Knowledge's Blog

Yes, Apple’s inviting game bloggers to its January 27 super-secret product reveal, but I wouldn’t read anything into it. Unless the company’s launching a completely unanticipated device (always a possibility, but the odds are against it) expect to see–as a footnote to its writing and drawing capabilities–a slate-style computing gizmo touting slick touch-based entertainment demos. Maybe even some clever riffing on stuff like Crayon Physics. But nothing for which you’d ever trade in a set-top console or gaming PC.

Before you douse me in kerosene and fire up the blowtorches for saying so, I love the idea of an Apple tablet for all kinds of reasons. It’s just that gaming isn’t one of them.

Okay, qualification time. When I say ‘gaming’, I mean stuff like Uncharted 2, Dragon Age: Origins, Demon’s Souls, and Final Fantasy XIII. When Apple says ‘gaming’, it means Dizzy Bee, Trism, Critter Crunch, and Zen Pinball. If you’re an iPhone owner, you’ve possibly heard of one or two of those last five. Everyone else? Probably not.

So while there’s always the chance we’ll see a startling last-second metamorphosis, Apple’s gaming track record skews decidedly casual and mass-consumer. Even Apple’s mainstream OS X games are mostly delayed, underperforming Windows ports. The last halfway interesting Mac-debuted game? Bungie’s 1990s Marathon series. Click here to read more.. »

Either Apple isn’t operating on the Gregorian calender, or these updates are just straight-up late. Either way, we’re pretty stoked to see the suits in Cupertino finally wise up and allow Microsoft’s best OS ever to work on its machines, as it has today issued new Boot Camp software (v3.1) for both 32-bit and 64-bit users of Windows 7. The updates add native support for Win7 Home Premium, Professional and Ultimate, and in case that wasn’t enough, they also fix “issues” with the Apple trackpad and add support for Apple’s wireless keyboard and Magic Mouse. You’ll also find model-specific drivers floating around to add even more support, and the Boot Camp Utility for Windows 7 Upgrade is said to “safely unmount the read-only Macintosh volume on Windows Vista” when upgrading from Vista to Windows 7. Hit those links below for all the bits and bytes that you’ve been so desperately waiting for.

Last week’s cyber attacks, that targeted Google and several other large U.S. companies, has certainly gotten Microsoft’s attention. The attack was orchestrated, in part, through a zero-day flaw in Internet Explorer (IE). The flaw seems to be obscure, and restricted to IE 6 and IE 7, but that hasn’t stopped Microsoft from releasing an out-of-cycle patch for IE.

Microsoft has acknowledgde the flaw, and says the “vulnerability exists as an invalid pointer reference within Internet Explorer. It is possible under certain conditions for the invalid pointer to be accessed after an object is deleted. In a specially-crafted attack, in attempting to access a freed object, Internet Explorer can be caused to allow remote code execution.”

Microsoft, in an announcement posted today, says the confusion surrounding this particular attack has compelled Microsoft to act now. Microsoft’s primary advice: upgrade to IE 8, which is not affected by this flaw. If you don’t plan to upgrade, then updates for earlier versions will be made available, with specific timing of the updates to be announced tomorrow. In the meantime, Microsoft suggests using the workarounds and mitigations provided in Security Advisory 979352.

Now that Apple’s officially announced an event to show off its “latest creation” on the 27th, the rumors and gossip are about to get even more out of hand — eventually we expect them to take flight and start raiding small towns for soda water and appetizers. In the meantime, however, we’ve got the latest batch of somewhat-sober whispers to tide us over, so let’s run through ‘em, shall we?

The rumor: The iPhone Blog points us to a China Times piece setting the tablet’s screen size at 9.7 inches. (We covered the 22-inch touchscreen iMac rumor separately.)
Our take: At this point we’ve heard pretty much every screen size from eight inches to 11, so we’re not making a call either way on this one. We will say that the only other product with a 9.7-inch screen we can think of off-hand is the Kindle DX — a relatively simple device that’s still so large and heavy we generally hold it with two hands. Just something to think about.

The rumor: Ars Technica talks to the director of the OLED Association, who rules out a 10.1-inch AMOLED screen by saying “there’s no real production of 10.1-inch panels.” Oh, and the only place to buy those would be Samsung, really, and Sammy doesn’t have the capacity.
Our take: We never thought a 10.1 OLED screen was likely: not only are prices insane, but OLED still has terrible daylight viewing issues. The Ars piece is well worth a read, though — it’s a nice look at the state of OLED. Click here to read more.. »

This one’s pretty cute (or evidence of a completely uncreative healthcare industry). Researchers at the University of Melbourne and Singapore General Hospital’s Department of Physiotherapy have run a battery of tests on the Wii’s Balance Board, and found it to be somewhat useful in testing patient’s balance and equilibrium, medically speaking. Current medical equipment used to test these skills is very expensive, heavy, and in short supply. The Balance Board, on the other hand, runs about $99. The Wii accessory was tested on 30 patients, and found to be about as good as the expensive force platforms usually used by doctors… which is great news for Nintendo — this product has seemingly endless real-life applications — but rather embarrassing for the makers of medical equipment, no? Hit the source link for a fuller look at the story.

Source: Science Direct

I’d like to give a tiny Golden Globe to all the fine people who put together these incredibly detailed Avatar Lego dioramas. That’s my kind of 3D.

Many of these are repurposed from older Lego sets, such as Halo and (gasp!) “Toy Story,” which in a way is an apt metaphor for Avatar itself, no? Either way, another win for the hobbyists! (More photos after the jump.) Click here to read more.. »

As the marketplace is pushing for smaller and smaller, Hewlett-Packard (HP) is bucking the trend with bigger. HP recently demonstrated a new design, which it has dubbed the “wall of touch”, built with up to nine 43-inch to 46-inch, 1.5-inch thick LCDs with 1080p resolution. It behaves like a really big TouchSmart computer.

The “wall of touch” is driven by a Z800 workstation, employs a standard touchscreen interface, as well as a gesture-capture interface. Gestures are picked up by optical cameras and a magnetic strip that detect when a user nears, and the movements of the user’s hands.

The “wall of touch” is basically a really big TV. HP says the system can access cable and satellite, as well as download and stream media. It connects to social networking sites. And it plays DVDs and DVRs.

HP plans to make the “wall of touch” a mainstream product. HP says it will be available to consumers in 2011. The price tag, depending on options, will range from a couple thousand dollars up to $100,000 or more.

Microsoft Corp. said Tuesday it would shorten the time it stores Internet users’ addresses from Web search queries from 18 months to six months following a request from a European Union data privacy panel.

It said the change would make its Bing search a better choice for privacy-conscious users than the world’s leading search engine Google Inc., because Microsoft will delete the entire Internet Protocol address from search queries — the string of numbers that shows a computer’s location.

“We believe that the balance between privacy and efficiency is very much in the mind of consumers,” Microsoft’s associate general counsel John Vassallo told reporters. “Getting the balance right does make the search engine more attractive.”

Microsoft says its search engine has some 2 percent of the European market, well below Google on 80 percent.

Google says keeping data from search queries is important to improving the way it processes search results and “represents a crucial arm in our battle to protect the security of our services against hacks and frauds.”

It says it makes users’ search details anonymous after nine months and allows people see and control some of the information that is stored on their searches.

Yahoo says it deletes IP addresses and makes user log data anonymous after 90 days, with some exceptions to fight fraud, secure systems and meet legal obligations.

EU data protection officials have questioned the need for search engines to keep data on searches and had asked for a six-month limit.

Microsoft’s announcement comes days after the German government warned users against Microsoft’s Internet Explorer browser until it fixes a security flaw.

The company will also likely see more competition for the browser, the most widely used, when European users start to see a box urging them to choose between Internet Explorer and rival browsers in coming months — a move that helped end an EU antitrust investigation into the browser.

The NAMM show, put on by the International Music Products Association, is one of the largest music product trade shows in the world. The 2010 NAMM Show took place this weekend at the Anaheim Convention Center in Anaheim, CA, and companies from all over the music industry were busy unveiling a wide variety of new products all across the board. The following is a quick list of some of the things that particularly caught my eye.

For the DJ or Producer

Ableton and Serato: The Bridge: Two superstars in the music industry collaborated to close the gap between producing and performing.

Serato Scratch Live is a vinyl emulation software that allows you to use audio files (like mp3, wav, aiff, ogg, etc.) and transfer them onto a time-coded vinyl or CD to be used like an actual hard copy.

Ableton is a DAW that is geared towards being used as an instrument for live performances and is used for composing and arranging music, as opposed to music editing on a step sequencer.

“The Bridge” closes distance between making beats and performing with them. Using an integrated interface that is a blend between the two programs, you can do things like create/load your own multi-track mixes and control them using your DJ equipment to fire off samples or cut to certain parts of songs/mixes; or you can also easily create mixtapes with the software by performing your mix with Serato and then recording/chopping it up and adding effects with Ableton.

There is no set release date for The Bridge, but owners of both Serato Scratch Live and Ableton 8, will get it for free. Click here to read more.. »