{"id":354,"date":"2006-05-10T12:11:40","date_gmt":"2006-05-10T16:11:40","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.forgetful.ca\/?p=150"},"modified":"2006-05-10T12:11:40","modified_gmt":"2006-05-10T16:11:40","slug":"gadget-update-aka-geekfest-2006","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/forgetful.ca\/?p=354","title":{"rendered":"Gadget Update &#8211; aka Geekfest 2006"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Haven&#8217;t blogged in a while, so this is just a quick commentary on <a href=\"http:\/\/e3-2006.joystiq.com\/\">E3 2006<\/a> &#8230; the big consumer electronics show in Los Angeles.<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><a href=\"http:\/\/www.us.playstation.com\/PressReleases.aspx?id=279\">PS3<\/a> has a price (US$499 for bare bones, US$599 for larger hard drive and wireless internet, both will be blu-ray high definition DVD drives) and a launch date (November 17, 2006).  I&#8217;m already sharpening my ebay knives, as I&#8217;m sure there will be a product shortage heading into the holiday season.  Join me in hoarding scarce product and selling to desperate parents!<\/li>\n<li>Nintendo has abandoned the working name for their next generation video game console (Revolution), and has instead christined it &#8220;<a href=\"http:\/\/revolution.nintendo.com\/\">Wii<\/a>&#8220;.  I&#8217;m not kidding.  Wiitarded? Wiidiculous?  Yes.  All of wii above.<\/li>\n<li>Xbox announced that an add-on <a href=\"http:\/\/www.xbox.com\/en-US\/community\/news\/events\/e32006\/articles\/20060507-hddvdexplained.htm\">HD-DVD<\/a> player will be available that will plug into a USB port on the Xbox 360.  The CD drive in the 360 is just normal DVD.  They also released a <a href=\"http:\/\/video.google.com\/videoplay?docid=-4690396156416705374&#038;q=xbox+360\">trailer for Halo 3<\/a>, which may excite some but doesn&#8217;t do much for me.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>For those not following the move towards a new DVD standard, here&#8217;s a summary: current DVD&#8217;s and DVD players look OK on High Definition TV&#8217;s, but not stellar.  That&#8217;s because they only have 480 lines of resolution.<\/p>\n<p>So someone has designed new DVD&#8217;s and DVD players that put out widescreen High Definition resolution.  Cool, right?<\/p>\n<p>Well, there&#8217;s a catch.  Sony (and a big group of companies) has their flavour called blu-ray.   Microsoft (and a different big group of companies) has their OWN flavour called HD-DVD.  They aren&#8217;t compatible.  Each group thinks theirs is better than the others, and aren&#8217;t willing to compromise.<\/p>\n<p>So what does this mean?  Two formats can&#8217;t co-exist peacefully.  Can you imagine Blockbuster having to carry 3 different types of discs: old DVD&#8217;s, blu-ray DVD&#8217;s, and HD-DVD&#8217;s?  It didn&#8217;t work for VHS and beta, it didn&#8217;t work for DVD&#8217;s and laser discs, and it won&#8217;t work again here.<\/p>\n<p>Choose your side wisely &#8230; here&#8217;s an <a title=\"High Def DVD FAQ\" href=\"http:\/\/www.digital-digest.com\/highdefdvd\/faq.html\">FAQ<\/a> for anyone who wants to know more.  I&#8217;m unlikely to snap up the HD-DVD add-on to the xbox 360 anytime soon.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Haven&#8217;t blogged in a while, so this is just a quick commentary on E3 2006 &#8230; the big consumer electronics show in Los Angeles. PS3 has a price (US$499 for bare bones, US$599 for larger hard drive and wireless internet, both will be blu-ray high definition DVD drives) and a launch date (November 17, 2006). [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0},"categories":[19],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/forgetful.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/354"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/forgetful.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/forgetful.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/forgetful.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/forgetful.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=354"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/forgetful.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/354\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/forgetful.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=354"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/forgetful.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=354"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/forgetful.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=354"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}