logitech and Intel to create the hardware that it says will be available in retail stores this fall.
Till its partnership with D-Link earlier this year, Boxee seemed content to offer its software as a free download to users. Most Boxee users install the software on their computers and hook the PC to a TV. Boxee’ software can also run on Apple TV.
But a software-only application does limit Boxee’s reach as it can be intimidating to users who don’t want to get their hands dirty with the set up.
Ronen says Boxee has set some ambitious goals for itself.
“Our vision is to make the Boxee experience on a set top box as good as (and where we can, better than) the one you already know on a PC,” he says. “The goal is to play HD videos from the web or a local network in 1080p and use hardware acceleration whenever possible.”
Boxee also wants to offer a TV browser experience that can handle Adobe’s Flash 10.1.
“Not to mention making all this happen for an affordable price and on a quiet device that will not feel obsolete 12 months after you buy it,” says Ronen.
We will have to see if Boxee can really pull this off.
See Also:
- Boxee CEO: Google TV Could Boost or Crush Us
- Hands-On With the Boxee Set-Top Box and Remote
- Boxee Plans to Offer Paid Content
- Boxee Unveils Public Beta, ‘Boxee Box’ Hardware
- Google Introduces Google TV, New Android OS
Photo: Jon Snyder/Wired.com
Jun 14
Display Expert: iPhone 4 Resolution ‘Significantly Lower’ Than Retina
Posted in: Apple, Displays, iPhone, Phones, Today's Chili
An article published by Wired.com last week about the accuracy of Apple’s iPhone 4 “retina” display claims has stirred some debate, provoking a response from Phil Plait of Discover.com.
Plait disagreed with assertions made by display expert Raymond Soneira, president of DisplayMate Technologies, who argued that Apple’s “retina display” was a misleading marketing term.
In his keynote speech presenting the iPhone 4, Jobs said the handset’s display had a pixel density of 326 pixels per inch, exceeding the limit of the human retina.
Soneira contends that the iPhone 4 has significantly lower resolution than the retina, and he has requested for Wired.com to publish a statement clarifying his claims. Below is his statement in full:
The iPhone 4 has an outstanding display, and I’m glad that Apple resisted the emotional rush to OLEDs because they still need lots of improvement before they will be ready to compete with the highly refined IPS LCDs. The iPhone 4 display should be comparable to the outstanding IPS LCD in the Motorola Droid, which I tested and compared to the Nexus One OLED, which was trounced by the Droid.
Steve Jobs claimed that the iPhone 4 has a resolution higher than the Retina – that’s not right:
1. The resolution of the retina is in angular measure – the accepted value is 50 Cycles Per Degree. A cycle is a line pair, which is two pixels, so the angular resolution of the eye is 0.6 arc minutes per pixel.
2. So, if you hold an iPhone at the typical 12 inches from your eyes it would need to be 477 pixels per inch to be a retina limited display. At 8 inches it would need to be 716 ppi. You have to hold it out 18 inches before the requirement falls to 318 ppi. The iPhone 4 resolution is 326 ppi.
So the iPhone 4 has significantly lower resolution than the retina. It actually needs a resolution significantly higher than the retina in order to deliver an image that appears perfect to the retina.
The iPhone 4 is a great display, most likely the best mobile display in production (and I can’t wait to test it) but this is another example of spec exaggeration, an industry trend I wrote about in my Maximum PC piece “Display Myths Shattered.”
Examining this issue more closely, the iPhone 4 is actually very far from a retina display – it’s a substantial discrepancy and not even close: At 12 inches the 1 dimensional linear ppi shortcoming is 326/477 = 68 percent. But the pixel (area) density for 2 dimensions, which is the actual relevant observable, is that value squared = 0.47, so the iPhone 4 is more than a factor of 2 from being a retina display at the typical 12 inch viewing distance.
Stated another way the iPhone display would need to have 1.3 megapixels instead of 0.6 megapixels to be a true retina display at 12 inches.
There have been some comments that my analysis is for perfect vision. Jobs’ statement is for the retina — not the eye with a poor lens. If you allow poor vision to enter into the specs then any display becomes a retina display. That turns it into a meaningless concept that will be exploited by everyone. The iPhone 3GS (and any other display) can then be called a retina display for the percentage of the population with poor vision.
Specs need to be objective, precise and accurate. Allowing puffery and exaggerations in the sales and marketing starts a snowballing effect that eventually leads to the 1000 percent rampant spec abuse that I document for displays. The iPhone 4 is a fabulous display, it’s just not a retina limited display. Since Apple makes great products that have excellent specs it will be a lot better for them if everyone sticks with the true objective values instead of values exaggerated by marketing departments.
Dr. Soneira is president of DisplayMate Technologies and a recognized expert in display technology. He has a PhD in theoretical physics from Princeton University and was a long-term member of the world-famous Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton (the Einstein Institute). He has also done extensive work in astrophysics including the Space Telescope with John Bahcall, who was the prime mover in the development of Hubble.
See Also:
- Photo Gallery: Hands-On With the iPhone 4
- iPhone 4’s ‘Retina’ Display Claims Are False Marketing
- Why the iPhone 4 Camera Is So Promising
- Apple Unveils High-Resolution, Videoconferencing iPhone 4
- Will iPhone 4’s Audio and Video Chat Finally Break the Voice …
Photo: Jon Snyder/Wired.com
Jun 14
E3 2010 Live Blog: Microsoft XBox Media Briefing , 6.14.10
Posted in: Microsoft, Today's Chili, video games, xboxVideo gaming’s biggest annual event, the E3 Expo 2010, is hitting Los Angeles next week, and PCMag will be there. Join us on Monday, June 14, at 1 PM Pacific, 10 AM Eastern 10 AM Pacific, 1 PM Eastern (corrected) for PCMag Editor-in-Chief Lance Ulanoff’s live blog of the Microsoft press conference.
So what can we expect? Project Natal (or whatever its real name will be), Microsoft’s entry into the you-are-the-controller gaming space, should be the star of this show. No doubt we’ll get updates on Gears of War, Fable III, and Halo: Reach. And rumors are flying that we might see a new, slimmer version of the Xbox itself. (Check E3 2010’s Top Ten Rumors and E3 2010: The Most Anticipated Games for more previews and speculation.)
Overall, Microsoft really needs to pull out all the stops to catch up with its rivals–and to distract us from the vacuum left by the recent departure of Robbie Bach and J Allard. It should be quite a show! See you then.
Update: See our full transcript along with photos and commentary after the jump!
Jun 14
121 Flaring Wallpapers [Photography]
Posted in: lenses, nikon, olympus, photography, shooting challenge, sony, Today's Chili, top
For this week’s Shooting Challenge, you were asked to reignite our interest in lens flare. And, at least for me, you did. More »
Jun 14
Motorola has confirmed to PhoneScoop that the company plans to ship a smartphone this yeat with a 2-GHz microprocessor inside of it.
This is news, not of least of which because none of the embedded microprocessor manufacturers have announced a 2-GHz microprocessor as yet. Qualcomm has announced plans to manufacture a dual-core Snapdragon chip, eventually taking the existing single-core platform to 1.5-GHz speeds.
What’s unclear, however, is what this will do for the phone’s battery life. While some older Android phones appear sluggish compared to the latest smartphones like the EVO 4G, the knock on those high-end phones is that the additional horsepower and larger displays have severely crimped battery life. (I still think those concerns can be mitigated by turning off some of the location-based services for normal use, but I think I’m in the minority.)
In any event, however, I’d say that the direction smartphones need to go is to establish a robust one-day minimum uptime with all features turned on, and then worry about additional horsepower. If Motorola has indeed met these minimums, then this unannounced 2-GHz platform may be one to watch.
Jun 14
Unsightly cabling can totally harsh your video game setup, but Hitech
Innovation Group, in collaboration with Fame, LLC will use E3 2010 to
showcase what it touts as the the world’s thinnest cable: Wiretape.
Innovation Group, in collaboration with Fame, LLC will use E3 2010 to
showcase what it touts as the the world’s thinnest cable: Wiretape.
Available for purchase in September, Wiretape is flexible enough to be folded many times, has extreme-temperature resistance, and can be easily hidden by painting over or hiding under any carpeted or wall papered surface. It will be available in two sizes: a width of five lines for smaller cables ( such as USB, S-VHS, composite), and a width of 18 lines for larger connectors ( such as HDMI, VGA, RJ45).
If you’re a gamer looking to tuck away that Microsoft Kinect wire, this may be worth a look.
Jun 14
Our reluctant guest on today’s episode of The 404 Podcast is Jeff’s FIFTH Xbox 360 that’s finally succumbed to the infamous “Red Ring of Death.” pOriginally posted at a href=”http://www.cnet.com/8301-13952_1-20007626-81.html” class=”origPostedBlog”The 404 Podcast/a/p
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