Linked by Thom Holwerda on Mon 21st Jan 2013 21:17 UTC
The Verge has a learned a few interesting things about Google deprecating EAS and how this will affect Windows Phone users. As it turns out, Google informed Microsoft it was planning to remove EAS in the summer of last year, but without giving a firm date. Microsoft has been trying to get a six-month extension from Google, but so far with no luck. In the meantime, Microsoft is also working on adding CardDAV and CalDAV support to Windows Phone - so yay open standards.
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Linked by Thom Holwerda on 06/13/13 14:35 UTC
The third and final WWDC product I want to talk about is - of course - OS X 10.9 Mavericks. While iOS 7 was clearly the focus of this year's WWDC, its venerable desktop counterpart certainly wasn't left behind. Apple announced OS X 10.9 Mavericks, the first OS X release not to carry the name of a big cat.
Linked by Thom Holwerda on 06/11/13 17:07 UTC
We already talked about iOS 7 yesterday (after a night of sleep, it's only looking worse and worse - look at this, for Fiona's sake!), so now it's time to talk about the downright stunning and belly flutters-inducing new Mac Pro. As former owner and huge, huge, huge fan of the PowerMac G4 Cube - I haven't been this excited about an Apple product since, well, I would say the iMac G4. This is the Apple I used to love.
Linked by Thom Holwerda on 06/10/13 23:13 UTC
Apple held its big keynote event thing at WWDC earlier this evening, but since I was away with friends I've had to read up on it later in the evening. The company announced iOS 7, OS X 10.9 Mavericks, and they gave a preview of the new Mac Pro. Especially the Mac Pro impressed me, and while iOS 7's new Holo/Metro-inspired theme looks messy and garish to me, I do commend Apple for finally breaking the mold. This news item will focus on iOS 7 - I'll dive into the Mac Pro and OS X 10.9 tomorrow (it's late here now).
Linked by Thom Holwerda on 06/08/13 14:57 UTC
And yes, the PRISM scandal is far, far from over. More and more information keeps leaking out, and the more gets out, the worse it gets. The companies involved have sent out official statements - often by mouth of their CEOs - and what's interesting is that not only are these official statements eerily similar to each other, using the same terms clearly designed by lawyers, they also directly contradict new reports from The New York Times. So, who is lying?
Linked by Thom Holwerda on 06/07/13 11:40 UTC
This story is getting bigger and bigger. Even though most Americans probably already knew, it is now official: the United States government, through its National Security Agency, is collecting the communications and data of all American citizens, and of non-Americans using American services, through a wide collaboration with the large companies in technology, like Apple, Google, Microsoft, Facebook, and so on. Interestingly enough, the NSA itself, as well as the US government, have repeatedly and firmly denied this massive spying on Americans and non-Americans took place at all.
Linked by Thom Holwerda on 06/04/13 12:45 UTC
Ah, patents - the never-ending scourge of the technology industry. Whether wielded by companies who don't actually make any products, or large corporations who abuse them because they can't compete in the market place or because they're simply jerks, they do the industry a huge disservice and are simply plain dangerous. According to The Wall Street Journal (circumvention link), president Obama is about to take several executive actions to address patent trolls - which may seem like a good idea, but I am very worried that all this will do is strengthen the positions of notorious patent system abusers such as Apple and Microsoft.
Linked by nfeske on 05/31/13 10:12 UTC
With version 13.05, the developers of the Genode OS Framework take measures to ensure that Genode continues to scale well with a growing number of users and the steadily broadening platform coverage. Further highlights are the improved SoC support for Exynos 5, OMAP4, Raspberry Pi, i.MX, and new components for realizing headless systems.
Linked by Thom Holwerda on 05/29/13 16:59 UTC
At the D11 conference, Apple CEO Tim Cook once again took the stage to be interviewed by Walt Mossberg and Kara Swisher. While most of the interview can be replicated by picking and reading 10 random Apple fanblog stories - there were still a number of very interesting things that warrant some closer scrutiny.
Linked by Thom Holwerda on 05/24/13 17:26 UTC
So, the Xbox One disaster continues. Microsoft's policy for dealing with the used games market has reportedly leaked - and it's a clear and direct attack to destroy the used games market. Prices for used games will be set at the retail value of a new game, and retailers have to hook into Microsoft's computer systems and comply with Microsoft's terms and conditions.
Linked by Thom Holwerda on 05/21/13 21:38 UTC
At an event earlier today, Microsoft unveiled the next Xbox - the third model, but confusingly named Xbox One. The big focus was TV, integrated Kinect, and all the other stuff we all expected to be forced down our throats. I think it took them 25 minutes to actually come to what should be the core of the story: gaming. Nothing groundbreaking in the gaming department, except for how Microsoft intends to handle the used games market and borrowing games from friends: pay up, buddy!More Features »
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2005-11-29
Microsoft will side step OpenGL in the following ways:
1) Windows (up to 7):
DirectX is king on Windows. Huge titles are written in DirectX. There is an extensive catalog and many, many years of accumulated legacy code which uses DirectX.
Key questions to ask:
- How many games use enough middleware to make them rendering platform agnostic?
- How many developer studios go DirectX first vs OpenGL first? (I go into this a bit below in the Xbox section)
2) Windows 8 and the Windows Store
The Windows Store supports DirectX 11.1 and as such, porting a lot of Windows 7 apps is now a viable option. You will begin to see DirectX apps move to the Windows Store.
I believe that in the next year, you'll see unbelievable growth in the Windows Store. That will cause pressure on Windows Phone and even on Xbox ISVs to share code between the platforms (assuming Microsoft can get their ducks in a row w.r.t indie development on the 360 which is a mess at the moment)
3) Xbox
Xbox supports DirectX and there are a lot of big name games written using DirectX. Yes, I understand some of these (more so than maybe on the PC) are also running on OpenGL, but it is often an afterthought. In my experience, I've seen a lot more low quality ports to the PS3 rather than the other way around.
It doesn't seem to me, at least, that a large amounts of studios are using OpenGL first. Again, maybe I'm wrong.
4) Windows Phone 8
Windows Phone 8 now supports native code and DirectX. In addition, the Windows Phone 8 port of WinRT enables massive amounts of code sharing between Windows 8 and Windows Phone 8.
Windows Phone has traditionally had a good game selection, with this, I expect Windows Store DirectX apps to be ported to Windows Phone 8.
5) Developer Preference
Most people I've run into that use DirectX, don't exactly seem to hate it. Nor have I seen a lot of developers lamenting the fact that they lose out on cross platform support, because that story isn't really coherent yet on Linux and to a lesser extent, OSX.
Some caveats:
I have not taken a hard enough look at iOS, Android, and other platforms that use OpenGL to know if there is enough there to tip the scales.
I'm not convinced its a sure thing for DirectX, but this seems to me the plausible strategy that Microsoft is employing.
There is a lot of noise about how Microsoft has put XAML and the WinRT (and even Metro) everywhere, and to an extent, they have.
However, the one platform that is unquestionable ubiquitous on Microsoft platforms now is DirectX. This is an extremely valuable proposition for developers, and I think it stands a good chance of boosting DirectX.
Edited 2013-01-22 04:04 UTC