Interscription

I’m going to start off by grabbing a few snippets of text that I’ve run into on the Internet over the past couple of days, and hopefully pull it together into an editorial of sorts.

The thesis of this editorial is probably best written by this commenter from a recent article on Ars Technica regarding the new Microsoft-authored deal with Warner Music to distribute premium (read: you want me to pay for this?) music videos over Xbox Live Marketplace. His name is Aedile, and this is what he had to say in response:

• Read more: YOU’VE GOT TO PULL IT TOGETHER MAN!

I was going through the motions of setting up my new windows mobile phone (an AT&T Tilt, upgraded from my aging Verizon 6700), and got to the part where I… install funambol on the phone to sync with www.scheduleworld.com to let me keep my PIM info synched between my home and work pc’s outlook and thunderbird, and of course, my phone. If that sounds like a lot, that’s because it is.  It’s always been a much more functional than it is pretty. The kind of thing that made people think it was an ordeal and recommend the still-unreleased mobileme for $99.00 instead.

• Read more: My.Funambol now with less headache

OK, so I promise this will be the last thing I post about the Spring Dashboard Update for 2008…today.

I would like to call attention to two different Entertainment Division-flavored updates:

• Read more: 2.5 + 3.0 = (first) Half of 2008?

I’ll make this a quick post; CNET has an article regarding a recent visit to Redmond by a gentleman from PocketNow, and his experiences with Windows Mobile 7.  Of particular note is the (admittedly older) link to the leaked screens of Windows Mobile 7.  If you’ve even had a passing interest in motion controls and Smartphones, both articles are definitely worth a look.

Hola folks!  In honor of tygerfyr’s yearning for having the 360 do absolutely everything as a digital media hub, I found a link when perusing the web that details how to get .mp4 files to stream proper (and play properly) when streamed to the Xbox 360.

• Read more: .mp4 stuff streaming to the 360

Downloadsquad just posted a story today regarding Viewfinder.  Succinctly,  Viewfinder takes an uploaded image and matches it to a spot in the world through the use of Google Maps.  While I’m highly skeptical of the power of such a system, it sounds like it would be incredibly cool if they can pull it off, not to mention take some guesswork out of forensic investigations involving photos .

• Read more: Viewfinder vs. Photosynth: FIGHT!

The news is popping all of the internet, the redesigned Playstation store launches April 15th!  W00t, ladies and gentlemen.  This has been a long time coming, and has some great features such as integrated preview screenshots/videos of content, and in-line icons that show already-purchased and soon-to-be-purchased items.  And best of all, it looks FAST!  *fingers crossed*

• Read more: Playstation Store Redesign, April 15th!

I'm going to kick this post off by referencing a recently published article over at Seeking Alpha.  It's entitled "4 Reasons for Microsoft's Xbox to Go as Big as Possible, ASAP".

The essence of the article is that the sizes of the 360's hard drive (particularly the Premium's 20GB drive) is no longer adequate for the current climate.  Specifically, it speaks of a climate that Microsoft themselves are beginning to create, where the world of digital distribution will be the future.  Indeed, one only needs to listen to the stirring words of Mr. Ross Erickson in the most recent Major Nelson podcast to understand how important concepts such as XBLA are to the fundamental belief system (the "DNA", as Ross refers to it) of the 360.

• Read more: Xbox 360 Hard Drive Sizes

Just goes to show you that sometimes buying a toy you don’t fully understand can bite you.

Yesterday my wife and I settled in front of our new Sony Bravia TV (purchased through PowersellerNYC…awesome customer service and prices <end_shameless_plug>) and decided to rent a movie from the Xbox Live Video Store. The movie was Death at a Funeral, a very funny story about British shenanigans at a funeral. Since I only had 440 Microsoft points left in my bank (and this wasn’t really a made-for-hi-def experience), I decided to rent the 480p standard definition version (the 720p high definition version was 480 MS points, and I didn’t feel like re-upping my bank. Incidently, Khidr and I will be doing an extensive gripefest about the M$ economy in another post, but on with the current story…).

• Read more: Reverse 3:2 pulldown, CineMotion, and how choppy video sucks

If you haven't ever played with Firefox, I highly recommend you find out what all the geekfuss is all about.  Firefox is one of the most powerful Mozilla-based browsers created, and version 3 is just around the corner!  In preparation of stamping out the last few remaining bugs of the new release, Beta 5 of Firefox version 3 has just released, and you can grab it here!

I played with this build a little bit last night, and it is surprisingly polished and responsive for a beta release.  While IE7 is certainly competant, Firefox adds tons of great tweaks to the web-browsing experience, all in a stable and largely compatible application.

What is your favorite browser of choice?