Category Archives: Gadgets

Meeting Windows 8

  By Peter | December 18, 2012 - 6:18 pm | Gadgets, Podcasts, The Culch
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Meet Patrick Ward, Windows Business Group Lead for Microsoft Ireland. listen to ‘Patrick Ward, Windows8 lead, Microsoft Ireland’ on Audioboo Disclaimer of the blog world and etc’s come first and on that note my meet last week did not come via Culch.ie. Also Windows/ PCWorld gifted me a brand spanking new fandango Samsung All-in-one PC. And yes it is very lovely. Also very highly recommended. That aside and out of the way, if you wanna know about Windows8 - what better man to talk to than this fellow. Maybe of interest, I first trialed Windows8 well before its launch, with a demo first from Patrick and I was then left to my own devices on a Samsung Slate for a period of about 4 days. The Slate is pictured above top. Not much more required to type. Apart from a big thank you to PC World Jervis Street for the … There’s more →

Musiclover’s App: WholeWorldBand

  By Sinead Keogh | February 21, 2012 - 9:00 am | Gadgets, Gigs, Music
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If you’re a musician or a vocalist and you’re heading down to the RDS at the weekend for The Music Show then we’ve just heard about a really cool thing that you’ll want to get in on. The WholeWorldBand app will be on-hand accepting contributions to tracks by Cathy Davey, Gemma Hayes and Liam O’Maonlai. The app, which launches in a couple of weeks, allows users to originate a track, add themselves to a performance by a well-known artist or band by playing along with them, or even substitute themselves in for any member of a band. WholeWorldBand also allows musicians to record and film while playing or sing along to any track on the menu using the mic and camera on their iPhone or iPad and upload the result to Facebook or YouTube. Using WholeWorldBand, musicians will be able to upload their own original tracks and earn money when other users download … There’s more →

Event of the Week: 16th - 22nd May

  By Sinead Keogh | May 16, 2011 - 10:11 am | Events, Gadgets, Sports, The Culch, Tourism, wantsies
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Got a taste for adventure? This week’s Culch.ie highlight is The Adventure Weekend at the RDS from Friday 20th - Sunday 22nd. Showcasing the best of Irish outdoorsy pursuits, the event will offering attendees the opportunity to try things like zip lining, zorbing, rage buggies and water walkers. Haven’t got a breeze what any of that is? Yep, neither had we. Read on. Zip lining involves being harnessed to a zip wire and zipping through the air at speed, rage buggies are off-road racers a few steps up from what Alfalfa from The Little Rascals used to punt around in (and a good bit cooler, if we’re honest), water walkers are plastic balls that allow you to run around on water (inflatable Jesusballs, as we like to know ‘em) and zorbing? Zorbing is this….

Star Wars Invasion Dublin

  By Andy Gaffney | April 24, 2011 - 10:31 pm | Events, Featured Post, Gadgets, Movies & TV, The Culch
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As mentioned in previous posts, getting a Star Wars event right can be tricky thing. I mean I don’t want to drag it up again but the event in the R.D.S. to mark Phantoms Menace’s release is just below the time I was circumcised in my chart of ‘Things I wouldn’t do again’. With last year’s concert in the 02 being just a little bit better, I was treating Invasion Dublin in the R.D.S. with the same confidence as successfully navigating an asteroid field (which Paddy Power is giving odds of 3,720 to 1 for, apparently).   However the real difference in Invasion Dublin is the fact that is for fans, by fans. While that dark day in 1999 had a huge bad taste of a heartless cash-in, Invasion Dublin very much wears its heart of its sleeve. Upon first entering the arena you could be mistaken for thinking it’s … There’s more →

Competition CLOSED: Gnomeo and Juliet

  By Sinead Keogh | February 15, 2011 - 9:24 am | Comedy, Competitions, Gadgets, Random Whimsy, wantsies
53 Comments

***COMPETITION CLOSED - Congratulations to Peter, Kerrie, Barbara, Cian, Karen, Val, Leann, ilovelife, Gerry Brett, Edward Curtin, Josephine M and Danny*** “Two households, both alike in gnomery, in fair veranda where we lay our scene, from ancient grudge break new pottery…” [I just made that up, but I really HOPE that's how this thing plays out]. I’ll be honest, I haven’t seen it yet, but it seems all kinds of charming. Garden gnomes taking on the tale of Romeo and Juliet, ‘ol Shakey’s finest, what’s not to love? Well, I am a tad worried that it will all end in gnomey bloodshed and garden ornaments topping themselves with the garden shears if it’s a reboot in the true sense of the word, but the lovely Red Lemonade’s review, if you haven’t read it yet, suggests that Gnomeo and Juliet is a fine and fun way to pass an hour or … There’s more →

The Nintendo 3DS - Should we care?

  By dinglesurf | January 24, 2011 - 10:36 am | Gadgets, Games
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Nintendo_3DS__Sims_3_3DS_Version_May_Hit_European_Markets_in_January

Last week Japanese gaming behemoths Nintendo announced the European release date (March 25th) for their latest shiny piece of kit, The Nintendo 3DS. So the question is: Should we care? Or is this just another piece of plastic aimed at emptying out the wallets of spotty teenage boys? Well I for one believe we should. So whats new this time? The clue is in the title. The 3DS will be the first gaming console to offer authentic three dimensional graphics WITHOUT the need for any dorky glasses. Nintendo have pioneered ‘stereoscopic’ technology, that delivers jaw dropping depth of field to the gaming experience. It uses two overlaying screens and a polarising filter that sends slightly differing images to each eye, tricking the brain into seeing the image in 3D – or something like that!?! The 3DS is also equipped with a ‘depth slider’ that allows you to manually adjust the … There’s more →

Competition Closed: A Christmas Pressie from the Carphone Warehouse

  By Sinead Keogh | December 16, 2010 - 12:15 pm | Competitions, Gadgets, The Culch, The Internet, wantsies
25 Comments

**Competition Closed. Congratulations to Niall** Ho ho ho….Merry Christmas! That’s right folks…it’s nearly time (as if you didn’t know). We hope you’re getting through the shopping, enjoying the socialising and planning a relaxing and happy December 25th. But wait, you say, there’s more! The folk at the Carphone Warehouse invited us along to the launch of their new Carphone Warehouse Connected World in Dundrum Town Centre a few weeks back. It’s full of tablets (the techie kind), ‘droid phones what nerds love and loads of other cool gadgets, in fact it’s a rather snazzy place altogether. We recommend dropping in to check the place out, the amount of tech on display gave us a serious case of the wantsies. They even have Ireland’s first Geek Squad: 3 guys who’ll provide tech support from simple stuff to setting up your phone for you if you’re not that way inclined to the … There’s more →

Hands on with Playstation Move

  By JustGeorge | August 23, 2010 - 9:15 am | Gadgets, Games
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I went to this preview event with memories of the Kinect event fresh in my mind. Both were excellent events but as far as the event themselves go I’m going to give the Playstation event the edge as there was proper brochures and information to take away, more consoles and more games available to play. But then you didn’t open this page to read my thoughts on an event, you want to here about Playstation Move. I had a similar fear with this as Kinect but it was even stronger for Move, because it’s just looks so similar to the Wii. There is more to this new controller than just a Wii rip off though its also uses Sony’s own 7 year old EyeToy technology to differentiate it from the Wii. Erm Sony, why do you think not one of your competitors have copied the EyeToy? Just saying like.

Yeehah, it’s the Mobile Phone Round-up

  By Ronan | August 17, 2010 - 7:38 pm | Gadgets
4 Comments

Now that the silly season of the Leaving Cert results is upon us, many young people will be making the big transition from secondary school to college. There’s plenty of hardship that comes with finding a place to live (be it digs, campus accommodation, or a house with mates or strangers). So I thought I’d take the pressure off another decision many students will be facing: what phone will I get for college? Many parents will be nervous about their children going off to the big bad world, and may decide to buy them a congratulatory present for passing their exams. What better present than a new mobile? It’ll help make sure little Johnny is eating his vegetables, and it’ll make sure Johnny doesn’t look like a square when he pulls out a five-year-old brick with an enormous antenna. I’m going to round-up a few touch-screen phones I’ve had the … There’s more →

Hands on with Kinect

  By JustGeorge | August 6, 2010 - 12:16 pm | Gadgets, Games
3 Comments

Last week, a few Culchies had the opportunity to preview Xbox’s newest innovation. Stephen has been talking about it all week on ChronicReload, but here’s George’s views on it. Let us know what you think…are you excited or do you feel it’s just another gimmick? - Darren So Microsoft has a new addition for the Xbox 360 and if you missed the hype about it from the last two E3‘s (although it was called Natal at E3 2009) then this (rather sarcastic) parody video should give you an idea about it. Basically it’s Microsoft’s answer to the Wii except you don’t have to hold a controller. In fact your whole body is the controller, except it’s not really, the controller sits in front of the telly and watches your every move and listens to your every word - kinda like a pet puppy except without the cuteness or the random … There’s more →

Microsoft Game Room, stepping away from the Xbox

  By Will | March 26, 2010 - 2:29 am | Gadgets, Games
3 Comments

Microsoft released their Game Room yesterday as part of their “House Party” (or “Block Party” if you live in the USA) event. Apart from some intriguing teething problems its been an interesting experiment. Essentially Game Room is a MAME type emulator of arcade games (currently limited to Atari and Konami cabinets from the late 70s and early 80s) as well as the Atari 2600 and Intellivision consoles. And these seem to be the original ROMs based on the ROM boot sequence some of the games show. The emulation is wrapped up in a customisable virtual arcade for your avatar and friends avatars to roam through. The games are OK, but the brilliance is in the execution. When you first start (provided it can connect to the game room server, that’s where the teething problems lay), you can demo the games, usually for about 10 minutes (or less if you leave … There’s more →

Phone Wars: Google’s Nexus One

  By Niall | January 5, 2010 - 10:11 am | Gadgets, The Culch, The Internet
2 Comments

In a somewhat odd but not entirely unexpected move internet search giant Google has unveiled their very own smart phone. Titled the Google Nexus One it is set to compete firmly with Apple’s all-conquering iPhone. The Nexus runs on Google’s own open-source Android software, the operating system of choice for a number of current big-name phone manufacturers such as Motorola and Sony Ericsson. While the use of Android will provide Google with a large number of downloadable and customisable applications straight out of the box it is still in its relative infancy compared with the goliath that is the iTunes App Store. The Android platform offers the Nexus some other cool but not unique features such as animated/interactive wallpaper and a wrap-around 3D cube feel to the edges, but it’s not quite ready to compete with Apple’s or Palm’s more polished fare just yet. Key features on the new phone … There’s more →

Two Weeks Later, Living with 7

  By Niall | November 5, 2009 - 8:35 pm | Gadgets, The Culch, The Internet
5 Comments

Microsoft is PC operating software king. Windows is the most dominant platform on PCs today, holding just over 96% of the market. So when the company brings out a new OS it’s time to sit up and listen. Their latest, Windows 7, launched with much fanfare two weeks ago today, on October 22nd, 2009. I promptly installed it on my desktop and on my laptop, replacing previous incarnations of Windows. So 14 days in what’s the new system like to use?

Guest Post: What is a browser?

  By Hugo Fitzpatrick | October 9, 2009 - 11:51 am | Gadgets, The Internet
10 Comments

Hugo last educated us as to What the Web Weally Is. Now he’s back to talk about Web Browsers. What are they and which one should we choose? - Darren So do you know what a browser is? According to google at least, very few people actually know. So they have made this video to help tell you: Now i will describe in detail each of the most popular and mainstream browsers that are out there. Many would be surprised that there is even more than one!