I admit that fighting games are usually not the first game I’ll play when I have free time. However, that doesn’t stop me from enjoying a round or two; especially when I need to kill 20 minutes. I haven’t played Tekken much since its third iteration. Most of the time it was spent losing to my brother so my memories of the game are not particularly favorable. I missed out on 4th and 5th debuts of Tekken and they are decisions I regret after playing Tekken 6.
Since it’s a fighting game, I decided to skip the story mode and just do some arcade matches to get the feel of combat. I then learned something about myself: I genuinely stink at fighting games. At least, when I start to play them. I had the game set for the default difficulty and I chose Sergei Dragunov as my first character because I liked that his surname is the always trusty Dragunov (SVD) sniper-rifle. The first seven matches were not very difficult. I lost a round here and there but I didn’t lose any match. Once I reached the 8th stage all that changed. It took me roughly 20 minutes to beat the last two bosses. I then switched to Lars because of my affinity for Star Wars and I had similar results except exponentially worse. Once I reached the 8th stage, it took me one full hour to win the last two matches.
My anecdote shows two things. Tekken 6 is not an easy game, at least at first, for people that play fighters on and off. And two, you can’t go wrong with Eddie Gordo. After both failures I went with good old Eddie and beat Arcade Mode in promptly 12 minutes. But for my initial three hours of playing, I only got frustrated twice. Considering a majority of those three hours were spent losing, it shows very well for Namco’s fighter. Tekken does a great job giving you a challenge without making you feel like you’re trying to walk up a 90 degree angle. However, this could just be the fact that I’m used to Street Fighter which takes a different approach. In my experience, Tekken requires more thought than Street Fighter. Depending on your opponent (I’m looking at you Azazel) you’ll fare much better thinking one or two moves ahead. Most of the time hesitating or bum-rushing at the wrong moment, which can happen often, will ruin you if not you’re paying attention. After roughly six hours of play, I could pick up a character, look at a few combos, and make my way through the end of Arcade on the default difficulty within a reasonable time so I will say, it’s not that bad of a learning curve.
So by now, you’re wondering about the story mode. Well that I did pay attention to–-or at least tried to. When I chose story mode, I was greeted by a very useful, entertaining, prelude that explained the main story lines of from Tekken to Tekken 6. For a time, I thought I was in the middle of a Metal Gear since there were so many cutscenes. Once you’ve done the tutorial levels and cleared your first boss, you unlock the Arena where you can participate in the 6th Iron Fist Tournament. The only catch is that you need to unlock other characters by progressing through story mode so that you can utilize and learn their story in the Arena. The story itself seems a little iffy. It turns out that Jin won the Tekken 5 tournament and has declared an all-out war against all nations. A small rebellion within the Tekken force led by Lars Alexandross tries to stop Jin and the also evil G Corporation. I honestly didn’t expect so many cutscenes when playing the story. It’s the first time in a while where amnesia is brought in as a plot device. It’s not bad, but I just couldn’t feel for the characters. “Who plays a fighting game for the story?” you may ask. While I’m no Bioware “story is #1 blah blah” fanatic I would like something more… compelling. It just doesn’t feel urgent.
Controls in story mode are a bit wonky. Pulling off moves where you need to use the D-Pad backwards are difficult since it’s not in a 2D setting and your character actually turns around and moves backwards. Your character also feels a lighter in the 3D setting, which takes some getting used to. When you kill enemies in story mode, some drop items that you can use to customize your characters and even play online with. Some items have upgrades on them that you can use in story mode. I fought Paul with red hair, red pants and a samurai sword. It was odd in an amusing way.
Controls while fighting in 2D are what you expect from your fighter and you feel the right “weight” if that makes sense. I noticed each character that I used has some form of cheap combo that you can get away with in Arcade mode. I found online play is great. I played online for over an hour in my first sitting and only had one match where lag was an issue, so I must give props to Namco for that. That said, I’ve read numerous complaints about lag hindering online play. And, by the way, the reason I despise Azazel is because he has ridiculous reach and nearly all of his attacks are 2+ hit combos so one connection will take off one quarter of your health.
One thing I like about the game is that there’s (albeit little) variety in the voice acting. It’s something I’ve always wanted in fighting games ever since my brother first mentioned it. He believed that fighters from different parts of the world should speak the language native to their country. It seems Namco may have made the first baby steps in this direction. If a character knows English than their voice actor speaks in English; if not, then they speak Japanese. It does require significant suspension of disbelief in the story mode cutscenes (for example Eddie and Nina understanding Jin’s Japanese flawlessly) but it’s still a cool idea to me. I may be completely off the mark though–Namco may have done this since it would be cheaper (and faster) to hire 42 voice actors as opposed to 84. And, since I don’t know Japanese, I can’t tell if the voice acting is actually bad or not.
I’m rather disappointed with the graphics. While playing story mode, the environments really stick out when your character is moving around in story mode. The textures don’t look very polished. It’s harsh but when I look at Soul Calibur IV’s graphics and the detail of some of the stages themselves look better than some of Tekken’s. There are a few good looking stages but the low quality textures of others leaves more to be desired. In Arcade mode you won”t notice this as much but it’s definitely not where it could be. Their CGI rendered movies do look amazing, but I don’t want to be stuck going to Theatre Mode just to get some eye candy. The graphics aren’t bad, but they could be so much better.
Since I’m not a huge Tekken fan, I can’t say whether it’s a game the hardcore would love or merely enjoy. My experience with the game was pleasant overall and I would recommend it for someone who wants a fighter that will last them more than two weeks. It has more replay value than most fighting games and, problems aside, it’s very fun to play. source: Geek.com
Monday, November 23, 2009
BlackBerry Pearl 9100 (Stratus/Striker)
Rumors have been floating around that the BlackBerry Pearl 8100 will soon get a successor. The phone, codenamed the BlackBerry Striker or Stratus, will be launched as the BlackBerry Pearl 9100. CrackBerry.com has released a number of photos of the new smartphone with the blessing of RIM, according to its article.
There was some debate between Salomondrin and CrackBerry.com on who had live photos of the new phone first, but at the end of the day Crackberry gave the kudos to Slomondrin for being first. Nevertheless, BlackBerry enthusiasts benefit from multiple photos and information about the rumored device.
Looks like the new smartphone comes with a new trackpad and a sleeker profile. I really like the new side and back profile of the Pearl 9100. I can not say I’m a big fan of the “Pearl” plastered on the back near the camera though. CrackBerry points out that the new smartphone comes with a newly designed battery. No doubt, we can look forward to a more detailed review from both websites soon. source: Geek.com
There was some debate between Salomondrin and CrackBerry.com on who had live photos of the new phone first, but at the end of the day Crackberry gave the kudos to Slomondrin for being first. Nevertheless, BlackBerry enthusiasts benefit from multiple photos and information about the rumored device.
Looks like the new smartphone comes with a new trackpad and a sleeker profile. I really like the new side and back profile of the Pearl 9100. I can not say I’m a big fan of the “Pearl” plastered on the back near the camera though. CrackBerry points out that the new smartphone comes with a newly designed battery. No doubt, we can look forward to a more detailed review from both websites soon. source: Geek.com
Norton Internet Security 2010 Review
Last year, with Norton Internet Security 2009, the security software (and antivirus) saw a significant reboot. The new version
was light, quick, and efficient, making it a welcome change from the trend of previous years. The software installed in just a few clicks and its burden on the computer was less than ever. It was a successful release that caught people’s attention and reminded us why someone would ever pay for an antivirus.
If 2009 was about optimization then 2010 is about detection. On the surface it looks a lot like Norton Internet Security (NIS) 2009, but under the hood a lot has changed. One big change is the development of a reputation-based security tool known as Quorum. This uses a cloud-based reputation system (not just signatures) to identify threats and is designed to deal with quickly changing malware. A piece of malware may be changed in a matter of hours but it’s reputation won’t be improved, so it will be recognized as a possible threat. Quorum also helps with another issue, files that fall between the cracks. Security software tend to have no problem at whitelisting good files and blacklisting bad ones, but about 1% don’t qualify as either. For these files reputation technology is a major help.
For a quick refresher: Norton Internet Security is Symantec’s full security suite. It features an antivirus, but the security extends to the network, email, and identity protection. NIS also included PC optimization features that allow the user to identify what could be slowing down their computer (including isolating the percentage used by NIS). Norton 360 included all of NIS’ security features and adds in backup and file restoration tools, but leaves out the PC optimization. Norton Antivirus (currently version 2010) is the most stripped down application offered. It has the antivirus core found in NIS and 360 but none of the rest (parental controls, anti-spam, anti-phishing, backup, optimization, and so on).
As with NIS 2009, the installation of NIS 2010 went very smoothly. Significant efforts have gone into making this as easy as possible and Symantec has done a good job with it. The installation process seems to be free of any sort of snags or hold-ups though there is an online signup. This didn’t seem particularly useful in the past, but if you have multiple Symantec licenses to keep track of or if you need to find your license key then it can be handy. Once you are past this, and you’ve removed any overlapping products (AVG, etc.), you’ll be set.
Norton’s home screen is a dashboard that gives you a look at everything the software is up to. In addition to telling you how many days your license has left and the last time your security definitions were updated (usually under 10 minutes) you can scan the status of each of the software’s tools. So in a second you can tell if the antivirus or antispyware tools are on or off, and you can toggle between those states with just one click. This is the main function of the dashboard, but from it you can also access all NIS2010’s other functions. These include your settings (it’s a robust suite so there are a lot of them) and then the auxiliary tools. NIS is separated into three main categories: Computer, Network, and Web. The settings include these three, as well as Parental & Privacy and Misc.
The flip-side of the dashboard is all about performance. Here you can quickly see your system utilization as well as a timeline of Norton activities (like virus scans and updates) in the recent past. Through this screen you can tell the software to do an optimization as well. It’s not really clear what Norton’s optimization does, but it would be at the level of Norton’s own software and settings, not anything affecting the rest of your computer.
The auxiliary tools are one of the more interesting parts of Norton Internet Security, at least they will be for anyone who is concerned about how Norton and the host system is functioning. One is Norton Insight Network, which uses data from the Norton community to identify threats and then scans your computer for files that are known to be either bad or trusted. The Insight Protection app tells you how many files have been identified within the community, how many trusted files are on your computer, and how many Insight look-ups your system has performed. Another app is Norton Tasks, which scans your computer’s CPU and Memory utilization over a period of time (up to a month) and shows you what programs are using up your computer’s resources. It is able to isolate Norton’s impact as well. It’s interesting, but not always useful–if anything it seems like a way for Norton to brag about how few resources it’s consuming, even though it’s running all the time. After all, there isn’t a whole lot you can do about some programs using a lot of resources except to uninstall them.
Another app is Application Ratings, which scans your running processes (or files, startup items, recently installed, etc.) and tells you if the files in question are trusted, their resource usage, how many people in the Norton community use them, and how old they are. Specific files can be checked as well, and Norton integrates itself heavily into your system’s context menus so there is a Norton option present whenever your right-click.
It’s never easy to say just how secure an antivirus tool is or how effective its protection is, but the tools Norton employs should mean it’s top-notch. In the past Norton has always had strong security at its core and the community features found in 2010 were designed to take these to a level that other services can not compete with. It is sort of a crowd-sourcing of threat identification but Norton’s user pool should be very effective, so long as enough people opt in to the program. I’m not the type of person to opt in for something like this and most people concerned about security probably won’t, so there is a certain externality here, but it seems like Norton has been able to get their data regardless. There is also a network effect here–the more people that use the community tools the more effective it will be. This means that tools like Quorum won’t be as effective for early adopters as they will be in a year, but this point will be moot if Norton’s initial pool is sufficiently large. Plus NIS 2010 isn’t losing anything from NIS 2009 so these tools can only help, or at least not hurt at all.
One of the features NIS’ users will be most happy about is the virus scanner. This has been seriously optimized over the years and it’s gotten faster and more efficient as a result. The scanner will run through a relatively fresh installation of Windows 7 (on a ThinkPad) in under 5 minutes for a quick scan and 15 minutes for a full one. During this time it will use varying amounts of CPU power based on what’s available–more when the system is idle and less if other tasks are being performed. Overall, it’s a smart and efficient system that is designed so that it doesn’t bog down your computer. After scanning the cleanup is quick and easy–users are given options but not presented with anything overly complex or confusing.
Of course the most important aspect of an antivirus is the protection that it offers. This is extremely difficult to test, especially given our limited sample size, so we’ll leave it up to the people that do it for a living. AV-comparatives.org rates Norton Antivirus quite highly in almost all areas including throughput (scanning speed), detection (ranked 4 out of 16), and false positives. Their most recent (August 2009) test awarded NAV 2010 with 3 out of 3 stars. NAV 2010 passed Virus Bulletin’s recent October ‘09 VB100 test (as Symantec Endpoint Protection, the company’s business product) but it failed the August 2009 test. Previously it had passed every time from November 1999 to June 2009. Norton 2009 was certified with icsalabs.com, as did Symantec Endpoint Protection v11 but there is no mention of NIS/NAV2010 at this point.
In case you hadn’t noticed yet, NIS2010 is a full package. In addition to the standard antivirus, anti-malware, and firewall there is much more. One useful feature for some people will be the parental controls. These are handled online through OnlineFamily.Norton and it offers the ability to schedule set computer times/limits, block certain sites, and more. It works through the internet so it can be adjusted remotely and it works on multiple systems (PC or Mac). The tool isn’t perfect, but it’s another useful feature in the package. Another perk is Identity Safe, which encrypts a users login information and can make it portable, via a USB key.
Symantec’s Norton Internet Security 2010 excels in a number of areas. Foremost amongst these are its speed, performance, and limited impact on the computer system it’s running on. New features like System Insight and the underlying Quorum technology as well as revamped anti-spam tools (for people who still use email clients) don’t change the user experience but they streamline the software and optimize its effectiveness against today’s threats and annoyances. It’s hard to measure the impact of something like Quorum, but the analysis of user data for a reputation system seems like a significant step forward in antivirus software. NIS 2010 has few shortcomings, but at $69.99 (for three PCs) a bit more expensive than some of the competition (most of which lack its feature set) and the user interface needs to be streamlined–the UI is confusing and has too much reliance on sub-windows. This may seem like a minor point, but the software has a lot of tools and some get lost in the mix. Overall, Norton Internet Security 2010 is an excellent package and a great follow up NIS 2009. source: Geek.com
was light, quick, and efficient, making it a welcome change from the trend of previous years. The software installed in just a few clicks and its burden on the computer was less than ever. It was a successful release that caught people’s attention and reminded us why someone would ever pay for an antivirus.
If 2009 was about optimization then 2010 is about detection. On the surface it looks a lot like Norton Internet Security (NIS) 2009, but under the hood a lot has changed. One big change is the development of a reputation-based security tool known as Quorum. This uses a cloud-based reputation system (not just signatures) to identify threats and is designed to deal with quickly changing malware. A piece of malware may be changed in a matter of hours but it’s reputation won’t be improved, so it will be recognized as a possible threat. Quorum also helps with another issue, files that fall between the cracks. Security software tend to have no problem at whitelisting good files and blacklisting bad ones, but about 1% don’t qualify as either. For these files reputation technology is a major help.
For a quick refresher: Norton Internet Security is Symantec’s full security suite. It features an antivirus, but the security extends to the network, email, and identity protection. NIS also included PC optimization features that allow the user to identify what could be slowing down their computer (including isolating the percentage used by NIS). Norton 360 included all of NIS’ security features and adds in backup and file restoration tools, but leaves out the PC optimization. Norton Antivirus (currently version 2010) is the most stripped down application offered. It has the antivirus core found in NIS and 360 but none of the rest (parental controls, anti-spam, anti-phishing, backup, optimization, and so on).
As with NIS 2009, the installation of NIS 2010 went very smoothly. Significant efforts have gone into making this as easy as possible and Symantec has done a good job with it. The installation process seems to be free of any sort of snags or hold-ups though there is an online signup. This didn’t seem particularly useful in the past, but if you have multiple Symantec licenses to keep track of or if you need to find your license key then it can be handy. Once you are past this, and you’ve removed any overlapping products (AVG, etc.), you’ll be set.
Norton’s home screen is a dashboard that gives you a look at everything the software is up to. In addition to telling you how many days your license has left and the last time your security definitions were updated (usually under 10 minutes) you can scan the status of each of the software’s tools. So in a second you can tell if the antivirus or antispyware tools are on or off, and you can toggle between those states with just one click. This is the main function of the dashboard, but from it you can also access all NIS2010’s other functions. These include your settings (it’s a robust suite so there are a lot of them) and then the auxiliary tools. NIS is separated into three main categories: Computer, Network, and Web. The settings include these three, as well as Parental & Privacy and Misc.
The flip-side of the dashboard is all about performance. Here you can quickly see your system utilization as well as a timeline of Norton activities (like virus scans and updates) in the recent past. Through this screen you can tell the software to do an optimization as well. It’s not really clear what Norton’s optimization does, but it would be at the level of Norton’s own software and settings, not anything affecting the rest of your computer.
The auxiliary tools are one of the more interesting parts of Norton Internet Security, at least they will be for anyone who is concerned about how Norton and the host system is functioning. One is Norton Insight Network, which uses data from the Norton community to identify threats and then scans your computer for files that are known to be either bad or trusted. The Insight Protection app tells you how many files have been identified within the community, how many trusted files are on your computer, and how many Insight look-ups your system has performed. Another app is Norton Tasks, which scans your computer’s CPU and Memory utilization over a period of time (up to a month) and shows you what programs are using up your computer’s resources. It is able to isolate Norton’s impact as well. It’s interesting, but not always useful–if anything it seems like a way for Norton to brag about how few resources it’s consuming, even though it’s running all the time. After all, there isn’t a whole lot you can do about some programs using a lot of resources except to uninstall them.
Another app is Application Ratings, which scans your running processes (or files, startup items, recently installed, etc.) and tells you if the files in question are trusted, their resource usage, how many people in the Norton community use them, and how old they are. Specific files can be checked as well, and Norton integrates itself heavily into your system’s context menus so there is a Norton option present whenever your right-click.
It’s never easy to say just how secure an antivirus tool is or how effective its protection is, but the tools Norton employs should mean it’s top-notch. In the past Norton has always had strong security at its core and the community features found in 2010 were designed to take these to a level that other services can not compete with. It is sort of a crowd-sourcing of threat identification but Norton’s user pool should be very effective, so long as enough people opt in to the program. I’m not the type of person to opt in for something like this and most people concerned about security probably won’t, so there is a certain externality here, but it seems like Norton has been able to get their data regardless. There is also a network effect here–the more people that use the community tools the more effective it will be. This means that tools like Quorum won’t be as effective for early adopters as they will be in a year, but this point will be moot if Norton’s initial pool is sufficiently large. Plus NIS 2010 isn’t losing anything from NIS 2009 so these tools can only help, or at least not hurt at all.
One of the features NIS’ users will be most happy about is the virus scanner. This has been seriously optimized over the years and it’s gotten faster and more efficient as a result. The scanner will run through a relatively fresh installation of Windows 7 (on a ThinkPad) in under 5 minutes for a quick scan and 15 minutes for a full one. During this time it will use varying amounts of CPU power based on what’s available–more when the system is idle and less if other tasks are being performed. Overall, it’s a smart and efficient system that is designed so that it doesn’t bog down your computer. After scanning the cleanup is quick and easy–users are given options but not presented with anything overly complex or confusing.
Of course the most important aspect of an antivirus is the protection that it offers. This is extremely difficult to test, especially given our limited sample size, so we’ll leave it up to the people that do it for a living. AV-comparatives.org rates Norton Antivirus quite highly in almost all areas including throughput (scanning speed), detection (ranked 4 out of 16), and false positives. Their most recent (August 2009) test awarded NAV 2010 with 3 out of 3 stars. NAV 2010 passed Virus Bulletin’s recent October ‘09 VB100 test (as Symantec Endpoint Protection, the company’s business product) but it failed the August 2009 test. Previously it had passed every time from November 1999 to June 2009. Norton 2009 was certified with icsalabs.com, as did Symantec Endpoint Protection v11 but there is no mention of NIS/NAV2010 at this point.
In case you hadn’t noticed yet, NIS2010 is a full package. In addition to the standard antivirus, anti-malware, and firewall there is much more. One useful feature for some people will be the parental controls. These are handled online through OnlineFamily.Norton and it offers the ability to schedule set computer times/limits, block certain sites, and more. It works through the internet so it can be adjusted remotely and it works on multiple systems (PC or Mac). The tool isn’t perfect, but it’s another useful feature in the package. Another perk is Identity Safe, which encrypts a users login information and can make it portable, via a USB key.
Symantec’s Norton Internet Security 2010 excels in a number of areas. Foremost amongst these are its speed, performance, and limited impact on the computer system it’s running on. New features like System Insight and the underlying Quorum technology as well as revamped anti-spam tools (for people who still use email clients) don’t change the user experience but they streamline the software and optimize its effectiveness against today’s threats and annoyances. It’s hard to measure the impact of something like Quorum, but the analysis of user data for a reputation system seems like a significant step forward in antivirus software. NIS 2010 has few shortcomings, but at $69.99 (for three PCs) a bit more expensive than some of the competition (most of which lack its feature set) and the user interface needs to be streamlined–the UI is confusing and has too much reliance on sub-windows. This may seem like a minor point, but the software has a lot of tools and some get lost in the mix. Overall, Norton Internet Security 2010 is an excellent package and a great follow up NIS 2009. source: Geek.com
Sunday, November 15, 2009
Apple Crushes Clone Maker Psystar
The Apple vs Psystar case has ended rather predictably, with Apple basically nuking the Mac clone maker out of existence.
Florida-based Psystar rose to fame back in February of 2008 when it started to market Mac close systems - basically PCs modified and configured to run the Mac OS. In July of that year Apple threw a spanner into Psystar’s plans by filing a lawsuit against the company. That case has been progressing through the legal system ever since.
However, on Friday Judge William Alsup dealt what seems to be a fatal blow for Psystar by granting Apple’s motion for summary judgment while denying Psystar’s counterclaims.
Basically Alsup ruled that the Mac OS End User License Agreement (EULA) is both legal and valid and ruled that installation of the OS on non-Apple hardware is not allowable. Period.
Alsup also dismissed claims that Psystar was protected by the first sale doctrine (doctrine that gives purchasers of a copyrighted works the right to resell without the permission of, or payment to, the copyright holder). Alsup stated that first sale doctrine only applies to legal copies of software and since Psystar had modified the OS to run on their systems, it did not apply.
This isn’t the end though. A hearing is scheduled for December 14 to thrash out remedies, which should be interesting. And who knows, Psystar might still appeal.
So, what does this mean? Well, basically that Psystar is dead. Nuked out of existence by Apple’s legal machine. It also sees the legal system side with the EULA. It also kills off any chance of seeing other OEM come out with Mac clones anytime soon.
At time of writing the Psystar website is still open and offering systems running Mac OS X for sale. source: ZDNET
Florida-based Psystar rose to fame back in February of 2008 when it started to market Mac close systems - basically PCs modified and configured to run the Mac OS. In July of that year Apple threw a spanner into Psystar’s plans by filing a lawsuit against the company. That case has been progressing through the legal system ever since.
However, on Friday Judge William Alsup dealt what seems to be a fatal blow for Psystar by granting Apple’s motion for summary judgment while denying Psystar’s counterclaims.
Basically Alsup ruled that the Mac OS End User License Agreement (EULA) is both legal and valid and ruled that installation of the OS on non-Apple hardware is not allowable. Period.
Alsup also dismissed claims that Psystar was protected by the first sale doctrine (doctrine that gives purchasers of a copyrighted works the right to resell without the permission of, or payment to, the copyright holder). Alsup stated that first sale doctrine only applies to legal copies of software and since Psystar had modified the OS to run on their systems, it did not apply.
This isn’t the end though. A hearing is scheduled for December 14 to thrash out remedies, which should be interesting. And who knows, Psystar might still appeal.
So, what does this mean? Well, basically that Psystar is dead. Nuked out of existence by Apple’s legal machine. It also sees the legal system side with the EULA. It also kills off any chance of seeing other OEM come out with Mac clones anytime soon.
At time of writing the Psystar website is still open and offering systems running Mac OS X for sale. source: ZDNET
You Tube Will Offer Videos In High-Res
With an eye on improving the viewing experience of its users, YouTube from next week will start to support 1080p high resolution videos.
The move from YouTube is seen by many as a very significant move given the fact that it currently supports videos to the maximum of 780p only.
Commenting on the subject, Hunter Walk, Director of Product Management at You Tube, mentioned that more than half of the videos have already been re-encoded according to the new video format.
Although, there is still a limit of 10 minute maximum for a video being uploaded, the size limit will have to be increased from the existing 2GB.
Walk also said the high-resolution video had been tested with success and despite the cost of supporting huge files, the company was not worried. Most analysts believe that YouTube which is owned by Google has the capacity to foot the increased costs associated with displaying videos in full HD and it will allow YouTube to tie-up with established content providers and it may even look to offer premium content at a later stage.
It must be noted that mobile users figure amongst the biggest contributors when it came to adding content and the site experiencing a 2000% increase in mobile uploads this year. source: IT Pro portal
The move from YouTube is seen by many as a very significant move given the fact that it currently supports videos to the maximum of 780p only.
Commenting on the subject, Hunter Walk, Director of Product Management at You Tube, mentioned that more than half of the videos have already been re-encoded according to the new video format.
Although, there is still a limit of 10 minute maximum for a video being uploaded, the size limit will have to be increased from the existing 2GB.
Walk also said the high-resolution video had been tested with success and despite the cost of supporting huge files, the company was not worried. Most analysts believe that YouTube which is owned by Google has the capacity to foot the increased costs associated with displaying videos in full HD and it will allow YouTube to tie-up with established content providers and it may even look to offer premium content at a later stage.
It must be noted that mobile users figure amongst the biggest contributors when it came to adding content and the site experiencing a 2000% increase in mobile uploads this year. source: IT Pro portal
Saturday, November 14, 2009
Watch the Live Manny Pacquiao vs Miguel Angel Cotto fight
Watch the Live boxing fight of Manny Pacquiao and Miguel Cotto:
9:00 PM ET Manny Pacquiao vs Miguel Cotto
9:00 PM ET Manny Pacquiao vs Miguel Cotto
Wednesday, November 11, 2009
Bing Partners with Wolfram Alpha, will be better than Google
The teams behind Microsoft's Bing and Wolfram Alpha announced today they have teamed up to enhance Bing's search results across topics like nutrition, health, and advanced mathematics. Financial terms weren't given, but the partnership gives Bing users access to Wolfram Alpha's advanced algorithms and curated data. The move fits with Bing's goal of helping people make decisions more efficiently. Led by Stephen Wolfram, the renowned physicist and mathematician, Wolfram Alpha debuted in May with the goal of making "all systematic knowledge immediately computable by anyone."
Like the ringing sound it is supposed to evoke, Bing has resonated with many users and advertisers. Microsoft’s new search engine, first introduced in May, has made modest, but steady gains in market share against Google and Yahoo.
Microsoft is now moving quickly to try cement, and perhaps, enhance those gains with a string of small innovations.
On Wednesday, the company said it will begin to integrate some results from Wolfram Alpha, a powerful service that can answer a broad range of questions. The limited collaboration will bring certain results, like nutritional information and mathematical calculations, from Wolfram Alpha to Bing.
For instance, when users type a food item like “chicken breast” into Bing, the results will include a box showing the nutritional information for it. Bing users will also be able to have access to a body-mass index calculator or to plot certain formulas on a graph.
Over the next few weeks, Bing will also add a handful of other features and revamp existing ones in what Microsoft calls a “rolling update.” They include localized results for weather and events, a revamped shopping section and an updated preview feature, which lets users see a snapshot of a Web page directly on the search results page. A video describing each of the features is available here.
Like the ringing sound it is supposed to evoke, Bing has resonated with many users and advertisers. Microsoft’s new search engine, first introduced in May, has made modest, but steady gains in market share against Google and Yahoo.
Microsoft is now moving quickly to try cement, and perhaps, enhance those gains with a string of small innovations.
On Wednesday, the company said it will begin to integrate some results from Wolfram Alpha, a powerful service that can answer a broad range of questions. The limited collaboration will bring certain results, like nutritional information and mathematical calculations, from Wolfram Alpha to Bing.
For instance, when users type a food item like “chicken breast” into Bing, the results will include a box showing the nutritional information for it. Bing users will also be able to have access to a body-mass index calculator or to plot certain formulas on a graph.
Over the next few weeks, Bing will also add a handful of other features and revamp existing ones in what Microsoft calls a “rolling update.” They include localized results for weather and events, a revamped shopping section and an updated preview feature, which lets users see a snapshot of a Web page directly on the search results page. A video describing each of the features is available here.
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