Apple's Leopard Shows its Claws

Well it appears that Mr. Jobs is at it again. Apple has announced the release date for the newest iteration of the Mac OS-X...codenamed Leopard. It will start shipping on October 26, 2007, for a measly $130. Not too shabby for something that claims to have over 300+ new features. A listing of a number of the fancy new features can be found over at Apple.com

Although I am by no means going to go out and buy this bit o software, I still think the Mac is a decent (yet extremely overpriced) piece of hardware for those who dont really wish to think about their computers. People who have trouble with Viruses, spyware, etc, simply dont educate themselves on how to NOT fall into those traps. Its really simple! The Mac's dont have any magical capabilities to protect against those things, its simply that Windows has a significantly higher market share and thus hackers attack the more popular OS. Ah well, Micropoop needs some competition anyway.

Halo 3 makes 300 big ones

Well since its release on September 25, Microsoft has sucked approximately $300 MILLION from the "casper-esque" army of nerds around the United States. As reported by USA Today....

REDMOND, Wash. (AP) — Gamers around the globe dropped nearly $300 million on Halo 3 in the week since the first-person shooter for Microsoft's Xbox 360 console debuted, the company said Thursday.

Microsoft also said that in the week after the Sept. 25 launch, Xbox 360 console sales "nearly tripled" from the weekly average reported before the game hit store shelves, according to initial reports from retailers worldwide.

More than 2.7 million people have logged on to Microsoft's online service, Xbox Live, to collectively play 40 million hours of Halo 3 with other gamers, Microsoft said.

Halo 3, the much-anticipated last installment of a trilogy, was developed by Microsoft-owned Bungie Studios.

Microsoft said sales hit $170 million in the game's first 24 hours on sale in the U.S., surpassing Spider-Man 3, which grossed $151 million in its opening weekend. Halo 3 sells for at least $60 a copy, while the average price of a movie ticket in 2006 was $6.55, according to the Motion Picture Association of America.

Lovely isn't it? At least the rest of us received a few hours of entertainment from the folks who interviewed the boys waiting to purchase the game at 12:00 AM on its release date. Hilarious indeed

Back in Saddle Again...

Well its time I got back in the saddle again everyone! For the few who MAY have read this little piece of e-beauty I'll begin again posting up any interesting articles or news I come across during my daily internet travels regarding new, old, or just plain weird technology (and other stuff where I feel like it) in our world today. Hope you enjoy!

Google Phone?!

According to recent posting at Tech.co.uk, Google will be having a press conference tomorrow morning regarding a "new product for mobiles." Thats pretty much all the search giant reps are saying but speculation is running everywhere that it could be a possible "Google Phone."

I for one am a huge supporter of Google's free services but it will be interesting to see if they are going to make the jump into the hardware/mobile market with an actual device. I some-what doubt it will be that drastic of an announcement (hype is everything these days) but I wont put any money on it.

I'll be sure and keep everyone posted tomorrow morning.

Customize your Nokia N800

Well I know its been a while folks but work has really been keeping me busy :) But in any case, I'll try to update as often as I can with any buzz I see while flying around the net.

Introducing the Nokia N800! Well its actually somewhat old as it was released some time ago but gadgeteers have drooled over it for a while. I myself have thought it to be a very cool looking device with some excellent potential. Of course, its price has strayed me from ever buying it (searching around it appears to go for a little over $300).

However, a cool little article has been written that details the steps to fully customize the interface and device itself to fit YOUR needs. Give a big thanks to the Wired Gadget Bloggers for finding this.

Read the tweako article here!

VoIP Alt's!

Thanks to MyVoIPprovider.com, a list of 250 alternative VoIP providers has been made available to the masses. This might be useful for those of you who will be affected by Verizon's assanine patent suit.

http://www.myvoipprovider.com

Vonage gets a break...

Apparently the Appeal Courts have decided to allow Vonage to continue to sign-up new customers while it attempts to win the patent suit from Verizon. As report earlier, Verizon had won the patent infringement case and the court had ordered Vonage to discontinue the signing up of any new customers until the case was completely resolved.

Although this is GREAT news for Vonage and its current customer base, it will definitely be interesting to see how things pan out from here on. The ultimate result could change the way other VoIP companies do business as well. If Verizon's patents hold up in the appeals court, it would seriously jeopordize the ability of other companies (such as Packet8 or SunRocket) from continue to provide their service of connecting internet based calls to classic land-lines.

Some analysts and VoIP supporters believe Verizon's claims will ultimately fail, but its still too early to tell. Verizon will be the sole owner of USEFUL VoIP technology if they win.

I for one, hope Verizon loses. Winning would hurt the consumer's severely, basically forcing them to 1 provider for home phone service, which is really whoever "owns" their territory. Talk about a monopoly.

HD-DVD and BluRay Players @ $300

And thus the real price war begins. I can finally say that BluRay and HD-DVD players have hit the sub $300 market (well its probably $299.99 but you know how marketing tricks work). With a significantly improved pricing model, more and more people will be buying the high-def players over the next 6 months. But which one will win? Well according to reports, Wal Mart has purchased a player that will sell at $300 in their stores around the country. This player is your typical home entertainment player that will connect directly to the TV. The BluRay player, however, will be an internal drive for your PC.

Seeing as though most people aren't savvy enough to buy the BluRay drive and then hook their PC up to their TV, I'd say that the $300 HD player has the instant advantage. Additionally, the BluRay player is not even available in the United States market yet but its expected very soon. That wont stop people from importing it from China of course :)

I gotta go Wii

Congrats go out to Nintendo today for having the Number 1 console (based on sales) in the United States for the month of March. Wii sales topped 259,000 units, where only 199,000 and 180,000 units were sold for Xbox360 and PS3, respectively.

Its amazing that even though the Wii doesn't have all this high end gadgetry, its still stomping Microsoft and Sony's consoles. Just goes to show you that its not always about the "flash", its also gotta be fun. And while I cant DIRECTLY comment on the fun portion, from friends of mine that own it, they say it is a blast :)

So Kudos to you Nintendo! Now just start releasing some games..

[Source]

The iPod Rumor mill is in full swing

With the Video iPod being on the market for quite a while now, the rumor mill over the 6th generation iPod are already in full effect. CNet has compiled a few of the following "biggest" rumors that we might see in the next gen device:

1 - iTunes subscription service --> This would basically be a "rental" service where customers can, I suppose, download movies (and possibly music) on a purely rental basis. The file will most likely have some type of built in code that allows it to only last 10 days or something like that. Decent idea but somewhat of a pain if you dont have broadband. And even if you do have it, the time to download a full DVD movie may turn some folks off (like me).

2 - Widescreen Vid iPod --> THIS would be cool. The screen on the current gen iPod is beautiful but as those lovable Texans proclaim: Bigger is BETTER!

3 - Wi-Fi enabled Vid iPod --> This would also be an awesome feature. Of course it would take about a month (or most likely less with the amount of hacker types running around) to figure out how to enable full web browsing which is what I'd want. Based upon the rumors, it appears that this wi-fi feature would simply be for browsing the iTunes library and downloading songs wherever and whenever you want.

4 - 100GB iPod --> Not much to say about this except duhhh. As storage space becomes more advanced (more capacity in a smaller unit), its only logical that Apple will grab a hold of it. Toshiba has recently announced its release of a 16GB flash memory chip (yeah 16GB!) which is supposedly slated for inclusion into the next/newest iPod nano.

There are a few other items including access to movie downloads in the UK and flash enabled interfaces but those are a little less exciting IMO.

For additional info, check out the full article at Cnet.com