You know, I am consistently (and pleasantly) surprised at the compatibility of old XBOX games on the on the XBOX360. When you consider that the games are running and emulation (the platforms are completely different), the speed difference between the two is difficult to discern.
It is also interesting to see which games look as good when viewed at the higher res. Black, for example, looks just as good on my 20″ LCD panel and the XBOX360 at more than twice the resolution than it did on the XBOX. Far Cry, however, looks particularly pixellated at times.
The only time I use the original XBOX now is when playing Dancing Stage Unleashed where the screen and mat are easier to use together.
After my post this morning, Landline, Skype, or both with the DUALphone 3088, I've been contacted directly by Skype about dual mode phones coming on stream that will support multiple handsets.
There were two products announced at CES. The Netgear SPH200D looks promising, supporting up to four handsets (the SPH150D) and providing the same landline and Skype support using DECT internally (rather than WiFi).
I've been in the market for a new home phone for a while, but the majority of DECT phones don't quite come up to scratch. Many have limited connectivity beyond the phone themselves, often you don't even have a good solution for transferring phone numbers between handsets on the same base station, let alone decent methods of getting all those numbers on there in the first place.
I did find one phone (which I can't find now) that provided Bluetooth connectivity for transferring phone numbers and (I think) using a wireless headset.
It would also be nice to find a solution that works with Skype so that I could use my SkypeOut minutes more and make use of my SkypeIn number. Yes, I know, I can do it with my machines and a headset, but I really don't like wearing a headset for long periods of time, and when I go to make a phone call, I grab the landline, not my headset, to make it.
Having been in the computer industry for some time, in spite of my tender age, I've lived through a number of fads, from the days of managing a mainframe style system with a terminal on every desktop, through the client/server trend, and on to the more recent trend for a powerful machine on the desktop and comparatively low power machinery in the server room.
In the last 12-18 months though we've started going back to the roots of the big server (or more specifically multiple rack mount servers or blades) to provide concentrated power, with relatively lower end machines on the desktop. Often, there are very small computers, tiny cases to take up less room, and in some places they are even returning to the terminals of old. Not, sadly, with the same amber displays of old (sorry, I have a fondness for the amber screen - I even use those colours on my Xterms), but the principle is the same.
It is somewhat odd to hear that Sun and Intel to Announce Server CPU Deal Today at a time when I'm mid-way through a thorough review of the of Sun's current flagship AMD based workstation.
The announcement relates to Intel's Xeon server-grade CPU and Sun's server line, of course, so it's not going to affect the workstation. At least for the moment.
When Sun first starting making workstations and servers with the x86 chip they were one of the few OEMs that used AMD chips. Intel have, by comparison, always been the primary choice for OEMs, with most system builders and home builders opting for the often cheaper and just as quick, or quicker, AMD chips. This is obviously a blow to AMD, and a boost to Intel who have had various accusations of lack lustre speed in their chip range.
I have to admit, I have been worried. I've been an enthusiastic Retrospect user for over 13 years now, as it's one of the few networked backup solutions for Macs, and a few years ago was cross platform. There are plenty of solutions that back up Macs, but very few that allow the backup server to be a Mac. If you're a Mac only shop, Retrospect will probably be the application you choose.
The Sony Ericsson MBW-100 is a watch that works with your phone to show the numbers of your incoming call numbers and even vibrates when the call or a message is received.
The watch looks pretty cool, but is it a good idea or a bad one?
The chances are if you think you need the watch, your phone will probably not be that far away anyway. It's not as if it works Dick Tracy style as an alternative to a headset, and the display is too small to make it a suitable method for reading your text messages.
iTunes is an interesting beast. It already handles music, talking books and your podcasts, and more recently video. PDF handling has been provided for some time, but it is not a very heavily advertised feature. You can organize, classify, rate - you can even get PDFs as podcasts.
It's not quite perfect - you cannot flip through PDFs you already have and have added using Cover Flow (at least, none of mine work that like that).
OK, that was a weird moment just for a second. I was thinking about the testing I've been doing on the Ultra 20, and decided that running GeekBench on my iMac running Windows XP would be a good way to test, compared to the Ultra 20 running it natively.
Could I remember what the tool from Apple was called that would let me do that? No.
It took me a few minutes to find out, because without a name, it was difficult to find amid all the other stories on using Windows XP on your Mac. Why don't I use it? Because I have Parallels - and trust me, once you've used Parallels as a solution for most of your Windows XP tasks, using Boot Camp feels clumsy and restrictive.
I may have been critical of the iPhone, but the reality is that I'll probably still get one (depending on who in the UK Apple decides to partner with in terms of a mobile phone company).
You only have to look at these videos (iPhone Video Demo) just to see how cool the interface will be. Despite the flaws I've stated before, you cannot help but be impressed.