Out of the two smartphones I own, I’ve got a pretty happy combination going.
On my Sharp Hiptop, I get a QWERTY keyboard, unlimited SMS/MMS/IM/Web Browsing….
….Not to mention piss-poor battery life and no support from Telstra, aside from having to pay upwards of $100 to fix the freaking thing.
On my other phone, the Nokia N95-3, I get everything I’d ever want from a phone (despite the lack of a full keyboard). But more on my N95 love in a later article, no doubt.
While I was interested in the iPhone, like the Hiptop, I find it to be pretty underfeatured for the price you’re paying. Though I’m sure the iPhone has a built in alarm clock, so there’s a plus.
Recently however, a new phone has caught my eye. The T-Mobile G-1 by HTC.
While again, with my two current phones I’m getting a pretty sweet deal, the technophile in me is screaming “I MUST HAVE IT!”. The idea of a touchscreen combined with a QWERTY keyboard -while probably superfluous, is such a neat idea. No more of this “tap and pray” smudgeathon when you’re texting someone, but you still get to flick around to navigate. There’s even a scroll-wheel if you want to ditch the touch-screen idea altogether. Hell, you could even still use your Etre Touchy gloves like the stylish dweeb you are.
Even when the dust settles and the initial technophilia dies off, it still seems like a cool little device that could easily rival the giants of the mobile world. I really haven’t read up on much about the Android OS that the phone runs on, but so far, I really haven’t had to say many bad things about Google. Let’s hope they keep their excellent reputation up eh?
YouTube essentially gave the video-blogger community a place to upload their videos, connect with other users and an ability to speak out to a potentially wide audience. Effectively giving anyone with a camera and entry-level video editing software a chance to have their fifteen minutes of fame.
Some YouTube users have also been snapped up by industries for their videos. A recent example being Ben “Yahtzee” Croshaw, famous for his ‘Zero Punctuation‘ series on The Escapist.
As time moves on, things change and evolve. The downside to this is you can’t swing a dead cat around YouTube without smacking firmly into something filmed on a dodgy camera phone nowadays, but change also means something awesome has happened: YouTube has stepped into the realm of High-Definition video.
The “watch in HD” feature -alongside the addition of widescreen videos occurred late last month and allows users to watch videos in true HD format with a resolution of 1280×720 pixels. Naturally, you need to be able to record and encode your video in HD to fully use the feature but all the same, it’s a brilliant feature for people looking to produce professional-looking content.
Nate “Blunty” Burr in all his bearded glory. Standard Youtube quality
To compare, the same picture (or as close as I could get it), this time in High Definition
While it may take some time for people to start using the feature, I’m already impressed with the results. The screenshots above really do no justice to the actual video itself which is available here. The downside to the higher quality however, is the fact it takes longer to load the content depending on your connection speed.
As someone who spends a considerable amount of time on YouTube (and intends to start using his account for a bit more than game videos and stick figure cartoons), this is one major step in providing original content on the internet that could rival network television -among other forms of entertainment.
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for December, 2008.
