Band of Brothers: Microsoft, Intel, NVIDIA, AMD
Mark Rein of Epic Games recently told the story of the shift in gaming from the PC to consoles.
“When Call of Duty 4 came out, I heard some of our guys sitting around talking about the great game they'd had last night and I'm like, 'Hey guys, what server are you playing on? I'd love to come and join you,' and they said, 'Just send us a friends request,'” he said.
“It was at that point I realized they were all playing it on console. Plus, the sales of the console versions are something like ten times the sales of the PC versions,” Rein continued. “I'm a real fan of the PC, but yes, consoles are definitely stealing a lot of hardcore gamers from the PC.”
The controlled nature of consoles, along with the multiplayer capabilities of the PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360, are enticing former PC gaming faithful with their relatively hassle-free experience. The open, uncontrolled nature of the PC, is both the platform’s strength and weakness.
According to Dean Takahashi’s blog on Mercury News, the major powers in PC technology will soon announce a fellowship amongst them called the PC Gaming Alliance. The reveal is said to take place at next week’s Games Developers Conference, and will include Intel, Microsoft, NVIDIA, AMD and several other computer companies.
The aim of the PC Gaming Alliance is to keep the PC as a viable and attractive platform for developers, and to remain competitive with the console industry.
This comes shortly after NPD revealed its data showing that PC game accounted for only 14 percent of retail game sales in 2007. NPD, however, did not track digital download or online subscription sales for 2007, a now considerable factor in the PC market. NPD announced recently that it intends to begin collecting information on game subscriptions for online games such as MMOs.
Blizzard with its online model seems to be flourishing even with the rise in console sales. “We believe that the PC gaming industry is strong when you look at everything together,” said Mike Morhaime, president of Blizzard Entertainment, last week at the DICE Summit. World of Warcraft currently has more than 10 million subscribers pouring money into PC gaming, but the monthly revenue generated isn’t counted as part of retail sales.
The Games Developer Conference 2008 runs from February 18 to 22 in San Francisco.
2/17/08
Major PC Powers to Form Gaming Alliance at GDC 2008
Firefox 3.0 Beta 3 Turns Up The Heat On The Competition
The new Beta release of Firefox 3.0 is drawing glowing reviews, is shaping up by some's estimates to be an "IE slayer"
With months left for Mozilla to fulfill its promise of releasing Firefox 3.0 to the public in the first half of 2008, the company just launched its third beta candidate of the browser, leaving only one beta left. This indicates that Mozilla is well on its way to meeting its intend release timeframe. And if initial reviews of Firefox 3.0 beta 3 are to believed, Mozilla might be able to release the browser today with little worries if it had too.
While Mozilla obviously will take its time, and stick to perfecting the fourth beta candidate, the third beta looks much more like a finished candidate than its prior brethren. The first beta focused on speed and leanness, and surprised testers with visibly faster page loads than the current generation Mozilla, Opera, Apple, and Microsoft browsers. The next beta maintained this new speed while beefing up security with a number of key improvements and some minor user interface modifications.
Now the third beta has delivered substantial user interface changes, which for the most part seem to make browsing a much more comfortable experience. The new bookmark tool built into the URL bar has been tweaked to be much more intuitive. A number of graphical changes have also occurred among these is a new "keyhole look" for the backward and forward button, in which a large circular backward button rests snugly beside a smaller curved forward button. The two separate navigation dropdowns for the buttons, which appeared in all previous versions of mozilla have been fused into a single drop down, offering a full history.
The new beta also adopts default themes equally well from Windows and Linux, helping it to blend seamlessly with your desktop environment. In Linux the build can take GTK Themes, Tango styles, or GNOME icons, with equivalent ease. The integration is reported to be so good that the browser literally looks like GNOME application, which will be pleasing to some Linux users. Mac users can also cheer as OS X themes are finally included. Further, for Mac users support for native widgets in forms is also implemented, opening up many new possibilities.
The tabbing interface now allows you to drag and drop tabs between windows, a seemingly natural, but until now unsupported, feature. The status bar also has an added download indicator, which gives you a quick visual update on your downloads. Further the URL autocompletion algorithm has been significantly improved, allowing smarter searches that help you go back to pages you frequently visit, quicker.
A key new feature is the inclusion of a built in add-on manager. Add-ins have been part of whats fueled the popularity of Firefox, as they can add extra functionality for everything from ad-blocking to RSS feeds. Now users can use this built in manager to search, find, and install add-ons without ever going to the add-on page again (previously users had to navigate to a page on Mozilla's website).
While Microsoft plans on revealing key features of its new Internet Explorer 8 browser at its MIX conference in March, the browser is still a long ways away from its "late 2008" release date. By the looks of Firefox 3.0 beta 3, those months stretching between the final release of Firefox 3.0 and the release of Internet Explorer 8 may be particularly long and painful for Microsoft's IE team, as they are forced to play spectator as Mozilla offers up a greatly improved browser.
Woman Sues Best Buy For $54M Over Lost Laptop
Frustrated with what she sees as incompetence of Best Buy "Geek Squad" staffers who admittedly lost her computer, one woman files a whopper of a suit
The saga of one crazy suit began with Best Buy customer Raelyn Campbell's purchase of a laptop computer from a local Best Buy store in the D.C. area. A Best Buy staffer talked her into buying a $300 extended warranty. The warranty includes coverage by Best Buy's service technicians -- "Geek Squad" -- for three years, and replacements of defective hardware free of charge.
Her laptop indeed experienced hardware malfunctions within a year when her on/off switch broke. At that point, Campbell breathed a sigh of relief that she purchased the warranty and took her laptop in to Best Buy. She turned in her laptop in May and was told that it would be up and running within two to six weeks. This was a major inconvenience to her, as she was a frequent business traveler, but she figured she just should stay optimistic that it came as soon as possible.
In July an 'Agent David Goodfellow’ told Campbell that the laptop would be "ready within days". A call several days later informed her that the laptop was not ready, and was in fact still at the repair center. The rest of the month concluded with continued assurances that it was going to leave the repair center in no time.
By August, she returned from a business trip to Asia and still had heard no new word from Best Buy. Feeling concerned she called the store and asked to speak to the manager. She was told the manager was in a meeting, so she left a message. Her phone call was never returned. She eventually tried calling again and another employee 'Cicero' listened to her story and searched the store records, and informed her that he discovered that "[The laptop] never appears to have left the store."
A few days later he called her back and informed her that it appeared that the laptop was lost in store, without ever having been shipped out. While Campbell says that 'Cicero' was considerate and helpful, she was extremely angry that the other store employees had been apparently outright lying to her.
While 'Cicero' promised that he'd try to get the store to compensate her, nothing happened. After weeks of calling, Campbell was finally informed that she could accept a $900 dollar gift card, far less than the $1,100 she paid for the laptop and $300 she paid for the warranty. Angered and insulted, she wrote a frustrated letter to Best Buy's management detailing the situation, on August 24. She rejected the offer and demanded $2,100 in cash.
Best Buy outright refused her demands and she heard nothing from them by October. So Campbell told her friends and family members to write Best Buy and complain. Her friends did and received a surprising response from the store's general manager, Robert Delissio in the form of a surly email. In the email Delissio stated, "For every customer that has had an unpleasant experience I can show you hundreds who have had a great experience. I have been in retail for a long time and the one conclusion I have come to is that not every customer can be satisfied. Does my store have opportunities? Absolutely! What I can say is that we strive to deliver the experience that every customer deserves to receive."
Further infuriated, Campbell contacted the Washington, D.C., attorney general's office, who contacted the store. The store caved a bit and offered her an increased offer of $1,100 credit refund and a $500 gift card.
That's when Campbell discovered that her identity could be at risk due to private documents she stored on the computer. Shocked and infuriated with Best Buy's lack of helpfulness, she found a lawyer and filed a $54 million dollar lawsuit against Best Buy for losing her property and opening her to identity theft.
Best Buy has since upped their offer to Campbell to $2,500 cash if she signed a confidentiality agreement. Campbell refused. She says she realizes she probably won't win a multi-million dollar settlement, but she does want substantial damages for store negligence and an honest "explanation as to how my computer could have been stolen from a secure area" within the store. She also demands a company promise that they will institute training for their employees on identity theft issues.
Campbell admitted a major goal of the suit is to draw attention, to what she feel is atrocious customer service. Campbell strongly believes in this role as a legal champion, stating, "I can't help but wonder how many other people have had their computer stolen (or) lost by Best Buy and then been bullied into accepting lowball compensation offers for replacement expenses and no compensation for identity theft protection expenses."
Best Buy's legal representatives have refused to comment on the case.
Scientists Combine 3 People's DNA Into Single Embryo
Scientists promise a cure for mitochondrial disorders by fusing three people's genetic material into single embryo
Some people expected controversy over genetic science to die down with the announcement of stem cells created from decidedly uncontroversial skin cells -- they were wrong. A new research study conducted in Britain is creating a firestorm of debate over the ethics of gene manipulation.
British scientists reported last week that they successfully created human embryos from the DNA of not two, but three people -- two women and a man. Researchers tried to downplay concerns of ethics with genetic modification, citing that the embryos chiefly consist of the DNA from one man and one women, but contain select segments from the other women.
The goal of the research is to one day be able to eliminate hereditary disease and defects, via gene splicing from healthy individuals.
Patrick Chinnery, a professor of neurogenetics at Newcastle University, states, "We are not trying to alter genes, we're just trying to swap a small proportion of the bad ones for some good ones."
Despite being presented at a conference, the research is being met with some skepticism as it has not peer-reviewed or published in a scientific journal. The scandal over a South Korean researcher's fraudulent human cloning claims in 2005 having left many in the scientific community skeptical of big genetics claims, without cold, hard evidence to validate them.
According to Chinnery and the British researchers, their research involved implanting the DNA from a women with a mitochondrial disorder into the egg of a women with healthy mitochondria. Thus the woman with the genetic disorder passed on the rest of her genetic legacy, while the other woman contributed only DNA in the form of healthy mitochondria and no chromosomal DNA.
The research is funded by the Muscular Dystrophy Campaign, a British charity.
Scientists caution that the mitochondria only represent a minuscule gene portion. Real genetic modification won't come until the distant future. Chinnery said, "Most of the genes that make you who you are are inside the nucleus. We're not going anywhere near that."
In total ten embryos were reported to be created, though they were only allowed to develop a scant five days. No embryos were implanted. Researchers hope to offer the treatment to parents undergoing in-vitro fertilization, in a few years, though.
Francoise Shenfield, a fertility expert with the European Society of Human Reproduction and Embryology, an unaffiliated center enthused, "If successful, this research could give families who might otherwise have a bleak future a chance to avoid some very grave diseases."
Similar experiments have been carried out by Japanese research teams on mice with mitochondrial defects. The British parliament is supposed to take up the issue of regulation of possible future treatments involving the procedure, should sufficient documentation be delivered to validate Chinnery and his team's claims.
For an interesting look at the ethics, benefits, and risks of genetic engineering, refer to DailyTech blogger Michael Asher's article "Biotech, Genetic Engineering and the Boy Who Cried Wolf".
Microsoft Calls Yahoo Rejection "Unfortunate," Pursues Hostile Takeover
Microsoft plans to take its bid for Yahoo directly to shareholders
In the world of mergers, there are numerous levels of "hostility" which characterize bids. There are unilateral talks, mutually agreed upon, which are typically labeled as more germane, even if one company ends up absorbing the other.
Then there are unsolicited bids, such as Microsoft's initial offer to Yahoo, which are often labeled as "partially hostile". On the far end of the spectrum are "fully hostile" bids, in which one company tries to bypass another company’s executive and board leadership by offering a buyout directly to shareholders. Among the famous examples of takeovers considered "hostile" was the HP and Compaq merger, which passed by a meager 51% margin in a shareholder vote.
Having been rejected by Yahoo's board, Microsoft commented that it was "unfair" that Yahoo did not embrace its "full and fair proposal to combine" the companies. Now, Microsoft indicates it is planning to bypass the board and take the issue directly to a shareholder vote. Microsoft states, "We are offering shareholders superior value and the opportunity to participate in the upside of the combined company. The combination also offers an increasingly exciting set of solutions for consumers, publishers and advertisers while becoming better positioned to compete in the online services market."
Microsoft's statement continues, "The Yahoo! response does not change our belief in the strategic and financial merits of our proposal. As we have said previously, Microsoft reserves the right to pursue all necessary steps to ensure that Yahoo!'s shareholders are provided with the opportunity to realize the value inherent in our proposal."
The decision by Microsoft to pursue a fully hostile takeover is truly a sign of the times at Yahoo. Yahoo despite promising big changes continues to lose ground to Google in search engine market share, which in turn leads to sinking advertising profits. The company dismissed 1,000 employees recently. Yahoo aggressively acquired companies throughout last year, but its investments left it with little to show for it.
The hostile bid by Microsoft may nix a future board-arranged merger with Yahoo, but at this point it may be a moot issue. If Microsoft has to, it can simply wait out the company until it falls further towards its demise, though it would prefer a quick merger while the company still has some vitality.
Yahoo has a lot to offer Microsoft. Despite its dropping search engine share, Yahoo still represents a significant portion of the market and a major market name. An alliance with Microsoft could establish a strong competitor to Google. Further, Yahoo has a wealth of intellectual property, domain names, and other assets that could come in handy to an ever-evolving Microsoft.
The board is left to ponder Microsoft's words, and their significant decision -- as it may be their last.
