• Captain America: The First Avenger TV Spots

    // Gradly // 3D, blog, Featured, Movies, Poster, Superheroes, Trailer No Responses

    Paramount and Marvel Studios have launched two new TV spots for Marvel‘s Captain America: The First Avenger. Directed by Joe Johnston, the spots have some new footage to enjoy, watch them below:

    The cast includes Chris Evans as Steve Rogers, Hugo Weaving as Red Skull, Tommy Lee Jones, Stanley Tucci, Hayley Atwell as Peggy Carter, Sebastian Stan as Bucky Barnes, Neal McDonough as Dum Dum Dugan and Toby Jones as Arnim Zola.

    Official Synopsis:

    Born during the Great Depression, Steve Rogers grew up a frail youth in a poor family. Horrified by the newsreel footage of the Nazis in Europe, Rogers was inspired to enlist in the army. However, because of his frailty and sickness, he was rejected. Overhearing the boy’s earnest plea, General Chester Phillips offered Rogers the opportunity to take part in a special experiment… Operation: Rebirth. After weeks of tests, Rogers was at last administered the Super-Solider Serum and bombarded by ‘vita-rays.’ Steve Rogers emerged from the treatment with a body as perfect as a body can be and still be human. Rogers was then put through an intensive physical and tactical training program. Three months later, he was given his first assignment as Captain America. Armed with his indestructible shield and battle savvy, Captain America has continued his war against evil both as a sentinel of liberty and as leader of the Avengers.

    The film opens in theaters July 22, 2011.

  • Microsoft Unveiled Windows 8 With Tile-Based Touch Interface

    // Gradly // blog, Featured, Gadgets, Microsoft, News, Rants & Raves, Software, Tech. No Responses

    Microsoft offered the first glimpse of Windows 8, a sneak peek that reveals much about both the influences and the strategic goals of the major overhaul of Microsoft’s 25-year-old operating system.

    At the heart of the new interface is a new start screen that draws heavily on the tile-based interface that Microsoft has used with Windows Phone 7. All of a user’s programs can be viewed as tiles and clicked on with the touch of a finger.

    Windows 8 essentially supports two kinds of applications. One is the classic Windows application, which runs in a desktop very similar to the Windows 7 desktop. The other type of application, which has to be written in HTML5 and Javascript, looks more like a mobile application, filling the full screen. Internet Explorer 10, which is part of Windows 8, has already been configured to run in this mode, as have several widget-like apps for checking stock prices and weather.

    Although Windows 8 is clearly influenced by the iPad and other mobile devices, the plan for the new operating system has been in the works since Windows 7 shipped in July 2009–several months before the iPad was first shown. Watch the demo below:

    Microsoft has also done work with the classic Windows desktop to make it more touch friendly, including using a new kind of “fuzzy hit targeting” to adjust for the fact that fingers are far less precise than a mouse. The goal, says chief designer Julie Larson-Green, is that classic apps, though designed for a keyboard and mouse, work well with touch. Apps taking advantage of the new programming layer, she said, are designed for touch first, but also work well with a keyboard and mouse.

    [via AllThingsD]

  • Google’s Eric Schmidt Urging PC Users to Dump Windows and ‘Get A Mac’

    // Gradly // Apple, blog, Cloud, Featured, Gadgets, google, Microsoft, News, Rants & Raves No Responses

    Some interesting tidbits from yesterday’s D9 Conference interviewing Google‘s chairman Eric Schmidt. Probably the most interesting one is that Google has “just renewed their Map and Search agreements with Apple”.

    In terms of platform war, Shmidt said there is, primarily, a gang of four that includes Google, Apple, Amazon and Facebook. Microsoft is not included. He explains, Microsoft is not driving the consumer revolution, they are focused on corporate and are doing so successfully, something that will likely continue for decades to come.

    When asked how consumers could be more secure, he claimed that Chrome was a more secure browser, using two factor Gmail authentication is key and users simply “could use a Mac instead of a PC”.

    When Google launched its cloud music offering, many were disappointed, the service was just a locker for music. When asked why Google failed at signing with record labels, Schmidt simply says, “I’ve just not been successful in doing that”.

  • Apple’s New Data Center is Now Visible on Google Maps

    // Gradly // Apple, blog, Cloud, Featured, google, News, Rants & Raves No Responses

    As noted by Fortune, Apple’s new mysterious data center in Maiden, North Carolina, is now visible entirely from Google Maps’ view. While this piece of information isn’t that interesting but the timing is. According to Fortune, Apple started allowing Google to display the data center in their Maps service soon after the official WWDC announcement yesterday.

    One of the mysteries surrounding the 500,000-square foot server farm Apple has famously constructed in a small North Carolina town called Maiden, besides its ultimate purpose, is why it didn’t show up on Google Earth.

    But if you asked Google Earth or Google Maps to show you the intersection of U.S. Route 321 and Startown Road, where the data center is located, the current satellite imagery stopped a few yards short of the construction site. West of Startown Road, there was, as recently as two weeks ago, nothing but woods and farmland and a bit of driveway that ended abruptly in the middle of a field.

    After Apple’s announcement Tuesday that Steve Jobs was ready to reveal iCloud, the “upcoming cloud services offering” presumably based in Maiden, N.C., we thought we’d give Google Maps another try.

    Lo and behold, there it was: A huge, white, nondescript building with a road leading in, a road leading out, and almost no employee parking.

    How was Apple able to keep Google from displaying this particular swath of satellite imagery? That’s still a mystery.