• Windows 8 Consumer Preview Now Available to Download


    Windows 8 Consumer Preview

    Windows 8 Consumer Preview

    Microsoft has published the highly anticipated Consumer Preview copy of Windows 8. Available as a public download, the Consumer Preview build includes access to Metro style applications and the over 100,000 changes Microsoft has made since the Windows 8 Developer Preview.

    The Consumer Preview is available in both 32-bit and 64-bit versions. Microsoft’s minimum requirements for the Consumer Preview are a 1GHz processor, 1GB of RAM, 16GB of free storage space, and a DirectX 9-compatible graphics card — the exact same requirements as Windows 7.

    Find the links below or you can download it from here.

    English

    64-bit (x64) Download (3.3 GB) Sha 1 hash — 1288519C5035BCAC83CBFA23A33038CCF5522749
    32-bit (x86) Download (2.5 GB) Sha 1 hash — E91ED665B01A46F4344C36D9D88C8BF78E9A1B39
    Product Key: DNJXJ-7XBW8-2378T-X22TX-BKG7J
  • Official: Apple iPad 3 Event Slated for March 7th in San Francisco


    Apple iPad 3 Event Slated for March 7th in San Francisco

    Apple iPad 3 Event Slated for March 7th in San Francisco

    The Verge just reported that they received an invite from Apple for an iPad 3 announcement to be held at the Yerba Buena Center for the Arts in San Francisco at 10am PST, on Wednesday, March 7.

    The invite reads: “we have something you really have to see. And touch

    No wonder if the iPad 3 comes without Home button, if the image above any indication, notice that the spacing between icons shows that the device is in portrait orientation rather than landscape. the issue of no home button was highly rumored before, and the availability of multi-touch gestures eliminate the need for that button almost to zero.

  • The 84th Annual Academy Awards Winners


    The 84th Annual Academy Awards - Oscar 2012

    The 84th Annual Academy Awards - Oscar 2012

    The 84th Annual Academy Awards – Oscar 2012 ended with The Artist taking the majority of the big awards. I think the winners of this year were easy predictable and personally I was eyeing Martin Scorsese/Hugo and yes it ended up taking some of the technical awards.

    Here’s the full listing of nominees and winners (in bold):

    Best Picture

    • The Artist
    • The Descendants
    • Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close
    • The Help
    • Hugo
    • Midnight in Paris
    • Moneyball
    • The Tree of Life
    • War Horse

    Best Actress in a Leading Role

    • Glenn Close, Albert Nobbs
    • Viola Davis, The Help
    • Rooney Mara, The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo
    • Meryl Streep, The Iron Lady
    • Michelle Williams, My Week With Marilyn

    Best Actor in a Leading Role

    • Demian Bichir, A Better Life
    • George Clooney, The Descendants
    • Jean Dujardin, The Artist
    • Gary Oldman, Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy
    • Brad Pitt, Moneyball

    Best Director

    • Michel Hazanavicius, The Artist
    • Alexdander Payne, The Descendants
    • Martin Scorsese, Hugo
    • Woody Allen, Midnight in Paris
    • Terrence Malick, The Tree of Life

    Short Film (Animated)

    • Dimanche/Sunday, Patrick Doyon
    • The Fantastic Flying Books of Mr. Morris Lessmore, William Joyce and Brandon Oldenburg
    • La Luna, Enrico Casarosa
    • A Morning Stroll, Grant Orchard and Sue Goffe
    • Wild Life, Amanda Forbis and Wendy Tilby

    Documentary Short

    • The Barber of Birmingham: Foot Soldier of the Civil Rights Movement, Robin Fryday and Gail Dolgin
    • God is the Bigger Elvis, Rebecca Cammisa and Julie Anderson
    • Incident in New Baghdad, James Spione
    • Saving Face, Daniel Junge and Sharmeen Obaid-Chinoy
    • The Tsunami and the Cherry Blossom, Lucy Walker and Kira Carstensen

    Short Film (Live Action)

    • Pentecost, Peter McDonald and Eimear O’Kane
    • Raju, Max Zähle and Stefan Gieren
    • The Shore, Terry George and Oorlagh George
    • Time Freak, Andrew Bowler and Gigi Causey
    • Tuba Atlantic, Hallvar Witzø

    Writing (Original Screenplay)

    • The Artist, Written by Michel Hazanavicius
    • Bridesmaids, Written by Annie Mumolo & Kristen Wiig
    • Margin Call, Written by J.C. Chandor
    • Midnight in Paris, Written by Woody Allen
    • A Separation, Written by Asghar Farhadi

    Writing (Adapted Screenplay)

    • The Descendants, Screenplay by Alexander Payne and Nat Faxon & Jim Rash
    • Hugo, Screenplay by John Logan
    • The Ides of March, Screenplay by George Clooney & Grant Heslov and Beau Willimon
    • Moneyball, Screenplay by Steven Zaillian and Aaron Sorkin.  Story by Stan Chervin
    • Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy, Screenplay by Bridget O’Connor & Peter Straughan

    Music (Original Song)

    • “Man or Muppet” from The Muppets, Music and Lyric by Bret McKenzie
    • “Real in Rio” from Rio, Music by Sergio Mendes and Carlinhos Brown, Lyric by Siedah Garrett

    Music (Original Score)

    • The Adventures of Tintin, John Williams
    • The Artist, Ludovic Bource
    • Hugo, Howard Shore
    • Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy, Alberto Iglesias
    • War Horse, John Williams

    Best Actor In a Supporting Role

    • Kenneth Branagh, My Week With Marilyn
    • Jonah Hill, Moneyball
    • Nick Nolte, Warrior
    • Christopher Plummer, Beginners
    • Max von Sydow, Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close

    Visual Effects

    • Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 2, Tim Burke, David Vickery, Greg Butler and John Richardson
    • Hugo, Rob Legato, Joss Williams, Ben Grossman and Alex Henning
    • Real Steel, Erik Nash, John Rosengrant, Dan Taylor and Swen Gillberg
    • Rise of the Planet of the Apes, Joe Letteri, Dan Lemmon, R. Christopher White and Daniel Barrett
    • Transformers: Dark of the Moon, Dan Glass, Brad Friedman, Douglas Trumbull and Michael Fink

    Animated Feature Film

    • A Cat in Paris, Alain Gagnol and Jean-Loup Felicioli
    • Chico & Rita, Fernando Trueba and Javier Mariscal
    • Kung Fu Panda 2, Jennifer Yuh Nelson
    • Puss in Boots, Chris Miller
    • Rango, Gore Verbinski

    Documentary Feature

    • Hell and Back Again
    • If a Tree Falls: A Story of the Earth Liberation Front
    • Paradise Lost 3: Purgatory
    • Pina
    • Undefeated

    Sound Mixing

    • The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, David Parker, Michael Semanick, Ren Klyce and Bo Persson
    • Hugo, Tom Fleischman and John Midgley
    • Moneyball, Deb Adair, Ron Bochar, Dave Giammarco and Ed Novick
    • Transformers: Dark of the Moon, Greg P. Russell, Gary Summers, Jeffrey J. Haboush and Peter J. Devlin
    • War Horse, Gary Rydstrom, Andy Nelson, Tom Johnson and Stuart Wilson

    Sound Editing

    • Drive, Lon Bender and Victor Ray Ennis
    • The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, Ren Klyce
    • Hugo, Philip Stockton and Eugene Gearty
    • Transformers: Dark of the Moon, Ethan Van der Ryn and Erik Aadahl
    • War Horse, Richard Hymns and Gary Rydstrom

    Film Editing

    • The Artist, Anne-Sophie Bion and Michel Hazanavicius
    • The Descendants, Kevin Tent
    • The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, Kirk Baxter and Angus Wall
    • Hugo, Thelma Schoonmaker
    • Moneyball, Christopher Tellefsen

    Best Actress in a Supporting Role

    • Bérénice Bejo, The Artist
    • Jessica Chastain, The Help
    • Melissa McCarthy, Bridesmaids
    • Janet McTeer, Albert Nobbs
    • Octavia Spencer, The Help

    Foreign Language Film

    • Belgium, “Bullhead”, Michael R. Roskam, director
    • Canada, “Monsieur Lazhar”, Philippe Falardeau, director
    • Iran, “A Separation”, Asghar Farhadi, director
    • Israel, “Footnote”, Joseph Cedar, director
    • Poland, “In Darkness”, Agnieszka Holland, director

    Makeup

    • Albert Nobbs, Martial Corneville, Lynn Johnston and Matthew W. Mungle
    • Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 2, Nick Dudman, Amanda Knight and Lisa Tomblin
    • The Iron Lady, Mark Coulier and J. Roy Helland

    Costume Design

    • Anonymous, Lisy Christl
    • The Artist, Mark Bridges
    • Hugo, Sandy Powell
    • Jane Eyre, Michael O’Connor
    • W.E., Arianne Phillips

    Art Direction

    • The Artist: Laurence Bennett (Production Design); Robert Gould (Set Decoration)
    • Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 2: Stuart Craig (Production Design); Stephenie McMillan (Set Decoration)
    • Hugo: Dante Ferretti (Production Design); Francesca Lo Schiavo (Set Decoration)
    • War Horse: Rick Carter (Production Design); Lee Sandales (Set Decoration)

    Cinematography

    • The Artist, Guillaume Schiffman
    • The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo, Jeff Cronenweth
    • Hugo, Robert Richardson
    • The Tree of Life, Emmanuel Lubezki
    • War Horse, Janusz Kaminski
  • iPad 3 Rumors Roundup; Retina Display, A5X SoC, Better Camera, Thicker, More Tapered Design


    dsvf

    A bigger Camera Lens and more tapered design for iPad 3

    The next generation iPad, iPad 3 will look almost identical to its predecessor. The screen is allegedly sporting a 2048 X 1536 pixel resolution display provided by Samsung.

    Interestingly, Samsung is about to spin off the company’s LCD display business into a new entity. a subsidiary of Samsung Electronics, named Samsung Display Company.

    fb

    iPad 3 is thicker than iPad 2

    Back to the main subject, the new tablet is said to be a little thicker with more tapered edges hiding the extra bulk, and sporting a larger camera lens probably an 8 Mega pixel.

    A new photo has surfaced on the WeiPhone forums via iMore showing a system-on-a-chip nestled onto a prototype logic board, carrying a previously unheard of “A5X”. The A5X chip also includes a date code of “1146″, which would peg production at or around November 14th-20th of 2011.

    iPad 3 Logic board A5X SoC

    iPad 3 Logic board A5X SoC

    This could mean that iPad 3 will have an updated variant of the Apple A5 chipset rather than an Apple A6 chipset as previously speculated or this is only a prototype was being tested.

    The A5X chip is model #S5L8945X, that indicates a dual-core architecture rather than going to a quad-core architecture as previously speculated.

    For iPhone 4 screen when first debuted with a Retina display moniker. To achieve this capability there were four factors to be taken into account; Display size, resolution, pixel density and the distance viewed, in the iPhone case it has 3.5″ display, 960 x 640 Pixels, at least 300 pixels per inch held at 12-15 inches away. But this is different form a 9.7-inch tablet display, for the iPad it normally held 15-18 inches away, needs more than 240 pixels per inch to get Retina condition. iPad 3 is said to have 9.7″ with 2048 x1536 resolution at 264ppi which is more than enough.

    iPad 3 may include 4G LTE network support after all but its less likely.