Isaiah's Tech

This is my 150th post, even though it seems like i just finished writing my 100th post yesterday. Remember the one with Megan Fox? I've also recently got my 1000th view, which got me excited. Even though at least half of my views are from my friends, it's still an accomplishment. Anyways, let's kick it off with some more Miro.

I downloaded Miro this morning in the library and it looks like it's a pretty good service. It works kind of like the iTunes Store, where you can download stuff like Podcasts. The UI is very easy to navigate, even for a first-time Miro user, like myself. You have your left sidebar, which has a bunch of options and your feed headers. Unfortunately, since i don't live in the United States, i can't get any shows (like 'The Office' and 'Family Guy') on my Miro because its streamed off of Hulu. And for me, Hotspot Shield isn't working anymore, so i need to find a new alternative work-around. The quality of the video in Miro is excellent. But, i still think that the HD aspect of it could be improved. I've only watched a couple of videos, so far. Stuff from Onion News and some HD GeekBrief, mainly. I suggest that you try it out for yourselves, it's a decent piece of software and will only improve. Update: I've just gotten my third "Not Responding" message. It seems to occur after the video is finished playing or when i try to close the program.

Mozilla has released a pre-alpha version of their "Fennec" browser to HTC Touch Pro phones and to almost every Windows Mobile phone. It may be running slow and it may be buggy, but that's because it is a pre-alpha version. The Mozilla team has mentioned that they've pulled a lot of its features, including: plug-ins, soft keyboard input, and program or add-on updating. It's free, so if you want to take a risk and try Fennec out, then go right ahead.

Nathan Smith, a Los Angeles musician, has, supposedly, found treasure from the wreckage of the Spanish barquentine on Google Earth. He approached a couple of experts and they told him that this treasure could be worth up to $3 billion USD. But, get this. It may be on someone else's property. This case is actually headed to court, to see who gets the first cracks at this 'treasure'. No one knows for sure if there is treasure because, as of right now, no one has taken the time to dig it up. The court will settle who gets "first dibs" on the treasure.

In October, the Apple MacBook Pro's got the 45nm Penryn processors as an upgrade. Another source is saying that the new MacBook Pro's will have the Core i7 32nm processors in Q4 of this year. The 32nm processor is said to have a 22% performance increase boost over the current 45nm models. The Core i7 processors are part of Intel's Nehalem family.

If you're going to take a flight soon, take the Southwest Airlines. If you're lucky enough, you will get the plane equipped with free Wi-Fi. It will only be free for a while, since it is in beta. The guy in the picture looks like he's using his laptop in an uncomfortable manner. Personally, i don't do that. He should have just pulled the tray out, but i guess he's unique.

Miro 2.0 Download Link: http://www.getmiro.com/download/for-windows/
Miro Logo picture: http://jimmac.musichall.cz/log/?cat=11
Mozilla Fennec (and picture): http://lifehacker.com/5151355/firefox-mobile-available-for-htc-touch-pro-windows-mobile-phones
Man Claims Treasure on Google Earth: http://news.cnet.com/8301-17852_3-10161265-71.html?part=rss&subj=news&tag=2547-1_3-0-5
Core i7's On The MacBook Pro In Q4: http://www.macrumors.com/2009/02/11/core-i7-nehalem-based-macbook-pros-possible-in-q4-2009/
Free Wi-Fi on Southwest Airlines (and picture): http://i.gizmodo.com/5151340/southwest-airlines-in+flight-wi+fi-free-while-in-beta

So, if you watched the Super Bowl last night and you lived around Tucson, Arizona, you may have seen this happen. Apparently, as Fitzgerald was running in for his 64-yard touchdown, Comcast users were shown a short clip of a porno movie. "The offending video was only broadcast to standard definition viewers." Oh gosh, imagine if they also showed that hardcore action in high-definition. Apparently, this was done "by accident" and Comcast Cable are going to give everyone $10 off their next month's bill. This completely surpassed Janet Jackson's recent boobie-showing at the Super Bowl a couple of years back.

Today, Google announced the release of a new version of Google Earth. I talked about the possibility of Google releasing an Earth version with the option to view the ocean floor (here). Well, the rumour was true. "Among the biggest changes are the inclusion of a detailed 3D ocean floor, the ability to go up to 50 years back in time when looking at a particular location, record a virtual tour of locations, and a 3D rendition of Mars." As you can see, they added an amazing feature of Mars as well as the awesome ocean floor. The download is now available for Mac and Windows PCs so go and check it out.

Yesterday marked the end of Hellgate: London. Hellgate: London was an MMO for the PC and i don't really know much about it. I do know that my friend did boast about this game to me. He actually didn't end up playing it when i told him that it was a pay-to-play kind of game, like World of Warcraft. Anyways, they shut down Hellgate's servers. Game over for Hellgate: London.

E3 will be held from June 2-4 at the Los Angeles Convention Center. The booth babes are making their return to E3 and hopefully this year will revive E3. They just released a list of all the exhibitors that will be present at E3. You can check out the list here, via ps3.qj.net. At E3 this year, we should expect to hear about the Nintendo Wii's "secret weapon software" plan that they say will push them past the PS2 as the world's top-selling console.

A new leak has revealed that there will be new Intel chips by the end of March. The quad-core Nehalem-based Xeon chips. These chips are pretty expensive "and tops out at $1,557 [USD] for a 3.2GHz quad-core Xeon W5580, with a 2.93GHz parallel costing $1,349 [USD]." These Nehalem-based Xeon chips are only quad-core and shouldn't be confused with the rumoured eight-core chips that may be announced this upcoming weekend at ISSCC (International Solid-State Circuits Conference). They have done some tests on these chips and they are said to be "roughly twice as fast as higher-clocked current Xeons in synthetic benchmarks."

Super Bowl Interfered By Porn: http://g4tv.com/thefeed/blog/post/692884/Super-Bowl-Interrupted-By-Porn.html?utm_source=g4tv&utm_medium=rssfeeds&utm_campaign=TheFeed
Comcast Giving $10 Back to Viewers: http://www.pcworld.com/article/158816/comcast_customers_get_10_to_make_up_for_porn.html?tk=rss_main
Google Earth 5 (and picture): http://www.electronista.com/articles/09/02/02/google.announces.earth.50/
Hellgate: London is Finished: http://hellforge.gameriot.com/blogs/Hellforge/Hellgate-London-Rest-in-Peace
E3 Reveals List (and picture): http://ps3.qj.net/E3-reveals-exhibitors-list-and-Activision-Blizzard-is-on-it/pg/49/aid/128591
Nehalem-based Xeon Chips By March?: http://www.electronista.com/articles/09/02/02/nehalem.xeon.late.march/

If you live in Switzerland and you grow marijuana outdoors, you could be caught by the Swiss police soon. The Swiss police have used Google Earth to locate large fields of marijuana. "Although the weed was hidden by corn, police quickly saw through the drug dealers' ruse and brought the hammer of Swiss justice down upon their heads with extreme prejudice." You can't hide from Google Earth because they are out to get you.

"Google has shipped a high-priority Chrome browser patch with fixes for three security vulnerabilities that expose users to cross-site scripting and data theft attacks." This patch also fixes compatibility issues with Yahoo Mail and Windows Live Mail. Google is on the top of their game, fixing these holes as soon as they are found. It's a good sign of security. I trust them.

Here's more news on Google Chrome. Here is a short video on a Japanese ad for Google Chrome, via YouTube.



Google Earth and Marijuana (and picture): http://g4tv.com/thefeed/blog/post/692813/Swiss-Police-Bust-Druggies-With-Google-Earth.html?utm_source=g4tv&utm_medium=rssfeeds&utm_campaign=TheFeed
Google Fixes Chrome's 'High-Risk' Holes (and picture): http://blogs.zdnet.com/security/?p=2443
Google Chrome Ad in Japan (and video): http://googlesystem.blogspot.com/2009/01/chrome-ad-from-google-japan.html

I am just going to do a quick blog post before my cousin's get to my house. It's my mom's 45th birthday today, so we must celebrate that. I have my Chemistry exam tomorrow and i have made some good progress, since my last blog post. I almost finished the first 3 units, leaving only 2 units left. Anyways, this is going to be a quick, short post.

Google is set to announce a new version of Google Earth at the California Academy of Sciences. The author of this blog on ZDNet mentions that it could be "what people are calling 'Google Ocean.'" "Many suspect that we could be days away from seeing a 3D ocean view - the ability to fly across the ocean floor is something that researchers would absolutely love to be able to do." This is quite interesting stuff for those researchers, but i don't think it will matter to me that much. It will be interesting to see what is officially unveiled though. I'll be here to update you on more news about that, when it's released.

"These pictures [left] supposedly come from a new build of the Windows 7 beta, 7025." We all know that there are always many, many versions of every Windows OS that comes out. In this picture, it shows that possibility. While the picture may be a fake, the possibility of multiple versions is still out there, since Microsoft hasn't confirmed anything about the release. I hope that if there do happens to be multiple versions, that Microsoft cuts it down to about 2 or 3 versions because we all know how annoying 5 versions of a Windows OS gets. It's also pricey if you're looking for the version with the most features.

Google Earth Update: http://blogs.zdnet.com/Google/?p=1237
Possible Windows 7 Versions (and picture): http://www.engadget.com/2009/01/25/multiple-windows-7-versions-coming-say-it-aint-so/