Yes, Its Actually a GunZ Blog ...

Are you looking for a free online game where you can run around, shoot and slash other people? Do you want to test your hand-eye skills against people from all over the world? Then GunZ the Duel is the game for you. Gunz the Duel is a free online game that can be downloaded legally from several site and server locations.


There are several game modes in GunZ the Duel. These game modes include the following: Deathmatch, Team Deathmatch, Gladiator, Team Gladiator, Assassination, Duel, Training and Quest. Deathmatch is exactly like it sounds. It is an all out war where your only ally is yourself. You slash and shoot your way to the top player in that match by killing as much as you can and dying as little as possible. Team Deathmatch is similar to Deathmatch, except you have a team. Whether on red team or blue team, your task is to work together with your teammates, and kill every player on the opposing team. Gladiator and Team Gladiator are somewhat like Deathmatch and Team Deathmatch except you cannot use both ranged weapons and melee weapons. In these modes, all you are given is swords. You have to slash your way to the top, getting the best score you can. There is also another team based game mode in GunZ the Duel called Assassination. In this mode, each team has a VIP that must be protected in order for your team to survive. However, the same goes for the opposing team. This means you must kill the opposing teams VIP in order for your team to win.


Dueling in GunZ the Duel is by far the biggest and most challenging game mode. It is the place to show off your solo skills. Through 1v1, it is simply you and the enemy. If you win your match, you then face off against the next player in line. If you lose, you go to the “end of the line” and wait for your turn again. Training is best for practicing moves or just relaxing. If you’re not up for fighting intense battles, yet you want to still play, just make or join a training game. If you have three friends that want to quest with you, the Quest mode is always fun. You can take down goblins, skeletons, lizards. If that isn’t good enough, you can even fight the strong and challenging bosses.


GunZ the Duel overall is a fun game. I personally have a level 64, 43, 36, and 21. There aren’t many players that reach level 64, so being such a high level, makes the game even more pleasurable. To be honest, it’s enjoyable for me to kill enemies and then taunt them. If you get better, I’m sure you will get this satisfaction too.
Play GunZ the Duel NOW! READY? LETS FIGHT!

Rock Band 2: Mmmmmm Rockbizzle

For those of you who enjoyed the rhythm based party game Rock Band, many Xbox360 owners will be glad to know that Rock Band 2 has arrived on the market. So what makes Rock Band such a great game? It allows gamers to take control of their favourite instrument and rock out to huge collection of songs from different genres. With a couple of electronic guitars, an electronic drum set, and a microphone, users can literally spend hours jamming with their friends. The selection of music is fantastic with the new Rock Band boasting a collection of over 100 songs, and promising that by the holiday season to have over 500 songs available for download via Xbox live.

Developed by the creators of Guitar Hero 1 and 2, Rock Band takes what made Guitar Hero successful and adds much more, making it a powerhouse on the gaming market. The singing component of the game lets you belt out your favourite tunes karaoke style while trying to stay on pitch for the best score possible. This can be extremely fun, even if most of the fun is being had laughing at your friend’s attempt to sing. The drum kit peripheral has four electronic drum pads and a foot pedal. This lets you keep the rhythm to all your favourite songs just like Lars Ulrich. The guitar peripherals let gamers take control of either the lead guitar or bass tracks of the song. Together with a group of people this game literally allows you to form a Rock Band and take it on tour. The career mode allows you to go from playing small time gigs to huge shows. You can dress up your characters, customize their instruments and give them piercings and tattoos that you wouldn’t dream of giving yourself.

So for all you 360 owners Rock Band 2 is definitely a must have for any gamer. Those of you who are waiting for the PS3 and WII versions later this year, this game is definitely worth the wait.

Online Shopping

Today, because its easy, fast, convenience to modern busy people, online shopping is so common that somebody rely on it forgetting the regular store shopping.

There are so many advantages to do online shopping. First, it is easy to compare the same product among the different online stores. You can get the product with the good price. Second, sometimes, you can get the feedback about the product from other customers. According that, you can make a better choice. Third, if you change your mind after ordering and before shipping, you can easily cancel your order just through few clicks.

On the other hand, online shopping is not perfect. First of all, sometimes it is insecurity. A lot of customers use credit card to pay the items bought by them. For some unknown reasons, some customers lost their card information. Second thing is hard to take a look at the product through its limited size picture. Occasionally, the real thing is different from the picture. When you receive your order, you find the product is not the one you really want.

Although it has some weaknesses, online shopping is more and more popular and becomes a part of daily life for certain number people in modern society. At the same time, some people still trust the regular stores in the real world. Some smart businessmen build both regular store in the real world and the visual one online to keep all customers with different shopping habits. Which way do you prefer to do your shopping?

Photosynth - New Way of Looking at Pictures

Photography has come a long as technology has advanced, and now with relatively inexpensive digital cameras and processors, something as powerful as Photosynth is born and is now accessible for even consumers. Developed in 2006, Microsoft showed off a tech preview of the software that allowed users to view generated models developed by Microsoft. Now as of August 20, 2008, the software is officially released to the public allowing users to generate their own Photosynth models.

Photosynth is a recent development by Microsoft, it is a program that allows users to view their images in a 3D model, giving way for revolutionary way at storing, viewing and sharing pictures. A matching algorithm developed by Microsoft, is a process that identifies specific features in a photo for example a certain part of the building, and compares it with other similar pictures containing that specific feature.

With the data, a process called Bundle Adjustment analyzes the subtle angle, lighting, and distance differences to be able to figure out spatially in a 3D environment where it belongs relative to the other pictures. The algorithm can then match the pictures together and display them in their respective location in 3D.

Using Seadragon technology, the Photosynth viewer allows users to zoom into pictures smoothly without it being downloaded to the client’s computer. It also allows for changing pictures smoothly between nearby photos and even walk and fly through a scene for a seamless experience.

This inspiring technology allows people from all around the world to combine and share pictures of the same area in a very novel way never though of before and it allows the images to be uploaded into a virtual world.

World of MMO's

People around the world love to play video games, some on the other hand do not. Those who do either play games on gaming consoles such as X-box and Playstation or they have a game for computer which they enjoy and each of those have many different types of games that are available. For me the best kind of gaming are the MMO’s that are found though computer games.

The world of MMO’s is a vast community that brings people from the around the world together in one spot to play an epic game which cannot be played in 5 or 10 minute spurts. These are the kinds of games where you clear your schedule in a day to put aside many hours of your time to commit to playing these games. For me it was Dark Age of Camelot and now Warhammer. Others are involved in other MMO’s such as World of Warcraft but when it comes down to it they’re all the same. MMO’s are a place where you can find a community type environment, somewhere you can go outside of reality but at the same time is reality. By playing MMO’s over a long period of time you come to make friends, join guilds, fight battles with the same select people that you call your friends. Over time that friendship turns into a family type setting. I played Dark Age of Camelot from time of release which was 2001 to the time when WOW pretty much emptied the servers. During that time I ran with a group of people known as KT or Knights Templar. These people become my second family, people that actually cared about you, worried about you and cared for you. These are people where chances are you have never seen these people except through an animated toon on a screen but none the less you feel that sense of family and I guess you could say love for your guild members.

The days of Dark Age of Camelot are long over but the family that was Knight Templars remained and after all the years of KT being apart, Warhammer has brought us all back together again. The family known as KT to those who were members of it are back together sharing good times, remember old times and making new memories. Those who look at MMO’s and say “Those games are retarded,” or “Why would you want to play a game like?” and most importantly, “I don’t’ understand why you waste so much of your time on a stupid computer game.” You want to know why I “waste” my time on an MMO’s? Because other then my real family, I have a second family that will always live on no matter where we are or what we are doing, you are always missed and welcomed. If you have never been a part of something as special as that you will never understand why people truly have a love for MMO’s. Technology and Animation creating families via a virtual world, amazing isn’t it?

Asus goes "Ultra small"

Asus unveils their all new Eee PC 701 earlier this year, which ,surprisingly enough, has awe stricken the mobile computer market. This 7" wide, 20 grams short of a kilo gram piece of plastic packs quite the punch with the options it has to offer to the "on the go" user. An unofficial source believes that Asus originally intended to target children below the age of 10 whom may have an interest in using a laptop for simple tasks. However, it has come to show that the European and North American markets have favoured ultra light weight laptops for the past decade. It seems that the ideal traveling business man is not complete without the Eee PC Asus has to offer. An unofficial source also claims that the Ultra light weight laptop earned its name from a simple marketing strategy: "Easy to learn, Easy to work, Easy to play." Furthermore, the Eee series comes preloaded with Linux and some open-sourced, user friendly, and fun to use applications for all type of users. In fact, the laptop also uses state of the art solid state memory as a mean of digital real estate. The user also has the option to load Microsoft Windows 95,98,ME,2000 NT, and or XP. What is more, Asus has managed to offer the consumer a low price point which makes everyone happy. I should remind you that today's technology only seems to get more and more expensive as the device gets smaller in size. Comparable products from competing companies typically sell for $1000.00 CAD at the least. Nonetheless, a minimum price tag of approximately $350 CAD will get you in one their lower end Eee PC laptops. Lacking superb video rendering capabilities and multi core processing, this little piece of plastic does have a lot to offer. It was designed to have extreme mobility in mind. Asus claims an incredible 2.5 to 8 hour battery life depending on the task being performed. It also offer the user access to wireless internet and wireless Bluetooth technology. It seems, however, that the keyboard should be used with aid of 2 pencils for ease of typing as it is a compressed version of the real thing. Regardless of which, the user does have the option of plugging in any USB device. All in all, not a bad piece of technology for the price, the weight, and ridiculously small size. Yacoub Husseini Asus Eee PC - Learn more

A Double Team Of Epic Proportions!

Ever since the introduction of computer graphics, the scale and detail of the art created has increased in direct correlation to computational power. When it comes to modern computing, the CPU (Central Processing Unit) used to be the king of the hill, but recently GPU (Graphics Processing Unit) power has increased significantly. So much so, that most if not all new GPU’s can easily ‘out-math’ CPU’s without breaking a sweat. With this metaphorical nitrous added to the computing-engine; engineers at Adobe and NVIDIA have teamed up to harness GPU processing power in a way never thought possible. When questioned on the addition of GPU power into the Adobe CS4 project, John Loiacono, senior vice president of Creative Solutions at Adobe had this to say:

"A critical element of CS4 was to capture the enormous power of the GPU. The
difference is astounding. Performance is important to creative professionals and
with the NVIDIA GPU, they are assured to be able to interact with images and
videos in a much faster, smoother, more engaging way."

And so, enter Adobe CS4, a new addition to the Adobe Photoshop suite of software that is rumoured to blow socks off. With all the extra power of the GPU on hand (of NVIDIA design only) CS4 promises to deliver new features and improve on old ones. Whether it be precise photo editing with new depth-of-field blur effects from Photoshop that tickle your fancy. Or, perhaps it’s the real-time editing and movie effects of Premier at blazing speeds that does it for you. Yes, Adobe and NVIDIA are defiantly throwing a party, and were all invited.

Anyone interested, is encouraged to check our more (especially the cool video) at:

http://www.nvidia.com/object/adobe.html

Open source leads innovation

Do-It-Yourself, and Open-source have become a major player in this information age, thanks to the average Joe. While community driven websites exist purely for DIYers like, DIY Network, MakeZine BLOG, Hobby Robotics, the potential for solving our every day problems is getting closer thanks to these 'thinkers'. At the people’s fingertips, we all have the ability to create projects like a Wii-Mote controlled interactive whiteboard. These small projects and details provide us everything we need to know for creating them ourselves. The open-source community will be a deciding factor in our spread of free knowledge. The information age is at its peak once true communities of people are able to spread ideas and innovations freely without censorship. These websites provoke free thought, and push us to discover, innovate, create and do.

Instead of buying a game controller for $50, the open source community gives the average Joe a way to make his own controller, which could only consist of the taking apart of old equipment, costing nothing. How about an electronic drum set? There are hundreds of websites with specs to create your own drum set with simple electronics using a drum brain, or an Arduino microcontroller, which happens to be an open-source programmable interface. Using simple C code to program this microcontroller, we all have the ability to cheaply create electronics with freely available source code with specs. Even businesses like Microsoft, they have identified the community as providing quality products by introducing XNA Game Studio, freely available to create games for Windows and Xbox360.

The major contenders in this information age happen to be the every day person, thanks to open communities of doers and thinkers. Pick yourself up an Arduino and start making your own robot or Google a DIY website and create your own stuff.

World of Warcraft - an elite gaming experience

World of Warcraft is a commonly known MMORPG. Its leading edge game design makes it one of the best MMORPGs on the market. As a whole, the game is made up of two key parts, PVE (Player Vs Environment) and PVP (Player Vs Player). Let’s take a look at how each part has a large roll in this game.

First, let’s tackle PVE. In PVE, the objective is to band together with other players and conquer difficult dungeons. This is called a Raid. Raids can be comprised anywhere from 10 to 25 players. Lead by a raid leader, a raid bands together with the common goal of vanquishing challenging bosses and receive the rare treasures hidden in the dungeon. Some dungeons are too challenging to face with out decent gear (items your character wears to make them stronger). To advance to the harder dungeons, raids need to utilize the treasures from the easier dungeons until they get strong enough to move on. This is one of the challenging parts of PVE. The most difficult part of PVE is learning the boss fights. Each boss in the game has different abilities and thus requires different strategies to beat them. Some fights require lots of practice and team work to beat, and can prove to be difficult. Both the difficultly of the dungeons as well as the different strategies of the bosses, add to the PVE experience.

Now let’s talk about PVP. PVP is known as a fast paced battle royal. Two sides of the battle, the Horde and the Alliance, battle for the objective of the battleground. There are four different battlegrounds, Warsong Gulch, Alterac Valley, Eye of the Storm and Arathi Basin. All 4 of these battlegrounds have different objectives.

Warsong Gulch - Capture the flag
Alterac Valley - Destroy the enemies base
Arathi Basin – Capture territories
Eye of the Storm – combination of Warsong Gulch and Arathi Basin
The dynamic battles in each battleground keep you on the edge of your seat as fight to win.

The difference between PVE and PVE describe two different game experiences. Some choose to stick to just one side, while others choose to do both. Personally I find PVP more thrilling than PVE but it’s up to you to try out World of Warcraft find out which aspect of the game adds the most to its award winning design.

Hubble Space Telescope

It looks as though the Hubble Telescopes life is just about done. Just prior to a scheduled repair and upgrade mission of October 14th, 2008, the Hubble Telescope took a turn for the worst. Not only are the main navigation systems responsible for maintaining an orbit malfunctioning, but more recently, the command and data-handling systems responsible for transmitting images back to earth have broken down. Interestingly enough, NASA has absolutely no idea what the cause is, although it is believed that the angry aliens finally put an end to the equipment used by the galactic peeping toms.

As a temporary solution NASA will be firing up the back up systems which have not been used since the late 1980s. Despite the set back, NASA is thrilled that the malfunction has occurred. Ed Weiler states:

“Think about if this failure had occurred two weeks after the servicing mission, we had just put two brand new instruments in and thought we extended the lifetime for five, 10 years and this thing failed after the last shuttle mission to Hubble. So in some sense, if this had to happen, it couldn't have happened at a better time.”

The much needed upgrades and repairs will have to be placed on hold while scientists back on Earth prepare the modules required to replace the old command and data relays. As a result, the mission will be scheduled to launch at the earliest date of the first quarter of 2009.

The Leica S2 Digital SLR

The German camera company, Leica, has been making premium quality 35mm cameras since 1925.  On September 23, 2008, Leica announced their brand new autofocus Digital SLR system, which has been branded the “S” System.  The Leica S2 is the first camera to be released in the S system.  The S2 features a 37.5 megapixel CCD sensor, in a weatherproof camera body that is similar in size to most current DSLR systems that are already available.  The gigantic sensor measures 30x45mm, which is 56% larger than a traditional full-frame sensor, and an industry first.

Although the statistics of the new Leica sensor are impressive, they introduce a few new problems.  The biggest problem created by this relatively massive sensor is also its main selling point.  Traditional lenses are designed to fill a 35mm frame, however, because the Leica sensor is so much bigger, new lenses must be designed to properly focus an image to fill the entire frame.  Because Leica is the only manufacturer of this sensor, and therefore, these lenses; they can charge an astronomical price for the lenses, and professional photographers will have no choice but to pay up if they want to remain competitive in their industry. 

On the topic of price, there’s the camera body itself.  There’s really no gentle way to put this, so I’m just going to say it; this camera costs $45,000.  Once again, because Leica has this unique market all to themselves right now, they can afford to charge this much and still expect to receive a large number of customers.  Although the price is outrageous, and the potential for problems is high, there is unfortunately no compromise for any professional photographer who is in the market for a large-format digital SLR.

Technology & Oscar

When people think of technology I think the first thing they think of is the newest “toy” out in the market, an iPod, a camera phone, or what have you. Usually these things are just distractions that people use to occupy their time. I think it is important to remember that technology is also deconstructing peoples’ preconceived notions, notably regarding the disabled.


I think everyone is familiar with Oscar Pistorius, the South African sprinter with no legs, who, this Olympics in Beijing almost qualified to compete in the 100m dash but was denied because the IOC deemed his prosthetics to be an unfair technological advantage. Interesting, the artificial limbs he uses are not the most technologically advanced. Oscar notes that he uses a lesser quality prosthetic because he grew up using them and feels most comfortable using them to compete. Even with the prosthetics, Oscar was still a second short for qualifying for the Olympics. Oscar is affectionately dubbed “the fastest man with no legs”.


What I find most intriguing about Oscar’s story is the paradox it poses. Can a man with prosthetic legs really be considered disabled anymore? Can we really look at a man with artificial limbs, someone who essentially stands shoulder to shoulder with the world’s most physically gifted athletes, and attach the title “disabled” to him? No. Technology has afforded him the liberty to, not only, live a normal life but to compete in the highest test of physical ability in the world. 20 years ago, society would see a man with prosthetic limbs and have pity for him, now we look at him with revere… because of technology.

Past and Present of Music Storage

Most people have a good time listening to music. Throughout history, music has been a symbolic way of showing many things; from signs of war to ways of celebrating. There are many different genres of music in the world and every song has a meaning. That being said, as our technology has increased, we have developed new means of storing, listening, and creating our many different types of music.

In the 1870’s, Thomas Edison created a working Phonograph (Record Player). This invention used a rotating disk and an arm to navigate to the section of data on the disk. If we are to look at this invention of a vinyl disk that uses grooves to store memory and look at current hard drives that use a navigational arm and magnetic memory, we see a striking similarity. This pays homage to the older ways of invention.

In 1935, Joseph Bagun invented the first magnetic tape player called the Sound Mirror and then created the first cassette player the Dailygraph. In 1962, compact versions of cassettes (Polyester tape with magnetic dust) were available allowing people to even carry music on the go using Walkman’s (created by Sony in 1979) that were around six by four inches. This changed the way music was stored from large records to a smaller more portable packages. Music has become a convenience to many people in their cars, at home, and in their ears on the go. As is with all technology, when it progresses and is sold to consumers; it will become cheap.

Around the same time that Sony invented Walkman’s (1979) they also with the Philips Company invented the compact disc. The Compact Disc uses Digital a data storage approach, adding more quality and convenience. The quality of the discs compared to a tape is greatly increased, a disc can have from seventy to eighty minutes of music but the quality can vary, this is not the case with cassettes as their quality cannot be changed from the original tape material. CD’s (Compact Disc) could also be stored more effectively due to their small disc shape and stack ability. Upgrading from magnetic to digital also made the usage of the CD’s more users friendly and lead to capability of computer based music storage. For example, people could now skip a song instead of fast-forwarding and you could store and burn songs on your computer.

Computers allow the management of music in many different formats stored in both solid state chips and on hard disks. A computer can store masses of music in a small portion of space, making CD’s only convenient for mobile purposes. As technology grew - as it always does - it reduced the size of physical components, allowing devices to do more. This progression of technology and the worlds love of music lead to the MP3 player. MP3 Players (Created by Saehan Information Systems in 1998) are small portable devices that store music similar to the way that computers, Digital memory on Hard Drives and Chip Boards do. This has made mobile music playing easier and in greater amounts. For example, instead of carrying a stack of CD’s, the user can carry three by two inch devices that can store more music than needed (over one thousand songs). In today’s world, it is highly unlikely to go to a public area and see anyone without headphones in their ears and an MP3 strapped to their body.

The Internet and the Decline of Individual Thought

The Internet is a powerful invention of the 20th Century. It has changed the way that information is transmitted and has opened up a wealth of knowledge to those that choose to use it. Through blogs and social networking sites, like Facebook and forums, people can share ideas and discuss the latest news. However, with this level of connectedness, there is a danger that our minds will become homogenized and that individual thought will grow increasingly less important.

In the Internet age, if someone wants to know something, they can find the desired information immediately through websites like Google or Wikipedia. This is convenient, but doesn’t foster original thought. In the past, when information was harder to come by, people had to put more effort into finding answers to their questions. Nowadays, you can find information nearly effortlessly, with a machine doing all the work. If you can come to a conclusion without thinking, then you aren’t really learning. Furthermore, if you can simply find whatever you want through a quick Google search, then you don’t really need to retain that information either. Because of this, people may become content to let their mind stagnate.

By the very fact that we are all connected to each other and to the world’s information, each of us is in danger of becoming less individual in our thoughts and opinions. You can already see a group mentality in the Internet through memes. There are thousands of Internet memes, all very annoying. The very nature of a meme encourages endless repetition for no reason except for the propagation of worthless information. Instead of thinking about an issue or topic, it is easy for a person to use a meme or image that provides a cookie cutter answer. This can be humorous and fun, but if this is what the entire world turns into, we will not advance. If, for every conversation, you could have an automated system provide you with suitable sentences, then you wouldn’t be thinking for yourself.

The Internet age holds a lot of promise. There are endless things to see and countless things to learn, but there is a risk that we may actually lose our ability to think for ourselves. There is a sea of knowledge on the web, but we should use it to augment our own capabilities, rather than replace them.

Image taken from Wikipedia.

The Wikipedia Conspiracy

Wikipedia is a popular web encyclopedia which is has lots on information on various topics. The way it gets its information is through users that write and edit articles freely. This is an advantage to the site because people can share knowledge with one another freely, however, this can be a big disadvantage because anyone can either add false information to the site or edit existing information to give a certain impression on the topic. Such organizations that take advantage of Wikipedia’s disadvantages include the C.I.A., the Democratic Party (United States), Microsoft and Diebold whose reasoning is to hide the truth from the masses.

These organizations were discovered editing articles thanks to a web tool known as Wikipedia Scanner. This tool works by tracking the IP addresses of anonymous edititors.

Diebold is a voting machine company in the United States. In October 2005, an anonymous user using the company’s IP address deleted many paragraphs on an article about them that questioned the integrity of their voting machines and their CEO’s fund raising for President George W. Bush. One month later, another edit was made by an anonymous user using the company’s IP address. This edit was the removal of paragraphs and links to stories about the alleged rigging of the 2000 United States elections.

The C.I.A. was responsible for a number of edits on the site. One article edited was about Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, and another article about former C.I.A. chief Porter Goss.

In 2007 Microsoft offered money to go through articles on document standards that other companies and Microsoft are using.

The reason why major organizations such as these would want to edit articles about themselves or of other subjects is because of propaganda. They want to make themselves look as close to perfect as possible in the public eye in order to promote the illusion that there are no flaws with whatever person, organization or system that the public complain about. This is done by manipulating different forms of media whenever they can so that they can cover up the truth from the masses. That truth is that they want to enslave the general public using technologies such as the internet (targeting popular web sites such as Wikipedia) as seen in the paragraphs above as a medium for diverting the public from having a freedom of choice when it comes to the products that they want, what injustices they choose to fight (if they choose) and which person they want to lead the country and so forth. In order for the masses to make their decision effectively, they must be exposed to the truth and not be trapped in the illusions that these organizations are creating.

Info Sources:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/6947532.stm
http://www.wired.com/politics/onlinerights/news/2007/08/wiki_tracker

Pornography: A Driving Force of Technology

While many people may disapprove of pornography, few can say they have never looked at it and nobody can deny the profound impact it has had on technology. In the 16th century pornography helped to popularize the printing press, and in the 19th century it left its mark on photography. Again in the 20th century legend has it that Sony’s unwillingness to work with porn producers led to the demise of the Betamax and the rise of VHS. And again it was porn that drove sales of DVDs. Unlike VHS, DVDs allow users to quickly skip to their favourite scenes and change angles at their will. Do you ever watch pay-per-view? Can you guess who pioneered that? That’s right the porn industry. Today pornography’s impact on the internet is undeniable. Pornography fuels the need for high speed internet connections, as well as video streaming technology. The amount of revenue generated by pornography is absurd. That revenue is then used to develop new and innovative technologies. The porn industry’s massive success on the internet has led other online businesses to look to porn leaders for advice. Danni Ashe, a one time nude model, turned entrepreneur, now serves as a consultant to other companies looking to emulate her e-commerce model. Take a look at this article to find out more about her http://www.melonfarmers.co.uk/arssashe.htm (yes this link is safe for work). To further illustrate my point, here are some interesting statistics about porn and the internet.

• Every second - $3,075.64 is being spent on pornography
• Every second - 28,258 Internet users are viewing pornography
• Every second - 372 Internet users are typing adult search terms into search engines
• The pornography industry is larger than the revenues of the top technology companies
  combined: Microsoft, Google, Amazon, eBay, Yahoo!, Apple, Netflix and EarthLink.
  

So the next time you look at porn (if you do indeed look at porn), think about the many contributions it has made to your daily life. From the printing press to the internet, porn will always be a major player in the development of new technologies. (All statistics taken from http://internet-filter-review.toptenreviews.com/internet-pornography-statistics)

The Benefits of VNC

Virtual Network Computing is a protocol used to control one computer’s keyboard and mouse over a network from a different computer. This protocol creates many advantages and disadvantages for those who use it. Since VNC is simply a protocol, many software developers have created programs for many platforms making the protocol cross-platform. The implementation of VNC for businesses allows IT departments located anywhere on a wide or local area network able to diagnose and fix problems. Many people have also discovered VNC to be a valuable protocol to use at home for personal uses Once fully set up and configured, VNC is powerful and extremely stable but the set up for many users tends to be difficult.

The VNC protocol is very functional and robust as a cross platform solution. With many software solutions for many platforms, interchangeability is a clear advantage. Most of the business world runs Windows while some users prefer Mac OS X. The majority of IT setups run a variation of UNIX or Linux for their operating systems, this creates incompatibility in a business environment. Luckily VNC allows users running one operating system control and interact as if they are using a different operating system. This allows IT departments to help other areas of a business with any problems they run into with software they may be unfamiliar with.

In a personal setting, VNC isn’t as flexible when compared to a business setting. Many users use VNC to access a desktop computer with intense applications from a less powerful laptop somewhere else in the house. The average user will have difficulty setting up a VNC server, especially if they don’t understand the basics of networking. The only way to make a connection to a VNC server is through a direct IP address. This makes both local and remote access rather difficult to set up. If a user wants to control a computer on a local network from the Internet they need to worry about dynamic IPs and port forwarding but with the simplicity of modern hardware and software, most people can overcome these initial issues.

Users interested in using VNC should check out some freeware VNC applications. For Windows and Linux, a simple but powerful VNC server and client is TightVNC. For Mac users, A VNC server is built right into OS X but a compatible client such as Chicken of the VNC must be used to connect using OS X. Each of these examples can connect to each other this makes them interchangeable. Sure the set up is a little tedious but anybody can benefit from a VNC setup. Don’t be shy, give VNC a go sometime.

Retrogaming

Given the raw processing power at our fingertips these days, why is it that we hold dear those games with pixelated graphics, 8 bit sound, and only two buttons? Some would hold it to nostalgia, of the classic games of our youth. Super Mario Bros is something that most of us would know from our childhoods, and would happily play again given some free time. Some attribute it to sheer game design. They accuse modern games of overlooking gameplay in favour of graphics and marketing, preferring the simple and intuitive controls offered by having only a few buttons.

However, these factors are not enough by themselves. Nostalgia cannot be the answer, as gamers explore old games they have never tried before, and many newer games deliberately use 8 bit technology. Citing the recently released (Sept 08) Megaman 9 as an example, its cover is made to be purposely retro, and it even includes graphical glitches from older technologies, such as enemies flickering when too many of them are on screen.

Game design cannot be solely responsible either, as innovative new games are undoubtedly still in production, as video gaming is seeing unprecedented levels of support from all demographics. Most gamers have a mix of old and new games in their collection to suit their tastes.

For whatever reason, it just seems that simple, pixelated, retro-games hold a certain place in our hearts. The three major consoles have all adapted their own versions of support for old games; the Wii's Virtual Console, X-Box Live Arcade, and the Playstation Network. In addition, retro enthusiasts go the extra mile and own the original systems and their cartridges for their favorite games. It is safe to say that the classics are not disappearing anytime soon.

Physicists draw up plans for real 'cloaking device

19:00 25 May 2006
NewScientist.com news service
Zeeya Merali
NewScientist.com

Physicists are attempting to create a device that could render objects invisible to the human eye. Objects become visible to our eyes due to the way light normally bounces off its surface. Physicist John Pendry and colleagues at Imperial College London, UK, are attempting to create materials, know as metamaterials that will have abnormal optical properties. Metamaterials are composites that are made from electronic components that can be engineered to control the way light travels through them. Pendry's team are calculating that due to its unique shape, light could pass around an object and make it appear as if it was not there. Pendry and his colleagues have drawn up plans for a spherical metamaterial that could potentially render an enclosed object invisible to the eye. In theory; Pendry’s team discusses the types of material properties needed at each point, but the challenge is to match the theory requirements with actual material.

In the past, others have drawn designs for invisibility cloaks. The idea was to calculate exactly how light is scattered off an objects surface, and attempt to design a material to exactly cancel the light reflection. Pendry says that his idea will be different because past designs could not be used for cloaking multiple objects under the same cloak. The difficulty with Pendry’s team design is that it will only work at wavelength larger than visible light. To get by this obstacle Pendry’s team will have to create metamaterials at the nanoscale. Working with materials at a nanoscale makes it “far more difficult to control the metal’s properties,” said team member David Smith. However, he believes that cloaking could become a reality within the next decade.

By: Danny Brown

Will iPod ever stop?

When I first saw iPod released on the market, I never thought that it could become today best sold mp3 player on the market. Apple has been developing their iPod to be one of the most fantastic mp3 players ever in the digital music world. The most recent release of new iPod nano really draws my attention to “want” it, although I already have a 30G iPod video. They design the new iPod nano into a really slick and thin that hold up to 16G of digital files, including music, videos, pictures and games… etc. The quality is amazing, with the Apple technologies, the new iPod nano has some cool features, like shaking to shuffle your songs, games that use some sort of sensor and manipulate the way you tilt the device itself, which I found very interesting. There are 9 different colours you can choose from and it is very nice, I personally would love to have the purple one. I have seen so many different kinds of iPod ever since and this new one really draw my attention to it (not to mention I am still considering iPhone but still waiting for the price drop), because the price is affordable 8Gb for $149, 16Gb for $199. If you loved music, you would definitely need to consider this new device as your toy. Apple has been developing their iPod since 2001 and never stops since then. I am thinking when will iPod ever stop being developed?

Source: apple.com