There is a new XBox 360 in town. It’s not twice as fast or double the capacity of the old model, but it does have some key advantages. It includes an internal (but removable) 250 GB hard drive and includes a Wireless-n network adapter. The fastest wireless network protocol available.
It has whisper quite fans so it should not be making al to much noise in your living room. It also has a completely new design and has touch sensitive buttons to power up or open up the disc bay.
Foremost it is ready for Kinect for XBox 360 with a new port on the back of the console. It is a newly designed port to both receive data from the Kinect sensor as provide power to the sensor. Kinect will also work on all other XBox 360 sold, but you will need to use one USB port and a power adapter to set the sensor up. (or maybe 2 USB ports, not really known yet).
Kinect
Kinect is the official name for Project Natal that was introduced last year at E3 2009. It’s controller free gaming. That might sound like it’s not really gaming or it’s something like the Wii but it is not. Let me explain…
The Wii you still need a controller to control the game. The controller contains sensors so the Wii console is able to guess what movement you are making. The famous B button on the back of the WiiMote is used in every game. WiiFit comes closer to controller free, but you need the balance board. The balance board again does not know who you are and what shape you have. It knows your weight and measures how you distribute it across the board.
Kinect is different. The Kinect sensor is below your TV (just like the Wii infrared receiver) but that is all. The Sensor can see you and even recognise your face. It tracks all the movement in your bones, it know when you are waving at the sensor even if you don’t move your feet. As an example of this I would like to compare it to any other dance game on the market. Most of them use a dance mat and you have to move your feet to some fixed position. It’s dancing only with your feet. Okay they tell you to wave your arms but there is no way they check if you are doing so. There is no way any dance game can check if you are doing the famous “Micheal Jackson Thriller Dance” correctly. Holding your hands in the right angle and moving by taking the correct steps. Kinect can do this!
It’s not only games, the game menu and interface can also be controlled with you hands. Wave your hands in the air to navigate and press forward to select an item. Bring up the menu with voice commands and rewind or fast-forward a movie by moving your hand. To play music just say ‘Xbox play music’ and it will start. The sensor is also a webcam and you can video chat on the big screen with friends on Xbox Live or Windows Live Messenger.
Although I must admit most games so far look like Wii games graphically it is only a matter of time before huge blockbusters like Forza MotorSport come out for Kinect. You have to know HD graphic games or created over a time span of multiple years and Kinect has just arrive in a final form now. The new Xbox will be available in Europe on 15th of July and Kinect will go on sale November 2010.
Be sure to check out the video’s below to really get an idea what al the above text is blabbering about!
Dit weekend heb ik op mijn computers Office 2007 vervangen met de nieuwe Office 2010 die deze week door Microsoft Release to Manufacture werd verklaard.
De installatie verliep vlugger dan de installatie van office 2007 en gaf me bij de eerste opstart van Word de volgende melding:
In Office 2007 kon je reeds opslaan als Open Office indeling om zo maximali compatibiliteit te geven met gebruikers van OpenOffice maar nu vraagt Microsoft Office dus reeds of je bestanden standaard als hun OpenDocument indeling wil opslaan. Een vooruitgang!
Weet ook dat samen met Office 2010 er een webversie van Word, Excel, Powerpoint en Onenote gratis beschikbaar gesteld word! (ook voor mensen die het Office pakket niet hebben) Op http://skydrive.live.com onderdeel van Windows Live kan je nu reeds bestand aanmaken en uploaden om zo de webversie van de Office applicatie te testen. Hieronder een voorbeeld van Excel:
The videos below are sessions from DevDays 2010 in The Netherlands. They give a very good explanation of what is new in .NET Framework 4.0 and how it helps programming evolve. Both video’s are very technical but the latter one is move fun (partly making fun of the person in the first video). Things that are spoken about include dynamic keyword , co- and contra variance ,COM interop , MEF (Managed Extensibility Framework) , ASP.NET MCV vs WinForms …
At the end of the first video the presenter tries to give you insight in what Microsoft thinks the future is heading to and how compilers will evolve. Both really really worth your time if you are into programming !
Meer en meer SPAM robots infiltreren Windows Live Messenger. Men zoekt het hele internet af naar emailadressen die ergens vermeld staan en probeert die mensen toe te voegen in Messenger om vervolgens spam naar hen te sturen.
Enkele belangrijke regels: # Accepteer niemand die je niet kent (bekijk desnoods eerst hun profiel) # Blokkeer en Rapporteer deze mensen
Het schermpje die je vaak te zijn zal krijgen is het volgende. Als je twijfelt of je de persoon effectief kent klik dan op ‘view profile’ om dit te controleren. Belangrijk is ook indien je de persoon niet kent deze te blokkeren en te rapporteren, zo voorkom je dat deze persoon nog andere mensen kan toevoegen!
Onlangs werd in Amerika de nieuwe versie van Bing Maps gebaseerd op Silverlight technologie gelanceerd. Deze nieuwe technologie biedt vlottere en automatisch overgangen van road naar aerial en birds eye view. De technologie laat ook ‘Map Apps’ toe zodat ze dynamiek aan de kaarten kan worden toegevoegd.
Nu is er zo’n ‘App’ vrijgegeven die de aardbeving in Haiti in kaart brengt en je de luchtfoto’s van voor en na de aardbeving laat vergelijken. Schokkend…
Klik in de linkerkolom om ‘Map Apps’ onderaan rechts
Selecteer de App over Haiti (zie logo hier links)
Verken Haïti
Een voorbeeld:
De twitter App voor Bing Maps toont waar mensen zich bevinden op het moment dat ze ‘tweeten’. Dit kan je dus over de map leggen als laag en zo krijg je live nieuws vanop twitter. In de linkerkolom kan je tweets selecteren en zo zie je waarvan ze verzonden werden (animatie op de kaart)
It includes an internal (but removable) 250 GB hard drive and includes a Wireless-n network adapter. The fastest wireless network protocol available.
@C_Kurt
