Nokia 5800 Xpress music offically!

Yesterday Nokia presented its 5800 Xpress Music, the anti iPhone by Nokia.
This device was know also as Nokia Tube, and many users have seen it some movies weeks/months ago (the Dark Knight).

I'm awaiting the Nokia 5800 since long time: i got an iphone 2g, great device... but i'm not really satisfied because many problems this device still have.

Nokia 5800 Xpress Music is the first touch device created by Nokia to compete with many other touch devices as iPhone and HTC Touch.

These are some Nokia 5800 Xpress Music tech specs:

• Quad-band GSM, UMTS 2100, GSM/Edge, HSDPA connectivity
• Symbian S60 5 Touch OS
• 3.2″ display, resolution 640×360 pixels
• touchscreen display with fingers and/or pen
  
• 3.2mpx autofocus camera with dual LED flash
  
• 30 FPS VGA recording capability
  
• A-GPS
• Wi-Fi
  
• Accelerometer
• 8gb memory card in bundle
• radio tuner
• 3.5" jack headphone
  
• Nokia Maps 2 included
• Flashlite 3 included
• internet browser with flash sites navigation capability
  

About the price? 275 euros + taxes (probably 335 / 350 euro).
The Nokia 5800 Xpress Music will be available on Q4 2008.

More info: Nokia website

Pro Evolution Soccer 2009 PC Demo

Here you can download a Pro Evolution Socceer 2009 (PES 2009) Demo for PC.

Has written on the website, the demo includes:
"Players are able to select fully licensed Manchester United, Liverpool, Real Madrid, and Barcelona club teams, or the licensed Italian or French national sides. All new visuals with completely remodeled players and animations, and new physics routines to ensure the ball behaves more realistically have been included, while the AI of the CPU sides has been enhanced to provide an ever evolving challenge."

Demo size: 1 Gb circa.
I'm awaintg this new PES 2009... :P

Adobe CS4 available for preorder

Today Adobe has released the new Creative Suite 4 (CS4).
Adobe offers 6 different packages with different prices / applications included.

More info on Adobe Creative Suite CS4 page.

Fantamercato 2008/2009

This reply to notify my new mobile application: Fantamercato 2008/2009 for mobile phones with flashlite player 2.1 or better.

With Fantamercato you can manage your Fanta football with all Serie A team lists and statistics of previous season.
Additionally, you can create your fanta football team and manage your expenses.

This new version was improved with many new functionalities and bug fixes, to better manage your fanta football season.
Fantamercato is updated with all Serie A scores and statistics in the previous season.

Fantamercato 2008/2009 is available only in italian.

Purchase Fantamercato 2008/2009 for just 3.99 EUR.

More info about Fantamercato 2008/2009 for mobile phones with Flashlite (english version)

More info about Fantamercato 2008/2009 for mobile phones with Flashlite (italian version)

Softimage XSI 7 on 30 Sept 2008

(Via CGSociety) Softimage has announced SOFTIMAGE|XSI 7, the latest version of its professional 3D animation software for games, film and television.
XSI 7 introduces ICE (Interactive Creative Environment), a groundbreaking technology that transforms XSI from just another 3D product into a powerful and flexible open platform.

ICE greatly improves collaboration between artists and technical directors, allowing them to create custom tools and effects visually, see the results interactively, and do it all without scripting, or writing a line of code. Effects built or modified in ICE are performance tuned and multi-threaded, so they perform at maximum efficiency across all available processors.

XSI 7 will be available before September 30, 2008.

CGSociety Softimage XSI 7 Article

Flash Lite 3.1 on Q4 2008 ?

Via Biskero ( and --> Blocketpc), looks like Flash Lite 3.1 is on the way to OEM, here some more infos:

• H.264 support
• Improved web browsability with support for most Flash 8 content
• Object oriented extension mechanism for device APIs
• Red Hat Linux reference port
• Flash Lite 3.1 was released to OEMs on March 31, 2008
• Flash Lite 3.1 devices are expected to hit the market towards the end of 2008.
• Flash Lite 3.1 includes H.264 standard video support, the same standard deployed in Blu-Ray® and HD-DVD® high definition video players and HD web videos. Playback of H.264 video is dependent on the device’s capabilities for seamless play back existing H.264 web video content.

Create your own Search Engine, with Yahoo! BOSS

Yahoo! Search Blog annouces BOSS is a new, open platform that offers programmatic access to the entire Yahoo! Search index via an API. BOSS allows developers to take advantage of Yahoo!'s production search infrastructure and technology, combine that with their own unique assets, and create their own search experiences. While search APIs have been available for some time, BOSS removes many of the usage restrictions that have prevented other companies from using them to build innovative new search engines.

Here's a quick summary of what's available today:

• Ability to re-rank and blend results -- BOSS partners can re-rank search results as they see fit and blend Yahoo!'s results with proprietary and other web content in a single search experience
• Total flexibility on presentation -- Freedom to present search results using any user interface paradigm, without Yahoo! branding or attribution requirements
• BOSS Mashup Framework -- We're releasing a Python library and UI templates that allow developers to easily mashup BOSS search results with other public data source
• Web, news and image search -- At launch, developers will have access to web, news and image search and we'll be adding more verticals soon
• Unlimited queries -- There are no rate limits on the number of queries per day

Via

Lively: Second Life by Google

Google releases Lively, a 3d multichat social network.
In Lively, you'll have an experience in which you can communicate and express yourself using avatars in your very own space.



Lively requires Windows Vista/XP with Internet Explorer or Firefox.

Google Talk for iPhone and iPod Touch

Google releases a GTalk (Google Talk) special version for IPhone and Ipod Touch.
With this gadget you can chat with your friends without installing any application, but simply using Safari.
However, at this moment this gadget is available only for US resident users:

http://www.google.com/talk/

Another particular "problem": as you can see in the link above, you must enter your phone number, to receive a link from Google.

Via Motoricerca.

Google learns to crawl Flash contents

From the official Google blog: Google has been developing a new algorithm for indexing textual content in Flash files of all kinds, from Flash menus, buttons and banners, to self-contained Flash websites.
Now (and finally!) indexing full flash websites and/or flash contents will be easier, so we can develop websites also for those customers with low budget for web marketing / web indexing.
Ok, now we have to do some tests... :-)

Create you own home online

PlanningWiz is an Online Room Planner Software for Furniture Retailers and Manufacturers, Building Contractors, Realtors and more...
With this web based application you can build your apartments, creating rooms, walls and so on, and add your furnitures taken from multiple libraries.
Additionally, you can save, email and print your projects. Cool!

http://v3.planningwiz.com/

Flash player plugin required.

PlayNES: Online NES emulator

http://www.playnes.net/

contains many playable NES games (java runtime required to run).

It also contains many nice flash games.

Kunfu Fu Panda, CGSociety article

Kung Fu Panda is the new Dreamworks 3d animation movie (in theaters june 6, 2008).

CG Society publish an intersting article about Kung Fu Panda production focus (article by Renee Dunlop).
The article starts:
"A journey of a billion frames begins with talent, characters and a whole lot of effort by the team at DreamWorks."...

"A wash with color and technical complexities, DreamWorks brings us their next animated film, Kung Fu Panda. In production since 2003, the film introduces a cast of clothed and furry or feathery animals that never completely sit still, languishing, dreaming, learning, and battling throughout a collection of expansive environments." ...

Continue reading this article about Kung Fu Panda

Other links:

CG Society

Kung Fu Panda official website

Dreamworks website

Explore Disneyworld in 3d with Google Earth

Google Earth adds new 3d models to have a fantastic virtual journey to Disney World in Orlando (Florida).


Here a Youtube video taken from Google Earth Blog:

Asus EEE TV soon

After the great success with its Eee PCs, Asus is working to create other products with the Eee brand.
Recently - at Computex 2008 - Asus presented its Eee TV, a 42 inches HD television, with linux SO embedded.
If ASUS will keep prices as low as Eee PC series, we can have a new great product Eee branded...

Travel Guides Vienna Euro 2008

Your mobile city guide for Vienna, Euro 2008 edition!

Vienna city guide for mobile phone with Flashlite 2.x (or better).
This city guide is ready for EURO 2008, UEFA European Football Championship.
Contains city maps, underground map, dozens of sightseeings and points of interest with descriptions and many other useful features.

No Internet or GPS connections required.
Available in english language.

Just for EUR 2.99 !

More info about Travel Guides Vienna Euro 2008 >

Street Fighter IV for Ps3, Xbox360 and PC

Capcom is working for a sequel of one of most played coin-op: Street Fighter IV
Graphics will be completely revised and made in 3d: above you can see a screenshot with Ryu... really not bad! :)
Street Fighter IV will be available for Playstation 3 and Xbox 360.
Below an interesting Street Fighter IV video:




Other resources:

Official Sites:
Street Fighter IV (Japanese) - http://www.capcom.co.jp/sf4/
Street Fighter IV (American) - http://streetfighterworld.com/

Screenshots:
The orginal 8 plus Crimson Viper revealed (Japanese Text)
http://www.famitsu.com/game/news/1213478_1124.html


VIDEOS

http://www.gametrailers.com/game/5667.html
http://www.youtube.com/Arxinal

NewTek Announces Free LightWave 3D Trial Edition Available for Download

Great News from Newtek!

NewTek Announces Free LightWave 3D Trial Edition Available for Download.

New LightWave Trial Edition features 24 hours of free online training


The software is fully functional with no restrictions or watermarks for a full 30-day period and has 24 hours of video training on many topics to enable quick use of LightWave's powerful tools.

In addition, the complete manuals in PDF format are available for download, allowing users to reference tools and features. 130 MB of royalty-free content is also provided, which can continue to be loaded and studied even after the 30-day trial period is over.

Pricing and Availability

The LightWave Trial Edition is available for free download immediately. LightWave® v9 is available now at suggested retail price of $895US. LightWave v9.5 will be available as a free update to registered LightWave v9 owners. Registered owners of LightWave 3D® [8] or earlier are eligible to purchase an upgrade to LightWave v9 for $395US.
For more information or to purchase, please visit www.lightwave3d.com or call NewTek Sales at 1-800-368-5441, for international inquiries dial +1-210-370-8000.

Iphone games: Namco for hire

In these weeks Apple presented its Iphone SDK, now finally companies can develop applications and games for this device.
People can be interested seeing that some companies are searching developers for hiring to increase their team knowledge about iphone development: via Gamasutra, I found this open positions into Namco : full time iPhone Games Engineers for Namco in San Jose (CA, USA).
Finally something is moving into the Iphone games industry... :)

Soul of Chogokin Kotetsu Shin Jeeg

After many rumors, Bandai has officially presented its new Soul of Chogokin: Kotetsu Shin Jeeg. This model will be available on september 2008.
Now i'm awaiting (and hoping) for a Revoltech Kotetsu Shin Jeeg by Kaiyodo... :P

Some links for more info and photos:

http://www.japanrobot.it/Articoli.htm
http://www.zonahobby.com/ita/flash_news.asp