Hello Monster!

Just a quick aside : Sony’s supremely powerful next-gen system is crippled by relatively simple tasks like background downloading and simple multitasking. Presumably (one would think) this will be addressed in a future OS update. For the moment however, downloading teaser content for a Sony PS3 system through the provided service (anywhere from a 250-900MB footprint) locks up your Playstation for the duration. Depending on your link this could be hours of non-fun. Not even a mini-game. No DVD. Where is all that processor power going?

Hmmm…

From Wired :

Driven more by massive data requirements for scientific survey data, both terrestrial and celestial rather than a need to clip someone with a Deagle, ongoing improvements to the South Pole installations could nonetheless mean the next guy you gank could be a half-frozen scientist.

“Now we’re transmitting 15 gigs per day, and every room has a data port with Ethernet service,” says Pat Smith, manager of technology development for Antarctic infrastructures and logistics at the National Science Foundation. In 2005, the phones were upgraded to voice over IP. “It’s been quite a ride. I mean, I was here in 1985 putting in the very first satellite links we had,” Smith says. “Then we had a whopping 200 kilobytes a day.” That’s about 3 percent the size of an MP3 of “Smells Like Teen Spirit.”

OK, I spent the last day before Christmas cruising my little slice of America for a Wii or PS3 – I didn’t care, I just wanted that tingly next-gen feeling for this holiday season. That caveman compulsion to put something tasty on the table – even if technically I didn’t have to kill it or dig it out of the ground, I still wanted to… hunt it.

Last year was the 360– even though I was in China the strange biting need grabbed me, but this year I wanted The Next Big Thing. Knowing as I did that both the Wii and PS3 were both sold out everywhere bar Ebay and specialist sites (http://www.ps3finder.com/), I was pretty much resigned to buying an Xbox 360 with a HD kit, so I could buy into that whole DVD hi-res vibe and really push that new screen to the limit – see what all the kids are talking about.

Jabbering through strip malls – Best Buys, EBs, KMarts, Targets - negotiating back alleyways where a bunch of crumpled fifties palmed to a disgruntled Circuit City worker will get you the latest black market digital ice – all to no avail. Things were starting to look grim. (more…)