iPhone 4S / Canon 5d MKII Side by Side Comparison from Robino Films on Vimeo.

I needed to pop into Best Buy a few days ago to buy printer ink and as I passed the computer section I was taken aback by what I saw. There were no desktop computers to be seen! The area which USED to be filled with PC desktops was now populated with tablets, netbooks and iMac-like PCs. I had to hunt, in disbelief, for desktops which were stashed away on one shelf near the in/out door for the Employees. I counted six total just sitting there in the back.

I had read a few months ago that tablet sales were way up and desktop sales dropped around 30%. Well now, before your very eyes, you can see the dominance of Tablets now. The Cloud (dropbox, google docs and now iCloud) is now a reality and it seems that most people used desktops for email and surfing – things mobile devices like tablets do best.

It really is something I’ve said about my iPhone – that it’s pretty much a computer with a phone… and now that I’ve got my second iPad (iPad 2) I feel the same way. The apps are getting more and more powerful and soon the new iOS will be out and aimed at utilizing Cloud and network technology more securely and effectively.

Well desktops, it’s been fun and we thank you for your service… now we can clear our desks, make more space for action figures.

Namco's Katamari on the iPad2

It would be fair to say that console gaming is alive, well and still dominating… but what about the recent, explosive success of iOS gaming? You know, games on the iPhone, iPod Touch and iPad? I know that E3 is really about the big titles, the big makers the big consoles but you have to admit that iPhone and iPad games are quickly on the rise. C’mon – ANGRY BIRDS, CUT THE ROPE and even BEJEWELED! Seriously, I honestly expected to see iPhone and iPad games, from all kinds of makers being featured wall-to-wall at E3… but after a couple good laps around the LA Convention center… not the case. I didn’t see any hint of an iPhone or iPad anywhere or at least anywhere way in the open initially. I actually had to ASK around to see if anyone had seen any iOS anything anywhere at E3.

I asked people in line who were waiting to play Nexon’s Vindictus, if they had checked out any iOS games at the Expo. I got lots of bewildered looks, shaking heads and head scratching in return. One gamer thought he might have seen an iPad game at the Namco booth. I finished playing the Vindictus demo thus safely securing a raffle ticket for a Spirit Hood (which I did win thank you – got me a white one) and then journeyed off in search of the Namco booth.

On route I came across old friend Atari who had a lovely booth babe waving an iPad offering a turn to play their Atari Classic Games app. How cool is it that — of all game makers, Atari was putting it right out there?! I played Asteroids on the Atari Booth Babe’s iPad2 which was pretty damn amusing for all kinds of reasons – mostly because she was about 19 years old loving 30 year old Asteroids. I have to say I was impressed by Atari’s conscientious effort to show the array of platforms their games inhabit; arcade, consoles, online (Facebook), PC and — yes iOS! I was assured that I would easily be able to get Atari’s Greatest Hits on iTunes once E3 wrapped. Bliss!

Across the aisle from Atari happened to be EA Games and hey, since I’ve got Dead Space and Monopoly by EA on my iPad2, I felt pretty sure I’d see their iOS stuff out and about. Well, after a bit of hunting past the large console podiums I found a niche off to the side which had one iPhone4 and what looked like a Madden port. I asked a nearby EA representative about the iOS games and she said she really didn’t know much about what they had set up. Movin’ on.

I finally made my way over to Namco and sure enough they had two tables of iPads stashed behind two big huge games/displays. Well it was what it was so I headed over to the tables and found I Love Katamari fired up and ready. I played Katamari and Galaga Remix— both making good use of the iPad’s tilt and turning capabilities. The Namco Reps were friendly and knew about their iOS line, even played a round of Katamari for my video camera. Namco wins as far as representing the APPLE and offering up fun iOS games for E3 2011. So the iOS E3 2011 award goes to Namco for representing the APPLE and those of us who love it.

So picture it, a big black box the size of a basketball court, huge screens hanging from the ceilings 360 degrees and speakers to blow your head off. The crowd gathers and I find myself standing next to none other than Lieutenant Colonel, Hank Keirsey and his lovely wife. He has been and still is the military adviser for all of the Modern Warfare games. The lights went down, smoke machines blew white mist all over us then BOOM (add the cool sound effects from the game that sound like a high-pitched electronic drill in a tunnel) – lime green/black graphics appeared on one of the screens.

The graphic was an image of Captain Price (he was the best Captain!) and a small narrative about the first Call of Duty Modern Warfare story. After six very long repetitive (and loud) minutes, the 360 degree screenage was filled with a Modern Warfare story timeline. Frankly I wasn’t too impressed, I was thinking actors in Modern Warfare costumes would pop out and cause pandemonium but no, just a slide show then a wee bit of video from the new game’s intro scenes. Heck, Lieutenant Colonel, Hank Keirsey was very impressed though and two teenagers behind me said it was “sick” so what do I know. Lieutenant Colonel Keirsey was sincerely impressed – as well as he should have been because the the visuals to follow were nothing short of stunning! We saw sweeping visions of the Western World devastation caused by rouge Russians this time around. Video showed New York (of course), Boston, London, France and Germany. A lump did appear in my throat when I first saw the troops rushing to the scene — especially New York City since I was actually in New York City on 9/11.

Look, this game is top notch and I’ve had fun with the incarnations for hours so bear with my hyperbole. So, the video increased in rapid cuts of really cool scenes of Soldiers rushing to the various destroyed City scenes thus whipping the crowd into a major frenzy then one last BA-BOOM… the logo appeared (lime green on black again of course). The logo, at first, read “Call of Duty WW3″ but then the first “W” turned to be a “M” which I have to say was right clever. Cue crowd going crazy until release date — November 2011.

Check it…

I attended the CINEGEAR EXPO this past weekend to learn the latest buzz about video cameras, formats, lighting, sound and all that good stuff. This biggest thing that I felt I should share was how TIFFEN (a lens filter company) figured out how to create an amazing Steadicam rig for small-yet-mighty new camcorders. Of course you know (and experience) how technology makes things smaller and powerful — so TIFFEN and makers of small HD camcorders from Apple to GoPro are all simply ahead of the curve.

Say goodbye to shakey-cam footage from your tiny HD video powerhouse, say hello to STEADICAM SMOOTHEE by Tiffen steadicam.com/​smoothee_home.html. Thing will set you back $180 bones and individual attachments for the iPhone, Flip Mino HD and GoPro camcorders run about $25 a pop.

I shot this video with my iPhone 3GS and you can see what the rig looks like as there is a gentleman doing the same thing I am – he’s early on in the video wearing a white jacket, blue t-shirt and has his white iPhone4 on the rig.

It supports up to 5 lbs. and as you can see from the video, not bad, not bad at all. As camcorders get smaller and smaller and more and more powerful – something like this is becoming more and more relevant and I definitely want one.

Okay, I lied, there is one more thing I thought was cool buuuut the Jury is still out on this one. I introduce to you SONY’s answer to full-frame DSLR videography (drum roll) the NEX-fs100 http://pro.sony.com/bbsc/ssr/cat-broadcastcameras/cat-nxcam/product-NEXFS100UK/.

This bad boy shoots SUPER35 which means that it shoots 1920×1080 HD however the pixels are almost 4 times larger than the pixels on a Canon 5D MarkII. Larger pixels means when shooting motion – literally like a quick pan, the larger pixels can contain more photons thus more information. The SONY spokesperson said to think of pixels as a bucket and the larger the bucket the more photons can be collected by the sensor. I watched a short video created with the NEX-fs100 and I’m sorry to report I wasn’t too impressed. It looked good but it looked very VIDEOEY if you know what I mean. One thing I love about the Canon 7D is that the video, especially at 24p looks less videoey and more Cinematic. Most of us don’t want “reality” in our content, we want it to be hyper-real, more cinematic. Nevertheless the SONY NEX-fs100 is $5,000 without lenses and you can use any kind of lens on it. So if you want “reality” and a great full-frame camcorder that ISN’T a DSLR then this could be the winner for you.

Is Apple starting to grow too big? Seems like Apple’s “iCloud,” which is an online option for all your documents, music, movies and some apps, is looming overhead. It is said it is to be free — AT FIRST… but then it’ll cost you. Why do we need Apple’s iCloud? I’ve got my gmail, my iTunes is fine sitting on my computer and on my iDevices AND it streams from my iDevices (including my computer) to my TV.

What do you think? It is also rumored that Apple stock is going to increase (more than it has already?) by a significant percent… but is that growth too quick?

This saves plastic trees of course, actually it is a savings because plastic is a petroleum by-product and we need LESS dependence on oil for everything not to mention the non-degradable waste a plastic card becomes.

What’s of particular interest to myself as a User Experience/New Media kind of guy — the video which is playable via the app on mobile devices and starbucks.com online. The video works well to explain how to the card works and how to use it.

You’ve probably heard the term HTML5 mentioned recently as a factor involved in video and animation online. What is html5 and what does it mean to you? If you have been posting videos online since the advent of YouTube then, whether you knew it or not, flash was THE method used to display/embed those videos. Flash has been (primarily) the only game in town up until recently. If you want video and some animation for your content posted online from here on in — there is now another option — html5 code to make things happen.

Html5, according to Wikipedia, stands for the latest revision of html which is the code allowing text, graphics, links and so on to function on the internet. Html5 code factors in media such as video and animation.

Is it necessary to choose html5 over Flash? There is a debate — check out a friendly game of PONG coded with Flash AND html5 http://labs.codecomputerlove.com/FlashVsHtml5/.  Computerlove‘s point here is that Flash is fine for some things and html5 is fine for some things (and can even be mixed) and cautions that this isn’t a war rather the platform should be chosen for what would best suit the content and/or device.

Some Technologists (like Steve Jobs) and Web Developers contend that Flash isn’t facile enough for today’s browsers and video content. Movement toward more mobile computing devices (iPhone, Nexus, iPad) with newer types of operating systems and processors call for lighter, faster processing of video and animation than ten year old Flash can offer.

Adobe will not allow Flash to be dissed so quickly and has a flash-to-html5 converter in the works called Wallaby. Apparently, flash keeps video content contained to one batch of code in one place whereas html5 is separate pieces of code working together from multiple places to run one video; Wallaby helps break up the Flash code and distribute it as html5 pieces. I’m not a software developer but I am guessing that older ways of coding and reading html (everything tagged inline and in one place) has obviously given way to distributed code across multiple documents to display one web page for example. So whereas fifteen years ago html for one web page was pretty full up with tags, these days one web page will have a base code page, pages associated describing things like font and colors, pages handling parts of that page (header, footer) and now it follows that code for one video would be shared among associated documents.

So maybe that shed a wee bit of light on what people are talking about when you hear html5 and Flash. If you’d like to explore this further on your own you can easily find an example of html5 code when choosing a video to EMBED either at YouTube or Vimeo. Once in vimeo, for example, and a video is selected to embed, vimeo offers you a default choice to embed “new” code and that code is html5.

I’d love to hear your thoughts, questions, comments or concerns. If you are a developer/coder I’d be interested if you have anything to add about html5/Flash debate.

There have been lucky some instances in my life when I moved into a new pad and found cable on and running magically — no bill nor cutoff. Those days are all but a far away dream and for many years now I’ve had to pay for cable like everybody else — $98/month to be exact. The alternative to cable, up until recently, has been satellite (a wee bit cheaper than cable). Cable companies have been trying to stay relevant during the age of Internetting by sticking a fiber optic finger into the pie in hopes of cementing relationships with customers. But I see through all that.

Do you find yourself watching less and less TV because of the magical internet? If so, you are not alone… and sites like hulu.com, netflix online streaming, news outlets, online gaming sites are all making it easier and easier for you to ween off of cable and come hang with them. Companies like Roku, Apple and TV manufacturers like SONY are making things easy to dump cable and keep you on your couch by making YouTube, Netflix, iTunes (music, tv and movie rentals) one click away.

I use my three year old PS3 for Netflix streaming ($7.99/month), some gaming via Playstation Network downloadables (costs range from free to $60 a game), Hulu Plus ($7.99/month) some viewing of YouTube videos via the and music streaming from my PC with Qriocity ($3.99/month or $9.99/month premium). I should mention that if I didn’t have a PS3 I supposed I’d get the Apple TV ($99). Roku (box is $59) has Netflix streaming, Hulu Plus and Pandora for music plus specific news and sports outlets. Apple TV offers Netflix Streaming, Hulu Plus and iTunes in all its glory with on demand everything, movie rentals, music, video podcasts and so on. So to do a rough estimate of month costs (excluding the cost of a box) I could do Netflix streaming, Hulu Plus (for TV shows past and present) and add music in there for under $30/month if I don’t go nuts buying video games. The savings are obvious and make a serious case for dumping cable.

Would I miss the Daily Show? No, because I can watch it via Hulu or just off of Comedy Central’s website. Am I going to miss a beat with Futurama? No, again, I can see all that with Hulu. Will I miss HBO — heck NO because with Netflix Streaming I can watch movies (all you can watch buffet) in HD! Now it’s just a question of complacency and or laziness in my way of calling the cable company and cancelling. I’d love to know what you think, are you ready to dump your cable for new, cheaper internet options?

What? What? I called other Apple Stores around Los Angeles and the same story was told. Good news for Apple, Fanboys and Apple’s Stockholders… a buzz kill for those who want ownership of an iPad2 pronto. Well, not pronto enough I guess; serves me right for being impatient yet lazy. What do I want for not following the usual drill — getting to any Apple store early in the moring and waiting in line? I said I was a Tech Blogger and asked if I could at least take some pictures and some video (WITH MY iPHONE 3GS huh, huh?). I said I wanted to show my Techburrito.com Readers the buzz happening around the iPad2 floor models. Hipster said no. He said they could not permit that at all. Naturally I courteously bowed away… then a minute later, when he wasn’t looking, I took video and pictures anyway.

Ha I win with my grainy-shaky photos and video — buck the system! I jumped in to the masses huddled around the iPad2 floor models. Well, actually had to wait several minutes behind some kid playing a cool platform game BUT eventually that kid left and I got my hands on the iPad2.

First impressions:

• just as heavy as iPad1 — bleh, make the thing lighter Mister British Dude in the Apple Video!
• the same brushed metal back — yuk, I don’t like the feeling of that metal backing. Put the touch-friendly plastic-ey backing on it like the iPhone.
• definitely thinner — but not lighter
• although it doesn’t have the retina display, I’d swear the display looks a bit sharper.
• seems zippier (that’s a pro review term)
• FaceTime is fully functional
• video taking and editing is fun on the iPad2
• the Smart Cover is unique —  like a crazy transformer yet not a robot in disguise

Some of the iPad2 floor models were outfitted with the new multi-purpose SMART COVERS. Admittedly it’s cool they way it hangs magnetically onto the iPad2 and can be bent to prop up the iPad2. Of course the covers come in all kinds of muted colors (to be cool) and individual cost is 40 USD.

If you already own iPad1 should you buy the iPad2? Well, imho there really isn’t anything über compelling to do so. In practice terms, the iPad2 isn’t really a major leap from iPad1 to iPad2 because both models, for the most part, do the same thing almost exactly the same. If you want FaceTime, video capabilities and maybe faster processing for mobile games then do it; if you don’t care about those things then you’re not really missing much so wait for iPad3.

Will I go back and get one? Do I REALLY want one after all? Um, yeah if someone gave it to me for free but I’m thinking for the money I really need to spend the $$$$ on a new MacBook Pro. I’ll be perfectly honest here, I had the iPad1 and sold it on ebay a short while ago. Initially I only missed eReading (which I discovered is actually better to do on my iPhone for a whole bunch of suprisingly good reasons) and the Pimp factor of showing up to meetings with it was kinda fun. I will admit that, although tablet/cloud computing may be the future, I still need the full functionality of a laptop with the full power of my applications (Photoshop, Final Cut, etc.). The iPad1 didn’t allow me the full power of a laptop with robust applications nor will the iPad2. Even Kevin Rose of the Diggnation podcast doesn’t use an iPad to read his top diggs on the show — rather he uses his MacBook Pro.

If you don’t already have an iPad(1) and you don’t need the work power of a laptop AND you want a wicked powerful web surfing, gaming, video chatting, word processing cutting-edge pimp-ass device for only $500 — I say go for it. It’s flat, portable, fast, can be apped up to the hilt to do lots of stuff from eReading to interactive stellar cartography. Heck you can even shoot and edit 720p video on the thing… and dog gone it playing games on it, just like that kid was doing, is fun. Restock your bad self Apple, hipster Apple salespeople rejoice as you’ve got a great product there in the iPad2.