Got the Blu-ray blues?

You can turn your PC into a high-definition system with a Blu-ray optical drive like the Asus BC-1205PT.
BLU-RAY DRIVE: The Asus BC-1205PT Blu-ray reads but does not burn Blu-ray discs.
WHILE HDTVs seem to be the only kind of TVs selling in electronic shops these days, consumer Blu-ray players seem to be a little less readily available in the market. Those that are available are also either too expensive or have very long wait times to launch after you pop in a disc.

So how do you go Blu if you want to?
One possibility is if you already own relatively modern PC, you can go out and buy a Blu-ray optical drive, which get you into the world of high-definition pretty quick.
While there aren’t that many out in the market right now, you can actually find a Blu-ray drive if you look hard enough.
Recently, Asus sent us the BC-1205PT, which is a combo drive similar to the original DVD combo drives in the sense that it will read but not burn Blu-ray discs, although it will burn CD-Rs and DVD-Rs.

Installation:
Installation of the Asus BC-1205PT was pretty straightforward — it’s a SATA-only drive, and plugs right into the SATA port of any modern PC with no problems. Windows Vista recognised the drive and automatically installed the proper drivers for it.
Unfortunately, our review unit (which we assume is a full retail version since it came with a box and all contents) did not come with any Blu-ray playback software.
In case you don’t already know, Blu-ray movie playback involves a lot more than installing a drive — you need the graphics card, the monitor as well as the playback software to support the Blu-ray standard’s copy-protection feature (called HDCP or High-bandwidth Digital Content Protection) which needs to be hard-coded into the hardware.
I had no problems with my ATI HD2900XT card and Dell 2407WFP monitor, both of which fully support HDCP. Most new graphics cards support HDCP, but not all monitors do yet, so it’s best to make sure before you buy.

Performance:
Currently CyberLink’s PowerDVD 7 is one of the few applications that support Blu-ray playback, but it’s payware that will set you back more than a hundred ringgit, depending on the version.
Having said that, once you have compliant hardware and software to play BD movies, getting a Blu-ray movie to play on the PC is actually a lot more straightforward than it sounds.
Considering that the BC-1205PT only reads Blu-ray discs and doesn’t burn them I would have thought that at the very least Asus would have included some kind of software to playback Blu-ray movies out of the box.
In any case, playback was pretty much standard after completing the setup — I tried BD copies of The Fifth Element, Blade Runner: The Final Cut and 300 and they all played okay. I found the spin-up times from initial click to actually starting the movie to be quite acceptable.

GOING BLU: The clue as to the true nature of this drive is the little Blu-ray logo on the front of the Asus BC-1205PT drive.
The only problem I had was some skipping on Blade Runner: The Final Cut but I think this was due to the disc more than anything since I had the same issues with the same disc played on another BD drive I tested.
Blu-ray aside, the BC-1205PT is not a particularly fast burner for the other formats — DVD-R burns at a maximum of only 12x and only 6x for DVD-RW, which is short of the up to 20x and 8x speeds of modern drives.

Conclusion:
In terms of performance, the Asus BC-1205PT works just fine, reading most of my Blu-ray discs with no problems.
The only problem with this drive is the price — at RM2,000, it’s a little steep for a Blu-ray drive, considering that Sony makes a read-only Blu-ray drive for RM750 or so, while LG’s Blu-ray drive which burns Blu-ray discs at 6x lists for only RM1,299.
The other problem of course, is that this Asus is not available here yet — hopefully by the time it does come in, Asus will price it at a more reasonable level.
Pros: Turns your PC into a Blu-ray player.
Cons: Pricey; relatively slow burning speeds for DVD-R and CD-R.
BC-1205PT
(Asus)
Internal BD reader/DVD-R/CD-R combo drive
Read Speed: 5x BD-ROM/R/RE, 12x DVD-ROM, 8x DVD-ROM (dual-layer), 5x DVD-RAM, 32x CD-ROM
Write speed: 12x DVD-R, 6x DVD-RW, 24x CD-R, 24x CD-RW, 5x DVD-RAM
Software bundle: None
Other features: Burn Proof, 4MB data buffer
Dimensions (w x h x d): 14.8 x 18.5 x 4.23cm
Weight: 980g
Price: RM2,000
Website: my.asus.com

CUT !!! ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Here we go again setting sail on the quest of 'journey to the centre of the technology' where we learnt how to make and edit videos as well as designing storyboard. With loads of ideas that were given by the lecturer of what we can have in the video such as

- storytelling

- drama

- narration

-songs

- instruction

-animation

-illustration

-game show

-demonstration

-puppet

-comedy

-TV ads,

we really have sufficient ideas of what we can work on regarding this assignment. By the kindness of the lecturers and tutors, we were also given a link to a site on the tutorials of movie-making. Initially, I thought video-recording ourselves as the 'actor' is the only way to complete this task until we were informed that we could use Windows Movie Maker to make slideshows together with songs, special effects and attractive fonts to make it a 3-minute clip.

After downloading tons of images from the Internet into my pendrive (since I'm still waiting impatiently for our Internet access to be fixed), I have to start cracking my head on how the storyboard should go to carry out an effective video lesson that is suitable for young language learners. 14 days to date of submission and time is running out, good luck all !

Intel® Atom™ Processor

"This is our smallest processor built with the world's smallest transistors. The Intel® Atom™ processor is based on an entirely new design, built for low power and designed specifically for a new wave of Mobile Internet Devices and simple, low-cost PC's. This small wonder is a fundamental new shift in design, small yet powerful enough to enable a big Internet experience on these new devices. We believe it will unleash new innovation across the industry."
– Intel Executive Vice President Sean Maloney

As Intel's smallest and lowest power processor², the Intel® Atom™ processor enables the latest Mobile Internet Devices (MIDs), and another new category of devices for the internet called netbooks and nettops. It's also the foundation for the all new Intel® Centrino® Atom™ processor technology, a collection of chips enabling amazing Internet experiences in pocketable devices.

Newly designed from the ground up, 45nm Intel® Atom™ processors pack an astounding 47 million transistors on a single chip measuring less than 22mm², making them Intel's smallest and lowest power processors.¹ All this while delivering the power and performance you need for full Internet capabilities.

Get a new range of power-efficient devices with excellent performance enabled by all new hafnium-infused 45nm high-k silicon technology.

Increase energy efficiency in smaller more compact designs with a thermal design power specification ranging from less than 1W to 2.5 watts for mobile devices.

Extend battery life in select devices with an incredibly low idle and average power allowing the device to stay powered on while also conserving energy.

Based on an entirely new microarchitecture, the Intel® Atom™ processor was developed specifically for targeted performance and low power while maintaining full Intel® Core™ microarchitecture instruction set compatibility. Intel® Atom™ processors also feature multiple threads for better performance and increased system responsiveness.

Thanks to technology, education is never the same again.

1. How technology is going to affect how your students are going to be learning?
2. How you as a teacher will be learning?

Educational technology, especially computers and computer-related peripherals, have grown tremendously and have permeated all areas of our lives. It is incomprehensible that anyone today would argue that banks, hospitals, or any industry should use less technology. For young people, use of the Internet, for example, plays a major role in their relationships with their friends, their families, and their schools. Teens and their parents generally think use of the Internet enhances the social life and academic work of teenagers.

The Internet is becoming an increasingly vital tool in our information society. More people are going online to conduct such day-to-day activities as education, business transactions, personal correspondence, research and information-gathering, and job searches. Each year, being digitally connected becomes ever more critical to economic and educational advancement and community participation. Now that a large number of people regularly use the Internet to conduct daily activities, people who lack access to these tools are at a growing disadvantage. Therefore, raising the level of digital inclusion by increasing the number of people using the technology tools of the digital age is a vitally important national goal.

With the help of technology, distant learning and assessment are never too hard anymore. Submissions of homeworks and assessments can be done easily over the Internet and for the assessors, they can mark the work online while sitting on a couch at home and sipping a cup of cuppoccino! Indeed, there are negative perspectives for this kind of convenience as people are meeting face to face less and genuine conversations and interactions could not be carried out.

With the help of technology, educators can now produce effective and attractive teaching aids without spending much time and money. For example, with the invention of smartboard, educators can download loads of pictures, clips, softwares and music as an aid to the teaching and learning environment compared to hand-produced teaching aids such as flash cards and display sheet where a lot of time and effort are involved.

With tons of informations and knowledge that are easily available on the Internet, learners and educators who wish to enhance themselves intellectually can enjoy the convenience of learning with lesser time and cost as well. Online dictionaries, encyclopedias and education programmes are there to aid any problems encountered during learning.

In conclusion, technology has definitely brought a revolution to the world of education.