Usually year on year, this list is fairly hard to compile however I must admit, I was fairly surprised at how easy it was to come up with this Top 5 List. Of course, “Best” film is just an opinion so there’s really no need to lambast me with criticisms for leaving some films in or some films out. Either way it’d be great to know what your opinion is. So without further adieu, I present my favourite films of 2009:

 

5 - Ponyo

 

 

An animated adventure centered on a 5-year-old boy and his relationship with a goldfish princess who longs to become human.

 

From the inspirational director Hayao Miyazaki comes yet another animated masterpiece. It’s so refreshing that in a day and age where Ice Age and Up tend to rule the box offices that there’s still a place for amazing Studio Ghibli animated films. This eco-orientated film is a stunning piece of art that really does bring a smile to the face no matter what age group you are. Not only does this film bring about a great message to it’s audiences, Miyazaki manages to draw in it’s audiences and make them really connect with the onscreen characters over a relatively short 103 minutes. Either way this is probably my favourite feel good film of the year.

 

4 - The Hurt Locker

 

 

Forced to play a dangerous game of cat-and-mouse in the chaos of war, an elite Army bomb squad unit must come together in a city where everyone is a potential enemy and every object could be a deadly bomb.

 

What may look like your run of the mill action/suspense/thriller movie will have you leaving this film with a real connection to the three main protagonists of the film. An incredible onscreen performance by Jeremy Renner who plays the cowboy bomb disposal technician with underlying psychological issues is met with an enticing storyline that leaves you gripped to your seat wondering where the film will turn. I won’t spoil the scene but it leads to an absolute heart wrenching scene with an Iraqi boy that’ll make you feel like as if you were in Baghdad itself.

 

3 - Star Trek

 

 

A chronicle of the early days of James T. Kirk and his fellow USS Enterprise crew members.

 

Let me just preface this by saying that no, I am not a Star Trek fanboy, in fact I am firmly rooted in the Star Wars camp. Yet this film was easily the second most anticipated film I was looking forward to seeing in 2009 and it definitely lived up to it’s expectations. Say what you will about the predictability of high budget Hollywood films such as this, but it took a massive change from the 2002 flop that was Nemesis. With a refreshing origins story, J. J. Abrams has really pushed forward the Star Trek franchise onto a new and younger generation. This turned out to be a surprisingly beautiful film despite perhaps the over-use of lens flare in the cinematography but either way, my jaw literally dropped open at the sight of the giant ship Narada emerging from a black hole. Also a massive mention has to go to Michael Giacchino for probably the most phenomenal soundtracks of the year.

 

2 - District 9

 

 

 

An extraterrestrial race forced to live in slum-like conditions on Earth suddenly finds a kindred spirit in a government agent who is exposed to their biotechnology.

 

I must admit, I’d actually heard very very little about this film going into the cinema to see it (much like The Hurt Locker) and what I saw was cinema genius. Every little thing about this movie is so well thought out not only from the very well documented undertones of racial prejudice and social divides but also from a technical standpoint. The pacing in this film is something that all film directors should be looking at, there were moments where the film was nice and narrative, moments where the thrilling action came in, but at no point during the film did you think that it wasn’t going anywhere or that there was a part left unexplained or too heavily emphasised. Sharlto Copley has to take the awards next year for his incredible ability in conveying the rose as the tormentor of “The Prawns” to his brilliant re-birth. No stops were taken in ensuring a very real experience to what is essentially a science fiction about prawn like aliens.

1 - Avatar

 

 

A paraplegic marine dispatched to the moon Pandora on a unique mission becomes torn between following his orders and protecting the world he feels is his home.

 

Say what you will about the plotline, but Avatar definitely deserves to be at the top of the list this year even if it’s on sheer visual quality alone. What I’ve said time and time again, you have to see this film on an IMAX screen and in 3D. You just cannot settle for anything less. From the very first scene, you’re left being sucked into the film feeling like as if you’re on Pandora itself. The film is almost 3 hours of engrossing visual effects that you will never have seen the likes of before. The true legacy that this film will leave behind is that it has changed movie making history. This half a billion mammoth of a project that’s spanned 15 years in the making, has revolutionised not only the way technology creates such amazing cinematography but also how directors direct their cameras. Much of the film’s  Sure the plotline may have been a little cliched and if anything, runs way too close to the likes of Pocahontas (1995) and the likes of Call Me Joe (1957) but that doesn’t mean to say that it’s a bad story. I think all the hype about it having a bad plotline is simply because the visual effects are so stunning that there’s high expectation for the plot to be “just as stunning”. The casting in this film was almost perfect. Sigourney Weaver as the tough lead scientist should definitely get an award for best supporting actress. Much has been made of Zoe Saldana’s performance as the heroine of the Na’vi people yet I think just as much credit should go to Sam Worthington as his role as the protagonist of the story. Stephen Lang, the face of evil, definitely deserves recognition in what was a very Apocalyse Now vietnam war general-esque role in the film. All in all, this is an absolute must see film.

 

Most Disappointing Films of 2009

 

Just thought I may as well throw in my two cents over what I thought was either over hyped or just a plain bad film:

 

 

1. Dragon Ball: Evolution
2. Fighting
3. Jennifer’s Body
4. All About Steve
5. Street Fighter: The Legend of Chun Li

And there you have it, with 2009 now fading in the memory, here’s to 2010 and hopefully a fantastic year for film (that said, Karate Kid looks to be going the way of Dragon Ball =[ ).

 

(All plot summaries are from their respective IMDB pages)

 

It’s the end of the year and yes we all know what that means, it’s time for the top 10 tech predictions for 2010. Being a predominantly tech blog, this’ll be centred around the tech that I find relevant and believe will come true. A lot of these will be vague but hey, I would like to get some of these right, but some of these I’ll try to make specific and give my reasons behind them. So without further adieu, here are my predictions:

 

Android wins over iPhone

 

Many of you will know that I have been a dedicated iPhone user since it’s inception a few years ago. As much as i love this device and literally cannot go a day without it, I can’t see it’s dominance over the touchscreen smartphone market staying so strong for another year. With such high volume of sales this year with the 3GS as in previous years with older models of the Jesus phone, there will surely be a slowdown in sales. That and also, however brilliant the UI is on the iPhone, I think that consumers will be looking to use something new, something fresh and with that, I believe the Android OS stands the greatest chance of filling in the void. Already towards the end of the year, we’ve seen releases of the Droid and the Hero, both sporting very beautiful UI’s on them even if their hardware hasn’t come up to scratch with the iPhones. One other contender which may prove to be the dark horse in this ever growing Smartphone competition may come from the big guns of Microsoft, yes that is the Zune Phone. With all the mess that Windows Mobile has shown to be over it’s lifecycle, I can’t believe for a second that Microsoft would be happy to keep pushing their Mobile OS in the state that it is if they wish to seriously compete in the mobile market. So if the Zune phone does come to pass, note that the Zune HD has arguably one of the most beautiful UI’s of any MP3 player (and yes with that I say, it’s better than the iPod Touch) they could stand a chance at taking the title away from the iPhone as the best touchscreen smartphone of 2010.

 

3D TVs are all the rage

 

So this one isn’t exactly a total no-brainer but I’d definitely hedge my bets that at CES 2010 and other significant tech convention shows, we’ll see more and more 3D TVs. If anything, 2009 has been the year of the 3D movies with notable mention to Up and Avatar, I believe we’ll see more of these make their way onto our living room screens.  Now I’m not predicting that these will be any great success but don’t be surprised if your local Curry’s or PC World began displaying them on their shelves come the Summer and Autumn. As much of a gimmick this may have been in the 90’s, the technology has definitely come a long way, Mitsubishi have even completed prototype models of TVs where 3D can be displayed without the need of the funky glasses. This all in time for the World Cup in South Africa in the summer, I think we’ll see a huge emphasis on 3D sports viewing as much experimentation has been done on previous sports tournaments like the Rugby 6 Nations in 2009. On a bit of a side-note, I think we’ll see a lot more 3D involved with gaming both on the console and the PC side of things. Perhaps the beginning of PS3 and Xbox 360 3D games? That leads me nicely onto …

 

Next Gen Consoles whisperings begin

 

Many analysts have speculated that the current generation of gaming consoles will outlive their predecessors product lifetimes. With HD still being a relatively young technology and with the PS3 and Xbox 360 taking advantage of this, I don’t think we’ll see any major updates to these consoles just yet. Perhaps towards the end of the year we’ll start to see mentioning's of an Xbox 720(?) or even a PS4 but with the current economic climate and with high demand for the current generation of games, I can’t see anything massive coming out from these two camps. On the Nintendo Wii side, there must be a new and improved version of the Wii to come out. They may have blown the competition away in terms of pure volume sales but without a serious improvement in graphics, gamers will soon start to turn away from the blurry pixels of so many Wii titles. Especially as HD becomes more standard in homes, the gap between the visual qualities of the Wii and other current generation consoles will begin to emerge and Nintendo surely can’t rely on trusty Zelda and Mario for another year.

 

Cometh the Hour, Cometh the Tablet

 

There was big talk of Apple releasing an “iTablet” type device which never came true and was even flatly denied. Instead it was more the year of the eBook and netbooks that came true. I think with smart phones continuing its dominance over the mobile phone market, we’ll see more of a convergence with smart phones and netbooks and eReaders combining to form multi purpose tablets. The issue is, who really needs them? Sure they’re a luxury device that you can show off to all your pals and look decidedly like a mugging target as soon as you pull one out, but who genuinely needs them? In industry, I could think of engineers and architects which might but this is a very specific industry. Amongst general consumers, I could only see this selling well amongst students, if they were a low enough price point or if universities offered them as part of their course. That and possibly become an expensive household item whereby they function as both a core media centre device that controls all or just a pad from which your mum can access all her recipes from the kitchen top.

 

Personal Computers go hyperspeed

 

For 2010, I believe 64-bit systems will soon become standard as the amount of processing required just to run the latest OS’s these days will only go up and older computers will start to feel the drag. So where 2009 was the year where desktops went quad core and the laptops went dual core, 2010 will be the year where computers either go past 4 cores or start moving towards i7 type processor architectures. Soon we’ll see RAM where 4gigs starts to look slow and we move towards 6, 8, and even up to 12 gigs of RAM on laptops and desktops. We’ll see gaming on these devices start to reach PS3 potential and beyond. Who knows, we might even see a resurrection in PC only games compared to the dozens of console only titles seen in 2009. Fingers crossed.

 

Social Networking will get too big for it’s own good

 

The year 2009, was the year in which two big networks won out on top as the big guns of social networking, that is of course Twitter and Facebook. There’s been rumblings in the press that the founders of both these two networks are looking to expand their respective sites into something bigger than they already are. We already know that “The Social Network” a film based on the founders of Facebook will be released next year and that surely is overstepping the line. The problem with both of these networks is that for as many users as there are on both of them, they don’t make enough money solely on advertising and donations alone. Therefore expect one or both of these sites to make a bold move into further commercialising the business to the dismay of millions. At some points there will be advertising and a monetization model but let’s just hope that they do it the right way and don’t go the same way as MySpace. That said, niche networks will begin popping up such as Last.fm or FriendFeed and cover their ends of the Social Networking space. On that note, I also believe that this year will finally be the year where we see the death of MySpace. There have been plenty of talks suggesting that they may try to rebrand themselves as a Music discovery service and that may yet be true, but MySpace as a Social Network will be gone for good.

 

Major Mobile Platform Security Breach

 

Security was a fairly large issue in the tech community in 2009 with the first exploits to be found in the iPhone and the first mentions of mobile platform anti-virus software. That has been the first mentioning's that operating systems as they’ve become more like their desktop counterparts, will start to exhibit the same negative consequences of having more exploits and loopholes on which to take advantage of. During Black Hat 2009, mobile device vulnerabilities took centre stage and I believe that’ll continue onto 2010 however even if we in the tech community will see it coming, I don't think it’ll hit the major consumer markets until a major security threat is breached. That is until it becomes mainstream will companies such as Symantec (who already have developed mobile antivirus software) begin to market their security software. Conspiracy theorists will have already begun speculating that this is another attempt to deliberately create an atmosphere of fear and that the security companies will be the only ones who benefit but who knows for certain. What we do know is that as smart phones become more complex and more widespread, the probability of a major security breach grows.

 

Telecommunications costs gets slashed

 

This one’s a bit of a wildcard, but I think especially in the UK, many of the telecommunications companies will merge into a few major competitors all vying for our consumer money. O2 and one other major operator will probably merge. I think we’ll also see Voip begin to hit the mainstream such as Skype has and I think we’ll start to see handsets being released into the mainstream that come as Voip only handsets. There are a few receivers that do this and notably a few smartphones just as the iPhone do have apps which support Skype, but this could be the year where the public realise just how much of a rip off mobile tariffs are and that things are cheaper when done via the beauty of the internet.

 

Convergence of household technologies

 

We already have seen plenty of tech inside the household of the average person from more state of the art high-fi’s to LED screens on fridges. However i think this year will be the year where the automated house of the future will really begin to step up and hit the mainstream. What was a niche market within in-house central media centres I believe will become the “in” thing this coming year. More and more people will be wanting to connect all the rooms in their house in one central area. A control hub in the living room for example that would control the lighting, the sound, what goes on the television for example. We’ll see a lot more clever things such as screens being built into Bathroom mirrors for example, to check on the latest news headlines or the weather report as you’re brushing your teeth in the morning. We’ll see more and more technology focussed on making our lives that little bit easier, wireless charging for example will be a big deal, the ability to charge through the air for example. This such technology has made big steps in 2009 and will start to throw out the first mass produced products in 2010. And last but not least …

 

Google will rule the universe, birth of the Guerrilla resistance

 

With the speed at which Google has rolled over the competition in 2009, I think we’ll continue to see Google dominate in all areas of the internet come 2010. What first started off as jus a simple search engine and a window to the World Wide Web has now become a portal of services to which most of us rely on on a daily basis. What would we do without Gmail for example, or even Google Docs to which many companies have switched over to rely upon not to mention where would we all be without Google Maps, lost in the middle of the countryside asking the local farmyard animals for directions most probably. I think Google will begin to roll out more Cloud based services and really hammer out back up services on both the personal and enterprise levels. That and the Android will roll out on more and more devices and with the power of Open Source behind it, the world’s it’s oyster right now. Not forgetting of course that Chrome OS has yet to launch, and that’ll start to eat away at Microsoft and Linux’s domination over the Netbook market for the next 12 months or so. That said, I don’t believe that all companies will simply roll over or be swallowed up in mergers from the Google machine. Google hasn’t quite totally swallowed everything up, I believe Social Networking is an area which they’ll look to get into, if even for the advertising money. Possible targets maybe Twitter or Facebook?

 

So those were my Top 10 predictions for 2010 .. What do you think? Agree with me? Or think I’ve gone bonkers. Either way, leave a comment, be interested to know what you all think =]

 

Gracing the Tokyo skyline this summer in Tokyo will be the opening of the new Gundam statue to commemorate the 30th anniversary of the Gundam franchise. The 1:1 scale Gundam is of the classic RX-78-2 and will have sounds, lights, smoke screens and moving parts to top it all off.

 

Rather than regurgitate what most blogs already say, I’ve added in the relevant articles below so skim through those for more images and videos of the Gundam in action.

 

However this definitely demonstrates Japan’s love for all things anime and mecha so if you’re planning on going to Japan at any time, drop this little guy a visit.

 

 

With the release of the new iPhone 3GS, Apple has included a digital compass into the hardware. Alright, but that’s nothing groundbreaking right? The G1 can do it and so do a lot of bog standard GPS devices, it’s how you know what’s North when you’re driving down the high street. But pair the hardware compass to the idea of Augmented Reality (AR) and soon you open a door to a whole new world of possibilities. Literally.

 

Meet “Nearest Tube”. Not the catchiest name given for an app that’s true, but the first to be released that’ll introduce AR to the iPhone. At it’s core, the puts together the built in compass and the video capability of the iPhone to find you the nearest Tube Station. How does it do this? Well by super imposing the GPS co-ordinates of the nearest tube stations (according to your GPS fix) on top of the video produced by the camera.

 

By laying the iPhone “flat”, arrows will point to several of the nearest Tube stations to you.  Having the iPhone back to vertical, it’ll show you where those stations are. Check out the video which demonstrates the app in action and proves that seeing really is believing.

 

 

However, there are some issues with this. The app relies on the digital compass built into the iPhone which in turn relies on magnetism. This is where the problems start. It seems that if you’re close to anything that could even remotely interfere with the compass, it starts to go a little funny. So for example if you’re like me and bored on the bus home and want to mess with the compass, you’ll find yourself having to slowly peel away from the sides of the bus and waving your phone in figure of 8’s in the air just to get a magnetic fix, is not the coolest thing to look at. No word on when we’ll see this in the AppStore but it’s currently in that convoluted approval process so fingers crossed, not long to wait.

 

Apart from the magnetism issues, this looks to be a winner of an app. More importantly it’ll hopefully entice developers to spend the extra time and effort to develop more AR apps for the platform. We could then begin to see apps where you point your iPhone at a movie poster, it recognising it and then displaying the relevant information and play you the trailers. Or an app whereby plotting a route in Google Maps now gets super imposed onto the path in front of you showing precisely where to go. Who knows? If Apple does release more APIs for the video camera we might just see a whole new evolution in the way we use our mobile phones.

 

Source: CNET UK: Crave Blog

 

Google has announced earlier today that it’s set to challenge Microsoft and the new Windows 7 with it’s Google Chrome OS. This piece of news announced on the Google Blogs site will be the first time that Google has attempted to create an operating system for a desktop pc and looks to go straight for Microsoft’s new baby, Windows 7.

 

Over 30 million people use the Google Chrome Browser which was launched just over 9 months ago in 2008 and has been widely hailed as a success namely for it’s speed and simplicity. This philosophy is what Google aims to bring to it’s new operating system.

 

An extract from the blog post on the Google Blogs site:

 

Speed, simplicity and security are the key aspects of Google Chrome OS. We're designing the OS to be fast and lightweight, to start up and get you onto the web in a few seconds. The user interface is minimal to stay out of your way, and most of the user experience takes place on the web. And as we did for the Google Chrome browser, we are going back to the basics and completely redesigning the underlying security architecture of the OS so that users don't have to deal with viruses, malware and security updates. It should just work.

 

Initially, they’ll be aiming this new operating system at netbooks due to it’s smaller storage capacities and slower CPU’s but the Chrome OS will look to eventually be used on PC’s too. Who needs to watch out next year? Clearly the Linux crowd will be most affected by this announcement. The Linux OS has slowly but steadily been building steam over the last decade or so entering into the mainstream market and consumers alike with it’s community driven open sourced system, however with the entering of one of the big boys, who is to say that Google won’t eventually kick Linux out of the netbook market for which it’s beginning to gain a foothold on.

 

Apple can be rest assured that for now, Chrome OS appears to be designed for the PC infrastructure and Microsoft, although having around a 90% dominance in market share for the OS market will certainly have to look over it’s shoulder. The key is whether or not they’ll respond to this announcement by throwing the kitchen sink at netbooks and developing a smaller and more lightweight version of either XP or 7 to challenge what’ll inevitably be a very lightweight Chrome OS.

 

What we can expect from the Chrome OS will likely be a marring of both the Chrome Browser and the Google Wave concept which was announced a few months back. That is, the synchronisation of all the Google services with your desktop. For example, your Gmail will appear as a desktop widget, your Google calendar will replace the one on the system tray and be instantly synchronised. Forget the saving office documents to your hard drive, we may see your My Documents turn to Google Documents and be accessible online. If you’re on blogger, a native software application that allows you to post directly to your Google Blogspot account. All in all, that future of cloud computing could yet become a sooner reality than we thought.

 

The new OS is expecting to ship by summer 2010.

 

In probably the most seemingly ludicrous piece marketing to be released by a tourism agency, the KTO (Korean National Tourism Agency) are set to announce it's catchy new "H1N1 New Strain Influenza Cash Relief Program".

The South Korean tourism board is set to offer NT $100,000 (New Taiwan Dollar) to any Taiwanese Tourists who catches the potentially lethally virus whilst on holiday in Korea. That equates to roughly just under £2,000 or about $3000 U.S.

 

This seemingly absurd piece of publicity does have some logical roots. The peak season in South Korea’s Tourism industry is just starting to take off and with the current economic climate the way it is, a slump in these coming summer months could damage businesses in this years winter months. Therefore by offering an almost compensation like scheme to attract visitors to travel, the hope that tourists will make full use of Korea’s flourishing theme parks and historical attractions.

There are some catches though as you have to be flying via Korean Air, Asiana Airlines, China Airlines, Eva Airways or TransAsia Airwayski. That and clearly you can’t be a stop over flight as that won’t go against the point of the scheme. Either way, if you don’t die and do end up contracting the virus whilst in Korea, start applying for that extra holiday spending money

 

O2 have just announced that they have won the rights to sell the Palm Pre on it’s network over here in the UK. For anybody who isn’t aware, the Palm Pre is in my opinion the closest thing to challenging the iPhone (3GS). Having had first hand experience using both, there really isn’t anything out there on the market who could challenge both these two devices (smartphone wise)

 

There’s no word yet on what the pricing will be for the Palm Pre but over in the US, it launched for $199.99 (roughly £129) on contract, but given that the iPhone 3GS sells at closer to £180, expect the Palm Pre to be more expensive than our neighbours across the pond.

 

Don’t hold your breath though, it’s not due for release until closer to Christmas time.

 

Now for the sake of neutrality, I’ve got to mention that I’m an iPhone 3GS user and that I’ve had all versions of the iPhone since it’s launch a few years back. Ever since I’ve first started using an iPhone, I haven’t looked back. Both family and friends have had a number of other smartphones notably the Blackberry Bold, Samsung Omnia and the Android G1 to name but a few but to be frank, none of them come close to being as good a device as the iPhone.

 

That said, the Palm Pre was the closest device to making me switch from Apple to Palm, with it’s WebOS interface and the inclusion of multitouch, it does have a great UI. What I find most annoying about these touch screen smartphone competitorsh is that they just don’t have as good a touch screen as the iPhone/Pre. For a device that is meant to be “touched”, for the most part it’s either too slow and laggy or just plain unresponsive when using the screen. Whether this is a patent issue or a cost issue with the hardware, I don’t know but after having something as fluid and instant as the iPhone, it really is difficult to adjust to the lag on most other smart phones.

 

Of course the iPhone isn’t without it’s criticisms. Many users aren’t used to the onscreen keyboard still and of course 3.2 megapixels is hardly anything revolutionary, in fact I’d go so far as to say that a lot of “new features” really struggle to break the mould, but it’s that first big leap that Apple took into the smartphone market at the start that’s had rival companies playing the catch up game.

 

I digress. Will the Palm Pre outsell the iPhone? Probably not if for the reason that it’s a substantially smaller company and in terms of advertising alone, cannot be matched to the Cupertino giant. Until the HTC Hero comes out, there really isn’t anything on the horizon as far as I know that’ll put pressure on Palm and Apple. But for O2 to have both of these devices available for purchase exclusively, you’ve got to take your hats off to the executives at O2 for making this bold and bright move.

 

Scientists at the Israel Institute of Technology have created a robot designed to crawl inside the human body. Specifically, through your veins. The ViRob measures at a measly 1 millimetre by 4 millimetres will be able to crawl through everything ranging from water to blood to bile in order to treat diseases, specifically at cancer.

 

Cancerous tumours are notorious for being difficult to target and effectively kill. Think of whole body irradiation as carpet bombing your body. The good and the bad and the ugly get killed. With this type of technology, robots could crawl into your veins, identify a tumour and directly treat it with the correct drugs.

 

 

Here is an extract from Discovery magazine detailing the ViRob:

 

… thanks to tiny arms that help it grip vessel walls , ViRob is the first microbot that can tunnel between different body cavities. It’s controlled by an electromagnetic field outside of the robot that creates a vibration that propels ViRob forward.

In lab tests, the robot has traveled up to nine millimeters per second and can commute through body fluids ranging from blood to bile, making it a versatile tool that can race through a vein and burrow into an organ. Its designers even hope to accessorize it with equipment such as a wee camera and a mini pair of tongs, to get that close-up view of those alveoli at work.

 

Obviously this type of technology is in it’s infancy but with promising research being done, maybe this robot could pave the way to more advances in treating patients through technology. That’s of course before we get to the era of nanobots whereby the irreversible grey goo of death descends upon us and wipes out humanity.

 

Oh and also, the image at the top isn’t what’s going to be crawling through you, it’s a Replicator from Stargate. Just so none of you freak out if you think that things going to be inside you.