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“That may have worked when the stakes were low, but it doesn’t’ work so well these days where one botched product can break a company and an under performing game launch can tank a studio.”

What is that gibberish? The stakes have always been high. The 3 players of the console market have been basically set for the last decade, each with varying quality and market success with products over time… But they’re all still here. Contrast to “when the stakes were low” in Nintendo’s early days, alongside Atari, Sega, and Commodore, all of which faced sudden and steep declines dues to failed products.

As for studios, there’s never been much room for error on game launches. But my guess is there are more small studios than ever (due to lowered cost of entry), with more opportunities for you to hear their stories (dues to social media and better a developed gaming media). So it seems like things are more uncertain since we’re hearing more stories from inside these studios. No reason to think it wasn’t always that way.

I know that was just a side observation on your part, but it’s that kind of non-analysis, or off-the-wall guesses stated with authority, that make these comment sections rather frustrating sometimes.

7 days ago on A link to the past: why Nintendo won't make games for smartphones 2 recommends

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Eh, I’ll stick with my PC for now. Maybe I’ll pick one up in a few years to catch up on Final Fantasy.

8 days ago on Sony prices PlayStation 4 at $399, ships this holiday season in US and Europe

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There is ABSOLUTELY no reason for blanket surveillance.

Now seriously… I can understand being mad. I don’t like it. But to pretend you don’t understand the usefulness? Have you heard of Google and the magic the work with “blanket surveillance” meta data? Now I know the moral differences between the government and a private organization doing this (and disclosing the fact). But I’m just saying, behavioral information on this scale can be leveraged in many valuable ways for an anti-terror outfit.

The simplest use I can think of is better mapping normal cell traffic and usage in order to build a frame of reference and flag anomalous activity in the future. For example, it’s interesting that they got the IMEI numbers… With that they can track phones independently of the sim cards. What sort of call behavior is associated with people who trade cards often? Terrorists trade sim cards. But so do normal people. So how do you tell the difference? The answer is more data.

As an investigator, the only way to know what behavior is suspicious is to understand what’s normal. Again, not supporting the action, just saying how it would obviously be useful toward their mission.

13 days ago on Leaked secret court order forces Verizon to hand over call records to NSA 1 reply

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There were several other presidential candidates on the ballot in 2008.

Not in every state.

13 days ago on Leaked secret court order forces Verizon to hand over call records to NSA

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I didn’t say they’re as great as they once were. But I think over 30% discrete GPU market share in Q1 is enough for me to stand by my statement. Or would you argue that Apple’s 18% global smartphone sales bars them from the “massive” title as well?

The gaming GPU arms race over the last 5 years has been some of the healthiest competition around with AMD and NVIDIA often neck-and-neck on performance and sales numbers.

http://www.investorvillage.com/smbd.asp?mb=476&mn=263502&pt=msg&mid=12790483

If you’re counting integrated GPU’s, Intel wins out-right. But only AMD has a presence in both integrated and discrete solutions.

13 days ago on AMD will develop chips for Android and Chrome OS, but only if someone asks first 1 reply 1 recommend

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I’m not sure what part of my comment suggests that I didn’t realize that.
I was meaning to point out that the bar for entrance in the ARM SoC game is much lower (and the playing field much flatter) than for the x86 CPU. There are reason that those companies don’t dare try making their own, and no reason to think they’d be bring a greater competitive edge against Intel than AMD.

13 days ago on AMD will develop chips for Android and Chrome OS, but only if someone asks first

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Hopefully google, facebook, and a few others would be willing their their weight into this in the right direction.

Basically you’re saying the younger companies with the least long-term investment in their patent portfolios are more likely to push for radical reform that would bring uncertainty to long-standing IP licensing policies?

It think you’re correct. But don’t pretend that the “right” direction isn’t also self-serving for some.

14 days ago on The White House v. patent trolls: can Obama finally end harmful tech lawsuits? 2 replies 1 recommend

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Sure, but I’d rather have Qualcomm, NVidia and Samsung as competition for Intel than AMD… they just aren’t capable of competing well.

None of the companies you’ve listed have ever produced x86 chips, which is the only area where Intel maintains dominance. It’s only because of decades of development and market successes that AMD can hang is as a competitor at all. And you do release the heart of the SoC’s made by those companies is developed by ARM, right?

Not suggesting AMD is perfectly run, but it’s had to give them a performance rating with only Intel to compare too… But apparently no one else even has the know-how or the guts to try.

PS – AMD is an extremely competitive force in the GPU market.

14 days ago on AMD will develop chips for Android and Chrome OS, but only if someone asks first 1 reply 4 recommends

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Honestly, I’d just about forgotten AMD exists.

Honestly, you don’t pay much attention. AMD is a massive GPU player.

14 days ago on AMD will develop chips for Android and Chrome OS, but only if someone asks first 2 replies 7 recommends

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Patents only last no more than 20 years anyway. And are you suggesting that the government set an arbitrary licensing fee? What’s the incentive for investment in research if a bureaucrat will under-value it in the end? Also, the value of a given patent may change over time anyway in the current system.
And to your last point, what’s the incentive for research if a company can’t be sold and include IP in the asking price?

15 days ago on President Obama to take aim at patent trolls with executive actions on Tuesday

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What is a patent “benefit”? You either hold a patent or you don’t. And it’s not like there’s a licensing price set by the Patent Office. The licensing fees are a point of negotiation. If you are producing and returning profit off a patent, then obviously it would be in higher demand and of greater value.

15 days ago on President Obama to take aim at patent trolls with executive actions on Tuesday

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Indeed, and development/sales aren’t really the people who would have practical need of one. Not saying you must have a practical need or you have no right to buy it. But the people who have been really waiting to leverage something like this in their work-flow for tangible reasons (I’m thinking film editors, effects artists, industrial designers, medical imaging technicians…) probably already have the machines to power it.

15 days ago on Asus' $4,000 4K monitor goes on sale this month, pushes Retina MacBook to its breaking point 1 reply 1 recommend

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A new Intel Atom chip should make it generally quite usable, yes.

16 days ago on Eight inches of Windows 8: hands on with Acer's Iconia W3 tablet 1 reply 1 recommend

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“I don’t know that anybody would take that amount of money and put it towards a tiny windows 8 tablet when a little bit more could get you a bigger one.”

Never been interested in a bigger tablet so I can’t really relate. This form-factor seems just right to me. Though I’m not sold on this device specifically. Interested to see performance and battery life something like this. But the ability to run desktop apps in a pinch and the x86 power to blaze through Win8 style apps should be a nice combo.

16 days ago on Eight inches of Windows 8: hands on with Acer's Iconia W3 tablet 1 reply 1 recommend

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It just depends on the model. I’d put my Acer TimelineX 13-incher from 2011 against any other consumer-grade Windows laptop for design and materials. But it’s true they don’t have anything on par with a ThinkPad or MBP.

16 days ago on Eight inches of Windows 8: hands on with Acer's Iconia W3 tablet

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There’s no reason HTC or Google can’t “optimize” the camera as much as they want, since they’d have access to the full hardware documentation (unlike other third-party AOSP rom makers). The camera app probably won’t include Zoe though.

20 days ago on HTC One with stock Android announced, launching June 26th for $599 in the US (update)

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Or is it because an average American is too cheap to shell $600

I guess that line is supposed to shame me somehow. But I don’t get it. AT&T offers the best service in my area, plane and simple. So I won’t be switching and the commitment doesn’t really bother me. I’ll pay the same rates on-contract or off. But on-contract I get a new phone every 18 months basically for free. So yeah. I’m that cheap.

20 days ago on Samsung unveils Galaxy S4 mini with 4.3-inch display

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I think Americans are interested to see how the attempt will play out. Not like we’re losing sleep over it.

You have to admit, it’s a little odd to come an American site and grip that Americans are too self-involved in insignificant American stories. Some things are interesting (not to be confused with important) to us for cultural reasons and history that you may not understand. But we didn’t really expect you to.

20 days ago on Samsung unveils Galaxy S4 mini with 4.3-inch display