A new episode of the Digital Blast Podcast is up!

Yes, its only beeen 3 months but finally a new podcast. Hop over to the Show/Shownotes page and give it a listen. I have been battling a software problem for a while now and that's why there hasn't been a show (that and a lack of time), but its all fixed now. I'll do a full rundown of the show's notes tomorrow. It's late and I'm hitting the sack.

Please remember that I can't make the show any better without input from you!! So leave a comment and tell me what you like/don't like and feel free to make suggestions.

Aw yeah, Star Trek engineer Geordi LaForge's visor is coming.

On Star Trek, Geordi LaForge (played by aka Mr. Reading Rainbow's Lavar Burton) was blind and wore this coolio new fangled visor (see left, which by the way I always thought was a cut up car air filter but I digress) that not only allowed him to see but allowed him to see in different spectra.

Well, there's a new operation that can provide sight to people who've lost their eyes. A tiny camera is attached to a pair of glasses, that camera sends signals to a portable computer. Now here's where it gets super cool Sci-Fi, that computer then stimulates electrodes which have been implanted in the brain through a cord attached to the head. Talk about "hard wired"! So far about 16 people worldwide have received the procedure.

It's by no means perfect, yet. Patients can only "see" flashes of light and outlines of objects, however once you realize that those patients never had ANY type of site until the procedure then its pretty cool. The procedure, the first to reverse blindness in people without eyes, is yet to be approved in the U.S. There are other procedures, profiled in Wired Magazine a couple of years ago, that give sight by implanting the camera directly into the eye and hard wiring to the bran and a processor computer. Isaac Asimov would be so proud.

A makeover for your cell phone.

There are all sorts of ways to customize your phone from ring tones to face plates and even (for the wealthier among us) jewel bling encrusted. Well now there's an affordable way to customize your phone and won't break the bank or require hours of work, Printz Skins .

Now you can make sure that no one grabs your phone by accident. Printz Skins allows you to put your favorite photograph, art, or design directly onto your phone.

The process (while not too easy but not too hard either) requires you to buy a pack of three blank adhesive "skins" from your local (or on-line) Best Buy for $15. Then you hop over to the company's site to use its design lab, letting you customize one of your own photos or choose from over 500 stock images in their library. You size the image to match your cell phone model, print (inkjet printers only), then peel the backing off the vinyl skin and stick it on your cellie.

The skins aren't going to stick on your phone forever but they ain't too easy to get off either so just like a tattoo of you love interest ain't a good idea, neither is plastering them on your phone. Printz Skins should be available sometime in May.

Now here's some REAL mobile media.

Ah, gone are the days when you used to just used your cell phone to talk to another person. That device has morphed into a digital camera/video recorder, personal assistant, voice recorder and mp3 player. Now you can add one more thing, on-demand-on-the-move video player. Motorola recently demonstrated their newest technology which would allow you to move recorded TV shows from thier set-top DVRs to their phones, most notably its next-gen RAZR V3x (which as of yet is not available from carriers in the U.S. yet).
Video is transferred to the phone wirelessly. Not across the internet but across you home network and stored in the phone's expandable memory. Which in itself is cool when you realize that phone memory is only around 512 mb right now so I'd be interested to know how many TV shows the phone could hold.

If, like me, you are just itching to watch last night's Veronica Mars on the train ride into work so you can impress the interns at lunch, you can download it to your phone before you leave the house. Is it as convenient as on-demand mobile video from carriers like Verizon and Sprint? No, but your selection is now all the shows you like and have recorded. One more thing, Motorola says that you can also program yourDVR from your cell phone. So when you hear that there's a documentary on the denizens of Middle Earth, that you'll miss 'cause you're stuck in the office reviewing that proposal, you can just schedule to record the show from your phone.

New pajamas let you "cyber hug" from across the internet.

Life is hectic we all know that. With the deluge of business trips our "on the go" lives require, we spend way too much time away from home and loved ones. Specifically those travelers with kids miss out on daily the interaction with their progeny. Thanks to the internet and telephones we can stay in contact (sight and sound) every day but still we're missing out on the touch and feel. Oh, but not anymore, a group of scientists in Singapore are developing a way to add that sense of touch to the experience.
The group's "cyber pajamas" can relay the warmth and feel of a far away person's touch by regulating pressure and temperature over different parts of the bluetooth garment. Thus allowing a parent to not only sooth their child with their voice and image but also give a "cyber hug" from anywhere across the world. This is a great idea. It allows one the chance to recreate the normal environment of being home and staying "in contact" with your kids.

Now while this is great, let's all be honest here. I'm more inclined to want that touch and feel garment on the wife/mom (see picture to left!). Now imagine touching that from across the globe. Ah yes, never worry about leaving your loved one at home for too long anymore. I'm sure its only a matter of time before these garments will get hooked up to adult sites, 976 numbers and adopted by the on-line adult community. I love technology.

Finally, some HD goodness is on the way.

We're finally starting to hear news about upcoming HD stuff, not the least of which will be the first titled released in the HD format. That little gem of movie goodness?
Why Universal's Serenity of course. Ah yes my Joss Whedon/sci-fi fans, our nirvana has arrived. Universal announced the release date of Serenity in the new HD DVD format to be April 18th. The disc will be priced at $34.95, about $10 more than the standard-definition DVD version. And you were wondering what to do with that tax check.

HD DVD players are turning out to be cheaper that originally expected, with entry-level models costing around $500. Not a mint but not too cheap either. With two formats competing to be the next standard, HD DVD and Blu-ray, we the consumers are left with no clear choice. Blu-ray players will be available here in the states in the late spring and we will see on as part of the PS# system when it launches (see where this is going?).

Just to show give you one more example of people that have it better than us, Miami's Dolphin Stadium has just installed the world's largest HD screen and recently showed it off to season-ticket holders. Measuring a ginormous (it might not be a word but its mine) 145 feet diagonal, it most certainly dwarfs whatever it is you've been watching Lost on lately. Not one but TWO HD monitors were installed, but the 145-foot display is the larger of the two. Well at least the Dolphins fans can watch their team lose in crisp high def.

If you haven't played Ghost Recon Advanced Warfighter (GRAW), you're life is incomplete.

Yes, I truly feel that way. There are those games that come out that reshape and redefine gameplay, GRAW is one of those games. Did I work on the game? Yes. Does that have anything to do with the goodness? I'd like to think so. However, GRAW is a game that's not only fun and keeps you "in the game" from beginning to end but its great to look at. There are few games out there that can pump every piece of processing power out of a console but GRAW does it for both the Xbox and Xbox 360. There's no doubt that its the best looking game on the 360 and arguably the best Ghost Recon game yet.

One of the first things you see in the game is how massive and believable the city looks. You take several helicopter rides and you'll see You'll notice the little details like fires and smoke curling up into the sky from patches of fighting or factories. The care and detil is reflected in the character models as well. Your Ghost look like the real soldiers of the 2010 timeframe and the way the light and shadows play off them makes you feel like you're there in the sweltering Mexican daylight and heat with them.
The size of the city affects the gameplay too. You operate within several city blocks. Luckily most of the time you're not locked into one preplanned route but you're encouraged to explore around to find the best path. To help you get through the combat areas, the game lets you control your three-man support team, and support vehicles. You can tap into robotic UAV recon vehicles to scout ahead and detect enemies around your location (jsut like the real soldiers of the future will ). Enemies, objectives and teammates are marked with digital icons on you drop down heads-up-display so you can track them even when they're out of sight. At various times in the game, you'll command tanks, armored vehicles, and helicopter gunships. Hanging out of the door of a helo as a door gunner fyling through the city is AMAZING.

Commanding your teammates is pretty easy too. You can command them as a unit, and they'll respond to move, attack, or regroup commands. If you position them well, behind some low cover for instance, they're generally effective at shooting enemies. You also have great control over your character like peering around/shooting around corners, using different pieces of terrain for cover etc. This isn't a run and gun game. The place is slow and thoughtful to make the gamplay resemble real combat.

One more thing that I want to mention that you NEVER hear about, the game's sounds. It's a great tandem with the awesome graphics. I know the guy that did the sound too and huge kudo's to him. The weapons have very unique and realistic sounds and its all very crisp which jsut makes the battles more realistic. If you're heart doesn't beat faster whith the sound of the Vulcan cannon firing out the door of a Blackhawk during the helicopter-combat missions, you're dead. The game even muffles sounds in response to the cannons and explosions to give you the simulated deafening effect of combat.

BOTTOMLINE: This is a fantastic game and one of the few on the market worth the $50 price tag. Ubisoft/Redstorm went the extra mile to ensure that their soldiers, gear and tactics resemble what the real Army is and will use too. The main game is great, mulitplayer is great and the replay factor is high. Factor all that in and your $50 is money well spent.

The phone Eric Zoolander would love.

Been off-line due to a terrible case of poison ivy, but that's for another post. This thing is so cool I just had to post about it. Is it a phone? Is it an MP3 player? Is it a camera? Holy Kodak Batman, it’s all three!
This Swiss knife phone can be used as an MP3 player without ever opening the cover of the phone. The Samsung SPH-S4300 has a 262K-color TFT screen with 128 x 220 pixels, 1GB of flash memory internal , a FM radio, a video player, an external sound recorder, and a 1.3-megapixel camera. So beyond having great functions this thing is tiny! It specs out at a miniscule at 3.3 x 1.8 x 1 inches! Are you kidding me? Finally a true small portable device.

At a recent tech show Samsung was marketing the phone as the “World’s Smallest Memory Stick”. Now all of us Sony uses associate NOTHING good with memory stick. SO other than coming up with a new marketing ploy for the phone (i.e. get Eric Zoolander to do the commercials) I'll be one of the first to pick up this phone when it comes to the states in the next 6 months.