Microsoft knows that Nintendo is the console company that “puts more smiles on more faces,” so it doesn’t really bother trying to compete on the “happy factor”. Instead, Microsoft wants to invade your dreams, filling them with mouth creatures. The company’s newest creative idea is for the iNiS developed Xbox 360 singing game Lips, in which a man is haunted by a stalking pair of sentient, lyric-forgetting lips. Thanks to Kotaku.

If you havn’t already seen Minority Report - The movie, you should probably go and see it now. This new operating system mimics the one in the actual movie. One of the science advisers from the film and along with some other “visionaries” has created a real-life and working example of the computer system used in the film. It is called G-Speak and was created by Oblong.

This fancy piece of software combines “hand gestures, recombinant networking, and real world pixels. The creators dub it as “the first major step in computer interface since 1984.” This video pretty much sums the whole thing up. Imagine using Google Earth with this! Wouldn’t that be fun?

Only just yesterday, marked the 25th anniversary of Microsoft’s first ever Operating System “Windows 1.0″. It’s hard to believe that without it 1.0 we wouldn’t have XP/Vista or the new Windows 7. Windows 1.0 was one of the first Operating Systems to feature a proper Graphical Interface. It also included some advance features (for its time) like being able to copy and paste, a calender, a note filer, a clock AND one of the first games ever to be integrated into the earlier operating systems, Reversi!

Wow! So many features. For only $99! Here’s a funny video of Steve Ballmer the chief executive of Microsoft (one of the more enthusiastic employees). He was the second person in the world to become a billionaire, see what he was like before he became rich in this video:

Put short: Shazam Basically listens to the song that’s playing and recognizes it and gives you the name, artist, and album. So its really a “music recognizing” application that can be installed on to your iPhone.

Once the song is recognized It also shows a list of YouTube videos of the song. For example as a song plays on the radio, lets say “New Soul” by Yael Naim , Shazam listens to the song for about 15 seconds then identifies it and shows you all the details you need to know on how to find it. Shazam even shows you where you can buy the song!

I would say this applications is probably most useful when you’re listening to the radio and hear a song you like, but don’t know the artist or song name. Shazam can get that precious song information you need! So far I have not heard of Shazam ever failing in trying to recognize a song. So its pretty reliable. Shazam has over 6 million tracks and is also available on Google’s Android!

The Microvision Pico Projector - The ultimate accessory in portable viewing devices. The PicoP is an Ultra miniature projector capable of producing full colour, high-resolution images but still being small enough and low power enough to work with an accessory that it would connect to, like a Mobile device or an iPod.

An accessory Pico projector turns photos, videos, and other content into big viewing experiences that can be shared with others. Projected content is delivered to the accessory projector from common video out connections on cell phones, personal media players, laptops, digital cameras and other mobile devices. Accessory projectors leverage Microvision’s PicoP display engine which at its heart, contains Microvision’s patented MEMS scanner. Other technology components include, laser light sources, optics, and electronics. These components are brought to life using Microvision’s proprietary software and expertise.

I think this really is a great innovative piece of technology. Everything is getting smaller and smaller these days. Soon this projector might even be imbedded into a cellphone or laptop! Would that be amazing? The PicoP projector will be availiable sometime next year. Heres a nice video showing the PicoP in action:

I think this was bound to come sooner or later, the apple iPhone and iPod Touch has now adopted Google Earth as an application. If you didn’t know already, Google Earth allows you to fly to the far reaches of the world! And now from the palm of your hand. Google Earth has been very successful in its three year life. It has had over 400 million unique downloads so far. It is free to download from the iTunes App Store. Its rather cool how smooth Google Earth runs on the iPhone/Pod and everything is almost exactly the same as if you were using Google Earth on a PC. Here’s a 2 minute example of how well the app runs and some of its main features: (Most of Google’s advertisements are strange/cheesy)

You can see in the video that the touch interface is made for your convenience, everything is at a fingers reach and feels natural, this is what you would expect from Google and Apple combined making the App. “Just swipe your finger across the screen and you fly to the other side of the globe; tilt your phone and your view tilts as well (motion sensor). You can pinch to zoom in or out, or just double tap with one finger to zoom in and two fingers to zoom out.”

If only Google could release a version of Earth to the Nokia Symbian OS3! For now I’m stuck with my oldish 6120. I will probably update to at least an iPod touch when I can afford it. Will Definitely get the Google Earth App once I do. It really is pretty cool. For those of you lucky people that have the iPhone/Pod you can download Google Earth here (you will need iTunes).

There has been much hype surrounding Google’s phone launch. Google are worth some 140 billion USD, however it would seem this is not enough. Meet the G1:

It’s the first mobile phone to use Google’s new interface known as “Android” and its going head to head in a highly competitive market with the likes of the BlackBerry and the Apple iPhone. But this mobile phone is being marketed to be the first to offer the same access to the internet as your home computer. The new phone will have access to hundreds of applications, from maps to new games which anyone can create and download. In other words its offering that little bit more that the iPhone. This G1 will cost around the same as its rivals. A full list of features:

General:

2G Network: GSM 850 / 900 / 1800 / 1900
3G Network:     HSDPA 2100 / HSDPA 2100 / 1700 - American version
Announced: 2008, September
Status: Coming soon. Exp. release 2008, October
Size: Dimensions     117 x 55.7 x 17.1 mm
Weight: 158 g (Quite heavy for your standard Cellphone)
Display: Type     TFT touchscreen, 65K colors (Not very good at all)
Size: 320 x 480 pixels, 3.2 inches (Big)
- Full QWERTY keyboard (They couldn’t utilize the touch screen as a keyboard. The iPhone can)
- Trackball (Interesting, different)
- Accelerometer sensor for auto-rotate
- Handwriting recognition

Ringtones:

Type: Polyphonic (40 channels), MP3, WAV, WMA
Customization: Download
Vibration: Yes

Memory:

Phonebook: Practically unlimited entries and fields, Photocall
Call records: Practically unlimited
Card slot: microSD (TransFlash)
- 192 MB RAM, 256 MB ROM
- Qualcomm MSM7201A 528 Mhz processor

Data:

GPRS: Class 10 (4+1/3+2 slots), 32 - 48 kbps
HSCSD: No
EDGE: Class 10, 236.8 kbps
3G: HSDPA, 7.2 Mbps (very quick)
WLAN: Wi-Fi 802.11 b/g
Bluetooth: Yes, v2.0, headset support only (No A2DP, not good.)
Infrared port: No
USB: Yes, miniUSB (Standard)

Features:

OS: Android OS (Google’s own)
Messaging: SMS, MMS, Email, Instant Messaging
Browser: HTML
Games: Yes
Colours: White, Black, Brown (Brown? lol)
Camera: 3.15 MP, 2048×1536 pixels, autofocus (Seems fairly decent)
- Built-in GPS receiver (cool)
- Digital compass
- Document viewer
- Java MIDP 2.0
- Voice memo
- MP3 player and Built-in handsfree.

Battery:

Standard battery: Li-Ion 1150 mAh
Stand-by: Up to 406 h (Very good)
Talk time: Up to 5 h 20 min (Also very good)

Heres a video of what Google’s “Lead Product Manager” has to say:

The video is a bit cheesy and it makes google look like they’re trying too hard… Anyway, I think if I had the money to buy one of those next generation cellphones I’d probably still go with the iPhone. However thats just my opinion. If you have anything to say, please, your comments are welcome!

While reading some blogs on iPhone, i found this interesting article which describes of an iPhone with glowing apple on the back side. So i had a look at some of its picture and though it was very cool indeed to have an iphone like it. There is also a video showing its real preview of how it would look. I also found that it was gpda.ru that is putting this iPhone together.

I also heard that it now glows on Macbooks and iPhones. It is said that the battery doesn’t suffer a lot and you can adjust the glow level in Settings menu.