Technology
Welcome back to the Technology section of our newspaper. Although we have one article, it is a special one as we head to the end of the year. Looking back at the year 2007, we can consider it to be a special year for Technology. When you think about it, most of the special gadgets, or applications, or all that came out. We then decided to make one article for this, but make it one that can summarize the five most popular technological breakthroughs of the year 2007. I'd like to thank I am TD, for his participation towards the success of the article. We can still look to the future though, for there are many things to write about, if it's technology, or anything in general.
Happy holidays readers.
-Definition
As We Look Back - By: Definition
iPhone
Coming in first, the iPhone was a product which rose with a lot of sales success. Right after it's announced released at MacWorld, apple's shares skyrocketed. The product itself has its high points and its low points. It was first available through Cingular; an American cell phone networking provider. Offered with GSM and a EDGE data network, users considered this a con. Cingular's data stream is known to be weak as compared to its competitors. The iPhone though, is a simple yet versatile gadget with a built in iPod, Email client, and Safari browser. One of the most popular features is its sensors. The Accelerometer is a sensor that enables the iPhone to change rotations as according to the gadget's orientation. Their second sensor, the Proximity Sensor; has the ability to set the iPhone to sleep when it comes in close contact with a human's ear. The iPod in the iPhone is supposedly the best iPod that ever existed. The iPod had a feature called cover flow. This lets a user spring through albums by their artwork. It can be accessed through the Accelerometer. The iPhone has a stunning 3.5” widescreen display. It displays videos pretty well for a portable device. The browser, and email client have a rich HTML format. They both work using the Accelerometer. Overall the iPhone is a good device. Apple though, chose an obsolete network to sponsor this device.
Image Source: Blogs.zdnet.com
Windows Vista
Windows Vista is the latest Operating System from Microsoft. It comes in four editions ranging from the low $100s to the mid $200s. They all range from basic computing, to ultimate home entertainment and gaming. The newer features of the operating system are its refreshed interface, to its network capabilities. The operating system however, has had some harsh criticism for its instability, and its problems running standard drivers for different peripherals. Some users had insisted on downgrading back to Windows XP; the preceding operating system. The operating system's newest add-ons are Internet Explorer 7; an equal browser towards its competitor Mozilla's Firefox. It also has many convenient programs called Widgets. Widgets are utilities which are placed on the desk top so a user can configure to suit that user's lifestyle. A well known one for example is RSS. Selected feeds can arrive from the internet, and can be placed by thumbnail onto the user's desktop. Another great feature is the new aero interface. This interface is designed for an enhanced user experience. Aero includes the transparency of windows, Windows Flip, and Flip 3D; ways to organize windows by flipping through them in a fast manner. This causes smooth graphics performance. There are also programs which can determine which edition is best suited for the user. To some, this just looks great, but doesn't work as well as it looks, and to those who have the technology to run it properly, it's stable enough. This is considered the second most popular product that sold in 2007, according to the newspaper staff.
Image Source: How Stuff Works - Computers
Mac OS X: Leopard
The Leopard OS X operating system by Apple was released at the end of October, not quite long ago to this point. Apple developers all over expected this to be big, and it was, but not as big as they had expected. The Leopard operating system if compared to its main competitor Windows Vista by Microsoft gained more market share than Leopard. Anyways I'll get to the point or features if you may. Leopard's installation was quite instable, which led the user to reformat in the worst case scenario. The new operating system has several pros though. It comes with 300+ features some of which are innovative, and some of which are just traditional. The one of the best would be Time Machine. Time Machine is a back up program, which is powered by an external hard drive. It may bring back any files deleted by date, or time. Spaces' is also a good program, which splits the desktop into a specified division. This is to make a cleaner computing environment by sorting out the orientation of the user's windows. Boot Camp though, is the greatest application. This allows the user to for a partition with the hard drive which enables the user to run multiple operating systems such as Linux, and Windows. The classic OS X dock has had a fresh makeover too. A new 3D look has been established, with the companionship of Stacks, an organization system of folders, applications, files, and anything else. This collapses in the dock to keep the desktop clean. The Leopard operating system ranked third in our scale.
Image Source: CNET Reviews
Creative Suite 3
Adobe has been creating applications for web development for years now, thus considering it to be the leader in that field. Now Adobe has released their series of applications, all of which were upgraded from their predecessors. It's called Creative Suite 3. This was different to CS2 because now the offer a range of applications to accompany one's budget and needs, that is called Creative License. One of Adobe's most favored programs is Photoshop. This is offered in an extended distribution, and a normal distribution. Photoshop Extended has 3D and motion support, and Image analysis. Both distributions have a fresh interface, improved filtering, and automatic layer adjustments, and blending. The thing with CS3 though, is that it can flow with other programs flawlessly. One of those is Flash CS3 Professional. Flash is an application by Adobe which uses ActionScript. Flash can import formats made for Photoshop, and Illustrator CS3. Those are two of the many programs Creative Suite 3 has to offer.
Image Source: CNET Reviews
Surge of Musical Games
Entertainment has gotten so innovative, that we have these entertainment systems, with mainly nothing but the standard controller game. Now we see games like Guitar Hero, or Rock Band. Both Guitar Hero and Rock Band released games in 2007. These games enable the player to form a virtual band, and play the music that's given to the player. Rock Band and Guitar Hero use peripherals to play the game such as a guitar, or drums. This boosts the enjoyment of the games for the player, making Guitar Hero, and Rock Band one of the most entertaining games of 2007. Both games are available for the Xbox 360, Playstation 2, and 3 (Compatibility Issues –GH3), while the Guitar Hero game is for the Wii, Mac, and PC.
For more information on Guitar Hero, and Rock Band see I am TD's article on them. It's called Battle of the Bands, and it's under Entertainment.
[ Back to top ]