Microsoft Student Technology Day UK
4th September, 2008

Its just over three weeks away from today in your diary. Steve Ballmer, CEO of Microsoft and all the influential partners and companies will be in London for the Microsoft Student Technology Day.

This day is about and for students, introducing technologies and ideas for the next generation of IT users, the student. There’ll be discussions on development, design factors, turning ideas into commercial products and entrepreneurial successes.
Steve Ballmer attending to give his keynote speech, discussing why computer science is critical to the future of business and commercial products, technologies and insight, and discussing insight into the Software plus Services arena.

Microsoft Surface will make an outward show, probably hands on tutorials and demonstrations, to show the student the power of physical technology and also the development opportunities for those who wish to play around with the SDK. They’ll also be Cambridge researchers there explaining the science behind highly popular games such as Halo 3, and showing maths in a new light, past its geeky image.

Not only that, the business and entrepreneurial side of things will be explained in how to start a successful business and start-up the gritty  and natty stuff in starting your own company stemming from a single clever idea.

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"5 Years Left for Blu-ray," Samsung UK
4th September, 2008

Blu-ray won the format war over HD-DVD, but how long will that victory last? Samsung UK director of consumer electronics Andy Griffiths says, not as long as Sony may have been expecting. In a recent interview with site Pocket-Lint, Griffiths said, "I think it (Blu-ray) has 5 years left, I certainly wouldn't give it 10."

Instead, Griffiths sees direct digital distribution as the future of video formats, and with the growing popularity of streaming content and the popularity of distribution services such as Apple's iTunes store, it's not hard to imagine a completely digital future.
And what a digital future it will be.

Digital distribution is cheaper, both to put out and for us as the consumers. And while there are risks involved with losing your movies if anything happens to your computer, there's still the option to back-up your digital films on a physical disc if you feel the need. But I think Griffiths is still being too optimistic for Blu-ray, because digital distribution is already here, and it's a constantly growing market. Given the still high cost of Blu-ray discs, I'd say two or three years is a more reasonable estimate before digital distribution swallows the disc market.

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Cool Stereoscopic 3D gaming
26th August, 2008

According to Nvidia, Stereoscopic 3D gaming is one of the next big things for the visual computing industry.

Jen-Hsun introduced the concept during his opening keynote speech and in many ways, it’s very similar to what Intel announced with DreamWorks last week. However, instead of being focused on the movie industry, Nvidia wants to bring this technology to gamers.

Both ViewSonic and Mitsubishi have been demoing stereoscopic screens in conjunction with Nvidia’s new GeForce Stereoscopic 3D technology. ViewSonic’s display is a new 22-inch display with a 120Hz refresh rate and a 1,680 x 1,050 native resolution, it should be available worldwide in the next couple of quarters all being well.

Mitsubishi, on the other hand, had a 72-inch DLP TV using the same technology and it’s already shipping. However, Mitsubishi said that we’re unlikely to see this TV in the UK because "the European market doesn’t like big TVs" apparently…

I had a play around in "Unreal Tournament III", "Guitar Hero III" and "Race Driver: GRID". I have to say the effect is amazing and it was probably the most immersive 3D gaming experience I’ve ever had. I seriously didn’t want to stop playing, but had I not stopped playing, I wouldn’t be here telling you about it right now.

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Computer games developers threat UK
22nd August, 2008

Nearly 25,000 computer users in United Kingdom are to be threatened with legal action by the games industry for sharing games over the internet illegally.

Five of the world's top computer games developers are hoping to send notice on the users, many of them families, with each one need to pay £300 immediately to settle or risk being taken to court.

As many as six million people approximately in the UK illegally share games over the internet. This action comes after an unemployed mother of two, became the first person in the UK to be ordered to pay damages to a manufacturer.

She was ordered to pay costs totally more than £16,000 to Topware after downloading Dream Pinball through a file sharing site, earlier this week.

David Gore, a partner of the law firm, stated: "Illegal file sharing is a very serious issue resulting in millions of pounds of losses to copyright owners. As downloading speeds and internet penetration increase, this continues to be a worldwide problem across the media industry which increasingly relies on digital revenues.

They have applied to the High Court for an order requiring internet service providers to hand over the names of 25,000 names and addresses and already have 5,000 addresses after providing evidence illegal file sharing had taken place.

The move however has provoked criticism in the games industry, which believes publishers may be reluctant to bring legal action against their "core market".

Intel’s new Core i7 processor
11th August, 2008

If you imagined that after Core 2 Duo the processor name would be like Core 3 Trio, or Core 3, but NO the new name convention sounds totally different, Core i7. Statements have come over what i7 really means and whether it’s an iApple inspiration, but Intel has promised all will become clear soon enough.

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