Apples iCloud Services, A Central File Depot For Your Media!

Steve Jobs took a break from his medical leave today in order to reveal the details on Apple’s new iCloud service. The iCloud is Apples solution for connecting all your devices to a central repository for all your media files. This concept allows you to “store your content in iCloud and automatically and wirelessly push it to all your devices. When anything changes on one of your devices, all of your devices are wirelessly updated almost instantly." Apple also claims that the free suite of iCloud services will work seamlessly with your iPhone, iPod, iPad, Mac or PC. You will get 5GB of space for Mail, Document Storage and Backup. Purchased music, apps, books and Photo Stream don't count as part of the 5GB limit.

The expected part of this service was the ability to have all your purchased music in iTunes available across all your devices and computers for no additional cost, new music purchases are pushed to all devices at the same time. "It shows the history of all the songs you've bought on any device. I can download any song to any device by pushing that little cloud button," said Jobs.
But what if you ripped your music from CD’s or downloaded them from a torrent? The iTunes match service will search through your music library and replace songs with a 256 kbps AAC DRM-free version if it can match the song to one of the 18 millon songs available on iTunes store. If not then no harm. This service will cost $24.99 and a free beta version is available now.

The unexpected element from today’s announcement was the ability to not only put your music in the cloud but any content you want to share among your devices.

“"iCloud Storage seamlessly stores all documents created using iCloud Storage APIs, and automatically pushes them to all your devices. When you change a document on any device, iCloud automatically pushes the changes to all your devices. Apple's Pages, Numbers and Keynote apps already take advantage of iCloud Storage. Users get up to 5GB of free storage for their mail, documents and backup—which is more amazing since the storage for music, apps and books purchased from Apple, and the storage required by Photo Stream doesn't count towards this 5GB total.”

The photo specific version of this known as ‘Photo Stream’ automatically uploads photos to the cloud and pushed them to all your devices and computers.

In the fall when iCloud ships there will be a pricing structure released for users that wish to purchase additional space in the cloud

One final service in the iCloud workd was the backup service allowing you to securely backup you iOS devices to the cloud over Wi-Fi when you recharge your device.

"We've added wireless backup to the cloud. Once daily, we're gonna back up a lot of your important content to the cloud. If you ever get a new phone, everything will be loaded onto that phone automatically," said Jobs

EA Releases Battlefield 3 Details For E3

While EA has been busy tweaking Battlefield 3 for its upcoming release they decided to show off a bit at E3. The announced on their blog “we will be showing both single player and multilayer game play at E3! You can expect new trailers and screen shots as well as in-depth press previews hitting next wee” There will be a playable map for press available at the show named “Operation Métro,” Some of the features of BF3 are to “temporarily disable vehicles, go prone, mount weapons, lay down suppressive fire and more.”

They aren’t laying it all out at the show though, they are saving the co-op campaign, Team Death Match, and the Battlefield web destination, featuring “powerful social tools, feeds and detailed player stats. Battlelog also lets you manage your friends lists, squad up, create platoons, use voice chat and follow your friends’ progress in real-time, and more 

All at zero dollars / month (take that MW3), thank you EA / Dice!!!

The Blog post from EA can be found HERE

Fukushima radiation causes rabbit deformity

It didn't take long...we are now seeing the negative effects of nuclear radiation on life just outside of the radiation exclusion zone. The victim is a helpless rabbit that has unfortunately mutated and developped without a set of bunny ears. Many are now wondering if the exclusion zone radius, currently set at 20km (12 miles) is sufficient...obviously it is not!

Halo 4 Announcement Leaked

Microsoft has stolen some of the attention this morning from the expected Wii 2 announcement with news of Halo 4 being in development. From what was gathered we can also expect a demo of the new game later this week! The leak was courtesy of Xbox.com and while speculated on for some time this news will certainly generate some excitement among the Millions of Halo faithful

See below a leaked screen shot of the site before it was removed:

Transplanted HIV Immunity Results In A Cure Of Sorts For One Man

Timothy Ray Brown pegged the has been essentially cured of the HIV disease, and if that were not remarkable enough it was by accident. Suffering from both Leukemia and HIV Brown received a bone marrow stem cell transplant in 2007. The transplant came from a man who was already immune to the disease which approximately 1% of Caucasians are. Remarkably once receiving the transplant the doctors monitoring Brown noticed his HIV went away.  "He has no replicating virus and he isn't taking any medication. And he will now probably never have any problems with HIV," says his doctor Gero Heutter told Reuters.

The HIV epidemic which has killed an estimated 30 Million people in the 30 years since it was discovered and continues to spread at a rate of 7000 people a day (according to the UN).  This disease destroys countless lives and we rarely hear any good news.

Despite the good news expectations should be tempered. Bone marrow transplants can be fatal and there is no way that this treatment could be applied to the estimated 33 million carriers of HIV today. 

CBS has an interview video with Timothy Ray Brown  HERE

Microsoft To Launch Xbox Diamond TV Service At E3

The rumor mill is in full swing now with the E3 expo hours away from start. The most recent buzz involves Microsoft releasing an IPTV service called Xbox Live Diamond later today. This new service would turn Microsoft into a cable alternative for anyone who owns an Xbox and an Internet connection. The service may also work with cable companies as a device to authenticate existing cable subscribers when watching TV shows or sporting events similar to a service Microsoft offers in the UK with it’s partner Sky. Over there users can use their Xbox avatars at sporting events to interact with other fans.
The service is expected to launch as an additional fee on top of the existing Xbox Live Gold’s $59.99 Subscription probably in the form of a monthly subscription.

Stay tuned throughout the day as there are bound to be many announcements.

Canadian Scientists Capture Antimatter For An Extended Time

The stuff of science fiction is one step closer after the paper released Sunday evening in the journal of Nature Physics. Lead author Makato Fujiwara claims to have successfully stored antimatter atoms for more than 16 minutes. This is a monumental feat as previously this rare substance has only been able to be captured and studied for only fractions of a second “It’s a kind of game-changer,” said Fujiwara.

The reason this substance is so rare is that once Antimatter comes into contact with matter they annihilate each other, releasing a large amount of energy.  So here’s the rub, how do you capture something that annihilates itself and whatever you would design to hold it? They created a cylindrical container, created a vacuum and used magnets to keep the antimatter from touching the walls thus suspending it. 

 This discovery now opens up the door to new studies on the elusive substance such as whether gravity attracts or repels antimatter, or in laymen’s terms does it fall up or down? While we are still light years away from using antimatter as a fuel source, we are one step closer to making it a reality.