Thread: Living a Digital Existence

Living a Digital Existence

Week 2

WhyPod?

This week saw the release of the new Ipod Nano from Apple. The new Nano, which includes an accelerometer, so when shaken it turns the Ipod to “shuffle”, a battery which supposedly lasts for 24 hours, a competitive price (£109 for the 8GB version, and £149 for the 16GB version), is Apple’s lightest and thinnest Ipod ever. This is all well and good, but I have to ask the question, do we really need a new Ipod? The old one seemed perfectly fine to me, functional, good battery life and nice design, is this just another way for a company who earns profits of £89 billion (yes, I did say BILLION) a year to swindle yet more money out of us consumers? Or is Apple trying to recoup sales of Ipods after the success of the Iphone? Do you think the improvements are enough to justify the release of a new Ipod? Your thoughts, as always, are welcome.
I have to mention at this point the new Itunes (V 8.0). This was released recently, and I have to say, I love it. The new layout is pure aesthetic genius, and the “Genius” side bar, which when you click on a song/ artist will bring up the albums you do not own, and also similar artists you may enjoy from the Itunes Store. Credit has to go to Apple for this, it’s brilliant.

Price-Drop Gaming

This week Microsoft have reduced the price of certain pieces of download content from the Xbox LIVE marketplace in an attempt to get LIVE users to purchase more content to expand their gaming experience on some of Microsoft’s biggest selling games (For a list of the price-cut content see this thread: http://digiex.net/console-gaming/403...p-360-dlc.html).
The topic of paying for DLC has always got me a bit hot under the collar. I think the fact that we have to pay for DLC is despicable, due to the fact that we are already paying a subscription to play games. Don’t get me wrong, I love the marketplace, i think the fact you can download demos and game movies is a brilliant idea, and I regularly take advantage of this content, but, apart from the recent Halo maps, I refuse to pay for game content. I wouldn’t mind if we weren’t paying to play our games online, then I would be more willing to splash out on some in-game content, but I just think that it is unfair to make us pay to enhance the games we own, when we are already putting £40 a year in Bill’s back pocket. Would you be willing to buy content if Xbox LIVE were free? Or would you still not want to pay?

Charged for Battery

Computer giant HP announced this week that they have developed a 24 hour battery, which they say will reinvent work on the move. A 24 hour battery would mean that you could make 10 trips on the Eurostar without having to recharge once. One has to wonder what impact this will have on mobile technology in the future. With the new Nano having a 24 hour battery, and now this laptop, will more people now start to buy laptops due to the convenience of a laptop over a desktop, or will it have no impact at all on sales of desktops? Now I’m not sure how much this Laptop will be (I assume quite a lot) but it will surely have a huge impact on laptops of the future.

Pick of the week

Despite my comments earlier, the new Ipod Nano is the pick of the week. As I said previously, it has an accelerometer which means when you shake the Ipod it will turn to shuffle, it has a 24 hour battery, and is the lightest and thinnest Ipod yet. With an amazing price of just £109 for the 8GB version, and £149 for the 16GB version, you really can’t go wrong.



Available from all major retailers, but can't go wrong with Amazon: http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/feature.h..._i=ipod%20nano

I also found something else this week to accompany your new Ipod. They are a set of Bluetooth headphones from Zoom. And yes, that means no wires! Very cool I’m sure you’ll agree. Best price is around £30 inc. P&P from Misco.co.uk (Zoom Bluetooth Wireless Headphones - Misco.co.uk)

And to end...

Bless you!

Those wacky Japanese have been at it again! I’ve been known to pray to the computing gods when my PC has crashed during an important assignment, but the Japanese have taken it a step further, and taken to praying to the actual gods to bless their PC’s so they won’t crash!

That’s all for this week, it’s a day early due to the fact I won’t be here tomorrow to post it, but I hope you have enjoyed it, and please feel free to leave comments and your views,

Until next time...

David
(MunkyMagikUK)