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Carrie Fisher will return as Leia in new “Star Wars” films

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Carrie Fisher was undoubtedly noticed for her role as Princess Leia in the original Star Wars trilogy.

Recently she sat down with Palm Beach Illustrated for a Q&A session. They asked her if she could confirm her return as Leia in the new saga with Disney and she said “yes”. They also asked her what she thinks Princess Leia would be like today and if she would still be rocking the famous buns, and she answered, “Elderly. She’s in an intergalactic old folks’ home [laughs]. I just think she would be just like she was before, only slower and less inclined to be up for the big battle. The bagel buns and the bikini, because probably she has sundowners syndrome. At sundown, she thinks that she’s 20-something. And she puts it on and gets institutionalized.”

Leia

Rumors are still going around that Harrison Ford will return as Han Solo. So What about Mark Hamil? He said last month that George Lucas has spoken to the main cast, and he would not re-cast any of their roles if they decline to return.

The new “Star Wars” saga is to be in theaters in 2015.

For the entire Q&A with Carrie Fisher visit Palm Beach Illustrated

The Industry is Pushing 4K Television Forward

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We are just a week into 2013 and the tone of this year’s technology is already being set. New televisions are popping up left and right from manufacturers like Sony, Samsung, LG and Visio and this time they’re bringing with them some new tech. What new tech? Well, 4K to be more precise and sure it’s going to look fantastic but I can’t help but feel like it’s a bit of overkill.

First off what exactly is 4K television? Well, I have addressed this in an earlier post that goes into a little more detail, but to gloss over everything it’s basically twice the resolution of current 1080p television. This new high resolution has been named UHD or Ultra-High Definition. UHD also includes an even higher resolution known as 8K UHD (7680 × 4320).

UHDTV_resolution_chart

Now, all of this looks great and I can’t say I’m against moving technology forward, but my main issue with UHDTV is that it just seems like overkill. There is only so much that we can see with our eyes and unless you’re sitting right in front of your display, like less than 4 ft, I don’t think most people will be able to see the difference. Perhaps I am wrong, I didn’t think that I would be able to tell the difference with Apple’s Retina display, boy was I wrong. Plus these new resolutions will allow for some ridiculously awesome television sizes. I have seen some TV’s pushing the 80″+ range and they still look amazing.

A big issue with UHD is cost. These TV’s are selling for around $25,000 which isn’t exactly appealing to a very large audience. However, this year’s CES press conference from Sony has shown that 4K is becoming more affordable. Content is king, this is true for many things in life and it’s also true for UHDTV. There just isn’t much 4K content out there to enjoy on your new UHDTV set. This is the same problem we ran into when we first got into HDTV, there was little to no content and cable/satellite providers took years to get a decent amount of programming together, not to mention all of the issues they will have trying to get enough bandwidth together to broadcast 4K or even 8K.

Here is the new 65″ 4K TV that Sony unveiled at their CES Press Release.

SonyUHDTV
65″ 4K Ultra HD TV
Model number: XBR-65X900A (Source:Sony)

The industry will catch up and the move to UHDTV is most likely inevitable, so these problems will eventually be overcome. For the average consumer we will just have to wait and watch until something more affordable comes down the line.

WoW Players Preferred Over Harvard MBAs?

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In a Big Think video John Seely Brown, a notable researcher, discusses the benefits that World of Warcraft gamers have over others. He talks about how World of Warcraft players have a true passion for what they are doing and how that helps drive them towards success. He also talks about how applying the practices of good guilds to the business world could be beneficial and much better than the system we use today. He mentions that self-assesment, group criticism and having employees work on something they genuinely care about is the key to being successful and that we need to rethink the way we do things.

Ask any hardcore raider from WoW and you will most certainly begin to notice that there’s a lot of strategy and structure to what gamers are doing when they are working as part of a guild. After you spend sometime playing in an organized guild, you quickly begin to realize that you have been building a unique skill set that you can easily apply to other situations in the real world. John’s ideas make for an interesting concept and I like the idea of challenging our current system.

[Massively]

Happy New Year!

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newYears

It’s time to celebrate another successful revolution around the sun! Most importantly I would like to take this moment to thank everyone who has supported us. I am having so much fun writing and talking about the geeky things that I love and it’s great to share that experience with others like you. We hope to continue to grow and make the experience even better!

Thanks for Everything!

Happy New Year from GWE!

 

Windows 8 Feels Like a Dud

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product_win8-startscreen_Web

I have been tinkering around with Windows 8 since the developer preview and I was pretty excited initially about it’s release, but now that it’s finally here, I am feeling like something is majorly wrong with this version of Windows.

One only needs to spend 60 seconds with Windows 8 to realize that it’s not Microsoft’s best work. I have been working with people just about everyday trying to help them easily transition to the new operating system and it’s proven to be quite a challenge. You know something is wrong with your shiny new OS when PC hardware manufacturers, like Gateway, need to place an icon somewhere on the screen to help you shut down your computer. In case you missed it, we have put together a brief how-to that shows you how to make such an icon for yourself.

Windows 8 dosen’t fully commit to one user-interface and that alone will drive you crazy. You will find yourself wanting to exist in one space or the other but ultimately you will need to switch between both. This issue leaves Windows 8 feeling disconnected from itself and it’s just downright frustrating. There a many aspects of the new tile UI that I enjoy but it’s just not built to be productive. Many of the applications that I use day-to-day require me to move to the legacy desktop and therefore I spend almost all of my time there.

There are hidden menus in each corner and once they are open, they frequently disappear unexpectedly. When the menus do stay open, I have trouble fumbling through a poorly designed search system to find files or applications that I need. Changing settings or just trying to obtain Windows updates through the new tile based UI is buggy and most of the time I end up, once again, heading back to the legacy desktop.

Your design should be intuitive and new users should feel welcome when they first see Windows 8. Even though you shouldn’t have too, there is almost no attempt to guide the user in the right direction besides a small animation toward the end of the Windows 8 installation that explains how to bring up the hidden menus that are at the edge of the screen.

Even app developers don’t seem confident in the new OS. The lack of a solid app base is killing Windows 8 more than anything, we need a reason to enjoy our new tile system with full screen applications. Many major software companies have avoided making Windows 8 apps that work with the new tile UI, and those who have adapted have buggy applications that don’t feel like their worth the hard drive space.

I believe Windows 8 is the worst release of Microsoft’s OS software to-date. I would consider myself to be advanced user with knowledge of many different operating systems and yet I find it difficult to perform routine tasks. This one screams out “I’m a DUD!”. What’s worse is that I am starting to feel like the guinea pig here and I am just waiting for Microsoft to ask me to shell out more money for a rushed copy of  Windows 9 due to the failure of Windows 8’s poor design.

Honestly, Windows 8 is a mess and we can only hope that Microsoft will do the right thing and fix many of the issues that plague the new OS today, with the release of a service pack in the near future. I am trying to remain optimistic about Microsoft’s ability to create a next-gen OS that’s sleek, functional, easy-to-use, and that works seamlessly across all of my devices, but I’m loosing faith.