Tech Round Ups (01/28/11)

This week hailed in a host of news items worth of conversion. Ranging from the tech savvy to the tech crazy, here what happened on the week of Jan. 24th.

Sony announces next entry to the PlayStation Family, Codenamed NGP

Upon months of rumors and speculations, Sony finally pulled the cover over their “Next Generation Portable” or NGP for short. The most notable new feature of the NGP is the welcome inclusion of a second analog input which makes those third and first person games that much easier to play.
Other features revealed are the 5” Touch OLED screen, back touch panel, front facing and rear cameras, 3G support, and processing power that nearly rivals Sony’s PlayStation 3 console.
Pricing and available have not been announced although Shu Yoshida, Sony Computer Entertainment President of Worldwide Studios, claims that the NGP will be available by Holiday 2011 and for less than $599.

http://kotaku.com/5744790/the-complete-guide-to-sonys-next-big-portable-playstation?skyline=true&s=i

Paying by Phone takes one more step into reality

Richard Doherty of Envisioneering Group claims that Apple is on the way to streamlining purchases in the real world with digital means like an iPhone or iPod touch. Similar technology is being used already in countries like Hong Kong and Japan where customers pre-load cards with hard earned money to which they can pay for transit, newspapers and small convince stands food items.
The technology used is called “Near Field Communication” where it acts much like a swipe card that you would use in an apartment building or parking lot. A lot of modern credit cards now carry magnet “tabs” which offers a means of payment at a vending machine. This technology is slowly starting to kick off starting in New York City in where a passenger could pay with cash or just swipe the credit card.
What Apple is planning to do is to tie this technology in with all iOS enabled devices and have the consumer pay right out of their iTunes account. What does this mean for the consumer? Not a whole lot as of yet, but you could very well see this technology brought to the consumer in mass in the near future and if it’s something that Apple is good at, it’s taking an existing technology and making it readily available to the general public.

http://gizmodo.com/5742880/imagine-paying-for-everything-with-your-iphone-and-itunes-account

Lights don’t help find remotes, fires do

A 19 year old in Medina, Ohio earlier this week set his house ablaze while on the search for his remote control. Using a lighter in place of a flashlight to look under the bed was the cause here. Honestly though, who doesn’t have a flashlight in their house by now, or a light from anything for that matter?
While the whole family escaped unharmed, the same could not be said for the family’s three dogs.

http://gizmodo.com/5741937/search-for-tv-remote-ends-in-house-fire


Egypt cut off from Porn library, also the Internet

Earlier this morning, Egypt has been effectively cut off from the internet. Egyptian government and the people have been at a quarrel and protests the past week and to prevent the general public from posting anything hatful or resentful, the Egyptian government pulled the plug on the mass majority of the country’s access to the internet.
We’ve seen similar media blackouts before such as in China when there was a dispute during the Olympics where there were broadcasting concerns between the Olympic committee and the government.
If you do live Egypt and are capable of reading this post, the best thing to do now is to get a 56k dial up modem and access the internet that way. While such a connection may be slower, there has been no indication that phone lines have been cut.
While it’s not far-fetched to think that a government could do this to the whole country, it’s even wilder to think that any country could do that anywhere at any time.
As of this post there has been no word yet as to when or if the internet will be returning to Egypt.

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/technology/tech-news/egypt-unplugs-itself-from-the-internet/article1885879/

That’s what I thought was interesting and fun for the week of Jan 24th. Stay safe and game hard!

PS. This is for all those people in Egypt. Stay strong!

This week on Netflix Movie Friday I’m going to discuss the Thiller/Horror movie “The Happening”.

M. Night Shyamalan, responsible for movies such as Signs, The Village, and the ever popular Bruce Willis flick Sixth Sense, brings us yet another chapter in his writing/directing role with The Happening. Shyamalan’s brand of dramatic endgame twists is featured in this movie, however the twist this time, no pun intended, is that it happens only moments after the movie starts.

The film starts off in a park with just everyone in their humdrum activities when suddenly a mind-altering phenomenon takes control of everyone which then causes them to commit suicide. The film then switches to Elliot Moore, played by Mark Walhlberg, a high school science teacher who seems to be the charismatic type. The story continues as everyone starts suspecting of a terrorist attack. An evacuation of the city occurs as everyone attempts to flee whatever is attacking people. At the risk of not spoiling the film and it’s crazy plot.

Because there is no distinct antagonist there is a ton of face shots of the main characters. While I don’t complain when Elliot’s wife Alma, played by Zooey Deschanel is on screen, but there’s only so much face time one can have of Wahlburg or John Lequizamo.

One of the best parts of the movie is the music of the movie. The presentation of the eerie mood musics is fantastic. It’s a great setting for a thriller movie. However, the film itself does not do the music justice. Which leads to the rest of the movie.

The film itself is easily described as a thriller/horror movie. Unfortunately for the film it doesn’t really seem to do either concept well. It the basic concept of the movie would have been much better had it been a basic suspense film. Writing is also an issue as there is a ton of explanations of the attack even though the obvious answer is explained. The character interactions between Wahlberg and Deschanel’s characters are flaky at best. The newly wed couple seems to have issues of trust themselves as secrets seem to be kept from one another.

Overall, The Happening seems to be yet another sort of social commentary movie about how we are treating the earth and what the after effects are. At it’s very best, The Happening isn’t a terrible movie but when it comes down to it, it doesn’t really bring anything new to the party either.


Netflix Predicted Rating: 1.6/5
My Rating: 2/5

Review: Perserpolis

So there comes a time in all of our movie watching carrer’s (or hobbies in my case) where we all have to take a hit. Sometimes it is having to watch a Uwe Boll movie, sometimes it’s having to watch a painfully terrible parody movie along the lines of “Scary Movie”. For me I had to pop that virginity bubble by watching the international indie film Persepolis. Don’t get me wrong. This is a fine film and the ideas that it presents are very valid. But I can’t say that I enjoyed my time with the film.

The story is about a woman named Marjane who is looking back on her life and what went wrong and oddly, how nothing went the way she wanted. The main story takes place in 1978 Iran, at the height of the civil conflict within the country. Marjane is a young girl at this point of the story and is being influenced by her family and parents about what is right and what is wrong. As a child there are several traumatizing experiences that she goes through. A good example is when she sees her house blown to smithereens by a random bombing run. Thankfully her family was out for the time being and she was coming back from school. Her neighbors were not as lucky. The story continues that her parents shipping her off to Europe because it just wasn’t safe for her at that time. There she learned a lot of valuable life lessons and “skills” as well as seeing what other cultures are like. Eventually she gets tired of being lost and confused in the foreign country and calls her parents to send her home. Back home she decides to take the initiative and attend University and to get married and build a family. Without spoiling too much lets just say she’s not too successful in that prospect.

As a historical commentary, Persepolis is an incredibly impactful film showing the life of the average Tehran family as the social crisis blooms around them. And then again when the film brings Marjane to France to grow up. The scenes in France were particularly interesting when the art style brings up an interesting art style that’s very akin to the Beatles “Yellow Submarine” cartoon.

That said, the story just was very bland. There were no real twists or turns, or any real sort of character development. The writing is very poor really because there was no depth to the characters. Everyone acted as you would have expected them to act. One of the saving graces about the film is the acting. I do like how they used the French language to portray the story. I really find languages other than English are extremely effective in it’s emotionally execution.

With a subpar plot and an ending worth of being on the lines of the Halo 2 ending, Persepolis really has nothing going for it. To say that the acting is decent is stretching it. Really the only takeaway that I see is that the art style is very unique. I don’t recommend watching Persepolis unless you are a hardcore indie film watcher. Perhaps when my movie tastes age, I’ll come back to it and enjoy it for what it is, but there’s not enough meat on this bone to enjoy.

Netflix Predicted Rating: 3.9/5
My Rating: 2/5

Review: Exam

Let me start by saying that Exam has probably one of the most unique yet, cliché movies I’ve seen in a while. The story is simple: Eight job applicants in a sealed room are given instructions to answer a discerning question which may lead them to the job of their lives. Handed blank exams they are to answer the question. When one applicant attempts to answer the question, she is ejected. With one down and seven left, they must now see what it takes to figure out the question for the answer.

These indie films these days are getting a lot of attention. As per last one of the previous movies, May. Exam is essentially a Saw concept with much less violence and much less blood and defiantly 100% less Danny Glover. This is a very sharp little movie that really brings into perspective of, how far are you willing to go for the answer.

The movie starts with all the main applicants as racial melting pot. Stuard Hazeldine is quick to establish each of the motives by assigning each of the applicants, minus the initial rejected applicant, a personality. There’s the smooth talking womanizer named “White”, the seemingly scientifically intelligent “Black”, the risk taking gambler “Brown”, the Frenchmen “Deaf”, the book smart “Dark”, the timd and shy “Blonde”, and the cross dresser (hey it’s the voice!) “Brunette”. Reason being is the applicants thought it be best to keep their names discreet through the process. This idea was executed perfectly in “Reservoir Dogs” and is equally effective here as well.

When you throw all those personalities in one room to answer and unknown question, you get an interesting result. White, played by Luke Mably, turns in a stellar performance by taking charge in the beginning by pushing the boundaries of the rules instigated by the Invigilator. The film’s premise revolves around this group of people who sees what they can or can’t do about the rules and ultimately tries to eliminate each other from the potential position while at the same time testing each other’s breaking point.

Exam is yet another high quality independent film that combines both the stresses of movies like “Saw” with the survivalist instincts of the reality show “Survivor” but with none of either of the flaws.


Netflix Rating Prediction: 3.7
My Rating: 4/5

Review: [REC]

[REC] is a movie that stars Angela(Manuela Velasco), a reporter tasked with following a group of firefighters with her cameraman Pablo(Pablo Rosso) to see what it’s like in a life of a firefighter. On a regular emergency call to an apartment building leads to some unexpected run-ins with the undead variety. Soon after the first encounter, the residents to the apartment as well as the firefighter officials and police find themselves trapped in the ticking time bomb of zombies by the government. Filmed from only the camera man’s perspective, it automatically show’s it’s Shaky Cam view.

Does that sound familiar any? It should, as 2008’s Quarantine(Dowdle) was based off this 2007 international film. The difference here is that [REC] seems to pull off the horror genre quite well. I think the biggest draw to [REC] is that it is filmed with Spanish as the primary language with English(or whichever other country) subtitles. The fast paced, dramatic language lends itself quite well to this genre of horror. In typical shaky cam movies I find that it is difficult to maintain momentum during the fast parts because of the slower language barrier, whereas with the Spanish language, it really has a good sense of urgency.

While the initial story presented seems a bit simple and straightforward, there is a whole other layer of story that, unfortunately presented at the end of the film, could have been more elaborated on. Stuff about the girl presented in the film being more than innocent as well as her roots tracing all the way to the Vatican and the Holy Church. It feels like this whole other story was to be meant as an ARG(Alternate Reality Game look them up) or something. It would be more effecive I think for this whole meta story to be placed through the movie rather than at the end.

That being said, [REC] is probably one of the best horror movie I’ve seen in quite some time. Though I have to give it a lower score just because of the pop scares that really get old fast, but I have to concede that other than that, the movie has really has no other methods of doing what it does best. The bottom line is this: Is this movie good? Answer? Yes. It is pretty good.

Netflix Rating Prediction: 4/5

My Rating: 4/5

Review: May

First let me start off by saying that this movie is very creepy. If you’re easily creeped out by dolls with blank faces, or easily disturbed by stalker-ish personas, you can stop reading here. Go on. Are they gone yet? Okay.

This is a pretty confusing movie. There seems to be several different themes going on in the movie. Bits of humor, horror, thriller are strewn through the movie. Overall the film is pretty dark in it’s execution. For the most part this is not a horror movie. But it is at the same time.

The story is about May(Angela Bettis), a girl who never got the good end of life. Being a new kid in school is hard, but being diagnosed with lazy eye at a young age didn’t help her social life either. One of her birthdays she was given a doll as a gift. But being that things never worked out for her, she never was allowed to play with the doll either. Kind of like a play-with-your-eyes, not-your-hands attitude. Fast-forward to 17-18 year old May where her social skills haven’t, lets say leveled up yet and her best friend is still the doll that her parents gave her. Being a healthy young adult she finds herself with a crush on a boy named Adam (Jeremy Sisto) and with no ability to talk let alone make eye contact with him, their relationship has an unusual start. Maybe it was the part where she puts her chin on his hand in a coffee shop when he was taking a nap.

The movie really picks up the pace in creep factor around the 40-minute mark. While not to spoil too much lets just say May and Adam have a brush with some “cannibalistic” tendencies to which Adam freaks out a little nor is not pleased with.

Then there’s a weird scene where May decides to help out at the local daycare center. Her real motivation isn’t exactly revealed as to why she does that but hey, part of that indie like feel right?

It’s very clear that even through May’s trials and tribulations of lack of social life, the central focus is around the doll that was given to her. The glass keeps breaking around the case of the doll that represents some form of oppression that’s stopping her from her life. When the case is broken, her will to live pretty much goes bye bye and whatever life she had left goes downhill.

There’s something to be said about horror movies in this era of scary movies. May brings things down to perspective in horror films by not needing any monsters, aliens or ghosts. While Writer/Director Lucky McKee has something interesting here, it’s just not my cup of horror tea. If I had to sum it up in one sentence, it would be that May a good old-fashioned creep fest by a socially awkward girl who grew up with no friends with a splash of dark comedy for good measure.

Netflix Rating Prediction: 3.5/5

My Rating: 2/5