Bose QuietComfort 3 - Head Phones

The good: Bose's QuietComfort 3 headphones are a smaller and more compact follow-up to the QuietComfort 2s. They offer a more compact design, extracomfortable cushy foam earpieces, a rechargeable battery, full sound, and effective noise-canceling circuitry, and they fold up for storage in the included carrying case. Additionally, Bose offers a 30-day home trial.

The bad: The Bose QuietComfort 3s are even more expensive than their predecessors. And when the battery dies, so does the music.

The bottom line: With the QuietComfort 3s, Bose has done a remarkable job of shrinking its popular noise-canceling headphones while achieving similarly impressive sound quality--but that engineering feat doesn't come cheap.


Specifications

Manufacturer:Bose Corp.


General
Recommended Use - The noise canceling feature blocks the din on buses and airplanes. Plus, they are portable for easy transport. Active noise canceling technology makes these circumaural headphones ideal for commuting and air travel.

Product Type - Headphones
Width - 5.3 in
Height - 7.4 in
Weight - 5.6 oz
Additional Features - Noise canceling circuit

Headphones

Headphones Type - Headphones - Binaural
Headphones Form Factor - Ear-cup
Connectivity Technology - Cable
Sound Output Mode - Stereo
Active Noise Canceling - Yes

Miscellaneous

Cables Included - 1
Included Accessories - Battery, Battery charger, Carrying case, Detachable audio cable, Extension cable, 1/4 in Stereo plug adapter, Dual plug adapter

Power

Battery - 1 x Headphone battery - Rechargeable Lithium Ion - Rechargeable

Price $350

Grand Theft Auto 4

The next-generation sequel to the controversial number one selling game. Grand Theft Auto 4 has you playing as Russian immigrant, Niko, trying to escape his shady past in modern-day New York. In a break from the trend of increasingly larger worlds to explore, Rock Star opted for a more densely packed smaller game world than in San Andreas. Major improvements over the previous games come in the form of a more vibrant city, substantially improved combat mechanics, "deeper" personal relationships, fleshed out physics and animation systems, and a comprehensive online component.

Pros & Cons
Pros:

•Emergent physics system and animation with Endorphin
•A city that feels more "alive"
•Storyline or freeform abilities
•In-game cell phone is absolute genius
•New wanted system much better, no need for Pay 'N Spray
•Excellent graphics (every version gets better)
•Seamless multiplayer
•Incredible soundtrack
•Deep hand-to-hand combat system
•Characters in the game have a quality about them that makes you care for what happens
•Over the shoulder aiming works perfect

Cons:

•Limited co-op gametypes
•Awkward camera control
•Lower resolution and blurry image on the PS3 version
•Bad shadow dithering on Xbox 360 version
•Some people with certain models of the PS3 can't get past the initial cutscene
•Linear storyline
•Most buildings and objects can't be used
•Rockstar never talks about a PC release until a year after the consoles.
•Cars can be difficult to control
•Framerate issues


More information

Gameplay

GTA4 fundamentally resolves down to the basic mechanics the first incarnations pioneered - stealing cars, shooting gangsters/cops, and completing missions. The fourth main installment of the franchise refines and improves many of these fundamentals. Most notably is the change to the gun shooting mechanics, where before auto-aim played a very large role and often times frustrated players, GTA4 uses an over-the-shoulder view similar to that in Gears of War. Also similar to Gears of War is the inclusion of a cover system that lets Niko hide behind objects to avoid getting hit. Hand-to-Hand combat has also been refined with a deeper moveset, and more combos available.

Driving has taken on a more realistic feel to match the rest of the game's setting. Cars now have more distinctive weights and features that sometimes make them more difficult to drive than in previous games. Vehicles that can be driven by Niko include cars, trucks, motorcycles, boats and helicopters. Bicycles and airplanes introduced in San Andreas don't make the cut.

Setting

Rockstar is taking the game back to its roots and placing the setting in the fictitious Liberty City. This time around the city is far more realized and offers a more than passing resemblance to New York City. Four of the Five burroughs are found in the game under fictitious names, with the notable exception of Long Island. Rockstar has been quoted as saying the city is smaller than the one in GTA:San Andreas, however its far denser, making the overall amount of places you can travel to be equal. Buildings are more interactive with many containing full interiors.

Multiplayer

Grand Theft Auto 4 is the first time that online multiplayer is available to console players. Rock Star has taken cues from other modern online games and added their own GTA twist. Up to 16 players can take part in online matches that exist within the same open world of the single player. This means you can engage in one of the 16 different multiplayer modes and still travel to any part of the map, engage with civilians and do everything you can do in the regular game. Rock Star attempts to keep the interactions localized by making health and weapon respawns occur in select parts of the map.

Customization plays a large role in the multiplayer modes. Hosts are given the ability to specify the number of pedestrians available, cars in the streets, if cops are active, auto-aim settings, etc. Players themselves can also customize their digital personas with different clothing and body shape choices, the more you play, the more points you gain to unlock further customizations for your avatar.

Rock Star Social Club

Taking inspiration from Halo 3 Rock Star has a website that accompanies the game to provide statistics, community organization and other benefits to gamers. Not only do online games get logged in the social club, but extensive leaderboards and challenges for the single player game.


Differences between Xbox 360 and PS3 versions

Downloadable episodic content will be available exclusively for the Xbox 360 version. Any exclusive content/features for the PS3 version has not been announced yet.

Audacity - Media Software

Audacity is a free cross-platform digital audio editor for Windows, Mac, and Linux licensed under the GNU General Public License. It is a multi-track audio editor with many features found in commercial software. Audacity was originally written, and currently maintained by Dominic Mazzoni, now a Google employee, while he was a graduate student at Carnegie Mellon University. The current stable version is 1.2.6 released on November 15th, 2006 and is currently one of top 10 most popular downloads from SourceForge.net.


Pros & Cons
Pros:


•Free, open-source audio editor
•Supports multi-track editing
•Great free tool with all essential features
•Silence detection for automatically splitting up analog recordings into multiple files or tracks
•Fast. loading files, zooming, applying effects

Cons:

•Commercial programs have better features for more advanced functionality
•Multi-track functionality is limited and could be improved

More information

Features

- free, open-source
- cross-platform, with support for Windows, Mac, and Linux
- recording and playback of sound files
- multi-tracking editing
- file formats: supports WAV, AIFF, MP3, Ogg Vorbis
- many digital effects and plugins, that can be written in Nyquist (LISP-like language)
- noise removal
- amplitude envelope
- independent speed/pitch
- normalization
- fading (in/out)
- trimming
- support up to 96 kHz sampling and 24 bit resolution
- can detect silences in audio tracks to automatically break up files into tracks recorded from vinyl records and audio tapes