Very Patriotic trailer for Assassin's Creed III

I hope everyone had a great 4th of July!

Week 3 of the Windows Phone challenge.

Well here we are three weeks into my challenge and with only a week left I have to say that I am missing my iPhone just a little bit.  Yes the app ecosystem and the maturity of iOS has me wanting it back, but there are still things I like about this Nokia Lumia 900.

First off let me say this is still a great phone with a lot of promise.  Sadly though this phone will not get to be upgraded with Windows Phone 8 so it's lifespan just got cut short by a whole lot.  Let me be clear, I totally understand why Microsoft is doing this, and I agree that it is necessary for the Windows phones to mature and seal their future.

The thing that I don't think I can part with on the Nokia Lumia is the Bluetooth text to speak.  When you have it hooked up to your cars Bluetooth (or a headset) the phone will announce you have a text message and who it is from.  You can then tell it to read it, reply to the text message by speaking and then you can send it all without having to look or touch the phone.  I am using this thing so much I absolutely love this feature.  I honestly do not think I can do without it now that I have been using it as much as I have been.

The other thing I love about the phone still is it's people app, that integrates your address book along with your news feeds for twitter, and Facebook.  I love not having to open a bunch of different apps to quickly glance in with these social feeds.  You can also create groups within the app to organize your info and information to send them.

So what makes me want the iPhone again.  The notifications.  I can say that I love the tiles and the updated info that they give me without having to just see little red 1's or 2's on the corner of the app.  It actually shows me the info that is on that app in the tile.  Problem with this right now is that if the app isn't on your home screen then you don't see any of those notifications.  Yes you will see them as the come in with a top down toast notification but after that nothing.  In iOS and android you can simply pull down from the top and it will show you all the apps that have sent you notifications.  I am kind of missing that.  Now I know with 7.8 update we will be able to make as many small, medium, or large icons on the start menu but I really don't want all those apps on my home-screen.  I like the clean feeling that it is now, not cluttered with information overload like an Android home-screen covered in widgets.

My next complaint on the phone is the freezing.  To be the first "non beta" phone, according to the Nokia commercials it sure does freeze a lot and I think this is just because of the maturity of the operating systems.  Windows Phone is behind several generations and has a lot to catch up on.  Now this phone isn't freezing every day or a lot but other than when my iPhone broke I couldn't tell you the last time that it froze on me.

So what is the final verdict?  Well, for now I will be keeping the Windows Phone, and I can tell you that the two main reasons for this are:  The text to speech for texting feature, and the fact that the iPhone 5 will be coming out in about two to three months.  So, I will update you guys again when that time comes around because also the first Windows 8 phones will be coming out by then as well.

Halo 4: Forward Unto Dawn trailer

Just to get you all hyped up for Halo 4 here is another small teaser trailer for Halo 4 brought to you by Machinima

You will be able to upgrade to Windows 8, on the cheap!

Microsoft yesterday, announced the pricing plans for current windows XP and Windows 7 pro users upgrades.  The pricing will be available online for $39.99 and in stores for $69.99.  This is much cheaper than previous upgrades in the past which were usually well over $100.  This new pricing is in edition to the current offering for anyone who buys a computer from now until Jan 31st 2013 will get the Windows 8 upgrade for only $14.99.

With this pricing Microsoft is being very aggressive with their attempt to bring as many PC's to the Windows 8 platform as possible.

This weeks Flog.

Here is Felicia's holiday inspired FLOG for the week.  Enjoy!

Goodbye Flash for Mobile

If he could I am sure Steve Jobs would say I told you so from the grave.  This past weekend Adobe officially announced it will no longer develop flash for any mobile device.  It will be pulling the app from the Google Play store in the coming weeks never to be seen from again.  If you currently have flash installed on your android phone it will still work, but you will no longer be able to download it again after it is removed.

The ironic part of the announcement is that they gave us this info on the 5th anniversary of the iPhone, the phone in which Steve Jobs said, no to flash, and that flash is not the way of the future for the web on mobile.  Which I am sure partly is due to the fact of the popularity of the iOS devices out there and the fact that they do not support flash.  Most websites have went to the option of HTML5 for their mobile videos and animation content to insure their websites show up properly on the iOS devices.

What does this mean for flash for your computer?  Nothing as of now.  Most websites viewed on your actual computer are flash heavy and will probably remain that way at least for a while longer.  Maybe Adobe has a new format up their sleeve that will replace the flash player, one that I can only hope is much more efficient than flash.

Review of The Amazing Spiderman.

Here is a really good review of The Amazing Spider Man game.  Check out the video below.