Xbox 720, Coming in 2011

For you fans of video games, especially the Xbox console, Microsoft has released a statement that the newest console they're developing, The Xbox 720, will be available in the year 2011-2012. Here's the statement, taken from http://www.videogamesblogger.com/2007/03/13/next-xbox-720-to-launch-in-2011-2012-according-to-microsoft.htm

In an interview with the head of Microsoft’s Interactive Entertainment Business division, Peter Moore, EGM magazine asked him when their next video game console would come out, and also asked if they’d drop support for the Xbox 360 like they did with the original Xbox. He said that they were going to support it “as long as it sold.” Possibly because they saw the Xbox sell well into 2007 despite not producing the console after October 2005.

He said the production team from the Xbox 360 is working on the next Xbox 720 [our pet name], and their looking into what kind of CPUs will be available on the market in 2011-2012. That would put the Xbox 360 at a lifespan of 6 or 7 years, a far cry from the Xbox’s 4 years. After spending $1.26 billion in losses launching the Xbox 360, they’ll want to get the most out of the system by lengthening its lifespan. As the longer you get into the cycle, the more profit you can make due to stopping being a loss leader, analysts always remark.

On June 13th, 2008, Robbie Bach — the President of Entertainment & Devices Division at Microsoft — mentioned the next Xbox by saying: “Our view is we will be selling Xbox 360 for a long time. We are always working on new technologies. We have people working on those. People ask me how many people I have working on the next generation. On the one hand, it’s everybody. On the other, it’s nobody. People are continuously working on new technology.

We started thinking about the next generation before we shipped the Xbox 360. It doesn’t start with a date. It starts way upstream with silicon development. From that comes a series of data points. You start making early technology choices. It’s an evolving thing. Stuff doesn’t become concrete until you get inside a window of when you have to ship, more than 18 months or so out.”

50 Facts about Barack Obama

As we all know, Barack Obama had just been elected as the 44th President of the United States. Throughout his campaign, we've learned many things about his history in politics as well as a fellow citizen. But there might be some facts where they might not have been revealed during that period, because of certain reasons. Here are some interesting facts about the President himself, that you might not know of before :

• He collects Spider-Man and Conan the Barbarian comics
• He was known as "O'Bomber" at high school for his skill at basketball
• His name means "one who is blessed" in Swahili
• His favourite meal is wife Michelle's shrimp linguini
• He won a Grammy in 2006 for the audio version of his memoir, Dreams From My Father
• He is left-handed – the sixth post-war president to be left-handed
• He has read every Harry Potter book
• He owns a set of red boxing gloves autographed by Muhammad Ali
• He worked in a Baskin-Robbins ice cream shop as a teenager and now can't stand ice cream
• His favourite snacks are chocolate-peanut protein bars
• He ate dog meat, snake meat, and roasted grasshopper while living in Indonesia
• He can speak Spanish
• While on the campaign trail he refused to watch CNN and had sports channels on instead
• His favourite drink is black forest berry iced tea
• He promised Michelle he would quit smoking before running for president – he didn't
• He kept a pet ape called Tata while in Indonesia
• He can bench press an impressive 200lbs
• He was known as Barry until university when he asked to be addressed by his full name
• His favourite book is Moby-Dick by Herman Melville
• He visited Wokingham, Berks, in 1996 for the stag party of his half-sister's fiancé, but left when a stripper arrived
• His desk in his Senate office once belonged to Robert Kennedy
• He and Michelle made $4.2 million (£2.7 million) last year, with much coming from sales of his books
• His favourite films are Casablanca and One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest
• He carries a tiny Madonna and child statue and a bracelet belonging to a soldier in Iraq for good luck
• He applied to appear in a black pin-up calendar while at Harvard but was rejected by the all-female committee.
• His favourite music includes Miles Davis, Bob Dylan, Bach and The Fugees
• He took Michelle to see the Spike Lee film Do The Right Thing on their first date
• He enjoys playing Scrabble and poker
• He doesn't drink coffee and rarely drinks alcohol
• He would have liked to have been an architect if he were not a politician
• As a teenager he took drugs including marijuana and cocaine
• His daughters' ambitions are to go to Yale before becoming an actress (Malia, 10) and to sing and dance (Sasha, 7)
• He hates the youth trend for trousers which sag beneath the backside
• He repaid his student loan only four years ago after signing his book deal
• His house in Chicago has four fire places
• Daughter Malia's godmother is Jesse Jackson's daughter Santita
• He says his worst habit is constantly checking his BlackBerry
• He uses an Apple Mac laptop
• He drives a Ford Escape Hybrid, having ditched his gas-guzzling Chrysler 300
• He wears $1,500 (£952) Hart Schaffner Marx suits
• He owns four identical pairs of black size 11 shoes
• He has his hair cut once a week by his Chicago barber, Zariff, who charges $21 (£13)
• His favourite fictional television programmes are Mash and The Wire
• He was given the code name "Renegade" by his Secret Service handlers
• He was nicknamed "Bar" by his late grandmother
• He plans to install a basketball court in the White House grounds
• His favourite artist is Pablo Picasso
• His speciality as a cook is chilli
• He has said many of his friends in Indonesia were "street urchins"
• He keeps on his desk a carving of a wooden hand holding an egg, a Kenyan symbol of the fragility of life
• His late father was a senior economist for the Kenyan government
Taken from http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/northamerica/usa/barackobama/3401168/Barack-Obama-The-50-facts-you-might-not-know.html

Lord of the Rings Humor

Are you a fan of the author J.R.R Tolkien? Not familiar with the name? Then maybe you'll be much familiar with Lord of the Rings (LOTR), a novel made into a movie, written by the great author. There's no doubt that both the novel and the trilogy has made an exceptional success in the world of fiction novels and box office movies. But this time, I'm not gonna talk about the achievements of the novel/movie. I wanna show the hilirious side of the movie, where the characters doesn't seem nothing at all like in the movie. Here are some humorous LOTR images :

Search Free Files With Files Tube

If you want to search any file to be downloaded for free, you might get confused with Google's search results. But now, there is a search engine that specialized in finding files that you can download for free. The website is Files Tube.

From the appearance, Files Tube looks similar with Google. For every search, Files Tube will search in two most popular file sharing websites, Megaupload and Rapidshare. Not only that, Files Tube will also search for FTP links.

You can find any type of file that you want. Just name it, documents, music, videos, archieves, anything. Moreover, Files Tube provides you advanced search, just like the one in Google, so you can make your search more efficient.

Get your free downloads now.

The Beauty of Math

Math is beautiful. Although it can be pretty frustrating at times, especially when you're not used to numbers. I myself enjoy math very much. In fact, it's one of my favorite subjects back in High School then. Although now my math skills aren't as sharp as it used to be then. I'm gonna show you the beauty of math in this post, at least in my point of view. Others might think it's no beauty at all. Okay, let's take a look,shall we?

1 x 8 + 1 = 9
12 x 8 + 2 = 98
123 x 8 + 3 = 987
1234 x 8 + 4 = 9876
12345 x 8 + 5 = 98765
123456 x 8 + 6 = 987654
1234567 x 8 + 7 = 9876543
12345678 x 8 + 8 = 98765432
123456789 x 8 + 9 = 987654321

0 x 9 + 1 = 1
1 x 9 + 2 = 11
12 x 9 + 3 = 111
123 x 9 + 4 = 1111
1234 x 9 + 5 = 11111
12345 x 9 + 6 = 111111
123456 x 9 + 7 = 1111111
1234567 x 9 + 8 = 11111111
12345678 x 9 + 9 = 111111111
123456789 x 9 +10= 1111111111

9 x 9 + 7 = 88
98 x 9 + 6 = 888
987 x 9 + 5 = 8888
9876 x 9 + 4 = 88888
98765 x 9 + 3 = 888888
987654 x 9 + 2 = 8888888
9876543 x 9 + 1 = 88888888
98765432 x 9 + 0 = 888888888

Brilliant, isn't it?

And look at this symmetry:

1 x 1 = 1
11 x 11 = 121
111 x 111 = 12321
1111 x 1111 = 1234321
11111 x 11111 = 123454321
111111 x 111111 = 12345654321
1111111 x 1111111 = 1234567654321
11111111 x 11111111 = 123456787654321
111111111 x 111111111=123456789 87654321

Now, take a look at this...

101%

From a strictly mathematical viewpoint:

What Equals 100%?
What does it mean to give MORE than 100%?

Ever wonder about those people who say they are giving more than 100%?

We have all been in situations where someone wants you to
GIVE OVER 100%.

How about ACHIEVING 101%?

What equals 100% in life?

Here's a little mathematical formula that might help answer these
questions:

If:

A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z

Is represented as:

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26.

If:

H-A-R-D-W-O- R- K
8+1+18+4+23+ 15+18+11 = 98%

And:

K-N-O-W-L-E- D-G-E
11+14+15+23+ 12+5+4+7+ 5 = 96%

But:

A-T-T-I-T-U- D-E
1+20+20+9+20+ 21+4+5 = 100%

THEN, look how far the love of God will take you:

L-O-V-E-O-F- G-O-D
12+15+22+5+15+ 6+7+15+4 = 101%

Therefore, one can conclude with mathematical certainty that:

While Hard Work and Knowledge will get you close, and Attitude will
let you there, It's the Love of God that will put you over the top!

Most Tatooed Person

Are you a fan of Blink 182 in the past? If you are, you might notice the personels of the band has a bunch of tatooes all over their body. Maybe almost all Rock artists in the West are similar, because it's a way to show their manliness. But have you ever seen someone tatooed ALL OVER HIS BODY?Yes that's right, from head to toe, his body is covered in tatoo. His name is Lucky Diamond Rich, he holds the world record for the man with the most tatooes in his body. Born in New Zealand, he has spent over 1,000 hours having his body modified by hundreds of tattoo artists. He began by having a full collection of colourful designs from around the world tattooed over his entire body. But not content with stopping there, Lucky next opted for a 100% covering of black ink, including eyelids, the delicate skin between the toes, down into the ears, and even his gums. He is now being tattooed with white designs on top of the black, and coloured designs on top of the white!

Imagine Cup 2009

Yesterday my campus (Universitas Gadjah Mada, Indonesia) was visited by a representative from Microsoft Indonesia, and 2 MSPs (Microsoft Student Partner) from UGM. What's the occasion of their coming to my campus? Other than to introduce MSDNAA (Microsoft Developer Network Academic Alliance), it's to publicize a competition which had been conducted by Microsoft for several years. Imagine Cup 2009 is the name of that competition. The world's premier student technology competition, is how Microsoft would describe this event.

What is Imagine Cup?The Imagine Cup is a global student technology competition focused on finding solutions to real-world issues. The competition encourages the world's most talented software designers, programmers, game developers, photographers and filmmakers to tackle the toughest problems facing the world today. Imagine Cup has several categories that can be joined. The categories are :

1. Software Design
2. 
   
   Embedded Development
3. 
   
   Game Development
4. 
   
   Robotics and Algorithm
5. 
   
   IT Challenge
6. 
   
   MashUp
7. 
   
   Photography
8. 
   
   Short Film
9. 
   
   Design

( For more information, please click on the category you choose ).

For Software Design and Embedded Development category, there is a regional competition before stepping up to the finals. So participants for these categories will have to compete with participants in their region first, before finally electing one team for each category in the finals. The finals this year will be held in Egypt and every participants will be competing for a prize of $10,000 and an Internship opportunity at Microsoft's Research Technology for Emerging Markets Group in Bangalore, India as first place in each category.
Are you ready to step up to the challenge? Register your team now!!

10 Healthy Eating Tips for the College Students

The average college student is often pressed for time, under a lot of stress and eating on the go. You may find it difficult to avoid bad habits like skipping meals or frequenting fast food restaurants. But eating a healthy diet can help you feel better, deal with stress and perform better in the class-room and on the athletic field. It really isn't that hard to get started. First of all, here are some healthy eating tips for college students anywhere :

1. Eat a good breakfast. Studies show that skipping breakfast detracts from scholastic achievement
2. If you must eat fast foods, choose wisely. Choose pizza with half the cheese, a regular size roast beef sandwich, baked potato, or green salad with reduced calorie dressing. Limit high fat offering like french fries, fried chicken or fish sandwiches and watch out for salad dressing.
3. Keep healthful snacks on hand so if hunger strikes during a late night study session, you won't be tempted to buy junk food. If you have a refrigerator, consider raw vegetables with low-fat yogurt
4. Eat plenty of foods that are rich in calcium. People in their early twenties need to be build up stores of calcium in their bodies to prevent osteoporosis in later life. If you don't like milk, try to include ample amounts of low-fat yogurt, low-fat cheese, and green leafy vegetables in your diet.
5. If you need to lose weight, do it sensibly. Starvation and/or diets that offer a quick fix usually backfire and are harmful. There is not truth to the theories that suggest eating foods in any particular combination will promote weight loss. The only safe way to lose weight, feel good while doing it, and keep it off is to eat a balanced diet.
6. Sugar provides calories in your diet but few other nutrients and it contributes significantly to tooth decay. Use it sparingly and consider sweetening coffee, tea, cereal and fruit with diet sweeteners instead.
7. The dining hall salad bar can be either an asset or a detriment to you diet depending on how you choose from it. Of course, leafy greens, raw vegetable and fresh fruit are beneficial. But if you choose lot of creamy dressing, bacon bit, and mayonnaise based salads, the calories and fat may equal or even exceed those of a burger and fries.
8. If you drink alcohol, keep in mind that it supplies calories but no nutritional value. A light beer, a glass of wine, or an ounce of liquor each has about 100 calories. There are also many health problems associated with drinking alcohol.
9. Drink lots of water. Your body needs at least eight glasses a day, and if you exercise vigorously, you may need more. To remind yourself, carry a water bottle along to class and keep it handy during late night study sessions.
10. Remember, food is a lot more than nourishment for our bodies. Enjoy and savor it.
    
    (source : http://healthed.uoregon.edu/10tips.htm )
    

10 Romantic Ideas for your Partner

There are many things you could do to please your partner. For women, they often like their partner to be romantic. For males out there, here's a few ways to get romantic with your couple. It won't guarantee they will like it, cause it depends on each person's taste for romantic, but it's worth a try.

1. If your partner is going away for a few days, tell her that you are worried about her, so you have organixed a bodyguard to look after her. Then give her a small teddy bear and say that'll be her bodyguard.
2. On a special occasion, buy your partner ten red roses and one artificial red rose. Place the artificial rose in the center of the bouquet and then attach a card that says, "I will love you until the last rose fades."
3. Buy the domain name of your partner's name if it is available, for instance www.sarahpalin.com, and then creat aweb page containing a romantic poem and a picture of a rose. When your partner is surfing the web, casually ask whether she has ever checked to see if her name is already taken as a domain name. Let her type it in to discover her page. When she sees the page, she'll be very surprised.
4. Go for a walk in the beach. Trace out the shape of a large love heart in the sand, and then sit inside the heart and cuddle your partner as you both watch the sun go down.
5. contact your partner's family and ask if there was anything she always wanted or anything memoriable when she was a little girl. Try to find it and then buy it for her birthday or other occasions. She will not only appreciate the gift but also the fact that you were thoughtful enough to find out what she always wanted
6. If your partner is going on a trip, pack a small present or a note into the corner of her suitcase that she will find when she is away
7. On a special occasion, such as her birthday, buy 24 red roses. Arrange to meet her at a specific spot in a shopping mall before going out for dinner. Get to the shopping mall early and position yourself around the corner from your meeting spot.
   Ask a guy who is walking by whether he would mind helping you out. Give him a rose, point out to your partner and ask him to walk up to her and say "Happy Birthday ....." , give her the rose and then walk away. Do this with eleven other guys, if possible choose guys of different ages. After that you walk to her and give the remaining 12 roses while saying "Happy Birthday Honey".
8. On a rainy day, go for a walk with your partner. Forget umbrellas and raincoats. Run through the streets together,jump in puddles and get totally saturated.Pick her up, twirl her around and kiss her while the rain falls. It should be a sensation of its own.
9. Order her a pizza and ask to have cut it into a heart shape before it is delivered to her.
10. This one is great for long distance relationships. It takes a bit of organization but if you can pull it off, it's sure to be a surprise that your partner will never forget.Organize to catch up to her over the internet using something like chat room or instant messenger program. Then arrange a secret trip to meet her withoup telling her that you're coming.
    When it comes time for your chat over the internet, arrange a close friend back home to log in using your account while you position yourself outside her door. Call your friend and tell him to type the following sentence, " I really miss you honey, I wish I could be there and just reach out and knock your door." As soon as he has sent the message, knock on the door! This will surely give a surprise to her.