Krellion’s Geek Journal – 10/30/2009

Welcome to this week’s post of my Geek Journal!

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Ah, Hallowe’en Eve, otherwise known as Devil’s Night in the metro Detroit area where I grew up. Not that I did anything bad, but I did always look forward to the local cable company’s attempt to limit the chaos by making all of the pay-TV channels (HBO, Cinemax, etc.) free to view for that one evening. I wonder if they still do that…

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A couple of weeks ago, I posted about components I’d like to upgrade my computer to when the time comes, one of which was the monitor. I forgot to mention a couple of additional aspects I’d like to see in the next monitor I get: LED backlit (like I mentioned for the next TV I’d like) and multi-touch support (got to make the most of Windows 7 whenever I get it ^^). You hear that Dell? Make me proud!

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It appears that the wave that Nintendo has been riding since the release of the Wii may have finally crashed upon the shore: It was recently posted that their profits weren’t as high as expected. A local news anchor commented that it may be due to the Wii’s popularity: Everyone already has one.

Nintendo also announced the DSi XL, which is exactly what its name implies: It’s an enlarged version of the DSi. Besides having larger screens (still having the same resolution as the DS and DSi, meaning the pixels will be VERY BIG), it comes with a larger stylus. This may be mainly to make it more accessible to older people who have a hard time seeing the smaller screens and holding the standard (and quite thin) stylus.

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There are indications that Sony is at work on the PSP 4000, which will continue to support UMDs. I guess many people didn’t like the PSPgo’s lack of it. Sony may make the 4000 more go-like, to include built-in storage.

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Netflix also announced the near-future availability of their Watch Instantly service on the PS3. At the start, a special Blu-ray disc will be used to access it (free via the link), but it appears that Sony will add built-in support in a future (sometime in 2010) firmware update. I (and others) wonder if this will force Microsoft to remove the X-box Live Gold requirement on the 360’s version. There are also indications that the service may become available on the Wii as well.

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The next Final Fantasy XI update is close, with a release date of Monday, November 9th. This is also when the third mini-expansion, “A Shantotto Ascension”, goes live (it became available for pre-order earlier this week). SquareEnix did a pre-update update yesterday, downloading around 1700 files totaling 30MB in size.

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That’s it for this week!

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