iPhone...or iRipyouagoodone

Let's face it...Apple puts out hot sexy gear that makes you quiver with desire. They made UNIX hot with OS X. They have groovy PC-Mac commercials where the Apple guy is the quintessential "every-guy" (no doubt a character amalgamated from careful market analysis, surveying of Apple store patrons, and executing multiple focus groups) with whom all Apple fans can identify.

Or not.

The newest, and hottest thing to come from Apple was announced at this year's CES in Vegas: the iPhone. You may have seen the new device. It's hot. It's sexy. Did I say that already? Yes I did. Other not so sexy facts: while the two iPhone models will retail at $499 and $599 for the 4 and 8 GB versions, their actual costs of production will amount to no more than $245.83 and $280.83, respectively.

The markup on each model, which falls just under 50%, is one of the most aggressive in recent consumer electronic history. A 2-year service contract with Cingular will also be required for the purchase. Unlike most service plans, the agreement obviously does not subsidize the hardware cost.

You can check out the itemized breakdown here.

This just in: consumers have enabled Apple's raping of their collective wallet! Yay! I'm going to go out on a limb here and say that I will not be an early adopter of this product. I'll let it go through a couple iterations and feature enhancements and price drops before I make a commitment here. Apple is still hot and sexy, but I just can't afford a Gisele-type device. I need more of a Tina Fey model.

Crysis: Unbelievable Joy and Happiness Await

I just saw gameplay from the forthcoming Crytech game, Crysis. As you may had read from one of my earlier blogs, this a new fully DirectX 10 compliant game. Without going into too many specifics, this means that the game will look better and play smoother.

If the in-game session of the Suit Demonstration Level recorded (see below) from the CES, hosted this year in Las Vegas, is representative of how games and multimedia content will look in the years to come, then we are going to be entitled to a cornucopia of new time sucking diversions.

The game's use of lighting and shading are astounding. Leaves and sunlight are photorealistic, and it would appear that the long distance screendraw present in Crytech's FarCry is also showcased in Crysis. This means that within the game, visuals are clearly defined up to a mile from the character's perspective. New game play, coined "veni, vidi, vici" (as claimed by the narrator), allows players to change out weaponry components, modify the 'nano muscle suit' the character wears so that one may run faster, generate camouflage patterns, enhance strength, and enhance armor capabilities. In game structures such as corrugated rooftops are fully destructible to add to the realism.

Check out the video, and watch it in all its glory. For the full, higher resolution video, check out the content on ign, which always has the most excellent coverage of all things relevant to the 13-34 male demographic.

An interesting sidenote: as the times change, so do the bad guys. In the 80s it was the Soviets, in the 90s it was Saddam Hussein, and present day it's the North Koreans.