kw702 : F.A.C.T.S. : Belgiums Comicon covered by Knightwise.com part 1

Oct 31


Its time to give you the first slice of the biggest geek-pie we bake for your every year. As by annual tradition we cover F.A.C.T.S. Belgians biggest Cosplay, Manga, Anime, Scifi and Fantasy expo. In the first half of this two part episode we talk to a couple of very interesting people on the show floor. From Belgian game companies looking for a real life red riding hood, to full scale T-Wing fighters. From handmade geek bags to Belgium biggest online comic book store .. Perk up your fake Vulcan ears for part one of our coverage of F.A.C.T.S.

Shownotes.
Archonia : Belgiums biggest online store.
The Prospectors guild and their giant T-wing replica.
Feathers of an Angel : Geek craft galore.
‘Woolfe’ : Grin looks for a red riding hood in their upcoming game.
Tessa from Ubisoft talks assassins creed.

Credits.

  • – Camera 1 : Stefaan Lesage.
  • – Camera 2 : Kris Hendriks
  • – Photography/production : @Niejana
  • – Interviews : @knightwise.

Stay tuned for PART 2 of our coverage of F.A.C.T.S coming up real soon as we give you the exclusive interviews with the people who make the magic happen. Yes .. its Cosplay time !

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Knightwise.com at F.A.C.T.S. 2013 : “Behind the scenes” preview.

Oct 21

Inside every geek there is a string of DNA that jumps up and down with joy once you mention the words “Anime, Manga, Scifi and Cosplay”. The proof is in the pudding as thousands of geeks travel to dragon and Comicon every year. In the little country of Belgium we have a similar movement of geeks and like minded people to the annual F.A.C.T.S. event ( The Belgian version of Comicon) and every year the Knightwise.com crew walks in the daylight to go out and cover the event. With two cameramen, a photographer and an anchorman we try to bring you a sense of what it’s like to wander the show floor in Belgium’s biggest Nerdfest. Last Saturday we pounded the pavement and shot over 13 interviews with cosplayers, fanclubs, game developers, comic artists and toysellers. While we are hard at work editing all that footage down into a video podcast (Its gonna take some time ,we all still have dayjobs) we CAN give you a sneak peek at what to expect. Knightwise.com’s new star photog Niejana gives you a nice ‘behind the scenes’ view of what you can expect when we release the video footage later on this week. Stand by for Trolls, Timelords, Red Riding hoods and giant Tie-Fighters with the “FACTS 2013 Behind the scenes photo shoot”.

CLICK HERE FOR THE ENTIRE SET.

The video footage will be released later on this week, in the meantime hit the SUBSCRIBE page and make sure to paste the link to our MEDIAFEED into your favorite podcatcher (itunes, etc ..) to automatically subscribe to our podcast and get the video podcast downloaded automatically .. Until then : Watch this space and GEEK ON.  

Links :

The set on Flickr

The FACTS convention

@niejana’s page on Facebook

Our previous coverage of the FACTS events (Video)

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kw701 : Cross platform tech support.

Oct 14

We kick off season 7 of the Knightwise.com podcast with an extra long episode of the Knightwise.com podcast. Since we are proud to announce we joined the ranks of the Podnutz podcast network and are now reaching out to many more podcast listeners across the world .. it was time for a treat. This week you get a slightly obese episode of the Knightwise.com podcast (Over 90 Minutes) as we showcase an episode of “Podnutz Daily” where Cody Cooper interviewed me about cross platform tech support. So perk up your ears and get ready for the next season of Knightwise.com.

Shownotes.

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Get your geek on and join us at F.A.C.T.S. : Belgians answer to ComicCon.

Oct 14

If one percent of your DNA is “Geek” and you live in the Benelux area, there is only one thing you can do next Saturday : Immerse yourself in your true geekdom and join us as we do our annual coverage of the F.A.C.T.S. event in Ghent. Next weekend the Expo halls in Ghent will be the “event horizon” for everybody who is into Scifi, Cosplay, Anime, Cartoons and all things geek. As by annual tradition Knightwise.com will also be doing an extensive coverage of the event and you can join us.

We will be roaming the grounds next Saturday afternoon interviewing Cosplayers, Fans, Sellers of strange and desirable geek-toys and if we are lucky we MIGHT just catch one of the celebrities that is attending the event. Hit us up on Twitter ( @knightwise) if you are going and get a chance to shake hands with our crew in “realspace”.

2013-10-14 11_11_10-Dropbox - FACTS2013_print_flyer_HIGHRES.pdf

For more details you can visit the official F.A.C.T.S webpage to see what is going down, who is coming and how to get your hands on that inflatable life size doll of Lara Croft you have been craving for.  See you there ! 

Links.

The official F.A.C.T.S page

Our previous coverages of the F.A.C.T.S events.

 

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Reviewing the Huawei Ascend Mate.

Oct 12

I remember a scene in the movie “Zoolander” where the main character played by Ben Stiller, a vain spoiled male model, gets a call on his cellphone. He answers the call and starts talking into this insanely little phone that he holds to his ear, a nearly invisible device pinched between his thumb and index finger. The scene is funny because it deals with the popular trend in the phone industry of the late 90’s to make devices smaller and smaller.

zoolander_cell_phone

The device I’m reviewing today is clearly not an offspring of that trend. The Huawei Ascend Mate is probably one of the largest cellphones on the market today. At a whopping 6.1 inch, it is even larger than the already bulky Galaxy Note 2 that is currently my ‘communication device’ of choice. Before we dive into the distinctions between a “phone” and a “communicator” … lets just take a closer look at the Ascend Mate.

huawei-ascend-mate-05

The Specs

The screen of the Ascend Mate covers almost the entire surface of the 6.1 inch phone device. With a resolution of 1280 by 720 (at 241 pixels per inch) it is amazingly bright and has a realistic colour spectrum. What I found appealing is its visibility in bright sunlight. Unlike the note 2 (Whose screen is also quite bright but is terrible to use in bright sunlight) the Mate manages to give you a “good look” at whatever is on your screen, no matter if the twin suns of Tantooine are setting right behind your back. But the one thing that does stand out is the fact that the colours are very “natural” and that is surely a bonus.

The Mate comes with a front and rear facing camera with a respective resolution of 8 and 1 Megapixel. Both camera’s deliver good pictures (we tested them both outside and inside) and the flash LED’s are bright enough signal the Rusky’s on the international space station.

Battery life on the Mate is quite good considered the sheer size of the screen. The downside is that the battery is not replaceable (You can’t even remove the back cover of the Mate, Sim and memory slots are on the side). We managed a day of extensive use and still had a couple of jolts left at sunset.

The Ascend Mate comes with an adapted version of Android 4.1 (not 4.2) where Huawei decided to pre-populate your phone with most of the apps you need. All the apps are nicely organised in folders (For example : There is a GOOGLE folder with most of not ALL google apps in the Market place) and this is surely a bonus. Every phone manufacturer needs to give their software experience an added value. Some build skins, but Huawei decided to be your personal shopper in the Marketplace and pre-load your phone with all the “standard” apps that you might need. I like this, because then you are no longer dependant on the manufacturer to upload their ‘in-house’ apps, you just depend on the core developers. The interface of the Mate is sliiiiightly different to “stock” Android, but this is hardly noticeable. This lean and mean approach gives the Mate the speedy swifty feel it needs and surely adds to the pleasure of its user. The culprit to blame here would be its 1.5 Gigaherz processor and its 2 gigs of ram.

This is no phone for Tinkerbell

Like the previous Huawei phone we tested, the Mate feels like a well finished product.. One downside we have are the plastic ‘latches’ that cover the phone’s sim and SD card slots : They might break off in the long run. When we first took the phone in our hands we expected it to be bulky and hard to handle. Guess what : Its NOT . The Mate’s size is well proportioned and its internal weight distribution is well balanced. Using the phone in both portrait and landscape mode is a breeze. We compared it to using the Galaxy Note 2 and the latter does not win that Phablet prizefight. Although larger, the Mate is surprisingly more easy to hold and handle then the slightly smaller Note2. However, single handed operation is not an option and two hands are required to type and hold the phone at the same time. So this brings us to the question : Is this a phone at all ?

huawei-jane-ascend-mate,N-C-393528-13

The Huawei Mate is the Nokia Communicator of the modern Phablets.

We hate the word “Phablets”. It hints toward a mutational subset of mutant devices that are too small to be a tablet and to large to be a phone. At 6.1 inch across the Note2 is surely a “Phablet”. Slightly to large for a phone, slightly to small for a tablet. With the addition of just a measly 0.6 inch (compared to the Note 2) the Huawei Mate slides into the Sub-Tablet category and does it brilliantly. Well balanced in weight distribution, having a crisp screen, a nice interface and decent battery life the Huawei Mate is the perfect companion for those who want both a phone and a tablet but do not have the cash to buy both. Yes : It looks dorky when you get a phone call …  but so what ? How many phone calls to the younger generation still make every day ? Its all Texting, Twitter, Facebook and the likes these days. A real time ‘audio only’ conversation is something that is becoming scarce for Teens anyway.

So Geeks : Should you get one ?

Well : If you want to live on the socially-acceptable cutting edge and carry around a ‘communicator’ instead of a phone : Get one ! At around 300 euros the price is way below the ‘premium priced’ products of both Apple and Samsung and it still gets you a very cool device. The one thing you need to ‘click’ in your brain is the concept of ‘ a phone ‘. Just like the Nokia Communicator, the Mate is a “communications device” that enables you to connect to to your digital lifestyle and not to an Party Chat conference call from the 80’s. Forget concepts like “sliding it into your back pocket” or “making a quick phone call”  The Mate is the lovechild between your Smartphone and your iPad making both pretty much obsolete once you have the Mate. Its not light, It does not fit in your back pocket, it does not have a 6 day battery life .. but neither does your tablet. This is not a phone, its an advanced digital communication device that provides you with connectivity, content, computational power and entertainment… and you can also use it to call your nan.

Links : Find out more about the Mate at Huawei’s official page

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