If each tech show has an unofficial theme, then IFA 2012‘s must be Windows 8 tablets. Microsoft’s new OS – in both full 8 and pared-back RT forms – has shown up on touchscreen hardware from all of the main manufacturers, each trying slightly different combinations of size, specs and accessories in the hope of standing out from the crowd. Options are great, of course, but are there signs that Microsoft’s tablet desperation is rubbing off on its OEMs?
I can’t believe I’m going to do this. I’m going to defend the right to own guns. You see, I’m a liberal. I’m more liberal than you are. I don’t care how liberal you think you are, I’m more liberal than you. But I also pride myself on my ability to change my mind with a reasonable argument, so there are a few positions on which I agree with conservatives. Teacher’s unions, for one thing, are pure evil. I know that from my experience working in public schools, where my job was made much harder by teachers who were resting on union protections and doing a horrible job. On gun ownership, as well, I’m confounded to say that I tend to agree more with the right-wing than the left.
A death-blow to Samsung; a free patent ride for Apple; a surprise window of opportunity for Microsoft: so the $1bn Apple vs. Samsung trial has been summed up as, and more. A US jury’s decision this week that Samsung had “willfully” infringed Apple patents and should be vigorously punished for it has already scored deep the Android versus iOS battle lines. Yet, for all the huge sums and the outraged cries for patent reform – not to mention whispers that this finally could be Windows Phone’s chance to shine – it’s unclear exactly what will change.
There’s a new gaming handheld in town. It’s called the Nintendo 3DS XL. And I couldn’t care less.
Now, those who have been reading my columns on SlashGear know that I’m not exactly the most understanding when it comes to Nintendo products. The devices are nice and all, but when we actually account for their gaming quality – and appeal to the hardcore gamer – I can’t help but feel they fall short. I’ve felt that way about the GameCube, Wii, and the 3DS.
I was using my Apple TV the other day to stream some music to my television and thought about something: prior to the Worldwide Developers Conference in June, rumors suggested that Apple was going to announce a new Apple TV operating system that would support applications and all kinds of other goodies. There was also some speculation that the company might offer up a new Apple TV set-top box that would come with some storage for the apps.
Sony was once viewed as the world’s most successful gaming company. After it launched the original PlayStation, many wondered if it could take off until, well, it did. And as we all know, the PlayStation 2 was a gaming juggernaut.
But all of that changed with the PlayStation 3. The console launched at a price that was far too expensive for what customers were getting, and it lacked the uniqueness of Nintendo’s Wii, which caught on quickly. Microsoft’s Xbox 360, while not as popular as the Wii, benefited from a strong online-gaming component.
Microsoft’s Surface Pro has company, with Lenovo revealing its own Windows 8 slate, the ThinkPad Tablet 2, targeting the all-important enterprise segment. Like the higher-spec Surface, Lenovo’s new tablet has content-creation features like a digital pen and all the remote management your IT team demands; it also has the more flexible full version of Windows 8, rather than Windows RT. And, like Microsoft, Lenovo is playing pricing cards close to its chest. One thing is already becoming clear, however: Windows 8 may well struggle to compete in business markets.
It may not be Pebble‘s $10m, but with OUYA‘s $8m Kickstarter has its newest standard-bearer, and around sixty thousand sets of eyes turn to the mailbox for the promised early-2013 deliveries. It’s a surprising degree of patience – however ill-suffered – considering the short-shrift we give most products, software updates or even just the regular postal service if they dare to make us wait. Immediate gratification is arguably at odds with today’s trends, but there’s another angle that makes Kickstarter so appealing: it’s the rumor-mill we can buy into.
Although all of the talk surrounding Cupertino currently centers on Apple’s iPhone, I can’t get the company’s television out of my head. I own an iPhone and have an iPad. And although I’ll likely buy Apple’s next handset, it’s the company’s television that has me drooling.
Based on the reports surrounding Apple’s television at the moment, I can all but guarantee that I’ll be buying one. I love the idea of iCloud integration and I firmly believe that it’ll come with an App Store. Better yet, it’ll deliver high-quality visuals that should make its competition reevaluate their future decisions.
Samsung has woken up to context: the Galaxy Note 10.1 has a fast quadcore processor and twice as much memory as most rivals, but listen to Samsung’s pitch and you’d hardly know it. Instead of the usual breathless glee over hardware and technical abilities, the Note 10.1 tells you exactly what it can do with all that’s under the hood. Namely, bring the stylus back in style, and create a compellingly different approach to tableteering, distinct to what Apple’s iPad offers.
This weekend we will see Curiosity attempt a dramatic Mars landing inside of Gale Crater. Its mission will be to study the Martian rocks to determine how they were formed and try to answer whether conditions on Mars once could have supported life in its most simple form – tiny, microbial cells. The rover’s intended destination after landing is a series of layered rock outcrops on the slopes of Mount Sharp. These layers were spied from orbit only a few years ago and appear to provide a geological record of Mars spanning hundreds of millions of years that Curiosity can spend months touring and reading back to us on Earth. With Curiosity’s hypersonic entry guidance, this is the first Mars rover that could safely land inside Gale and reach these layers.
I love the show Game of Thrones on HBO. The show is fantastic. It’s one of the best shows to come along in a while. It’s exciting, sexy, complicated, and it has just a touch of fantasy thrown in, mainly to keep you guessing about the possibilities of what’s to come. In the first episodes of the first season, did you really expect to see dragons? But then that platinum blond Khaleesi woman steps out of the fire completely naked with a dragon on her shoulder and it was the probably the coolest thing I have ever seen on television. Wait, have you seen Game of Thrones? If you haven’t, you should subscribe to HBO right now so you can start watching.
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