Hasta La Gadget!

Japan set a new Tweets pers Second (TPS) record over the weekend due to a classic Studio Ghibli animated film. “Castle’s in the Sky”, which airs annually around this time of year. At one particular point in the film it managed to amass 11,349 TPS, thus knocking off the previous title holder of 8868 TPS when fans learned of american singer Beyonce’s pregnancy.

The outpouring of tweets came from what has become an annual event as fans of Ghibli, and one of Japan’s most popular animators Hayao Miyazaki, issue the online cry of “Balse” during the climax of the film, echoing the icnoic spell cast by the two main characters. As Watashi To Tokyo reported, each year fans have managed to generate massive amounts of traffic on different social network sites such as 2ch and Nico Nico Douga, who’s servers went down last year due to the massive volumes of traffic. This year the social video network site had a team of engineers specifically employed to watch the servers during the show to cope with the anticipated volume of users during the crucial time.

As well as a bit of fun, the annual event actually points to the growing online community participating in activities on a shared platform yet whilst physically alone. Sites such as Nico Nico Douga now have over 50% of Japanese males in their twenties registered with the site, and online communities such as MIxi and more recently Facebook and Twitter also boasting large rapidly growing numbers. As a result more and more brands are now harnessing the power of online social communities in Japan as they realize the potential to reach mass markets in memorable and cost effective ways.

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This article was written on June 18, 2007 by CyberNet.

Earlier today Opera Watch posted a reminder of the pending Opera Mini 4 Beta release that’s coming tomorrow. What’s so big about this release? Well, only a handful of people actually know, but the Opera Mini team has posted some clues as to what the big new feature is.

The clues obviously point to music, photos, and games for the mobile browser. The real question is whether that is in regards to the specialized Flash player that Opera is known to be developing? That would make sense because of the photo slideshows available on the Web, as well as the Flash games people play. I’m sure a lot of people would appreciate a fast and efficient version of Flash on their mobile phone.

So tomorrow we’ll find out what the big news is for the next Opera Mini milestone, but in the meantime it is anyone’s guess. Maybe Opera Mini 4 will eliminate much of the need for the new YouTube Mobile.

Opera Mini Homepage

Thanks for the tip CoryC!

Copyright © 2011 CyberNetNews.com

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It’s only available to those in the Xbox Live preview program at the moment, but you can officially add the Xbox 360 to the list of platforms that offer access to YouTube videos. Beta participants should be now able to download the app from the console’s new Apps Marketplace, and find all the usual personalized features you’d expect from YouTube, plus the Kinect controls you’d expect from an Xbox app. Still no word about a roll-out to everyone else, nor is there any word on a firm release date for all those other new video services slated to hit the console (they’re still just promised for “later in December”).

[Thanks, Jack]

YouTube app for Xbox 360 rolls out to preview program participants originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 13 Dec 2011 03:28:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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We here at Engadget believe that, while keeping data in the cloud is certainly convenient, one can never have too much local storage space. Hitachi shares our enthusiasm for commodious HDDs, and has rolled out a pair of 4TB drives to keep all your movies, music, and photos close to home. For those wanting to up the ante in their desktop machine, the Deskstar 5K4000 should do the trick with a SATA 6Gb/s connection and 32MB buffer. Its stablemate, the Touro Desk External Drive, brings the same HDD in an onyx enclosure and connects to your computer via USB 3.0 — plus you get 3GB of cloud storage free from Hitachi. (Who says you can’t eat your cake and have it too?) The 5K4000 is available now for a penny under $400, while the Touro will cost $420 once it hits the market in January.

Continue reading Hitachi outs a pair of 4TB HDDs for your storing pleasure

Hitachi outs a pair of 4TB HDDs for your storing pleasure originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 13 Dec 2011 02:11:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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It was November of 1971 that Nolan Bushnell, Ted Dabney and Computer Space officially ushered in the era of the video game. Before running off to start Atari, the two men released the world’s first coin-operated arcade cabinet and, indeed, the first commercial video game ever — a full six months before the Odyssey. Computer Space was a relatively simple title in which a player used four buttons to pilot a ship around the screen and do battle with flying saucers. The mechanics and graphics should be familiar to anyone who has ever tried their hand at Asteroids. In fact, it is essentially Asteroids without the titular space debris. Technologizer has a rather fascinating and in depth look at the pioneering game, tracing its evolution all the way back to a 1962 DEC PDP-1 tech demo. Head on over to the source to get the full story.

Computer Space turns 40, video games gear up for mid-life crisis originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 13 Dec 2011 00:54:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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