Daniel made a very cogent point in the previous article, articulating the spectacular advantages Apple has in the smartphone sphere. I would like to offer however, a counterpoint to his article. Although I do agree with many of the points he has made in his article, I would just like to supplement with some thought-nuggets that may serve to complement his views.
Posted by Jerrick | 4 Comments
A thought struck me as I was trying to come up with a suitable topic to write about here today. Information Technology has not changed schools at all. Yes, it has made research much easier and more efficient. And word processing is not the chore it once was. But whilst technology has fundamentally changed the way the world is viewed, it has not fundamentally changed the way we learn. We still exam in the same way, and we are still expected memorise and learn in the same way. My key point here is that schools need to catch up or risk being made redundant. Read more..
Posted by Jerrick | 10 CommentsTaken from Jerrick’s Website
There’s a very good chance that I will meet Will Wright, Creator of The Sims, Sim City and Spore, on Friday. Have you any questions for the man himself? Ask them here and I will forward them on!
And NO I can’t ask him to crap out a copy of Spore for you.
-EDIT- Sorry. I didn’t get to see Will Wright! He had to leave early because he was tired. He had been in Singapore for a week doing the publicity for Spore. Ah well. Some other time then eh?
Posted by Jerrick | No commentsSee the title. Its also Jerrick’s Birthday… so you all know what to do!
Posted by Jerrick | 1 Comment
Anyone who’s interested in getting a brand new copy of easySafe, your key to data security, are asked to simply leave a comment at the bottom of this post, with your name and a valid email address. Yes that’s all you have to do. Leave a comment. That’s ALL! And you’ll have a REALLY good chance of winning this wonderful little present, keeping YOU safe, and keeping US afloat! So what are you waiting for just post up!
Posted by Jerrick | 4 Comments
The Fiat 500 or in its original Italian, the Cinquecento is a beautiful example of modern engineering from an inspired original, the modern 500 is by no means a compromised or even cheap descendant of the Nuova 500. To put it in a more poetic form, whereas the Nuova 500 was designed to be practical, and functional first, much like your dressed down mother who raised you through two economic recessions and does not really see the point of getting anything for form. Whilst the modern 500 is your little sister, raised in the internet age, savvy, smart, with some money to spend, and she’s all about fashion, looks, but wants stuff to have all the luxuries. Jerrick, our intrepid editor attended the Singapore launch of the 500 and survived to tell the tale.
Posted by Jerrick | 8 CommentsThis, the first in possibly a series of articles by a friend of our humble website, Naveen. Comment up!
When Apple announced there was something in the Air, it wasn’t the only one. Adobe recently launched its own lightweight cross-platform runtime, also named AIR. Deceptive pun indeed, it expands to Adobe Integrated Runtime. What does it do?
Well firstly, AIR itself can be thought of as an emulator. It emulates in this case browser technology. Once the basic runtime is installed, AIR applications can be downloaded [the proverbial ROMs] and you can run them on any platform with AIR installed, be it Mac, Windows and Linux [coming soon].
What’s special about AIR is that it emulates a browser [WebKit rendering, the same technology as Safari and Opera], and it follows that AIR applications are Rich Internet Applications, similar to Firefox extensions, only now masquerading as fullblown applications on your desktop.
The applications can be written in any web language, Flash or even Adobe Flex.
People usually dismiss the potential of Rich Internet Applications, I find, but with the advent of the Software as a Service paradigm, rich Internet applications are no-install, quick-deploy shock troops in the Internet realm now. Visit any page with even a teeny bit of Javascript and that’s lite programming at work. The benefits are undeniable; most of the interactivity you now see on webpages is asynchrous and you customise the page and services you want with minimal fuss server-side. The processor power and bandwidth they save empowers them to offer the same services to more people, with lesser downtime.
While the AIR concept sounds similar to Google Gears, the fundamental difference is the need for a browser for the latter. Google Gears only caches the database data with SQLite and simulates a server-side environment so your online service [like Google Reader] works offline. In terms of functionality, I’d say AIR is similar to Microsoft’s Silverlight and the not yet released Mozilla Prism.
I haven’t tried too many AIR applications; there aren’t very many available right now. Just under 50 AIRplications available in the Marketplace [a misnomer; they're all free!] and not every one of them is going to appeal to everyone. What I can recommend to you, in this Youtube age, is RichFLV.
This app has liberated me, changed how I work with .flv files that I routinely download from the Internet.
It offers rich editing [true cut and paste] and rearragements of Cuepoints, exporting of the audio track to mp3 form, taking screenshots, converting the flv to SWF format; all this and more without breaking a sweat. If nothing else, it’s a responsive offline FLV player. Highly recommended!
Other apps worthy of download would be CleVR Stitcher [allows quick stitching of photos to make a panorama], MeeBone [Meebo for the desktop; MSN connectivity without the bloatware!] and Fotobooth [named after Apple's Photobooth with pretty much the same functionality].
If you couldn’t tell by now, most of these applications occupy niche areas, in true scratch-an-itch fashion. And by leveraging their strongest suit, these AIRplications finally bring you the power of mashups to the desktop without the bulk of traditional equivalents. Hats off, Adobe.
This episode, which heralds the long awaited departure and possible guillotining at the stake of the HD-DVD. We also see the price halving of the iPod Shuffle, a piece of news almost as tiny as its actual namesake. We’re also enthused by the announcement of Command and Conquer Red Alert 3, the titanic series of games from Electronic Arts. Speaking of games, we’ll see Microsoft’s Zune getting games developed on the XNA platform, a development that as great as it sounds will only give the Zune a small advantage over the iPod, but somehow one that’ll never be enough. And, finally seeing as the time has come for the lot of us the Tech65 crew to take a break and relax, and what better 21st century way to do so than to get advice from Wikitravel, now available in a book form. Yes, life is good even though HD-DVD is dead, being replaced by the Blue blooded Blu-ray.
Yours with love,
Chasity and Innocence
This episode is proudly brought to you with the courtesy of 42. Plus 3. We discuss the arrival of location based advertising, the wonderfully spamminess of it all, Microsoft launching new Zunes and also conceding to the EU saying UNCLE UNCLE, or ONCLE ONCLE! At the same time rubbing it in Hollywood’s face that Halo’s whupped their butts. For a week or so. We also see the launch of a phone that comes with optical zoom. Why, Mr Bond! Is that a camera lens sticking outta your pocket, or are you just happy to see me. Tarra from us all here at Tech65!
Posted by Jerrick | No commentsThis week, epic things have happened over at Apple with the release of new and arguably sexier iPods in line with the rest of the Apple lineup of computers and otherwise. The Shuffle’s had a wardrobe makeover, with the new Product Red a nice vibrant shade of red… The Nano’s been given a makeover, had the eyeshadow from last night taken out from under her eyes, and put on beautiful pastel dress, em. well. I guess beautiful is relative. The iPod Classic has had a last name added to it, afterall being known just by your first name is so passe, thus his Steveness has given the iPod a HUGE capacity increase and made it thinner too. And of course we have the star of the bunch, the real diva and superstar combined, the iPod Touch. The iPhone, save the Phone bit.
We want one… every single one…
Daniel, Jerrick, NTT, Farinelli, Kai Yi
Read more..
