Monthly Archive:: February 2010

Finally something we can work with. While both the iPad and the Joo Joo are technically still vapourware, people have at least had the opportunity to play with the former, while the latter remained somewhat illusive. Now that the device has been set to ship at the end of this month, Ars Technica finally had some time to play with the Joo Joo and talk to Fusion Garage's CEO, Chandra Rathakrishnan. There's good news, and there's (potentially) bad news.

Now this is something you don't read every day. Dick Brass, vice president at Microsoft from 1997 to 2004, has written an article for The New York Times' Op-Ed section, detailing the flaws in Microsoft's corporate culture, and how they've severely affected the company in a negative way. Telling, and painful. And, in a way, very sad. Update: Microsoft responds. "For Microsoft, it is not sufficient to simply have a good idea, or a great idea, or even a cool idea. We measure our work by its broad impact."

Symbian has completed the process of open sourcing its entire code base, in advance of its June deadline. While the release is ahead of schedule, the first phones - expected to be out early next year - will hit the market more than two years after the first Android phone became available. The code is expected to become available on the Symbian developer page on Thursday.

Ah, the ARM chip. ARM is a hugely successful architecture, and can be found in just about every cell phone or other small device out there. ARM, however, wants more, and for a long time now we've been hearing predictions about an upcoming massive rise in ARM netbooks - so far, this hasn't materialised. Warren East, ARM's CEO, said in an interview with PC Pro that netbooks could one day make up 90% of the laptop market - preferably powered by ARM processors of course.

Heck, Microsoft really weren't kidding when they said Windows 7 was the fastest-selling operating system in the world. NetApplications released its figures for January 2010, and it seems that after only three months of availability, Microsoft's latest baby has already hit the 10% market share mark.

And here I am, a week later. The Xbox home screen is patiently waiting for input, and as I put the controller down, my eyes drift towards the left, towards the closet where I keep my Xbox games, ordered according to which I find the best. Out of excitement, I had put the Mass Effect 2 box in the prime position when I bought it, but now that I've finished the game, I can't help but take it down a few pegs - behind Mass Effect 1, behind Dragon Age, but just above Fallout 3. I find it hard to admit, but Mass Effect 2 failed to meet my (admittedly) insanely high expectations.