General Gaming Article |
- iPhone Banned in Syria
- Piracy Remains Legal in Switzerland After New Study
- ARM-Based Windows 8 Tablets Could Lose Desktop
- EFF Seeks DMCA Exemption for Console Modders
- Cool Site of the Week: The Punk Rock Advent Calendar
- Carrier IQ Controversy: Your Phone Is Spying On You, And Your Wireless Carrier's To Blame
- Head to Head: Chromebook vs. 'Jolibook'
- Verizon Gobbles Up Cable Companies' Wireless Spectrum For $3.6 Billion
- Browser Extension of the Week: Add to Amazon Wish List
- AMD Issues Another Incremental Graphics Driver Update (Catalyst 11.11c)
| Posted: 02 Dec 2011 03:23 PM PST
Syrian protesters are obviously using more devices that the iPhone to plan and report the happenings there. However, it turns out that it is a surprisingly popular device among the crowds in the streets. Several iPhone apps have been used heavily to disseminate news on the brutal Syrian crackdown. This is hardly the first time a regime has gone after technology to stifle protests, but it could be the most shortsighted. No other mobile devices have been affected by the new rules, so we don't imagine this is going to have a significant effect. Still, this could be one more reason for security forces and police to detain protesters. Despite the governments best efforts, people are still managing to access social networks to keep their movement alive. |
| Piracy Remains Legal in Switzerland After New Study Posted: 02 Dec 2011 03:04 PM PST
The study does stipulate that the internet is a totally different kind of distribution mechanism that allows users to access a raft of copyrighted content. However, the study goes on to explain that in Switzerland, piracy appears to have no negative impact on the amount of money people spend on entertainment. A Dutch study was also cited which shows that pirates often spend more money in the long run. The Swiss appear fine with the reality that one-third of the adult population engages in piracy. The report says this is just the price that must be paid for progress. The entertainment lobby also got a stern warning of things to come from the Swiss report. "Winners will be those who are able to use the new technology to their advantages and losers those who missed this development and continue to follow old business models," it said. Burn. |
| ARM-Based Windows 8 Tablets Could Lose Desktop Posted: 02 Dec 2011 02:50 PM PST
If true, Microsoft will have essentially bifurcated the Windows 8 product into two completely different lines. The x86 users would have Metro and the regular desktop, but could ARM users get by in just Metro? it is unclear what this means for convertible tablet devices, but it's probably still going to come down to what chip a device is running. Removing the Windows desktop from ARM devices could allow them to be marketed differently. They would be the iPad competitor that Microsoft has been thus far unable to deliver. It would also have the added benefit of simplifying user interaction with the device. Do you think a Windows 8 tablet without the desktop will compare favorably to the iPad? |
| EFF Seeks DMCA Exemption for Console Modders Posted: 02 Dec 2011 02:01 PM PST
"In the exemption requests filed today, EFF asked the Copyright Office to protect the 'jailbreaking' of smartphones, electronic tablets, and video game consoles – liberating them to run operating systems and applications from any source, not just those approved by the manufacturer," EFF said in a statement. "EFF also asked for legal protections for artists and critics who use excerpts from DVDs or downloading services to create new, remixed works. These exemptions build on and expand exemptions that EFF won last year for jailbreakers and remix artists." EFF Intellectual Property Director Corynne McSherry criticized the way the DMCA is written, saying it's "supposed to block copyright infringement. But instead it can be misused to threaten creators, innovators, and consumers, discouraging them from making full and fair use of their own property." Modder Geroge Hotz knows this all too well. Hotz is a notorious iOS modder who got himself in hot water when he hacked a PlayStation 3 console and then posted root keys of the PS3 on his website. He essentially figured out a way to jailbreak the PS3, which would have been legal on a smartphone. He settled a subsequent lawsuit with Sony and later landed a job with Facebook. If EFF gets its way, the simple act of modding a console would not be illegal, though using a jailbroken console to circumvent copyright would still run afoul of the law. "Technology has evolved over the last three years, and so it's important to expand these exemptions to cover the real-world uses of smartphones, tablets, video game consoles, DVDs, and video downloads," EFF Senior Staff Attorney Marchia Hofmann said in a statement. |
| Cool Site of the Week: The Punk Rock Advent Calendar Posted: 02 Dec 2011 01:38 PM PST
Offering visitors one kickin' holiday-themed punk tune a day for the 25 days leading up to Christmas, The Punk Rock Advent Calendar is a site with a mission: To save your sanity from the heaping helping of musical pap most retailers, radio stations and family members try to pass off as festive.
The 25 days of December leading up to Christmas day features a track from a different band that can also be download to your computer and rocked out to later--after all, what would an advent calendar be without a treat behind every door? Without a doubt, The Punk Rock Advent Calendar is an awesome way to ring in the holidays and make them feel like a fete worth celebrating. Be sure to check back every Friday for another edition of Maximum PC's Cool Site of the Week.
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| Carrier IQ Controversy: Your Phone Is Spying On You, And Your Wireless Carrier's To Blame Posted: 02 Dec 2011 11:44 AM PST
Carrier IQ has been found on a bunch of HTC phones, and when ZDNET – who is maintaining an excellently updated article on which companies are using Carrier IQ, and which aren't – asked them about it, HTC basically fingered the blame at wireless providers. Carrier IQ is required on devices by a number of U.S carriers so if consumers or media have any questions about the practices relating to, or data collected by, Carrier IQ we'd advise them to contact their carrier. Well, that sucks. Which companies, exactly, are among those "number of U.S. carriers" that force smartphone manufacturers to include Carrier IQ? Again, ZDNet has the answer. AT&T and Sprint have both owned up to using data provided by Carrier IQ to "improve wireless network and service performance" and "understand device performance," respectively. Apple also said they include Carrier IQ in the iPhone, although they say they "stopped supporting Carrier IQ with iOS 5 in most of our products and will remove it completely in a future software update." On the other hand, Verizon Wireless, RIM, Nokia, Google and Microsoft have all come out and said flat-out that they have no affiliation whatsoever with Carrier IQ, either the company or the software. T-Mobile has yet to comment on the situation. In related news, Senator Al Franken is demanding that Carrier IQ (the company) fork over details about the program, and a class-action lawsuit has been filed against HTC, Samsung and Carrier IQ in Missouri earlier today. |
| Head to Head: Chromebook vs. 'Jolibook' Posted: 02 Dec 2011 11:36 AM PST The Chromebook is nice, but is it $500 nice? Is it really better than spending a few bucks to upgrade an old netbook into a comparable browser-based portable PC? We took a year-old Samsung NF310 netbook with a dual-core Atom CPU, upped the RAM to 2GB, and replaced its hard drive with a 20GB Intel Larson Creek SSD, then installed Joli OS 1.2. We pitted our creation against a Samsung Series 5 Chromebook to see whether a homebrew 'Jolibook' can hang.
Round 1: HardwareThe build quality of the Samsung Chromebook is excellent, with a bright, 12.1-inch screen, powerful (if tiny) speakers, a comfortable keyboard, and a classy look. Netbook hardware varies, but the NF310, with its dual-core Atom processor, is one of the nicer 10.1-inch netbooks we've tested. Besides upgrading the RAM to 2GB, we dropped in a 20GB SSD to create a level playing field with the Chromebook's 16GB internal flash storage. The Chromebook is heavier at three pounds, four ounces (compared to the NF310's two pounds, 13 ounces), but the Chromebook's battery life is better. Every key on the Chromebook's keyboard maps to a specific Chrome OS function (or a normal keyboard key); not so with the NF310, whose function keys we couldn't get working in Joli OS without downloading obscure Debian packages. Winner: Chromebook Round 2: SoftwareChrome OS works flawlessly on a Chromebook, while Joli OS works to varying degrees on a huge number of devices, albeit with some quirks. For example we couldn't adjust the screen brightness on our Samsung NF310 no matter what we tried. Chrome OS is the Chrome browser with a rudimentary local file tree and some media playback support. All apps are either browser extensions or web apps. Chromebooks currently lack support for many third-party plugins, like Microsoft Silverlight, Sun Java, or the Unity Web Player. Joli OS includes a build of Chromium, so it has everything Chrome OS has. But it's built on Linux, so it also supports true local apps like OpenOffice—or any Ubuntu app, as long as you can dig into the OS's substructure to find the package manager. Winner: Jolibook Round 3: PerformancePerformance is a tricky metric, and on systems like these—where we can't exactly run our Far Cry 2 benchmark or even Quake III—feel is more important than raw numbers. Here the Chromebook excels perhaps because it tries to do so much less. The Chromebook boots in around 10 seconds and resumes in three. Our Jolibook took 20 seconds to get to the login screen, and another 20 past that to load the Jolicloud desktop. Using the Chrome browser, pages loaded more snappily and we could work with more tabs without slowdowns in the Chromebook than in our Jolibook—though, of course, we couldn't do anything else. The Jolibook's local app performance didn't feel particularly zippy, but it's a netbook, after all. What it can do, the Chromebook can do fast. What it can't do, it can't do at all. Winner: Chromebook Round 4: FlexibilityA Chromebook is a Chromebook. If you spring for the 3G version (or have a smartphone with a tethering plan), it can be a Chromebook anywhere, but it'll never be more than that. A Jolibook could conceivably have a 3G radio in it (if your original hardware supports it), and you can always dual-boot Joli OS with Windows 7, swap out the hard drive for a different one, change your operating system, use Bluetooth accessories, etc. You can also keep your Jolicloud desktop synched to the web and use it from any computer as a sort of personal start page. That's a nice touch (though you can do much the same thing with Chrome Sync). Winner: Jolibook Round 5: PriceYou can get a 12.1-inch Samsung Series 5 Chromebook for $430 (without 3G) or $500 (with 100MB of 3G data per month). Acer's 11.6-inch AC700 Wi-Fi Chromebook is just $350. Each of these models ships with 16GB of local storage, 2GB DDR3 RAM, and a dual-core Atom processor. If you already have a netbook, you paid your $350-$500 last year or the year before, in which case, your cash outlay is limited to $20 for a 2GB RAM SODIMM, $100 for a 20GB or 40GB SSD, and a few bucks for a flash drive to put the Joli OS installer on. Not bad for giving a netbook a new lease on life. Winner: Jolibook if you have an old notebook and are pressed for cash; Chromebook otherwise And the Winner Is…After using both the Chromebook and our homebrew Jolibook for several weeks each, we have to give the edge to the Chromebook. Its instant-on boots and resumes, excellent battery life, and sheer minimalism make it our note-taker of choice. And the 3G radio on the $500 model is handy in a pinch. Joli OS is a fine way to spruce up an old netbook, especially if you're short on cash, but the Chromebook spoiled us and we don't want a cobbled-together alternative. |
| Verizon Gobbles Up Cable Companies' Wireless Spectrum For $3.6 Billion Posted: 02 Dec 2011 10:52 AM PST
Time Warner, Comcast and Bright House networks each own a portion of SpectrumCo, the company selling Verizon the spectrum licenses. The deal isn't straight up cash-for-spectrum, either; Verizon Wireless and the cable companies will be able to sell each other's products, too. In addition, CNET reports that both Comcast and Time Warner, who currently offer wireless broadband services that tap into Clearwire's network, will be cutting ties with that company over the next six months and switching whole-hog over to Verizon's network. Verizon isn't being coy what it wants the spectrum for, either. "Spectrum is the raw material on which wireless networks are built, and buying the AWS spectrum now solidifies our network leadership into the future, and will enable us to bring even better 4G LTE products and services to our customers," CEO Dan Mead said in the press release. Of course, the sale still has to be approved by the FCC, and if the FCC's recent slap-down of the AT&T – T-Mobile merger is any indication, that approval may fall under heavy scrutiny by regulators. |
| Browser Extension of the Week: Add to Amazon Wish List Posted: 02 Dec 2011 10:47 AM PST
Available for Chrome, Add to Amazon Wish List allows users to build a list of material needs and desires from any site on the internet. See a hat on Etsy that your head simply can't live without? Just click the Add to Amazon Wish List located in your navigation bar to capture that lid's details as well as any notes you'd like to include for future reference.
To review your wish list at any time, simply visit an Amazon website, click on the Wish List link in the site's button bar and BOOM, you're ready to engage in a bit of lustful capitalism. 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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| AMD Issues Another Incremental Graphics Driver Update (Catalyst 11.11c) Posted: 02 Dec 2011 10:30 AM PST
Catalyst 11.11c also addresses other popular games, including Assassin's Creed: Revelations, Batman: Arkham City, Rage, and Battlefield 3. In addition to improved performance, AMD packed quite a few bug fixes for Rage, everything from missing shadows to geometry corruption that's sometimes seen in the Bash TV entrance. You can download Catalyst 11.11c here. Image Credit: Rage |
As peaceful protests continue in Syria, the regime of president Bashar al-Assad had what must have seemed like a bright idea in the heat of the moment. As of today, Syria has 
Things work a little differently in Switzerland. The Swiss copyright laws allow people to download copyrighted material for personal use, which has had the entertainment industry up in arms for years. Amid all the claims of billions in losses, the Swiss government undertook a 
According to Microsoft-watcher Paul Thurrott, Microsoft may be working toward a future where Windows 8 tablets ship 
The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) is urging the U.S. Copyright Office to renew and expand exemptions to the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) that were granted last year in response to EFF's requests to protect certain modding rights. Specifically, EFF played a critical role in making it legal to "jailbreak" smartphones, and the organization wants the DMCA to grant the same freedom for electronic tablets and videogame consoles.
If you've ever worked in retail, you know all too well of the pain that comes with spending eight to 10 hours of the day in a store or shop this time of year. We're not talking about the flood of customers, or the frantic pleading of managers with revenue-based KPIs to sell everything in your store but doors. It's the music. No matter how much you love the holidays or dig your gig, hearing the same 40 Christmas songs looped continuously for a month will make you want to strangle David Bowie and Bing Crosby with a work sock. This, we encourage you to end the cycle of musical madness by partaking in 
Have you heard about that nasty little bit of software called Carrier IQ? A security researcher by the name of Trevor Eckhart discovered the mysterious software running on his Android phone earlier this month, dug deeper into things, 
Wireless spectrum: it's what powers mobile communications and wireless carriers have an insatiable taste for more, more, MORE of it. The need for more spectrum is the reason 
The holiday season is upon us, and with it comes the horror of holiday shopping. At this time of year, thinking about others and spending your hard earned dough on them is pretty much requisite. While this might paste a look of joy on your nearest and dearest, every gift you purchase means there's a little less coin in the coffers for the stuff you want. This means that instead of being able to buy what you want when you want, you're gonna have to wait. Fortunately, 
AMD has released another performance driver (yes, again) for its Catalyst 11.11 package. And once again, improved performance in Elder Scrolls: Skyrim takes center stage. New in Catalyst 11.11c is better CrossFireX performance scaling for AMD Radeon HD 5000/6000 series cards in Skyrim, 2-7 percent better performance in single GPU configurations, and a resolved corruption issue when enabling MSAA on Radeon HD 6970 cards.| 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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