General Gaming Article |
- 13 Of the Most Realistic Gaming Screen Shots
- Microsoft, Google Trade Barbs Over Former's Patent Tactics
- Right Place, Wrong Time: 9 Technologies Born Before Their Time
- Capitol Police Investigating Tweet from The Onion
- Microsoft Closer to Xbox TV Service
- Firefox 7 Bug Casts Invisibility Spell on Some Add-ons
- Amazon's Silk Browser A Privacy Threat?
- Nokia to Axe 3,500 Jobs and Shutter Factory in Romania
- Browser Extension of the Week: Remember The Milk for Gmail
- Is Chrome Set To Dethrone Firefox?
| 13 Of the Most Realistic Gaming Screen Shots Posted: 29 Sep 2011 03:44 PM PDT Let's face it: the rate in which games are growing is exponential; we dare any of you to look at a 'groundbreaking' game from ten years ago and not giggle a little. It's scary, awesome, and a little unnerving. We're rapidly getting to the point where it's going to become difficult to differentiate between the video game world and reality (a prime example being the ArmA 2 snafu made by ITV earlier this week), so we decided to compile our favorite realistic looking titles from the past two years or so. What did we miss? Let us know in the comments.
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| Microsoft, Google Trade Barbs Over Former's Patent Tactics Posted: 29 Sep 2011 03:18 PM PDT
"This is the same tactic we've seen time and again from Microsoft. Failing to succeed in the smartphone market, they are resorting to legal measures to extort profit from others' achievements and hinder the pace of innovation," Google said in a statement on Microsoft's deal with Samsung. "We remain focused on building new technology and supporting Android partners." Despite the huge internal celebrations over the company's latest patent conquest, it didn't take too long for Microsoft to hit back. Microsoft's head of communications, Frank X. Shaw, responded by condensing the 48-word Google statement to just one: "Waaaah." Shaw then encouraged the Mountain View company to "read paragraph 5 of our blog on the topic." Paragraph 5 of the said blog post reads: "We recognize that some businesses and commentators – Google chief among them – have complained about the potential impact of patents on Android and software innovation. To them, we say this: look at today's announcement. If industry leaders such as Samsung and HTC can enter into these agreements, doesn't this provide a clear path forward?" |
| Right Place, Wrong Time: 9 Technologies Born Before Their Time Posted: 29 Sep 2011 03:17 PM PDT While it's a fact that some lame-o ideas flat-out just won't die, no matter how long in the tooth they are – VHS tapes, dial-up Internet and DRM, anyone? – the inverse is also true. Sometimes, truly groundbreaking ideas pop onto the scene long before the mainstream is ready to embrace it. Rather than praising the success stories, this article takes a look at the lesser known forefathers that made best sellers like the iPad and Hulu Plus possible. Grab a seat and raise a toast to these technologies born before their time; without them, modern life wouldn't be as comfy and convenient as we know it. Tablet PCs
Image credit: edibleapple.com Let's get started with the 800 lb. gorilla in the room: tablet computers. Contrary to what Apple would have consumers and the worldwide courts believe, tablets didn't begin with the iPad. The concept has been around in pop culture for a long, long time – in fact, Samsung recently pointed to the appearance of a tablet in 2001: A Space Oddysey when Apple tried slapping the Galaxy Tab with an injunction request in the U.S. While it's true that the iPad thrust tablets into the limelight, the Apple portable wouldn't have even been created without the legion of unsuccessful tablets that came before it. Plenty of people – including the group mind at Wikipedia – consider the Microsoft Tablet PCs that popped up in the early 1990s as the father of the tablet. Pfah! Tablet-like computers have been around much longer than that. As our evil twins at MacLife.com point out in their excellent "5 Tablet Blasts From the Past" article, Samsung's GRiDpad popped up in 1989, and Apple itself failed with the Newton MessagePad before the iPad and the Apple Graphics Tablet (which interfered with radio signals and raised the FCC's hackles) way back in 1979. Admittedly, the Graphics Tablet and the early 1980s Pencept tablets needed to be hooked up to a separate computer in order to work, but hey, it still kinda counts. Every tablet failed in varying degrees of spectacularness, however, until Steve Jobs hypnotized the world with the iPad in 2010. Instant Boot
Image credit: hpmuseum.net PCs that boot instantly are the holy grail of computing. Even if you think tablets are more of a novelty than a useful piece of hardware, you can't deny that their speedy boot times are awesome. News flash: fast boots have been around a lot longer than iPad 2 and ASRock, n00bcakes. In fact, the oddly innovative HP Omnibook 300 sported even faster boot times than Apple's flagship tablet way back in 1993. How'd they do it? By keeping nearly everything – including Word, Excel, and the entire Windows 3.1 operating system – off of the hard drive and running it from ROM memory, instead. The nifty trick created a boot time that was really, truly damned near instantaneous. The 2.9 lb. portable PC packed in a couple of other interesting features, too; it contained a mouse that popped out of the notebook's casing and, in a pinch, it could run on 4 AA batteries. Unfortunately, with a starting price of just a hair under $2000, the Omnibook 300 never really took off. BatteriesThese days, it's difficult to remember a time without batteries. Sometimes, it seems like everything but the kitchen sink requires a two or ten of the expensive little electricity tubes in order to run. Thomas Edison was in the battery business way back in 1900, and Alessandro Volta invented the first real battery in 1800. But even though batteries seem to have caught on right away, some controversial archaeological evidence suggests that the first battery may have been created over 2,000 years ago in Mesopotamia.
Image credit: technology.am Archaeologists have found a number of "Baghdad batteries" near – duh – Baghdad, Iraq. The terracotta jars have a hollow copper cylinder inside, which houses an iron rod in its center. A stopper at the top of the jar keeps the iron rod from contacting the copper, but it isn't watertight; the copper tube can fill with liquid. This odd design led an archaeologist named Wilhelm Koenig to speculate in the 1940 that the ancient Mesopotamians used to fill the jars with lemon or grape juice to create an electrochemical reaction and electroplate gold on to silver objects. After World War II, an American named William Gray whipped up some replicas and filled them with grape juice. Lo and behold, the Baghdad battery responded by spitting out 2 volts of energy. Other archaeologists dispute the theory and argue that the Baghdad batteries aren't batteries at all, but were instead used to hold scrolls. We're not scientists, but the idea of ancient Mesopotamians screwing around with electricity and rocking gold plated jewelry is just too juicy to give up on, so we'll toss our hat in Koenig's ring. CDs/Digital Music
Russell's primitive CDs were photosensitive platters encoded with one micron-wide "bits" of binary data, which were read by a laser and converted into audible sounds by a computer. Russell and Battelle, his employer, began shopping the technology around to potential licensees in 1974, including recording industry giants Sony and Philips. They didn't bite, but in 1979, the two companies began internal development of digital audio discs. Sounds familiar, eh? A little too familiar: in 1988, Optical Recordings Co. – which held the rights to Russell's patents – received a $30 million infringement settlement from Sony and Philips. Unfortunately, Russell never saw a dime, but music lovers around the world still owe him their gratitude. Image credit: The Seattle Times
QR Codes
The face of suck. Image credit: garrickvanburen.com What, two articles that talk about CueCat in the span of a month? Yep. That's how crappy it was. Those QR codes popping up in ads, newspapers, magazines and soda cans owe a big debt of gratitude to that creepy little plastic white Cat. Not because it paved the way for QR codes; oh no, that technology was around before CueCat, even if it didn't become popular until recently. QR codes owe CueCat some thanks because CueCat showed everyone how not to do scannable bar codes. Start with the hardware necessary to scan the codes; whereas anybody with a smartphone can now kickstart a QR code, accessing CueCat codes could only be done with that goofy cat-shaped device manufactured by Digital Convergence. The company did a decent job of getting the units out to the public, but unfortunately, they did an indecent job of collecting personal data from users; they kept track of consumers by utilizing the unique serial identifier tied to each device and the log-in data needed to use it. When tech-savvy CueCat users began blocking the data CueCat transmitted to Digital Convergence, the company responded by pointing to its user agreement, which stated the CueCat readers were simply on loan rather than the property of the end user – giving users no right to "declaw" the CueCat. People just stopped using them, instead. Smooth move, Digital Convergence. It didn't help that the CueCats themselves felt cheap and were a pain in the neck to use. The Mouse
Image credit: finestdaily.com The mouse? Who the heck can picture computing without that old standby? Aside, um, from keyboard shortcut junkies and Apple users hooked on the whole Gestures thing, of course. But believe it or not, the mouse wasn't accepted as an integral part of the PC experience when it was created way back in the mid sixties. Douglas Engelbart and Bill English of the Stanford Research Institute created the first mouse, and it was literally a lumbering monstrosity compared to today's sleek laser-sporting peripherals; it was built out of a large brick of wood, with two perpendicular metal gear wheels inside and a small button in its upper-right corner. Why the upper-right corner? Who knows? Maybe Engelbart had a strong pinky. The duo dubbed the device "mouse" thanks to the tail-like cord that snaked out of the bottom of the peripheral to attach to a computer. Telefunken introduced a version that used a ball, rather than perpendicular gears, shortly thereafter and shipped a mouse with every computer it sold, but the mouse didn't hit the mainstream until 1984. That's when the Apple Macintosh hit the mainstream and thrust the Lisa Mouse into the limelight. Even then, there were doubters: at the time, John Dvorak said "There is no evidence that people want to use these things." On-Demand Television: Two Spectacular Failures
Interactive TelevisionFirst up is Qube, a service that Warner Communications rolled out in the Cleveland area in 1977. Qube had a lot of things going for it; it offered a ton of channels for the time period, with 30 in total; those 30 channels were split between 10 normal channels, 10 on-demand pay-per-view movies and events – a cable first – and 10 channels that showed off the platforms interactive abilities, two of which would go on to become MTV and Nickelodeon. Watchers could, for example, answer surveys and polls to provide instantaneous feedback while watching a presidential debate. Qube was incredibly well received and soon expanded to several other cities, but it was also incredibly expensive to implement and run. High operating costs caused Qube's demise and almost took Warner Cable down with it. Check out this link for a full history of the interesting experiment. Image credit: IPriori.com Streaming VideoThen came Akimbo. Introduced in 2004, Akimbo offered the same basic service that Hulu does today: streaming, on-demand television. It required a $230 set-top box and a broadband connection; those were the first two strikes against it in the world of 2004. The third strike and most deadly strike was a lack of engaging content. Netflix and Hulu still struggle with content providers worried about devaluing their content; in 2004, the traditional music industry was in the midst of being demolished by the digital music revolution and television producers were worried Akimbo would bring the same troubles to their neck of the woods.
Image credit: informitv.com While Akimbo managed to snag a deal with Turner Broadcasting to bring CNN and Cartoon Network shows to the service, and it also offered a selection of educational content by A&E, the History Channel and National Geographic, most of the shows available were foreign or only of interest to ultra-niche groups, such as yachters or billiards fans. Users also had to pony up a $10/month subscription fee, and "premium content" cost extra while being simultaneously chocked full of ads. As innovative as streaming video was at the time, those limitations and price concerns kept Akimbo from ever really taking off. The company shut down the service in 2007 and closed its doors in 2008. NetbooksThanks to tablets, netbooks aren't selling at quite the same "Get 'em while they're hot" pace of a few years back. While the little laptop's time in the limelight may have been brief, it came on the shoulders of a line of spectacular failures.
The rumored yet never released Palm Foleo. Image source: Engadget Remember that failed Newton tablet that we mentioned earlier? The Apple eMate 300 netbook ran the same Apple Newton OS. As if that wasn't a bad enough omen, the eMate 300 was the portable computer of choice for Batgirl in the craptastic "Batman & Robin" movie. Apple pulled the plug on the entire Newton line in 1997, when the eMate 300 was barely a year old. On the other hand, Psion's diminutive netBook is remarkable not because it failed so hard in the early 2000s – which it did – but because it started slinging cease-and-desist letters to manufacturers, suppliers and even enthusiast websites that used the term "netbook" when it became popular in 2008. The US Patent Office put a halt to that pretty quickly, a surprising move considering the USPTO's track record. Let's end this shindig on an ironic note: one of the most spectacular netbook failures never even came to market and serves as a highlight of the now-defunct Palm's stunningly poor business sense. Palm announced the Palm Foleo, a Linux-based subnotebook computer, in May 2007. Palm envisioned it as being the perfect companion device for smartphones, and like the Omnibook 300, it was supposed to sport an instant boot feature. Unfortunately, Palm was already in the first revolutions of its death-spiral down the toilet drain, and the Foleo was canceled a scant three months after its announcement as part of the company's decision to focus on smartphones and PDAs. The irony? The netbook craze took off just after the death of the Foleo. If the PC had made it to market, it would've been the first netbook available during the feeding frenzy – and possibly made Palm oodles of money. Oh, well. The End…?So, what did we bungle? What did we forget? Which little-used gadget is going to be the next technology to hit it big? Let us know in the comments! |
| Capitol Police Investigating Tweet from The Onion Posted: 29 Sep 2011 03:17 PM PDT
The Onion had a story up today about Congress taking schoolchildren hostage, and demanding $12 trillion for their safe release. Funny, right? But the tweet referencing that story was alarming to many users and the Capitol police are treating this matter seriously. Without context, and after being retweeted, it's alarming indeed. It's hard to say if the cops will realize this is the Onion, and let things go, or press on. Even as a joke it's in bad taste, but does this rise to the level of a criminal matter? It's also worth noting this tweet is still up. |
| Microsoft Closer to Xbox TV Service Posted: 29 Sep 2011 03:02 PM PDT
It was back at E3 that Microsoft talked up TV services, but other than an ESPN tie-in, little has come of it. In addition to working with cable operators, deals are being worked out with channels like HBO and Bravo. This could come together to make Microsoft a real competitor in digital video streaming. This couldn't be a better time to do it either. Netflix is still dealing with the PR nightmare kicked off by the announcement that the company would be splitting in two. Do you think Microsoft's console gives them the necessary leverage to compete? |
| Firefox 7 Bug Casts Invisibility Spell on Some Add-ons Posted: 29 Sep 2011 02:42 PM PDT
Writing on the Mozilla add-ons blog on Wednesday, Scott notified Firefox users about the discovery of "an issue in which some users may have one or more of their add-ons hidden after upgrading to the latest Firefox version, affecting both desktop and mobile." "These add-ons and their data are still intact and haven't actually been removed. We paused new updates to Firefox to minimize the potential impact on users and will soon release an update [version 7.0.1] to fix this issue and ensure all your add-ons are visible and usable," he wrote. For those of you who have had enough of your favorite add-ons playing hide-and-seek with you, Mozilla has come up with an interim fix in the form of the Add-on Recovery Tool (download). Apparently, the bug also affects Thunderbird 7. But luckily the above add-on works with the email application as well.
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| Amazon's Silk Browser A Privacy Threat? Posted: 29 Sep 2011 02:34 PM PDT
Silk will work by connecting directly to the Amazon EC2 computing cloud. Here, web content will be cached and compressed by Amazon's super-fast back end, and pushed down to the device upon request. The problems start in with the fact that Amazon will retain all the URLs and IP addresses you access for up to 30 days in their cloud. The retailer will also use a certificate to run an SSL proxy, thus allowing them to accelerate HTTPS content as well. Because all of your communications are stored, that makes the data vulnerable to intrusion, or more likely, to law enforcement warrants. There is an 'off-cloud' mode that user can opt into, and Amazon claims that there is no personally identifiable information in the data blocks. Do you trust Amazon on this? |
| Nokia to Axe 3,500 Jobs and Shutter Factory in Romania Posted: 29 Sep 2011 12:11 PM PDT
This is a big blow to Romania. Nokia's Cluj factory in Romania, which opened four years ago, is home to 2,200 employees. Reuters says the plant turnover is comparable to 1.3 percent of Romania's GDP from last year. Nokia's other 1,300 job cuts will affect its Location & Commerce business unit in Malvern, Pennsylvania, but that might not be the end of it. The handset maker is also considering slashing jobs at its plants in Finland, Mexico, and Hungary. "We are seeing solid progress against our strategy, and with these planned changes will emerge as a more dynamic, nimble, and efficient challenger," said Stephen Elop, Nokia President and CEO. "We must take painful, yet necessary, steps to align our workforce and operations with our path forward." |
| Browser Extension of the Week: Remember The Milk for Gmail Posted: 29 Sep 2011 11:51 AM PDT
Remember The Milk for Gmail allows users of Remember The Milk's incredibly versatile online task management service to access their task list through their Gmail interface in Chrome or Firefox. In order to use the extension, you'll need to have a Remember The Milk Account. The good news is that getting one doesn't cost a thing. After signing up for an account and adding the extension to your browser, navigate to your Gmail interface and boom--you'll find email and task management has been rolled into one big awesome mashup. Remember The Milk for Gmail automatically syncs with your RTM account, allowing you to review, edit and add new tasks from inside of your Gmail interface.
It's even possible to link tasks to specific pieces of mail, Google Calendar events, and Google Contacts. If at any time you decide that you can't bear the thought of how many tasks are awaiting your attention, just click the left side of the Remember The Milk for Gmail interface to tuck it away, out of sight out of mind. Be sure to check back with us every Thursday for another edition of Maximum PC's Browser Extension of the Week.
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| Is Chrome Set To Dethrone Firefox? Posted: 29 Sep 2011 11:35 AM PDT
Computerworld sifted through the data pumped out by StatCounter in order to make the claim. Just yesterday, Firefox's share of the market stood at 26.8 percent, while Chrome clocked in just below that at 23.6 percent. The publication made the prediction based on Chrome's astonishing growth rate; Google's browser has making big gains in market share while both Firefox and Internet Explorer have both been seeing slight decreases. Going by StatCounter's numbers, and assuming current usage trends continue, Chrome should just about break even with Firefox in November and surpass its rival in December. Gregg Keizer, the author of the article, admits that the browser data from Web metrics company Net Applications looks very different. That firm only has Chrome claiming 15.5 percent of usage, with Firefox claiming 22.6 percent. But that firm's overall trend matches StatCounters; Chrome is rapidly gaining ground while users slowly slip away from Firefox and IE. If current trends remain the same, Keizer reports that Chrome should surpass Firefox usage by mid-November in Net Applications' metrics. No matter whose numbers you use, one thing's for certain; Chrome's rise has been nothing short of meteoric. Have you defected to Google's browser, or are you still a Firefox fan? |
The Microsoft patent juggernaut keeps on rolling. As you all know, Microsoft has managed to force yet another bright star in the Android firmament to sign a patent licensing deal with it. Redmond's patent deal with Samsung, which requires that the latter pay royalties to MS for every Android device it sells, hasn't gone down too well with archrival Google. The search engine giant on Wednesday 
Remember the last time you rushed out to your local music store to pick up a hot new cassette tape by one of your favorite artists? Yeah, us either. The digital revolution has taken the music world by storm, leading to the meteoric rise of iTunes, Pandora, and the lawsuit-churning arm of the RIAA. Before that, the 1990s were ruled by gargantuan CD sales. None of it would have been possible without James Russell, who created the first digital-to-optical playback device way back in 1970 – and was promptly ignored by music companies.
As download speeds get faster and cable bills skyrocket, more and more people are turning to streaming services like Hulu Plus, Netflix and Apple TV to fill their video viewing needs. Each of the services has had its fair share of hiccups, to be sure – what the hell are you doing these days, Netflix? – but they've all seen relatively decent success, unlike some of their interactive TV forefathers.
Most of us know that when America's favorite news source, The Onion says something, it's a joke. Not so with the 
It's no secret that Microsoft has intentions to make the Xbox 360 a more robust home entertainment device, and the rumors have been that they intend to do that by getting more 
Just a day before the release of Firefox 7, Justin "Fligtar" Scott, product manager for add-ons at Mozilla, 
When Amazon introduced the Kindle Fire tablet, the cloud accelerated Silk browser was one of the headlining features. While the speed and ease of use supposedly offered by Silk is intriguing, some privacy-minded folks are a little 
Job security is a tough thing to come by these days at Nokia. As part of yet another major restructuring effort, the world's largest handset maker is handing out pink slips to 3,500 employees and closing one of its shops in Romania. The latest round of job cuts are on top of the 4,000 Nokia announced back in April.
Having your Google Calendar and Gmail available for use everywhere you go is a productivity godsend (or a curse, depending on how you look at it), making it possible to stay in touch and plot out your life no matter where you roam. That said, both of Google's web applications lack anything even close to a useable task management system baked into their interfaces. Fortunately, Remember The Milk's got a solution to this problem, and we feel it's slick enough to be our Browser Extension of the Week.
For years, the browser race was a one-horse affair: it was Internet Explorer's way or the highway. Then Firefox crawled out of the Netscape wreckage and established itself as a viable, free alternative to Microsoft's bundled software. Google's Chrome may be the feisty new kid on the block, but a new report says it very well may unseat Firefox by the end of the year for the worldwide number two slot in the cut-throat browser wars.| You are subscribed to email updates from Maximum PC - All Articles To stop receiving these emails, you may unsubscribe now. | Email delivery powered by Google |
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