3D Printer: Possibilities: Worth the Money

Is the 3D Printer worth the money?  I say YES!  It basically pays for itself, but you be the judge of that.  The 3D Printer is one of the most efficient pieces of technology money can buy.  It can take any object and make an exact replica.  With moving parts!  Like a working bicycle for example, or a belt.  Pretty much anything you want.  The possibilities are endless.  .  Check out this video...

Imagine needing something and not having the money to buy it or needing something so significant but it's only one thing.  You can just make it.  You can even print food.  No!  You can't eat printed food.  You can, however print food for use, but for like an advertisement or display like if you want to make a pretend grocery store for the kids...  Or if you don't want to waste gas for just one thing, you don't feel like making the trip to the store, waiting in line, dealing with the general public or the cashier with the attitude working at his/her own pace.  Just print it out.  Maybe you don't you don't have a vehicle.  Well guess what?!  You can at least print a bicycle and the ability to print a vehicle is not far behind. Did I mention you can basically create just about anything you want.  Ladies, have you ever had that dreaded situation where a certain accessory would go so well with a certain outfit if only it were a different color or maybe shape?  Or guys,  What about tools or parts for that project or hobby you are working on?  Broke a dish?  Print another one.  If your 3d printer breaks... dare I say it!  Yes!  Print another at a fraction of the cost.  And if you're worried about durability you can infuse the object with a little extra resin.  The materials are inexpensive and so is the actual printer considering.  Well worth the investment.  It is especially great considering the economy and how everything is increasing in price.

Anyway.  Enough bragging.  Now let's go over how it works....

The printer uses a specially engineered composite material that starts off as  powder.  A binder material is then added to solidify the particles together.  The companies use their own materials a unique concoction not used anywhere else.

The printers have a print head that ejects specific fluids for coloring and there also is a print head that ejects the binder material.  So think of the powder as the paper and the binder as the ink.

The tray that is printed on drops into the machine to give it that 3rd Dimension look.

The accuracy is 40 microns.  That's a bit less than a human hair width.

First you scan the item to be printed.  The scanner inputs every facet of the item/creation into the computer creating an image that will be sent to the printer.  Naturally the time it takes varies on what you are printing and don't worry about printing interruption they covered that too, with the printer memory and recovery system.  There are certain factors like size, density, material, material to be printed, etc.  After its done you just reach in the powder and Voila!  You have printed you own item or creation.

 
Is the 3d Printer is worth the investment?  You be the judge.

Hopefully anyone reading this enjoyed this and any questions, likes, dislikes, comments, criticisms, or what you would like to see a blog or video on next are welcome.  Thanks for reading.

Flat Screen Picture Qualities: Plasma, LCD, LED

There are a lot of questions and factors that could arise when purchasing a new television.   The main question that comes up is which one is the best one.  Well, that is again as with all technology that has variety and so many choices, a matter of opinion and what suits you the best.  Whether you are a hardcore gamer or you just like to have the latest, there is a T.V. for you.

First and foremost,  I'd like to start with the Plasma...

Let's start with the negatives.  I know.  Way to be unbiased.  But I'm getting at something here.  There are a lot of complaints about burn ins on this particular type of T.V.  Yes.  It does get burn ins but that is only if there is a portion of any picture on the screen that is left stationary.  For example.  If you leave it on the same channel especially if the logo rarely leaves the screen.  It will burn in.  The first 100 hours of a Plasma are fairly critical and it has to be broken in.  You break it in by making sure you do things like watching movies in full screen and wide screen due to the black bars.  Also with modern Plasma TV's there are tests' you can run that scroll a bar across the screen.  Another way is to put a screen saver on your Plasma your DVD/BluRay player, or your cable box.  Set it for less than 30 minutes because that's when the burn in usually begins.  That's if you are one of those who falls asleep in front of the TV or if you have a habit of leaving the TV on when you leave the house.  The last one is really awesome and the super easy.  Just turn it off when you will be away from it or not turning the channel for extended periods of time.

Another complaint is the glare off the screen of a Plasma.  Unfortunately there is no setting to solve this issue. It does do well in well lit rooms but not with the sun shining through your windows.  So indoor lighting is okay but sunlight coming in from a window can mess up the whole experience.  It also uses more energy than the other two Now with that out of the way...

Plasma has the best performance, the deepest blacks, and the purest colors.  If you are a gamer then plasma is the way to go if you have one of 120+ Hz that is anything less is not recommended for a gamer.  The Hz is how many times the TV will refresh an image per second.  Plasma has been said to be the quickest with refreshing.  Plasma TV's are also great for sports.  Think Super Bowl or World Cup.  Don't let the burn in or screen glare deter you from buying a  Plasma, because it is the best performing television out of the LCD and LED in my opinion.  

How it works...

Instead of one back light like the LCD or the Local Back light displays or Side light, like the LED, the Plasma are made up of highly compressed gasses and with each pixel lighting up individually.  There is no back light.  It also has the highest refresh rates available.  Up to 600 Hz.  Also I don't recommend a resolution less that 720p or 1080p for any reason.

Now to the LCD Tv

LCD Tv's offer the brightest viewing experience due to the way the image is created.  The pixels create the color and the light behind it or back light if you will, behind the liquid crystals makes the color.  The open curtains will not be an issue with the LCD, as the picture quality is best in a well lit room with a lot of daylight.  Glare is almost non existent due to the front pane of the TV being plastic. This also makes it more durable.  It is especially great having that sense security if you have children swinging and throwing things around.  LCD's color quality suffers in consistency due to having one large back-light serving up an image and true blacks are almost impossible to achieve. Which brings me to...

LED TV's

The first thing you'll notice about an LED TV is how thin and light it is.  LED TV's are based on the same type of technology as LCD only with a different kind of back-light, called local back-light.  They have grids of back-light set behind the screen, so image quality in darker portions of the screen isn't compromised, just because there is a higher level of contrast in a particular scene.  Even still they struggle with consistency.  On the bright side, it uses 50% less energy that a Plasma.  The picture quality is greatly enhanced and you get a brighter display. Also, they can be instantly be switched on or off, unlike the Plasma TV, in which glowing gasses, that are turned into plasma to provided that great picture quality have to turn back into gas to stop the glow.

As far as pricing goes, Plasma would be the cheapest of the three, keeping in mind the resolution, hertz, and size of course.  The LCD comes in second in that department, and the LED third.  Though Plasma may be the cheapest it uses the most energy so it could end up being more costly in the long run.  The verdict...

When it comes to consistency, Plasma is the way to go, but you run the chance of having a higher light bill and it requires maintenance.  In my opinion, the LED would be the way to go.  It has about the same consistency as a Plasma, it takes up less space, and it uses less energy.  It could also be more durable with its plastic panel.  So with that said my vote goes to the LED.  How about you?

Playstation 4 vs XBox One

As with all technology that has options, PS4 and XBox One is no different.  It all depends what features will be useful to you.  Right off the bat we have prices.  The XBox One is $500 while the PS4 is $400.  I'm sure the question comes to mind, "Is it worth it?"  Again it depends on who you are.  Which features will you be most likely to use.  The XBox is more home entertainment based, while the PS4 is more for the purist gamer.  

So.  With that said let start from the outside in as we did with Samsung vs Apple.  Now that the price is out of the way lets go with the size of the two.

Obviously the PS4 is quite a bit smaller than the XBox One.  If you are new to gaming or have a cluttered residence then this aspect may matter.  The PS4 has more of an italicized, Star Trek look to it while the XBox One is more bold and bulky.... but not when it comes to the back of the console.

As you can see the XBox One has a slight advantage over PS4 with an HDMI input, other than that the are similar on the input and output aspect.  PS4's USB inputs are located on the front of the system, while the XBox One's inputs remain on the back.  Both have two version 3.0 USB, which is ten times faster than USB 2.0 found in PS3 and the XBox 360.  Both have Bluetooth compatibility, HDMI output, as well as optical outputs.  They both now feature BluRay drives, whilst in the last generation it was only the PS3 that featured the BluRay.  The XBox has an IR port for infrared technologies.  The HDMI gives the XBox a slight advantage in connectivity.

Speaking of connectivity, the controllers on both systems are pretty cool.  With the XBox One, you can turn it into a remote for the television.  It also has voice and gesture command features if you don't want to use the remote.  The back of the remote has improved as the battery pack is integrated making the back of the remote smooth instead of protruding.  It now has impulse triggers that vibrate in combat or other action sequences. The PS4 controls allow you to play/resume your game through PSVita.  Example: If you're in the middle of a game like Call of Duty and you want to, oh I don't know, go in the next room and lay down.  You can connect to the PSVita and resume game play from it.  It has a touch pad that can be used as a cursor as a new form of input, as well as speakers under the touch pad, a share button, in case you want to show yourself owning someone, like now, and a light bar for player identification. They light bar also toy communicates directly with the eye I has a head phone jack to enhance social interaction and built in stereo camera that can sense the depth of the environment and track the position of the controller via it's light bar.

The cameras of these new generation consoles are vastly superior to their predecessors both visually and audibly as they now integrate voice commands into their operation.  The both have facial recognition.  The XBox One's Kinect leaves its predecessor in the dust with features such as heart rate monitoring.  It can tell you, your mood through facial recognition.  The Kinect is so precise it will be able to calculate the speed of your movements and the angles of your limbs.  It has depth perception precise enough to detect the wrinkles in your shirt, and get this, it even has night vision and can detect up to six bodies in pure darkness.  There is a lot of "suspicion", about the Kinect being so advanced and being such a large part of the systems advancement and game play.  It can, however be turned completely off.   The PS4's Eye can literally map your room and recognize your face in a glance and tailor the system settings to your preferences.  Though they are lower resolution than the Kinect the Eye has dual camera lenses that offer twice the field of view of a single camera, a more advanced microphone array.  It can recognize your voice and listen to your commands even on the field of battle.  It watches your controllers every move and has pan and zoom features.  Both systems game play quality could rely majorly on their cameras, as they both scan the environment for more interaction with the games.

As stated earlier in my blog.  It depends on who you are.  XBox 1 went more for the home entertainment, while, as you can see PS4 went for purist gaming.  I'll let the chart do the talking in this aspect. The XBox One has made some modifications to its policy since the conference, due to the large amount of detesting from fans, subscription cancellations, and people selling back their XBox's and their games.  They have cancelled the policy where you had to be logged in 24/7, but now you only have to log in once every 24 hours.  They have also cancelled the used game policy and have reverted back to their old polices making it possible to buy used games.  Bringing it back in the competition.

My choice and recommendation as you can see in the clip above would be Goku... Ahem I mean PS4.  When it comes to raw gaming power the PS4 has it hands down.  The XBox One will be a good system don't get me wrong, but I have my own reasons of suspicion as to why I did not choose the XBox.  One is because of my theory, "If the games and the system are that good, who really cares about what else it will do because you'll be too busy playing or thinking of what you will play?"  I mean it is a gaming system.  Right?  The XBox does have some great features, but, they have more that I will never use or care for, than ones that I would utilize regularly.  

Also it seems like when Microsoft changes anything they try to shove it down buyers throats, whereas Sony gives its buyers options.  Case in point the XBox One's policies.  Enough people complained and acted on their displeasure of their policies that they had no choice but to change it otherwise their losses could have damaged them pretty badly and not just on the financial level.  Think what gaming would be headed if you, the buyer had just "Okay, I'll take it because it has cool features.  

Voice and gesture command sounds great on a game system until it "does not compute".  I'd rather spare my self from talking, or "gesturing" to a machine and keep my extra $100 and buy a couple more games or accessories for my PS4, which already had 50 games and counting by the time the conference came around.  But that's just me and something to think about.

With that said feel free to comment with your opinion or just stating what game system you are going to get.  And I'm out.....

Apple iPhone 5 vs Samsung Galaxy S4

Well for starters, it depends on who you are, and what your lifestyle and preference are.  Let's start from the outside in.  The first thing you'll notice is size.  In thinness they are about the same, in just under 8mm.  But the iPhone screen is 4 inches while Samsung's is 5.  Because of it's size the S4 may be harder to get a handle on than the iPhone 5, which is designed to fit in the hand of anyone.  The S4 is backed with plastic while the iPhone 5 is backed with aluminum.  Picture quality is something that is very noticeable as well.  The iPhone boasts a clearer picture with IPS, which brings slighly more natural looking colors, while the Galaxy S4 uses AMOLED which has better contrast and black level.  Both are pin sharp, though to me AMOLED looks a bit saturated and grainy to me.  The camera of the S4 is 1080p whereas the iPhone 5 camera is 720p. In well lit and low light areas the S4 has less clarity but, in darker areas with the flash, it excelled.  The touch to focus features on the on the iPhone are a bit shaky.  Each time you select a focus point it has to readjust giving a temporary blurry appearance on the screen.  Next are the touch screens.  The iPhone uses IOS which is standard tap or slide your finger across the screen.  The S4, however demolishes IOS with Touchwiz, which allows you to simply wave your finger or hand over the screen or tilt the phone to interact with it.  This feature is called Air Gesture.  There is also another cool feature that will pause a video if you look away from the phone, called Smart Pause.  With Touchwiz you may never have to wipe your screen of fingerprints again.  In short, Touchwiz demolishes IOS.  As far as sound quality, the iPhone 5 strains when reaching top volumes, whereas the S4 copes much better at top volumes.  Lastly the browser.  The browser on the iPhone wins by a second or two except when it comes to Wi-Fi.  Then it is painfully slow.  At least from what I saw...Who wins?  Well you be the judge.  Of course I must leave you with this.  My opinion.  From looking at the history of the iPhone there be another one out shortly to "top" the previous one.  Also the iPhone seems to be more "business" oriented like the Blackberry for example.  Whereas the S4 is more media based.  So if you're looking to send lots of emails and things of that nature, an iPhone would be the recommendation.  If you do a lot of downloading, streaming, and movie watching, though the iPhone boast of a slightly faster browser the S4 is more geared towards things of that nature.  Plus the screen size for the video is a plus.  The S4 can be great for business as well.  It can be used as a power point, especially with the Touchwiz,  no touch feature.  In my opinion, the S4 won with the Touchwiz and the iPhone 5 won with the Video and browser.