Unseen, unheard but deadly. For every death, the collateral damage is 50 more deaths. Children dead, maimed or dying in the name of freedom and democracy. Do we care what happened in Libya - what about Pakistan and the Yemen? What would you do if you saw your family, your loved ones destroyed by an unseen foe? Would you welcome the "liberators" with open arms or would you wish to destroy them as they destroyed you?
We have to find a better way, we cannot go on doing this in the name of freedom and liberation because there will never be peace only war. We are living in a world of perpetual war that knows no boundaries to the scope of its destruction - A world of increasing hate and of evil deeds.
Let's stop this - now.....
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2012 Best Tech Toys
Every year, all the biggest toy manufacturers from across the country get together at London Olympia to show off their wares for the year. MSN Tech and Gadgets went down to take a look at the best tech toys coming to our shelves in 2012.
The Mechatar remote-controlled battling robots had to be one of our favourite toys at the show. The beauty of the Mechatars is that they have both offline and online play, and will evolve depending on how much gaming you do - Pokémon style.
Solo, you can perform tasks and have virtual battles online (with excellent 3D graphics), but in pairs, you can have a physical turn-based battle with your opponent, complete with movement and sound affects. All of your gaming done both online or offline is logged onto your Mechatar, and will affect your gaming ability immediately. Very cool.
This mini remote-controlled car from Revell also comes with a miniature price tag too - at £19.99, it's much cheaper than rival products on the market. It has roll hoops to prevent you overturning, charges via USB (the controller uses AA batteries) and can be used both inside and outside. It also comes with a cardboard ramp - pair this with the boost button to get some serious air.
We got a sneak peek at an early model of MyFly from Revell, a remote-controlled helicopter that will be completely controlled using your iOS device.
AppToyz, the brain behind the appBlaster, is coming out with a number of great new app-based peripherals in 2012. This one, the appQuiz, allows you to slot in your iPad to play a buzzer-based quiz with friends. It can also be used for other group-based games, all available from the App Store.
The appArena is one of the things AppToyz is working on. You might be playing a standard game of chequers, but on the iPad screen, you see augmented reality characters that react and follow when you make a move. When you take one of your opponent's pieces, the two characters will have a battle on screen - making your game of chequers a little more exciting than before.
The Tardis Smart Safe comes with a free app download, which allows you to set the passcode that will open your safe. Once set, you'll need to slot in your phone and type in the correct code to open it - it won't work with any other phone or code. There's also an R2D2 version for Star Wars fans.
Ditch the cars - this Scalextric features X-Wings and TIE Fighters instead. Each player's aim is to knock the other off course, while staying on course themselves. The course glows in the dark for extra cool points.
Apps are big in toys right now, and AppGear was showing off two games that work with props and augmented reality. Elite Commander is a rather Halo-esque shooter, fighting off aliens coming at you from all angles, with your phone (Android or iOS) in a gun-shaped holder. Foam Fighters, on the other hand, includes a toy plane that you fix on to the front of your phone in front of the camera. When you play the game, the plane is placed in a number of simulated environments that you have to guide it through, shooting the enemies down along the way.
Review Of Elonex PMP-50
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| Elonex PMP-50 |
A surprisingly large-screened multimedia player for under £60
What's great
Packed with features; audio quality more than adequate; 800x480 resolution screen
What's not
Resistative touch-screen awkward to use; user interface not as intuitive as it might be; battery life poor
The bottom line
A good compromise for those wishing to view video on a decent sized screen without breaking the bank.
Review
Many multimedia players are primarily music players with a token nod towards video. Sure, you can watch it, but you pay a high price thanks to a small, low-resolution screen.
What's particularly impressive about the PMP-50, then, isn't just that it offers a five-inch screen displaying video at a watchable 800x480 resolution, but that you're not paying a premium for the privilege. It doesn't take long to find out how this trick has been performed.
Build-wise, the Elonex is chunky, available in a choice of four colours (black, white, pink and blue), but still light enough to hold reasonably comfortably in one hand.
The screen fires up to display an attractive, readable user interface, and it looks like you're on to a winner - until you come to touch it.
The major drawback of the PMP-50, albeit one entirely understandable at this price point, is that the touchscreen uses the older resistive technology. It's clunky, ponderous and far less forgiving than the whizz-bang experience afforded by capacitive touchscreens found on higher-priced rivals.
The user interface does its best to help - and things are helped by the size of the screen, but it's not quite as intuitive as it could be.
Take video, for example. Switch to another screen during playback, and the unit doesn't remember where you left off. Returning to your previous point via the timeline controls is practically impossible due to the lack of accuracy, and while you can manually tap Add Tag before stopping playback to remember your point (return via the Tag List menu), it's still annoying.
Elonex
When it comes to watching video, the five-inch screen coupled with reasonable resolution means that video looks pretty good, and is easy enough on the eye to make it a practical device for watching longer movies. Support for most popular formats also means it's not going to be a problem transferring your video across to the device.
It's not all good news - the screen is a little on the dim side - even with the brightness pushed all the way up, and there's not a particularly wide angle of vision, although at a push two people can watch it.
What is welcome - particularly at this price point - is the HDMI socket, allowing you to hook up the unit to watch up to 720p video on your digital TV (you'll have to supply your own cable, though).
Another nice touch is the inclusion of a remote control with simple playback controls for navigating your collection when connected to the TV.
There's an onboard 1.3-megapixel camera for still and video shots too, but our indoor test footage came out grainy and jerky, so it's clearly not for primetime use.
It's not just about video, though - the unit handles music well too. The built-in speaker at the back is fine for unsophisticated ears, but plug in a decent set of headphones and it produces a pleasant, rich tone, with plenty of volume to spare. Sadly there's no means of tweaking the sound via a graphic equalizer, but navigation is straightforward enough, if a little convoluted.
One final downer: the battery life is poor. Fiddling about with various controls and playing with video and music gave us only a few hours of use before the dreaded recharge sign reappeared. As a consequence, this might handle one way of the daily commute, but it won't last the distance on long journeys without a top-up.
Considering its low price point, and allowing for the compromises made with the screen and battery life, the Elonex PMP-50 is well worth checking out if you're looking for a cheap and cheerful portable player that is as comfortable displaying video as it is playing music.
For Another Five To Six Months There Is No APPLE iPHONE 5
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| Apple iPhone 5 Gallery |
Apple iPhone 5 rumors will remain rumors for another five to six months. In an interview with AllThingsD’s Walt Mossberg, Steve Jobs once said that he saw Apple primarily as a software company. But don’t you also do hardware, said Mossberg, pointing out the obvious. Well you know what they say, replied Jobs, companies that make great software make their own hardware.
That’s what Jobs said, or something very close to it. Now, people who have been completely swayed by the iPhone 5’s hardware rumors, might not have seen that interview, or paid enough attention. But here is the point; Apple sees itself primarily as a software company. The hardware is there it facilitate what the software is supposed to do.
That is why all those rumors about a 4 inch screen, a tear drop shaped body, about an NFC chip, etc somewhat miss the point. While Apple obviously has to keep up with the opposition, and it does need increasingly powerful hardware to meet the demands of its software, at the end of the day, the big announcement is going to be about the software not hardware.
Yes, Apple did bring in a camera that kind of puts point and shoot cameras out of jobs, which is incredibly fast, very smart, and the best on any phone, and yes it did introduce a dual core chip, but again that is why it wasiPhone 4S and not quite iPhone 5.
Remember that the big announcement with the iPhone 4S was Siri, the smart digital assistant. Though the hype around her has died a bit, it really captured the imagination of the market. No one could refrain from going rah-rah over it, and Siri was a software. One that is not really dependent on the excellent hardware that came with the 4S, Siri can be ported to iPhone 4, and to numerous other devices are hackers have shown.
When the five comes, expect it to come with big software changes. Which is not to say that it will not at the same time pack plenty of punch on the hardware side. Apparently, Apple has been working to do a design overhaul for sometime, and apparently the last time it could not push its suppliers to make the necessary changes in time.
Now, with 6 months in between, it should have been able to get those machines and those men in place who will implement the design changes. Some of Apple’s competitors, like Asus, and Samsung have got some really great hardwares into the market. The Transformer Prime is a great luscious piece of hardware, as is the Galaxy Tab 10.1, yet they have not really taken the tablet market by storm. Because they are bogged down by an apps market which is filled with crappy aaps, and they do not have the kind of tight integration between hardware and software that Apple’s products have.
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