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Attack of the Show! and X-Play Canceled

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G4 announced earlier today that they are canceling both Attack of the Show! and X-Play. Here is the official message from G4.

“G4’s two longest-running and defining series, Attack of the Show! and X-Play, will be ending their run at the end of 2012. Both shows will include original episodes through the end of the year, and will look back at their most memorable moments as we lead up to their final episodes. A rotating lineup of guest co-hosts including John Barrowman, Michael Ian Black, Josh Myers, Paul Scheer, Rob Huebel and Horatio Sanz will join AOTS hosts Candace Bailey and Sara Underwood, and X-Play hosts Morgan Webb and Blair Herter as part of the farewell shows.”AOTS_logo

“With well over a thousand episodes each, Attack of the Show! and X-Play have defined gamer culture for a generation, serving as the launch pad for prominent personalities including Kevin Pereira, Olivia Munn, Chris Hardwick and Adam Sessler.

Attack of the Show! debuted March 28, 2005 and from the start was the ultimate guide to everything cool and new in the world of technology, web culture, gaming and pop culture. X-Play made its debut almost two years  earlier, on April 28, 2003 (on G4’s previous incarnation: TechTV), and immediately became the go-to destination for young men seeking the latest video game news, honest reviews, hands-on demos and exclusive video game trailers and footage. The year-end celebration will take you back through highlights of these landmark shows’ history, including its exclusive live-from-the-floor coverage of San Diego Comic-Con and E3.”

“Both long-running shows helped define, as well as expand, the pop culture and gaming TV experience for a generation. We hope you’ve had as much fun watching them as we have had making them, and sincerely hope you join us in bidding a fond farewell to Attack of the Show and X-Play’s as we look back over the next two months and head towards each series’ finale.”

Windows 8 to be Released at Midnight and Final Thoughts

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Well, the era of Windows 8 is nigh and at 12:01 AM across all time zones, we will finally get to see how the world reacts to one of biggest changes to Microsoft Windows in the history of the company.product_win8-startscreen_Web

I have mentioned before that I think that the new Windows OS will do just fine but it will take some time for people to get used to. Most people don’t like change, it makes them uncomfortable and in some cases a bit angry. Some people will continue to hold on to Windows 7 and never let go, and they have every right to, but I think that Microsoft is headed in the right direction, it’s time to let Windows evolve.

What’s kind of strange to think about is that this release of Windows actually lacks just that, windows. For the first time Windows will be released with a new UI that doesn’t have any “windows”. How weird is that? I suppose they could have really turned things upside down on us and named it Microsoft Tiles, but that just sounds wrong. All joking aside this is a big deal for Microsoft but is it a big gamble? Maybe it isn’t.

Just where would all of those Windows 8 haters go? Would they move to Linux or OSX? I would venture to guess that most of these “h8ters”, if I may so un-elegantly put it, would just end up using a previous version like Windows 7. So how does Microsoft lose here? In the worst case scenario Microsoft completely redesigns and rethinks their UI again and quickly pushes toward Windows 9. They have had their fair share of OS failures over the years and have recovered just fine i.e. (Windows ME, Vista). I understand that putting this much time and money into a product release with this much change is a big deal but I don’t think that a Windows 8 failure is enough to make the average Windows user jump ship.

Understanding what users want and need is crucial in a release like this and Microsoft has put in billions of hours into testing Windows 8 and hopefully we will see all that hard work payoff. Windows 8 offers everything a modern OS should and they have wrapped it up in an elegant design, but there are a few major changes in Microsoft’s mentality that are reflected in Windows 8.

One of the more notable changes besides overall UI design is the sandboxing of applications. Sandboxing apps can make your system a lot more secure and it’s something that Apple has been doing for years now with Mac OS. Many developers are divided about having their apps in a sandbox environment, again it’s a change and people don’t like change, including developers. From a user perspective having an ‘app store’ is convenient and it gives us an extra sense of security knowing that these apps needed to be approved before making it into the store. Personally, I don’t have an issue with anything that has the potential to make Windows more secure.

I will be spending with weekend with Windows 8 Pro and will be talking about my experience soon after. For now we wait and see if the world will accept the change that Microsoft has put in front of us.

 

Should Apple Allow You To Exchange Your iPad?

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With the recent release of the new 4th generation iPad just 7 months after the last release, many 3rd generation iPad owners are a little angry. 7 months is pretty fast, even by today’s standards.iPad4

I would imagine that the biggest complaint among iPad users is that if they had known about a 4th generation iPad they would have most likely waited before making a purchase. This brings forth a good question, should the 3rd generation iPad have been released at all?

Yes, the retina display is amazing but overall the 3rd generation iPad doesn’t seem to cut it as a major improvement over the iPad 2. Perhaps if Apple had waited and included the new A6X processor in the 3rd generation then maybe we would feel a little better about our purchase.

It would seem that Apple wanted to update the iPad with it’s new Lightning connector in order to allow the iPad to fit in with the rest of the line up and decided that something else needs to be added in order to allow it to be considered as an actual upgrade, hence the A6X. After all, it would kind of stand out when it came time to pick out accessories and a significant performance boost will definitely be appealing. Also, we should consider the timing of this update. Apple seems to have moved from a “scattered” release of products to a single, multi-product release that lines up just before the holidays.

The question that comes to mind here is should Apple allow you to exchange your iPad 3 for a 4th generation version? Now, I am not talking about those of us who bought one 6 months ago but rather those who purchased an iPad within the last month. The good news is that if you feel frustrated by this unexpected release of the iPad 4, you’re not alone. There is significant buzz going around about the possibility of Apple having some stores exchange your iPad 3 for an iPad 4 of you have recently purchased and iPad, which would be a very cool move on Apple’s part. However, just because we think that Apple should do the exchange doesn’t mean they have to though and I’m not so sure about how this would affect consumer opinion of the company over an update of one product in a large line up.

The bottom line here is that when we decide to shop for technology, we should always assume it’s already out of date. I go through this every time I buy a new electronic device. I always have that thought in the back of my head that says, “They are going to release a new version of this next month, I just know it!”. Even if Apple doesn’t offer up an exchange or if you bought yours too long ago, you can always sell it. There is a huge demand for iPads and iPhones out there and those people don’t care if it’s not the latest or greatest, they just want a good deal on a solid product.

 

Apple Introduces New iPad Mini and Refreshes Lineup

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Today Apple has introduced their new iPad mini along with updating the iMac, Mac mini, Mac Pro, and iPad. Here’s a quick rundown of what was announced.

iPad Mini

The much anticipated iPad mini has been unveiled and it looks great. Consumers who were looking for an Apple device to better compete with devices like the Google Nexus 7 can now rejoice as Apple has done just that.iPad_mini

The new iPad mini features a 7.9 inch display which is slightly larger than the Nexus 7 which features a 7 inch display. Apple chose to describe the size difference in square inches rather than on the diagonal when comparing it to a 7 inch tablet, which works out to be 21.9 square inches (7″) and  29.6 square inches (7.9). Schiller went on to explain how much better your web browsing experience is with their 7.9″ design over their competition and then he compared apps on iPad mini vs other tablets and discussed how they offer a richer experience on the iPad mini.

The iPad mini will also feature the new Lighting connector along with new accessories like Lighting to HDMI. The body of the iPad mini -no surprise here- is made of an all aluminum unibody. Apple has also brought its iSight camera to the iPad mini and the all mighty A5 chip. If you’re planing on using the iPad mini on a cellular network, you will have the ability to take advantage of LTE.

iPad

Even though it has only been about half a year since the release of the iPad 3rd generation with retina display, Apple has just introduced the new 4th generation iPad that features a new A6X chip that’s 2x as fast as the previous generation iPad. The 4th generation iPad also has the latest in Wi-Fi technology and will be able to pick up both 2.4GHz and 5GHz (dual-band). Also, the new Lightning connector is now a part of the 4th generation iPad.

 

iMac

The iMac was one of my favorite unveilings that Apple had to offer. The new iMac looks great with it’s brand new slim design that has a screen edge of only 5mm. The back of the display is a much wider than the edge but it is done in a way that’s easy on the eyes.newiMac

Speaking of easy on the eyes, you will be dealing with 75% less reflection. The new iMac uses 50% less power than previous generations and has been equipped with the latest (ivy bridge) processors from Intel including both i5 and i7 chips. Graphics get a bump up to the latest Keplar architecture with the option to get the NVIDIA GeForce GTX 680MX on the 27″ model.

Fusion Drive

The fusion drive is a combination of flash storage and traditional HDD storage. The flash storage will hold 128GB and the traditional HDD can be 1 or 3 TB. The Fusion Drive isn’t just a mix of both technologies it actually implements some really cool software that moves your applications from one drive to the other depending on it’s performance needs. The OS and pre-installed software will be placed on the flash storage for best performance and initially all of the apps you install will be stored on the HDD. OSX will then recognize which programs you use the most and which programs require the most performance and then move them to the much faster flash drive accordingly. Pretty cool idea considering most of us are already doing this manually with our computers.

 

Mac Pro

Apple continues to push their most popular laptops forward and the Mac Pro 13″ has now been updated with a retina display, a new thinner design and an all flash architecture.MBP13Retina

Mac Mini

The Mac mini remains basically the same except it gets up bump up in processing power by now featuring the new Ivy Bridge Intel chips. It should be said that the Mac mini really didn’t need much else, the Mac mini is affordable and can be a real workhorse considering it’s small size, cool little box.

For complete details on these new products you can head over to Apple.

 

Are You Ready For UHDTV?

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Just as we are starting to get really comfortable with HDTV as it is today, we are already looking ahead to the next big step.UHDTV Ultra High Definition Television

HDTV’s and basically any other displays we use are constantly being improved.

Television resolution was locked in at 480i (NTSC) and 576i (PAL) and these resolutions were the standard in television broadcasting for decades. Today, we seem to be in a race to create the most detailed display possible and every few months there is something better being created. We may not think about it very much but this is history being made before our eyes, quite literally.

Most of us are familiar with HDTV by now, which consists of two resolutions, 1080i/p (1920 x 1080) and 720p (1280 x 720). UHDTV or Ultra High Definition Television consists of 4K aka 2160p (4096 x 2160) and 8K aka 4320p (7680 x 4320). 3840 × 2160 is also considered to be UHDTV but for obvious reasons is not considered to be 4K.

Why in the world do we need such high resolutions? Well, as we begin to increase screen size we loose detail and with screen sizes over 80 inches, as is the case with projection systems, we begin to loose some of the fine detail that standard HDTV offers on screen sizes below 80 inches. 4K has primarily been used in projection technology until recently.

Now we are seeing LCD television sets that employ both 4K and 8K technology on screens at 84 and even 145 inch screens. The name of the game here is to reduce the visibility of pixels. Technologies like the Retina display from Apple and other high dpi screens also aim to make pixels disappear but on a much smaller scale. Resolution is relative to screen size, take a 1080p  image and place it on a 145 inch screen, that’s not going to look so great but also imagine 4K on your mobile phone, that’s not very practical so everything here is about making things look as smooth as possible based on screen size.

UHDTV_resolution_chart
Credit (GrandDrake)

Now that we have a basic understanding of what UHDTV actually is, it’s time to consider it’s actual implementation. In order for UHDTV to be broadcast, it would require a significant amount of bandwidth to do so. Many of our current television providers struggle to get us standard HDTV without severely compressing it and removing other data from the video pipeline. This also is true with streaming video online, we have only recently seen HDTV quality streaming actually work well on the internet and this is because we are still technically in the early days of broadband internet. I know what you’re thinking, our broadband has been around for more than a decade now! Yes, it is true that high speed internet has been around and it is relatively quick but we have only seen the tip of the “broadband iceberg”. Broadband will soon be many, many times faster than it is today and that’s when it will be practical to broadcast  or stream UHDTV.

I guess we can relax for now about our recent HDTV purchase as it looks like good old 1080p will be around for quite a while yet but we will start to see things change and it will be just as amazing as was the first HDTV display. It makes you wonder how much better will our displays get before we reach that theoretical “sweet spot”.