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I tried it out and it was very impressed by the speed and accuracy of the motion tracking (he did
flicker a bit and have problems when my lights were to bright, so be prepared to work a bit to
make him happy). This is a Flash implementation of augmented reality created by Digital Pictures Interactive; all it takes
is your web browser, a webcam, and a printed marker symbol. Now, would it kill the little guy to
smile every once in a while?!
It seems to be based on the ARToolKit
developed by Dr. Hirokazu Kato of the University of Washington.
I enjoy Augmented Reality much more than Virtual Reality because 99% of the AR environment is the
real world in all of its infinitely detailed glory and I can accept a few lower fidelity objects
overlaid here and there. Even the highest quality VR worlds still feel much less than real in a
way that usually pulls me out of the experience.
a
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articles in Computers/a | a
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Quote: AT&T free msg:You are approaching your maximum balance limit. Call 611 to see if you are
on the right rate plan. Your full monthly fee will still be charged. thats the text message ive
gotten from att the last few days. seems im not using my phone enough because ive built up a 246.xx
dollar balance in my account. i chose this route because it was the best deal for me for what id be
using. i dont use my phone much i have the 39.99 for 300 min, unlimited iphone data plan and a 4.99
200msg text plan.
im wondering if anyone has ever gone from a go phone plan to a contract plan and carried over their
balance to cover the new contract plan or activation fee or something. i dont want just throw away
almost $250 nor do i want to change to a lower go phone package id end up spending more per
month.
The U.S. broadband market could see lower prices and faster speeds with more competition, one
expert says.br style=clear: both;/ a style='font-size: 10px; color: maroon;'
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After thinking about it a bit more, I actually think that Marvel MAY actually be handling this
situation as well as they can handle it.
Note the stress of the word “may.”
Brian Hibbs recently wrote a great column about possible
price increases and the possible market reaction, and I found myself absolutely agreeing with
him.
There are a few points at play here:
1. Marvel and DC feel as though they NEED $4 comic books right now. Last month, issue sales were
down from a year ago, but the actual dollar intake by the companies was UP, so they were actually
making more money now than they were a year ago. Why? Because their highest selling titles were
$4 (Secret Invasion and Final Crisis, plus others).
2. Standard economic theory is that you charge more for the lower selling products, because the
higher selling products sell enough to pay for the lower price point. Meanwhile, the lower
selling products usually have a cult following who will support the niche product at a higher
price point (for a time, at least). To wit, Marvel Illustrated comics. Shanower and Young’s
Wizard of Oz looks AMAZING, but come on, it’s a niche product, so Marvel is charging more
money for it.
3. However, an across-the-board $4 price point would likely not work right now. Hibbs notes the
same thing I’ve noticed - fans will not pay $4 for, say, a third X-Men comic book. Or a
third Batman comic book, etc. Perhaps $3.50, but not $4 (by the by, I disagree about $3.10 or
$3.25 being a viable price point - fans are irked by price increases PERIOD, so there’s no
point in doing it if it is not going to significantly affect your return - I think $3.50 achieves
that, though).
4. That said, what fans WILL pay $4 for is the “important” comic books. You see this
right now with Secret Invasion. If the content is “key” to the shared universe, then
readers do not seem to mind the extra buck. Hibbs notes this with his costumers, and I concur
from what I’ve seen.
5. So therefore, Marvel APPEARS to be handling this the way Hibbs thinks works - they’re
charging a dollar more for the books that they know the fans will buy anyways because of the
content. A new Avengers book by Brian Michael Bendis and Mike Deodato? That’s going to
sell. Jeph Loeb’s Hulk? It’s going to sell. $3 or $4 is likely not going to make a
marked difference. $4 for, say, Green Lantern Corps or Young X-Men IS.
So while this definitely sucks, I think Marvel is probably handling it as well as they can right
now with the current market.
The researchers at Electronic Entertainment Design and...Research have been looking at console game
sales patterns. Looking at how long it takes a game to enter "price protection", which is a term
used for when a publisher - having noticed a game isn't selling very well - lowers the wholesale
cost of a game so that retailers can keep it on the shelves at full price, even when the public are
ignoring it. What they've found is that this practice occurs for 7.5% of 360 games. And 9.09% of
PS3 games. But the Wii? It happens for 15.1% of titles.
pThe overall panic that has taken hold of the financial markets made its way to online advertising
yesterday with the release of the Interactive Advertising Bureau's third-quarter online ad figures:
online advertising up only 2% quarter-to-quarter and 11% year-over-year. But before you scramble to
lower all of your estimates once again, keep in mind that the third quarter and October are likely
to have been skewed heavily by the elections. While I wouldn't suggest that online behaves
completely like TV, it is a long-known fact that political advertising crowds out other advertisers
and tends to put pressure on pricing.nbsp; br / br / The general news and political sites have
enjoyed a run-up in traffic (with questions as to its sustainability post election) that created
enormous ad inventory. Economic theory will tell you that an increase in supply (i.e. ad inventory)
coupled with unchanged, or even lessened demand (i.e. advertisers) can only be cleared by lower
pricing. While I'm not feeling particularly optimistic about anything right now, I would caution
the market to hold back on drawing any conclusions about online ad pricing or ad trends until we
get past the election season. While trends are likely still weakening, the bottom is far from
falling out. /p p iLauren Rich Fine is ContentNext's research director/i /p p!-- iMark Logic
Digital Publishing Summit, Thursday November 6, Westin Times Square. Insight and perspective from
Outsell, Gilbane, Simon Schuster, BusinessWeek.com, more. Evening cocktail reception. Cost is
complimentary. a
href="http://content.adbureau.net/accipiter/adclick/CID=000010cb0000000000000000/SITE=PC_US/AAMSZ=PREMB_NEWS/relocate=http://marklogicdps.eventbrite.com/"Register
now!/a/i --/p pa href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~a/pcorg?a=b1OHBV"img
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href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/pcorg?a=5d3VN"img
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pimg src="http://cache.gawker.com/assets/images/gizmodo/2008/11/ps3_video.jpg" width="800"
height="494" style="display:block;float:none;" /If you're here reading Gizmodo, there's a good
chance you have a hard drive full of video somewhere. And you also probably have a PS3, Xbox 360 or
Wii. If those two things aren't working together for you in beautiful symbiosis, allowing you to
watch all of your downloaded or ripped video on your TV instead of hunched over a laptop screen,
well, this is the guide for you./p pNow there are two general strategies you can take: physically
copying your files to a USB drive, memory card or CD/DVD, which is pretty straightforward, or
streaming your video over the network, which is where things get more fun and interesting. So let's
dive in./p pFirst things first, codecs. Now that you're all learn-ed on the ways of video encoding
thanks to a
href="http://gizmodo.com/5093670/giz-explains-every-video-format-you-need-to-know"Matt's Giz
Explains from this week/a, the issue of codecs will make a lot more sense. Thankfully, it's not
something you have to worry too much about here, because all three consoles can handle a large
number of the codecs you will find commonly: AVI, MPEG (1, 2 and 4), H.264, DivX/XviD, and
WMV—and if a particular format you want to play isn't supported, it's often
possible to convert it to work on the fly. The PS3 also supports AVCHD, a format used by many HD
camcorders. Not all formats are supported with every streaming method though, especially in the
360's case, which we'll get to in a second. Now, for getting all those files on the TV./p pNote: if
you need to re-encode a video in a different format because it won't play, nothing beats VLC's
transcoding wizard. a href="http://www.videolan.org/doc/streaming-howto/en/ch02.html"Here's a
guide./a/p pstrongXbox 360: Streaming (PC)/strongbr img
src="http://cache.gawker.com/assets/images/2008/11/custom_1227297019303_tversity_01.png"
align="left" hspace="4" vspace="2" width="494" height="403" style="display:block;" /In typical
Microsoft fashion, there are tons of different ways to pull of streaming your video to the Xbox
360—and the only one that's truly comprehensive, in our opinion, comes from a
third party. a href="http://tversity.com/"TVersity/a is a free UPnP media server that can manage
your video and music files anywhere on your PC and stream them out to your 360 over the network. It
will also kindly transcode just about any video you can throw at it into a codec your console can
definitely read. You might have to install some additional codec packs here and there for Windows
but for the most part, you can forget about worrying about codecs with TVersity. This also allows
TVersity to handle files not officially supported by the 360, like MKV containers./p p1. Grab a
href="http://tversity.com/"TVersity here/a and install it.br 2. Click the giant plus sign in the
top left corner to "Add Your Media Source" - namely, the folder on your PC with all of your
videos.br 3. Under advanced options, set your transcoding preferences: "When Needed" will make sure
most all of your files play.br 4. In the main TVersity menu, select "Start Sharing"br 5. On the
Xbox 360, TVersity will now appear as a source in the Media blade or under My Xbox -gt; Video
Library in NXE./p pThe other three options via Microsoft's own various software solutions all have
their own drawbacks, which we'll cover here briefly. Our advice? Use them only if you already use
the Zune software, Windows Media Player or Windows Media Center to manage all of your video./p pimg
src="http://cache.gawker.com/assets/images/2008/11/custom_1227297041777_windowsmediaplayer_01.png"
width="494" height="432" style="display:block;" /strongWindows Media Player 11/strong: WMP 11 can
stream out to the Xbox 360 pretty easily. Here is an a
href="http://paininthetech.com/2008/01/03/stream-video-to-xbox-360-with-windows-media-player-or-winamp-remote"in-depth
guide/a. strongDrawbacks?/strong Somewhat clunky format support. In our tests we could not stream
Quicktime video at all, and had inconsistent experiences with MP4 files. MPEG-4 and H.264 support
are technically supported via third-party WMP codec add-ons, but even with those, we still had
trouble—MP4 files tended to play fine on the WMP 11 end, but not show up as
browsable on the 360. Somewhat unbelievably, the Xbox 360 team actually recommends you a
href="http://blogs.msdn.com/xboxteam/archive/2007/11/30/december-2007-video-playback-faq.aspx"manually
rename your unsupported MPEG-4 and H.264 files/a, adding the ".avi" container extension to fool WMP
into playing them. This worked occasionally, but not for every file and was generally
inconsistent.br clear="all"/p pimg
src="http://cache.gawker.com/assets/images/2008/11/custom_1227297025800_zune_01.png" align="left"
hspace="4" vspace="2" width="494" height="338" style="display:block;" /strongZune Software
3.0/strong: Zune offers a much nicer interface than WMP (Settings -gt; Sharing -gt; Add is the
extent of the setup), and thankfully supports MPEG4 and H.264 much more consistently.
strongDrawbacks?/strong No DivX or Xvid support, which means a huge chunk of your Torrented video
probably won't work.br clear="all"/p pimg
src="http://cache.gawker.com/assets/images/2008/11/custom_1227297876080_360_MCE.jpg" width="494"
height="308" style="display:block;" /strongWindows Media Center Extender/strong: If you already
have a Media Center setup honking on your network, there's a good chance you won't need this guide,
but the Xbox 360 can of course stream your MCE content to your TV seamlessly (a a
href="http://features.teamxbox.com/xbox/1392/Xbox-360-Windows-Media-Center-Setup-Guide/p1/"complete
guide is here/a). The interface is really fantastic. strongDrawbacks?/strong The gimpiest codec
support of the bunch: only MPEG-1, MPEG-2 and WMV are supported. So unless you're converting
everything you have into those formats, you'll still need something like TVersity to play most
files you'll find up for download.br clear="all"/p pSo, in the end, TVersity wins hands down as the
easiest and most elegant streaming setup for the 360. But do keep in mind—if
you're playing a format that your Xbox can't handle (MKV being the most common of these you'll
find), TVersity will have to transcode, which means you will lose a bit of quality./p pimg
src="http://cache.gawker.com/assets/images/2008/11/custom_1227297010629_connect360_01.png"
align="left" hspace="4" vspace="2" width="494" height="378" style="display:block;" /strongXbox 360:
Streaming (Mac)/strong: UPnP support—the networking standard used by both the
Xbox 360 and the PS3 in various flavors to play network-streamed video, music and
photos—is not natively supported by OS X yet. And unfortunately, there isn't a
stellar all-in-one free package like Windows' TVersity.br clear="all"/p pNullriver, however, makes
an incredibly slick piece of software called a
href="http://www.nullriver.com/products/connect360"Connect360/a, which easily streams all of your
iLife libraries or any folder full of video on your Mac to the 360. Unfortunately, it'll cost you
$20. There is a free trial version that supposedly shuts off after 30 minutes of sharing, but
sometimes it seems to forget and lets you play longer. But even so, $20 isn't bad for the
convenience factor here. No transcoding, but it will handle every codec the console itself can play
back./p p1. Download and install the Connect360 preference pane.br 2. In System Preferences, start
up Connect360 sharing. Here you can also add folders for more sharing.br 3. Access the Connect360
source on your Xbox in the usual way. Done./p pimg
src="http://cache.gawker.com/assets/images/2008/11/custom_1227301048351_xbox_video.jpg" width="494"
height="329" style="display:block;" /strongXbox 360: Physical Media/strongbr 1. If streaming isn't
for you, and you don't mind hauling a storage device back and forth between your computer and Xbox,
then this is super easy: Insert Flash disk/USB/CD/DVD and browse it with the Media blade or the
Video Library section of NXE (under "My Xbox"). Enjoy.br clear="all"/p pstrongPlaystation 3:
Streaming (PC)/strongbr strongTVersity/strong: Again, Tversity is your friend. It works just as
well for the PS3 as it does for Xbox 360 (see above for setup)./p p1. With Tversity set up and
sharing turned on, just browse to COMPUTERNAME: TVersity in the XMB and you'll see a listing of all
your shared files./p pimg src="http://cache.gawker.com/assets/images/gizmodo/2008/11/ps3_wmp11.png"
width="500" height="371" style="display:block;" /strongWindows Media Player 11/strong: Just like
for Xbox 360, you can use WMP11's built-in DLNA/UPnP serving capabilities to stream to the PS3,
too—but with the same codec funkiness as noted above.br clear="all"/p p1. In
the Media Sharing preference box with your PS3 powered on and connected to the network, select
"Unknown Device"—that's your PS3.br 2. Your library should now show up in
XMB./p pimg src="http://cache.gawker.com/assets/images/2008/11/custom_1227297942918_Picture_26.png"
width="494" height="405" style="display:block;" /strongPlaystation 3: Streaming (MAC)/strongbr Mac:
Nullriver didn't just hook up 360 owners—Media Link is the version especially
for PS3. It costs 20 bucks, but will give you totally seamless and painless streaming of all of
your iLife libraries (photos and music too) as well as files in any folder you can access with your
Mac, whether it's on a network or local.br clear="all"/p p1. Operation is just like
Connect360—with sharing enabled in the Media Link preference pane, just browse
through all your files under the "Media Link" source in XMB./p pstrongPlaystation 3: Physical
Media/strongbr 1. Easy as pie. If you're using a USB flash or hard disc or an SD or CF card, just
dump all of your videos into a folder named VIDEO on the root of the drive and they'll show up
automatically in the XMB.br 2. You can also browse the entire drive or disc by pressing triangle
and choosing "Display All" to find videos that aren't in the VIDEO folder./p pstrongWii: Physical
Media/strongbr img src="http://cache.gawker.com/assets/images/gizmodo/2008/10/wiihomebrew6.jpg"
align="left" hspace="4" vspace="2" style="display:block;" /For playing video on your Wii, physical
media is the way to go, which is easy to pull off with some a
href="http://gizmodo.com/5096150/a-complete-guide-to-playing-video-files-on-your-ps3-xbox-360-or-wii-/?op=postpreviewrefId=5096150"homebrew
hacking/a. There are lots of services that will transcode your video and ouput it in a Flash player
that you can view through the Wii's Opera browser (like a href="http://orb.com"Orb/a), but you'll
take a hit quality-wise and it's not as easy as just playing the source files directly with
Mplayer.br clear="all"/p p1. Install the Homebrew Channel and Mplayer on your Wii. We've got you
covered here with our a
href="http://gizmodo.com/5096150/a-complete-guide-to-playing-video-files-on-your-ps3-xbox-360-or-wii-/?op=postpreviewrefId=5096150"complete
Wii homebrew guide/a—but hopefully you haven't installed the latest System Menu
update. In that case, you'll have to wait for a workaround, but it probably won't be long./p p2.
Install Mplayer via the Homebrew Browser (also a
href="http://gizmodo.com/5096150/a-complete-guide-to-playing-video-files-on-your-ps3-xbox-360-or-wii-/?op=postpreviewrefId=5096150"covered
in our guide/a)./p p3. Now, you can use Mplayer to play files off or even an attached USB drive (as
long as its formatted in FAT16 or FAT32, which most are). The interface is not nearly as nice, but
it gets the job done./p p4. Mplayer for the Wii covers a ton of codecs, but sadly, the Wii's
processor chokes on HD content. If you've got HD files, you'll need to transcode them into a lower
resolution with VLC./p pAnd that's about it. Now, no more huddling around your laptop screen or
fiddling with TV and audio-out cables. Welcome to the good life./p pemAdditional reporting and
testing by Seung Lee. See more a href="http://gizmodo.com/tag/how_to"Giz how-to guides here/a. And
as always, if you have anything to add to our findings, please let us know in the comments./em/p br
style="clear: both;"/ a
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src="http://feedproxy.google.com/~f/gizmodo/full?i=FGGqQmpb" border="0"/img/a a
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emEach week /ema href="http://www.rossrubin.com/outofthebox"font color="#0aa7d6"emRoss
Rubin/em/font/aem contributes /ema href="http://www.engadget.com/tag/switchedon"font
color="#0aa7d6"emSwitched On/em/font/aem, a column about consumer technology. /embr /br / div
align="center"img vspace="4" hspace="4" border="0" alt=""
src="http://www.blogcdn.com/www.engadget.com/media/2008/11/stormfront.jpg" /br //div What happens
when the efficient menu-driven user experience of the BlackBerry meets the discoverable new user
experience of finger-driven touch? The answer for the BlackBerry a
href="http://www.engadget.com/tag/Storm/"Storm/a has been that the BlackBerry experience wins, and
who loses depends on what you were expecting from RIM's first departure from a physical keyboard.
While adorned with a few on-screen buttons and simple gesture support, the Storm is much less of an
iPhone-like experience than, say, the T-Mobile a href="http://www.engadget.com/tag/G1/"G1/a.br /br
/The Storm's main advantage over other BlackBerry devices is that it has a larger screen, not
necessarily one that is controlled by touch. However, to accommodate the removal of its trademark
keyboard, RIM has taken touch-screens into a literal new dimension by requiring users to depress
the screen to activate a button on the screen, which lowers and springs back like a giant keyboard
key.br /br /The screen's ability to respond to presses as a physical button (like the trackpad in
Apple's new MacBooks), helps provide a more natural feel to typing on the Storm; the feedback is
certainly more satisfying than the solely visual feedback that the iPhone gives. Just because it
feels good, though, doesn't mean you should do it.pa
href="http://www.engadget.com/2008/11/21/switched-on-writers-on-the-storm/" rel="bookmark"Continue
reading emSwitched On: Writers on the Storm/em/a/ppFiled under: a
href="http://www.engadget.com/category/cellphones/" rel="tag"Cellphones/a/pp
style="padding:5px;background:#ddd;border:1px solid #ccc;clear:both;"a
href="http://www.engadget.com/2008/11/21/switched-on-writers-on-the-storm/"Switched On: Writers on
the Storm/a originally appeared on a href="http://www.engadget.com"Engadget/a on Fri, 21 Nov 2008
16:19:00 EST. Please see our a href="http://www.weblogsinc.com/feed-terms/"terms for use of
feeds/a./ph6 style="clear: both; padding: 8px 0 0 0; height: 2px; font-size: 1px; border: 0;
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this/anbsp;|nbsp;a
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What happens when the efficient menu-driven user experience of the BlackBerry meets the
discoverable new user experience of finger-driven touch? The answer for the BlackBerry Storm has been that the BlackBerry experience wins, and
who loses depends on what you were expecting from RIM's first departure from a physical keyboard.
While adorned with a few on-screen buttons and simple gesture support, the Storm is much less of an
iPhone-like experience than, say, the T-Mobile G1.
The Storm's main advantage over other BlackBerry devices is that it has a larger screen, not
necessarily one that is controlled by touch. However, to accommodate the removal of its trademark
keyboard, RIM has taken touch-screens into a literal new dimension by requiring users to depress
the screen to activate a button on the screen, which lowers and springs back like a giant keyboard
key.
The screen's ability to respond to presses as a physical button (like the trackpad in Apple's new
MacBooks), helps provide a more natural feel to typing on the Storm; the feedback is certainly more
satisfying than the solely visual feedback that the iPhone gives. Just because it feels good,
though, doesn't mean you should do it.
Amid all the bad economic news, including a downturn in PC market growth projections for 2009 by
nine points, who would have thought the company best suited to weather the storm could be one that
just emerged from a storm?
divimg alt=""
src="http://hits.guardian.co.uk/b/ss/guardiangu-feeds/1/H.15.1/63869?ns=guardianpageName=Art+and+design%3A+How+Dubai%27s+fantasy+skyline+tumbled+to+earthch=Art+and+designc3=guardian.co.ukc4=Art+and+design%2CArchitecture%2CWorld+news%2CDubai+%28News%29%2CCredit+crunch+%28Business%29%2CBusiness%2CGlobal+economy+%28Business%29%2CCulture+sectionc5=Art%2CCredit+Crunch%2CBusiness+Markets%2CNot+commercially+useful%2CArchitecturec6=Steve+Rosec7=2008_11_21c8=1121986c9=articlec10=GUc11=Art+and+designc12=Architecturec13=c14=h2=GU%2FArt+and+design%2FArchitecture"
width="1" height="1" //divpThe fireworks have fizzled out, 4,000 lobster shells are being scraped
into the bins, and Lily Allen's probably reaching for the paracetamol – but,
she won't be the only person in Dubai with a hangover today. Yesterday saw the a
href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2008/nov/21/atlantis-palm-dubai-kylie-lohan"opening of the
Atlantis Palm Jumeirah Beach/a, yet another flash new architectural marvel in Dubai, augmented by
yet another onslaught of superlatives, celebrities, and headlines across the world. /ppCome this
morning, it's not just the champagne that's gone flat. It has finally happened: the Dubai bubble
has burst. Architecture-spotters like myself have looked on in amazement, or rather incredulity, at
the way the tiny emirate has continued to unveil ever grander construction projects
– taller skyscrapers, huger hotels, vaster artificial islands
– in a
href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/artanddesign/2008/sep/25/architecture.middleeast"apparent defiance
of the global credit crunch/a./ppNow, that crunch has hit home. This week's a
href="http://www.architectsjournal.co.uk/news/dailynews/2008/11/staff_axed_as_credit_crisis_hits_dubai.html"
Architect's Journal reports/a that "architects and developers in Dubai are freezing recruitment and
making redundancies as the emirate's real-estate market begins to crumble." Large developers in
Dubai are laying off staff, including Emaar the company behind the a
href="http://www.burjdubai.com/" Burj Dubai/a, the world's tallest structure, the magazine reports.
Other headline-grabbing projects like the Palm Deira, the next artificial island planned off the
coast, are on hold indefinitely, and foreign architects and construction specialists out there,
such as RMJM and Ramboll Whitbyird, are making staff cuts or freezing recruitment as a result, says
the AJ. /ppAccording to one British architect I spoke to, who was in Dubai just 10 days ago, the
situation is even worse than that. "Projects are being pulled left right and centre," he said.
"Unless they've been funded by a sovereign wealth fund, they're being pulled. A lot of things have
to be redesigned more cheaply, to sell at lower prices. Where people have made first down payments
on projects, they're not making the second one. And a lot of what has been completed will be
standing empty."/ppNot that anyone in Dubai will officially admit any of the above. The general
climate is one of denial, say insiders. "Nobody wants to lose face, and everybody's trying to put a
gloss on bad news. No one's come out and cancelled anything, but a lot of things are 'on hold'
indefinitely." /ppDubai's "build it and they will come" philosophy has worked spectacularly so far.
It has successfully jostled itself on to the world stage, largely by pulling off previously
unthinkable architectural feats and boosting them to the skies with juicy publicity. Remember when
David Beckham was buying a house on the Palm? How many people have seen him there since? Still, the
publicity worked: properties on the Palm changed hands for huge sums before they were even built,
peaking at a preposterous £5m. Today those houses are apparently closer to £1.8m, down
from £2.7m just two months ago. /ppReality however, has finally come to town: the Dubai
Financial Market – the general stock index – has fallen
from a high of 6,315 earlier this year to just 2,012 yesterday. Emaar's share price has plummeted
79% in less than a year; according to some estimates, property prices have fallen by as much as 49%
in parts of the Dubai market. The overall figure is much lower, in the region of 4%, but this is a
place that's become accustomed to its figures only going in one direction and a lot of people are
being caught out by the turnaround./ppSo now, it's more a case of "don't build it, because nobody
can afford to come." The general destruction of wealth in the rest of the world will not help
Dubai's tourist industry either. Fewer people have the income to afford a Dubai-standard holiday,
and even those who do might be put off by the authorities' response to the a
href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2008/oct/17/dubai" recent "sex on the beach" scandal/a, in
which two Britons were jailed for three months for their public canoodling. Needless to say, we can
expect discounts on rooms at the Atlantis Palm Jumeirah Beach pretty soon. /ppWe cannot simply
write off Dubai though. It's already too well established for that and it's still in a very strong
position to emerge as a dominant global financial centre, having taken less of a battering than,
say, London or New York in the past year. The Burj Dubai is likely to remain the tallest building
in the world for quite some time (surely nobody in the world has the appetite to challenge it?),
but for the time being, the a href="http://www.nakheel.com/en/corporate" elaborate man-made
coastline of the future/a that has become Dubai's abiding image is likely to remain just that
– an image./pdiv style="float: left; margin-right: 10px; margin-bottom:
10px;"ullia href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/artanddesign/architecture"Architecture/a/lilia
href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/dubai"Dubai/a/lilia
href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/creditcrunch"Credit crunch/a/lilia
href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/globaleconomy"Global economy/a/li/ul/divdiv
class="guRssAdvert"a
href="http://ads.guardian.co.uk/click.ng/richmedia=yessite=Artscountry=(none)spacedesc=rsssystem=rsstransactionID=1227284156048112116220444056"img
src="http://ads.guardian.co.uk/image.ng/richmedia=yessite=Artscountry=(none)spacedesc=rsssystem=rsstransactionID=1227284156048112116220444056"
border="0" //a/diva href="http://www.guardian.co.uk"guardian.co.uk/a copy; Guardian News Media
Limited 2008 | Use of this content is subject to our a
href="http://users.guardian.co.uk/help/article/0,,933909,00.html"Terms Conditions/a | a
href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/webfeeds/1,,1309488,00.html"More Feeds/a
Shares of Citigroup enjoyed a brief bounce Friday morning before heading lower once again, falling
16% despite reports that the beleaguered bank may be looking to raise more capital or even sell the
whole firm. pa href="http://rss.cnn.com/~a/rss/money_latest?a=HeuYeM"img
src="http://rss.cnn.com/~a/rss/money_latest?i=HeuYeM" border="0"/img/a/pimg
src="http://rss.cnn.com/~r/rss/money_latest/~4/460822362" height="1" width="1"/
pimg src="http://cache.gawker.com/assets/images/lifehacker/2008/11/qdir.jpg" width="494"
height="250" align="center"/br / Windows only: Free file browser Q-Dir makes for a good USB drive
app or installed replacement for Windows Explorer for those who do a serious amount of file
swapping, or just like to be able to keep multiple folder views open at once. The appmdash;which
installs by default, but can run by itself after renaming it "Q-Dir.exe"mdash;offers a customizable
number of panes, though the default four-square is a pretty good starting point. You can save any
view you like to a favorite button, along with adding shortcuts to frequently-accessed folders.
There's also a quick-filter box in the lower-right for easy sorting and finding, and if you use
Q-Dir regularly, you'll be glad it keeps your right-click shell extensions and offers its own
"*Q-Dir" launch option on right-clicking a folder. Q-Dir is a free download for Windows systems
only. Only need two panes? We're also big fans of a
href="http://lifehacker.com/software/geek-to-live/replace-windows-explorer-with-xplorer2-258730.php"replacing
Explorer with Xplorer2/a. div class="related"a
href="http://www.softwareok.com/?seite=Software/Q-Dirlanguage=english"Q-Dir/a [via a
href="http://www.freewaregenius.com/2008/11/21/q-dir-the-portable-file-management-program-that-could/"FreewareGenius.com/a]/div/p
br style="clear: both;"/ a
href="http://www.pheedo.com/click.phdo?s=8254e2aaa7bc9dc2a1d8f16670f39375p=1"img alt=""
style="border: 0;" border="0"
src="http://www.pheedo.com/img.phdo?s=8254e2aaa7bc9dc2a1d8f16670f39375p=1"//a img
src="http://www.pheedo.com/feeds/tracker.php?i=8254e2aaa7bc9dc2a1d8f16670f39375" style="display:
none;" border="0" height="1" width="1" alt=""/div class="feedflare" a
href="http://feeds.gawker.com/~f/lifehacker/full?a=E4ZEeZ3p"img
src="http://feedproxy.google.com/~f/lifehacker/full?d=120" border="0"/img/a a
href="http://feeds.gawker.com/~f/lifehacker/full?a=0yR4iwku"img
src="http://feedproxy.google.com/~f/lifehacker/full?d=41" border="0"/img/a a
href="http://feeds.gawker.com/~f/lifehacker/full?a=MnuLWOLS"img
src="http://feedproxy.google.com/~f/lifehacker/full?i=MnuLWOLS" border="0"/img/a a
href="http://feeds.gawker.com/~f/lifehacker/full?a=X4pYNwzK"img
src="http://feedproxy.google.com/~f/lifehacker/full?i=X4pYNwzK" border="0"/img/a /divimg
src="http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/lifehacker/full/~4/mQhgLORji6w" height="1" width="1"/
a href="http://img.qj.net/uploads/articles_module/126553/cave-egress_qjgenth.jpg?153687"
rel="lightbox[article126553]" title="Tomb 20Raider 3A 20Underworld 20- 20Image 201 20 26nbsp 3B 20
20 26nbsp 3B 20 3Ca 20href 3D 22http 3A//img.qj.net/uploads/articles_module/126553/cave-egress.jpg
3F153687 22 20target 3D 22_blank 22 3E 3Cimg 20src 3D 22/img/newwindow.png 22 20title 3D 22Open
20in 20new 20window 22 20border 3D 220 22 3E 3C/a 3E"img style="margin-bottom: 3px; margin-left:
3px;" alt="Tomb Raider: Underworld - Image 1" title="Tomb Raider: Underworld - Image 1"
src="http://img.qj.net/uploads/articles_module/126553/cave-egress_qjgenth.jpg?153687" align="right"
border="0"/aThis story first broke last Wednesday when a UK journalist wrote on his twitter account
that Eidos British PR firm Barrington Harvey sought to prevent any review lower than 8.0/10 for
span style="font-style: italic;"Tomb Raider: Underworld/span span id="iTxt"span id="iTxt"(a
href="http://ps3.qj.net/Tomb-Raider-Underworld/cid/4621" title="Tomb Raider Underworld
PS3"PlayStation 3/a, a href="http://xbox360.qj.net/Tomb-Raider-Underworld/cid/4621" title="Tomb
Raider Underworld 360"Xbox 360/a, a href="http://wii.qj.net/Tomb-Raider-Underworld/cid/4683"
title="Tomb Raider: Underworld"Wii/a, a title="Tomb Raider Underworld DS"
href="http://ds.qj.net/category/Tomb-Raider-Underworld/cid/4684"DS/a, PC, PS2)/span/span from
getting published until three days after the game has launched.brbrWhen asked about this, a rep
from Barrington Harvey explained, brbrp style="padding-left: 40px; padding-right: 40px;"That s
right. We re trying to manage the review scores at the request of Eidos. Just that we re trying to
get the Metacritic rating to be high, and the brand manager in the US that s handling all of Tomb
Raider has asked that we just manage the scores before the game is out, really, just to ensure that
we don t put people off buying the game, basically./pbrBad move, old boy. brbrOf course, the
general reaction wasn't a favorable one when people heard about it. Journalists and gamers alike
went up in arms and scathing criticisms about "unethical" behavior filled the net in the interim. I
think Kotaku phrased it best when they asked, "What the holy hell?"brbrEnter Barrington and
Harvey's damage control: Simon Byron, one of Barrington Harvey's directors, issued an official
statement on the matter saying,brbrp style="padding-left: 40px; padding-right: 40px;"Barrington
Harvey is not in the position of telling reviewers what they can and cannot say. We love Tomb
Raider and believe it merits a score of at least 8/10, but if someone disagrees that s entirely
their prerogative. No problem at all. Seriously: no problem. br/pp style="padding-left: 40px;
padding-right: 40px;"br/pp style="padding-left: 40px; padding-right: 40px;"Our original NDA stated
that in order to receive an advance copy of the game, reviewers agreed not to post reviews ahead of
5:00pm, Wednesday 19th November 2008. Nothing else. No further obligations whatsoever./pbrI do
agree that it's perfectly reasonable to hold reviewers to schedules posited in a non-disclosure
agreement but they really should have prevented all reviews from seeing the light of day and not
just the ones below 8.0.brbrGame reviewers are under pressure to release their findings quickly and
ahead of the competition. That's sort of why they look for advanced copies in the first place.
Telling them they can only publish their reviews early if they publish it with a high score is no
different than offering them cash make bogus reviews.brbr... but that's only my opinion. Feel free
to share yours in the comments below. I'd love to hear what you think.brbrThe full version of
Barrington Harvey's statement can be viewed in the source link below.brbrhr style="width: 100 ;
height: 2px;"brspan style="font-weight: bold;"Related Tomb Raider Underworld Articles:br/spanullia
title="Video: Tomb Raider Underword: Hot Lara-on-Bike action"
href="http://www.qj.net/Video-Tomb-Raider-Underword-Hot-Lara-on-Bike-action/pg/49/aid/125378"span
style="font-style: italic;"Video: Tomb Raider Underword: Hot Lara-on-Bike action/span/a/lilispan
style="font-style: italic;"a title="Tomb Raider: Underworld Dangerous gameplay video"
href="http://www.qj.net/Tomb-Raider-Underworld-Dangerous-gameplay-video/pg/49/aid/123225"Tomb
Raider: Underworld Dangerous gameplay video/abr/span/li/ulbrbrdiv class="feedflare" a
href="http://feedproxy.google.com/~f/qj/wii?a=8p64pKfi"img
src="http://feedproxy.google.com/~f/qj/wii?d=41" border="0"/img/a a
href="http://feedproxy.google.com/~f/qj/wii?a=qfMaiPUm"img
src="http://feedproxy.google.com/~f/qj/wii?d=43" border="0"/img/a a
href="http://feedproxy.google.com/~f/qj/wii?a=MTdCdljM"img
src="http://feedproxy.google.com/~f/qj/wii?d=50" border="0"/img/a /divimg
src="http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/qj/wii/~4/C1z8VClvr5M" height="1" width="1"/
a href="http://img.qj.net/uploads/articles_module/126553/cave-egress_qjgenth.jpg?153687"
rel="lightbox[article126553]" title="Tomb 20Raider 3A 20Underworld 20- 20Image 201 20 26nbsp 3B 20
20 26nbsp 3B 20 3Ca 20href 3D 22http 3A//img.qj.net/uploads/articles_module/126553/cave-egress.jpg
3F153687 22 20target 3D 22_blank 22 3E 3Cimg 20src 3D 22/img/newwindow.png 22 20title 3D 22Open
20in 20new 20window 22 20border 3D 220 22 3E 3C/a 3E"img style="margin-bottom: 3px; margin-left:
3px;" alt="Tomb Raider: Underworld - Image 1" title="Tomb Raider: Underworld - Image 1"
src="http://img.qj.net/uploads/articles_module/126553/cave-egress_qjgenth.jpg?153687" align="right"
border="0"/aThis story first broke last Wednesday when a UK journalist wrote on his twitter account
that Eidos British PR firm Barrington Harvey sought to prevent any review lower than 8.0/10 for
span style="font-style: italic;"Tomb Raider: Underworld/span span id="iTxt"span id="iTxt"(a
href="http://ps3.qj.net/Tomb-Raider-Underworld/cid/4621" title="Tomb Raider Underworld
PS3"PlayStation 3/a, a href="http://xbox360.qj.net/Tomb-Raider-Underworld/cid/4621" title="Tomb
Raider Underworld 360"Xbox 360/a, a href="http://wii.qj.net/Tomb-Raider-Underworld/cid/4683"
title="Tomb Raider: Underworld"Wii/a, a title="Tomb Raider Underworld DS"
href="http://ds.qj.net/category/Tomb-Raider-Underworld/cid/4684"DS/a, PC, PS2)/span/span from
getting published until three days after the game has launched.brbrWhen asked about this, a rep
from Barrington Harvey explained, brbrp style="padding-left: 40px; padding-right: 40px;"That s
right. We re trying to manage the review scores at the request of Eidos. Just that we re trying to
get the Metacritic rating to be high, and the brand manager in the US that s handling all of Tomb
Raider has asked that we just manage the scores before the game is out, really, just to ensure that
we don t put people off buying the game, basically./pbrBad move, old boy. brbrOf course, the
general reaction wasn't a favorable one when people heard about it. Journalists and gamers alike
went up in arms and scathing criticisms about "unethical" behavior filled the net in the interim. I
think Kotaku phrased it best when they asked, "What the holy hell?"brbrEnter Barrington and
Harvey's damage control: Simon Byron, one of Barrington Harvey's directors, issued an official
statement on the matter saying,brbrp style="padding-left: 40px; padding-right: 40px;"Barrington
Harvey is not in the position of telling reviewers what they can and cannot say. We love Tomb
Raider and believe it merits a score of at least 8/10, but if someone disagrees that s entirely
their prerogative. No problem at all. Seriously: no problem. br/pp style="padding-left: 40px;
padding-right: 40px;"br/pp style="padding-left: 40px; padding-right: 40px;"Our original NDA stated
that in order to receive an advance copy of the game, reviewers agreed not to post reviews ahead of
5:00pm, Wednesday 19th November 2008. Nothing else. No further obligations whatsoever./pbrI do
agree that it's perfectly reasonable to hold reviewers to schedules posited in a non-disclosure
agreement but they really should have prevented all reviews from seeing the light of day and not
just the ones below 8.0.brbrGame reviewers are under pressure to release their findings quickly and
ahead of the competition. That's sort of why they look for advanced copies in the first place.
Telling them they can only publish their reviews early if they publish it with a high score is no
different than offering them cash make bogus reviews.brbr... but that's only my opinion. Feel free
to share yours in the comments below. I'd love to hear what you think.brbrThe full version of
Barrington Harvey's statement can be viewed in the source link below.brbrhr style="width: 100 ;
height: 2px;"brspan style="font-weight: bold;"Related Tomb Raider Underworld Articles:br/spanullia
title="Video: Tomb Raider Underword: Hot Lara-on-Bike action"
href="http://www.qj.net/Video-Tomb-Raider-Underword-Hot-Lara-on-Bike-action/pg/49/aid/125378"span
style="font-style: italic;"Video: Tomb Raider Underword: Hot Lara-on-Bike action/span/a/lilispan
style="font-style: italic;"a title="Tomb Raider: Underworld Dangerous gameplay video"
href="http://www.qj.net/Tomb-Raider-Underworld-Dangerous-gameplay-video/pg/49/aid/123225"Tomb
Raider: Underworld Dangerous gameplay video/abr/span/li/ulbrbrimg
src="http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/qj/ps3/~4/1TlWF3cH4wA" height="1" width="1"/
Dell Inc, the world's No. 2 PC maker, posted a better-than-expected quarterly profit Thursday as
cost cuts offset lower revenue, sending its shares up about 6 percent.
Volo LabsTM today officially announced VoloCareSM, its independent technical support and
maintenance contracts for enterprise-class data storage, servers and networking products from
EMC®, NetApp®, Sun MicrosystemsTM, Cisco®, Dell® as well as generic whitebox
servers. Volo Labs’ cost-effective 3rd party support solutions are designed to help lower
IT costs for companies in today’s tough economy. By delivering seamless support for
mission-critical applications and complex storage and network infrastructures, Volo Labs helps
customers maintain business continuity at a reduced cost. (PRWeb Nov 21, 2008)
)
and reject those that you are not interested in
(
)
