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PS4 is using DirectX.

MS split the PC market with the have/have not for directX 10/11 with Windows 7. You would have thought that OpenGL would have become popular because of that, but that have no happened.

Given that most of the games are developed for consoles and port to Windows, that's what mainstream are and will be developing for.

Guess what? Xbox uses directX. The new PS4 will have directX 11.1.

http://www.geek.com/games/sony-iimprove-directx-11-for-the-ps4-blu-ray-1544364/

Yep, we all bought something at Gamestation on the 1st of April 2010

As he refuses to greenlight single player games.

Which should not be construed as even a suggestion that the man should lose his job. I don't believe the appropriate response here would be to destroy a man's livelihood. I would like him to reconsider his policy, though.

http://www.geek.com/articles/games/ea-wont-green-light-any-single-player-only-games-2012095/

Frank Gibeau:
"We are very proud of the way EA evolved with consumers. I have not green lit one game to be develped as a single player experience. Today, all of our games include online applications and digital services that make them live 24/7/365." Fire him, too, please.

X10! X10! X10! X10! X10! X10! X10! X10!

"Home control" has been around since the 1990s. It was once promoted with some really annoying blinking pop-up ads for the X10 wireless control system. Around 2001, X10 was the fourth most popular property on the web. You can still buy X10 gear. It works fine. Nobody cares.

X10 has a few problems that come to mind:
1. It's *really* slow. The protocol sends 1 bit per zero-crossing event, which gives you a grand total of 100bps. You may not think you need much bandwidth for lighting control, but with such a slow data rate, doing things like "turn devices A, B and C on at the same time" become noticably "turn device A on, then B, then C".
2. It's really expensive - Not too bad if you just want one or 2 controllable devices, but replacing every light switch/socket in your house with an X10 module really will cost a lot.
3. Pretty much all the X10 modules are bulky and ugly as sin.

Remote off/on control of home lights and appliances just isn't that useful.

I think remove control of lights would be quite useful, but not useful enough to justify the high cost of doing it (with X10). Other appliances would benefit from remote control too, but that would usually be something more than on/off - i.e. I don't just want to turn my heating on/off, I want to be able to set the temperature and stuff too.

X10! X10! X10! X10! X10! X10! X10! X10!

"Home control" has been around since the 1990s. It was once promoted with some really annoying blinking pop-up ads for the X10 wireless control system. Around 2001, X10 was the fourth most popular property on the web. You can still buy X10 gear. It works fine. Nobody cares.

Then there was Echelon LonWorks. This was a technically better system than X10 (which was mostly one-way), and it's widely used in commercial buildings. It has really good noise immunity, which has resulted in it being used to control auxiliary systems (lights, HVAC, destination signs, etc.) in subway trains. As a home control system, which was the original plan, it went nowhere.

There's no problem doing this, and plenty of products are available. Remote off/on control of home lights and appliances just isn't that useful.

I stuck with Palm all the way through a Treo 650, but after that it was time to move on.

Yes they can. It has already been done. http://www.geek.com/articles/geek-cetera/elderly-woman-has-lower-jaw-replaced-with-3d-printed-titanium-implant-2012026/

Re-posting this as a non-AC so that everyone sees it:

"And as a follow-up to that article from 1.5 years ago, be it noted that when B&N hung tough, and was willing to go to court, MS "settled" by investing $300M in a joint venture, and they became good buddies who were not going to have such silly squabbles any more.

Interesting that they have not gone after Apple's iOS on a lot of those same "patents" - have they?

YMMV"

MS *really* doesn't want to go to court over these patents, nor do they want anybody knowing exactly what they are about... As for the FAT patents? Those were unenforcable long ago. http://www.geek.com/articles/law/microsoft-fat-patent-shot-down-2004101

http://www.geek.com/articles/geek-cetera/8-grams-of-thorium-could-replace-gasoline-in-cars-20110812/

Cadillac was seriously looking into a thorium laser powered system via concept car. Nothing was built to my knowledge, but for them to splash that as public news was very risky. So yes, I say that was a serious decision on their part as to not look like a bunch of kooks. Is it doable? I have no idea. All I know is that if it is, China and India will testing the waters first. No way in absolute hell will this be kickstarted in the USA. Too much politics involved and the scare of "nuclear meltdown" (public ignorance) will be the reason. So until those two nations test and validate the technology, then, and only then, will the West warm up to the idea of having public nuclear reactors in our possession.

I just posted this on my facebook account. Feel free to post it everywhere.

Microsoft has just raised the bar on greed. MS Office 2013 has a non-transferable license, it can only be installed on 1 computer. So, you lose this computer or it dies or you upgrade, you lose your license to MS Office 2013. See http://www.geek.com/articles/geek-pick/retail-copies-of-office-2013-are-tied-to-a-single-computer-forever-20130213/ for moredetails.

Why build an engine, when you can steal one!

When you refuse to pay for movies, you're casting a vote against fun, big-budget movies that are made for the purpose of getting lots of people to come see them and enjoy them, and instead voting in favor of excruciatingly boring low-budget films that are made primarily so that the director could whine that the cheese-puff-snarfing American public wouldn't know great art if it bit them on their big bloated behind and subsequently didn't even buy enough tickets for the director to pay off the lien he took out on his Honda Civic to get the movie produced.

Firstly, this.

Secondly, I'm casting a vote against not being able to use the media I purchased in the manner I want, on whatever device I want for as long as I want.

I buy DVDs (okay, usually on sale) and rip them, because all of the legal digital versions available suck lame sauce in terms of DRM crap. If I'm feeling too lazy to rip it myself, I have no compunctions about grabbing a torrent.

In conclusion, I would like to refer you to this handy illustrated guide.

Oh, and this one too.

Why do you feel entitled to other people's stuff because they wont license it to you on your terms? Why not refuse to pay AND refuse to watch it, that's a crazy idea right?

To me this sounds a lot like a land owner offering to let you hunt on his land with an exception - only if you do not drive motorized vehicles over it - and then your response being to plow through it with ATVs doing whatever the hell you want without compensation because "he didn't let me do what I want", "it's not stealing", or "it doesn't cost him anything so it should be free".

When you refuse to pay for movies, you're casting a vote against fun, big-budget movies that are made for the purpose of getting lots of people to come see them and enjoy them, and instead voting in favor of excruciatingly boring low-budget films that are made primarily so that the director could whine that the cheese-puff-snarfing American public wouldn't know great art if it bit them on their big bloated behind and subsequently didn't even buy enough tickets for the director to pay off the lien he took out on his Honda Civic to get the movie produced.

Firstly, this.

Secondly, I'm casting a vote against not being able to use the media I purchased in the manner I want, on whatever device I want for as long as I want.

I buy DVDs (okay, usually on sale) and rip them, because all of the legal digital versions available suck lame sauce in terms of DRM crap. If I'm feeling too lazy to rip it myself, I have no compunctions about grabbing a torrent.

In conclusion, I would like to refer you to this handy illustrated guide.

Oh, and this one too.

multiwindow fundamentally breaks the Android CTS

How so? I tried Google multi-window android compatibility test suite and found this article that claims that the only reason CyanogenMod with Cornerstone doesn't pass the CTS is that CyanogenMod isn't bundled with a device.

Why not consult the great and powerful Carmack. Since he was one of the biggest proponents of OpenGL over DX.

Not so simple, but they've done it already (made VLC LGPL that is)

h-online.com article with some informative links on how it was done

geek.com article

How much did you pay for a copy of Windows to run in VMware? I seem to remember that VMware for Mac required the full-price retail version of Windows, not the discounted OEM version that a system builder bundles with a Windows PC. This appears to have changed as of Windows 8 with the new Personal Use License for System Builder, but then one has to suffer through the new metrosexual Start screen of Windows 8 and the convoluted gestures to even shut down the machine. Or what am I missing?

My favorite part of the article is the picture of custom sponge shapes. Can I get my insulin sponge-shot shaped like a Lucky Charms marshmallow? http://www.geek.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/11/cryogel_sponge_02.gif

Yes, your garden looks very nice at first glance. But I'll stay out here, thanks.

Sometimes a central authority is a good thing. But no-fucking-body is telling me what software I can or can't download, or banning me from downloading certain titles over some stupid shit like this. And this is just a mild example of what they *could* do if they wanted.

This game basically rips off the public domain game "Concentration", which we call "Memory" or "Pairs" in the United States. It may be called a "board game", but looking at its picture. It doesn't have a board. It's just a card game with pairs of cards, that they redesigned with a different look to make the rip off less obvious.

And my hunch is that they were able to register this trademark in 42 countries precisely because none of those countries were English-speaking (or they didn't know the game Memory). For instance, if I were to register the german word "Speicher" (Memory) as a trademark in the US, no one would stop me because it's not a common word used in the United States (although we do use foreign words sometimes).

And the problem in this case is not that Apple is a walled garden, it's the actual mechanism that the iOS SDK provides for doing localisations. For iOS, localisation is done after the fact. For Android, the localization issue is thought out well in advance, long before the developer even begins working on his application. In several ways, it's just like the screen size/density issues. In Android, those screen size/density issues have been worked out well in advance, with iOS, the screen size/density variation issue is being handled much later in the process -- if at all.

In Android, if/when the same issue comes up, a non-developer will be able to handle it, they'll just need to get the list of the 42 countries affected, focus only on the countries where the larger foreign revenue-generating audiences are, and consult with a few foreign-speaking friends. And in less than one hour of work, that non-developer will have the application repackaged and up on the Market (Google Play), with its name intact in the US and in the UK, but with the name "Speicher" in Germany and Austria and with the name "Mémoire" in France (but with still the original name "Memory" in French-speaking Québec, since I assume that Québec won't be one of those 42 jurisdictions scammed by those people, at most in Quebec only the description may have to be in French), etc.

And, for fuck's sake, change the retarded application naming methods! When you have Guayadeque, a music player using wxWidgets then "abcde" which is a frontend for "cdparanoia" (SERIOUSLY???), Gedit (which works under KDE, so the "G" is stupid), Kate (wtf is this name for a fucking Text Editor?), Kopete (bitch, please!), XCDRoast (because the "X" really MUST be there!), then you can't hope that Joe Sixpack would be happy with that. "The KDE naming convention (KMail, KAIM, KPlayer, etc) tends to be a bit better than average, though they do tend to take the âoeKâ thing a bit too far. Even this, which tends to produce easy to discern names, has problems (k3b, Kaffeine, amaroK, kynaptic, etc) and can get confusing at times." (from here: http://www.geek.com/articles/xyzcomputing/linuxs-difficulty-with-names-20051226/). When you get rid of this hacker-wannabe naming methods ("yeah, um, well, I'm using xkcd-1.3.1-x86-omg-wtf-bbq") then you start to mature and think of customers, rather than just your fellow hacker-wannabe-bros.

Why don't you start making the packages yourself, then you can name them whatever you want

Desktop Linux is finally starting to look like it is making some traction, especially with Valve working to make games for Linux, and I've always been of the opinion that an OS is only going to have mass appeal if you can play top tier games on it (without having to mess around with WINE).

And, for fuck's sake, change the retarded application naming methods!
When you have Guayadeque, a music player using wxWidgets then "abcde" which is a frontend for "cdparanoia" (SERIOUSLY???), Gedit (which works under KDE, so the "G" is stupid), Kate (wtf is this name for a fucking Text Editor?), Kopete (bitch, please!), XCDRoast (because the "X" really MUST be there!), then you can't hope that Joe Sixpack would be happy with that.

"The KDE naming convention (KMail, KAIM, KPlayer, etc) tends to be a bit better than average, though they do tend to take the “K” thing a bit too far. Even this, which tends to produce easy to discern names, has problems (k3b, Kaffeine, amaroK, kynaptic, etc) and can get confusing at times." (from here: http://www.geek.com/articles/xyzcomputing/linuxs-difficulty-with-names-20051226/).

When you get rid of this hacker-wannabe naming methods ("yeah, um, well, I'm using xkcd-1.3.1-x86-omg-wtf-bbq") then you start to mature and think of customers, rather than just your fellow hacker-wannabe-bros.

You have a choice between real people dying or computers catching a virus... The more effective we are in slowing down Iran's nuclear program, the more time we have before we need to resort to military action...

Lemme start by saying that I agree.

But isn't sabotage an act of war?

The US seems to think so: http://www.geek.com/articles/news/pentagon-rules-cyber-attacks-and-sabotage-constitute-an-act-of-war-20110531/

And that it justifies military response.

Countries weigh the cost vs benefits when engaging in a war, not all 'acts of war' are created equal.

If hundreds or thousands of citizens die in an attack like the USS Maine (Spain), RMS Lusitania (Germany), Peril Harbor (Japan), 9/11 (Afghanistan), the US responds with an all out war where both sides suffer causalities. Other cases like the theft of American's property (Cuba), an embargo is sufficient for us to tell them that we don't like 'em.

During none of the wars listed above did the US ever have a significant threat to it's existence even in the event of a loss, except maybe Cuba. But if you're Iran war would mean certain defeat, that cost calculation is even more skewed.

You have a choice between real people dying or computers catching a virus... The more effective we are in slowing down Iran's nuclear program, the more time we have before we need to resort to military action...

Lemme start by saying that I agree.

But isn't sabotage an act of war?

The US seems to think so: http://www.geek.com/articles/news/pentagon-rules-cyber-attacks-and-sabotage-constitute-an-act-of-war-20110531/

And that it justifies military response.

There's just one reason why that wouldn't be very helpful:

Retina display MacBook Pro does not play nicely with Linux ...

"1. - You don't have to be competitive if you have managed to obtain a monopoly... "

Er, try and keep up with the conversation. You've just instigated a circular argument. The point was that these monopolies were obtained precisely by outcompeting the competition. Intel just produces better chips than AMD, there's no ifs, no buts, they're just too far ahead of AMD, and it's not to do with being a monopoly because they're not yet, it's simply that they've done a better job than AMD.

Microsoft was the same, the only reason it got a monopoly in the first place was by just producing a product more people wanted. Linux was too young as to be irrelevant at the time, and everything else (OS/2 lol) was second rate.

"2 - You obviously don't remember the days when Netscape was the best browser out there."

That's because it was never true. Netscape was a truly second rate browser compared to IE. People were using IE over Netscape not because of bundling, but because IE was just that much nicer to use. Even the basics like Netscape's UI was fucking horrible (http://www.supportcave.com/images/netscape4.bmp vs. http://www.favbrowser.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/08/internetexplorer4.png for example), and that's before you get into the technical fails of actually browsing with it.

I just did a random search, and found this old article for example, look at the comments, look at people's sentiment towards Netscape in reply to a neutral story about it:

http://www.geek.com/articles/news/navigator-475-out-now-20000821/

This isn't to say Netscape didn't have it's fans, particularly in the anti-MS crowd (read: Stallman's crowd), but IE was just so much more user-friendly to the general public, and that's ultimately what mattered.

This. I was using my Handspring Visor as a Smartphone in the early 2000's via the Visorphone. I could call, I could browse the web, and even download apps (not that east on a 19k connection, but still...)

You're right, you were entirely justified in claiming that your reaction time is NOT crap (compared to a two-toed tree sloth). When the entire topic of discussion was that computer drivers would be better than human drivers, nobody would expect to compare human drivers to computers when making a claim about reaction times. That would be absurd.

I leave you this in parting. Come back when your reaction times are not crap.

Maybe you should get your facts right.

According to the LGP blog the Loki bankruptcy almost took Tux Games down with them since they could no longer buy product on credit.

Here you go. http://www.geek.com/articles/geek-pick/curiosity-landing-video-gets-sound-visuals-enhanced-to-1080p-20120914/

Here is a link to this story as covered by Geeknet. Very cool video! http://www.geek.com/articles/geek-pick/curiosity-landing-video-gets-sound-visuals-enhanced-to-1080p-20120914/

I submitted this for a story, may be redundant. Here's a link to the landing in enhanced 1080 hd video with sound effects added in. http://www.geek.com/articles/geek-pick/curiosity-landing-video-gets-sound-visuals-enhanced-to-1080p-20120914/

Or they actually back up the cloud to tape:
http://gmailblog.blogspot.com/2011/02/gmail-back-soon-for-everyone.html
http://www.geek.com/articles/news/google-restoring-lost-gmail-data-from-tape-backups-2011031/

Presenting security certifications from Trust, Mcafee and Norton says nothing about how they'll use personal data. It just means that they might be less susceptible to hacking (but I personally doubt it) than companies without similar certifications.

It means you're not reading it like a lawyer.

"The company rushes to counter privacy concerns by pointing out that their service has "received security certifications from TRUSTe, McAfee and Norton."

"The company's concerns are counter-privacy" and/or "they're rushing to counter your privacy" seem pretty consistent with "TRUSTe, McAfee and Norton."

Remember, A TrustE is still a con. (Attr. to Agent 01413 of the Lumber Cartel (TINLC), and to Socks the Cat, ca. 1999 or earlier - the earliest I could find was in a .sig quote from 1999 - and scattered around the web, off and on, for at least ten years .)

The term "smartphone" is much older than Android. The VisorPhone was once a new entrant in the well-established field of smartphones

if you've never seen an apple wireless keyboard and mouse
http://www.geek.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/01/iMac-right-angled-Wireless-Keyboard-Magic-Mouse.png

This is really simple. Tell them your company is an alpha site for Windows9 and load Ubuntu on their systems. Any problems are due to Microsoft incompatibilities, so using MS-Office won't be available for a few years and LibreOffice is available now. The Mac people will love the window controls on the upper-left-side.

After Mom got a root kit and 50+ viruses on her WinXP system, I loaded Lubuntu 10.04 in a new partition. This was a few years ago. She was really afraid of Linux at the time. I put 4 icons on her desktop that she already knew. Thunderbird, Firefox, Chromium (never chrome), Quicken, and a file browser. These all "just work" for her. There is 1 program that she wants that I haven't been able to get working - it is a highly specialized stock tracking and selection tool built on OCX and .NET. Besides that, she love Lubuntu. Every week, her system gets patched just like all my other Linux systems. 1 more hostname inside a script that patches 20-30 other hosts isn't a big deal.

Anyway, that was 2 years ago. Obviously, she hasn't
* had any viruses since,
* her system gets a local snapshot backup every hour and
* I pull system backups every week from 3 states away.

She loves it. I've already explained that if her PC dies, just put that HDD into any other PC and boot - it will work the same. If the HDD fails, then she can buy another PC (from anywhere) and install stock Ubuntu off any CDROM. I can talk her thru installing ssh-server and will be able to remote in, push her file restores and get her back exactly to the same place within a day or so.

I've shown her Windows7 on my laptop and it scares her. The interface is too different and she finds it confusing. The change from XP to 7 really is big for most end-users. The change from XP to Lubuntu is nothing, but having similar programs on Windows **before** hand really did make it easier.

BTW, she's happily running all this on a 512MB Pentium4 system with a 30GB HDD. Lubuntu uses only 10G for the OS, apps and all her data.

Anyone else remember that Aussie video showing KDE to people in a market, but telling them it was MS-Vista? http://www.geek.com/articles/chips/zdnet-asks-if-you-like-windows-7-2009026/ Generally, they liked the new OS and were impressed by simple features.

True, but then Google doesn't make the majority of Android phones. Some Android phones have come without the ability to sideload.

Android is a platform to build a phone on--it's well out of Google's hands now, and while they've been trying to rein it in, I don't think it's clear yet whether or not they will be successful.

"And we’ve removed plastics wherever possible, in favor of materials that are more highly recyclable, more durable, more efficient and longer lasting. "

Longer lasting materials? Too bad that doesn't include OSX...

IOW the old OS X will last even longer - I thought you were trying to disprove them?

"And we’ve removed plastics wherever possible, in favor of materials that are more highly recyclable, more durable, more efficient and longer lasting. "

Longer lasting materials? Too bad that doesn't include OSX...

Apparently they don't take into account the environmental impact of instantly making millions of devices obsolete in a single software update.

Fortunately, those machines can still run Linux (and, hey, Windows) just fine.

"And we’ve removed plastics wherever possible, in favor of materials that are more highly recyclable, more durable, more efficient and longer lasting. "

Longer lasting materials? Too bad that doesn't include OSX...

Apparently they don't take into account the environmental impact of instantly making millions of devices obsolete in a single software update.

Can you name one service that Geek Squad performs that "slows down" its clients' computers?

Loading crapware in the name of security. If you had google'd for "geek squad slows down computer" the top hit would probably have been this article on the geek squad optimization service slowing down computers and then you wouldn't have had to ask this question.

Well, you're not going to get 1080p resolution on a 5" device the next couple of years, so WP8 will be fine with 1280x720.

oh RLY?
http://www.geek.com/articles/mobile/5-inch-lg-display-packs-440ppi-1080p-resolution-20120528/

1) No *built-in* data ports. Options available: http://www.geek.com/articles/gadgets/5-in-1-connection-kit-gives-the-ipad-the-ports-you-wish-it-had-20110324/

Given apple's decisions like no HDMI on their portable devices, removal of ethernet on laptops, no USB or SDCard readers on ipads their mantra should be There's a dongle for that!

Here you go.

http://www.geek.com/articles/gadgets/5-in-1-connection-kit-gives-the-ipad-the-ports-you-wish-it-had-20110324/

Now shut up about your lack connectors. Most devices that need connectors now have a usb-to-ipod dock connections anyway.

Plus bluetooth & wifi more than make up for a large & ugly set of connectors, ports and slots that look like that adapter.

yeah, having an external connector kit is much better.. got you. None of my USB devices comes with and usb-to-ipod connection. The Surface RT tablet is thinner than iPad and still manages to get a standard USB 2 port integrated as standard. But that is bad? ok, got it.

Here you go.

http://www.geek.com/articles/gadgets/5-in-1-connection-kit-gives-the-ipad-the-ports-you-wish-it-had-20110324/

Now shut up about your lack connectors. Most devices that need connectors now have a usb-to-ipod dock connections anyway.

Plus bluetooth & wifi more than make up for a large & ugly set of connectors, ports and slots that look like that adapter.

1) No *built-in* data ports. Options available:
http://www.geek.com/articles/gadgets/5-in-1-connection-kit-gives-the-ipad-the-ports-you-wish-it-had-20110324/
Also, bluetooth for keyboards. Wifi for printing. Works great.

2) Spreadsheets are representative of content? Ok.
http://www.apple.com/ipad/from-the-app-store/apps-by-apple/numbers.html
You might want to look at more content creation:
http://www.apple.com/ipad/from-the-app-store/apps-by-apple/imovie.html

3) Enterprise support:
http://www.apple.com/support/ipad/enterprise/

Perhaps you should do a little bit of research before spouting off.

Here's the thing:

If you don't like DRM, buy physical copies. Your paranoia that iTunes will suddenly stop letting you play purchased video is unreasonable, and a work around is readily available.

The solution is not piracy.

Heh, that one gave me a good chuckle, thanks! "If you don't like DRM, buy physical copies"...indeed :)

What in'ell do you think the MAFIAA is trying to do with their 'digital locks' clauses that they keep trying to push through up here? They are trying to make it illegal for a person to format shift (which in itself is perfectly legal, by the way) if it involves bypassing even the most ineffective DRM 'lock' on the market.

The DRM doesn't work, they know it doesn't work, yet they keep trying to beat that dead horse. All their increasingly draconian DRM does is breaks things for people who don't know how to fix it, you know, the ones who legally purchased it, and legally expect to be able to watch it without hassles? Meanwhile the pirated version can be played on practically device, no crap commercials, no lousy trailers, no bloated DVD screens, etc, etc, etc.

My grandparents keep asking me about Blu-Ray, what it's about, whether they need one. I think they'd enjoy the quality...but. They have no internet connection, and wouldn't know what to do with one if they did, so I would be the first call every time they bought a new Blu Ray and it didn't play for them, or froze up halfway through. Did I mention they have no internet (and barely have cell coverage) where they live? So it's a trip out there to pick it up and bring it back to my place to troubleshoot (6 hours round trip, give or take), then another trip out there to re-install after patching, or removing a patch, or whatever the fuck fixed it until next time. Rinse and repeat.

Why is that considered an acceptable business model?

Actually Carmack admits that he built Rage for the consoles and that PC simply wasn't given the same priority so surprise! the PC version is shit. Water is wet, day comes after night, console ports suck balls, film at 11.

Kinda ironic considering that Id "Games" (I'd call a lot of their later stuff fancy tech demos) have never been bit hits on consoles but instead have had the PC modding community make decent games out of their tech demos, but hey! Piss on your core audience and you shouldn't be surprised if you bomb. Maybe he'll remember next time its the PC Modders that actually make his "games" worth playing (like the Doom 3 flashlight so you wouldn't be Ray Charles on Mars?) so he'll actually devote the resources he should have to the PC.