Linked by Thom Holwerda on Thu 21st Feb 2013 18:18 UTC, submitted by twitterfire
Late last night, Sony unveiled the PlayStation 4 - sort of. It's got a custom 8-core AMD x86-64 processor, 8GB of GDDR5 RAM, and a custom Radeon-based graphics chip. It's also got additional chips to offload specific tasks like video (de)compression (livestreaming is built-in!), and there's a large focus on streaming games, but most of it is "an ultimate goal" instead of a definitive feature. It won't play PS3 discs (but will eventually stream many PS3 games), and, while there's some weaselwording involved, second hand games are safe. The biggest surprise? The console itself wasn't shown because it's not done yet. No joke. No price, no release date (other than somewhere before the holidays).
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Member since:2009-03-17
I would be interested in knowing about the OS this thing (PS4) uses. I can't imagine Sony coming up with a custom x86 OS, from the ground up, for this thing.
It sucks for AMD though. They could be having some cool APU-based tablets/latops running on DDR5... alas, it's not "comoditized" enough in the PC space (yet).
Member since:2009-08-18
Member since:2013-02-23
I'm *hoping* it's Linux based, that would potentially allow the PS4 to be Steam-Box Compatible, (seeing as the PS4 seems to be a custom x86-64 PC)
Giving users access to both the PSN and Steam would be a huge advantage over Xbox it would certainly help my buying decision. The Question is would Sony allow another content distribution network on their hardware?
If as speculated the PS3 System Software was/is based on a branch of FreeBSD then it shouldn't be to complicated to port to x86-64.
Either way with AMD providing the graphics hardware as well maybe the closed source AMD graphics drivers will improve on BSD/Linux...
Member since:2007-01-25
Features
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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Member since:
2008-09-11
The x86 in this thing will make it much more attractive for hackers. They'll want to get Windows booting on it and play PC games. Or Linux now that Steam is on there.
Even if the CPU and GPU are made by AMD, they are custom. So no Windows and Linux on it unless you have drivers.
The hardware will be very good and and probably it won't be very expensive, I see the reason why some guys might want to use PS4 as a regular PC.
Edited 2013-02-21 18:51 UTC