"Unboxing" (see also: undressing, opening, first time..)

Vicarious thrills from opening new gear. Share in the Unboxing Ceremony!

I found this nice site, authored by Josh Bancroft, an "Intel Geek Blogger". Josh's idea is a simple one. Share the thrill of unboxing your new techno gadget with the rest of the world through photos and descriptions about the experience.

How is a site like this at all important? Up until a few years ago, it really wasn't. But technology has become a much more personal, and user-interface driven industry since the year 2000. Today, packaging and design play an increasingly important role in product features and most manufacturers have adopted the mantra, for example:

• Apple iPod hardware is widely considered the best designed hardware ever, and its packaging has won several design awards
• Sony's marketing positions their products as part of a designer lifestyle, hence the name of their online store: SONYSTYLE.com
• Seagate's new hard-drive packaging for high capacity drives (I just bought one, and the packaging was a surprise)
• Dell's XPS product lines are designed specifically around the idea of providing a "somehow improved user experience" according to Dell.

So with package design being such an important part of product design and having become one of the major features of a product, it is important that we document these great, innovative user experiences.

And why a crazy site/ blog about all this? Because unboxing is quite simply one of the most exciting parts of buying new technology. So exciting, that Unboxing.com recently had 6000 site visits in a 24 hour period.

Visit unboxing.com to get your peep on.

photo courtesy of Jonas Lönborg

Simpsons talk High Definition.

Tonight's episode of The Simpson's is all about Homer wanting a 50" High Definition Plasma TV. The show's writer's focus on Lenny getting a new HDTV, and subsequently, Homer wants to replace his own with a new HDTV!

HDTV needs this kind of mainstream attention in order to be introduced to virtually all tv viewers. Personally I am glad, and kind of excited whenever HDTV comes up in coversation, so you can imagine my glee about Lenny getting a new HDTV! By the way, I'm happy to say that Homer got a new Plasma HDTV for his bedroom at the end of the show.

Guess-The-Google, Web Game!

Hey... do you have a couple minutes to kill? Want to waste some time anyway? Check out a new game I just found: Guess-The-Google. The game will bring up a series of 10 (or is it 20) images from the google search, for a particular keyword. You have to guess what the keyword is, based on the grid of images. Surprisingly, I didn't think it was as tough as it sounds. If you beat a score of 216, you got me beat!

Guess-The-Google

Movie: XXX: State of the Union - Review

NSA Agent August Gibbons, fresh off the success of his last renegade recruitment, once again finds himself in need of an outsider. Gibbons and his new agent Darius Stone, now code-named "XXX," must track down a military splinter group that is conspiring to overthrow the U.S. Government.

Genres: Action/Adventure
Running Time: 1 hr. 41 min.
Release Date: April 29th, 2005 (wide).
MPAA Rating: PG-13 for sequences of intense action violance and some language.
Distributor: Columbia Pictures

Just watched XXX: State of the Union on DVD, starring Ice Cube as the new Triple X. Willem Defoe stars as the antagonist Secretary of Defense, and does a decent job with the poor writing. Samuel Jackson is again brought in to play the head of the NSA.

Overall the movie is decent so long as you do not expect a quality film, and don't mind the Sci-Fi genre. The acting is unfortunately worse than Vin-Deisel's portrayal in the orignal. Ice Cube plays the new XXX with attitutude, but acts it out in a thuggish manner. It feels as though he is ill prepared for the role: my one example would be his poor physical appearance. I would have expected for an actor to bulk up, or trim down for a role as an ex-navy seal, however his overall appearance as a hero is just average.

Luckily for this film, there were no rediculous sports stunts, just some plain rediculous stunts. They don't come off quite as cheezy as the first film, and some are executed better than the first. There is however a cartoonish use of CG animation in the second half of the film. That is where the Sci-Fi/ Fantasy comment would come into play.

If you were a fan of the previous James Bond Film" Die another Day, you should be just fine with this film.
If you hate movies with rap soundtracks, this film is definitely not for you.

Overall I would say it is not as bad as the original seemed to me, however the poor writing and simultaneously poor acting take it quite low. This movie holds value only as a exciting, over the top action flick, with less than average execution. A DVD rental - Maybe (If your in the mood), A Ticket Price movie - no.

Movies: The Village - review

Set in rural Pennsylvania in 1897, this is the story of the small village of Covington (population 60) surrounded by a woods inhabited by a race of "mythical creatures," and the romance that blossoms between Kitty (Greer), the daughter of the town's leader (Hurt), and Lucius (Phoenix), a young man who questions the policy of keeping Covington's citizens completely confined to the village.

Genres: Drama, Romance, Science Fiction/Fantasy and Thriller
Running Time: 1 hr. 48 min.
Release Date: July 30th, 2004 (wide).
MPAA Rating: PG-13 for a scene of violence and frightening situations.
Distributor: Touchstone Pictures

I watched M. Knight Shyamalan's - The Village, this Friday. What a fantastic film. It captures you with peoples desires, a bit of innocence, fear, and love. The story is fantastic, the acting is unbelievably good, and the character of IVY is both strong and cute. The film shifts plots very well halfway through the movie, and sounds (sound effects) once again play a major role in this film, just as they did in Signs. Probably the nicest surprise comes at the beginning of the film as the opening credits role. The ensemble cast is extraordinarily well put together, so much so that you fear they might compete with each other. Thankfully the cast co-exists gracefully on screen.

I will not spoil the film for anyone who still has to see it, and I suggest that you do not listen if someone tries to spoil it for you. The movie captures you early on with the mythical beasts surrounding the village, and then continues to hold you, as you watch the characters display a variety of emotions through their ordeals, and eventually are releived of see a happy ending.

I was enthralled throughout the whole film, so much so that I watched every additional feature on the DVD. Although this is a DVD which I will probably not own (story is given away; therefore not as exciting the second time), I hope to remember the story and the awesome qualities of the film for a long time to come.

As it displays many of the same qualities as SIGNS, the director's previous film; I will say that if you enjoyed signs (which I did) you will probably like this film. If you disliked Signs, you probably will not.

I dont give grades to movies, but this would be an A in my book.

This post was originally written for and posted on my Modblog blog. Since that was recently taken down, I wanted to repost it.

Movies: Four Brothers - Review

Four adopted brothers come together to bury the woman who raised them. At the funeral, the brothers discover that their mother may have been murdered and they want revenge.

Genres: Drama and Crime/Gangster
Running Time: 1 hr. 49 min.
Release Date: August 12th, 2005 (wide).
MPAA Rating: R for strong violence, pervasive language and some sexual content..
Distributor: Paramount Pictures

I saw Four Brothers last week. I wanted to post quickly regarding the film. I thought it was pretty good. Originally attracted to the film through it's trailer (showing people who value Family and Diversity), I hoped it would at least live up to those ideals during the actual film.

As it turns out, it did. It is by no means a sappy film, however it does display the qualities of brotherhood and valuing family above all else. Each of the roles is well acted, and the film obviously succeeds in doing what it was intended. The story is well told, production and direction are executed with good results. Each brother's character has his place in the family, and his own attitude. Overall each role is well acted, with a good performance by Benjamin Andre, (half of rap duo Outkast).

One annoying thing about this film was the amount of violence. As each of the four brothers are misfit's, the story allows some leighway in showing violent scenes. Although I believe it was a bit much for my taste, I would certainly not go so far as to call it excessive. A certain amount is needed to portray the story... After all.

I think the film was a good one, and one worth seeing for anyone who is interested in it as a result of the trailer. It is slightly more violent than I would hap liked, but the acting and direction are both good.

If you liked black-hawk down, you may like this film. (somewhat violent but heroic)
If you disliked Mystic-River, this film may not be for you. (some minor gang violence, portrayal of Detroit city living, revenge).

Film gets a good B in my book

This post was originally written in August 2005 for my Modblog blog. That blog was recently shut down and has been reposted here.

Halo 3: Announcement / Teaser

I won't often post about video games, but this one is kind of important. Although Halo 3 has potential for becoming the Xbox 360's next killer app, its not the game I wanted to talk about. So far the game is early in its development, and all we know is that it will not be released until some time in 2007.

So with very little information, why post?

Because of the announcement trailer. I just saw the announcement trailer that the Xbox/ Bungie team showed at E3, and it is Brief yet Epic. The 2 Minute 25 Second trailer leaves you with a complete feeling of wonderment, which is something I haven't felt about a movie or game trailer in since long as I can remember. Even if you're not a fan of the Halo series of games I encourage you to take a look at this short trailer. The experience is cinematic, and for some (fans), breathtaking. Its just awesome to see cinematography like this.

There are both small and large .WMV versions, and also QuickTime available from the bungie.net site, I've linked the .WMV's.

Small .wmv file

Large .wmv file.

Note: A great thing about these vids is that the big one is available in its full HD glory, and was actually rendered using the Xbox 360 engine... meaning... something very close to what we see here could end up in the game itself. That's something Playstation 3 can't say about any of it's teaser/ announcement videos.

Perpendicular Recording will blow your mind....Dude.

I can't help but resist thinking about where storage capacities are about to start going. To the moon I tell you --to the moon.

Last week Seagate took the covers off their latest hard disk drives based on Perpendicular Recording technology. Perpendicular recording is a way of writing data to a disk (versus longitudinal), so that a storage medium can store more data in the same amount of space. How do they do that?

Here's an analogy: Longitudinal recording is like taking a ton of toothpicks, and then laying them end to end, until they circumference the entire Earth. Lets say for this example, that it would take 1 Billion toothpicks. Now, instead of laying the toothpicks end to end around the Earth, Perpendicular Recording actually stands each toothpick on its end so that it only takes up a fraction of the width that it would, when laying on its side. This way, maybe it would take 20 toothpicks to make up the same length as one toothpick on its side. That means multiplied out, we could now use 20 Billion toothpicks to circumfrence the entire globe. Perpendicular Recording is just like that!! It's this sort of perpendicular arrangement of each bit of data on the recording medium (hard disk in this example) that allows drives to reach capacities many times higher than those of today's hard disk drives.

Until literally 2 weeks ago....the maximum capacity of any single 3.5-inch hard drive on the market (like the one in your computer) was 500 Gigabytes (GB). And the truth is, many manufacturers were having trouble making a higher capacity hard drive. All the larger 1 Terabyte (TB) hard drives on the market today are actually just two separate 500GB hard drives slapped together and screwed into a metal case (and then called a 1TB hard drive). This is because of a variety of issues that limit the capacities and access speeds achievable by todays traditional drive technologies. The most important theoretical limit to higher capacities today, is the problem of the Superparamagnetic effect (big science term). Essentially the problem is that using longitudinal recording, we have found that bits can only be packed to a certain density on the magnetic disc platter. If they're packed too tightly, the bits start to break, and the data is lost. In addition to the magnetic problems, there are other physical difficulties in improving on todays drives. For example, disk platters (the magnetic disks inside a hard drive that literally spin around inside), have already reached their maximum size, density, and rotational speed (as high as 15,000 revolutions per minute on some high end drives). If manufacturers pushed them to spin any faster, the platters would litterally crash into each other the moment they were subjected to any sort of shock or vibration. To give you an example of the type of speed we're talking about: If the round platter were actually a wheel spinning on the ground; it would be traveling at 156.108 miles per hour. Very Fast.

Anyway, back to the point of capacities..Seagate's new 750GB 3.5inch hard drive is now the highest capacity (and best performing) retail hard drive on the market today. Thats right! In addition to being the highest capacity drive, it is also one of the fastest drives on the market today because of perpendicular recording. Because there is so much more data per square inch of recording media, the heads (read needles) that read the data don't have to move as far forward, to read the next bit of data in the sequence. This results in dramatically faster access to your data, whether it be your videos, photos, music, or text.

Perpendicular storage is going to change the world we live in. I am certain of it. According to this white paper from Seagate, "[using perpendicular recording,] a 3.5-inch disc drive could store two terabytes of information, a 2.5-inch drive in a laptop could hold 500GB and a
1-inch drive, such as those in MP3 players, could store as much as 50GB of data."

Considering that todays 3.5 inch drives are 500GB, and today's laptop drives are 120GB, and today's MP3 players are maxed at just 8GB....you can see why I am so excited. With the introduction of these new higher capacity drives, its been proven that perpendicular recording is going to be a practical solution to higher storage capacities. Its a pretty exciting thing...

I personally cant wait to get my hands on a 500GB Ipod Video.

• For more info, definitely watch this fun flash animation, called "Get Perpendicular"
  
• For more information on perpendicular recording, see this white paper, and the other resources at Seagate.com
• Also visit: Hitachi's introduction to perpendicular recording
• And see the Wikipidia article on Perpendicular Recording

P.S. sorry this read like a commercial, theres just a lot to explain.

X-Men 3 opens in theaters May 26 '06

I recently watched the original Xmen movie (and plan on watching the second), in anticipation of this summer's upcoming release of X-Men [III]: The Last Stand. Although I'm not a comic nerd, I do appreciate a few superheroes (Superman, Batman, Wolverine). Of the X-men series, Wolverine is my favorite character, and the above self-portrait is my homage to the character.

ABC web streaming goes live

Anticipation has built over the last month for the broadcasting event of the year. ABC has launched its online broadcasting network, and the site has gone live with todays most popular programs available for streaming for free, online. Mike Davidson (an awesome designer whose blog I recommend you read), has posted a review with his first thoughts on the new system thats been put in place.

Today's launch hopefully marks the beginning of a revolution, with more and more major network programming going online. Cartoon Network US has a site going live in on July 17, 2006 which will stream a large number of their shows, and NBC has started streaming all their news programs, with plans to also stream the extremely popular "Today Show" morning show, already in the works. Rumors are that Fox may is also working on a streaming site for their primetime programs.

Read Mike's brief review

Visit the ABC program streaming site