Thursday 5 September 2013

Microsoft to Release Xbox One with Another Big But

When the Xbox One was first revealed in May, Microsoft stated that users would be able to expand the system's internal hard drive with an external USB storage device. But, when it first releases it won't have this functionality because Microsoft are confused all the time.

Speaking during a live podcast recorded at PAX this weekend, Xbox Community Manager Larry "Major Nelson" Hryb said that, while the external storage feature is being worked on, "my understanding is that feature will not be there at launch because the team's working on other things. It's definitely on the list; I don't know when it will come in, though."

This will most likely result in most people waiting till next year before they buy the console because my guess is this will be one of many things for Microsoft to me up.

In comparison, according to Sony Head of Worldwide Studios Shuhei Yoshida, the PlayStation 4 will not support external USB storage for installed games, but PS4 users will be able to replace the 500GB internal hard drive in the system with expanded storage. (The Xbox One will not offer direct physical access to the internal hard drive for replacement.) Nintendo's Wii U supports external USB hard drives of up to 2TB in size.

Wednesday 4 September 2013

One Touch Hero Unveiled

Alcatel's One Touch Scribe HD has been replaced with a newer sibling. The One Touch Hero.

The Android 4.2 smartphone upgrades to a 6-inch 1080p LCD screen, and gives a choice of optional cover accessories that enhance the pretty big display.

An E-Ink cover for example, lets owners read books without using the power-hungry main screen. There's also a wireless charging cover available and a MagicFlip cover for LED notifications. Even without those extra bits, the Hero is a hell of a lot more powerful than its Scribe HD predecessor. It carries a faster 1.5GHz quad-core processor with 2GB of RAM, a sharper 13-megapixel rear camera, an improved 2-megapixel front shooter and either 8GB or 16GB of expandable storage.

For those interested, the One Touch Hero will be available in October in the "high-end" price band. According to stats, this wont be the best on the market as the galaxy S4 has a whopping 1.9Ghz processor but to get a truthful comparison we will have to wait till it comes out. However, it does look much nicer than the S4 and will probably gain sales because of that.

Tuesday 3 September 2013

Pressy, "The Almighty Android Button"

Most famous Kickstarter campaigns all share some crazy high of raising outlandish sums of money to create some next gen android consoley shit and it takes months or years to get to the target. Well, Pressy still had a pretty high goal of $40,000 (£25,682) managed to get an outstanding $60,000 (£38,523) in one day alone.

Yes. They destroyed their goal by over £10,000 in one, single day.

So, why all the hype?  Pressy is an accessory that plugs into the 3.5mm headphone jack on your phone, giving you the ability to “perform your favourite and most common actions with a simple, intuitive physical button.” The free Pressy application that comes with it allows you to configure custom actions based on a variety of button press sequences. Using Pressy, you could launch your camera and take a picture with two short presses of the button, or call your mates with one short press and two long presses. If like me, you use headphones with your headphone port, fear not. The Pressy app can also be used with the in-line button on your headphones. So it also works as an app for use with headphones, wonderful.
      
All of the “early bird” Kickstarter deals for Pressy have already sold out, but you can still grab one for as little as a tenner. With so much funding, the Nimrod Back team should have no issues getting the product manufactured in the 4 month time-frame they have set for themselves.

The currently have 16,135 backers, £245,969 raised and 41 days to go! If you would like to back the project click here to get to the Kickstarter page

Saturday 31 August 2013

BlackBerry Prematurely Announce Multidevice BBM Release

Yes. BlackBerry have made the ultimate noob move. They successfully managed to state the release of the Android and iOS BBM apps before they become available.

There are 2 things to gain from this. First of all, this gives the impression they have successfully made either one or both of the apps and they will be released soon and a friendly reminder that BlackBerry are very bad at everything. Unless they are purposely building up hype but I don't think that's the case.

So yeah, just thought id let you know this happened. BYE!

JUST SO YOU KNOW: This was first discovered by CrackBerry

Thursday 29 August 2013

New Z1 Trailer Released by Xperia to Give us a Nice Peek

The Xperia Z1 hasn't really caught my eye but it seems that completely leaking your new device before you even launch it is the way firsts. In this treat from Sony, we get a teaser video for the device that shows off almost the entire phone.

The all revealing video shows off the crazy ass 20MP camera with a Sony G lens and circular power button on the side. Another nice touch is the dedicated camera button. So any instagram hipsters and photo happy people should be pleased as these buttons have disappeared throughout the evolution of phones.

Looking at the design of the phone, it seems it has a glass back (this is often used to make your phone look and feel more expensive). Seeing as the phone is submerged in water at one point, it appears the Xperia Z1 will be just as waterproof as the Z model.

So you can see why I have turned a blind eye to this but the post felt necessary so there you go. The video is somewhere in this post if you want it.

Windows 8.1 is Ready. But.....

Yep, you guess it, it's a massive but! It will be unavailable to the average human being until October.

Only yesterday, Microsoft completed Windows 8.1 it has been seeded to manufacturers. But us less important must wait until October 18th. Strangely, MSDN and TechNet subscribers won’t get an early look in despite the face they ARE developers, but that's just how Microsoft rolls I guess.

The reason this matters to technological society is this means Microsoft get another shot at getting into the glorious tablet market as this will only be available for tablets. This also seems like Microsoft are slowing down the whole PC market thing as tablet's are supposedly taking over the pc (I personally disagree).

So yeah, that happens. Windows 8.1 in 2 months

Tuesday 21 May 2013

Xbox ONE: First Thoughts


The Xbox's specs were briefly mentioned as an 8-Core CPU, 8GB RAM, 500GB hard disk drive, Blu-ray drive (FINALLY), Wi-Fi direct, USB 3.0 and 1080p wide camera. Basically the same as PS4 but with a camera. Microsoft had shown the Xbox and the controller straight away, the X(box) is just a box and the controller is another bog standard controller. 


First of all: NO!!

What I understand from the stream, is that the new features consist of an OS that makes use of Voice Control and gestures. I am not to keen on this as people like to talk freely and move there arms without wanting a response. They also talked about the Skype features and a new peek thingy which lets you do 2 things at once. STILL NOTHING ON GAMING

It also uses Explorer, Windows 8 and etc

They then went on to talk about their TV things. Basically, a freeview box. The problem is, I Smart TV can do all this and this doesn't work well when you have a subscription box.

The first piece of gaming news was that all games run on the cloud and it is constantly online. Does this mean I don't buy discs? or don't save games locally? I don't know. They also said that the Xbox Live still costs money and it will have 300,000 servers, so some good news.

They introduced an EA Sports guy with 2 watches but the stream broke. 

The last thing they did was show of Call of Duty: Ghosts first they showed a trailer and boasted their new engine along with a dog. When they said they will show gameplay, they showed another trailer, when that ended, the stream stopped. No goodbyes, No thank yous, NOTHING

Final Thoughts: If I want a TV I will buy one, a games console is not a TV, what did you actually change in terms of gameplay?, and what makes you think this is better than the PS4?

Please comment your thoughts below. Any pro Xbox comments will face my rage

I am severely disappointed in you Xbox