Linked by Thom Holwerda on Wed 6th Jul 2011 14:00 UTC
Well, paint me red and call me a girl scout, I totally did not see this one coming at all. This is so utterly surprising it made my brain explode. Hold on to your panties, because this will rock your world. After pressuring several smaller Android vendors into submission (and yes, HTC is still relatively small compared to other players), Microsoft is now moving on to the big one: Redmond is demanding $15 for every Samsung Android device sold. Samsung's choices are simple: pay up, or face another epic lawsuit.
Thread beginning with comment 479961
To view parent comment, click here.
To read all comments associated with this story, please click here.
To view parent comment, click here.
To read all comments associated with this story, please click here.
RE[4]: Comment by Stephen!
by Thom_Holwerda on Thu 7th Jul 2011 06:41
in reply to "RE[3]: Comment by Stephen!"
Member since:2005-06-29
You could have played those games on a pc and not bought an Xbox at all.
My PC is for work, not for play. I play games to unwind and relax, and I can't unwind behind a desk with a chronic WASD-claw. On top of that, gaming on the PC is a mess. You never know if stuff will run, lots of debugging and driver issues, the endless upgrade treadmill, mucking about with settings, and so on, and so forth.
I'm sure some people have the time for all that, but I don't.
RE[5]: Comment by Stephen!
by allanregistos on Thu 7th Jul 2011 08:01
in reply to "RE[4]: Comment by Stephen!"
Member since:2011-02-10
"You could have played those games on a pc and not bought an Xbox at all.
My PC is for work, not for play. I play games to unwind and relax, and I can't unwind behind a desk with a chronic WASD-claw. On top of that, gaming on the PC is a mess. You never know if stuff will run, lots of debugging and driver issues, the endless upgrade treadmill, mucking about with settings, and so on, and so forth. "
Let someone do it for you, or you can contact me. Gaming in PC is the best experience than with consoles.
RE[5]: Comment by Stephen!
by bassbeast on Sat 9th Jul 2011 01:01
in reply to "RE[4]: Comment by Stephen!"
Member since:2007-11-11
I don't know when the last time you PC gamed but you really don't need to do that now. In fact one of my biggest selling points ATM is that folks can use that nice widescreen TV as a monitor so they don't have to sit hunched over a desk for...well anything. 1080P is 1080P and HDMI makes it plug and play simple. as for drivers both Steam and AMD will happily take care of the updates FOR you and I haven't seen a driver borkage in ages except for Crossfire/SLI setups and that is a pretty small niche that most won't need.
So you really ought to give it another look. Tigerdirect sells AMD triple and quad kits for dirt cheap, no skills required other than looking at pictures in a manual and following what you see, if your TV is from the last 3 years it probably has HDMI and VGA, and you can even use an X360 wireless if you prefer that over a wireless keyboard/mouse combo.
Finally I'd add the games are MUCH cheaper, both at launch and down the road than they will ever be on consoles. heck they are so cheap I often throw in a couple of RPGs or shooters at Amazon just so I can get some $19 order up to $25 so I can get supersaver shipping. Between Amazon, GOG, and Steam the amount of cheap PC gaming is just unreal, and a good gamer box can easily be built for less than $400 and last you for a decade with nothing more than the occasional $60 GPU card. Myself and several of my customers are running HD4850 cards which cost a whole $60 and which crank out the purty at 1080p just fine Thom, you really ought to give it another go.
Oh and checking your email and chatting on a 37 inch after a hard day's work? Nice...The only problem my customers who've switched have now is fighting their GFs/wives for time on the machine because they LOVE playing FB games on the big screen,LOL!
News
Linked by Thom Holwerda on 06/19/13 23:02 UTC, submitted by M.Onty
"Microsoft has sensationally abandoned its controversial plans to restrict the sharing of XBox One games, and has also removed daily online authentication requirements for its forthcoming console", reports The Guardian. They had no choice. Still a good move.
Linked by Thom Holwerda on 06/19/13 22:28 UTC
"A snippet of code in the Steam digital distribution platform has revealed that Valve may be planning to let users easily share their games with friends in the future. The Verge has verified the code's authenticity, which was originally spotted by a member of the NeoGAF gaming forum; the code references a 'shared game library' and a notification that would alert a user when their games are currently in use by a borrower." This would change the, uh, game.
Linked by Thom Holwerda on 06/18/13 22:33 UTC
Official Apple statement on PRISM and privacy: "Regardless of the circumstances, our Legal team conducts an evaluation of each request and, only if appropriate, we retrieve and deliver the narrowest possible set of information to the authorities. In fact, from time to time when we see inconsistencies or inaccuracies in a request, we will refuse to fulfill it." This is basically Apple re-publishing their earlier statement in a more official manner. You either believe it, or you don't.
Linked by Anonymous on 06/18/13 22:26 UTC
The open source Contiki operating system and its commercial Thingsquare distribution are making strides towards the connected home. According to a Computerworld article, a new LED light bulb manufacturer is putting small computers into their light bulbs. Each computer runs the Contiki OS, which gives each bulb an IP address and allows them to be controlled with a smartphone application. To connect the bulbs to the application, the bulbs use both Wi-Fi and the much lower power IEEE 802.15.4 mesh technology.
Linked by Thom Holwerda on 06/18/13 22:25 UTC
"Google asked the secretive Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court on Tuesday to ease long-standing gag orders over data requests it makes, arguing that the company has a constitutional right to speak about information it's forced to give the government. The legal filing, which cites the First Amendment's guarantee of free speech, is the latest move by the California-based tech giant to protect its reputation in the aftermath of news reports about sweeping National Security Agency surveillance of Internet traffic." Draining the ditch after the cow has drowned in it.
Linked by Thom Holwerda on 06/18/13 17:45 UTC
"I can't find one person who has been using the Nexus 7 for an extended period of time, and hasn't seen a massive downgrade in performance. Just what kind of downgrade are we talking here? I cannot pick up my Nexus 7 without experiencing problems like a lag of ten seconds, or more, just to rotate the display; touches refusing to acknowledged; stuttering notification panel actions; and unresponsive apps." Fully and utterly agreed. My Nexus 7 was blazing-fast and awesome for a few months, and at some point, it just started sucking. Just like that. I've tried loads of ROMs, and nothing helps.
Linked by Thom Holwerda on 06/18/13 17:32 UTC, submitted by poundsmack
A new release of the hobby operating system MenuetOS! The release notes are a bit non-descript, but you'll have to take what you can get: "updates and improvements (picview, httpc, ehci, ...)".
Linked by Thom Holwerda on 06/17/13 17:58 UTC
"The Internet is one of the most transformative technologies of our lifetimes. But for 2 out of every 3 people on earth, a fast, affordable Internet connection is still out of reach. And this is far from being a solved problem. There are many terrestrial challenges to Internet connectivity - jungles, archipelagos, mountains. There are also major cost challenges. Right now, for example, in most of the countries in the southern hemisphere, the cost of an Internet connection is more than a month's income. Solving these problems isn't simply a question of time: it requires looking at the problem of access from new angles. So today we're unveiling our latest moonshot from Google[x]: balloon-powered Internet access." Insane.
Linked by Thom Holwerda on 06/17/13 17:52 UTC
"MineAssemble is a tiny bootable Minecraft clone written partly in x86 assembly. I made it first and foremost because a university assignment required me to implement a game in assembly for a computer systems course. Because I had never implemented anything more complex than a 'Hello World' bootloader before, I decided I wanted to learn about writing my own kernel code at the same time. Note that the goal of this project was not to write highly efficient hand-optimized assembly code, but rather to have fun and write code that balances readability and speed. This is primarily accomplished by proper commenting and consistent code structuring." Just cool.
Linked by Thom Holwerda on 06/14/13 21:03 UTC
Jon Rubinstein, former CEO of Palm: "Well, I'm not sure I would have sold the company to HP. That's for sure. Talk about a waste. Not that I had any choice because when you sell a company you don't get to decide that. Obviously, the board and shareholders decide that. If we had known they were just going to shut it down and never really give it a chance to flourish, what would have been the point of selling the company? I think the deal we had with Verizon really hurt us, but who knew that at the time? These things are all hindsight."More News »
Sponsored Links
Member since:
2006-08-02
You could have played those games on a pc and not bought an Xbox at all.