So they say

The Pandora is a soon to be released rival to open source handhelds like the GP2X and its successor, the Wiz, and is intended to function as a full-fledged handheld computer. Oddly, the official UK distributor of the GP2X is also one of the producers behind the Pandora. Craig Rothwell is his name and he had a sitdown with Pocket Gamer just now, which covers misadventures with Koreans and the Chinese, self-funding, partnerships, and of course, how powerful the thing is (very, he says).

In terms of specs, it certainly does seem to be a little beast. Rothwell boasts it could run games like Quake III and even Doom III (if the latter game's engine goes open source soon). Here's the rundown:

• openGL 2.0 3D hardware
• 600-900Mhz CPU
• media coprocessors
• 800x480 LCD
• 128MB of RAM
• ARM Cortex A8 CPU
• ten hours battery life
• £199.99 / $358 USD (inc VAT)

True to the heart of the open source community, the project was started with its people in mind:

"Late year we started asking them what they would like in their dream handheld and to give us their designs. We got thousands of replies – the original thread on the GP32x.com forum is hundreds of pages long and a very nice bit of history. Using these suggestions we tweaked our original design and added various internal things such as Bluetooth, analogue joysticks, microphone, extra solder pads for hackers and a bigger battery."

Ubuntu is already up and running on the system - he says "this really is a PC the size of a Nintendo DS." According to Rothwell, open source and the internet are the future, and "[they do] not need Microsoft." What do you think? Will the Pandora and devices like it succeed?

Computers and mobile phones to compensate teacher shortage

That eternal struggle between nature and technology always seems to be ongoing; when do we go too far? Sometimes though, you get a clearcut case like this, where the technology just plain benefits everyone: Tanzania and Zambia, two African countries, have started ICT projects which utilize mobile telephone messaging and computer-generated classrooms for primary and secondary schools. About 200 primary schools will benefit from the former's programme, which will launch early October. This will serve as a 'pilot project' before being copied in other schools that need it.

Training minister Professor Jumanne Mughembe told APA this is all mainly due to acute teacher shortages in the region; currently they're short of over 40,000.

"This IT project will also be using projectors, which would be operated from one control center manned by a few instructors in a bid to reach many students," he stressed.

The One Laptop Per Child (OLPC) project has of course helped usher in these teaching methods in Africa, with many different countries ordering them in, following on the project's goals of putting one in the hands of each student. Going with these African government programmes (headed by the New Partnership for Africa’s Development's e-Africa Commission), learning materials will be posted regularly to a website, which students will then access through their OLPC computers.

The e-Africa Commission is based in Johannesburg, South Africa, and is set to equip roughly 16,000 African schools with computers and Internet access by 2015; hopefully they won't see the kind of censorship China has.

AppleInsider suggests Apple may not use Intel's Montevina platform

Interesting... is this a possible response to the Hackintosh?

Apple Insider is reporting that Apple may not be using Intel's Montevina chipset in upcoming Macs, but may instead make its own chipset, or contract another chipset vendor to make a special chipset just for it.

This would be a way for Apple to distinguish itself, as since Apple has switched to using standard Intel processors, chipsets, and ATI/Nvidia video cards, there has been little to distinguish Apple computers from similarly equipped white box PC's - thus making it difficult for Apple to justify the price difference.

If Apple moved to a custom chipset, it would be more difficult for people to run OSX on standard PC's, and it would increase the time between new OSX releases being released and Hackintosh patches appearing.

Frankly, I would not be surprised if Apple eventually went even further - perhaps switching to a multi-core Power7 architecture processor.

Asus' 10" display EEE PC - is its price dropping already?

Recently, Asus has made available a $100 rebate on the short shelf lived Eee PC 900 - and now they appear to have chopped the prices of the newest Eee PC, the 1000 - at least at

; Amazon only shows them as being available for pre-order, and NCIX does not show the drop - so it could be just a NewEgg sale on the 1000's.

Frankly, even $549 is too much, as you can get a much higher powered laptop for about $450 these days, but at least its a move in the right direction.

Area-51 m17x 'ups the ante'

Alienware has just launched its Area-51 m17x model, designed for PC gamers, 3D content creators and multi-media enthusiasts alike. Here are the specs:

• Brilliant 17-inch, widescreen HD display
• Core 2 Extreme mobile processors including Intel Core 2 Extreme X9000
• Dual SLI enabled NVIDIA® GeForce® 8800M GTX GPUs for unprecedented performance levels.
• Up to 4GB of 667MHz DDR2 Memory
• Up to 640GB of hard drive space for storing massive entertainment collections, plus support for solid state drives and hybrid hard drives.
• Includes Alienware's BinaryGFX technology
• Smart Bay technology giving users on-the-fly customisation capabilities

Boasting it to be the fastest notebook ever created by the company, Senior VP Brian Joyce says they know their product:

“We pride ourselves in designing elite systems for consumers who absolutely refuse to settle for second best. The Area-51 m17x is, by far, the most aggressive, most powerful notebook computer Alienware has ever built.”

Joyce was asked to compare this new model with its sibling system, the Area-51 m15x and responded by saying both are great, but the m17x is for the 'hardcore':

“With both systems, Alienware has once again revolutionized mobile performance. The Area-51 m15x is ideally suited for road warriors or students who are constantly on the move but still want that boost of power Alienware delivers. The Area-51 m17x is for professionals and hardcore enthusiasts who want pure, unbridled performance with the added benefit of portability.”

The price? From £1,430 Inc VAT and delivery, or about $2860 USD/CAD.

Asus is dissapointed.

Asus expected to ship 2M Eee PC's in the first half of 2008 - however it has only shipped 1.7M units.

Some people think the shortfall is due to a shortage of the Atom processor - personally I think it is due to Asus slowly pricing itself out of its intended market. The Eee PC 701 was announced last year with great fanfare for a $199 price point with 4GB SSD and webcam - when it finally went on sale, that configuration would set buyers back $399, with a 2GB no webcam version being the $299 option.

The Eee PC 900 was briefly on the market before the Atom showed up, and is now subject to a $100 rebate - bringing its $549 price tag down to $449.

The Eee PC 901, which is a nice little unit, lists for $599 with XP - and while it is very portable, $599 will buy you a much bigger screened much more powerful laptop at BestBuy - or anywhere else.

I think had they brought out the Eee PC 901 at $399 they would probably have significantly exceeded their sales targets; and would have at least met targets if they brought it out at $499.

You can't really blame Asus for trying to maximize the profit per unit, and market forces will bring their prices under control soon - with the Acer Aspire One coming in at less than $400, Asus will be forced to cut prices.

That is why I am confident that Acer Taiwan president Scott Lin is right to be confident about the Aspireone enjoying strong sales - the aggressive pricing and feature set severely undercuts the price of the Eee PC 901 and will no doubt take significant market share from it - and if they continue to keep the prices low, he may even reach his target of 5-7M units sold in the second half of this year.

Company uncovers problem to potentially cost them $150-200 million.

NVIDIA seems to be taking a bit of flack today, with stock prices dipping ever lower as the company announces a lower Q2 expectation due to pricing pressure and delayed product ramps. And they may also be taking another hit when announcing that they'll be earmarking $150 - 200 million for repair and replacement costs on their laptop line which is taking an unexpected toll from high yields of  GPU failure in consumer products.

The immediate question for many laptop owners is "which chips are they?" which would be a great question, unfortunately we're left only with the official word being "older graphics chips" -- which could range from a 9500GS and 9650 since those are technically old in the pipeline, or it could be a flurry of 8400 chips and 8600 chips as well as a huge slew of FX5200's from way back in time. I would say that getting their latest driver patch might be a good idea though given that it's set to kick in the GPU fan earlier with more sensitive thermal scaling.

For those already experiencing these failures, the company is pulling out $150-200 million to help repair and replace systems affected, this should hopefully translate into fast repairs and hopefully more focused cooling solutions to prevent it from occuring in the future. For me I've actually been checking out NVIDIA based laptops but I guess I'll be more focused on each cooling approach over how sleek or impressive it comes off on the outside.

Hopefully NVIDIA picks themselves up, they just started on their latest generation the GTX series and it looks to be doing them well, one would hope that we see some of that performance translate into the mobile market as the 9 series in the mobile line never really saw a dominant chip like the 8800.

More sub-notebook goodness

The new Asus EeePC 901 is not even released yet in North America - the rumour mill says it will be released July 7th or so - and Asus is reportedly already thinking about discontinuing it in favor of two new units.

The EeePC 904 and 905 both feature an 8.9" display panel like the EeePC 901, but use a slightly larger case like the 10.2" Eee PC, thus allowing for a somewhat larger keyboard (again, like the 10.2 inch model).

While no concrete information has been released about the 904 and 905, it is possible that the 904 will be Via C7 based while the 905 may be Atom based - this is pure conjecture based on how the 900 and 901 were made.

The EeePC 900 and 901 may be getting price cuts in order to clear existing inventory and clear the channel for the 904 and 905.

Real cost of 3G data plan revealed; Canada to remain in the Dark Ages a while longer

Rogers, Canada's only GSM provider, just released their plan pricing for the iPhone 3G. I'm going to cut right through to what matters:

July 11th is not going to mark the shift in mentality of the Canadian cellular industry as we all had hoped. AT&T set a benchmark with the release of the original iPhone when they offered unlimited data access for $20/month, and when it was announced that Canada would be getting the iPhone 3G via Rogers/Fido, we all crossed our fingers hoping that we'd see something similar happen over on our side of the border.

Let's see what went wrong ...

According to Rogers' cheapest iPhone 3G plan, $60 a month gets you 150 minutes, unlimited evenings and weekends, visual voicemail, some text messages, and ... 400 MB of data. And that's not including Call Display or the bogus "System Access Fee". Minimum contract length? 3 years.

I had a fleeting hope that maybe the iPhone launch in Canada would finally be the day that we got some 2008-era data pricing, but 400 MB for $60/month? It looks like Canada's cellular industry is destined to remain in the Dark Ages for a while longer.

However, let's be fair and look at the offerings in a little more detail:

Have you had a minute to process that? Good. Let's break down the cheapest plan:

• $60/month + $6.95 bogus System Access Fee + tax = $75/month minimum
• 150 minutes, per-minute billing, $0.35/minute additional minutes
• Unlimited evenings start at 9 PM + weekends
• They're actually advertising 75 sent text messages? We're farther back in the Dark Ages than I previously believed.
• Visual Voicemail (voicemail is only vaguely useful for most)
• 400 MB of data, $0.50/MB for the first 60 MB, $0.03/MB thereafter
• NO network calling (ie. Rogers-to-Rogers free-of-charge)
• NO incoming call provisions
• NO call display

Now, I don't know about anyone else, but to me, voicemail is useless, while call display I can't live without. It's another $15 a month on top of the $75 if you want call display (as part of the value pack; it remains to be seen whether Rogers will offer the $7 stand-alone option).

Essentially you have 150 minutes a month, and unless you're talking on your phone between 9 PM - 7 AM on weekdays or on the weekends, those minutes are counting down one minute at a time (the accounting department at Rogers loves rounding up!) whether you received the call or dialed it, and regardless of whether the other party is on the same network.

If this was the industry standard here in Canada, then I would just shrug and move along, but here's what Rogers themselves offer with a few of their other plans:

Mega Time 30

• $30/month ($41/month after SAF + taxes)
• 200 weekday minutes (with a 3-year contract as with the iPhone)
• Unlimited 9 PM evenings + weekends
• UNLIMITED NETWORK CALLING

Mega Time 40

• $40/month ($53/month after SAF + taxes)
• 350 weekday minutes (with a 3-year contract as with the iPhone)
• Same as above

The also offer very similar plans ("Mega Incoming 30/40") for the same prices but with unlimited network calling swapped out for unlimited incoming minutes.

Let's just use the "Mega Time 30" plan as a baseline, and compare it to their basic iPhone 3G plan -- for the ADDITIONAL $34/month ($75 - $41) you get:

• 50 LESS minutes per month
• Network calling taken away
• 75 text messages (wowaweewa!)
• Visual voicemail
• 400 MB of data

Uh-oh. Putting things into perspective suddenly makes a "so-so" offering look plain awful. In my opinion the 50 less minutes per month cancel out the 75 text messages and voicemail, and that leaves us with the SUBTRACTION of network calling (a hugely minute-saving feature) and 400 MB of data for $34/month.

What if we were to subtract the "Unlimited network calling" feature from the "Mega Time 30" plan to see exactly how much the 400 MB of data is costing us? Well, that's hard to do because Rogers' web site is convoluted and doesn't actually want to tell me how much this feature costs. However, since Fido == Rogers and Rogers == Fido, let's take Fido's "Fido-to-Fido" option which gives you unlimited network calling AND text messaging to other Fido customers for $10/month, and assume that the first portion alone would cost about $5/month if Rogers were to offer it. Finally, this leaves us with $29/month for 400 MB of data, or about $1.00 for 14 MB.

Let me repeat that: The entire Rogers iPhone 3G plan essentially boils down to ~$30/month for 400 MB of data. They can spin it any other way, but that's that -- and they know it.

What happens if you go over the 400 MB? That price shoots up to $0.50 for 1 MB, up to 60 MB ($30). After that it's $0.03/MB. Rats. Compare and contrast this to AT&T in the U.S. offering unlimited data for $30 USD/month.

"Moving icebergs" is how I would describe attempting to modernize the Canadian cellular industry. The iPhone 3G plan just inched things along a bit, but everyone's expectations just fell flat on their faces anyway, especially in light of AT&T's benchmark.

Rogers should feel ashamed for single-handedly destroying the best chance Canada had of emerging from the Dark Ages of the cellular industry. This is suit-and-tie highway robbery at its finest.

Just for kicks, let's see how much it would cost me personally to get the same functionality + 400 MB of data with Rogers' iPhone 3G plan as compared to my current plan (which I'm using on an iPhone anyway). My plan with Fido right now:

• 150 daytime minutes
• Unlimited E/W starting at 6 PM
• Unlimited incoming calls
• Unlimited Fido-to-Fido calling + texting
• Call display
• $35/month after S.A.F. + taxes

If I wanted the unlimited network calling, incoming calls, and call display options on the basic iPhone plan, I'd have to shell out an additional ~$15 (estimated network calling + incoming calls options based on Fido's prices) + $15 for call display. That's $30 on top of $60, or $108/month after S.A.F. + taxes. Honestly?

So for me personally, I would essentially be paying an additional $73/month so that I could get a measly 400 MB of data, while losing out 3 hours of "evening" calling. Wow.

I think I'll just stick with my current iPhone and the occasional WiFi connection I find. Thanks, Rogers, for maintaining such an iron grip on GSM service in Canada. I can't wait until the Canadian government kicks you out of bed, and invites a hotter, younger cousin in.

LVPC / ULVPC chip slide leaked, clarity forms.

It seems to always be a race to find out what on earth is going on with slides and announcements coming from companies. In weeks prior we brought a piece out about the 8W combo package that AMD was planning to launch, the chip aiming to fight the Atom on the overall consumption front as the chipset is still a power hog right now for Intel, given the low frequency report it seemed to be a bit confusing about what it would be able to deliver but that ends now with "Shrike" now on the table.

Shrike brings new features that help make it a contender for the LV or ULV space, the main being that this isn't just a CPU but it's a Fusion CPU featuring 2 cores and a real dedicated GPU on the chip instead of something sub-par such as the Intel GMA series. It also seems to be acting as a direct evolution from the Puma chipset that AMD had earlier announced given that all these percentage improvements are over the Puma platform which does chase me off a bit from considering an AMD portable if they're already passing it by on a chip targeted for a much smaller platform.

As a new entry to the marketplace though, it looks like this will do well with the upcoming Netbook systems from companies like Dell, Fujitsu and Lenovo as producers will see the CPU, GPU and Southbridge all integrated into a single chip. AMD will be looking into making this part of phase 2 in their mobile initiative, Puma is currently leading that plan right now but will take a back seat to this Fusion processor when it arrives next year after the company starts moving their server and desktop parts down to 45nm allowing for lower power consumption and higher frequencies so that they can have a good battle against Intel in the marketplace without overheating or coming up short on clockspeed.

Unfortunately most won't have much to talk about since the company says the platform will be hitting about midway through 2009, leaving the marketplace to Intel and VIA for the time being. Hopefully the company ramps up development and really does carry out something since they've been talking about Fusion on paper for years now with nothing really to show for it, if they can beat Intel to the punch with something noteworthy then they'll help themselves get a larger piece of the market and be able to capitalize on it by being a step ahead.

Yet another small form factor notebook - looks pretty sweet

Everyone and their uncle is trying to duplicate Asus' Eee PC success story, and as a result we are seeing a LOT of new  sub notebooks at prices that are affordable to mere mortals.

In Taipei, Gigabyte is showing M912 - which looks really good, and if they price it right, should move a lot of units.

Based on the Intel 945GSE chipset with a 1.6GHz Atom CPU, the M912 will be available with either Windows XP or Linux.

What I like:

• Swivel touch screen! You can use it like a tablet
• 1280x768 screen
• Bluetooth
• 3x USB 2.0 ports
• RJ45 for ethernet
• SD socket

What I don't like:

• 1GB memory limit, and I am not at all convinced that a 2GB dimm would not work
• needs a mini-card for WiFi
• no mention of an external monitor jack

Here are the specifications, straight from the Gigabyte page:

NVIDIA looking to offer a viable alternative to Intel's Atom

It might not be all that long from now before you can buy a phone, Pocket PC / PDA, portable media player, or another variety of mobile device, that is powered by NVIDIA's new Tegra processor.

Unveiled today, the Tegra is based on NVIDIA's earlier APX 2500 processor -- a non-x86, ARM11 processor fused with a GeForce-derived graphics core. The initial two models of Tegra -- the 600 and 650 -- are aimed at portable, visual devices. Last week, NVIDIA was showing one such possible upcoming Tegra-powered device: a portable video player, that was around the same size as an iPhone. Taking full advantage of the graphics processing ability supplied by Tegra, the small video player was capable of decoding 720p high-def quality video to a HDTV at 30 frames per second. (1080p video encoding/decoding was also possible, but at only 24 FPS.)

Below: Comparative specs: APX 2500, Tegra 700, Tegra 650. (Click to enlarge.)

Where Intel's Atom may have more general number-crunching CPU horsepower, the Tegra relies on the natural strength of NVIDIA: graphics processing. The Tegra chips will have a lot of GPU / GeForce DNA in them, so they'll be natural pixel-pushers, capable of shader effects, anti-aliasing and ansiotropic filtering, high quality graphics, and very responsive applications of visual computing (such as, for instance, powering graphics-intense menu systems, such as the one found currently on the iPhone.) Last week, a member of the Tegra team told me they had Quake III up and running on Tegra-powered device, running at around 30 FPS -- which is impressive, for a chip that is about the size of your fingernail (144 mm square.)

Being so small, the Tegra 600 and 650 also maximize power efficiency. These initial Tegra chips, amazingly, only require around 2 Watts of power for operation. In practical terms, this means that your Tegra-powered media player device could feasibly carry many gigabytes of DVD quality video around, and could play your horrible video collection back to you for more than 15 hours straight.

The first Tegra processors will make an appearance in late 2008. I expect that many interesting utilizations of Tegra will come up -- possibly in new devices with combinations of features not yet imagined, such as gaming-friendly phones. 

With this release, it looks like the entire direction of NVIDIA has shifted a few degrees. To prevent stagnation, it is always a good idea to diversify; and with Tegra's release, it seems that NVIDIA's plans over the last few years to apply their technological wealth in bold new directions, is only now just beginning to manifest.

The future gets more interesting all the time. With AMD's Fusion under development, NVIDIA moving mobile with Tegra, and Intel developing a graphics solution (called Larabee), the face of these three giants could be remarkably different, as we enter the second decade of the 21st century.

Below: A video of Tegra in action, taken today (presumably) in Taipei. Poor video quality -- but gives you an idea of the graphics processing power of this zippy, mite-sized chip. Current Tegra devices run using a version of WinCE with turbo-charged graphics.

Mini-news for Mini-notebooks

Digitimes reports that AMD is moving up the launch of the 10" Eee PC 1000  to June 3 to compete with the upcoming 10" MSI Wind and the lower cost 8.9" Acer Aspire. Asus will also apparently bring out lower priced versions - perhaps they will go back to the original pre-launch pricing for the 7" models?

Meanwhile the Inq reports that Intel is delaying the launch of the Centrino 2 laptop chip set, possibly by as much as two months, to fix some problems with the IGP graphics and WiFi 802.11n certification.

The Inq also points us at a nice looking AMD processor based mini-notebook called the Wizbook, which is apparently from the Phillipines.

The 10" Wizbook has:

• 500MHz AMD LX800 CPU, with 128KB L1 and 128KB L2 cache
• 10.2" 1024x600 LCD with LED back light
• 60GB HD
• 2200mAh battery for 4.5h usage

The 8" Wizbook has:

• 400MHz AMD LX700 with 128KB L1 and 128KB L2 cache
• 8" 800x480 LCD with LED backlight
• 20GB HD
• 2200mAh battery for 3.5h usage

They have the following specifications in common:

• 512MB ram
• Ubuntu Linux based OS
• 2x1.5W stereo speakers
• Ethernet, 802.11b/g WiFi
• PCMCIA, SD/MMC/MS slots
• 2x USB slots
• headphone & microphone jacks
• 12V power input
• 260mm x 195mm x 36mm
• under 3lb

Atari points to 'stealth encryption chip'

Nolan Bushnell, founder of Atari, creator of the Holy Grail that is Pong announced at the Wedbush Morgan Securities annual Management Access Conference that piracy on computers will soon meet its end:

"There is a stealth encryption chip called a TPM that is going on the motherboards of most of the computers that are coming out now. What that says is that in the games business we will be able to encrypt with an absolutely verifiable private key in the encryption world - which is uncrackable by people on the internet and by giving away passwords - which will allow for a huge market to develop in some of the areas where piracy has been a real problem."

TPM, which stands for Trusted Platform Module, has actually been in use with some laptops since 2006, and Intel is apparently planning to make use of it sometime this year. It refers to a published specification which details a secure cryptoprocessor, capable of storing secured information, but also the generally given name for implementations of the aforementioned specification, referred to, as by Bushnell, the "TPM chip." It can also be known as the "Fritz chip," or "TPM Security Device." Making use of methods like remote attestation, sealing, and binding, it can theoretically be used in conjunction with any encryption-enabled application, like Digital Rights Management.

Bushnell goes on to say, "the TPM will, in fact, absolutely stop piracy of gameplay," and as soon as the installed base gets big enough, they'll start to see revenues from Asia and India.

Well, I've already communicated my stance on piracy, so there's no point in going through that again. I will say I don't really buy this 'end of piracy' thing though. I'm not any kind of computer engineer, but it would seem that if you can make it, you can crack it, in one way or another. Let the battle between good and evil begin.

Kidding. Sort of.

Low power, 45nm, dual core mobile goodness.

The good news: more fast mobile processors

The bad news: the prices are pretty high for now

In late June:

• $209 - P9400
• $241 - P8600
• $316 - T9400
• $348 - P9500
• $530 - T9600
• $851 - X9100

In the third quarter:

• $1038 - QX9300 quad core

In the fourth quarter

• $??? - Q9100 "affordable" quad mobile

HP's mini-note looks like a winner - now available with XP Pro loaded.

hp2133guide reports that HP has released some new models of its recently unveiled Mini-Note 2133.

The new models are:

• KR922UT: 1GHz C7, 512MB ram, 4GB SSD, SuSE Linux for $499
• KX868AT: 1.2GHz C7, 1GB ram, 120GB 5400rpm HD, Vista Basic 32 for $599
• KR939UT: 1.2GHz C7, 1GB ram, 120GB 5400rpm HD, XP Pro & Vista Business for $729
• KR954UT: 1.6GHz C7, 1GB ram, 120GB 5400rpm HD, XP Pro & Vista Business for $749
• KR948UT: 1.2GHz C7, 2GB ram, 160GB 5400rpm HD, XP Pro & Vista Business for $789

They join the previously announced models:

• KX869AT: 1.2GHz, 1GB ram, 120GB 5400rpm HD, SuSE Linux for $549
• KX870AT: 1.6GHz, 2GB ram, 120GB 7200rpm HD, Vista Business for $749
• KR964UT: 1.6GHz, 2GB ram, 160GB 5400rpm HD, XP Pro & Vista Business for $819

All of the computers feature an 8.9" glossy 1280x768 WXGA screen, VIA Chrome 9 graphics, a VGA web cam, stereo speakers, and Broadcom 802.11b/g WiFi, and one year parts and labour warranty.

All but the $499 model also have 802.11a, and all units priced at $729 or above also include Bluetooth.

Frankly, the screen is significantly higher resolution than on the Eee PC 900 (1280x768 vs. 1024x600), the keyboard is bigger, and on all but the cheapest model, you get at least 120GB of HD storage; so I think this little marvel will be cutting into Eee PC sales big time.

The man sticks it to the man

Microsoft: We'll give ya USD 33 per share (47.5 billion).

Yahoo!: Nawww.

Microsoft: To heck with this, then.

After trying to acquire Internet company Yahoo! before (at 31 per share), Microsoft has thrown in the towel after their recent second offer. Yahoo! co-founder Jerry Yang feels his company is worth USD 38 per share, not the 33 offered by Microsoft.

Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer feels it's now best for his company to recede, stating the following in a letter to Yang following the rejection:

"We believe the economics demanded by Yahoo! do not make sense for us, and it is in the best interests of Microsoft stockholders, employees and other stakeholders to withdraw our proposal."

Following the first proposal, Microsoft threatened a proxy fight while Yahoo! seeked interest from other companies to prevent a possible takeover. Seems these are just two companies that can't get along; MicroHoo just wasn't meant to be.

This week, Yahoo's stock closed at 28.67 per share. Ouch.

Paradox Interactive gives generously

Paradox Interactive, the company who've funded games like City Life and developed the Europa Universalis series announced a very special agreement today - the release of its "Europa" engine to the public gaming community. If you thought the $14.95-99.95/mo. Blade3D engine was good news, get this: Europa is free. Not only that, independent developers wanting to get in on the action receive the same financial deals major developers do with online PC game download site GamersGate. Of course there will be a few minimum criteria for eligibility, but other than that, it's anyone's game (pun accidental).

While Paradox Interactive plans to set a few minimum criteria, anyone interested will get a shot at using the technique to develop games and then sell them on GamersGate.

Theodore Bergquist, CEO of Paradox Interactive had this comment:

"Through GamersGate, creative gamers worldwide will be given access to a development tool that will allow them to fulfill their game developer ambitions while getting access to a global distribution network without the costs and risks that are normally involved in game development and distribution. This initiative is a way for us to give back to the gaming community by facilitating for game developers to turn their hobbies into lucrative projects."

As most of us are aware of, the PC certainly has its troubles, which relate to the severely lagging sales. Maybe I'm overstating, but I think a public, free engine like this could actually give PC back a reasonable standing in the gaming community, in the long run. Maybe it will never be as financially successful as consoles (maybe this would help lead to that though), but the idea of an entirely open platform propelled in part by public engines without money in mind so much, well, that's just heartwarming. And maybe it will lead to more public engines, and even open source ones - now there's a true gaming community if I ever knew one.

Not exactly for free, as you might've heard

Didn't I say NASA should make a console? Apparently I have some vague clairvoyant powers, because I came half close; exactly ten days later, a few sources started reporting NASA was working on an educational MMO. If that ain't enough of a kicker for you, the rumour is it was a free project.

Well, Daniel Laughlin, Project Manager at NASA Learning Technologies was eager to clear this up, so he spoke to Gamecyte. Revealed in this interview were the legalities of the situation: the plan is basically to use the 2 mil in funding received thus far mostly in “attracting education experts to the project,” and a much smaller portion ($350,000) on buying time from NASA experts in the four Mission Directorates (Aeronautics, Exploration Systems, Science, Space Operations). Who knew attracting experts and buying time could be so expensive?

The other question is, why is it they have 2 million dollars and none of it is being spent on game development? Indeed, it's a unique case. How it works is that by way of the non-reimbursable Space Act Agreement, NASA is not required to pay a developer, just to give them the necessary tools. The profit aspect of things is left to the developer; they're free to make however much they can from the product. It's done this way partly because it's illegal to receive funding and then make a profit in the marketplace.

And don't expect this to be some boring old "edutainment" title either. Laughlin says NASA is smart enough to know the game has to be fun:

“If it’s not fun, no one will play it and we’ll have wasted our time. The 90’s were littered with edutainment… but in order to stimulate, [an educational game] has to be compelling enough to be commercially viable.”

According to the funding proposal, the title would focus on enchancing "science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) learning."

If they do this right, the possibilities are huge as to what a company with the knowledge and power of NASA has to offer the games industry; they could become a really prominent member of the community, and what geek wouldn't want that?

Just released... and to be refreshed in June?

The ink has barely dried on the press releases announcing the EeePC 900 (ok, I am stretching things a bit), but PC World reports that Asus will refresh the Eee PC 900 in June with Intel's new Atom CPU.

Apparently the current Via processor can use up to 32W, and the Atom will only use about 0.6W-2.5W - leading up to a potential savings of up to 30W - nothing to sneeze at when you are trying to stretch battery life.

GameDaily says how it should be done

Bemoaning the state of print game journalism, GameDaily decided to go to the source of the issue and ask how things could improve, specifically, The Almighty Preview.

The piece starts off kind of bright, noting the plus sides to print. Referring to a couple of magazines he'd read on a flight recently, writer Gus Mustrapa says they "featured exclusive cover stories presenting previews of highly anticipated games." He feels in spite of the somewhat sad state of things, this form of journalism is still able to do what it does best, do it well, and with style. And more than that, the look of it reigns superior:

"For all of the Internet's ability to deliver streaming video, gigabytes of screenshots and all kinds of other multi-media fireworks, most websites still aren't all that much to look at. It could be bandwidth concerns or perhaps just the utilitarian demands of readers, but magazines still trump the web when it comes to making a page look pretty."

Is this a natural problem with the web? Could it just take the right designer for a site to triumph over print? Either way, I think print will always have that something. The question is whether or not that something will be enough to sustain the medium.

The rest of the article focuses on the style of game previews. Mustrapa says they should be more self-explorative, touching on the styles normally only attributed to "entertainment" magazines. Obviously, video games are entertaining, so he has something of a point. According to him, print magazines could possibly benefit from a more personal style of writing.  While he praised EGM's Joe Rybicki's first-person coverage of SOCOM: Confrontation, he wonders if previews shouldn't get more personal:

"..what neither magazine really accomplishes is setting a sense of place outside of the virtual worlds they're reporting in. In fact, they assume that the reader either already knows about the game designers or simply just doesn't care to know more about them. We never hear where these previews are being held or learn anything about the game designers besides their names and titles. Perhaps both publications are reluctant to let us see behind the curtain for fear of revealing that their moments with the game designers took place in boring hotel rooms during GDC. Or maybe they know their readers all too well, having fielded hundreds of letters demanding 'just the facts.' "

Clearly, this is the part where you come in. Yes, you. For fear of sounding like a marketer, what do you want to see more of in previews, and print journalism in general? What will keep you coming back to print journalism, if anything?

Something I came across while researching for an earlier piece on Silicon Knights head Denis Dyack has sort of haunted me since. Dyack said previews should be abolished altogether, only promoting the game before release once it is actually finished. Via one of Dyack's postings on NeoGAF:

"Honest criticism is exactly what you are not [his emphasis] going to get from previewing games that are not finished -- I am saying it is not possible to evaluate games properly before they are done. Despite anyones best efforts. I think the guys from EGM gave their best efforts but their methods are fundamentally flawed."

Could this improve the state of print journalism and the gaming industry in general? I'm torn, myself. On one hand I agree and it seems perfectly sensible, on the other, I absolutely love watching out for upcoming games and keeping up on their development, it's part of the fun and excitement of it all; in a good number of cases this fun and excitement turned out to be valid, as the final product was as promised, or better than I anticipated. Video game journalism without previews..now there's a thought. Especially with demos now available even for many console games, could we do it? Should we do it? Which direction is best for the gamer? For the industry?

ESRB says expanded content "can’t go out of bounds"

At the recent MI6 Conference, ESRB president Patricia Vance laid down the law: downloadable content (DLC) has to be to "[kept] consistent with the core rating."

This is slightly vague, but presumably if the content would be of a lower rating (say, Everyone instead of Teen), this would be allowed.

The funny part comes with this:

"If it [the downloadable content] does [require altering the original product], then obviously the rating will have to change,” said Vance. “But the consumer is still being informed. That downloadable content is still carrying an ESRB rating and the consumer’s ultimately protected by being informed.”

Kind of contradictory. "It must be kept consistent with the original rating, but we could alter it.."

Essentially the message though is "we're not going to allow developers a loophole for harsher content." Should they be allowed? Maybe. The board's perspective makes sense, a sort of all-encompassing set of rules, but, I also like the idea of a loophole: "Here, you get the main game with an acceptable level of violence, sex, and whatever else you're into, but for those of you that can handle more (being mature, sane adults and all), you can download it." I mean, there'd have to be some kind of parental controls in place, obviously, but other than that, wouldn't it be a healthy thing? What are your thoughts, readers?

Eee PC: The Next Generation

Ok folks, you can start lining up now... the rumours have been confirmed by Asus itself - by issuing the specifications in a press release :-)

Here are the specifications:

• 8.9" LCD
• 1024x600 resolution
• multi-touch FingerGlide touchpad
• 1.3M pixel webcam
• 12GB or 20GB of solid state storage (4GB built-in plus 8GB/16GB flash)
• 990 grams
• pearl white or black finish
• Intel Mobile CPU
• Intel Mobile Chipset
• 1GB DDR2 memory
• Intel IGP graphics
• 802.11b/g WiFi
• SD/MMC (SDHC) card slot
• USB 2.0 - 3 slots
• VGA connector
• earphone/mic jacks
• 10/100Mbps ethernet
• Built-in speakers
• Windows XP Home or Linux pre-loaded
• 225mm x 170mm x 33.8mm

The Register suggests that the processor is a 900MHz Celeron M, with production later to be changed to an Atom. Apparently the unit is going on sale in Hong Kong on April 19th for $513.

Yet another cool sub-notebook ... and this one is also a phone!

The Register reports on the new Sharp D4 which uses Intel's Centrino Atom platform.

The D4 has some pretty impressive specs:

• 1.33GHz Atom Z520
• 1GB of 533MHz DDR2
• 40GB 1.8" HD
• 188x84x26mm
• 470g
• full QWERTY keyboard
• 5" 1024x600 display
• 802.11b/g WiFi
• Bluetooth
• PHS phone network support
• 2MP digital camera
• microSD slot
• USB port
• TV tuner
• Windows Vista Home Premium SP1

Uh? Excuse me?

A phone running Vista Home Premium?????????????

This cool toy is expected to sell for about $1275 with a two year minimum contract, and is supposed to be availble in Japan in June.

1UP's VP for content says it's "just a question of when" for the Internet to take out print

Relating to previous news, the Ziff Davis mag Games for Windows (GFW) has gone the way of the web after 27 years, shutting down its print operations. Part of the 1UP network, its vice president for content Simon Cox sat down with Gamespot and discussed the reasons behind it, and also why it's inevitable even for magazines as big as EGM.

In short, the reasons behind the decision are relatively simple, and center around pretty much one thing: readers are moving online. Cox is clearly passionate about his publication, and expressed his saddened sentiments:

"This is a sad day here, no doubt about that. A 27-year old magazine has gone away and it's sad, and people are definitely pissed off here about it, but we're also kind of going, 'You know what, we kind of saw it coming. It makes sense, and it's where the business needs to go.' It was really hard for me to watch these guys work their a**es off month after month [on a magazine] that fewer and fewer people were reading and fewer and fewer advertisers were advertising in. It was very tough to watch that."

Kind of sounds like Dylan going electric, or the switch from vinyl to CD. It's a shame in a way new technology is so efficient, because, largely, I miss getting all my gaming information from a print mag, and I adore vinyl, and all things like this, but it's just so much easier to forget about it, without even trying. But, I give serious props to the people keeping these things alive, because the day vinyl and print mags go extinct, that will be a sad day indeed. From one perspective though, it seems only natural, as its much easier (and generally, cheaper) to publish content online, and well, you know, think of the trees!

So, readers are moving online, and that's depressing in its own right. But, the really bright side of this is saying what? That readers want more information and they want it faster. This is great news! Hopefully things work out for GFW, because they seem very passionate and the more passion in this industry the better. At this point it's just a matter of putting the right content where it belongs, it seems.

As a result of all this shifting, when asked of the possibility of PC coverage appearing in EGM, he said "that's something we're kicking around."

On the note of EGM, Cox says it's certainly viable now, but one day it will go the same route:

"We have advertiser support, and the newsstand was not as bad as with GFW. Newsstand has slipped a little bit, but it's nowhere near the downturn we saw with GFW in the past year. Will EGM be around forever? No. When will it, kind of, cease to be? When there's not enough advertising or enough people reading it...particularly with information-based magazine publishing. If you're in the business of publishing a magazine that gives timely information to readers, the Internet is going to kill you at some point one day. It's just a question of when, and with GFW that day was today, and with EGM, that day will be some time in the future, but not for a good while."

On a final note, while the times they are a changin', there has never been a better time to be optimistic; journalists and publishers here have an opportunity to offer the most they can offer their readers, and GFW is one outlet that's taking up that opportunity. Here's to the future.