“I’ve analyzed all of the data calls to and from EA servers – all of the APIs, every request for data, and all of the data that comes back,” explains the modder. And in doing so, he’s found some surprising results. “The SimCity servers are not doing any calculations that could not be done on your PC, even for an entire region single player offline mode, let alone just the city you are in.”
SimCity was released a couple weeks ago for the PC amidst a fair amount of controversy. First Origin, EA’s game download service, was overwhelmed. Then the game’s servers were too busy, causing failed connections, dropouts and saved game problems. The game’s DRM has drawn the sharpest criticism, however, since it requires a persistent online connection.
EA says SimCity absolutely requires servers to work, not just for DRM but also for its core operation. SimCity’s multiplayer support obviously needs a connection, but that’s different. EA may want the connection to be persistent to help combat piracy, but “Azzer” has shown that the game works otherwise.
I have two thoughts here:
Don’t be a thief. And don’t treat your customers like assholes.
Feedly has announced that more than half a million Google Reader users have signed up for its RSS service following Google’s service termination announcement on Wednesday.
Lots of services have stepped forward to fill the gap, or have announced their intent to do so. Feedly seems to have the most momentum right now, though.
A message on the Feedly blog says:
Our main priorities over the next 30 days are 1) to keep the service up, 2) listen to new users for suggestions and 3) add features weekly.
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Lacking hard numbers (because Samsung doesn’t release them anymore) most analysts assume that the bulk of the Korean manufacturer’s mobile sales come from its low-end phones. According to Raymond James’ Tavis McCourt, Samsung’s high-end Galaxy smartphone line outsold the iPhone only once — in the summer of 2012, when many of Apple’s (AAPL) customers were holding out for the iPhone 5.
“The iPhone app will bring in an incredible amount of revenue this year … mobile will be the majority in Q2,” Lerer told VentureBeat after the panel. “It’s a beast. This is where our guys are.”
According to the report, Thrillist’s annual revenue is in the vicinity of $40 million. That’s a lot of iPhone activity.
He said they have an Android app too, but it doesn’t create nearly the same amount of activity as the iPhone app.
“The only hope for Apple and its suppliers is the possible launch of a low-cost iPhone later this year, which may help the U.S. company to gain market share in fast-growing emerging markets such as China,” said Capital Securities analyst Diana Wu.
They found an analyst that heaps praise on Samsung while shitting on Apple. How unusual.
Congrats to Daniel Jalkut of Red Sweater Software (makers of the indispensible Mac blogging tool MarsEdit) for launching Bitsplitting, a new podcast. The first episode features an interview with developer Guy English (creator of image annotation app Napkin), who’s also a promoter of the Çingleton Symposium, a Mac developer conference in Montréal.
Warby Parker did it for eyeglasses, offering style at a discount. Now one of the co-founders of the trendy retailer is tackling something almost every guy needs: razors. Warby Parker co-founder Jeff Raider and his longtime friend Andy Katz-Mayfield have built Harry’s, a startup selling more than just blades and handles, but what they are calling “shaving experiences.”
My wife the optician really likes Warby Parker, which sells trendy, high-quality eyeglasses and offers really great customer service without charging their customers through the teeth. So it’s great to see Jeff Raider try to duplicate his success with shaving products.
We’ve heard people say that RSS is a thing of the past, and perhaps in its current incarnation it is, but as daily (hourly) users of Google Reader, we’re convinced that it’s a product worth saving. So we’re going to give it our best shot. We’ve been planning to build a reader in the second half of 2013, one that, like Digg, makes the Internet a more approachable and digestible place. After Google’s announcement, we’re moving the project to the top of our priority list. We’re going to build a reader, starting today.
Zite, Digg. In a few weeks, no one is going to care that Google Reader is shutting down.
Nvidia passed on its hardware being used in the PlayStation 4 due to the “opportunity cost.”
“I’m sure there was a negotiation that went on,” Tony Tamasi, Senior VP of content and technology at Nvidia told GameSpot, “and we came to the conclusion that we didn’t want to do the business at the price those guys were willing to pay.”
AMD (which bought ATI several years ago) provides the graphics hardware used in the forthcoming Sony console.
But that’s how news reporters increasingly are treating the state of the industry. The desire for the “Oh, how the mighty Apple has fallen” narrative is so strong that the narrative is simply being stated as fact, evidence to the contrary be damned. It’s reported as true simply because they want it to be true. They’re declaring “The King is dead; long live the King” not because the king has actually died or abdicated the throne, but because they’re bored with the king and want to write a new coronation story.
Microsoft Corp. has sold about 1.5 million Surface devices, people with knowledge of the company’s sales said, a slow start in its bid to crack the fast-growing tablet market to make up for slumping personal-computer demand.
We at Zite were sad to hear about Google Reader’s impending demise. Google Reader and Zite have always been complementary products: GR providing news from sources you’ve subscribed to manually and Zite giving you news algorithmically-targeted from the whole web.
Since Google Reader is dying, we created a replacement in Zite that doesn’t depend on Google’s infrastructure. From start to finish, in six hours.
People were worried about what would replace it when Google announced that it was killing Reader. Doesn’t look like there was much to worry about. Zite’s one of the first out of the gate with a replacement, but I doubt that it’ll be the last.
After months of beta testing, 10.8.3 is finally out in the world. Downloadable through Mountain Lion’s Software Update feature or from the Apple Web site.
Changes include:
The ability to redeem iTunes gift cards in the Mac App Store using your Mac’s built-in camera
Boot Camp support for installing Windows 8
Boot Camp support for Macs with a 3TB hard drive
A fix for an issue that could cause a file URL to quit apps unexpectedly
A fix for an issue that may cause Logic Pro to become unresponsive when using certain plug-ins
A fix for an issue that may cause audio to stutter on 2011 iMacs
Go outside, be present with the people you love when you’re with them, or go make something. Staring at your little screen isn’t doing anything for you.”
Take a look at the fascinating photo comparison on the linked web site. What do you think? Does the 2013 photo represent a good thing, a bad thing or just the nature of the world we live in?
Let’s start by separating the “lazy parent” argument from the “kids shouldn’t have devices” argument. You can be a good parent and let your kids play on the iPad, and you can be a bad parent with a house full of encyclopaedias.
As a tech-savvy parent wanting to raise tech-savvy children, I’ve certainly heard pushback from well-meaning but ultimately wrong-thinking friends and relatives who think that my children’s use of technology, whether it be iPad, iPod or whatever, makes them soft or is an example of lazy parenting.
Marshall talks about how his daughter’s exposure to technology and media has helped her develop more critical thinking skills, patience and reinforcement of good behavior. That parallels my own experience.
“When they replaced sharing with +1 on Google Reader, it was clear that this day was going to come,” he said. Wetherell, 43, is amazed that Reader has lasted this long. Even before the project saw the light of the day, Google executives were unsure about the service and it was through sheer perseverance that it squeaked out into the market. At one point, the management team threatened to cancel the project even before it saw the light of the day, if there was a delay.
I like the people at Feedly and the service. This could be a good alternative to Google Reader and they’ve promised to work with developers, so hopefully apps like Reeder will support the service as well.
Great news. You’ll now know the viewing preferences of your friends’ kids on Netflix, thanks to the service’s foray into social sharing via opt-in Facebook integration, announced earlier this morning. Because the company rushed to launch the feature ahead of a product release, which would allow family members and other shared account holders to set up their own profiles, that means parents will be inadvertently opting their children in to sharing their preferences for “Rugrats,” “My Little Pony,” and “Dora the Explorer.”
This is a great point I hadn’t considered when Netflix announced the service yesterday. Like Sarah Perez, I’m not the only Netflix user in the house – my kids use it too, since Netflix works on the Wii. When my 12 year old has sleepovers, he and his friends will often cue up cartoons, anime or action movies they want to watch.
I readily admit that not every Netflix user is in the same boat as Sarah Perez and me, but I don’t think we’re edge cases either.
Just like Amazon regularly tells me about products that I don’t want, Netflix makes recommendations based on “my” viewing I don’t care about, and here’s the thing – I don’t care enough to curate.
Do I mind people thinking that I’ve watched an entire season of Soul Eater? Not particularly. But if the goal here is to enable Facebook friends to see what each other likes on Netflix, the results are going to get skewed for parents and other people using shared accounts.
Apple recently updated its online store to reflect availability of a new VESA mount-compatible iMac, with the tweaked version of the thin all-in-one costing in at $40 more than standard models.
Just the thing if you want to hang your new iMac on the wall or on an articulated arm.
According to several sources, Google has started sending notifications to developers with ad-blocking software in the Google Play Store regarding these apps’ removal. Players like AdBlock, AdAway, AdFree and more are being whisked away.
Anyone surprised? Google will let all the Malware in the world in the store, but not ad blocking software.
We launched Google Reader in 2005 in an effort to make it easy for people to discover and keep tabs on their favorite websites. While the product has a loyal following, over the years usage has declined. So, on July 1, 2013, we will retire Google Reader. Users and developers interested in RSS alternatives can export their data, including their subscriptions, with Google Takeout over the course of the next four months.
Each year’s SXSW conference turns my hometown into a giant carnival of music, food, and strangers from strange lands.
My contribution to SXSW coverage is a listing of free music downloads and samplers, featuring bands who will be in or near Austin next week.
A lot of techies may not realize that while the first five days of SXSW is a tech conference, there’s a huge live music component too. Even better, a lot of these undiscovered bands make their music available for free online. Shelly Brisbin has collated some of the links to these gigabytes of MP3s.
As with most numbers about products in the tech market, there should have been some caveats to every story that wrote about IDC’s report on Tuesday that Android-based tablets would overtake the iPad in 2013. Predictably there weren’t.
The biggest point that should have been made is that IDC is predicting that “shipments” of Android tablets will top the iPad. That’s shipments, not sales.
I’ve had a number of people ask me about the report, some concerned that recent reports of Apple not doing well may be true. I’m not concerned.
The simple fact is, companies can ship as many products as they want into the channel, but that doesn’t mean they will sell them. Many companies just report the shipped numbers because they are higher than what they actually sold, so it looks better to investors.
Apple typically has trouble filling all the demand for their products. It would be wrong to assume that the company is holding back on its production because the numbers prove that’s not the case.
Just look at the last quarterly results when people were saying that Apple lost its mojo. Apple sold a record 47.8 million iPhones; a record 22.9 million iPads; posted record quarterly revenue of $54.5 billion; and record quarterly net profit of $13.1 billion.
Jim and Dan talk about truth in reporting, trusting the news and news agencies, android users in the air, twisting numbers, Rubin stepping down, “cheap” guitars, and more.
Sponsored by Hover (use code DANSENTME for 10% off), Shutterstock (use code DANSENTME3 for 30% off), and Squarespace (use code DANSENTME3 for 10% off).
