Review of Google Glass: it all depends on the price

Scoble on Glass. "This week I gave five speeches while wearing it. I passed through airports four times (two more in a couple of hours). I let hundreds of people try my Google Glass. I have barely taken it off since getting it other than to sleep." The basic takeaway? "I've been telling people that this reminds me of the Apple II, which I unboxed with my dad back in 1977. It was expensive. It didn't do much. But I knew my life had changed in a big way and would just get better and better. Already this week I've gotten a new RSS app, the New York Times App, and a Twitter app. With many more on the way. This is the most interesting new product since the iPhone and I don't say that lightly."

Google is testing Android 4.3

"As everyone is trying to guess whether the next big Android update is going to be Key Lime Pie or not, and whether the release will be Android 5.X or 4.X, we have yet to hear anything concrete. After getting a tip from an eagle-eyed reader (thanks, deepayan!) and digging deeper, I can definitively tell you that Google is currently working on Android 4.3, and it is still Jelly Bean." Great detective work by Artem Russakovskii.

Google Glass already jailbroken

Some cool new stuff about Google Glass. Jay Lee has confirmed it runs Android 4.0.4, and that it runs on an OMAP 4430 processor, with an unknown core configuration and speed. It's got 628MB RAM, but Lee thinks it's actually 1GB of which the remainder is reserved for something else. Also, and this is good news, Suarik has already jailbroken his Google Glass. He details what he had to do - and the limitations of his work so far - in a comment.

Does anyone know why Google bought Motorola?

"Why did Google spend $12.5 billion to purchase Motorola Mobility? It's been nearly two years since the deal was announced and close to a full year since it closed, and the questions keep piling up while the answers keep getting worse. The biggest problem is that Motorola's patent portfolio doesn't appear to be worth anything close to what either company assumed: the judge in the Microsoft v. Motorola patent case ruled yesterday that Redmond owes a paltry $1.7 million in annual royalties for using Motorola's standards-related Wi-Fi and video-encoding patents in every Xbox 360 and Windows 7 PC sold, rather than the $4 billion Motorola had originally demanded."

Skyrim’s modular approach to level design

"As mentioned earlier, many developers understand the principles behind modular level design, but we hope to offer insights gained from our extensive exploration of this topic. To do this, we'll go over the various benefits and drawbacks we've found over the years, with an emphasis on how to get the most out of the workflow." A glimpse of just how complex one of the best games of this generation really is.

Global Android tablet shipments increase 177%

"According to new research from Strategy Analytics, global Android tablet shipments have increased 177 percent annually to 17.6 million units. The total number of tablets shipped in Q1 of 2013 was 40.6 million. Since 17.6 million of those 40 million tablets where powered by Android then it means that Android has a 43 percent global share. The other two big operating systems (and their respective eco-systems) in the global tablet market are Apple’s iOS and Microsoft’s Windows 8 RT. Apple still leads the race with a 48 percent market share, while Microsoft has managed to go from nothing (since Windows 8 RT is its first real tablet OS) to a 7.5 percent market share by selling some 3 million Windows based tablets." If these figures are even remotely accurate, we're going to see Android dominate the tablet (in market share) too. Not good. The Windows RT figures are a shimmer of hope, though.

LWJGL 2.9.0 released

The Lightweight Java Game Library provides a simple API to OpenGL, OpenAL, OpenCL and Game Controllers enabling the production of state of the art games for Windows, Linux and Mac. Version 2.9.0 contains a complete rewrite of the mac backend, support for FreeBSD, new OpenGL/OpenCL extension and bug fixes. The library is used by many high profile games such as Minecraft, Spiral Knights, Revenge of the Titans, Project Zomboid, Starsector, JMonkeyEngine, etc.

The reviews are in: the Samsung Galaxy S4

They're here! Whether that excites you or not remains to be seen, but the Galaxy S4, which will most likely become the best selling Android smartphone of the year by a huge margin, has been reviewed by all the major sites, and there's lots of interesting conclusions in there - although I think most of you will get the gist.

The WindsorNot: the webOS slate phone that never was

"With limited funding available to get the work done, tough decisions have to be made in the webOS Global Business Unit. Sitting after the all-but-done TouchPad Go but before the fancier next-generation TouchPads is a curious webOS smartphone. It shares much of its internals with the HP Pre3 and bears the hallmarks of the clean and simple webOS hardware design language, but it's an entirely different beast. This is the WindsorNot, the webOS slate smartphone that never was." Woah.

Apple posts quarterly results

"Apple just posted its hotly-anticipated Q2 2013 earnings, and the company posted a profit of $9.5b on revenues of $43.6b, compared to $11.6b in profit on $39.2b in revenue this quarter last year and $13.1b in profit on $54.5b in revenue last quarter. That's right in line with the company's guidance from last quarter. Most importantly, iPhone sales are fairly flat year-over-year. Apple sold 37.04 million in Q2 2013 versus last year's 35.1 million, a modest growth of seven percent. iPad sales for the quarter were 19.5 million, up a massive 65 percent from last year's 11.8 million, but the average selling price (ASP) dropped fairly steeply year-over-year, likely due to the introduction of the cheaper iPad mini."

Nokia shuts down public access to firmware servers

When I got my Nokia E7, Nokia's own updating software bricked the device - incredibly frustrating, since Nokia doesn't care about The Netherlands anymore and has closed all Nokia Care Points in the country. This meant I had to send it in for repairs, which, as experience with companies has taught me, usually takes weeks. Luckily, Nokia made it possible to download firmware straight from their servers using third party tools, and thanks to a technique called dead phone flashing, it was incredibly easy to bring bricked (Symbian) Nokia phones back to life. Now that Nokia ships Windows Phone, however, such public access is no longer welcome, and as such, it has blocked third party access to its servers. Understandable, but major suckage for enthousiasts. On a related note, Accenture (the company managing Symbian development) has released an update for Nokia Belle FP1/2 devices. Yep.

AOSP for Sony Xperia Z now available

"Open-sourced Android code for the Sony Xperia Z has recently been released on GitHub to enable developers and partners to get knee-deep into the device. Though the promise of vanilla Android is tantalizing, Sony is quick to remind folks that the Android build they're posting isn't meant for everyday use. As you can see from the video, all of the important stuff is working, but there are a few apps and services missing - after all, they don't have the rights to open source everything." This should be mandatory for being allowed to carry the Android trademark. Unlikely, but alas, even cynics such as myself may dream.

Connecting an iPad Retina LCD to a PC

"What is great about this panel (except its resolution) is that it has an eDisplayPort interface (which is supposed to replace LVDS in the near future), and as this hack proves it is compatible with traditional DisplayPort outputs found on all modern video cards. The panel is also surprisingly cheap - I got mine on ebay for $55, shipped from China. Hoping that eDisplayPort is compatible with regular DisplayPort (I couldn't find conclusive proof of this), I went on to interface the panel with a DP cable." Cool.

More ‘BadNews’ for Android

"The family of Android malware that slipped past security defenses and infiltrated Google Play is more widespread than previously thought. New evidence shows it was folded into three additional apps and has been operating for at least 10 months, according to security researchers." Google removed most of it, but not before it was installed anywhere between 2 to 9 million times - finally some figures from Google itself, and not scaremongering by antivirus companies. At 9 million, that's 1.2% of all Android devices sold.