Ravings of a technogeek

For all who still look at this blog, I now have a new much better blog at http://ravingsofgeek.blogspot.com/
AndrewCow

Farewell...

It is today that I would like to say goodbye to ausgametech. I have had some great times posting on this blog but it really isn't going in the direction I want to go. So today I am leaving ausgametech and starting a new blog called about: tech and gaming. I will also be leaving as the admin of both the forums and chat feature. AndrewCow will take over from me as sole admin.

So..This is goodbye...unless you read my new blog! :)

New You Tube

YouTube is bringing out a new channel layout and its pretty cool. It is in super secret beta (i did not make that name up). You an see an example of it on my page here. I designed it very quickly and I know the text clashes but oh well it looks cool. If you want to try out the new format go www.youtube.com/super_seekrit(I love you URL). If you do this and design a channel page better than mine (which wouldn't be hard) we would love you for to post it in the comments:)

AndrewCow

Comments and Wakoopa

Firstly, the comments finally work. Sorry they were out for so long. Secondly, McFar54 and in turn me and Philip have signed up for a sight called Wakoopa. Basically, the users download a client that tracks what programs you are using and uploads your usage to the site. Now don't get worried. There is no spyware or anything and it is confidential. It is really cool. For example, it tells me that the program I use 2nd most is WoW just behind Word which is rightly so because it also tells me the 9th most used program on the site is WoW. I encourage you to sign up HERE

Thanks for reading

AndrewCow

Profit Mad! and Real Buttons on a Touchscreen?!

Firstly I would like to tell you that a lot of companies have been making profits lately despite the global financial crisis. I think that this really does show that despite the public losing money they still ant to buy tech and games to make them feel better. One interesting point is that Ubisoft made a profit over teh last year despite most of there games only havign a moderate number for sales.

Next I would like to highlight and article on technologyreview.com that talks about a new touch screen that uses air pipes to simulate real buttons. you can read the Article at http://www.technologyreview.com/computing/22550/. This will help eliminate accident buttons say on a touchscreen keypad and eliminate errors. Whether keyboards and phones will be able to utilise this technology is yet to be seen.

REALLY COOL FOR PHYSICS NERDS:)

The title says it all:) MYTHBUSTERS RULE!!

AndrewCow

P.S. WoW Peggle and Bejeweled is REALLY COOL but does not seem to be available on Curse Client, but it is available on WoW Matrix.

No One Let Andrew Read This Post

Popcap have just released an add-on for the MMORPG World of Warcraft that intergrates Bejeweled and Popcap's immensely popular Peggle for FREE, letting you play Peggle or Bejeweled in game.

So now it's the end of humanity.

Source: http://www.maximumpc.com/article/news/wow_peggle_end_human_civilization

Bioshock 2

Lewt's talk about the next big thign in gaming..no not Mass Effect 2 but Bioshock 2. Based on what I've seen this game looks great, even if it uses the Bioshock Engine, and the idea of playign as a Big Daddy is a great decision by new gamign company 2K Marin. In the game you can 'harvest' Little Sisters to do you bidding including getting ADAM, the in-game currency, from dead humans. WHiel you harvest Splicers will be randomly coming from differetn directions and it will be your job to protect the Little Sister. YOu will also be able to go out of teh main building of Rapture and explore tegh other buildings by walking underwater.

Yes, this game does look great but why use the Bioshock Engine, why not a new engine? Yes it does provide more accessability as it means that Specs will be close to those of Bioshock but the graphics will look the same.

We won't know more until more is said but for know...keep up the good work 2K Games and try not to stuff this up...we all are lookign foreward to it.

BTW: Mass Effect 2 will be featured in my next post!

A True Fad, I just never thought anything like this would happen

When you go to YouTube, and there is the the Videos other people are watching, I can guarantee you that one of the videos will be this one of Susan Boyle, the amazing singer, with not the best looks.

All the embed links to her vids are disabled but here is a URL.

This is what i call a true world wide phenomenon. In has been just 11 days since she sung on Brittans got talent, and her videos have received over 49 MILLION views. Yes, you read right. 49 MILLION. Now that is a true internet(worldwide more like it. Even my mum who barely noes how to use youtube loves her)phenomenon that i never thought i would see.

AndrewCow

P.S. I'm sorry i will try and post more regularly

HAPPY EASTER

HAPPY EASTER!

National Broadband Network.

Today Kevin Rudd released the final information on the National Broadband Network. The NBN will be just fibre optic cable providing high speed (up to 100mb/s) internet to 90% of Australian Homes. PM Rudd announced today that, after a lengthy bidding process, no bidders offered any plan that meet the Federal Government's expectations so they said that they will do it them selves in a majority public owned company.

Yes, this is very socialist but who really cares about that, what really matters is the quality of the infrastructure and who will be providing the service (ie. who will be the ISP). It is all very vague but it should be completed in 2017-2018, that provides enough time for the government to sort everything out.

Personally I believe that this is a good plan but cost and infrastructure problems will hinder this as well as logistical problems such as who will build it and who will provide the service. These problems will take a long time to sort out and so don't expect this before 2020.

Mr Rudd also blamed the Howard Government for not planning this during their time in office. There is one problem with this and that is that the technology to provide this service has not been around for very long and was only in its infancy during the Howard regime.

All of this coupled with the planned internet filter could lead to a China-like system of socialist internat filtering and use dictation. NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!

EDIT: THERE IS NOW A FORUM TOPIC IN HARDWARE ABOUT THIS.

Supanova Day(or rather Night)1

Well..... not much happened worth telling everyone about.... charity auction raised about $4400:) We beat the record:) We were introduced to some guests being Vic Mingona(don't no how to spell last name), the creator of Invader Zim, Some comic writers including the creator of Watchmen and some guy from Battlestar Gallactia.

Yea..... There were some cool costumes:)

Thats all

More (and I mean more sorry) Tomorrow

AndrewCow

New Feature released today!

I would now like to say that a new thing on the blog is here...THE WEEKLY RANT! It will be released every Friday and one of us will rant about something that has happened this week.

This week's rant: CONFICKER WORM!

The Conficker worm scare was one hell of a hoax. Everyone had been talking about it and talking it up for weeks in advance and nothing happened. Basically all the worm did was change the way it gets its instructions and the media played it up and said that computers around teh world were going to crash and the virus would spread itself to others causing every computer in the world to crash. It was like Y2K all over again. I am personally disgusted at the media for fallign for this simplr prank and spreading fear to the people. The date of instruction change was April 1...APRIL FOOLS DAY!!! It was an elaborate hoax and the media, as always, fell for it. The worm did change the way it got its instructions but no computers crashed and nothign happenned. Now Germans have found the fingerprint and we are all "saved".

.......I've done it

Firstly this is not a belated(posted 2/4/09) april fools day prank.

I've finally done it. At 9:20pm 2/4/09 my draft iPhone application for the blog worked!!!!

Yes thats right. This blog will soon(i hope) have an official iPhone app. There are some layout and final coding issues I must deal with before submitting it to the store(which I still haven't figured out how to do) but it cant be too long:)

Just thought i would tell you the news.

AndrewCow

classification.gov site gets hacked an is now down and NEW BLOG FEATURES COMING YOUR WAY!

Firstly, as at 7:09pm on Saturday 28 March, the Australian Governments classification board sit, http://www.classification.gov.au, was down with the error message "Bad Request (Invalid Hostname)". Earlier today the site was hacked and the hackers changed the front opage test to read ""This site contains information about the boards that have the right to CONTROL YOUR FREEDOMZ, The Classification Board has the right to not just classify content (the name is an ELABORATE TRICK), but also the right to DECIDE WHAT IS AND ISNT APPROPRIATE and BAN CONTENT FROM THE PUBLIC" This was donwe shortly after Stephen Conroy had spoken on Q+A on the ABC last night. I assume this was done in response to Senator Conroy's Internet Filtering and certainly got the message through but these people, when and if they get caught, are in for a lot of trouble. Great Cause but Stupid Idea.

Next I would like to announce some new blog features that will be coming soon:

• New Theme (again)
• Facebook Group
• Twitter use
  
• Music player
• Better use of forums
• Handy Tips and Tricks
• Podcast (tentative)
  
• iPhone App (tentative)

Call of Duty Modern Warfare 2, Internet Censorship, Windows XP Support shutdown and Sims 3 DRM

Firstly I would like to say that Modern Warfare 2, the next game in the Call of Duty franchise. has been given a release date of November 10 2009. This is great news if you loved the franchise. Infinity Ward is developing this game, much to everyone relief. Hopefully it will by a solid game but nothing can be said until we see more. Anyway here is the trailer...



Next is that Stephen Conroy, the 'mastermind' behind the proposed internet filter, has appeared on the ABC's Q+A program and was asked question about the internet filter idea. He tried to defend the stupid idea for a nationwide filter and someone even said that "it will be like making a dam wall out of chicken wire" and made reference to the Wikileaks scandal. Personally I think that Mr Conroy is making a bad decision by going ahead with this filter and I think that he should just scrap the idea and never talk about it again. Louise Adler, a publisher, made a good point on the show that instead of having a mandatory internet filter we should be looking for the causes of paedophilia and addressing that directly without censoring the internet.

Next is the news that on April 1 Microsoft will be stopping support for Windows XP and Office 2003. This is not new news but just a friendly reminder about this.

Finally, EA has confirmed that the Sims 3 will not have the internet DRM that featured in Spore but instead they will go back to the old Serial Number method. This is great as it saves hassles if you have to reinstall windows or you get a new computer and want to reinstall the game. Why EA had to go with the Intenet and Phone DRM for Spore no one will ever know, but this news about the Sims 3 will save a lot of hassles for gamers all round.

More GDC!!!

Here's some more stuff that has come out of GDC...

Unreal Engine 3: Epic Games has been using this for a while to make Gears of War 2 and Unreal Tournament 3 but now they have released their engine for developers to license and use for their own games. I won't dwell on the massive changes to UE2 or even list them so i'll just post the trailer....



Next is the Zeebo which is a cheap console for 2nd and 3rd world countries. This is a great idea and will bring gamign to countries where only the elite can afford such luxuries. The Console can be plugged in to TVs and it features the followign specs:

Platform
• Qualcomm Chipset
Applications Processing (Audio/Graphics)
• ARM 11 / QDSP-5 running at 528Mhz
3D Graphics Processing
• Qualcomm Adreno 130 Graphics Core
• Mobile Display Processor (MDP) (Concurrent 3D Rendering & Screen Operations)
Internal Memory
• Non-Volatile Memory:
1 GByte NAND Flash
• RAM:
128 MBytes DDR SDRAM + 32Mbyte stacked DDR
SDRAM in MSM7201A
Output Color System
• PAL-M and NTSC
Video-Out Resolution
• VGA (640 x 480) - 4:3 aspect ratio
Banding
• Quad Band GSM/GPRS/EDGE (850/900/1800/1900) MHz
• Tri Band UMTS/HSDPA/HSUPA (850/1900/2100) MHz
Antenna
• Internal
Modem Processing (Integrated in MSM7201A)
• ARM 9 CPU / QDSP-4
Power
• External Power Adaptor (Battery Not Required)
Power Supply
• 100 – 240 V (50-60Hz) (universal)
Ports and Slots
• Three USB 2.0 Standard A (for accessories)
• USB 2.0 OTG – Mini B
(Accessible to Service Centers and Developers only)
• RCA Connector (Video Composite TV Signal, x2 Stereo Audio)
• SD Card Slot / Interface
Power Key Functions
• Power On / Power Down / Power Off
Software
• BREW-based
Pre-Loaded Content
• 4 Games + 1 Free Wirelessly Downloaded Game
Audio Formats
• MIDI (72 voice polyphony 512 KB wavetable, 44kHz sampling rate)
• MP3
• PCM
• ADPCM
• CMX
• QCELP
Messaging
• SMS, server initiated
User Interface (UI)
• Proprietary Zeebo User Interface (Updatable wirelessly)
Console ID
• International Mobile Equipment Identity – IMEI

This a really good idea but will never replace the more expensive consoles in most 1st world countries.

GDC News Galore!

A lot has come out of GDC so far. With 1 day to go I thin k we have squeezed a lot from GDC Sofar.

Firstly is OnLive, which is a new service based on XBox Live. It allows you to host your PC games on a cloud computing server where all graphics are rendered there and the game is completely housed on their servers. Sadly I don't think that this will be feasable within the next 5 years duer to bandwidth issues but it reaslly is a good idea.

Next is CryEngine 3, Cryteks newest game engine. This really isn't as good as you think it is. It is just a port of their previous engine, CryEngine2.

Next is a new Wii Storage solution. Nintendo have today released a system update that they announced a GDC which will add support for SDHC Card of up to 32GB. It also adds an SD Card menu and all channells except for the Nintendo Channel and the menu can house up to 240 Games. This is a major improvement over the feable 512MB of storage in the Wii at launch.

Finally Nintendo has released a new part of the wii shop called Virtual Console Arcade which will house arcade games not availiable for any other console. This is great and hopefully there will be some overlap with teh Xbox Live Arcade.

AWESOME!!!!

I saw this on Top Gear last night. It was so awesome i just had to shown you. This car is truly the future i think.



Thanks
AndrewCow

My perspective of life has changed for ever

I was just watching a TV show and it said in fact the Myths about the internet being 99.9% porn is actually the opposite. A study was carried out about internet content and it was found that in fact less that 1% of the internet is Porn but more than 80% of emails are spam:) Who would have thought?

AndrewCow