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Archive for July, 2008

Comic Extravaganza

Posted by Kai on July 30th, 2008

Comical superheroes are dominating the box offices among cinemas, as well as shattering the limits of grossing. Marvel and DC Comics' superheroes seem to be pressing on, developing plenty of superhero movies like Spiderman, Batman, X-men and Superman, ready to haunt the movie world by darting straight for the No. 1 film in the US box office.

It is obvious, Marvel and DC are in a huge battle to make use of their classic superhero characters to make money now. It's been proven: Spiderman broke the charts, The Hulk did the same, so was Iron Man. And the latest release was The Dark Knight - broke the record for highest grossing ever.

Marvel's wide variety of comical heroes, ranging from Spiderman to the Hulk, X-Men to Iron Man, seems to give them the edge over DC Comics. DC however appears to be less engrossed in movie-making. What're they up to...?

The reason why these movies are making their mark on the filming industry is simply because of the popularity it has gone through during the classic comic age in the late 80s and the early 90s. The classic fans have gone fanatical now, and so has the new generation after the introduction of these films.

It's been more in-your-face than usual. They're no longer childhood sketches on comic books, no longer cartoons you'd love to see on TV.

They're coming to life.

Miracle for the Blind

Posted by Kai on July 16th, 2008

Ever wondered if you were blind? How would it feel? The world has totally no visual effects as well as colour to spark your life. Although eye transplants have already existed in technology, you will definitely not expect what will come next.
A Bionic Eye will be expected to be invented by 2020. Researchers in The University of New South Wales, Sydney are working on creating the first bionic eye as a cure to replace the unfortunate blind people for a chance to see the world through bio-mechanical eyes.
This team of ambitious researchers are determined to combine their in-depth knowledge of engineering, medicine and biology to create the first bionic eye. Already ten years in the making behind the labs and closed doors, they have manufactured a neuro-stimulation chip to be placed within the tiny bionic eye. Its structure is so complex it took 3 PhD students to work on for six months. And that little chip is the magic of it, place on the retina of a fractured eye, the brain will interpret the stimulations as images.
Such an amazing ambition, followed by tonnes of hard work and research can bring this new innovation to life, to reality! Hail the power of science!
Give this team a salute and hope they make it till the end!

Game Review: Crysis

Posted by Kai on July 11th, 2008

Alright, this might not be the correct spelling of crisis. But crisis has indeed struck the gaming world as this First Person Shooter game dominated the charts for game of the year 2007.

Crysis introduced itself in the market with a bang, simply because it is the most visually impressive game at the moment. Hailed by Gamespot to be one of the greatest shooters of all time, Crysis' rating is given 9.5 out of 10.

The hardware requirements is pretty demanding though, so make sure you have at least a multi-core processor, more than 1GB of memory and also graphics card that's able to support DirectX 10. Your rig should be able to run this game smoothly at low visual quality.

The game feels very much similar to Halo. This game is however, more difficult than Halo, more depth than Halo, more features than Halo and easier to die than Halo. You play as a US special forces unit, codenamed Nomad, set in the near future. You begin by fighting North Koreans and end up fighting Aliens.

Crysis seems to take a more strategic approach to combat. I began the game by rushing up at Koreans and gunning them down in an instant. At the same time they took out plenty of my health. But during the course of the game I realised I couldn't do that. By doing the same thing later in the game is suicide, as the difficulty just goes up and up. The Koreans are pretty intelligent too, with vast AI improvements.

Needless to say, this game is very well constructed and presented. I recommend it to all gamers and shooter fans. If only you have a PC powerful enough to support it! =P

9.6 out of 10

Mobile Wars

Posted by Kai on July 3rd, 2008

Mobile phones proved to be one of the greatest innovations the world has ever seen. We could contact someone thousands of miles away with a device that weighs only a few grams. Even cameras, games, internet and the popular SMS are crammed into the small device, all with the inevitable help of the satellite.

Classic favourites Nokia seem to be very consistent in the market. Nokia does not possess phones with cool and funky designs but compensates that with performance. Feature-packed and filled with quality, Nokia phones are worth the money.
The joint venture between Sony and Ericsson was much expected to achieve great heights. And so it is proved. Sony Ericsson appears to be the most user-friendly phone you'll ever see. The designs are by far better than Nokia yet the performance and user-friendliness is not affected. The most all-rounded phone of all.
Motorola is undoubtedly the coolest among all phones. Their chic, sleek and funky designs bring them to comparisons with big guns Nokia and Sony Ericsson. So far Motorola has not yet made good reputation with a less-than-average graphical user interface, and disappointing user-friendliness.
Samsung concentrates not on superb design and power performance, but on sophisticated professionality. The phone is designed for professionals because of the sophisticated GUI, physical design and features. Samsung is not compatible with games. The drawback of this phone is that it gets on your nerve. You'll find out if you get this phones.
Last but not least, the Apple iPhone. Somewhat the most anticipated mobile phone ever, Apple has created one very spectacular phone in looks, features and performance. The iPhone features a full-touch LCD screen, and, haven't you noticed? There's only one button for you to press, and that's the "home" button. Ironic, isn't it?

Religion: A Gift or A Curse?

Posted by Kai on July 2nd, 2008

Ever since mankind wondered how was the world created, how did they appear on Earth, and how were rain and lightning formed, religion was born. It was the only answer to all the mysteries - that an all-powerful being God had "made" them. 

Religion is a spiritually healthy practice. Almost all religions have prophets who have undergone mystic experiences, and spread the belief of the presence of God, therefore writing down prayers and rituals within a prophecy/message of God, i.e. Bible, al-Quran...
One ironic thing is, although religion teach all of us good moral values, we have to accept the reality - humans never stop fighting. Since the beginning of time and the invention of the first knife, humans of all corners of the world could never tolerate each other. Especially between religions.
The crusades between the early Christianity and Islam marked the beginning of the curse of religions. World war II began due to Adolf Hitler's hatred of Jews. The Gulf War began as a repeat of the crusade wars. It is very very obvious, that humans can never stop fighting, and the very presence of various religions has added salt to the wound.
True, religion is good. But all of them must teach their followers to accept the truth. That God had created humans with a heart and a mind, with that, there exists love and hatred. Love bonds us together but hatred results in fights. Therefore, humans never stop fighting.

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