iPhone 3GS Announced, Microsoft's Project Natal, Google Wave, Microsoft Bing, Palm Pre
iPhone 3GS Announced
Aside from a newly fresh line-up of macbooks,
features tour of upcoming Snow Leopard an iPhone OS 3.0, Apple today announced a
new iPhone 3GS. It's got 3 megapixel autofocus camera, 7.2Mbps HSDPA, a more
powerful processor (I believe it's ARM 600MHz, previously was
400MHz), voice recognition, built-in digital compass, Nike
support, hardware encryption, improved battery life (up to 5 hours 3G talk time,
9 hours of WiFi), all for just $199 for 16GB, $299 for 32GB. Comes in black and
white, and will be available on June 19.
Previous iPhone 3G will still be available at $99.
iPhone OS 3.0 will be here by August 9.
If it wasn't for AT&T and its 2-year
commitment, I'm very likely going to grab one of these.
Microsoft's Project
Natal
Microsoft announced motion controller for Xbox 360
touted as "Project
Natal" at E3.
Some people hate the name. I think it's a nice
name. The meaning is related to birth. In Indonesia, we use the word 'Natal' to
indicate Christmas.
Traditional concept for playing home video games
has always been just sitting on a couch and use a controller to move the
fingers around. Few years ago, Nintendo stepped up and introduced the first
home gaming console known as Wii that requires motion controller, thus
creating a whole new way of playing games and proved to be popular
among consumers of all ages. No doubt, this project is Microsoft's answer
to virtual reality.
I'll admit that II was pretty skeptical when I
first watched the videos. I'm more of an old-school when it comes to game play,
meaning that I prefer to sit down, relax and use as little energy as possible.
Then I came across the potential of using this device for communication and it
blew me away. Imagine chatting with a friend on a screen, and using hand-motion
gestures to control device. It's also got voice recognition so you can talk
as if there is someone behind the screen. The video clearly shows the idea
of how this device can be used in variety of ways aside from game play; then
again nothing is perfect. I'm curious in regards to the delay of the
sensor capturing the movement. Can Microsoft deliver as advertised?
Google Wave
I wonder what the anticipation was for Google Wave and decided to check out the
videos here, here and here.
First impression is that this product defines
a whole new meaning for the word "real-time". There are three things that I
like.
1. Live collaborative editing. Every character
typed is transmitted live and can be seen by the recipient which makes
this better than instant messaging. Some people don't like this feature, so it can be turned
off.
Document editing can be done by multiple users,
with each keys typed being transmitted live for others to see.
2. Play-by-play changes. The ability to monitor
changes of a conversation or document conveniently through the clicks of a
button.
3. Live language translation. The world will be a
lot closer if people can understand one another.
Microsoft Bing
This one's got a lot of press lately. It's
yet-another-search-engine. Bing is a simple,
yet catchy name. It's got a good marketing and the search is surprisingly
good.
As I looked at its interface, I can feel that it's
trying to be as simplistic as Google but
tries doing it differently, and I think that it's doing it nicely. But
I don't like the background pictures. In fact, I
don't like anything that takes extra bandwidth for a search-engine. A good search engine should look very simple. Verdict: Google is still my primary search
engine.
Palm Pre
No, I don't have it, I haven't touched it, and I'm
not going to buy it. But I have seen a quick review of it. It has an
elegant user interface, allows multi-tasking and excellent overall usability.
It's also able to get contact information directly from Google and Facebook.
Unfortunately, it has poor battery life. I find that the screen is too
small, but that's what needed to be done to fit nicely on the palm of our
hand.
The startup video though, is
awesome. Palm Pre could very well be the best smartphone next to iPhone. Its
stock price was only about $3 early this year. Now it's $13! I'm really glad
that Palm is doing well because it's a good competition for Apple, and
competition is healthy for this consumer market.
