Ever since E3, Microsoft has been strongly pushing the Xbox 360 to be the center of the family's entertainment. Well, with the addition of Facebook, last.fm, Twitter and the Zune Marketplace, it seems like they may very well be on their way.
The success and buzz of the Beta version of the new Xbox features allowed Microsoft to release the enhancements a little earlier to the public. The numbers came in last week and amounted to a staggering two million users logging on to the Facebook feature via Live! Even more astonishing, half of a million accounts were activated within the first 24 hours of the public launch. Impressive, eh?
Numbers were not released for the other three additions, but I'm sure Microsoft will be boasting about those when they post their Q4 numbers. Did you sign up to the new features?
Looks like the Air Force is taking advantage of the low price of the Sony PlayStation 3. They plan to purchase another 2,200 consoles to build a research supercomputer. That's a lot of PS3s!
In the last few years, technicians have gotten very creative with technology, and this is the perfect example. The United States Air Force already owns 336 PS3s, but are looking to further their collection to conduct more research. The location of the consoles will be Rome, New York, at the Air Force Research Laboratory's information directorate.
Last month we told you about Microsoft's announcement that unofficial memory would be disabled. When all the dust is settled, this really only seriously affects one company, Datel. It has become obvious to us that Datel knows this, and is not happy about it. How does any good American handle being wronged? They sue.
In this case, however, there might be some good reason. Microsoft sent Datel a message last month warning them that their memory cards would no longer work due to an "unintentional effect" of the upcoming dashboard update. However, a Microsoft spokesperson had told media outlets,
Jonathan Hickman, who has previously worked on titles such as Fantastic Four, is set to pen a six-issue miniseries about the founding of the S.H.I.E.L.D. organization. The beginnings of the force is apparently set long before we thought, dating all the way back to ancient Egypt.
We will get to see the involvement of what is described as "history's greatest figures" saving the world from Galactus, the Celestials and other threats.
The news was broken by G4's Blaire Butler hit the break to see the video
For a long time we have heard talk about a solo Silver Surfer film. After the second Fantastic Four did so terribly, the fate of the solo film was in question. Luckily J. Michael Straczynski, co-writer of the film's script, gave us some information.
"What happened was when Fantastic Four 2: Rise of the Silver Surfer didn't do as well as they hoped it would do, it caused them to call into question a Silver Surfer movie. The script that I wrote picked up right where FF2 left off. So if they do a Silver Surfer film down the road, it'll have to be its own separate thing."
posted Saturday Nov 28, 2009 by Jon Wurm
Apparently, computer manufacturer Kohjinsha had our visually impaired friend B. Cole in mind when they developed their new DZ series of netbooks. With a 10.1 inch screen even people with eagle eyes can feel like Ray Charles drowning in a pool of blurred colors and text. In an effort to solve the problem, Kohjinsha gave this netbook two screens. The imaginative design gives the user the ability to slide out a second screen on the go. Before you get overly excited there is a downside, it's still a netbook. Which means for doing excel spreadsheets or watching movies while surfing the net you will be computing like no other and your friends will be jealous. For those of us who need the extra horse power this laptop isn't for you. Here are the specs:
Two 10.1in. wide screen LCDs (1024x600)
AMD Athlon Neo MV-40, 1.6 Ghz processor
1GB of RAM (4GB max)
160GB sata hard drive
ATI Radeon HD 3200 internal graphics
Wireless LAN
Bluetooth
1.3 megapixel webcam
Windows 7 Home Premium 32-bit
4.5lbs. with a battery life of approximately 4.5hrs.
This isn't the first dual screen laptop but (this one is) it is the first one to be practical and affordable. It costs around $900 USD or 79,800 Yen in Japan, the only country where this laptop series is currently available starting this December.
I would like to see dual screens trickle upward to the higher end laptops in the near future. It is safe to say they would be expensive and lacking in battery life at first but if you combine it with LED screens and more energy efficient processors it could be acceptable. At the very least it would make editing video at conventions and everywhere else more bearable.
Hit the break to check out the video.
