Everything There is to Know About GTA V as of August 2011

7 Replies Christopher Roberts

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About this time last year, game sites were abuzz with rumours that the next instalment of Rockstar’s immensely successful Grand Theft Auto series was headed toward the west coast of the United States.

The New York-based video game publishing company’s California division, Rockstar San Diego, was discovered to be scouting sites in and around Hollywood and the greater Los Angeles area. Fans were fluttering with curiosity – were they going to return to the streets of Los Santos and Vinewood, featured prominently in the 2004 GTA release “San Andreas?”

Another article on everyone’s minds was and still is what time period the next instalment will be set in; since Rockstar has spanned the series across decades. Will the next character be accessing menu options through an altered version of an HTC 4G Android phone similar to the last game, or will we be sent backward in time once again and forced to rely on payphones?

As far as the rumours from the summer of 2010, not much has come up to confirm the initial suspicions about an American west coast location. Perhaps Rockstar San Diego was doing some last-minute research for their spring 2011 release L.A. Noire. However, in-depth news on the game had already been released by March of 2010 so it’s doubtful they were doing location scouting after-the-fact. Not to mention, sources confirm that the environment of L.A. Noire, set in 1947, was created with aerial maps from the era.

So what’s to know about the next instalment of Grand Theft Auto? We know it’s going to happen soon: Rockstar’s mother-company Take-Two Interactive is expected to sell 18 million copies of the next instalment of GTA. We know it’ll be a cross-platform release like GTA IV. We know it won’t be set in Liberty City, where the historical Grand Theft Auto III was set and where the last one was set as well.

Take-Two Interactive's LogoThe details we want to know remain elusive, but there’s been some interesting tidbits released over the last year. In February of 2011, Rockstar purchased several specific domains which hallmark a previous gag featured in GTA IV wherein the character can visit websites that exists in real life for gamers to visit too. In that same month, a stuntman credited on previous instalments of the series listed “Grand Theft Auto V” on his acting resume, but later changed it, saying the credit was a “typo”.

But the big kahuna came later in March when a Take-Two casting call was leaked which included the name of a deviant character by the name of James Pedeaston heard on the radio in GTA IV, as well as another presumed radio personality character named Samantha who “dreams of being a Hollywood celebrity.” This could be interpreted as confirmation of the rumored Hollywood setting.

The revelation has been that unless Rockstar is playing games so to speak, which they’re no strangers at doing, the next Grand Theft Auto game will definitely be set in the present day. Other than that, details remain extremely limited. Just count on the fact that the game will be controversial, environmentally jaw-dropping, and sure to make its creators an enormous amount of money at a time when game developers are struggling to pay the bills.

Is the future of telecommunication VoIP?

17 Replies Christopher Roberts

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The rate at which people are opting for mobile VoIP suggests that it is going to become the most popular mode of communication in the coming times.

The huge cost difference between mobile VoIP and ordinary mobile networks posses a great threat to the later and that is why several mobile operators have even tried to halt the widening streak of mobile VoIP.

Voice over Internet ProtocolHowever, the striking difference with which the mobile VoIP is beneficial for the users, has rendered mobile operators accept the fact that the coming era belongs to VoIP. This understanding has made a number of mobile operators switching to the mobile VoIP instead of conventional mobiles, thus competitors being turned into supporters. Consequently, more customers are opting for the switches to avail a better range of options, better technology and increased convenience at lower rates. The very launch of mobile VoIP into already existing VoIP is an innovator step which is much likely to revolutionize the telecommunication world in the years to come.

The commencement of VoIP technology was not that successful in the beginning owing to the fact that lowering of cost was compensated by a compromise on the quality. The internet basis of VoIP instead of a landline was being adopted by only price conscious lot whereas the quality conscious lot was reluctant to make a shift. However, over the years, the quality of VoIP has been several fold bettered and even the landline phones are lagging behind in the clarity and sound quality of VoIP. The amalgam improved quality and low cost renders VoIP a smart technology and a wise alternative to conventional telephone land lines system. Owing to such strikingly favourable features, VoIP is gaining its popularity in private as well as business sector.

The success and acceptance of VoIP has led to the development of mobile VoIP that has further transformed the world of telecommunication. Mobile VoIP, though a newly introduced technology, is likely to be accepted open armed by the quality and price conscious lot and soon, the contemporary mobile market will be taken over by mobile VoIP. If viewed in the long run, mobile VoIP undoubtedly is going to be the centre of attraction in the coming years.

The acceptance that VoIP service is presently enjoying, it can be anticipated that a further beneficial technology as that of mobile VoIP will definitely grab its right share in the market.

Mobile VoIP being the smartest technological outcome with all the supportive features and the cost effectiveness is likely to be adopted by both private as well as business sector in the years to come. The reasons for which the home and businesses VoIP is being adopted by people are still intact and even further beneficial in case of mobile VoIP which suggests a radical acceptance of later amongst the masses.

Desktop Computers Destined for the Scrapheap?

14 Replies AlexS

The IBM Personal Computer (PC) was thirty years old last Friday, and according to those in the know, it might not be around for much longer. A blog post by Dr Mark Dean, one of IBM’s longest serving and most respected computer designers (who helped build the classic IBM 5150) has been making big waves across the technology sector after he claimed that the PC was heading in the same direction as vinyl records and the typewriter, light bulbs and the vacuum tube.

Dr Dean points out that PC’s and cheap laptops have had their time and place but that now they have helped to create a world which needs a new type of device depending on use and form.

Claiming that he himself has moved beyond the PC and only works on a tablet, he notes that PC’s will still be around a while longer but that “they’re no longer at the leading edge of computing.”

He goes on to say that it will not only be tablets and phones that cause the demise of PC’s but also a change of mindset about the place of computing in society and the progress of man. Instead of being about computing they are now a way of facilitating innovation not on the devices themselves, but “in the social spaces between them, where people and ideas meet and interact.”

When IBM released the 5150 in 1981 it soon set the standard for how PC’s were to look and operate. The computer, which had a massive 16k of ram and cost more than $1,500 was one of the computers that began the ‘PC Era’, that revolutionized the way we work and live.

An IBM 5150 PC

An IBM Personal Computer (IBM 5150)

According to Dean, such a revolution is also underway once again. He is not alone – in another blog about the 30th anniversary of the PC, Microsoft’s Frank Shaw argued that the proliferation of tablets, phones and other such devices was the beginning of a new ‘PC Plus Era’, if not necessarily an indication of the end of the PC and traditional computer devices.

So what do you think? Are you ready to ditch that PC just yet?