Taking gaming to the next dimension with Microsoft

Holy cow! Has anybody been keeping up with Microsoft's announcements this month? Stop me if I miss anything... Windows 7 release date confirmed, Bing launches, Zune HD confirmed, XBOX Live meets Facebook, Last.fm, and Twitter, and last but not least: Project Natal is announced.

Project Natal is going to be the focus of this post. Essentially, Natal is to XBOX as the Wiimote is to the Wii. Microsoft took the higher road this time though *cough*SONY*cough* and instead of copying the technology, innovated a stereo-lens 3D system that superimposes a point map onto your body; this system also has multitracking capabilities on a scale never before seen on the commercial market. I'll be giving a more in depth overview after I find out more about it, but for now check out the video expo'd at E3.

Mozilla JetPack

This past week, mozilla has outdone themselves one more time with an amazing feature call "JetPack", aptly named for accelerating addon development with cloud based languages.

JetPack allows the developer to create some incredibly useful addons using HTML, CSS, JS, and a jQuery syntax hosted in your browser. The result, of course, is an easy to learn, rapidly deployable framework that has the full power of Firefox behind it.

I want to give all of you a detailed review of it, but so far all I've done so far is to implement the built in twitter library to the status bar. I can tell you, though, that from what I have used of JetPack, it is very powerful and easy to use. I can't wait to see more of it!

Check it out for yourself @ https://jetpack.mozillalabs.com
Sent from my Verizon Wireless BlackBerry

Playstation 3, I love thee!

So I got myself a PS3 at last (with the help of my wonderful girlfriend @funnylttlefrog) and boy oh boy, do I love it! Interestingly enough, its not even the gaming platform that I love, its the scalability, expandability, and modability of the system I’m enjoying.

For one, the hard drive is a 2.5” SATA drive that can be swapped out with just one screw. I’ve seen up to 750GB used in the storage bay, and I’m pretty sure it can be pushed further. Upgradability, for the win.

Second, its a Blu-Ray player. I mean, come on—I already have an XBOX 360, with Live, so after the XBE upgrade, its a given I have Netflix. Sooooo, with that in mind, a tiny additional fee, and now I have Blu-Ray access on my account. So long, fees!

The big draw came from the the capability to install another OS on the hard drive, in a separate, hypervised environment. Wait, say what? The PS3 supports an additional OS on top of the factory shipped OS. No chips, no mods, no soldering necessary. I just about had a geek-gasm when I saw it.

Here’s the problem—It is a Hypervised environment, that is to say, installed under a hypervisor. Ram is limited, processing power choked, and access to the GPU is severely stunted. The environment is lackluster, and just enough to run Linux, albeit under PowerPC to accommodate for the Cell processors running in the unit.

There are certain builds of Ubuntu available that allow you to access the PS3 hardware natively, such as mapping out the USB ports for the SIXAXIS or DualShock 3 controllers, and obtaining a BlueTooth connection to the controllers, even as far as using the controllers for a virtual keyboard. Speaking of keyboard (and mouse), the USB ports natively support all PC hardware, allowing for quick deployments of an OS.

The question now lies with, how does one go about bypassing the Hypervisor on the PS3? Can the system truly be accessed to its full potential? Do we have to live choked by the firmware forever?

And dammit, when will there be NTFS support?

PS3—A game console, an entertainment hub, a blu-ray player, and now a PC. Yeah, I’d say its worth the money you pay for it. This is the system for techies. I’ll put more up as I’m messing with the system, but my end goal is to find a way around that hypervisor. If anyone has any tips, please feel free to share them!

Windows XP Mode and Windows Virtual PC

Apparently, Windows 7 will support a virtualized state called “Windows XP Mode”, in which XP runs natively underneath Win7 in a virtual environment. You can install legacy applications under the XP environment, and they then get published to the Win7 desktop. While this is a very interesting concept, there are some key things to consider in the creation of this product.

• Added incentive still needed for business owners to move off of XP to Win7 XP mode—regardless of identical states
• (Devil’s Advocate) This can already be performed with VMware on OS X, why bother with Win7?
• This is available to Business and Ultimate only, with implications that you have to be tech savvy to use it. What about consumer grade products that only work in XP? How does this help the every(wo)man?

Criticism aside, I have to say I am very excited about this. This is NOT another “compatibility mode” for Windows, as we all know how well that works out, this is a full blown kernel running side by side—albeit virtualized—next to the Windows 7 core. This should appeal to the XP and Vista buffs both. Apparently, you don’t even need a second license for the XP kernel, as it is IO only, and not UI.

Excerpted from WindowsTeamBlog:

Windows XP Mode is specifically designed to help small businesses move to Windows 7. Windows XP Mode provides you with the flexibility to run many older productivity applications on a Windows 7 based PC.

All you need to do is to install suitable applications directly in Windows XP Mode which is a virtual Windows XP environment running under Windows Virtual PC. The applications will be published to the Windows 7 desktop and then you can run them directly from Windows 7.

Windows XP Mode and Windows Virtual PC are best experienced on your new Windows 7 PC. We will be soon releasing the beta of Windows XP Mode and Windows Virtual PC for Windows 7 Professional and Windows 7 Ultimate.

http://windowsteamblog.com/blogs/business/archive/2009/04/24/coming-soon-windows-xp-mode-and-windows-virtual-pc.aspx

What do you guys think? Sound off!