It doesn't have the same roar to the engine and there are still a lot of technical barriers but I think its just want the electric car industry needs to push technologies further.
http://www.engadget.com/2013/11/24/formula-e-ev-test-track/
Showing posts with label Future. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Future. Show all posts
Sunday, 24 November 2013
Sunday, 20 January 2013
Opinion: A bad year for new consoles! 4K & 8K on the way!
It's never a good time to release new technology.
Something is always around the corner to screw with your product roadmap and thats exactly why I think this'll be a bad year to release a games console.
Why? Well head on over to your favourite gadget website like Engadget, T3, The verge or whatever and search TV's. They are talking about 4K and 8K TV's.
New consoles coming this year would be looking at stable, reliable hardware thats readily available and heavily optimised. You can bet it'll be geared towards 1080p resolutions, thats OK for a good few years, maybe even 5. If though, Sony or whoever state the console is on a 10 year life-cycle then thats going to suck big time in the long run with 1080p. The Wii just about got away with it but they divided the market so people didn't consider them as much a competitor as something different. With Xbox and the Playstation, people want cutting edge graphics and are clear about that.
Personally I don't feel like current generation graphics are keeping with resolution increases in recent hardware. I'm typing this on a Retina MacBook Pro and although I love it, I don't have many games I can stick onto native resolution and whack up all the details on. To be fair this doesn't have a top end GPU but even if it did it'd sturggle with a lot of new released games on full settings. So 4k & 8k seem a bit of a pipe dream for a console right now.
One solutions... Thunderbolt.
Make the graphics upgradeable. It'd be an interesting move for a console manufacturer and it would be an awesome way to keep their console relevant going forward. Is it unreasonable? Microsoft did it with the DVD HD add on and although the format didn't take off people who bought it mostly liked it! The inclusion of USB gave them that option as well as Kinect!
I'm not aware of external graphics via USB3 so Thunderbolt seems logical to me.
Aside from the above I think the other technologies are mostly in place.
Blu-ray for the optical media.
USB3 (or thunderbolt) for wired devices.
2.4Ghz for wireless.
Gigabit Ethernet for cabled connections.
Optical / HDMI for sound.
It'd be insane for Microsoft to ignore optical media in my opinion. It's too early to ditch. Countries still have speed limitations in infrastructure / subscription policies and prices. Until this is globally not an issue they would be shooting them selves in the foot with a global product. Thats not to say online distribution isn't a force to be reckoned with. Look at XBOX live, Steam and Origin! There are also Onlive and Sony's gaming streaming service (I always forget the name of) although with OnLive's 2012 troubles that may also be a technology thats not quite ready.
Something is always around the corner to screw with your product roadmap and thats exactly why I think this'll be a bad year to release a games console.
Why? Well head on over to your favourite gadget website like Engadget, T3, The verge or whatever and search TV's. They are talking about 4K and 8K TV's.
New consoles coming this year would be looking at stable, reliable hardware thats readily available and heavily optimised. You can bet it'll be geared towards 1080p resolutions, thats OK for a good few years, maybe even 5. If though, Sony or whoever state the console is on a 10 year life-cycle then thats going to suck big time in the long run with 1080p. The Wii just about got away with it but they divided the market so people didn't consider them as much a competitor as something different. With Xbox and the Playstation, people want cutting edge graphics and are clear about that.
Personally I don't feel like current generation graphics are keeping with resolution increases in recent hardware. I'm typing this on a Retina MacBook Pro and although I love it, I don't have many games I can stick onto native resolution and whack up all the details on. To be fair this doesn't have a top end GPU but even if it did it'd sturggle with a lot of new released games on full settings. So 4k & 8k seem a bit of a pipe dream for a console right now.
One solutions... Thunderbolt.
Make the graphics upgradeable. It'd be an interesting move for a console manufacturer and it would be an awesome way to keep their console relevant going forward. Is it unreasonable? Microsoft did it with the DVD HD add on and although the format didn't take off people who bought it mostly liked it! The inclusion of USB gave them that option as well as Kinect!
I'm not aware of external graphics via USB3 so Thunderbolt seems logical to me.
Aside from the above I think the other technologies are mostly in place.
Blu-ray for the optical media.
USB3 (or thunderbolt) for wired devices.
2.4Ghz for wireless.
Gigabit Ethernet for cabled connections.
Optical / HDMI for sound.
It'd be insane for Microsoft to ignore optical media in my opinion. It's too early to ditch. Countries still have speed limitations in infrastructure / subscription policies and prices. Until this is globally not an issue they would be shooting them selves in the foot with a global product. Thats not to say online distribution isn't a force to be reckoned with. Look at XBOX live, Steam and Origin! There are also Onlive and Sony's gaming streaming service (I always forget the name of) although with OnLive's 2012 troubles that may also be a technology thats not quite ready.
Thursday, 12 July 2012
Monday, 14 November 2011
Apple rant & suggestions
I had a friend talking to me about buying an iMac the other day and asking me what I thought. Now I don't own a Mac but I have supported and used the iMac in various job roles over the years and I've grown more accepting of the platform. Especially since they moved to Intel processors and had bootcamp come along. I advised it wasn't a bad choice as he's also musically orientated in his work / hobbies and I think he'd love software such as GarageBand.
Out of curiosity I was browsing the iMac product specifications and I seriously don't get some of the hardware choices.
I can forgive things like eSATA being left out in favour of the new Thunderbolt interface but the rather confusing part for me when it comes to Apple is:
The iMac is a multimedia machine if you look at the specs, but if you look at the back you only have one analogue input / output port (well two if you count the headphones jack as well). No optical out.... No 5.1 jacks....
Next up is Video playback.. Not a problem you say? Correct! but just go and try and stick a Blu-ray disc in your iMac.... Yep, thats right, Apples 'supper drive' still doesn't support Blu-ray discs. If my PC can do it with a £50 addition I sure as hell would expect a iMac to. It's the creative industries choice workstation after all....
Ok, to counter my comments. I'm sure you can get add-on devices for sound output and for Blu-ray drives. iTunes and various other content provider offer downloadable services for movies but should I limited to these options and not be able to purchase physical media.
Come on Apple, you have some of the best displays on the market ( 2560x1440 pixels on the 27" iMac)! Actually on that topic, a touch screen OLED display would be awesome as well. Better quality OLED displays are set for 2012/13 and Tim Cook could do well to bring a few of these 'innovations' (I love how they use the word innovation to mean "we brought it to market in a user friendly way") to Apple to show everyone he's picked up the baton properly from Steve Jobs (RIP) and it's full steam ahead.
Out of curiosity I was browsing the iMac product specifications and I seriously don't get some of the hardware choices.
I can forgive things like eSATA being left out in favour of the new Thunderbolt interface but the rather confusing part for me when it comes to Apple is:
The iMac is a multimedia machine if you look at the specs, but if you look at the back you only have one analogue input / output port (well two if you count the headphones jack as well). No optical out.... No 5.1 jacks....
Next up is Video playback.. Not a problem you say? Correct! but just go and try and stick a Blu-ray disc in your iMac.... Yep, thats right, Apples 'supper drive' still doesn't support Blu-ray discs. If my PC can do it with a £50 addition I sure as hell would expect a iMac to. It's the creative industries choice workstation after all....
Ok, to counter my comments. I'm sure you can get add-on devices for sound output and for Blu-ray drives. iTunes and various other content provider offer downloadable services for movies but should I limited to these options and not be able to purchase physical media.
Come on Apple, you have some of the best displays on the market ( 2560x1440 pixels on the 27" iMac)! Actually on that topic, a touch screen OLED display would be awesome as well. Better quality OLED displays are set for 2012/13 and Tim Cook could do well to bring a few of these 'innovations' (I love how they use the word innovation to mean "we brought it to market in a user friendly way") to Apple to show everyone he's picked up the baton properly from Steve Jobs (RIP) and it's full steam ahead.
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