Still As Life

Earlier this month I posted some information about downloading video's from YouTube and other video sharing websites that use Flash Video's.

Now I have just come across tooble which is a program for Mac's that will download YouTube and other Flash Video's to your computer and converts them mp4 format for use with an iPod. Of course it will also play on an iPhone, Apple TV, or your computer.

There is a Windows version in the works, but at the moment it is Mac only.

Enjoy.

Labels: software, video clips

I have been playing Jedi Academy again recently as this is one of my favourite Star Wars games, and I have been in a bit of a Star Wars kind of mood. Now, I just saw this trailer/documentary about the making and technologies used in the latest Star Wars game, due out mid 2008, "Star Wars: The Force Unleashed".

If you watch it you'll find out anyway, but the new game uses Havok physics, Euphoria dynamic motion synthesis and Digital Molecular Matter.

So what this means is, you have physics, so everything moves based on physics rather than pre-determined movements, Euphoria gives the computer controlled characters the ability to think for themselves and react to what you do.

An example given in the video clip is that if you throw a crate at someone, they could either duck under it, jump out of the way, or even grab onto it. Such as if you throw a person, or pick one up, they will try and grab onto things. It is described as a sense of self preservation.

Then there is also the Digital Molecular Matter which combines with the physics to give everything different characteristics. It means would will break like wood, metal will bend like metal, a crate thrown into another crate will have a much different result to a crate thrown into something much lighter, like a person.

Anyway, have a look at the video and be amazed. I want this game now. Actually, I want to upgrade first so I can play it when it comes out, but you get the idea.



Also, the game story sounds absolutely awesome, after all, who hasn't always wanted to be Darth Vader's secret apprentice?

Labels: games, technology, video clips

This is a pretty cool idea, though quite pointless really.

A Mac Mini inside a Macintosh 512k!



Perhaps using a colour screen would have made it a little bit more useful. However I suppose in doing so, it would have lost some of it's uniqueness.

Ah wells. Interesting all the same.

Labels: hardware, technology, video clips

With all the awe and wonder surrounding the official unveiling of the gorgeous new Macbook Air at the MacWorld Expo last week, another fantastic new Mac laptop has been somewhat overlooked.

The Modbook by Axiotron. This is not an official Apple Mac, however it incorporates the magic of OS X and the same components used in Macbooks with leading tablet technology from Wacom!

That's right, the Modbook is effectively the first and only Mac Tablet! With prices for the basic Modbook starting at $2290 US, it is not much more expensive than the basic Macbook Pro ($1999 US), and only slightly less powerful.

The standard Modbook comes with a 2ghz Intel Core 2 Duo processor that can be upgraded, 1gb of RAM, also upgradeable, built-in iSight Camera, optical drive (either combo-drive or SuperDrive), and just in case you get lost, global positioning system (GPS).

It is based around a 13.3" screen, and since it doesn't close like, it is protected by chemically strengthened Axiotron ForceGlass™ to ensure it is as safe as possible from damage at all times.

The screen incorporates digitizer technology from Wacom and the included Axiotron Digitizer Pen is:

• Fast - 133 position updates per second
• Accurate - 20x display resolution
• Sensitive - 512 levels of pen pressure sensitivity
• Efficient - No batteries required

As it is based on a Macbook, it retains the full Macbook connectivity suite, including 10/100/1000BASE-T Gigabit Ethernet, USB 2.0 (two ports), FireWire® 400 (one port), Bluetooth 2.0 and AirPort Extreme® Wi-Fi.

It does not come with a built in keyboard like some tablet PC's do. Instead, you have the option of either just tapping the letters you want on an on-screen keyboard (a little time consuming in my opinion), or just writing like you would on a piece of paper. The Modbook has full support for Apple’s Inkwell® software on Leopard, so writing is no problem at all! Alternatively, you can get a USB keyboard.

The weight and battery consumption is no different to the standard Macbook, so there is no real reason there to cause problems.

The Unofficial Apple Weblog got a demonstration of the Modbook on video which I have embedded below:



One thing I am not quite sure about from the video is that the Axiotron rep indicates that a wireless adapter would be needed. The Axiotron website though indicates that it comes with wireless (as I mentioned above). Either way though, it is still a very nifty and highly useful device.

If I didn't already have a Macbook Pro, the Modbook would be on my list way above the Macbook Air.

By the way, if anyone would like to donate me a Modbook, I would happily accept.

Labels: hardware, technology, video clips

You have no doubt heard by now that Apple unveiled the brand new Macbook Air at the Macworld Expo this week. Given my recent purchase of a Macbook Pro, I have been very interested to see how these compare. After all, the Air is meant to be only 1.9cm at it's thickest point and 0.4cm at it's thinnest. Now my Macbook Pro is about 2.4cm evenly across the whole laptop. So this isn't logically that much bigger than the Air.

I just saw this video with a comparison of the two at the Apple booth and all I can say is wow. I think I would break it if I owned a laptop as small as this:



On the other hand though, I want one purely for the awesome factor.

There are of course a few downsides and at this stage it would not replace the current Macbook lines as it is a different market again.

The Macbook Air does not have a firewire port, or a wired Ethernet connection. It also only has a single USB port. A USB to Ethernet dongle is available, but then there goes your singular USB port. So no doubt a USB hub will be a required accessory for one of these, unless you are in a truly wireless environment, which I suppose, I kind of am. I use wireless on my laptop at uni, at home and at my parents place, and those are pretty much the only places I use it. For anywhere else, I have my 3G modem, which would take up the USB port. So I suppose, it would not be that big of a deal really.

It comes standard with a 1.6ghz Intel Core 2 Duo processor with 2gb of RAM and an optional upgrade to a 1.8ghz CPU. As for storage, it comes standard with and 80gb hard drive, the same as the ones used in iPods. The hard drive has an optional upgrade as well to a faster 64gb solid state drive.

So power and storage wise, it is pretty decent. Of course it doesn't compare to the Macbook Pro's which are still the workhorse model laptops.

The things that are, in my opinion, the biggest downfalls for it are the lack of a dedicated graphics card. It uses an Intel integrated GMA X3100 graphics processor which shares 144mb of RAM with the main system memory, and it does not have a built in optical drive.

For many people the integrated graphics card may not be a big deal, but for me, it is.

Apple have provided a solution the the lack of an optical drive with the external Macbook Air SuperDrive. Again, this is connected via USB to the single USB port. The external drive is something you can buy additionally, it does not come with the laptop.

I can understand that the market this laptop is aimed at may not necessarily have such a big need for an optical drive, and ultra-portability is more the key factor in the development of this laptop, but once you add all the things you need to carry around with you, if you need them, a Macbook or Macbook Pro may still be a better option. After all, they are still quite small.

The negatives aside, watch the video and be amazed at the new Macbook Air. Not only at the size of it, but the new functions of the touch pad.

The Macbook Pro (and I assume also the standard Macbook) has a very innovative touch pad system that includes extremely useful functionality such as, tapping with two fingers is a right click, touching it with two fingers and moving them the direction you want to go is scrolling etc.The Macbook Air builds on this with even more functionality such as zooming. Whether all of the functionality is available in all applications, or just in things like iPhoto remains to be seen (by me anyway), but it's just another step along the development path anyway.

Now if only my Macbook Pro could lose some weight and gain some cool aerodynamics such as the Air, but whilst keeping its higher powered components, that would be awesome.

Labels: hardware, technology, video clips

Hehe, this has been really well done:



Yay Blu-ray!

Labels: technology, video clips

Here is another Unreal Tournament 3 trailer, because I can.



Also because I noticed a couple of comments on this particular trailer which is an old one from back when it was called Unreal Tournament 2007. The comments though are only recent.

A user called thekillersfan01 makes the comment:

"this looks good but a rip off from gears of war"

Following in his idiotic footsteps very soon after, glenny112 makes the comment:

"rofl u nubs this is a re run of halo 2 and 1 and also a re write of gears of war!"

I propose three things, one being the following:

Thekillersfan01, you should read the below.

Two being:

Glenny112, you are the "nub." If you knew anything about gaming history, you would be well aware that Halo 2 was released on November 9, 2004. Now, following your illogical structure of referencing Halo 2 first, I will now point out that logically, Halo 1 was released prior to Halo 2. Halo 1 was released on November 15, 2001. Next, is Gears of War. Gears of War was released most recently on, you guessed it, November 7, 2006. Now, taking this into account, let us consider the following. The first Unreal was released when exactly? Let me see. Oh yes, May 22, 1998. The next in the series, Unreal Tournament was released when now? November 26, 1999. That is two games released prior to the first Halo which is the earliest released game of your claims. As for Gears of War, well, not only are there those two games, but Unreal Tournament 2003 released near the end of 2002, Unreal 2, released in February 2003, and then of course, Unreal Tournament 2004, released in March of 2004.

Now, you tell me which one is a "re write" of which.

Sure, I looked up the dates to get the exact day and month, and also to back up what I am saying, but I could have told you the year's those games were released off the top of my head give or take a year.

The final thing I propose is:

Glenny112, didn't you ever go to school? Do you know what spelling and grammar are? It's hard enough to take you seriously when you don't have any idea what you are talking about, let alone when you cannot even manage to type properly.

Now, after seeing the video here, I can understand thekillersfan01 making a simple mistake like that since his YouTube profile indicates he is from the USA. Glenny112 though, according to his profile is an Australian. Now that's just embarrassing.

Labels: games, rants, software, video clips

Well, I just had my first go of Unreal Tournament 3. Let's just say, I am quite the disappointed, in my computer. You may recognize the screen shot to the left as being from Duke Nukem 3D from over a decade ago.

Well, this is better quality than what my computer will run Unreal Tournament 3 at. I tried to get a screen shot of it, but my computer is in one of those "I don't feel like taking a screen shot" kind of mood's at the moment, so I guess I will get one later, if I can be bothered trying to play it again. I suppose I should, even if it is just to get a screen shot of the amazing failure of my system.

For anyone that doesn't know, my computer is as follows:

• AMD Athlon 64 3500+
• 1gb of 400mhz DDR RAM
• ATI Radeon x800 GTO 256mb/256bit (PCI-E)
  
• And the rest is mostly irrelevant.

Now the minimum requirements to run it on Windows are:

• Windows XP/Vista
• 2.0+ GHz Single Core Processor
• 512 MB of System RAM
• NVIDIA 6200+ or ATI Radeon 9600+ Video Card
• 8 GB of Free Hard Drive Space

So logically, I should be fine. Logically, my old computer should also have been fine.

However, when I open it up, it tells me that my computer doesn't even meet the minimum requirements.

Odd.

A friend of mine has an almost identical setup to mine and he could play it at higher quality settings than I can.

I think I shall have to have a bit more of a tweak and play around with my background processes and game settings.

Alternatively, I could just upgrade sooner.

For anyone interested, the recommended system requirements for Unreal Tournament 3 are:

• 2.4GHz Dual-Core Processor
• 1GB of RAM
• NVIDIA 7800GTX OR ATI x1300 GFX-card
• 8 GB of free HDD space

Yeah, my rig completely fails there.

Unreal Tournament 3 is going to be available for OS X (Yay), however, to my knowledge, it isn't out yet, please correct me if I'm wrong as I would love to get my hands on it and try it out on my Macbook Pro as I expect it will have a much better chance at doing it justice than my current desktop.

Previously, with most game sequels, take for example Unreal Tournament's 2003 and 2004, you could play 2003 at say medium quality on a computer and then the same computer would only run 2004 at low quality, this is logical right, but low quality on 2004 would be similar to medium quality on 2003. I don't remember exactly how close they are as I haven't played 2003 in some time now, this is just an example. Yet with Unreal Tournament 3, the settings I'm running it on, which I might add, are not the lowest, it is still poorer quality than a game that is over a decade old, and much poorer than it's predecessors.

This really amazes me, and yet, it doesn't surprise me all that much. In the 3-4 years since Unreal Tournament 2004, there have been some major increases in performance in virtually everything.

• Increased processing power as well as dual and quad core CPU's
• Faster and increased quantities of RAM
• Higher powered graphics processors
• Lets not forget, dedicated physics processors.

Unreal Tournament 3 does not require a dedicated physics processor, but similarly to many of the latest games, it incorporates a great deal of physics calculations that its predecessor did not.

I'm looking forward to playing this game on a new computer so I can see first hand the difference that these jumps forward have made in the Unreal Engine 3, rather than just watching video clips and trailers and drooling.

And here is a trailer, just in case you haven't already seen it:

Labels: games, software, video clips

Words do not exist to explain the sheer stupidity and ignorance shown in this video clip. I have seen the first part of this before, but this clip has more that I hadn't seen until today, and I can't help but be dumbfounded by it.



On another note. Whoever did the subtitles, learn to spell please. Thanks.

Labels: video clips

I really hope this video wasn't an official Bush Government video. If it was, it's really sad.

Labels: video clips

All I have to say is wow, the same size as two 24" displays, massively wide screen, inverse curves, I want two, and I promise not to violate them so crudely by playing World of Warcraft on them as Veronica suggested.



I would like to say something in response to her saying:

"It's a DLP screen, it's rear projection, but it has a faster response time than an LCD screen."

Yes Veronica, of course it's faster. LCD's are slow compared to their predecessor's, why should this be any different? What rock have you been living under?

If you are going to report on technology, at least know what you are talking about, please.

Anyway, now that that's out of my system, I will take two of these lovely Alienware behemoths please.

Labels: hardware, technology, video clips

I've been asked on a few occasions if it is possible to save YouTube video's to a local computer in a usable format.

Usable really depends on the definition of the person. There are a lot of free services out there such as www.downloadyoutubevideos.com or at Tech Crunch, where you paste the link to the YouTube video into the page, and it provides you with a link to download it. Then you have to rename it to a .flv file and play it in a player such as VLC that supports Flash Video files.

This method is all well and good except, a lot of people don't want to download a video player just to watch .flv files, and it really is a fair bit of work to get them this way. There are programs floating around to convert .flv files to .avi or other formats, but I haven't come across any that I particularly like, and again this is a lot of work for a single video file.

There is an alternative though. There is a website called vixy.net that that works similarly to the others in that you paste in a link to the YouTube video and it then provides a download link. This is the only similarity though.

When you put in the link you want, it gives you an option to choose what format you would like from a list:

• AVI for Windows (DivX + MP3)
• MOV for Mac (MPEG4 + MP3)
• MP4 for iPOD/PSP (MPEG4 + AAC)
• 3GP for mobile (MPEG4 + AAC)
• MP3 (audio only)

So you can pick what format you want based on what you plan on using it on. Then hit start and off you go. It is downloaded to their server and converted from a .flv to whatever format you chose and a download link is provided. This cuts out all of the other troublesome steps of the other websites that provide YouTube download links. In particular, it saves you the trouble of converting a .flv to an .avi or .mov or any of the other formats.

Of course because the DivX codec is used for the Windows option, you will need to have DivX installed on your computer, but then, you can play the video in Windows Media Player or whatever other player you prefer instead of being restricted just to VLC. Besides that, many people already have DivX installed so it's not a very big deal. DivX have both paid and free versions. The free version can be downloaded and provides everything you need to run the files from vixy.net.

There is also a free (with ads) download available from vixy.net of a PC based .flv converter if you already have the .flv files you want. I haven't tried this as of yet, but I gather it is based on the same software the website uses. It is currently only available for Windows but there is a Mac version on the way. Keep in mind that it is still only in beta so it isn't going to be perfect yet.

Alternatively, if you have access to a server you can upload the .flv files to, or if you have seen some on a website where the video url is easy to find, vixy.net will accept these links as well as YouTube ones, so it has a solution for a lot of .flv conversion possibilities.

I hope this helps someone with converting .flv files and downloading YouTube video's.

Labels: internet, software, technology, video clips

This is a great parody of the iPod ad that is all over the place. Whether you like Apple or not, this is an awesome clip:

Labels: video clips