August 3, 2012
Written by Peter Cohen
Harry McCracken:
Gadget-retailing giant Radio Shack unveiled the TRS-80 Model I at a press conference at New York’s Warwick Hotel 35 years ago today, on August 3, 1977. (The company didn’t call it the Model I at the time: Like Apple’s Apple I, it only became the I after a II was introduced.)
Lots of great info about the TRS-80’s place in personal computer history. How it got started, how Radio Shack configured it, and its enduring legacy.
Harry’s valentine to the TRS-80 strikes a chord with me. I’m a few years younger than he is; I was 7 when the TRS-80 went on sale. The man I knew through our local Big Brother program introduced me to his a year or two later, and when I asked whether it could play games, he told me, “Sure, if you write them.”
So I learned how. (Boy, I wish I’d maintained that ability to program.) I’ve loved computers ever since.
So yeah, for many of us of a certain age, the TRS-80 will always occupy a spot in our hearts. And as Harry says, please don’t call it a Trash-80.
Written by Jim Dalrymple
“[Copying] creates a huge problem in marketing on many levels. We market our product as the hero and how distinctive it is, how consistent we’ve kept it over time,” said Schiller, Apple’s senior vice president of worldwide marketing, as he was questioned by Apple lawyer Harold McElhinny. “Now when someone comes up with a product that copies that design and copies that marketing, then customers can get confused on whose product is whose… If you steal [the way the iPhone looks] you’re stealing all the value we’ve created.”
Sounds like Schiller did a great job in court today.
Written by Peter Cohen
Alexis Santos for Engadget:
…Sure, Apple machines aren’t exactly en vogue when it comes to playing video games, but Cupertino’s ultra-high-resolution Mac simply begs to be put to the test. We loaded up Windows 7 on a MacBook Pro carrying an NVIDIA GeForce GT 650M with 1 GB of VRAM, the stock 2.3GHz processor and 16GB of RAM (upgraded from the vanilla 8GB configuration) and put it through its paces to see how it performs.
An interesting batch of tests that show the Retina Display-equipped MacBook Pro is an able game machine on Windows. Also worth noting that some games which run on both Windows and OS X run faster on Windows than they do on OS X.
Written by Jim Dalrymple
The complaint, filed in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California claims Zynga’s recently released Facebook game “The Ville” willfully and intentionally “copied and misappropriated the original and distinctive expressive elements of the Sims Social.
Sounds like Samsung designers are working for Zynga.
Written by Jim Dalrymple
“The longer hair provides a higher UPF at the smaller SZA, but the difference between the protection provided by the longer hair compared with the shorter hair reduces with increasing SZA. Protection from UVR is provided by the facial hair; however, it is not very high, particularly at the higher SZA.”
In other words, you bastards are going to die a miserable death, while I live forever.
The Pixelmator Team has a major update coming to its image editing app and it should arrive on August 9, the team told The Loop.
As is the norm with Pixelmator, they zeroed in on some important features for Mac users. Pixelmator 2.1 will offer support for Apple’s new Retina display Macs, so the interface will even better and it will also support OS X Mountain Lion.
One of the big new features is the addition of iCloud support. Version 2.1 will allow users to create, edit, and save documents in iCloud, meaning that you can work on Pixelmator projects on any of your Macs.
Pixelmator 2.1 also comes with a new Effects Browser that allows you to collect, organize and see an animated preview of all Pixelmator’s Color Adjustments. A number of new effects like Vintage, Miniaturize, Black and White, Snow and Rain, that are also included in the update.
The new version will be offered as a free update to existing users.
Written by Peter Cohen
James Brightman for GamesIndustry.biz:
One of the standout data points from Activision’s earnings announcement today was that the company’s subscription numbers for World of Warcraft have fallen by more than a million in just the last three months. WoW now stands at just 9.1 million subs, but that isn’t making Blizzard boss Mike Morhaime nervous.
Morhaime said on the investors call that it’s actually quite normal with each WoW expansion pack for players to drop off. Moreover, this time around, before Blizzard launches the Mists of Pandaria expansion, Blizzard fans were pre-occupied with Diablo III, which Morhaime acknowledged had an impact on WoW as well.
Diablo III got off to a rocky start – players have complained about the game’s requirement to keep a live Internet connection to Blizzard’s servers (as a form of copy protection and to keep cheating to a minimum), Blizzard’s slow activation of an auction house, and other issues.
Written by Peter Cohen
Griffin McElroy for The Verge:
id Software’s mobile development branch has been shut down as the company focuses its efforts on getting Doom 4 out the door, John Carmack confirmed during his QuakeCon 2012 keynote speech.
Id Software’s mobile efforts netted several games for iPhone and iPad, including a game based on its “Rage” property, Doom Classic, Wolfenstein 3D Classic, Doom Resurrection and Doom II RPG.
Carmack explained that they wanted to bring developers from the mobile group into the Doom 4 development team, which necessitated shutting it down for now. He added that the mobile group was making money, “but it’s not a grand slam sort of thing on there.”
Carmack also indicated that there’s at least one iPhone project on the back burner, but is vague about whether it’ll get finished. One possible milestone seems to be the forthcoming release of Doom III: BFG Edition, which is scheduled to be released in October.
Carmack remains mum on what the release schedule is for Doom 4, other than to say “every decade there will be a Doom.”
Written by Peter Cohen
David McLaughlin for Bloomberg:
Eastman Kodak Co. (EKDKQ) won a partial victory against Apple Inc. over patents, defeating Apple’s ownership claims to two of 10 patents that Kodak plans to sell as part of its bankruptcy restructuring.
Kodak claims that Apple is trying to disrupt its plans to sell the patents at auction – part of Kodak’s attempt to restructure from its bankruptcy.
August 2, 2012
Written by Jim Dalrymple
After seeing what Ben Brooks did with his Mac mini earlier tonight, Dexter Ang shared how he turned an old MacBook into a media player.
Written by Jim Dalrymple
But sources are telling us that this is coming to an abrupt end after the company’s Legal and Corporate Affairs team sent out a memo banning the word “Metro.” LCA’s memo reportedly says that Microsoft has been threatened with legal action for infringing on “Metro” trademarks held by German retailer Metro AG.From now on, the new terminology that Microsoft is using is “Windows 8-style UI” when talking about Windows 8 applications, and “New User Interface” when talking about the company’s full product line-up.
That’s totally going to catch on.
Written by Jim Dalrymple
Ben Brooks shares some details on how he is still utilizing his G4 Mac mini.
Written by Jim Dalrymple
Talk about a bad day. In the mother of all computer glitches, market-making firm Knight Capital Group (KCG) lost $440 million in 30 minutes on Aug. 1 when its trading software went, to use the technical term, kablooey.
Wow, now that’s a software glitch.
Written by Jim Dalrymple
Apple’s lawyer William Lee on Samsung releasing evidence to the press:
“Mr. Quinn’s declaration does not adress two of the Court’s questions: who drafted the statement and who released it,” Lee wrote. “Samsung’s multiple references to the jury in its statement make plain its intent that the jurors in our case learn of arguments the Court has excluded through the press.”
Written by Jim Dalrymple
“We expect the Surface pads to have a similar impact on the PC industry as the Zune did in portable music players,” commented Canalys Analyst Tim Coulling.
If someone said that about my product, I’d just kill it and close the company.
Written by Jim Dalrymple
Research In Motion today launched the new 4G LTE BlackBerry PlayBook tablet with built-in support for cellular networks.
Who knew RIM was still in business.
August 1, 2012
Global PC shipments rose 12 percent in the second quarter of 2012 compared to the same period a year ago, according to a new report from market research firm Canalys. Leading the way is Apple, which regained the top spot from HP.
It’s important to note that Canalys counts tablets as PCs, so Apple’s iPad is counted in the numbers. Having said that, other companies that make tablets are also counted in the final numbers.
“Reports that poor economic conditions and the wait for Windows 8 hurt the PC industry this quarter do not tell the whole story,” said Tom Evans, Canalys Research Analyst. “The PC industry is performing well and 2012 is shaping up to be a record year. Vendors with innovative products will reap the rewards.”
Apple lead the way with 19.6 percent of the market, followed by HP with 12.5 percent, Lenovo with 12.1 percent, Acer with 9.8 percent and Dell with 8.9 percent.
While Apple’s Mac and iPad sales were high points in this quarter’s results, the same could not be said for Windows PCs.
“In contrast to pads, Windows PC shipments continued to disappoint,” wrote Canalys. “Ultrabooks have not hit the price points that could excite large numbers of buyers and the share of the overall market taken by Windows fell to a new low of 73%. Intel’s share also hit an all-time low, falling below 70%.”
Of course, Microsoft recently announced its Surface tablet, but the outlook from Canalys is not good.
“The information available to date suggests the prices of both will be too high to capture significant market share, and a direct sales approach will prove inadequate,” said Canalys Analyst Tim Coulling. “We expect the Surface pads to have a similar impact on the PC industry as the Zune did in portable music players.”
Written by Jim Dalrymple
This hot pink Nokia Lumia polish is designed to match the pink version of the Lumia 900 which was recently introduced in the U.S., via AT&T.
Yeah, everything is just fine at Nokia.
Written by Jim Dalrymple
Fender did not pursue the Strat-clone manufacturers in court; and then after attempting to trademark the iconic Statocaster contours decades later, a court ruled in 2009 that “the body shapes were generic and that consumers do not solely associate these shapes with Fender Musical Instruments Corporation”. The ruling went so far as to say “in the case of the [Stratocaster] body outline, this configuration is so common that it is depicted as a generic electric guitar in a dictionary.”
Protect your property from thieves or lose the rights to it.
Written by Jim Dalrymple
The popular Sonnox Oxford EQ Plug-In, newly optimized for UAD-2 DSP Accelerators and the Apollo audio interface, incorporates the exact equalization algorithms from the legendary Sony OXF-R3 mixing console — regarded as one of the best-sounding mixing desks of all time.
Great news for UAD users.
Written by Jim Dalrymple
With its bigger, excellent Retina display and a still-unmatched app store, the iPad still has the edge over the Nexus 7. But if you want a tablet in a smaller package for a lot less money, the Nexus 7 is worth thinking about.
First intelligent thing they’ve said in years.
Written by Jim Dalrymple
“Our role is to imagine products that don’t exist and guide them to life,” he told the jury.
As opposed to Samsung, who look at products that do exist and copy them.
July 31, 2012
Written by Peter Cohen
Alexandra Chang for Wired:
On the same day the Obama campaign launched its iOS app Obama for America, the Romney campaign released a smartphone app Tuesday that provides an alert the moment Mitt announces his Vice Presidential candidate. Aptly named “Mitt’s VP,” the iOS and Android app will be the first place to find out who will run alongside the presumptive Republican presidential candidate.
We’ll see if this works out any better in practice than the Obama campaign’s attempt in 2008, when they offered to notify phone users of his running mate choice by text message but were beaten to the punch by the New York Times.
The free app is available for iOS and Android.
