Right before Christmas, retro gamers on the Mac were given an early present with the much anticipated release of OpenEmu 1.0. This release is one of the most significant developments in game console emulation on the Mac to happen in many years. Only hours after its release, the project went viral and was covered on several prominent tech blogs. This project also represents one of the first true mainstream emulators released since the days of Bleem! Continue reading
Sonic the Hedgehog Remastered for iOS and Android
Before I begin, I have to admit that I have a love-hate relationship with gaming on mobile devices. Smartphones and tablets have great potential to be a powerful gaming platform but that potential is rarely realized. Touch controls and sloppy ports of console titles are typically the norm and make mobile devices second-class citizens in the gaming world. When I first purchased Sonic the Hedgehog for iOS over three years ago, it fit this stereotype perfectly and saw a little less than 5 minutes of play time. To my surprise, a v2.0 update appeared in the App Store recently and what awaited me was nothing short of astonishing. Continue reading
The Future of Gaming: Big Threats from Small Places
The current and one of the longest running game console generations in history has faced many challenges. This generation of consoles has seen a high cost of entry, oversaturation of the market and lack of exclusive content to really set the industry players apart. The new generation that we’ll be seeing soon faces all of the same challenges, plus a few more. The most obvious hurdles are the inability to justify new and more powerful hardware when the current generation does everything we need it to as well as the distinct lack of innovation and new features. Continue reading
Review: iTunes Match
Just recently I had the chance to sit down and use iTunes Match, Apple’s cloud-based music service that was launched a little over a year ago. The concept behind iTunes Match is pretty simple, for $25 per year iTunes will scan your entire music library (up to 25,000 songs), allow you to download high-quality versions of any music it matches to the iTunes store and upload your anything it can’t match for your listening pleasure on other devices. Yes, that’s right – your CD rips and Napster collection from 2000 can be converted to high-quality 256 kbit/s DRM-free AAC audio and you can even keep anything you’ve downloaded once the subscription expires.
Continue Reading: iTunes Match Reviewed
Article: Windows 8 and the Home Theater PC
With the official consumer launch of Windows 8 just a few days away, there will no doubtbe a deluge of media bashing the release and some of the more controversial changes that have been made. Whether it’s justified or not, it has always happened with every new OS launch for as long as I can remember. Rather than critiquing the new OS as a whole, I’m more interested in what it means for a somewhat neglected and niche product – Windows Media Center and the Home Theater PC in general.
In my first article on Vintech, I’m doing to dive into that very topic and hopefully provide some insight on what I feel will be the future of Media Center and the Home Theater PC.
Introducing, “Vintech”
Welcome to my new project, “Vintech.” This is my personal blog which will be a place used to collect my thoughts, opinions and insights on a bunch of different topics. While I enjoy the work I do on my other site, VTemulation.net, I find it limiting to be focused on any one specific topic or area of interest. Vintech will allow me to share content that falls outside of the realm of the emulation scene.
I have owned this domain for over ten years now and during that time it actually hasn’t been used for any one specific project. I look forward to working on this blog as well as taking my first jump into WordPress and I hope that you’ll enjoy it as well!
– Vince