Monthly Archive:: December 2013

USB Type-C cable plugs to be reversible

Thom Holwerda 2013-12-04 In the News 38 Comments

USB cable developers have announced that a forthcoming version of the connector's plug is to be reversible.

It means users of the Universal Serial Bus cables will no longer have to worry which way round the part is facing when plugging it into a device.

The specification is due to be completed by mid-2014, and the first product on the market by 2016.

Spend only a few days using Apple's Lightning connector, and you'll realise how small things like it being reversible just makes life that tiny little bit less frustrating. About time USB did this.

A testament to X11 backwards compatibility

Thom Holwerda 2013-12-04 Wayland 8 Comments

I recently scored a Hewlett Packard 1670A Deep Memory Logic Analyzer and I finally had a chance to fire it up. This unit dates back to 1992 and is packed with all sorts of interesting options for connecting peripherals to it. One particular feature that caught my eye was the option to connect to an X Server.

Aside from the really cool stuff regarding X11, I'm absolutely fascinated by the user interface of this exotic piece of hardware. It's quite utilitarian, but still has an interesting sense of beauty and focus. I'd love to play with this (even though I have no idea what this equipment actually does).

Valve joins the Linux Foundation

Thom Holwerda 2013-12-04 Linux 74 Comments

"Joining the Linux Foundation is one of many ways Valve is investing in the advancement of Linux gaming," Mike Sartain, a key member of the Linux team at Valve said. "Through these efforts we hope to contribute tools for developers building new experiences on Linux, compel hardware manufacturers to prioritize support for Linux, and ultimately deliver an elegant and open platform for Linux users."

Mark my words: Valve will do for Linux gaming what Android did for Linux mobile. Much crow will be eaten by naysayers in a few years.

‘No girls allowed’: video game stereotypes

Thom Holwerda 2013-12-03 Games 101 Comments

Absolutely fantastic article by Tracey Lien.

If the selection at the average retailer is anything to go by, girls don't play video games. If cultural stereotypes are anything to go by, video games are for males. They're the makers, the buyers and the players.

There is often truth to stereotypes. But whatever truth there may be, the stereotype does not show the long and complicated path taken to formulate it, spread it and have it come back to shape societal views.

The attitude towards women in video games is even worse when you take online multiplayer into consideration. One of my team mates in League of Legends is a woman, and I've seen some absolutely terrible things being thrown her way in chat - during and even after the game is over. I've also pretended to be female in League of Legends just to see what would happen, and it was just as bad. However, I could just shrug it off - hearing the things guys say while you're pretending to be a woman as an experiment is a hell of a lot different than hearing these things when you're actually a woman.

I even caught myself thinking 'my female team mate should just pretend to be a guy' - but you know what? That's expletive ridiculous. As Lien details in her article, changing the way video games are being marketed would be a very good first step that could most certainly snowball into the future.

Amazon to use unmanned drones to deliver packages

Thom Holwerda 2013-12-02 In the News 31 Comments

We're excited to share Prime Air - something the team has been working on in our next generation R&D lab.

The goal of this new delivery system is to get packages into customers' hands in 30 minutes or less using unmanned aerial vehicles.

On the one hand, this is insanely cool, awesome, and scifi.

On the other hand, with timeframes like this and the big 60 Minutes reveal, it smells like a marketing trick during the holiday shopping season.

‘Threshold’: the next major Windows wave takes shape

Thom Holwerda 2013-12-02 Windows 37 Comments

Mary Jo Foley has some information on the next wave of big Windows releases - scheduled for Spring 2015. This wave will supposedly bring the three Windowqs branches - Xbox, phone, PCs - more in line with each other.

The Xbox One OS, Windows 8.x OS and Windows Phone 8 OS already share a common Windows NT core. As we've heard before, Microsoft is working to deliver a single app store across its myriad Windows platforms. Company officials also are laboring to make the developer toolset for all three of these platforms more similar.

But Threshold will add another level of commonality across Microsoft's various Windows-based platforms, sources said. With the Threshold wave, Microsoft plans to support the same core set of "high value activities" across platforms. These high-value activities include expression/documents (Office, and the coming "Remix" digital storytelling app, I'd think); decision making/task completion (Bing, I'd assume); IT management (Intune and Workplace Join, perhaps?) and "serious fun."

The first bit seems like a no-brainer and should have been done already, but the second part seems like traditional Microsoft marketing nonsense. "High value activities"? Seriously? Could this be any more vague and meaningless?

Before Microsoft gets to Threshold, the company is on track to deliver an update to Windows 8.1 (known as Windows 8.1 Update 1) around the same time that it delivers Windows Phone "Blue" (Windows Phone 8.1). That's supposedly happening in the spring 2014/Q2 2014 timeframe, from what my sources have said.

With time frames like that it almost seems as if even Microsoft itself doesn't care.

PS4 sells more in one weekend than Wii U in one year

Thom Holwerda 2013-12-02 Games 48 Comments

Not only did the PlayStation 4 outsell the Xbox One in its first weekend by about 100000 units in the UK, it completely obliterated the Wii U.

The numbers are even bleaker for Nintendo - its year of Wii U sales have now been trounced in a weekend by both next-gen machines. More people bought a PS4 and a copy of Knack over the weekend than bought a Wii U at any point over the past year and new release Super Mario 3D World.

If not even a Mario game can save a Nintendo console, you know something's up. People, Nintendo is in deep, deep trouble.

Oppo launches N1 with CyanogenMod

Thom Holwerda 2013-12-02 Wireless 16 Comments

This is what you have been waiting for. The OPPO N1 will be available for purchase starting from December 10, 2013.

The N1 is available with Oppo's own skinned Android, with CyanogenMod, or with both. Interesting approach that I hope more manufacturers adopt. Too bad the N1 is such an ugly monstrosity - 5.9" (!) with rotatable camera (!) - compared to its beautiful, elegant, understated, and timeless predecessor.

Guest post by Norman Feske 2013-12-02 OS News 4 Comments

The Genode project has released version 13.11 of their OS framework. This time, the focus lies on exploring new ways for bringing existing protocol stacks to the Genode world. FUSE-based file systems and the Linux TCP/IP stack have become available as user-level libraries, and the improved Qt5 port covers QML. Hardware-wise, the new version extends the support for Exynos-5, Raspberry Pi, and ARM TrustZone.

With the release cycle of version 13.11, the Genode developers took the chance to explore plenty of experimental features across the whole software stack.