How many times have you wanted to curse a USB connector after it's taken you three attempts to plug it in correctly? You know what we're talking about -- there's the first attempt, which seemingly doesn't fit, so you switch it around and try again. Do'h, that's the wrong way! You then turn the connector back to the original orientation you tried, only this time -- the third time -- ti works. Go figure. Thankfully, there's a solution in sight, and we have pics of what the USB Type-C connector will look like.
The USB-IF is exhibiting this week at IDF Shenzhen and sent us the first renderings of the USB Type-C connector. You'll notice that it's an entirely new design, one that's been tailored for emerging product designs. USB-IF settled on this design because it's robust enough for laptops and tablets, and slim enough for mobile phones.
It's similar in size to a USB 2.0 Micro-B connector. The reversible design means you won't have to fiddle with flipping it around, and there will be an audible "click" to let you know it's been fully inserted. And in case you're wondering, the answer is yes, it will support fast transfers -- USB 3.1 Gen1 (5Gbps) and Gen2 (10Gbps).
With yet another month's worth of data to digest, it's becoming increasingly clear that Windows 8 might never catch up to Windows 7. How you want to view that is up to you -- it could mean that Microsoft hit it out of the park with Windows 7, making it exceedingly difficult on itself to duplicate that kind of success, or that Windows 8 is a foul ball off of a broken bat. Let's look at some numbers.
According to NetMarketShare's data, Windows 7 gained more than a percentage point in March, increasing its share of the desktop OS market from 47.31 percent to 48.77 percent (+1.46 percent). Meanwhile, Windows 8 and 8.1 grew from 10.68 percent to 11.3 percent, representing a 0.62 percent gain. As for XP, it's share of the market fell from 29.53 percent to 26.69 percent, a drop of 2.84 percent. What this appears to indicate is that twice as many people jumping ship from XP are going to Windows 7 instead of Windows 8/8.1.
If we zoom out, it becomes increasingly clear that Windows 7 is a tough act to follow. In March 2013, Windows 7 accounted for 44.73 percent of all desktops. Minus a few minor blips along the way, it's been gaining share ever since.
The good news for Windows 8/8.1 is that its share is in double digits. And as far as competing platforms go, both Windows 8 (6.41 percent) and Windows 8.1 (4.89 percent) individually account for more desktops than Mac OS X 10.9 (3.75 percent).
April Fool's Day has become the ultimate Internet holiday. Memes, jokes, gags, and fake products abound as tech companies go crazy with April Fools' jokes. Want an automatic selfie bot that follows you around and takes stellar selfies? Or maybe you're in the mood for a Pokémon-catching challenge?
To be honest, we wouldn't mind seeing some of these products come to life. As funny as Cats You May Know is, we can't help but wonder what it would be like if we actually had a social network for cats.
Which pranks did you fall for? Tell us in the comments!
This might be the streaming box you've been waiting for
The tech sector is terrible at keeping secrets, and as such, we've long suspected Amazon was working on a streaming device of its own. It turns out the rumors were true. At long last, Amazon today announced a 1080p streaming set-top box it's calling Fire TV, and though it's small, it packs a punch. Powering the device is a Qualcomm Snapdragon 8064 quad-core processor clocked at 1.7GHz with Adreno 320 graphics and 2GB of RAM.
It also has dual-band, dual-antenna (MIMO) 802.11n Wi-Fi, Bluetooth 4.0, 8GB of internal storage, HDMI output, 10/100 LAN, USB 2.0 port, Dolby Digital Plus support, and a few other odds and ends wrapped in a chassis that measures 4.5 inches by 4.5 inches by 0.7 inches and weighs 9.9 ounces.
One of the touted features of Fire TV is "voice search that actually works." Just speak the name of a movie, TV show, actor, director, or genre into the remote and you're finished.
Fire TV offers instant access to Netflix, Prime Instant Video, Hulu Plus, WatchESPN, YouTube, and more. You can also listen to music through Fire TV via Amazon MP3, Pandora, iHeartRadio, TuneIn, and other services. And as for gaming, there's even some of that -- think games like Minecraft, Monsters University, The Game of Life, The Walking Dead, NBA2K14, and so forth.
"Tiny box, huge specs, tons of content, incredible price—people are going to love Fire TV," said Jeff Bezos, Amazon.com Founder and CEO. "Voice search that actually works means no more typing on an alphabet grid. Our exclusive new ASAP feature predicts the shows you'll want to watch and gets them ready to stream instantly. And our open approach gives you not just Amazon Instant Video and Prime Instant Video, but also Netflix, Hulu Plus, and more. On Fire TV you can watch Alpha House and House of Cards."
Amended agreement includes $50 million in additional purchase commitments
AMD bumped up its purchase commitments with GlobalFoundries in 2014 by about $50 million. Under terms of the amended Wafer Supply Agreement (WSA), AMD expects to pay $1.2 billion in all this year, though what's interesting is that the deal is no longer limited to traditional CPUs and APUs; it now includes GPUs and semi-custom game console chips, such as those found in the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 4.
AMD has leaned on Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (TSMC) to produce graphics chips, including more than 10 million Xbox One and PS4 chips. With console sales expected to keep climbing, AMD essentially ensured that a shortage of parts won't become an issue.
"The successful close of our amended wafer supply agreement with GlobalFoundries demonstrates the continued commitment from our two companies to strengthen our business relationship as long-term strategic partners, and GlobalFoundries' ability to execute in alignment with our product roadmap," said Rory Read, president and chief executive officer, AMD. "This latest step in AMD's continued transformation plays a critical role in our goals for 2014."
While specific figures weren't disclosed, AMD and GlobalFoundries did establish fixed pricing and other commitments as part of the amended agreement.
Don't be surprised if there's a surge in Chromebook sales
Windows XP is a dead OS walking and it's highly unlikely to get a last second reprieve. Instead, Microsoft is anxious to bury the legacy OS in the backyard in hopes that those still clinging to XP will opt for a newer, more secure version of Windows. Some inevitably will, but one thing that will be interesting to keep an eye on is how many users replace their aging XP machines with a Chromebook.
This isn't just a theoretical thought -- the London Borough of Barking and Dagenham is set to replace aging XP machines with Chromebooks, TechEye.net reports. By doing so, the council figures to save more than £200,000 (around $333,000 in U.S. currency) in hardware, plus an additional £200,000 in power savings over its desktop PCs.
The council had 3,500 desktops and 800 laptops for its 3,500 employees. As part of the upgrade plan, they'll replace those machines with 2,000 Chromebooks and 500 Chromeboxes for reception desks and shared work areas. To maintain support for apps that can't be delivered through its Citrix network, the council will invest in 600 Windows 7 desktops and 1,000 Windows 7 laptops.
Businesses that rely on Windows software aren't likely to switch to Chromebooks, which are limited in software support and raw computing power. However, it's conceivable that smaller firms and home users could replace their XP machines with Chromebooks. Despite Chrome OS's shortcomings, the top two selling laptops on Amazon are both Chromebooks, as are five of the top 10.
Titanfall. Thief. The Crew. Mad Max. We could go own naming titles that have either come out this year or are scheduled to release in 2014, or you can just click over to "The 20 Most Anticipated PC Games of 2014" and scroll through at your leisure. Either way, this isn't the year to be caught with integrated graphics. PC gaming is alive and thriving, and if it's been a long time since you've upgraded your graphics card, now would be a good time to start looking. You can start by checking out today's top deal for an MSI Radeon R9 270 Gaming Video Card for $180 with free shipping. This card features MSI's Twin Frozr IV cooling solution, Military Class components, and an invisible unicorn (while supplies last). That's right, each purchase comes with an invisible unicorn that you can't see, hear, smell, taste, or feel. But it's there, watching and rooting you on (silently) as you game into the wee hours of the morning.
Anonymous former employees of the Firefall studio allegedly came forward to spill the beans about mass layoffs, questionable decisions, and ex-CEO Mark Kern's erratic behavior. One person said that Kern's constantly shifting decisions caused severe stress on the team: "Months of work would be thrown out simply because he would change his mind, or he would have another 'revolutionary' idea."
Another anonymous ex-staffer said that Kern was worse than that: "When he did get involved in the production of the game itself he was simply destructive. He would swoop in one afternoon and berate a series of features several teams had spent months on, declaring they begin again and LISTEN to what he told them to do. He'd be back in a few days to see if it was done. This crushed morale, and forced people into spontaneous, isolated crunch mode. He would shout and scream his perspectives."
You've already seen a number of the amazing player-designed creations in Landmark; come Spring, you will be able to own some as well! SOE has announced that Player Studio will be live in the sandbox game on or before May 1st, 2014. But the even bigger news is that Player Studio will expand internationally for all the studio's games that support it!
Designers in select regions outside the United States will be able to submit items for consideration to be sold to their peers in EverQuest, EverQuest II, and PlanetSide 2 as well as Landmark. Approved items will then be added to the marketplace and the creators will make a real-life profit from each sale. In Landmark, Player Studio is a vehicle by which players will submit templates for various building contests, and winners could see their creations end up in EverQuest Next.
As part of what ArenaNet calls "just the beginning of our new approach to enhancing the in-game social environment," the Guild Wars 2 developer is announcing a new Megaserver technology that will allow similar players to play together more easily and more frequently.
Launching with the April 2014 Feature Pack on April 15th, the Megaserver System will introduce a new metric that will restructure the way servers will work. According to the studio, this system will place players on servers that have more of your friends and guildmates, and more players who speak the same language as you. It hopes to eliminate overflow servers and dead shards.
The Megaserver System will start out as a test on the level 1-15 maps, main cities, and the PvP lobby. The team hopes to roll the technology out to the entire game by the end of the year, if all goes well.
I'm just about to level 10 as the sun sets on day three of my Elder Scrolls Online pre-launch experience. After plenty of decisional paralysis on Sunday, I settled on a Redguard Nightblade and spent Monday and Tuesday leveling him through Stros M'kai, Betnikh, and the city of Daggerfall.
Now I'm working my way northeast through the wilds of Glenumbra, stopping occasionally to assist the citizens of Deleyn's Mill and clean up the Vale of the Guardians.
EverQuest franchise director Dave Georgeson is "hugely interested" in Sony's Project Morpheus VR headset, according to IGN. While Georgeson said that the PC pedigree of EverQuest Next and Landmark prevent the company from currently embracing the PS4-only Project Morpheus, he also said that he sees VR as "the future of gaming."
"We need to build the game, and then we can talk about virtual reality and stuff beyond that," Georgeson explained.
You might not have noticed, but yesterday was April Fools' Day, and in the MMO industry that means a lot of studios blowing off steam by being abnormally silly and trying to trick players with weird promises. Some people like the goofs, some don't, but I'm willing to bet that there was at least one that got your nod of approval.
So what was your favorite April Fools this year? Did you get genuinely tricked by anything or find yourself laughing in delight at the cleverness of developers?
Every morning, the Massively bloggers probe the minds of their readers with deep, thought-provoking questions about that most serious of topics: massively online gaming. We crave your opinions, so grab your caffeinated beverage of choice and chime in on today's Daily Grind!
I was in Guild Wars 2 last night at 10 p.m. PDT when my Asura's head... grew. And wobbled. And bobbled. As did the heads of the not-so-scary-anymore Nightmare Court villains I had been murdering in pursuit of my dailies. Ah, I remembered. It's April Fools' somewhere! Here are some of the MMOs that tried to prank us today:
League of Legends turned its meta upside down with a goofy Ultra Rapid Fire mode.
Finally, rather than add to the pranks, we sent you on an April Fools' Day quest. The first person to complete it was reader Nathan6! The words in order were waffle, platypus, macguyver, shazbot, and doge, and here is the "prize" page. Thanks for playing, everyone! ;)
It's a certain launch week for a certain title that's certainly been anticipated by millions, so there's a good chance that the podcasters will at least give it a brief mention on this week's show. Also in today's podcast: the secret ingredient for figgy pudding, why cosmetics make Justin insanely happy, and how developers are telling players to go to their room and fight it out.
Get all of our opinions and analysis on the most important stories of the past week right here on Massively Speaking, the industry's leading MMO podcast. And if you have a comment, question, or topic for the podcasters, send an email to podcast@massively.com. We may just read your email on the air!
Get the podcast: [RSS] Add Massively Speaking to your RSS aggregator. [MP3] Download the MP3 directly. [iTunes] Subscribe to the podcast in iTunes. [Stitcher] Follow the podcast on Stitcher Radio. Listen here on the page:
Kits are your main method for grabbing ground combat abilities in Star Trek Online. You equip a kit and you're good to go. Despite that, they're also rather limited, as there are a limited number of different kit types and each kit of a given type contains a very set number of abilities. Season 9 is thus deploying an extensive overhaul of the kit system, allowing players to build the sorts of kits that they want to use in a more flexible framework.
The core of the system is simple. Abilities are split into two categories for each profession: Assault and Strategic for Tactical, Medical and Research for Science, and Fabrication and Mechanic for Engineering. Kits will become frameworks that contain skill bonuses as well as slots to equip abilities, with each slot allowing any skill within a given category. For more details on how the new kits can be acquired and how the flexibility will benefit players, take a look at the full development blog.
A new Blizzard game is a reason for soundtrack lovers everywhere to celebrate because if there's one thing this studio does well (other than take goofy races very seriously), it's creating incredible scores for its games. Even though Hearthstone is a smaller title with a smaller score, I welcomed it nevertheless.
Composers Peter McConnell, Jason Hayes, and Eric Dodds clearly had a lot of fun creating the whimsical, relaxing score for this game, and I must say that the music is perfectly ideal for the material. It hearkens back to the many tavern themes from World of Warcraft without being a complete copycat.
For far too long, Draenei have existed as bastions of unassailable beauty and elegance in World of Warcraft. We're told the race has fallen to the depths of the Broken and the Lost Ones, but you don't really see that in the game. Fortunately for fans, the new redesign to the female Draenei shows a closer connection between the various subtypes of the races, while simultaneously emphasizing the roots of the game's resident space goats. (Those roots would be "space" and "goat," incidentally. Truly.)
Among the major changes Blizzard threatens to make to the model are the addition of fur, a slimming of the lower legs and hooves, and the removal of the ridiculously long tail from the model. The eye design also speaks to the ways in which this ancient and mystical race sees things in a way that most of Azeroth's residents can only imagine. It's a bit more of a departure from the existing model than the other redesigns, but take a look at the full diary for a closer look. And then remember what day it is. You don't need to reroll your Shaman as a Dwarf. We promise.
Elder Scrolls Online's subscription model wasn't handed down from on high by parent company ZeniMax. It was instead a "mutual decision" between ZeniMax and Bethesda, according to company PR guru Pete Hines.
"It wasn't like they decided it, and we didn't mandate it. There was a lot of conversation around it," he told Games.On.Net.
Hines also explained that the future of ESO's business model will depend entirely on whether customers see the game as a fair value, and not on prevailing industry trends. "What's going to determine whether or not it succeeds or fails is not really tied to what anyone else has done, it's tied to 'do we make a strong enough argument for the value that you get for your fifteen dollars,'" Hines said. "If we're providing the kind of content people want to see where they're like 'this is awesome, I'm having a blast, this new stuff is totally worth it and I'm having fun,' then the subscription totally works."
EVE Online is giving much-needed love to its drones come this summer, and a new dev blog posted today has all of the copious details. "There are several aspects of drone balance that are not yet up to our current standards," the devs posted. "In the summer release we will be implementing a wide ranging balance rework for drones of all sizes."
The changes will include balancing drones between the different empires, between quality levels, and between drone sizes. There will also be modifications made to drone skills and sentry drones.
These changes will also impact skills and modules for fighters and fighter bombers. After the update, these "larger drones" will have reduced base damage and can only be hosted 10 at a time on a supercarrier instead of 20.
Frontier has released Issue #18 of its Elite: Dangerous newsletter. It's a good 'un, too, especially if you like development progress updates, videos, and answers to interesting questions.
There are bits about the state of the game's 3.0 alpha client, a docking tutorial video, and a look at the redesign of the iconic Coriolis space station from the original Elite title. One of the more interesting fan questions relates to the size of celestial bodies. "Celestial bodies and the distances between them will be correctly scaled wherever possible [and] real astronomical data is being used," Frontier says. "To give you an idea we're currently at 116,000 stars from various catalogues and [that] includes pulsars and black holes as well as main sequence stars. Exo-planets are the other big import which we're about to start working on."
We've embedded the alpha progress video after the cut.
I believe we can all agree that The Elder Scrolls Online is not a sandbox in the MMORPG sense. However, the game starts to branch out as your level increases. Although it will never be an MMO sandbox, it does start to resemble the single-player sandbox, except there are tons of other people playing at the same time.
Just like those single-player sandboxes, ESO allows us to do pretty much whatever we want when we want to. It's an explorer's dream, if you ask me. Of course, we might be able to find some of those explorable items on the in-game map, but many of them remain hidden until we just land on them. Today, I'd like to talk about a few of the items that I think every ESO explorer should be aware of.
Here's a question for the audience: Why isn't Phantasy Star Online 2 released in North America yet? The game is fully translated into English, it's going to be released in Southeast Asia in that language very shortly. It's been out in Japan for two years. About a year ago, Sega announced that the game's release in North America would be delayed with no further elaboration; as it stands, the company is still offering no rationale or explanation for the delay.
The most obvious culprit would be legal issues, but Sega hasn't made any statements to indicate that there might be some sort of legal barrier to launching the game here. All that fans know is that the game is still unavailable, despite now having every sign of being ready for launch. So what's holding it back? We haven't the slightest idea.
No more plugging in USB cords the wrong way!
Will Windows 7 become the next XP?
10 of the best tech gags of 2014
This might be the streaming box you've been waiting for
Amended agreement includes $50 million in additional purchase commitments
Don't be surprised if there's a surge in Chromebook sales
Every morning, the Massively bloggers probe the minds of their readers with deep, thought-provoking questions about that most serious of topics: massively online gaming. We crave your opinions, so grab your caffeinated beverage of choice and chime in on today's 
