General Gaming Article |
- Lead Oculus VR Engineer Andrew Reisse Dies in a Senseless Accident
- Ubuntu Founder Officially Gives up Trying to Topple Microsoft
- Razer CEO Trash Talks Other PC Makers While Professing his Love for Apple Designs
| Lead Oculus VR Engineer Andrew Reisse Dies in a Senseless Accident Posted: 02 Jun 2013 03:25 PM PDT
High speed police chase ends tragically for Reisse and the Oculus team.A senseless and tragic accident has robbed Oculus VR of one of its founding members. Andrew Scott Reisse died on Thursday after being struck by a car pursued by police. Coworkers report that Andrew was out for a walk when the incident occurred, and the entire team is stunned and saddened by the loss. "Andrew was a brilliant computer graphics engineer, an avid photographer and hiker who loved nature, a true loyal friend, and a founding member of our close-knit Oculus family," the company said in a statement. "Andrew's contributions span far and wide in the video game industry. His code is embedded in thousands of games played by millions of people around the world," the statement said. "Words can not express how sorely he will be missed or how deeply our sympathy runs for his family." Reisse was responsible for Oculus support within the Unreal engine – which includes the much touted Citadel demo that has wowed users of the new technology from coast to coast. Reisse was described by coworkers as extremely proud of the work he was doing, and will certainly be missed by all who knew him. |
| Ubuntu Founder Officially Gives up Trying to Topple Microsoft Posted: 02 Jun 2013 12:27 PM PDT
Mission accomplished. Sort of…..Canonical founder Mark Shuttleworth announced on Thursday that Ubuntu Linux bug #1 – "Microsoft has a majority market share" – is now officially closed. Rather than boasting about his victory, he gives much of the credit to iOS and Android. "Android may not be my or your first choice of Linux, but it is without doubt an open source platform that offers both practical and economic benefits to users and industry. So we have both competition, and good representation for open source, in personal computing." We use the term "victory" above very loosely since it's quite clear Shuttleworth didn't achieve his overarching goals of dominating the PC industry. Back in 2004 he believed pretty strongly that all PC's should ship with primarily free and open operating systems, a goal which quite clearly hasn't played out like he expected. Even Android phones for the most part ship with locked boot loaders, and OEM's do everything possible to restrict access. Despite the technicalities, Shuttleworth notes that the Microsoft of 2013 is nothing like the company he declared war on back in 2004. He writes that Microsoft Azure in particular is "a pleasure to work with" on Linux, and that today "circumstances have changed." |
| Razer CEO Trash Talks Other PC Makers While Professing his Love for Apple Designs Posted: 02 Jun 2013 11:05 AM PDT
Min-Liang Tan likes to think he builds a Macbook for the Windows gaming community.Razer CEO Min-Liang Tan has a history of being somewhat outspoken, and in a recent interview with The Verge he didn't pull any punches when it came to the fumbles of his competitors. "We don't think the PC is dying. Rather, what's killing the PC industry isn't the PC itself, but PC makers." Tan claims his company's two year old lineup of Blade laptops is a shining example of the types of innovative products HP and Dell aren't producing. "It's been a long time since anyone's been passionate about a PC," Tan claims. "HP's doing a horrible job with it. Dell's doing a horrible job with it. They just don't want to do anything with the PC anymore. Look, HP tried to get rid of their PC division and Dell said 'we're not a PC company anymore, we're now an enterprise company.'" Tan feels strongly that his company is one of the few remaining PC makers who offer gaming laptops at a quality level that matches Apple. "I love Apple products," he says. "I think they do an incredible job in terms of industrial design. But, for us, it's also been an issue of creative professionals coming to us after Apple moved out of the 17-inch space." Perhaps the two most surprising bits of trivia that came out of the interview were a bit more commercial in nature. Tan claims that despite having prices far above the commodity PC makers, profits per machine are still not great. It's not entirely clear if he was basing that on margin expectations from the company's other product lines, or the PC sector in general. The other admission is that Razer can't build Blade laptops and Edge tablets fast enough to keep up with demand. The company originally had aspirations of offering its PC products internationally, but so far production constraints have held them back. |
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