Simon’s Blog

Just finished watching all the available high-definition Xbox 360 trailers going through a high-definition widescreen video projector onto a large screen. This is definitely going to be the way to play games on the next generation consoles. Talk about immersive…

I spent some of last weekend visiting friends who are having a pretty sophisticated multi-room home media installation. You know the kind of thing: cinema room with projector and screen; screens in bedrooms and receptions rooms; music almost everywhere; IP-based programmable lighting system for different “mood” zones. In the “network cabinet” there’s a [...]

SMS texting is big business. There are hundreds of billions of SMS text messages sent around the world every year. In fact, SMS is so big that it’s begun to actually change languages. Here’s an example. Amongst some teenagers, the new word for “cool” is “book”. As [...]

I have a challenge for fans and owners of Web 2.0 businesses - prove you’re not hypocritical! This isn’t about revenue sharing. It’s about hypocrisy and open vs closed systems. We hear a lot about community and participation from Web 2.0 other consumer “software as a service” fans. We also hear a lot [...]

A little over a week ago, I said that one important thing missing from the Java developer’s armoury was a high-quality free, full-featured UML modelling tool. My preference would be for this to be integrated into Netbeans or Eclipse - especially roundtrip editing of UML Class Diagrams. However, my wish just [...]

For those that haven’t seen it, The Reg’s take on the recent Gates and Ozzie memos might make you smile.

It seems there a bit of buzz at JavaOne Tokyo at the moment. Some exciting things going on around Java on the desktop. Finally, we’re reaching the point where it will be possible in Java to make fast 3-D graphics and 2-D graphics/Swing all play nicely together. This is only [...]

[rant]
Am I the only one that isn’t even remotely impressed by the current wave of “innovation” going on around mapping at Google Maps and Yahoo! Maps? Surely, this can’t really be what passes for innovation in the field of software development in 2005.. can it?
Let’s be clear what Google and Yahoo! have done [...]

Think about it. Would you want to be interested in being able to watch television on your mobile phone when you’re on the move: say if you’re on a boring bus or train journey; or if you’re killing time waiting for a plane? It might be nice to have the option, don’t you think? [...]

At the weekend, I was lucky enough to see some Xbox 360 game content being played through a super high-quality, high-definition three-chip DLP video projector; with the image being projected onto a fabulous, large (200 inch) reflective screen.
One word.
WOW!
If you have a large excess of spare cash, I cannot recommend this projector - a [...]