Mark Jacobs explains departure from Mythic and EA
June 28, 2009
Mark Jacobs’ unforeseen exit from Warhammer On the internet developer Mythic, a departure made known during the revelation of the BioWare/Mythic merger, left many fans and colleagues stunned and confused. In a lengthy post on his personal blog, Jacobs explained the reasoning for his evacuation — he actually left the company early in May, when EA informed him that “they wanted to make some changes within the Games Label.” Since that day, he’s been out of contact from the rest of the Mythic team.
However, he’s not ready to speak smack about the gaming industry juggernaut that forced the changes upon his studio — Jacobs explained, “Over my 23 years of making games professionally I’ve refrained from attacking the competition, former and/or current partners, other game developers,” and so on. You’re a stronger man than us, Mr. Jacobs.
[Via Massively]
Mark Jacobs explains departure from Mythic and EA originally appeared on Joystiq on Fri, 26 Jun 2009 18:45:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
Telecom New Zealand Relents
June 28, 2009
You might have read the little disagreement that Vodafone and Telecom New Zealand had over the XT network that was supposed to be launched on Might 13. Well, it looks like Telecom New Zealand has succumbed to the pressure and put off the launch until the end of the month as it resolved “technical issues” that might interfere with Vodafone’s network. If it works out fine, then well and good.
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THQ has had Project Natal ‘for some time’
June 27, 2009
With Microsoft revealing Project Natal earlier this month, we’ve seen some of the things Microsoft and its studios are doing with the peripheral (not to mention the talent enlisted), but what about third celebrations We know of at least one developer who has had Natal, and that’s THQ. CEO Brian Farrell reveals (via G4) that his company has “had kits for some time,” somewhere around “4, 6 weeks, however long they’ve been available.”
While not confirming any projects yet, Farrell did state that top men (top men) in his company have been checking out Natal and brainstorming.
THQ has had Project Natal ‘for some time’ originally appeared on Joystiq on Fri, 26 Jun 2009 16:45:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
Vodafone HTC Magic Unboxed
June 27, 2009
Ever wondered what you’ll be getting when your Vodafone HTC Magic arrived in the mail Well, some folks have already posted the photos of the device being unboxed, and in case you’re wondering whether to pick up this phone or not, the photos will certainly make you drool.
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BlackBerry Tour hands-on, wild sibling confrontation with Curve and Bold
June 26, 2009
While some interesting things may or might not be happening under the hood, the freshly announced BlackBerry Tour for Verizon and Sprint (pictured in Verizon garb on the left) is hardly a departure on the surface. It mostly appears to be a minor modification to the Curve (right), though it does seem inexplicably thicker. The Bold seems positively overwrought in comparison. We didn’t get much time to play with the OS, but the screen and the keyboard are pure new-generation BlackBerry charm.
Filed under: Cellphones, Handhelds
BlackBerry Tour hands-on, wild sibling confrontation with Curve and Bold originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 25 Jun 2009 14:32:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
Howard Stern Not Available on Sirius iPhone App
June 26, 2009
Sorry, iPhone users, but the ‘King of All Media’ won’t be available on Sirius XM’s new iPhone app, released last week. You’ll have to get your fill of fart jokes and conversations with naked women somewhere else (may we suggest the Playboy channel for the latter).
According to Daily Finance, the absence of Howard Stern’s show is due to, in his words, a “contract rights issue.” Monday, fans called into Stern’s show demanding an explanation. Stern debunked some claims that the show was too racy for an iPhone app, saying, “How can it be too dirty if you have the Playboy channel on there” The Daily Finance suggested that Stern’s show falls under the same category as other contractually obligated programs, such as the NFL, that can’t be broadcast on the app (which is free for Sirius XM subscribers).
Continue reading Howard Stern Not Available on Sirius iPhone App
Filed under: Cell Phones, iPhone
Howard Stern Not Available on Sirius iPhone App originally appeared on Switched on Wed, 24 Jun 2009 12:53:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
Tale of Tales’ next project, Fatale, based on Salome
June 25, 2009
We’ve had kind of a weird relationship with indie dev Tale of Tales. On the one hand, we love how unconventional its avant-garde games, like Graveyard and The Path, are, but on the other, we equated the latter to “getting punched in the nose by a centaur.”
So, we don’t quite know what to consider the news that the company’s next project, Fatale, will be based on the story of Salome, who, of course, asked for the head of John the Baptist in exchange for doing the Dance of the Seven Veils. Rather than a game, the company describes Fatale as “an interactive vignette in realtime 3D.”
Though maybe not a “game” per se, as you can see in the above picture, it does does provide an opportunity for one of the best hidden collectibles ever. Look for it on Personal computer on October 5.
Tale of Tales’ next project, Fatale, based on Salome originally appeared on Joystiq on Thu, 25 Jun 2009 10:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
Ideal Deals
June 25, 2009
$239.99, Gateway LT 1005U Netbook Black Intel Atom
$5.99, Sony Universal Remote Control
$149.99, Samsung 2243BWX 22inch Widescreen LCD Display
$59.99, Merkury 10.2inch Digital LCD Pic Frame
$111.00, Haier 7inch Portable LCD TV
Ideal Deals at www.UberBargain.com
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HTC Hero hands-on: Flash, keyboard and ruminations (updated!)
June 25, 2009
We’re going to need some real time with the device to make a final opinion, but we’re cautiously optimistic that HTC has a winner with its new Hero. Here’s what we’ve got from our first looks at the phone in London and NY:
- The beveled edges along the back makes the handset sit comfortably in the hand, and while the teflon coat doesn’t necessarily feel revolutionary, it’s going to make a world of difference after a couple of months riding in our grubby pockets. It’s certainly solid, but much more so than other “brick” phones.
- The Sense UI (or as HTC terms it, “user experience”) riding a capacitive touchscreen offers a people-centric approach to managing your information that is totally dreamy at first blush — though it shares a lot of TouchFLO heritage. In fact, HTC promises to have a very similar Sense-branded experience for Windows Mobile.
- The on-screen keyboard also seems quite useable with a nice simulated haptic forced-feedback bounce when you strike each key in either landscape or portrait mode (which can naturally be deactivated). HTC has built its own touch keyboard from the ground up, and in our brief couple of tests we’d say it’s probably the best touchscreen typing experience we’ve ever felt. It never lags behind, and has great colorful visual cues for its auto-corrected words — green means it’s suggesting a correctly spelled word, red means we’ve gone off the beaten path, and the T9-style multiple recommendations are heavenly.
- This intuitive one-hander isn’t shy with the specs either as we’ve already seen in the official press release. Our only concern is possible sluggishness from the Qualcomm processor that cause the graphic transitions to stutter a bit and results in screen rotations that feel dangerously uncomfortable.
- We were told that the device we saw was running pre-production firmware so there’s still time to tweak — though not much with a July European launch.
- The Hero isn’t a “Google Experience” device. As such, you won’t find the Google logo anywhere (no huge deal) but you also won’t be downloading any firmware updates over the air — sideloading only children. Not a deal breaker but an annoying and seemingly arbitrary limitation nonetheless. There’s still a small lack of clarity of how updates will work with HTC’s “mods” living on top of basic Android — even if they’re able to port in new Android versions seamlessly, we envision there will be some breakage.
- For a device without a physical keyboard, the Hero seems a little thick up against its HTC Magic, Nokia N97, and iPhone 3G counterparts, but not overly so.
- HTC has confirmed that whichever (unspecified) carrier gets the phone in the US will have a altered version, both in software (carrier-specific services) and in hardware chassis tweaks. Just don’t take our teflon away, ok HTC
- Battery is the same larger slab that’s in the myTouch, and HTC also claims to have done some vague, unspecified things OS-side to improve battery life as well. “Heavy users will be able to get through a day.”
- The camera is responsive and seems to do a fine job at autofocus, but wasn’t astonishingly great at first glance.
- The phone will be available for free on T-Mobile UK — if only we could be so subsidy lucky in the US.
There are four videos for you after the break. The first shows Flash running at full screen on the HTC Hero courtesy of YouTube. The second, however, shows it failing when running a trailer from Yahoo Movies, just like Adobe did — in fact, it crashed all four times that we tried it on what we were told was a Hero running the final build of the OS. Third one is a quickie showing the on-screen keyboard rotating from portrait to landscape and back. Lastly, we demonstrate the hardware a little bit and show off our lightning speed at typing. For the real completists, there’s also a new gallery of hands-on shots from the NY launch event right below.
Gallery: HTC Hero hands-on
Gallery: HTC Hero additional hands-on
Continue reading HTC Hero hands-on: Flash, keyboard and ruminations (updated!)
Filed under: Cellphones, Handhelds
HTC Hero hands-on: Flash, keyboard and ruminations (updated!) originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 24 Jun 2009 11:56:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
Howard Stern Not Available on Sirius iPhone App
June 25, 2009
Filed under: Cell Phones, iPhone
Sorry, iPhone users, but the ‘King of All Media’ won’t be available on Sirius XM’s new iPhone app, released last week. You’ll have to get your fill of fart jokes and conversations with naked women somewhere else (may we suggest the Playboy channel for the latter).
According to Daily Finance, the absence of Howard Stern’s show is due to, in his words, a “contract rights issue.” Monday, fans called into Stern’s show demanding an explanation. Stern debunked some claims that the show was too racy for an iPhone app, saying, “How can it be too dirty if you have the Playboy channel on there” The Daily Finance suggested that Stern’s show falls under the same category as other contractually obligated programs, such as the NFL, that can’t be broadcast on the app (which is free for Sirius XM subscribers).
Continue reading Howard Stern Not Available on Sirius iPhone App
Howard Stern Not Available on Sirius iPhone App originally appeared on Switched on Wed, 24 Jun 2009 12:53:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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