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China has just finished pouring the last of the concrete for the epic Three Gorges Dam. By the time the Three Gorges Development Corporation completes their project plan in 2009, the dam’s 28 million cubic metres of concrete will be holding back 40 billion cubic metres of the Yangtze River, and using it to generate 18.2 gigawatts of electricity. When operating at full capacity, 3GD will avoid the need to import and burn about 475,000 barrels of crude oil per day.

The world’s largest hydroelectric facility is named after three scenic upstream vistas, the Qutang, Xiling and Wuxia gorges.

Hallmark Yangtze Dam Completed – China Daily, 2006-05-20

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Some additional views of the just-opened neo-iconic Apple Store, Fifth Avenue …

AS5A is kind of an orthogonalized & down-sized version of the glass Pyramid built by I. M. Pei, complete with the reception area beneath.

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Heavy Rain seems to be one of the first photorealistic games under development for the PlayStation 3 console. The game is a work-in-process by developer Quantic Dream, who showed a trailer of it at the Sony booth at E3 06 recently.

Quantic states that the game shows real-time 3D tears, animation of eyes, pupils, fingers and tongue as well as advanced rendering.

While the attached image doesn’t look too bad, QD cherry-picked it from their demo, the rest of which, while more than ok, is not great. Arguably, QD’s techniques are unkindest to hair and teeth, and their rendered skin could be somewhat better – indeed, the whole effect is somewhat surreal, and enough to wig-out some reviewers.

A virtual Tom Hanks or Will Smith remains elusive.

Quantic Dream – homepage

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Apple will be opening a new store in NYC tomorrow at 767 Fifth Avenue, nr E 59th Street. The Apple Store, Fifth Avenue, as it is called, is interesting in that it’s basically a glass cube, with the actual store being below ground level. AppleInsider has some nice pix of the thing, including this one.

AS5A will have a prime location, almost 300 staffers and be open 24/365. Sounds expensive, but at least they’re saving some coin by closing on leap-days.

Trend-spotters might well infer that AS5A represents a comeback for bricks-and-mortar and a partial retrenchment from the existentialism of e-commerce, but they would be wrong … perhaps. Physical vs. virtual shopping is discussed at this link, with the consensus being that they’re complementary and synergistic.

Apple: Fifth Ave store will never close – AppleInsider, Thursday, May 18, 2006

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Apple has just refreshed it’s low-end line of notebook computers by dropping the iBook line, upgrading the specs and re-branding it as the MacBook.

Apple’s lead-off selling point for the new MacBooks is the new Intel Core Duo processor which it claims provides five times the speed of the previous iBook. Other features of notebook include the new 13.3-inch 1280 x 800 rez screen and a built-in video camera. The lower-end 1.83 GHz MacBook in white goes for a mere $1099. If you want it painted black, it’ll cost you $400 more, but then you also get a 2.0 GHz processor for free.

MacBook specs are here. A nice side-by-side comparison of iBook & MacBook features can be found at iBook vs. MacBook.

Introducing the all-new MacBook – Apple news release.

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Sony has just launched the VGN-UX50, which is a compact nearly full-featured 1 GHz CPU, 512 MB memory, 30GB hdd, Windows XP based personal computer.

The UX50 weighs 520 grams and sizes out to 150×92x38 mm … that’s about 1.15 lbs and 5.9×3.6×1.5 inches. Cost is expected to be $1,550 USD when it’s available. The 4.5 inch LCD touch-screen has a native resolution of 1024×600 pixels, with the battery maxing out at 3.5 hours.

Some interesting features of the VAIO type U include 512MB of on-board flash memory to support a start-up time of 5 seconds, 2 cameras, and fingerprint security.

The UX50 seems to compete most directly with the OQO model 01+…although the ‘U’ is somewhat bulkier and heavier. When asked to contrast the UX50 and the Origami UMPC, Yoshihisa Ishida, head of Sony’s Vaio division, provided the following helpful information: while the “concept is close”, it is a “different thing”.

Advanced Mobile PC VAIO “type U” – Sony News Release, 2006-5-16

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The 2006 version of the Electronic Entertainment Expo aka E3 ran from May 10-12 last week. Some 521 exhibitors were on hand to demo the almost 1000 games expected to be launched this year. The big 3 game console makers, Sony, Microsoft and Nintendo were out in force showing off their latest PlayStation 3, Xbox 360 and Wii platforms.

The Xbox 360 launched in November 2005, and the PlayStation 3 and Wii consoles will launch about a year later in fourth-quarter 2006, so arguably the most interesting pieces of hardware were the 2 new Nintendo controllers.

Nintendo’s Wii Remote and Nunchuk controllers contain 3-axis motion sensors, and so will allow games to be played via roll pitch and yaw of the devices themselves.

By de-buttoning the user interface and making game-play less digital and more ‘analogy’, Nintendo moves to solidify their hold on the 8-12 year-old, and the casual demographics. Nintendo is so determinately focused on the ESRB E’s rating that even their website has an ESRB Notification. This business model has paid off handsomely for Nintendo, however, as the top 10 best-selling games worldwide of all time are Nintendo products.

The attached graphic shows 2 players using the Wii Remote to play the Nintendo Sports Tennis game.

In the game console market, Sony currently has almost a 2/3 share, with Microsoft coming in at 16% and the various Nintendo offerings totaling 13%. Some analysts think that this new generation of systems will provide a break and an opportunity to Xbox and Nintendo to win back some of that market share. By the time the PS3 is finally available, Xbox 360 will have been out for a full year, and price-wise, the PS3 will be 50-66% more expensive than the Xbox. Other analysts, however, believe that the reasons for Sony’s current dominance will persist … pls refer to Why Do American Games Fail in Japan? Our view is that Sony may have priced itself out of the market by bringing a $499-$599 platform to a user community dominated by the budgets of 16-26 year-olds. …but…then again, and on the other hand, the PS3 will have the legendary Cell processor and it’s 192 gigaflops of power, which makes it a quasi-supercomputer in it’s own right. The PS3’s photorealistic graphics and it’s potential for advanced RTS and AI may make it unbeatable, at least in high-end videogames.

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CNet had a look at the Samsung Q1 Ultra Mobile Personal Computer recently and decided that the lack of a keyboard, the unit’s low battery life and the high price were grounds for a lack of an endorsement on their part.

Other reviewers have similar complaints and a positive review of the Q1 is a rare commodity. Walt Mossberg picked on the same things as CNet. David Pogue at the New York Times disliked the screen size, the battery life and the lack of a keyboard and an internal DVD drive. And Rob Pegoraro over at the Washington Post echoes all of the above comments, and throws slow boot up into the fray.

These reviewers do protest too much, methinks. The Q1 is being judged as a notebook, whereas it probably belongs in the entertainment-with-some-light-computing niche.

Samsung Q1 Ultra Mobile PC – CNet editors’ take, 5/1/06

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Akihabara News has a brief Flash Video of the new Toshiba Gigabeat S30 in action, and a short review. The demo shows some of the main functions of the device – picture, video and music playback as well as some of the controls.

The reviewer/s liked the operation of the menus and the Plus Touch controller. The concluding words are “..get this one and dump that iPOD”.

A quick look at the GigaBeat S30! – Akihabara News, 08/05/2006

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Samsung now claims to have the world’s thinnest phone, the model SGH-X820 which is a mere 6.9 mm thick. The previous record holder, which only lasted a month-and-a-half, was the EV-K100 from KTF, at a relatively bloated 7.9 mm.

Samsung unveiled the phone at Sviaz/Expo Comm 2006, which starts Wednesday in Moscow.

Samsung Unveils the World’s Slimmest Phone – Samsung Press Release, 09, May, 2006

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