First Look: VMware ThinApp 4.0
September 10, 2008
Dave Bailey, vnunet.com, Wednesday 10 September 2008 at 18:06:00
ThinApp delivers secure applications through sandboxing
Launched in June, ThinApp 4.0 is the first iteration of the application VMware acquired through its takeover of ThinStall in January….
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Review: Battlefield: Bad Company Xbox 360 game
August 16, 2008
Anthony Dhanendran, Computeract!ve, Saturday 16 August 2008 at 10:00:00
Relive ‘Nam in this classy shooter
The bad company in question here is a squad of misfits – these aren’t the classy, committed, highly trained troops to be found in most war games….
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Art Attack Friday: I Am 8-Bit 2008
August 15, 2008
Last night I was lucky enough to be invited to the opening of this year’s I Am 8-Bit art show in good ol’ Hollywood, California. For anyone not familiar with the show, I Am 8-Bit is a compilation of videogame themed art by a variety of artists. What’s most impressive about the show is that a lot of the artists aren’t even gamers. Once you see how detailed and meaningful some of the pieces are, it is hard to believe they were created by people that have never touched a videogame before.
But don’t take my word for it, check out the below gallery to check everything out. But be prepared: I took a lot of pictures. In fact, I think I got a picture of nearly every single piece on display. This may be the biggest gallery Destructoid has ever seen!
In all honesty, though, I couldn’t help myself. The art is absolutely incredible. As I walked around the large gallery, I was endlessly impressed by how creative and varied everything was. From a modern, nude Princess Peach with a P-wing tattoo to an Elevator Action movie poster, all the artwork was just as beautiful as it was wonderfully random.
Luckily I didn’t spend any money, but I was this close to buying a 0 Chrono Trigger painting. I’m not kidding. Hit the jump to see which painting I am talking about and also for a list of my top 5 favorite pieces.
If you live in the L.A. area you have to check out this free (!) show. It runs until September 7. Click here to find out more about it. And if you happen to purchase something really cool, hey, my birthday is coincidentally next month!
Game store
August 15, 2008
Next time you cut down a monster in an online game or punch a supervillain into the next county remember that your actions are helping to write the history of a new world.
To ensure that the big and small events in these fledgling worlds are not forgotten, erased or overlooked, the University of Texas, Austin has kicked off a project to study the best way to preserve their history.
“It’s a huge challenge for archivists to deal with digital information,” said project co-ordinator Professor Megan Winget from the School of Information at the university.
Prof Winget’s interest in preserving massively multi-player games grew from her involvement in digital artworks that do not hang on a wall but invite interaction, and change as a result.
“One of the most interesting problems for digital preservation is interactivity and how difficult that is to preserve,” she said.
“Video games offer all of the same problems as digital art,” she said. “They are interactive, very complex and a lot of people get involved in making them happen.”
Oral history
The game preservation project aims to interview game makers to tease out the process of creating a game and the materials, such as sketches, doodles and early code, involved in bringing one to life. The experiences of people who play the beta, or trial, versions would be useful as their feedback often shapes the final game.
The insights from the interviews will help the project define how to go about preserving such malleable media, said ProfWinget.
"“You cannot just throw everything into a box and put it in the attic so in 50 years your kids can look at it"Prof Megan Winget
“When you are trying to preserve anything you are trying to preserve the most important things about that artefact,” she said. “With video games we do not yet know what is important.”
The project will establish a repository that, Prof Winget hopes, game makers will come to use as an archive for games.
She also hopes that the project gets game makers thinking about the steps they need to take during game creation to preserve materials.
“We want to raise the consciousness in the industry about how important these records are,” said Prof Winget. “I do not think they save anything or it’s saved in such a way that they would not be able to recognise the significance of what they are holding.”
As well as talking to game makers the project will conduct interviews with players who took part in or witnessed the significant world events seen in some online games.
Examples of this, said Prof Winget, were the assassination of Lord British in Ultima Online, the death of Morpheus in The Matrix Online and the “Corrupted Blood” plague that killed hundreds of characters in some parts of World of Warcraft.
Prof Winget wants to get hold of oral histories of these events plus any media that people collected while they were unfolding.
During preliminary work many people mentioned the importance of the murder of Lord British - actually the avatar of Richard Garriott, co-creator of Ultima Online.
“A lot of people have mentioned that to me as a pivotal moment in their lives,” she said. “I would like to talk to people who experienced that, saw it happen or where they were when they heard about it.”
“Maybe we can talk to the people who did it and whether they knew Lord British was Richard Garriott,” she said.
Future proof
But, said Prof Winget, it was not just game makers and games that faced a problem when it came to preserving important documents, images or videos memories held on a computer.
“You cannot just throw everything into a box and put it in the attic so in 50 years your kids can look at it,” she said. “That’s not going to happen, because digital media degrades so fast.”
Rory McLeod, digital preservation manager at the British Library, said some webmail providers were starting to put archiving and backup systems in place to help people preserve records. However, other technologies were proving more troublesome.
“Old digital cameras do pose a problem,” he said. “The RAW formats that cameras capture images in are proprietary in nature so this raises issues around accessibility if the information about that RAW format is lost.
More broadly, he said, librarians and archivists often bumped up against copyright and legal deposit legislation.
“Those are two areas that we need to address to do our jobs successfully not just for today but for the next generation,” said Mr McLeod.
“As more and more information is published in e-only formats, the legislation must keep pace so that we as digital librarians can keep this information safe without the threat of legal issues hanging over us,” he said.
“We are far from drowning in digital data as our skills have come a long way,” he added. “It’s more a case of not drowning but waving.
This article is from the BBC News website. © British Broadcasting Corporation
Zepto Orion A15
August 15, 2008
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Yet another laptop from Zepto named after a Greek mythology character. Orion A15 was named after the skilled hunter occupying a place in the stars after his death, and this idea is represented by the black laptop model with a stylish finish sporting an illuminated Ze[to logo on the back.
This 15.4-inch model is powered by the Intel Centrino 2 technology with minimum 3MB Smart Cache and 1066Mhz Front SideBus, which work together to deliver high operating speeds at a lower power consumption.
It integrates the Intel GMA 4500MHD graphics chipset with 384MB shared memory, DirectX 10 support, OpenGL 2.0 and Shader Model 4, for great views during gaming and while playing with the Windows Vista Aero feature on the 1280 x 800-pixel display.
Like the latest models introduced by Zepto, Orion A15 has the Night LED mode that allows you to turn off all the other indicators, leaving only the hard drive light On, for a simpler way of knowing when the portable computer is functioning.
Specifications include 8Gb maximum system memory, 2.8GHz Dual Core CPU speeds, TV Tuner, Turbo Memory Crad, Wireless LAN, 3.8 hours of battery life, built-in web camera, microphone, HDMI connectivity, SPDIF audio out, http://www.ubuntu.com/ Linux Ubuntu support, and other cool elements, encased in durable yet elegant aluminum reinforced chassis.
For a price of £517.10 Zepto offers the lower cost configuration with an Intel Core 2 Duo T5750 processor clocked at 2GHz, 80GB S-ATA hard drive storage capacity, DVD burner, Bluetooth 2.0+EDT, and built-in microphone. At £752.41 the notebook has 4GB memory, 320GB hard drive, DVD burner, Bluetooth 2.0+EDR, microphone and Windows Vista Home Basic operating system pre-installed. This one is powered by the Intel Core 2 Duo P7350 providing speeds of up to o 2GHz.
Win a GE E850 8 Megapixel Digital Camera!
August 14, 2008
General Imaging have kindly provided us with 2 digital cameras to give away as competition prizes, first up we have the 8 megapixel GE E850, and next month’s competition prize will be the 10 megapixel GE E1040. The GE E850 features a 28mm wide-angle 5x optical zoom lens, a large 3″ screen, face detection focus, electronic image stabilisation and ISO upto 1600. To find out how to enter the competition, click here.
To win the GE E850 - 8 Megapixel digital camera, with a huge 3″ screen and wide-angle 5x optical zoom lens - simply join the DigiCamReview newsletter. Competition winners will be selected randomly. Join using the box on the right hand side of the page or form below - simply enter a valid email address and click join. A confirmation email will be sent to you to verify your email address, simply follow the instructions in the email and you’re all set. The winner will be contacted via email.
The black GE E850 features an 8 megapixel sensor, wide-angle 5x optical zoom lens. The winner of the GE E850 will be announced on the 15th of September 2008.
The E850 has a large 3″ screen, face-detection focus, panoramic mode, VGA video recording (MPEG4, 30fps), digital image stabilisation, and 10 scene modes.
The silver GE E1040 features a 10 megapixel sensor, 4x optical zoom lens, a large 3″ screen, face-detection focus, panoramic mode, VGA video recording (MPEG4, 30fps), digital image stabilisation, and 10 scene modes. The GE E1040 takes bright colourful photos with low noise and good detail - view GE E1040 Sample Photos. The winner of the GE E1040 will be announced on the 15th of October 2008 Subscribe
You can view the latest range of GE digital cameras on the General-Imaging website.
Joining this NewsLetter will automatically enter you into any future competitions run - therefore it is important that you use a valid email address so that you can be contacted to arrange delivery of the prize should you win! Your email address will not be shared with any third parties. Newsletters will be sent out whenever there is a new review or other important news announced on the site. Don’t forget you can also keep up to date with our RSS Feed!
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Canon EOS 450D Rebel XSi DSLR Review
August 14, 2008
ThinkCamera have reviewed the new Canon EOS 450D / Digital Rebel XSi - a 12.2 megapixel update to the 400D - it features 3.5fps shooting, live view shooting, 9 point AF, 3″ screen, SD memory card support, and Canon’s dust reduction system. The 450D Body only is priced at £429, the EOS 450D with 18-55mm IS kit is £449.
“There are one or two minor hiccups; live view arguably being the biggest. The LV system uses contrast-detection autofocus, which is from the ‘accurate, but glacial’ school. It’s perfect for tripod-based still life or macro shots of non-moving things, but it falls way behind the more useful systems found in current Olympus and especially Sony DSLRs.”
View our Canon EOS 450D Rebel XSi Sample Photo Gallery
View our Canon EOS 450D DSLR Hands-on at Focus.
Read more Canon EOS 450D Digital Rebel XSi Reviews: The Digital Picture, Digital SLR Guide, Luminous Landscape, DCResource, Digital Camera Info, Photography BLOG, DPReview, DPExpert, LetsGoDigital, Steves Digicams
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