Technology and Software

From the time when video games were first introduced in the 1970’s to this time, it has evolved to become one of the most entertaining and thrilling things to hit the homes and not to forget, a profitable venture for all game manufacturing companies. Video games are enjoyed by a wide range of audience and it really has no age limit, from the 5yr old kid to the grandpapa, almost everyone enjoys it. Nearly everyone has played a video game before.

And I believe everyone has his favorite. However with the current trends in gaming it is really just too difficult to stick to one game for a long time, especially if you are one of those who fit snugly into the classification of gaming enthusiasts. Now take note of the fact that video games are not the same as computer games. Computer games as the name implies are games played on the computer whereas Video games are played using special gaming systems- things will get clearer as you read on.

To start of, a walk down gaming history lane should come in handy. .

A Brief History
The Facts
1. In 1971 Nutting Associates introduced the first commercial arcade video game.
2. In 1972 Magnavox introduced the first home video game system dubbed The Odyssey.
3. In 1985 Nintendo introduced the Nintendo Entertainment System (NES).As a matter of fact the NES was the first gaming system that really revolutionized gaming and set the pace for development of future games.

A look At the Gaming Systems
Gaming Systems have come and gone, but which ones are really making news. We shall discuss only two in this issue.

The Play station 3
Play station was first introduced in 1994 by SONY. There are currently over 13,000 video game titles available worldwide. The Play station is equipped with a special CPU called the Cell Processor. The amazing thing about this processor is that it has a microprocessor that is made up of 234 million Transistors. One gets a better measure of the power of the cell processor when one compares its specs to those of a dual core Pentium Processor Extreme Edition released in 2005 which has only 200 million transistors. In addition, the Cell Processor has a 3.2 GHz Power PC Core equipped with 512 kb of L2 Cache.

The Play Station 3 has a special processor dedicated to graphics, called the Graphics Processing Unit (GPU).It’s a 550 MHz, 300 million transistor graphics chip. Again the number of transistors in the GPU is more than the total number of transistors in both the central processing units and the graphics processing units of the three leading current-generation systems, combined.
What all this means is that the quality of graphics in the Play Station 3 is……. (Judge for yourself). It can actually simulate real life to the minutest detail as never before.

The Play Station 3 comes in two configurations, the 20GB and the 60GB hard drive models. One more thing that is going to be new with the Play Station 3 is the online gaming service that would be introduced with it. This is a move that the manufacturers, SONY hope to use to maintain their market dominance as they face very tight competition from Microsoft’s XBOX 360 which currently has more than a million subscribers to its online gaming console and also NINTENDO.

The XBOX 360
Microsoft released the Xbox 360 in 2005.This is an upgrade of the Xbox which was released in 2001.Many modifications were made in the form of hardware, features and as a matter of fact the new Xbox 360 is far more than a video game console. The Xbox 360 is a total media center that allows users to play, network, rip, stream and download all types of media, including high-definition movies, music, digital pictures and game content.

Two types of the Xbox 360 was released; the Xbox 360 Premium Package and Xbox 360 Core System. The Xbox 360 Premium Package comes with a wireless controller, an HD AV cable, an Ethernet connectivity cable, a headset and a removable 20-GB hard drive. The Xbox 360 Core System is "plug and play" -- in addition to the console, it includes a wired controller and an AV cable. Unlike the Play station 3 the Xbox 360 has a multi-core processor running three 3.2-GHz PowerPC cores which is made up of only 165 million transistors with 1Mb of L2 Cache.

The GPU of the Xbox 360 is a 500MHz ATI Graphics processor card with 10MB of embedded DRAM.

The Xbox 360 currently enjoys tremendous online subscription to its gaming console, the Xbox 360 live, although it still kind of lags behind play station 3 which still holds the market dominance in terms of overall patronage.

These are some of the cool features of both The Play station 3 and The Xbox 360, the leading gaming consoles on the market. With these games comes a wide variety of games from which to select from. So if you were given the choice between The Play station 3 and The Xbox 360, which would it be?

For more information check out playstation3.com and xbox360.com

Microsoft released its newest version of Windows just a few days ago. It’s been described in very many different ways by the many that have had the opportunity to test it or even use the original product when it was released to the market. You have probably heard a thing or two about its new very cool features. Or better still you have had a first hand experience at using it. After its release , a couple of students including myself who have had a little experience , have already begun using it .

So the big question now remains what is it that makes this new version of Windows the extra, extra cool Operating System. Before we take a look at the features of Windows Vista let us first look at the various editions available for sale on the market.

There are four editions of Windows Vista.
1. Home Premium
2. Business
3. Ultimate
4. Home Basic

This current version of Windows, Vista requires very high specs before it can run efficiently on any computer. Let’s take a look at the minimum system requirements for any computer.

Take note that the Home Basic is the most scaled down edition of the Windows Vista Family. This is primarily for systems that cannot meet the high system requirements that come with Windows Vista.

System Requirements

Premium Ready
• A 1 GHz 32-bit or 64-bit processor
• 1 GB of system memory
• A 40 GB hard drive with at least 15 GB of free space
• At least 128 MB of graphics memory

Basic
• An 800 MHz or better modern processor
• 512 MB of system memory
• A graphics processor that supports DirectX 9
The Graphic User Interface (GUI)
Windows Vista runs on a GUI called Windows Aero. This GUI can only be run on all the editions of Windows Vista, except the Home Basic which requires a less intensive GUI. The other editions can also run on the basic GUI.
Let us now take a look at the Windows Aero GUI.
Aero’s windows are three dimensional objects that you can move in any direction. Aero Glass makes the borders of each window translucent so you can see the desktop or other windows behind it.
Vista also replaces the simple, static icons that represent many files in older Windows GUIs with more elaborate Live Icons. Live Icons give you up-to-date thumbnail previews of each file. When you look at a document's Live Icon, you see what the document actually looks like rather than seeing an icon for the program that created it. You can also look at the contents of files before opening them by using the Explorer preview pane.
Similar thumbnails also replace the icons you see when you use the "alt" and "tab" keys to move through open windows. Aero's more basic version of "alt + tab," called Flip, lets you choose from 2-D thumbnail previews on a menu bar. Another feature, Flip 3D, lets you choose from three-dimensional, moving thumbnails rather than 2-D images. In addition, if you hover your mouse over items on your taskbar, you'll see 2-D thumbnails of each window instead of text listing the applications and filenames.

More Features
Vista now has a side bar which displays mini-applications called Gadgets.

A new Meeting Place which is a teleconferencing program for small groups of vista users.

Speech Recognition which allows users to control their computers and create documents using their voices.

A new mail service which replaces Outlook Express, the Windows Mail for home users.

An interactive Windows Calendar Application for home users.

A SuperFetch feature which allows frequently used applications to be loaded into memory so they can start up faster.

The ReadyBoost feature which allows users to add RAM to their system with a USB thumb drive.

A Self-healing technology that can identify problems and fix them as they occur so you can keep pc disruptions at minimum.

A built-in self diagnostics that look for hardware failures, network problems and slow performance issues so they can be resolved before they affect productivity.

The new Vista also comes Windows Defender, which automatically safeguards your pc against pop-ups, slow performance and security threats caused by spy ware and other unwanted software’s.

The new Internet Explorer 7 also comes with improved features that better protects your pc against malware and to better safeguard your data. An example is the anti phishing.

A new Parental control feature that helps kids use the pc more safely and productively. It has features that can be used to monitor usage, set time limits, set browsing and program control. You can also retrieve detailed activity reports with ease.

Vista ultimate comes in 35 languages , which means that you can install as many languages as you want on a single pc. The interesting thing about this is that you can switch between languages as easily as you log on and off your pc.

You are probably thinking of getting your self a computer that runs on Vista right. Well most of these cool features that you just read about are features that Microsoft claims that Vista has. Whether Vista can do all that Microsoft claims it can or not, well I guess time will be the judge of that.

For more information check out: microsoft.com and howstuffworks.com

Yo wat's up everybody this is the napster and I would like to give you a little intro about myself. The summary of all I want to say is that I like Technology and software Stuff especially those that are computer and electrical based. So I would just like to dedicate this blog to such suff. Feel free to comment about anything you read on my blog.