Look no further! Anandtech is here to save the day. They have released a budget buyers guide (desktop computers under 750$). The will have guides for the high priced market segments when the Intel 6-Series chipset bug gets worked out.
If you're a gamer you'll definitely want to check out the page on GPU upgrades, or maybe wait for the more expensive build guides to come out.
Also check out how the author spelled his name wrong!
-Zack
Showing posts with label Technology. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Technology. Show all posts
Monday, February 14, 2011
Saturday, February 12, 2011
R.I.P. Guitar Hero
So as some of you may have heard, Guitar Hero is being put down to rest by Activision. Sure, after Harmonix left and started their own Rock Band series, the amount of these start-your-own-band music games surged. The oversaturation at this point has definitely hurt the series as there was not innovation in gameplay as much as getting different groups to join in.
There is a timeline of the Guitar Hero series (click to expand):
It's pretty damn crazy how many games came out in a short period of time eh?
What this decision goes to show is that Activision can and will make big decisions on some of its major labels. For those that do not know, Activision is the largest publisher behind EA right now. They own Blizzard (and all of its billion dollar franchises), Call of Duty, and many others.
Some people dislike their practice of aggressively buying out companies for profit. The aggressive commercialization of Starcraft 2 might have been at their hands but one never knows. Right now they want to take over Take 2 Interactive, the company that is famous for their GTA series. If they do indeed complete this take over, Activision might just surpass EA in size. EA had tried to buy out Take 2 before but the developers strongly resisted.
Crazy stuff. Bet y'all didn't know that the video game industry was this cutthroat eh?
There is a timeline of the Guitar Hero series (click to expand):
It's pretty damn crazy how many games came out in a short period of time eh?
What this decision goes to show is that Activision can and will make big decisions on some of its major labels. For those that do not know, Activision is the largest publisher behind EA right now. They own Blizzard (and all of its billion dollar franchises), Call of Duty, and many others.
Some people dislike their practice of aggressively buying out companies for profit. The aggressive commercialization of Starcraft 2 might have been at their hands but one never knows. Right now they want to take over Take 2 Interactive, the company that is famous for their GTA series. If they do indeed complete this take over, Activision might just surpass EA in size. EA had tried to buy out Take 2 before but the developers strongly resisted.
Crazy stuff. Bet y'all didn't know that the video game industry was this cutthroat eh?
Wednesday, February 9, 2011
My desktop
Isn't it pretty? The gadgets I used are called "Geeklets" that can be installed on "Geek Tools" for OSX.
I spent quite a bit of time looking for a nice background. I like this one since it is very minimalistic with an appealing blend of colors. There isn't anything too garish or distracting either. Pure minimalistic bliss.
Edit: here is the wallpaper for anybody interested. It's called Galactica by stormMajki.
I spent quite a bit of time looking for a nice background. I like this one since it is very minimalistic with an appealing blend of colors. There isn't anything too garish or distracting either. Pure minimalistic bliss.
Edit: here is the wallpaper for anybody interested. It's called Galactica by stormMajki.
Tuesday, February 1, 2011
Bing googling for results?
Theres a recent article going around that Bing copies Google's search results! How scandalous. The article does indeed prove that Bing has non-unique results compared to those of Google... What does this mean? Well it's kind of the same as making your own search engine and just scraping the data from Google.
Sure it might be a good thing to just learn off of the dataset that is from a different source but pure scraping is just shameless. This does actually put a new level of gameplay into the RankManiac though. It probably is possible to make Bing results appear the same as google's. But it's worth too much effort.
They say imitation is the most sincere form of flattery, but seriously Microsoft, why not just make Bing better through effort? Taking the shortcut never helps!
Source
Sure it might be a good thing to just learn off of the dataset that is from a different source but pure scraping is just shameless. This does actually put a new level of gameplay into the RankManiac though. It probably is possible to make Bing results appear the same as google's. But it's worth too much effort.
They say imitation is the most sincere form of flattery, but seriously Microsoft, why not just make Bing better through effort? Taking the shortcut never helps!
Source
Monday, January 31, 2011
Canada hardcapping internet usage
More strange internet dealings happening that threatens the current web structure! Canadian ISPs have decided to put a hardcap on the amount of bytes people can use on the internet. They will offer tiered levels that give more space. What does this mean? This means that large downloads such as movie streaming or online content delivery (such as Steam) will be heavily less appetizing now. Furthermore, people just can't use the internet as freely as they want to!
Also people now will have a much better incentive to block ads to save bandwidth. What will this mean? Many free services will lose revenue that they otherwise would not be losing. This may be a huge issue in itself!
It is not unheard of for ISPs to block certain users for obscene amounts of data traffic (up in the terabytes). Comcast has gotten many complains about this from active peer to peer file sharers. However, this is the first time that an ISP has decided to cap the data flow at such a low level for everybody. This assumes that the outliers that actually affect the network are the common case which definitely is not true.
Yes this is not nearly as crazy as what is happening in Egypt right now but it certainly is quite a stir for the internet community. It may just blow over sometime soon but we'll see what happens.
Also people now will have a much better incentive to block ads to save bandwidth. What will this mean? Many free services will lose revenue that they otherwise would not be losing. This may be a huge issue in itself!
It is not unheard of for ISPs to block certain users for obscene amounts of data traffic (up in the terabytes). Comcast has gotten many complains about this from active peer to peer file sharers. However, this is the first time that an ISP has decided to cap the data flow at such a low level for everybody. This assumes that the outliers that actually affect the network are the common case which definitely is not true.
Yes this is not nearly as crazy as what is happening in Egypt right now but it certainly is quite a stir for the internet community. It may just blow over sometime soon but we'll see what happens.
3D movies and new technology
Does anybody actually like 3D movies and 3D TVs? The cost of buying these new devices are ungodly obscene. Movies also cost extra but are they worth it? The glasses just seem to fog up the color and vibrance of the movie itself not to mention that only about 20% or less of the content is actually "3D" for most movies. The magic just isn't really there. Until the day that we can watch such things without extra peripherals I'm going to keep my money out.
And what about the Nintendo 3DS? Gimmicky? Headache inducing? Probably. The angle that you can see the screen without having to adjust your head is about 1 tiny degree. Why is everybody pushing the need for 3D so much? As of now the content given does not seem to be useful at all but rather just a flashy technique for people to spend money on. However if somebody comes out with a holodeck like experience I definitely will buy it.
Augmented reality applications however are really cool. Especially with phones becoming so powerful and connected to the cloud, data can be (pre)processed and delivered on the fly. Have people heard of the Google Goggles? Image search recognition on the phone immediately. It is some really cool stuff that will definitely light up the tech world if it becomes prevalent. I will hold off on getting a smart phone for now though. Shouldnt be buying too many toys in such a short amount of time :)
And what about the Nintendo 3DS? Gimmicky? Headache inducing? Probably. The angle that you can see the screen without having to adjust your head is about 1 tiny degree. Why is everybody pushing the need for 3D so much? As of now the content given does not seem to be useful at all but rather just a flashy technique for people to spend money on. However if somebody comes out with a holodeck like experience I definitely will buy it.
Augmented reality applications however are really cool. Especially with phones becoming so powerful and connected to the cloud, data can be (pre)processed and delivered on the fly. Have people heard of the Google Goggles? Image search recognition on the phone immediately. It is some really cool stuff that will definitely light up the tech world if it becomes prevalent. I will hold off on getting a smart phone for now though. Shouldnt be buying too many toys in such a short amount of time :)
Sunday, January 30, 2011
Save your eyes!
f.lux is a cool piece of software that adjusts the color warmth of your screen based on the time of day. If you notice at night, your screen can get really harsh due to the bright colors it emits. flux remedies this by "warming" up the colors to a more sepia-ish tinge. It really works!
Even if you have an ambient light sensor for your computer, the color difference can be seen even with the change in brightness. You can download it here. Help support these guys with this innovative piece of software!
Even if you have an ambient light sensor for your computer, the color difference can be seen even with the change in brightness. You can download it here. Help support these guys with this innovative piece of software!
Thursday, January 27, 2011
Response to Egypt's internet shutdown
I would feel exactly the same! But in all seriousness, this is a big deal.
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