Fatbob

With the buyback complete, Dell will delist from the Nasdaq this afternoon and once more be a privately-owned company.

Thanks Krisgo

 

A previous Reality Absorption Field examined three ways in which Google has taken on Apple in ways that Microsoft never could. in this week's column, we'll look at three other ways that Google has distinguished itself as a more worthy Apple rival.

Design

Microsoft has made a lot of progress in its user interface design since the days when Office was littered with tiny and rarely used toolbar icons (as well as one of my most hated user interface foible, short menus). The software changes started in some of the early work around Xbox and the Windows Media Center that now lives in limbo, The latter's Portable Media Center companion device platform planted the seeds of the user interface that would evolve through Zune to become the Modern user interface in Windows 8 and Windows Phone. On the hardware side, things started improving with the 'squircle"-equipped second-generation Zune and showed further progress with the Zune HD and Xbox 360.

Google has an even sparser history in designing its own hardware than Microsoft, and the Chromecast is nothing to look at (literally, as it is designed to be hidden behind the TV). But the pricey and understated Chromebook Pixel is a gorgeous laptop. The Moto X, on the other hand, is attractive if not exceptional versus the iPhone or HTC One. On the software side, Android is notorious for its rough edges and UI inconsistency, but the baseline from which it started was certainly much better than legacy operating systems it squeezed out such as Windows Mobile and BlackBerry 7. Android has taken big steps forward with the Holo user interface guidelines as well as Google's own mobile apps.

Everywhere

Windows controls the PCs used by hundreds of millions of users. But it is under the hood, or at least it had been for many years until the jarring changes in Windows 8. People spend hours with Microsoft Office getting stuff done, but it is really Xbox that is Microsoft's best tool for emotional engagement. In contrast, Google has become, for far more people a gateway to the world's knowledge and, via its maps, the route to its destinations. Microsoft has fought back with strong improvements in its search engine, Web mail and mapping. It's probably safe to say, though, that the lack of strongly supported Google services on Windows Phone is a bigger sales impediment than the lack of strongly supported Microsoft services on Android devices.

Failure

Microsoft's been quick to pull the kill switch on a number of its projects that crashed and burned out of the gate, such as its Kin phones. However, it's generally more tenacious, having stuck with the Zune through three product generations and having its name even live on for a bit after it finally ceded what was left of a dwindling music player market to Apple. Despite the flop of the Surface tablets, you can be sure that Microsoft will be back for a second generation. Google, on the other hand, has embraced early retirement for its products that don't resonate such as the Wave collaboration software mentioned in last week's column, and even for fairly popular services that don't resonate enough, such as Google Reader. Again, with a consumer base, and one that typically does not pay for its products, there is less concern about customer blowback. Its quickness to close its Buzz social networking service paved the way for a more successful but quite different approach in Google+.

When compared to current Internet darlings such as Facebook and Twitter, it's a bit difficult to consider that Google has been around since 1998. Microsoft, of course, is of another technology generation, having been founded in 1975, a year before Apple. It's no surprise that Microsoft (Big Software), now being squeezed by Google (Big Services) and Apple (Big Devices) now wants to turn itself into a "services and devices" company. But if one looks at the competitive heat map, it should be no surprise that Apple is scrambling to build up iCloud and assorted services to prepare for what has been its greatest competitor.

Ross Rubin is principal analyst at Reticle Research, a research and advisory firm focusing on consumer technology adoption. He shares commentary at Techspressive and on Twitter at @rossrubin.

Reality Absorption Field: Why Microsoft was no Google part two originally appeared on TUAW - The Unofficial Apple Weblog on Tue, 29 Oct 2013 19:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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It appears as if the Mega Man Game Boy collection (referred to as Rockman World overseas) will be complete next week in Japan, as Mega Man V is hitting their 3DS Virtual Console. Celebrated by fans, Mega Man V is often considered to be one of the most unique, and best games in the franchise, eschewing many established tropes in favor of an item shop, and a lack of Robot Masters.

As far as we know, the US is still slated to receive the entire Mega Man Game Boy lineup, in addition to the Game Boy Color games Xtreme and Xtreme 2.

Rockman World 5 Rockets onto 3DS in Japan Next Week [Mega Man Network]

via

 

Slender Man is a busy guy. Walking around forests, standing, moving his head crazy like, standing, looking all crazy up in those woods. We spent some off-hours time with him during the day to find out what he does to blow off steam when he's not scaring your pants off. As always, pants are optional when viewing this video. God save Peter Dinklage.

Slender: The Arrival is on sale right now on Steam at 20% off for Halloween. Git it.

Can you guess who's in the costume?

ananyo writes "Using data pulled from online genealogy sites, a renowned 'genome hacker' has constructed what is likely the biggest family tree ever assembled. The researcher and his team now plan to use the data — including a single uber-pedigree comprising 13 million individuals, which stretches back to the 15th century — to analyze the inheritance of complex genetic traits, such as longevity and facial features. In addition to providing the invitation list to what would be the world's largest family reunion, the work presented by computational biologist Yaniv Erlich at the American Society of Human Genetics annual meeting in Boston could provide a new tool for understanding the extent to which genes contribute to certain traits. The pedigrees have been made available to other researchers, but Erlich and his team at the Whitehead Institute in Cambridge, Massachusetts, have stripped the names from the data to protect privacy."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Today, I rushed to a dentist's appointment. Once in the chair, I apologized for not having had the time to brush my teeth beforehand. He responded with, "Ah that's alright, I just took a piss and forgot to wash my hands." FML

Retrogaming emulation specialist DotEmu revealed that it will bring the classic arcade beat-'em-ups Double Dragon, Double Dragon 2: The Revenge, and Double Dragon 3: The Rosetta Stone to iOS and Android devices in the upcoming mobile compilation Double Dragon Trilogy.

The package will include faithful ports of all three games in their original quarter-munching glory, along with a new "Story" mode that awards bonus unlockables and achievements as players progress through the trilogy. A new mobile-specific difficult mode tones down the brutality for players who struggle with touchscreen controls, while Original and Expert difficulty modes are also available for series veterans.

Other bonus features include gamepad support, optional remixed soundtracks, and Bluetooth co-op play. Double Dragon Trilogy is set to launch via the iTunes App Store and Google Play by the end of the year.

Continue reading Double Dragon Trilogy brings classic arcade brawling to iOS, Android

Double Dragon Trilogy brings classic arcade brawling to iOS, Android originally appeared on Joystiq on Tue, 29 Oct 2013 22:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Oculus VR, the technology company behind the Oculus Rift virtual reality headset, is preparing a special variant of its product for Android mobile. Chief executive officer Brendan Iribe revealed at the Gamesbeat 2013 video game conference the mobile headset will be a lighter version of the current headset, hoping to launch at the same time or close to the retail launch of the PC version.

"We have some exciting plans on the mobile VR side as the PC VR side," Iribe said, as transcribed by Gamesbeat. "We're really looking at hitting the consumer market. We're very excited about what we're seeing. Skeptical about how good mobile VR could be on such a small platform. It's pretty incredible what [John Carmack has] been able to do."

John Carmack, who signed on as Chief Technology Officer for Oculus in August, said the retail headset will likely run on an Android processor. In an interview with Engadget earlier this month, Carmack envisioned "a head-mounted display that probably runs Android, as a standalone system, that has a system-on-a-chip that's basically like what you have in mobile phones." Oculus has yet to announce when the Rift will officially launch, though some developers have had the development kit headset since March.

Oculus began as a Kickstarter campaign late last year and managed to earn over $2 million through crowdfunding. The company completed its first round of investor funding in June, securing $16 million.

Lighter Oculus Rift headset coming to Android originally appeared on Joystiq on Tue, 29 Oct 2013 22:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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In Simple Pickup's latest social experiment (previously), Jason puts on a fat suit and make-up and goes out picking up random hot girls, in an attempt to prove that girls aren't necessarily attracted to good looks or money, but confidence and personality.


Simple Pickup

via

With the Halloween sale and the Scream Fortress update happening yesterday, this bit of Steam news was overshadowed a bit. A new batch of 100 indie games has been approved on Steam Greenlight, poised to release onto Steam proper in the near future.

There are some titles on that list that we have been following, including A.N.N.E., Mines of Mars, Nimble Quest, Savant - Ascent, and The Yawhg. Congratulations are in order for the developers who have made the cut, and wishes of good luck to those still trying. Keep fighting the good fight.

[Thanks, M]

At the start of October, Adobe quietly explained that hackers had acquired data from 3 million of its customers' accounts. Now, it's admitted that that the number is actually in excess of 38 million.

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(512): I found her in my pantry with her shirt off twerking...I tapped her on the shoulder and she said she was giving Chef Boyardee a show and to give her a minute...

If you're excited at the prospect of wearing Google Glass while you do absolutely everything—from riding the subway to having sex—then you can at least strike driving off the list. Because, as Cecilia Abadie recently found out, you might end up getting a ticket.

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Today, I found out my 13-year-old daughter thinks the showerhead got her pregnant. FML

Pressing a button is so 20th century. And winking or asking Google Glass to do it for you seems like quite a lot of effort, too. So, for the truly lazy, Neurocam analyzes your brainwaves to work out when you want a picture taking.

Read more...

“A white man and an elderly Native man became pretty good friends, so the white guy decided to ask him: “What do you think about Indian mascots?” The Native elder responded, “Here’s what you’ve got to understand. When you look at black people, you see ghosts of all the slavery and the rapes and the hangings and the chains. When you look at Jews, you see ghosts of all those bodies piled up in death camps. And those ghosts keep you trying to do the right thing. “But when you look at us you don’t see the ghosts of the little babies with their heads smashed in by rifle butts at the Big Hole, or the old folks dying by the side of the trail on the way to Oklahoma while their families cried and tried to make them comfortable, or the dead mothers at Wounded Knee or the little kids at Sand Creek who were shot for target practice. You don’t see any ghosts at all. “Instead you see casinos and drunks and junk cars and shacks. “Well, we see those ghosts. And they make our hearts sad and they hurt our little children. And when we try to say something, you tell us, ‘Get over it. This is America. Look at the American dream.’ But as long as you’re calling us Redskins and doing tomahawk chops, we can’t look at the American dream, because those things remind us that we are not real human beings to you. And when people aren’t humans, you can turn them into slaves or kill six million of them or shoot them down with Hotchkiss guns and throw them into mass graves at Wounded Knee. “No, we’re not looking at the American dream. And why should we? We still haven’t woken up from the American nightmare.””

- On mascots & the Red Road: - Gathering Tribes | Facebook (via aboriginalnewswire)

No clue why it won't start the Coil video from the beginning, unless it's just my computer. but sounds best with both starting from the beginning 

Animation is a fantastic visual medium. It’s the one through which the storyteller’s rich inner world is most directly allowed to come to life, and that’s never more so than with computer-generated imagery, through which entire amazing worlds have been rendered. However, this can be something of a double-edged sword. For, as you’re about to […]

The post 10 Disturbing Animated Shorts That Will Give You Nightmares appeared first on Listverse.

Proteus is ambling to PlayStation 3 and Vita tomorrow. Curve Studios' experimental first-person adventurer will feature cross-buy support, giving players an opportunity to experience the pixelated journey on both systems at no extra charge.

The title takes place on a procedurally-generated island with a dynamic ambient soundtrack that ensures no two treks across the landscape are identical. The PlayStation Network release vaunts new enhancements in this department, allowing players to create an island using the date and time settings. Additionally, the Vita version remixes things further by taking advantage of the rear touchpad and location-tracking feature.

Proteus earned high praise around these parts when it initially launched for Windows PC and Mac back in January. Destructoid marked it as a game should be "seen, experienced, and most of all, needs to be heard. "

The Drop: New PlayStation Releases for October 29th, 2013 [PlayStation Blog]