Monthly Archive:: March 2014

The second version of the Oculus Rift development kit is similar to the Crystal Cove prototype in terms of features, but the fit and finish is much closer to what we’re likely to see in the retail virtual reality headset.

We're initially going to be launching our Linux support on GOG.com with the full GOG.com treatment for Ubuntu and Mint. That means that right now, we're hammering away at testing games on a variety of configurations, training up our teams on Linux-speak, and generally getting geared up for a big kick-off in the fall with at least 100 Linux games ready for you to play. This is, of course, going to include games that we sell which already have Linux clients, but we'll also be bringing Linux gamers a variety of classics that are, for the first time, officially supported and maintained by a storefront like ours.

Apple is adding a cheaper 8GB iPhone 5C to its smartphone lineup. The new model first appeared on UK carrier O2's site, but has since been added to a number of international Apple Stores including the UK, Australia, and China. In the UK, it's priced at £429, £40 ($66 including sales tax) less than the 16GB model. Should Apple choose to bring the new budget model to the US, the price seems likely to fall somewhere around $499.

The exit of engineer Julie Ann Horvath from programming network GitHub has sparked yet another conversation concerning women in technology and startups. Her claims that she faced a sexist internal culture at GitHub came as a surprise to some, given her former defense of the startup and her internal work at the company to promote women in technology.

We know we have to take action and have begun a full investigation. While that’s ongoing, and effective immediately, the relevant founder has been put on leave, as has the referenced GitHub engineer. The founder’s wife discussed in the media reports has never had hiring or firing power at GitHub and will no longer be permitted in the office.

Stuff such as United's new offering generally arrives on Android sooner or later, and there are whole categories of apps - such as alternative keyboards - that are Android-only.

Much of the time, I'm an Android user myself, so I'm happy when something is available for Google's operating system and sorry when it isn't. But despite the fact that iOS's market share is much smaller than that of Android, and has been for years, Apple devices are still nearly always first in line when a major company or hot startup has to decide where to allocate its development resources. That's a dynamic that pundits keep telling us makes no sense - but it's happening, and its an enormous competitive advantage for Apple. 'Sounds like a victory to me.

A large reason for the halt of sales, says the memo, is Microsoft has a "new policy" of not supporting dual-OS products. Patrick Moorhead, principal analyst at Moor Insights and Strategy, told us in January that "Microsoft does not want to happen," and now tells The Wall Street Journal that "Google wants all-Android devices" as well.

It's kind of a sobering thought that mobile communications, the cornerstone of the modern world in both developed and developing regions, pivots around software that is of dubious quality, poorly understood, entirely proprietary, and wholly insecure by design.

In my Mac Pro review I lamented the state of 4K display support under OS X 10.9.0. In my conclusion I wrote: "4K display compatibility under OS X is still a bit like the wild west at this point". Compatibility was pretty much only guaranteed with the ASUS/Sharp 4K displays if you cared about having a refresh rate higher than 30Hz. Even if you had the right monitor, the only really usable resolution was 3840 x 2160 - which ends up making text and UI elements a bit too small for some users. Absent were the wonderful scaling resolutions that Apple introduced with its MacBook Pro with Retina Display. Well it looks like that won't be the case for long, last night I got reports (thanks Mike!) that the latest developer build of OS X 10.9.3 includes expanded support for 4K displays, 4K/60Hz support for rMBPs and scaled resolutions below 4K.

But the hardest thing of all, he says, was something else entirely. He hands me his iPhone so that I can scroll through some messages he's saved. One is from a woman chastising him for "distracting the children of the world." Another laments that "13 kids at my school broke their phones because of your game, and they still play it cause it's addicting like crack." Nguyen tells me of e-mails from workers who had lost their jobs, a mother who had stopped talking to her kids. "At first I thought they were just joking," he says, "but I realize they really hurt themselves." Nguyen - who says he botched tests in high school because he was playing too much Counter-Strike - genuinely took them to heart.

During presentations and hands-on demos at Crytek's GDC booth, attendees can see for the first time ever full native Linux support in the new CRYENGINE. The CRYENGINE all-in-one game engine is also updated with the innovative features used to recreate the stunning Roman Empire seen in Ryse - including the brand new Physically Based Shading render pipeline, which uses real-world physics simulation to create amazingly realistic lighting and materials in CRYENGINE games.

iOS 7 is unlikely to run better on the iPhone 4 than it does in iOS 7.1. That's not to say that the experience is great - even stepping up to an iPhone 4S would get you noticeable gains in performance and overall smoothness - but it's better than it was, and it's as good as it's going to get.

If you're sticking with the iPhone 4 for another year, iOS 7.1 makes performance tolerable enough that using the phone isn't unbearable.