The "feud" between Firefall developer Red 5 Studios and Korean MMO company Webzen is becoming sort of a hot topic in the online gaming industry recently. A few days after Red 5 Studios filed a lawsuit against Webzen, the accused released some statements to the foreign press. The representative claimed that Webzen will adhere to the final decision the court makes, but nonetheless will be fighting for its own rights over Firefall.
According to the signed contract, Webzen stated that no rules were broke despite Red 5 Studios' accusations. Webzen, with the global rights for Firefall (except North America and Europe), will be using this as its main evidence. Here are the other points:
- Webzen said that it had invested heavily in Firefall's development and showed extreme support towards Red 5 Studios despite the game getting delayed several times over a period of 5 years.
- Webzen claimed that despite Firefall being still in the development phase, Red 5 Studios kept rushing them to prepare for the game's launch.
- Red 5 Studios opened its office in Korea, where Webzen has the publishing rights for the region, hence disputing the company's rights in the region. Despite attempts by Webzen to call upon Red 5 Korea to cease operations, the latter continued with its daily routine.
- With all these happenings and its previously passive stand, Webzen has no choice but to approach the situation the "hard" way with various supported evidence to be presented in court.
Webzen ended that open letter by apologizing to the gamers in Korea, stating that it was unfortunate this has to happen after investing over USD 20 million into the game which isn't even ready to be released. Webzen will still be continuing to work on its MU and SUN series of games and also on Continent of the Ninth (C9) for the gamers.
One of the reasons I always enjoyed the Dungeon Siege series is because long, drawn-out plot explanations aren't necessary when beating the crap out of people and collecting loot. That, or I have distorted and fond memories of Dungeon Siege 2: walking up to my character's destroyed farm, and immediately being told to pick up a weapon and kill anything that attacks me. Beat up a bunch of people? Sure, I can do that. Combat has always been the best part of these games for me. This time around, an overarching storyline gets half-heartily forced down your throat.
Dungeon Siege 3 borrows the conversation-driven storytelling approach from Mass Effect, without having as much of an influence on what occurs. Sure, there are moments where you can choose what sort of response is merited, or what action to take on, say, a prisoner of war, but these options are limited. To be frank, the fruition of your choices aren't made apparent until the very end of the game -- and with lifeless storyboard cut-scenes no less. Because of this strange disconnect (from realizing the impact of your decisions until the end), the story seems easily dismissable.
1UP's Zeevex Virtual Currency Giveaway How To Play
Remember these guys from E3? They're the Zeevs, and they rep Zeevex! We're giving you the opportunity to skip the trip to one of the 41,000 retail locations where you can get one of these bad boys for yourself. Instead, we're letting you win the premium currency for online content right here at 1UP without spending adime or budging an inch. Want to win? Here's how:
We'll post a secret message on our homepage, right next to our Top Story area. Here's a pic:
Super Street Fighter 4 Arcade Edition was released in Japanese arcades late last year, and after months of speculation as to whether it would ever see a console release, it's finally here -- both in DLC and retail format. Since then, Capcom has mentioned a few times that this will be the last entry into the Street Fighter 4 series, and is the definitive version of the game.
For those of you who grow tired of purchasing updates and don't want to be bothered with the idea of another revision coming out in the following months, this is obviously good news. For the rest of us though, who want a game that is just as balanced as the previous version, all we can do is hope that Capcom has a change of heart, and releases an update sometime down the line to fix a few glaring character balance issues.
We almost saw it right away -- beginning with Microsoft's press conference at E3. "It" being the sort of sameness in some of the game demos at some press events. Yet even before the proper beginning of E3, in a Monday full of press conferences where publishers such as Microsoft, EA, Ubisoft, and Sony CEA show off their key titles for the next year, "it" hit us in force: shooter fatigue. It was so obvious that even Cracked beat us to the punch of showing how many FPS games there were at the show.
We decided to take that idea and expand on it a bit. So here's a little quiz, where we took a bunch of screengrabs of different shooters (think of this as the anti-bullshot) from both 1UP and IGN (hooray for corporate synergy!) gameplay videos, and put them into this gallery. We'll throw in a small hint as the caption, but otherwise, you have to figure out which 2011 shooter the image came from. There are mostly first-person games, but third-person titles with easily grabbable moments featuring iron sights or sniper scopes are included as well -- and we also have some images from 2010 games (still being played a lot thanks to DLC map packs). There won't be any prizes for correctly identifying all 25 images (besides personal pride), but we hope you notice the same thing we do when it comes to shooters in 2011.
At some point, you go down the metro in this shooter.
Trenched is good fun, as you'd expect from a Double Fine game. If you happen to reside in certain parts of Europe, however, you won't know that for yourself, as the game was delayed due to what were called "unexpected challenges with distribution." Those problems apparently stem from a trademark issue involving a board game.
Eurogamer reports Trenched is being held up by the trademark for board game Trench, which has been held since 2007 by Portugese board game designer Rui Alípio Monteiro. The trademark covers not only board games, but computer games as well, which is likely the problem for Double Fine's XBLA game.
Like Trenched, Trench is focused on the military aspects of the World War I era. Some had speculated that, at least in Germany, a Nazi-style salute was to blame for the hold up, though that suggestion was categorically denied.
Google launched a trial of its new social networking service, Google+, earlier this week. While games aren't a component of the ongoing closed trial period, source code that has been uncovered suggests it will likely adopt Facebook-style games at some point.
The code makes numerous references to what would be used to notify users about games, Engadget reports. "... have sent you Game invites and more from Google+ Games" is found in several locations, as are mentions of what sounds like an unrelated question-and-answer component that might compete with Quora.
We've known for some time that Google was making a move into the videogame space, it just wasn't clear in what capacity it would do so after its failure with Google Lively. Google made headlines recently with a job posting for a games product manager at "Games at Google." But more than a year ago, Google was already seeking a games project manager before investing upwards of $100 million in FarmVille maker Zynga.
At this year's Game Tools & Middleware Forum event, held today in Tokyo, Sony showcased the engine that will allow for PlayStation Portable games to be ported to the PlayStation 3 as a part of the PSP Remaster line that was announced last month.
The Remaster series will see select PSP games ported to PS3 on Blu-ray discs, complete with enhancements like high-definition graphics. The PSP Engine is what makes this possible, according to a Famitsu report, and allows for support of high-res rendering, DualShock/Sixaxis control, 3D, Ad-Hoc Party, and more. None of this was unexpected, as they were all possible features mentioned when the first Remaster title, Monster Hunter Portable 3rd HD Version, was revealed.
There's no word yet on when or if the PSP Remaster line will be brought to North America. That doesn't mean PS3 owners will never be able to enjoy any of the PSP's game on their home console -- the God of War: Origins Collection, announced during E3, will allow them to do just that. It includes both PSP God of War games, Chains of Olympus and Ghost of Sparta, in high def and 3D, provided you've got a capable TV. Unlike PSP Remaster titles, the collection will feature Trophy support, something Monster Hunter fans will have to do without when playing Portable 3rd HD Version.
Prepare to be completely broke very soon: Steam has kicked off the Summer Camp Sale, which runs from now through July 10. There will be not only daily deals on individual games and bundles, but for the length of the sale you can get complete publisher packs at a heavy discount, such as all of Telltale or Valve's games (including Portal 2) for $49.99 each. The catalogs of more than a dozen companies are also 25% off or more, giving you a good chance to pick up just about anything you want on Steam for cheap.
Besides the deals themselves, Valve is offering some additional encouragement to either play the games you already have or pick up some that you don't. Each day of the sale will have a list of "camp activities" to do; in other words, you're tasked with earning specific Achievements (if you haven't already) in select games. By doing this, you'll earn a prize ticket that can be cashed in for downloadable content for select games. Additionally, each prize ticket earned will enter you for a chance to be one of 100 people who will win the top ten games on their Steam wishlist.
Following a Korean ratings board listing that popped up for a PlayStation Network version of Limbo yesterday, developer Playdead has confirmed it's working on porting the platformer to both PlayStation 3 and PC.
It'll be made available on the PlayStation Network and Steam, respectively. As noted on the PlayStation Twitter account, the PS3 version will be out very soon -- a July release is currently planned, with more details to be announced next week.
Listings for PC and PS3 versions were discovered last year prior to its release on the Xbox Live Arcade. Playdead called it a mistake, saying, "You won't see a PS3 or PC version this time around, sorry." Speaking with Joystiq today, CEO Dino Patti said, "This might be the second time around we have been waiting for."
Besides the usual questions you'd expect to be asked during a Nintendo shareholders meeting, like questioning the reaction to Wii U, if Nintendo is capable of developing high-definition games, and if core gamers will embrace Wii U, one forthcoming shareholder had something different to say to Nintendo President Satoru Iwata.
"I'm concerned about the falling stock price," the shareholder said to Iwata, according to an Andriasang translation. It's not a ludicrous thing to bring up; since being worth $38.29 in the U.S. on February 25, Nintendo's stock price has steadily dropped all the way down to $23.27 as of this writing. It's what comments came after this that are strange. "I own stock, but I don't own a single Nintendo product. I believe games are a waste of time. By the way, the reason I own Nintendo stock is because the name is nice, it's in Kyoto and it was listed in the year of my birth."
It's not necessarily the thing you expect someone who owns stock to say in this sort of forum. Nonetheless, Iwata answered, "There are people in this world who don't feel that games are a waste of time, so Nintendo continues to exist. We'd like to eliminate the thinking that playing games by yourself is negative, or when there's a crime you immediately tie it into games. We'd like to raise the social importance of games. We're working to expand the gaming population, yourself included."
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Joymax announced today that its upcoming World War II game, Karma Online: Prisoners of the Dead, will begin its pre-open beta test next Tuesday, July 5th, and will run through Tuesday, July 19.
Scarlet Legacy sets itself apart from the majority of MMO's in that the gameplay experience is far more closely tied into the game's storyline. Players interact directly with and affect the plot throughout their time in-game.
A sexy, savage and brutal world is finally going to become a free to play title. Yes, we are speaking about Funcom's Age of Conan that changed a name to Age of Conan: Unchained.
Everytime I his the registration link in the BP homepage I am redirected to another page with a trailer of the game... I click the account management, but I dont see any option to create a new account...
Age of Conan's free-to-play service will begin today on June 30, according to PCgamer who just made an interview with AoC's Executive Producer Craig Morrison.
The Big Bang is the largest single update to ever come to MapleStory and is more than just another content update. It is a great opportunity to revisit the basic underpinnings and reorganize the inner workings of the game to make it more flexible and modern.
T3 Entertainment will be launching the Open Beta for its online action-RPG Hellgate today in Europe and North America, starting at 7:30pm Eastern Time. Those who missed the closed Beta finally get a chance to experience Hellgate's pulse-pounding fusion of action and role-playing as they take on the demons of Hell.
Along with a level cap, new dungeons, new features, and more zones at Eden Eternal's Open Beta launch, the addition of two new higher level classes were added for players to unlock! Now every Edenite can be a Blade Dancer or a Shaman. Below you can find a preview of both!
If you have been playing KOF, you must remember a sexy, white-haired Mexican who works for an organization known as NESTS. Angel's 'Unchain Circle" combo attacks make her one of the more distinctive characters in the KOF series.
Just in the first night of raiding while many guilds have been busy killing bosses in normal mode, Shannox, the first boss in Heroic mode of patch 4.2's new raid instance Firelands, has been killed by Stars (TW - Crystalpine Stinger). Now you may wonder how did they accomplish that?
First day's Fanart Event has meet a very good start because so many arts were uploaded on the post. We chose 8 winners for the first day event. Every one of the winners can get a Dragon Nest Sea Closed Beta key for prize.
What does the word "face-lift" mean? It means that you can live a more confident life and make more friends. Actually, things are the same in games, e.g. Korea-based NHN's hot online game TERA recently offered a face-lift service to tickle players' curiosity about face-lifts.
Blade & Soul (B & S in short) Has charming backdrops, scenery, monsters and most importantly clothing, which you will see at it's best. We will see many clothing types which show the real charm of B & S.
First launched in November 2009 by free-to-play online game publisher Gamepot USA, Bright Shadow was a cartoon style fantasy MMO. But unfortunately, just after over a year, the game closed its door and said farewell to the players on October 31. But today, we have some good news. Gamania announces that Bright Shadow will be relaunched as an online collectible card game and a beta test is planned to begin on July 8th.
TQ Digital have released more details and screenshots of the mysterious new class to hit MMORPG Eudemons Online, the noble Vampires - flying into the game with the exciting Edge of Night expansion at the end of the month.
First launched in November of 2009 by Gamepot USA, Bright Shadow was a fantasy MMORPG aimed at the younger audiences. Just over a year later, Bright Shadow closed its door and shut down its servers. Today Gamania has announced the relaunch of Bright Shadow, this time as a online collectible card game. Beta testing is planned for July 8th and will be made available through Gamania's beanfun! platform.
With the end of April, our top10 arrives. These are our best June 2011 Free MMORPGs. Enjoy it and don't forget to comment. Do you agree with our list? 10 A Mystical Land is a free to play 3D browser game which can be played in your browser and on Facebook. Discover a fantastic world [...]
Aika Global is offering this exclusive Giveaway with FREE MMORPG and MMO Reviews offering this 800 codes of 5 especial items. Because we, in Aika Global would like to extend our deepest appreciation to all gamers who are consistently playing and loving the game, we would like to give our wonderful gamers a whole bunch [...]
Gamania Digital Entertainment Europe has announced that Bright Shadow will be coming to western players soon. The Beta test is planned for the 8th of July. For many centuries, the magical world of Luciena has been under threat by mysterious dark forces. These evil beings from the Umbra realm are using 'Soul Power' to transform [...]
Perfect World Entertainment Inc., has announced today its plans to showcase Rusty Hearts, its upcoming anime, hack n’ slash fighting game at Anime Expo, the largest anime and manga celebration held annually in Los Angeles, from July 1 to July 3. In partnership with Crunchyroll, Perfect World Entertainment will treat audiences to exclusive interviews with [...]
The Valkyrie mercenary Morrighan has made her debut this week in Atlantica Online, the real-time strategy MMO from Nexon. Defended by the heavens, the Valkyrie can use the power granted to her by the gods to imbue her sword with holy energy, increasing allies' attack speeds, which provides players with a keen competitive edge in [...]
Perfect World Entertainment has presented a flythrough video for its upcoming, futuristic first person shooter, Blacklight Retribution, which highlights what PC enthusiasts can look forward to in term of graphics with the latest DirectX 11 effects implemented. Unveiled at this year’s E3, Blacklight Retribution took the gaming industry by surprise, blowing away expectations of what [...]
We have recently tested this game which collects the original game, Guild Wars, and the Factions and Nightfall expansions. First thing that stands out is its resemblance to classic RPGs. After selecting the different default options while creating your character, you will reach an uncommon part where you will be able to customize all the [...]
Companies like Google and Microsoft have wide-ranging interests and are always on the lookout for fresh opportunities. But it's not uncommon for some of their ventures to come unstuck. Microsoft's Hohm energy monitoring tool is a case in point. Redmond has decided to bring the curtain down on Hohm.
"Microsoft is discontinuing the Microsoft Hohm service effective May 31, 2012," the company announced in a blog post. Blaming its decision on "slow overall market adoption of the service", it reassured both of Hohm's two users that the service would continue to function normally in the meantime.
"Microsoft will continue to focus on developing products, solutions and partnership that span a wide spectrum of industries, such as power generation, distribution grids, buildings and transportations systems."
This announcement follows close on the heels of Google's decision to shut down its own energy monitoring service called PowerMeter. Launched just a few months after Hohm's July, 2009 debut, PowerMeter will be shut down on September 16, 2011.
Googlers are probably heartily patting each other on the backs up in Mountain View today. After a successful beta launch of Google+, demand for invites to the social networking service has been high. So high in fact, that the invite program had to be cut off late last night.
After a few hours of users sending out unlimited invites, Google needed to give their servers some time to catch up. Google's social chief Vic Gundotra said as much in a Google+post. "We've shut down invite mechanism for the night. Insane demand," he wrote. We don't konw when invites will be back up. There are some loopholes to get invites out, but it's not terribly convenient.
Google+ is packed with features at launch, so some users might be a little confused. Although, many are praising Google's Circles feature that lets you sort contacts and curate the information you let them see. Users of Android phones are also getting some special features like group messaging and auto uploads of images and videos.
Considering the unmitigated disaster that was Google Buzz, this is going well for the Big G. Invites have even been on sale on eBay. Have you used Google+? How is it?
Remember yesterday when we told you of the horrible dystopian future California faced as they considered forcing online retailers to collect state sales tax? Well, they're going ahead with it, causing an outcry from Internet retail giants including Amazon and Overstock. The change goes into effect Friday.
In conjunction with the move, the state's tax rate is going down 1-point to 7.75%. The California law takes advantage of the affiliate programs that many sites run where people can get commissions by referring buyers to a site. The law in California now considers those people employees of a sort. In response, Amazon and Overstock have cancelled their affiliate programs in the state.
By not collecting sales tax up front, online retailers have had quite a price advantage over brick and mortar stores. It looks like that era may be coming to an end, but Amazon isn't going down without a fight. They'll probably pull the affiliate program out of any state they have to.
If you follow Maximum PC in print or online, it's no secret that we loves us some Evernote. Why, in the past few days we featured the data collecting wunderkind as our Windows Phone 7 App of the Week. It shouldn't come as any surprise then that given how smitten we are for what Evernote has to offer, we've also decided that Evernote Web Clipper should also be hoisted up on our geeky shoulders and declared our Browser Extension of the Week.
In order to rock Evernote's Web Clipper extension in Chrome or Firefox, you'll need to have either a free or premium Evernote account. It's only fair: It is their extension after all. After installing Web Clipper and signing in, users are given the ability to save content any website they're visiting with the click of a mouse. How much content you save on a given page is up to you--Just want to clip a single article? Web Clipper can do it up. Need to tuck away the whole page and read it later? Evernote's got you covered there too. If you're feeling indecisive, you can also opt to simply clip the page's URL and stash it away in your Evernote account for future perusal on your PC, Mac or the smartphone platform of your choice.
Thanks to Web Clipper's well thought out interface, once you've decided on what information you want to capture, your new data can easily be categorized, tagged and annotated for later review. Evernote Web Clipper is a must-have extension for current Evernote users or for anyone that wants to collect a staggering amount of web-based information at break-neck speeds.
Be sure to check in with Maximum PC every Thursday for another edition of Browser Extension of the Week.
It's clear that HP sees the value in this category. The PC maker's new TouchSmart is sleek, polished, and is the first all-in-one we've ever seen to feature a subwoofer-out jack. HP makes a subtle but valid point here: The truth about these systems is that, regardless of where we set them up—kitchen, living room, garage—we find ourselves frequently using them as music stations, so why not aim for higher audio fidelity? Conveniently, HP has also integrated Monster's (and Dr. Dre's) Beats environment, allowing the TouchSmart 610 to pump out impressive enough sound to make people do a double-take.
HP's Touch Smart is fast, polished, and has a nice screen. It's also the only system of the batch that tilts up and down.
Beats notwithstanding, HP also packs some beef into this system, with a 2.93GHz Core i7-870, a full-size 2GB ATI Radeon HD 5570, 8GB of DDR memory, a 1TB 7,200rpm drive, a Blu-ray player, Wi-Fi, a TV tuner, and two USB 3.0 and two USB 2.0 ports. As far as CPUs go, the Core i7-870 is a little old, but the higher clock enabled it to blaze through our CPU-intensive tasks, beating out MSI's AiW by 20 percent in most tests and almost 50 percent in our Photoshop benchmark. It's not Sandy Bridge, but it's speedy. And, given the use of discrete graphics, Sandy Bridge is not necessary.
Game performance was another story, however, as MSI's 5730 Mobility Radeon part bested the 5570 by a few frames per second in Call of Duty 4. Again, you're not going to wow your friends by turning up the detail on Shogun 2's battle scenes, but you will be able to play through campaign mode without the CPU's turns taking days.
We like the 24-inch screen on the TouchSmart 610. It's not as nice as Sony's, but is still satisfying. We absolutely love the vertical slider on the back of the system, which allowed us to easily recline the screen into multiple positions. It is also wall-mountable. One other nice touch is the new version of its TouchSmart OS layer, which optimizes media chores and other OS functions for touch. As if to underscore the gaming potential of the 610 (and possibly the entire all-in-one category?), HP includes a free touch-enabled copy of the real-time strategy game Ruse.
This excellent, professionally crafted system demonstrates that while we're not quite in the position of being able to play power games on all-in-one systems, we're getting close.
U.S. authorities continue their crusade against the evil and despicable world of...ONLINE POKER! Children are safer today, there are no more marital problems, and world peace is at hand, all because the U.S. Department of Justice pulled the plug on Full Tilt Poker, one of the most popular online poker sites and sponsor to several real life professional poker players, including Phil Ivey, Chris Ferguson, Phil Gordon, and several others.
Actually, this isn't just about U.S. authorities cracking down on online gambling, though that's a big part of it. According to a report in the L.A. Times, the gambling commission on the island of Alderney in the British Channel Islands suspended the licenses of Full Tilt Poker following an investigation prompted by indictments in the U.S. Those indictments charged Full Tilt Poker executives with bank fraud, money laundering, and other crimes.
The U.S. Justice Department maintains that online poker is illegal in North America under several federal and state laws, and has filed a civil suit against Full Tilt Poker and its affiliates seeking at least $3 billion, the Wall Street Journal reports. Full Tilt and other poker sites -- most notably PokerStars -- deny having done anything wrong, saying that U.S. laws covering online gambling are ambiguous. Up until the recent crackdown, Full Tilt and PokerStars controlled the majority of the online poker market worth an estimated $5 billion a year.
Google+, or Google Plus, has been a hot talking point ever since it was formally announced earlier this week. All this initial interest in the company's latest social networking effort is not difficult to fathom either. Generally, when something like this is announced a lot of other things tend to take a back seat. That's what happened with Google Takeout, another much awaited service from the Internet giant that was, interestingly enough, announced on the same day as Plus.
Takeout is the first product from Google's Data Liberation Front team, an engineering group tasked with the goal of making "it easier for users to move their data in and out of Google products." That is indeed its raison d'être, even though its name might make it seem like some sort of brutal guerrilla outfit.
"Google Takeout lets you take your data out of multiple Google products in one fell swoop. Moreover, you'll find that all your data is in portable and open formats‚ so it's easy to import to other services quickly," the Data Liberation Outfit said in a blog post.
At launch, Takeout only supports five Google services: Buzz, Contacts and Circles, Picasa, Profile and Stream. But the outfit says support for other products is on the way.
AMD isn't letting a silly little thing like market share ruin its summer. Rather than hide under a rock from failing to make a dent in Intel's stranglehold on the chip market, even after the initial Sandy Bridge snafu, AMD has come out swinging this month with its Llano A-series accelerated processing units (APUs). Earlier this month saw the launch of AMD's mobile Llano chips, and now the Santa Clara chip maker is announcing the availability of two Llano A-series APUs for the desktop.
First up is the A6-3650 APU. This quad-core chip comes clocked at 2.6GHz with 4MB of L2 cache and a 100W TDP. The graphics engine is comprised of a Radeon 6530D with 320 cores, four SIMD units, 16 texture units, and a 443MHz clockspeed. Pricing has been set to $115.
The second and higher performing of the two is the A8-3850, another quad-core part, only this one is clocked at 2.9GHz. It sports the same amount of L2 cache (4MB) and TDP (100W), but boasts a Radeon HD 6550D with 400 cores, five SIMD units, 20 texture units, and a 600MHz clockspeed. This one carries an MSRP of $135.
Both chips are built around AMD's new FM1 socket and support DirectX 11, though neither one supports AMD's Turbo Core. These are the first two of six Llano A-series APUs AMD plans to launch this year, with the rest reportedly having a TDP of 65W, two to four processing cores, and support for Turbo Core 2.0.
Oracle chose not to mince words when responding to Hewlett Packard's lawsuit over the company's decision to stop developing software for Intel's Itanium platform. As far as Oracle is concerned, HP's suit is nothing more than a "publicity stunt" and is part of a "broader campaign to lay the blame on Oracle for the disruption that will occur when HP's Itanium-based server business inevitably comes to an end," Oracle said in a court filing. Oh snap!
HP's beef with Oracle is that it's decision to stop supporting Itanium violates commitments between the two companies and effectively strong-arms HP customers into using Oracle's hardware.
"The core allegation in this case -- which HP has aggressively sold to the press -- is that HP has a contract with Oracle guaranteeing that Oracle will develop new versions of its flagship database product (and apparently everything else Oracle makes) to run on HP's Itanium systems," Oracle said in its filing. "Such an important contract, if it existed, would obviously be a heavily negotiated, fully documented formal contract, with terms and conditions and payment obligations and all the other characteristics of real-world commercial agreements. But there is no such agreement for porting the Oracle database to Itanium."
Oracle points out that other companies, like Microsoft and Red Hat, have also chosen to discontinue software development for Itanium, and while Oracle will support the platform "for years to come," it's not willing "to pretend that itanium has a future when it does not."
"HP untenably has put itself and thousands of customers out on the end ofa very long limb because HP, almost alone now, clings to a decades-old microprocessor architecture -- Intel's Itanium chip line -- that has no future," Oracle writes. "Intel has wanted to discontinue Itanium production for years, and HP knows it. The performance advantage over Intel's x86-based microprocessors that once justified Itanium is today effectively gone. But the end of Itanium is a business disaster for HP, which generates a large percentage of its overall profit from Itanium support agreements."
You can read the rest of Oracle's scathing court filing here (PDF).
Engineers at IBM Research in Zurich, Switzerland claim they've come up with a breakthrough in phase change memory (PCM) technology that, for the first time, would allow it to store data for longer periods, potentially paving the way for lower cost solid state chips that are faster and more reliable than today's multi-level cell (MLC) flash memory chips. The trick is in figuring out a solution to a problem called "drift."
PCM is nonvolatile memory technology that stores data in small cells of chalcogenide, a compound used in rewritable optical discs. Chalcogenide changes physical states between crystalline and amorphous when heat is applied, and because it's nonvolatile, it doesn't cough up your data when you flip the power switch like RAM does. The problem with PCM is that the cells randomly drift over time, leading to data corruption.
IBM has figured out a way to sidestep the issue of drift and created PCM chips that can store two bits of data per cell in a 200 k-cell array implemented in a 90nm process technology. By applying an advanced coding technique -- the geeky details of which you can read here -- IBM is able to correct for drift-related errors.
"We apply a voltage pulse based on the deviation from the desired level and then measure the resistance. If the desired level of resistance is not achieved, we apply another voltage pulse and measure again – until we achieve the exact level," said Haris Pozidis, manager of memory and probe technologies at IBM Research Zurich.
In a worst case write latency scenario of about 10 microseconds, IBM says the technology still represents a 100x performance increase over even the most advanced flash memory on the market today.
We almost saw it right away -- beginning with Microsoft's press conference at E3. "It" being the sort of sameness in some of the game demos at some press events. Yet even before the proper beginning of E3, in a Monday full of press conferences where publishers such as Microsoft, EA, Ubisoft, and Sony CEA show off their key titles for the next year, "it" hit us in force: shooter fatigue. It was so obvious that even 
Companies like Google and Microsoft have wide-ranging interests and are always on the lookout for fresh opportunities. But it's not uncommon for some of their ventures to come unstuck. Microsoft's Hohm energy monitoring tool is a case in point. Redmond has decided to bring the curtain down on Hohm.
Googlers are probably heartily patting each other on the backs up in Mountain View today. After a successful beta launch of Google+, demand for invites to the social networking service has been high. So high in fact, that the invite program had to be 
Remember 
If you follow Maximum PC in print or online, it's no secret that we loves us some Evernote. Why, in the past few days we featured the data collecting wunderkind as our 
U.S. authorities continue their crusade against the evil and despicable world of...ONLINE POKER! Children are safer today, there are no more marital problems, and world peace is at hand, all because the U.S. Department of Justice pulled the plug on Full Tilt Poker, one of the most popular online poker sites and sponsor to several real life professional poker players, including Phil Ivey, Chris Ferguson, Phil Gordon, and several others.
AMD isn't letting a silly little thing like 
Oracle chose not to mince words when responding to Hewlett Packard's lawsuit over the company's decision to stop developing software for Intel's Itanium platform. As far as Oracle is concerned, HP's suit is nothing more than a "publicity stunt" and is part of a "broader campaign to lay the blame on Oracle for the disruption that will occur when HP's Itanium-based server business inevitably comes to an end," Oracle said in a court filing. Oh snap!
Engineers at IBM Research in Zurich, Switzerland claim they've come up with a breakthrough in phase change memory (PCM) technology that, for the first time, would allow it to store data for longer periods, potentially paving the way for lower cost solid state chips that are faster and more reliable than today's multi-level cell (MLC) flash memory chips. The trick is in figuring out a solution to a problem called "drift."
