Merry Christamas and happy 2007 to everyone

From here I wanted to wish you all a happy 2007, may all your wishes become true on this new year.

We'll be active in the blog during 2007 too, and I'll tell you soon about the 20' wide screen and the upgrade we got on both computers.

Saint Claus and the Wise Men, be good with my blog readers!!!

[STORY] SIMO was great, an amazing experience

Well, it's here, it took some time to write it, but this is basically what I did during on Saturday and Sunday November 11th and 12th.
As I said in a previous post, I was in the SIMO, a big computers and technology exhibition in Madrid, hosted in a place called IFEMA.

I went on Saturday morning, at about 10:30 local time, with a couple of friends. I walked through all the pavilions (from now on, when I say pavilion I mean the different buildings where there were stands, with products, etc) to see what there was in each one. It took about two hours, since there were a lot of them, and they were so big!
There was a big place with Mac stuff: Mac G5, lovely screens, iPods, etc. In the Toshiba stand, they were showing the possibilities of the HD-DVD, they had LCD screens with movies in High Definition, you could also buy a HD-DVD drive (the cheapest was 800€)

Me

Anyway, I have no doubt the best pavilion was one entirely dedicated to Microsoft. Good job Microsoft, you did a great job. They shown there: Windows Vista, Office 2007, Flight Simulator X and a lot of stuff of the xbox 360 that I'll detail later.

Windows Vista

There was even a place for Windows Live. They were showing the possibilities that the new Windows Live environment gives the user (Live Mail, Windows Live Messenger, Live Search, etc).
What you see in the photo below is a fight between two guys inside a Messenger dress. Quite funny, it was making a lot of noise, you could hear it from any place of the pavilion, people laughing, shouting...

Windows Live Stand

The XBOX 360 was the star of this pavilion, with a big stand full of consoles in Samsung Screens, showing Pro Evolution Soccer 5, Fifa 07, Gears of War (without any doubt the great success on SIMO 2006) and Viva Piñata.
Moreover, every half hour a great guy made a kind of conference about the new devices that will come out for xbox 360, as well as showing the people that didn't know the consoles, the multimedia possibilities it brings to the general public (the commonly called "casual gamers"), as the option of seeing photos, listening to music, etc.
I have to say he made a great work on showing how great the console is because of these little details. He shown the camera, the HD-DVD device (not connected, cause there was no dashboard update yet), the wireless wheel and the new headset.

One curious details is that the consoles were not normal consoles, but debug consoles, as shown in this image:

There was another pavillion called "iLife" (doesn't it reminds you of Apple stuff?), where there were basically consoles. Sony overall had PS2s with Guitar Hero, Buzz and other games like that. They made some tournaments as well, I participated on one of xbox 360 Dead or Alive, I wan the first match, and lost the second, but I took many magazines that were there for your disposal :P
But the queen of this pavilion was the Sony Play Station 3. Don't get me wrong, you couldn't play it, you couldn't even touch it or get any close, it was inside a crystal box looking beaty next to the controller (the "sixaxis").


Well, and this is it. I hope you enjoyed reading this as much as I enjoyed that day. I'm looking forward for next year SIMO, I hope studies allow me go.

Windows Live Messenger 8.1 Build 168 Public Beta

It's been so long since the last Windows Live Release, I tried the latest BETA and I was quite disappointed. A quick release of a 8.1 build lacking new features, and with bugs.

Finally a new build, much newer, build 168. I haven't tried it yet and I don't know what's new on it. I'll keep this updated.


Download.

Japaneses liked the PS3 more than XBOX 360 or Wii

Nobody wonder why, Microsoft knew that XBOX 360 wouldn't sell more consoles in Japan than PS3.

No more than 180,000 consoles sold Microsoft since last year when they released the the white console, and Sony has sold 10,000 more consoles than Microsoft only in its first month.

Nothing that we weren't expecting.
On the other hand, Microsoft was much more lucky on the United States, where it's going to reach the number of 1,000,000 units sold.

I played Nintendo Wii

Yesterday was a big day, one of those days you don't forget. I visited Expo-Comic, a convention about comics and video games (actually there were 7 square meters dedicated to them out of the 400 square meters available). I honestly don't give a damn about comics, so I spent all the 5 hours on the Cultura Otaku stand. They had 2 American wii's in two 32 inches Samsung HD televisions. The games they had were (appart of Wii Sports): Zelda Twilight Princess, Trauma Center and Dragon Ball Z: Budokai Tenkaichi 2.

I played myself Wii Sports (Bowling) and Trauma Center.

Well, remember I own a xbox 360, I didn't plan on buying a Wii, but the experience was amazing. I had read the Wiimote didn't work that well, that it was buggy, that it took a lot to show on the screen what you made with the hand, that your movements wasn't represented on the game accurately. All lies by Sonyers. Playing = Believing.

On the bowling game, which I played the first, I felt what you feel when you touch a console that hasn't been released on your territory yet, a console that will revolution the consoles world. You feel important.
Wii Sports bowling is a simple game, like all of the Wii Sports games, but it's so addictive! You start playing, and after a few seconds, you forget you have a Wiimote in your hand, and you feel you have a ball, and you get into the TV. You actually do control everything, you feel you are controlling everything in the game.

I saw Zelda Twilight Princess, and well, despite I haven't played any Zelda games in the past (N64 Zeldas), I didn't like the game. In my humble opinion it's too much button-pushing oriented, and less Wiimote moving actions, but like I said above, Playing is Believing.

Trauma Center was probably the best of the games I saw. It's realistic, let me explain myself, it doesn't work exactly like real life, I'm not gonna be a medician for playing it, but it's realistic in the way that you get nervous when you are saving lifes, like in real life. The pointer in the screen is very sensible and accurate, if your hand is shaking, the pointer will vibrate in the screen, and it'll be hard to make the surgery.

Well and that's all. Wii is out in Europe, a friend of mine got it so I'm looking forward to going to try it with him. Anyway I felt very glad to have been able to try it before it were released.

You've seen tons of pics of it, but I leave a couple I made:

The top cover. (with the GameCube controller ports)
The Wiimote receiver.
No disc tray, like in PS3.

5 reasons to love & hate Windows Vista

Microsoft finally launches the long-awaited Windows Vista, promising better security and improved search and claiming it will be the fastest ever adopted operating system it has released.

But some users have already questioned the business benefits of upgrading to Vista, citing the relative stability and security of Windows XP and a lack of compelling features in Vista.

Based on using the second beta version of Vista here are the five things to get excited about Vista for--and the five things you'll hate it for.

Five things to love about Windows Vista

Search or create virtual files. Microsoft has integrated search throughout its new operating system. You can search for all documents authored by John Doe, then save the search as a virtual file folder for later reference without having to physically relocate or make copies of all those files.

Gadgets. In Windows Vista, Microsoft allows you to drag and drop Gadgets to tell the time, calculate currency or tackle any trivial task you perform regularly that would be handier if it were always on top of your current screen.

Built-in diagnostics. Programs refusing to run, operating system crashes--Microsoft says these will be things of the past with Vista.

Need more oomph?. Vista will find it for you. Need more RAM? How about borrowing some from that 256MB or greater USB drive? In Windows Vista, the new Windows ReadyBoost feature can swap flash memory with any large USB device.

Enhanced help. Help used to be limited to a few pithy sentences about the task you want to perform. Windows Vista changes all that. There are more options available within Help inside Vista.

Five things you'll hate about Windows Vista

Your current hardware won't fully run Vista. Although many computers in use today will be able to update and run the new operating system, they'll only be able to run it in what Microsoft slyly calls 'Windows Vista Basic'. In this mode, you'll have the ability to search files but you won't have 3D Aero graphics, live animation along the Taskbar or smooth streaming graphics on your desktop.

Vista's Aero graphics eat laptop battery power. If you're used to your laptop lasting on a long journey, you might want to reconsider upgrading to Windows Vista.

User Account Protection. In order to perform basic tasks, such as install or remove an application, even administrator account users must answer a series of pop-up messages, adding time to the process.

Missing drivers and incompatible applications. Not having all the necessary drivers or not having software compliant with a new operating system is to be expected in the beta of a new OS but even after several months of developer testing.

Troubled sleep. Instant Off, a new option on the Start menu, allows Windows Vista to take a quick snapshot of your system, then shut down completely, thus eliminating the occurrence of a hot laptop inside your backpack. After experiencing several false starts--literally, I was unable to resume my Windows Vista session as I'd left it.

Full version.

Ken Kutaragi no longer the image of PlayStation

Ken Kutaragi, the father of PlayStation, and the live image of PS3 said yesterday that he wouldn't continue his daily activity working on PlayStation.
And this happens in the context of a recent launch of its last console, the Play Station 3, which hit the market after many polemic and negative opinions against it, the high price and the delay in Europe helped people think it wasn't going to be Sony's big success.
Though he'll remain as SCE (Sony Computer Entertainment) chief executive, his post will be occupied by Kazuo Hirai, former American Division chief.

“It’s been a very, very difficult launch,” said Mike Hickey, a video game industry analyst at Janco Partners, who characterized the management changes as “a heavy move,” particularly Mr. Kutaragi’s new job.

“There was a significant increase in the market share for Xbox because of the delay, and the PS3’s higher price will also have an impact,” said Todd Dagres, a partner of Sony at Spark Capital, “You have to look at it and say Sony didn’t do themselves any favors, and usually they try to place the blame somewhere.”

My opinion (this has nothing to do with the source), when things like this happen in a company, it means it's not going right, Sony has problems and there is no doubt about that. It's going to be difficult for Sony to advance in the market with PS3. But Sony PS3 is not just a console, its success / failure affects the success / failure of the BluRay format in the HD-DVD/BluRay war.

We will see, keep an eye here to know how the NextGen war is going.

Source.

Photoshop CS3 details unvelieved

Photoshop CS3's interface is said to closely resemble the look and feel of Adobe After Effects 7, with easy palette organization and brightness adjustment for the overall interface itself. Palettes can be moved, minimized, customized or collapsed down to a single icon with ease; even that familiar two-column toolbar can be converted into a narrower single column bar, if desired.

Another new feature substantially improving both workflow and raw performance is Live Filters, which effectively brings the dynamic editing features of Layer Styles to Filters. The pixel radius of a Gaussian Blur, for example, can be adjusted long after it has been applied with just a single mouse click. Sources report substantial performance improvements to the filters themselves, as well, and have speculated that Photoshop may now be tapping the GPU of the video card to help the CPU crunch filters.

With regard to non-destructive editing improvements, sources report that layers can now be saved as smart objects that the new editable filters can now be applied to.

With version CS3, Adobe seems to have improved on virtually every application Photoshop is employed to handle. Sources say that 3D objects can not only be imported now, but their textures can easily modified, as well. Video support has also been improved with Photoshop CS3, allowing a film strip to be imported and saved as a PSD file with markers that Adobe Premiere and After Effects can read. In addition, a new Analysis menu includes a number of measurement tools sure to please engineers and 3D artists, while the new built-in Device Library contains listings for virtually every phone and smart device in existence, allowing users to preview how their creations will appear on the screens of such products.

Substantial improvements to Photoshop's Save For Web functionality also appear in store, but are currently unfinished; support for Flash animation is expected to be incorporated.

Adobe has previously said it is targeting the release of Adobe Creative Suite 3 for the second-quarter of 2007. Sources recently corroborated that date, saying an announcement in March or April seems reasonable given the current status of development.

Continue reading.

Gran Turismo HD canceled

Gran Turismo HD was presented on last E3 and it received many critics from the public. Myself, I think it was just Gran Turismo 4 in 1080p resolution with a couple more cars. It didn't look like they were making a huge effort on making a completely new game, with damage in the cars, or that kind of things that GT4 lacked. (don't misunderstand me, I bought GT4 when I had a PS2 and it's one of the best games I've ever played, it was just perfect, couldn't be better on a system like PS2)

There were even rumors that Polyphony could cancel it.
Finally, that is, they canceled the project, focusing their minds on the on coming (2008?) Gran Turismo 5.

Even though, they'll release a demo in the Play Station 3 store with the most remarkable aspects of it.

Gran Turismo fans, and PS3 owners / wannabuys, I'm sorry for this.

EDIT: Gran Turismo HD Concept (this is how it's called now, remember that GT4 Prologue, a kind of preview of GT4) will be available for download from December 25.

Source.

Minor update for the xbox 360 dashboard

I switched on my 360 recently and got prompted with a new update for the dashboard. Give the recent major update I thought it would be some bug fixing update. I downloaded it, navigated through the menus, and I didn't see anything new.

I checked the xbox site and it didn't say anything about the update, so I haven't known until today about what had changed in the update.

In that last update, they added the expected 1080p support through component and VGA, but people were experiencing problems (I didn't know, I can't afford a 1080p TV), so this is what this update is for.

Also:

• Improved support for HD video output over VGA, including 1080p resolution.
• Improved plug and play performance for wired headsets when being used with wireless controllers.
• Changes made to recently played games list to improve accuracy.

Still, it seams that there could be some minor problems, but I'm sure they'll get fixed quickly, as Microsoft has been doing so far with the 360 (I'm not talking about Operating Systems :P)

Source.