Archive for March, 2007
New browsers on Windows Mobile 5+
One of the disappointments of Windows Mobile 6 is the lack of any major improvements on the web browser (they improved the rendering a little as well as favourites/history…).
Thankfully unlike other phones you can install extra applications and these alternatives are worth consideration.
DeepFish
Straight out of Microsoft’s Labs is DeepFish which renders the whole page and then lets you zoom in. Whilst the concept is similar to the iPhone the major difference appears to be that a server does the rendering for you making the web browser do little more than display these server-side rendered images.
The results are a bit hit-and-miss at the moment hence why it is still a technology preview which seems now to be full however there are alternative places to get the files and activation codes but be warned it doesn’t yet support sites that require form submissions/logins.
Minimo
Minimo takes a more traditional approach to browsing and uses the core Mozilla technologies as used in Firefox to provide a very feature-reach browser that includes support for JavaScript, AJAX, RSS and tabbed-browsing.
Opera Mobile
Opera Software produce Opera 8 for Windows Mobile Smartphone as part of their suite which seems to target every hardware and software combination under the sun. This version includes tabbed browsing and the usual assortment of tricks to improve rendering on small screens.
A trial version is available which I’d recommend before parting with your cash as unlike the others this one will set you back $24 USD.
[)amien
PlayStation 3 launch disaster?
I’ve known for a little while now I wasn’t going to bother with the PS3 unless some truly unique titles come up and the price subsequently drops so buying one at launch was a no-no for me but once I found out only two of my friends were getting them (and I have a lot of geeky friends) I knew Sony were in trouble.
A quick browse shows Amazon.co.uk still have some available, Play have them left, hell even my local HMV here on the tiny island of Guernsey had over 100 unallocated at lunch today and had canceled their midnight launch event – albeit for ‘technical’ reasons.
People on eBay have been finding their pre-order auctions not even meeting their cost price and looking at the negative feedback they are refusing to honour them now.
How could Sony have screwed this up so much? Take your pick:
- Shafting Europeans with a 33% price increase over the Americans? ($599 vs £425 vs €599)
599 USD = 304 GBP = 449 EUR - Cutting backwards compatibility when costs aren’t even passed on to the consumer?
But as we have made clear before, in the future our resources will be increasingly focused on developing new services and entertainment features exclusively for PS3, rather than on delivering PS2 backwards compatibility.
- Forcing Europeans to buy the more expensive model – because “that’s what they demand”
Responding to retail and consumer demand, SCEE confirmed that initially only the 60GB model would be available, with the 20GB model to follow later in the year dependent on demand.
- Forcing Blu-Ray upon consumers when they have failed with so many proprietary formats already?
- Repeated delays?
15 March 2005, November 2006, 23 March 2007 - Nothing worth playing at launch?
27 launch titles, 6 exclusive titles for sale plus Gran Turismo HD Concept free download. Gran Turismo HD Concept looks interesting … but not £425 to play essentially a demo interesting. Resistance: Fall of Man and MotorStorm are the top selling titles with EuroGamer scores of 6 and 8 respectively. - Pathetic attempt at on-line service in the face of Xbox Live!?
- Dropping rumble in exchange for a not-as-good-as-Wii movement sensor?
- That Sony are so full of themselves they think being expensive is something to be proud of?
Jeff Minter, writing in his regular column for Edge, said:They seem absolutely certain that even when they say it’s going to be considerably more expensive than existing consoles… nevertheless us eager customers will rush out in droves to buy it because it’s, hey, a new PlayStation.” … “incredibly arrogant.”
Of course it comes down to just one thing: Give people what they want, not what you want them to have.
I doubt Sony can stop their downward trend whilst they exude arrogance that sounds like “you’ll take this and you’ll like it – we’re Sony”.
In order to try and save face Sony performed a PR stunt by giving away 46″ HD TV’s to everybody who brought a PS3 at the Virgin London store. This would hopefully mean the press and sites would write about this instead of poor turnout or nothing at all – a snip at £250,000 to Sony. Check out the BBC, GameIndustry.biz or UK Resistance for coverage of the launch event.
Update
Yeah, pathetic turn-out all round with reports of media outnumbering shoppers at a couple of events, general disappointment and even big venues getting under 100 people. On-line retailers such as Amazon and Play have plenty left.
Last night 50 regional HMV stores were open for midnight launches across the country, and “at least” 1,000 units had been sold, according to Ellis.
…only 100 or so people came to the event, as opposed to the 1,500 or so who queued for a Wii, or the 3,000 who turned up for the World of Warcraft expansion pack
[)amien
Apple’s next enclosure material?
Olivier wonders about Apple’s next enclosure material and that got me pondering. Jobs has already utilised:
- magnesium (NeXT stations/cubes)
- titanium (PowerBook)
- aluminium alloy (MacBook)
- polycarbonate (iMac, iPod, iBook)
The current Intel machines reused the existing PowerPC enclosure designs – at least superficially – for the iMac, MacBook Pro and MacPro machines. Only the MacBook got to knock the older iBook design away.
What material could be next?
Carbon fibre has already been partially used by the likes of Acer and Sony on laptops. Whilst it might be light and strong it is brittle and the thermal conductivity is opposite to what you’re looking for in a laptop.
Jobs also loves metal enclosures at least at the high-end of the market where the price can cover the cost – although apparently not enough to absorb commercial-grade titanium any more hence the PowerBook switch to aluminium.
There are plenty of metals and alloys out there but besides cost they need to be tooled into the designs Apple want, finished to a high standard that won’t corrode or easily mark, strong and inflexible, lightweight and ideally possess good thermal conductivity.
Beryllium?
Beryllium is cheaper than titanium and has all the important characteristics described above plus a few extra bonuses that make it a primary candidate:
- easily x-ray’ed through (think laptops at airports)
- tarnish resistant to high skin acidity (a problem with existing painted aluminium enclosures)
- available in a variety of colours (why not have a selection… the iMac, iBook and iPod Nano have)
Bear in mind that most of Apple’s equipment (and indeed the majority of the worlds laptops) are manufactured at only a handful of companies out in the far east (Quanta, Compal, Foxconn) they would need to be heavily involved in the process.
But then pushing for breakaway designs that require advanced tooling and alternative manufacturing approaches is one of Job’s passions and what keeps Apple’s hardware looking that one step ahead.
Update
There are two potential problems with beryllium.
- in gas or dust forms it is dangerous to humans (as a gas this is Berlyium Oxide BeO …. spookly almost BeOS ;-)
- it reacts with lithium – as used in the current Lithium Ion batteries
Given that Apple use batteries by Sony and there are a couple of stories about the laptops catching fire this could be a problem – especially given that your laptop catching fire is bad enough when it isn’t violently reacting with the battery and producing carcinogenic gases.
[)amien