Binary Impact

Nexus One Touch Screen Glitch [Droid Does]

Mavrik — Wed, 03 Mar 2010 22:00:17 +0000

The Droid is on point and the Nexus One has a pretty significant axis-flipping problem. What gives? While you might THINK this could be a problem solved with an OTA update it isn’t looking like a likely outcome based on a Google Employee response by Diane Hackborn:

“Sorry I meant exactly what I said: this is how the touch screen hardware on the Nexus One works (which is essentially the same screen as on the G1 and myTouch). The Droid has a sensor from a different manufacturer, with different behavior. Other phones will likewise have different sensors.”

Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time Movie Trailer #2

Mavrik — Tue, 02 Mar 2010 20:08:37 +0000

Walt Disney Pictures has released a new movie trailer for Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time on IGN. The new trailer incorporates some of the new special effects footage from the Superbowl spot and new “Creating of an Epic” featurette, as well as a lot of never before seen sequences.

Super Mario Galaxy 2 trailer

TM — Thu, 25 Feb 2010 21:41:04 +0000

All Mario fans rejoice!

Video Games | Super Mario Galaxy 2 | Nintendo Media Summit Trailer HD

XBox 360 | Playstation 3 | Nintendo Wii

Top 10 Best Selling Phones of Q4 2009

Mavrik — Tue, 09 Feb 2010 08:55:03 +0000

RIM has a pretty strong showing:

RIM – BlackBerry Curve
Apple – iPhone 3G S
Motorola – DROID
Apple – iPhone 3G
RIM – BlackBerry Pearl
RIM – BlackBerry Bold
RIM – BlackBerry Storm
Palm – Pre
RIM – BlackBerry Tour
T-Mobile – myTouch 3G

[Mobile Crunch]

The Power is in the Software

Mavrik — Thu, 04 Feb 2010 02:36:03 +0000

This quote is actually more true today than it was in 1994 when Steve Jobs was interviewed by Rolling Stone:

“The problem is, in hardware you can’t build a computer that’s twice as good as anyone else’s anymore. Too many people know how to do it. You’re lucky if you can do one that’s one and a third times better or one and a half times better. And then it’s only six months before everybody else catches up. But you can do it in software.”

Read the link below for more of the interview. I think this is especially true today with the comparison between the iPhone and latest Android phones. The iPhone runs much smoother on “inferior” hardware due to great software development (and this is coming from an Android fanboy).

A Must-Read Classic Steve Jobs Interview: Hardware vs. Software [Gizmodo]

iPad Hands-On [Engadget]

Mavrik — Thu, 28 Jan 2010 06:03:34 +0000

Engadget did a great little walk through of how the new iPad works. Video is below:

Download A Digital Copy of Terminator Salvation for FREE! [Deals]

Mavrik — Wed, 27 Jan 2010 08:48:15 +0000

This is legit! Just downloaded it myself.

DivX and CinemaNow are giving away a free digital copy of Terminator Salvation. I’m sure the /Film readers will be quick to comment that “it’s not worth that much”, but a deal is a deal. All you have to do is click here, enter coupon code TS201023, and sign up for a CinemaNow account. You’ll need to have DivX player to play the movie file. Say what you want about the movie, this thing is free!

UPDATE: Offer has expired. Hopefully some of you got a piece of the action.

Comparing the Big 4: Google vs. Microsoft vs. Apple vs. Yahoo!

Mavrik — Wed, 27 Jan 2010 06:38:42 +0000

It’s no secret that Google, Microsoft, Apple, and Yahoo are always expanding their reaches, slowly but surely adding new products and services into their line-ups. The New York Times’s Nick Bilton took a step back and surveyed their empires.

It doesn’t come as much of a surprise to see how much these four behemoths overlap, and I doubt anyone will be surprised when these companies continue to fill in this grid in 2010.

Looking at the empty spaces reveals where we might look for these companies to grow. There have been grumblings of a Google music store for a while, and it seems entirely possible that Apple’s Tablet will at least in part emphasize its capabilities as a gaming device.

As the companies stretch and grow, some of their endeavors will prove more successful than others, but until then this chart is an interesting reminder of how vast their reaches already are.

[New York Times Bits]

Avatar Is Now the Top-Grossing Movie of All Time

Mavrik — Wed, 27 Jan 2010 03:20:22 +0000

Over the course of the weekend, James Cameron’s Avatar was on track to beat Titanic’s record and become the top-grossing film of all time. The numbers have been verified, and Avatar’s worldwide gross stands at over $1.292 billion dollars, which topsTitanic’s $1.242 billion. The domestic record hasn’t yet fallen — by Sunday Avatar was still about $50m shy of Titanic’s $600.8m US gross. About 70% of Avatar’s revenue comes from foreign markets, compared to Titanic’s 67%.

For those of you that are like me and care about ticket sales more than gross income (which doesn’t take inflation into account), Avatar is 26th. Below is a link for you to check out the top grossing films with and without inflation taken into account. Interestingly enough Titanic is only 6th with Gone With The Wind taking the top spot and Star Wars coming in 2nd.

Domestic Grosses Adjusted for Inflation [Box Office Mojo]

Brain Size Can Predict Game Performance

Mavrik — Thu, 21 Jan 2010 01:43:30 +0000

If you wonder why you suck so badly at Modern Warfare 2, it could be biological. According to a study published in the journal Cerebral Cortex, the size of your brain can predict how well you perform in video games,

(Presumably mad) scientists at the University of Illinois say specific parts of the striatum, a collection of tissues deep inside the cerebral cortex, influence a person’s ability to “refine his or her motor skills, learn new procedures, develop useful strategies and adapt to a quickly changing environments.” In short: All the skills you need to do well in a game.

“This is the first time that we’ve been able to take a real world task like a video game and show that the size of specific brain regions is predictive of performance and learning rates on this video game,” said Kirk Erickson, a professor of psychology at the University of Pittsburgh and first author on the study.

Sadly, it doesn’t work in reverse, so you can’t play a bunch of video games and grow those structures in your brain — you’re stuck with the equipment you were born with.

Study shows that better gamers have bigger brains, are better learners too [Engadget]