Blue Brain

It’s only 4 months now until the much hyped and well received Windows 7 OS is launched. Microsoft’s new baby is now available for pre-order; the Home Premium Upgrade and Professional Upgrade packages for $49.99 and $99.99 though July 11th, while supplies last — nothing special there as it’s the standard pricing you’ll find at all your favorite on-line retailers. Amazon does promise, however, that you’ll “receive the product” when released to shops on October 22nd. Note a 3 per customer limit so don’t get greedy, ok? It’s not like Microsoft can just press the OS onto another disc or something.

Sad news for the UK, pre-orders won’t begin until July 15th with prices set at £49 for Windows 7 Home Premium E and £99 for Professional E, both will ship without Internet Explorer. For those wondering about the upgrade prices for Europe… there aren’t any. Microsoft claims that it can’t offer the lower upgrade pricing ($120, $200, or $220 for Home Premium, Professional, and Ultimate in the US) in order to comply with European competition regulations, a claim that EU regulators dismiss. As such, going from Vista to Windows 7 will require a clean install in the EU in order to remove Internet Explorer — no in-place upgrades will be possible according to Microsoft.

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As endlessly predicted, Apple’s unveiled a new iPhone today at WWDC, the iPhone 3G S — the “s” stands for speed. It looks identicle to the iPhone 3G, so what’s new?  Well for starterts the processor is said to be “on average up to twice as fast”, that means faster overall loading of all programs. Data speeds are upped to 7.2Mbps HSDPA, and the camera is now a 3 megapixel unit with tap-to-autofocus and auto white balance and it now supports 30fps VGA video recording with editing features. You’re also getting a built-in magnetic compass, Nike+ support, and a new battery that offers 5 hours of 3G talk time and 9 hours of WiFi internet use.

Also, a few unexpected features — holding down the home button now enables a new voice control interface that lets you do everything from make calls to control iTunes. Apple is claimng the new finish is alos water- and oil-resistant. This fancy new iPhone will be available June 19th with the 32GB model priced at $299 US, and 16GB model at $199 US.

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Earlier today at Electronic Entertainment Expo, Microsoft unveiled their rumored motion controller solution to the masses. But unlike the waggling, accelerometer-enabled hardware of most immersive gaming peripherals, Microsoft’s solution uses full body motion as detected by an intelligent motion and audio sensor camera, which they’ve tentatively dubbed Project Natal. We’ve seen camera interactivity in console gaming before with the Xbox Live Vision camera and the PlayStation Eye Toy, but Microsoft promises that Project Natal will go above and beyond any gaming tech we’ve seen before.

Project Natal uses several technologies simultaneously to capture and replicate a player’s motion on-screen and in-game. Natal, which could be readily described as a Wii sensor bar on sterois, uses an RGB camera, intelligent depth sensor, and multiarray microphone to collect voice commands, video, and movement with realtime physics, which is then processed by a brand new processing unit and proprietary software. As you would expect the RGB camera is used for video and picture capture, as well as facial recognition, but the real technological meat and potatoes of the device is it’s depth sensor and processing. Project Natal’s depth sensor detects 3-D space through the use of a monochrome CMOS sensor and an infrared projector. The pairing of these two technologies, Microsoft says, makes Natal capable of detecting movement, orientation, and gestures in any lighting environment. Project Natal’s processing is what brings all of the data together, and can differentiate between players and their environment, as well as detect specific body parts, from arms and legs to even a player’s head.

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Taiwan recently finished construction on an incredible solar-powered stadium that will generate 100% of its electricity from photovoltaic technology! Designed by Toyo Ito, the dragon-shaped 50,000 seat arena is clad in 8,844 solar panels that illuminate the track and field with 3,300 lux. The project will officially welcome the 2009 World Games, whick kicks-off in under a month. to go. Not only does the solar system provide electricity during the games, but the surplus energy will also be sold during the non-game period. On days where the stadium is not being used, the Taiwanese government plans to feed the extra energy into the local grid, where it will meet almost 80% of the neighboring area’s energy requirements.

Built upon a clear area of approximately 19 hectares, nearly 7 hectares has been reserved for the development of integrated public green spaces, bike paths, sports parks, and an ecological pond. Additionally, all of the plants occupying the area before construction were transplanted. Mother Nature definitely wants to mouth-kiss the developers of this stadium underneath the bleachers.

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YouTube was busy deleting porn videos on Wednesday after users of forums at a rival site and an imageboard site declared a “Porn Day” campaign against the popular video service.

The forums at video site eBaum’s World and 4chan organized the mass porn “carpet bombing” on YouTube, according to Ars Technica.

YouTube has been removing the videos as fast as it can, but even videos that are removed are still showing up in search results with explicit images in the thumbnails, the report said.

It could take a couple of days for all the explicit results to be removed from the search results, Google spokesman Scott Rubin told Ars Technica.

In a phone interview with CNET News late on Wednesday, Rubin said that in addition to the porn videos were removed as soon as community members alert YouTube to them, certain channels where the posters were bragging about the campaign and listing the videos were being disabled.

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