Sixty percent of the 617,436 apps on Apple’s app store have never been updated and have fewer than 10 reviews. Forty-one percent of the 484,271 apps on Google Play are in the same boat, and an astonishing 69 percent of Windows Phone apps are essentially sitting by the phone, lonely, waiting for the call that will never come.
This is how developers’ dreams are dashed.
Mobile testing service StarDust released a new study today that compares total apps, publishers, rate of new apps being added, monetization details, and more about the three main global app stores: iOS, Windows Phone, and Google Play.
In total, half of all apps will never be updated, a clear signal that they have not managed to reach a significant level of use — or a significant level of return on investment. In addition, most applications will get the vast majority of reviews — and downloads, presumably — within about two weeks. The average iOS app gets 80 percent of its reviews in the first 18 days of its public life, and this is even quicker for Android and Windows Phone: 16 days and 13 days.
In fact, 68 percent of all Google Play apps are downloaded fewer than 5,000 times — a death knell for any monetization attempts.
The staggering odds have not deterred developers, however. On average, 2,371 new apps are published each and every day.
Forty-seven percent of them are published on Android, while 41 percent are published on iOS, and 12 percent of them are launched on Windows Phone. While more apps are being published on Android, more publishers still join Apple’s developer program and publish apps daily. 90 new developers publish an app on iOS daily, versus 75 on Google Play.
Interestingly, developers update much more frequently on Android: While every day 806 iOS apps are updated, 2,341 Android apps are updated.
“This can be explained by a common practice of Android developers who publish an update in order to position their applications into the top ranking,” StarDust said in a statement. “It also can be due to the fragmentation of the platform that requires more maintenance and regular patches.”
Another factor, almost certainly, is Apple must vet that iOS updates, adding days or weeks to the update process. This is probably why the average update cycle for apps with at least 10 versions is over two months on iOS but just a month and a half on Android. Windows Phone is the fastest-updating, at just over a month.
StarDust’s numbers on applications for each app store are lower than self-reported numbers as well as data from alternative sources. For example, Apple said back in June that 900,000 apps had been published on the iOS app store, while Google Play likely hit a million apps last month. I’ve asked the company for an explanation, but it is likely due to the subtraction of expired apps, which have not been updated to current operating systems, or have aged off the app store due to lapsed developer status, and so forth.
While Apple’s app store is still the revenue king, with half of all apps paid compared to 32 percent for Android, Google Play is still likely growing revenue twice as fast.
VentureBeat is creating an index of the most exciting cloud-based services for developers. Take a look at our initial suggestions and complete the survey to help us build a definitive index. We’ll publish the official index later this month, and for those who fill out surveys, we’ll send you an expanded report free of charge.
The World 1-2 chiptune album released in May now has a follow-up in World 1-2 Encore. The album features 14 tracks from artists like Cory Johnson, Video Game Orchestra and The OneUps. Unlike the first album, it is entirely composed of remixes, so the tunes may sound a little more familiar this time around.
World 1-2 Encore is available on BandCamp for $8, and both albums can be purchased in a 34-track bundle for $24.
Microsoft and Nokia announced today that Nokia's Devices & Services business—the part of the company that builds all Nokia's phones (both smart and otherwise)—is changing hands. Microsoft is paying €5.44 billion ($7.17 billion) for the struggling Nokia division. The deal, subject to shareholder and regulatory approval, is expected to close in the first quarter of 2014.
In the transaction, all of Nokia's device business, including design, manufacturing, sales, marketing, and support, becomes a part of Microsoft. This includes 32,000 staff, of which 4,700 are in Finland.
Remaining behind is Nokia Solutions and Networks (formerly Nokia Siemens Networks), which builds telecommunications equipment, and mapping division HERE (Navteq). Nokia is also retaining its Advanced Technologies group, which develops and licenses intellectual property. These parts together account for about half of Nokia's revenue, and approximately 24,000 staff.
This week we're treated to some fantastic new commercials, courtesy of our friend JPCMHD! Everything is quite upbeat, with party music booming in the air. There's some Perfume, Paris Hilton, and even a cooking bear! Most importantly three's the always jaw dropping Mariko Shinoda of AKB48 fame!
Ready to get social? They've thrown in a commercial for Final Fantasy XIV, which I've been dropping plenty of time on lately. If you want to find me, I'm on the Behemoth server. If that wasn't enough for you, the ladies of Momoiro Clover Z are downing some Pepsis and looking as adorable as ever!
Can you beat the heat? I bet those One Piece glasses might help you get through it!
"while sitting on brighton beach (UK) back in 2005 with my new girlfriend, verity, i thought the view of our feet pointing out to sea would make a nice photo. ever since then we’ve continued to document our travels in this way, resulting in a collection of over 100 photos. in 2011 the series took a new twist with the arrival of a third set of feet – our daughter matilda. you can already see her little feet getting bigger and bigger." - text and photos by tom robinson
photos: arbol de piedra, bolivia; nahuel huapi national park, argentina; machu picchu, peru; bâlea lake, romania; blue mountains, australia; ko pha-ngan, thailand; st. georges hospital, london; cabo de são vicente, portugal; voje valley, near stara fužina, slovenia; london, england
Hayao Miyazaki is retiring. Yes, the beloved creator who brought us Princess Mononoke, Spirited Away, and My Neighbor Totoro among many others is finally stepping down. His latest film, Kaze Tachinu (The Wind Rises) is his last.
Or is it?
Will Hayao stay retired, or will he make a stunning return to film years later? With the way people have been receiving his son’s films so far (not so great to mixed), your guess is as good as mine. But more importantly, will Hayao’s final film leave us with fond memories of the man? Or will he be leaving us with a sour taste in our mouths?
Retiring? Really??
“Am I retiring? No… Yes I am! Oh ho ho~”
Okay, so Hayao “retired” a handful of times already, actually. Some people say he’s “retired” five times already, others say he just “retires” once every three years. But all of these weren’t actually official and some were just rumor or speculation.
Except for one time.
After the international success of Princess Mononoke (a great film to end your legacy on, by the way), Hayao officially left Ghibli and “retired”. Apparently the amount of work he did on Princess Mononoke was insane. He oversaw 144,000 animation cells and personally redrew about 80,000 of them. Holy crap. I can understand someone being worn out after something like that.
Anyway, after he officially left, he created another studio called Butaya/Nibariki. It was located very close to his old studio and was known as his “retirement place”. While there, he created a manga based on the exploits of Otto Carius, held weekly classes to teach young animators, hosted other activities, and made some animated short films.
In my opinion, this is a pretty awesome and respectable thing to do after retiring. Working on little side projects and teaching others all the great animation knowledge and know-how he possessed? Fantastic. However, he returned to film a mere four years later to direct Spirited Away.
Spirited Away was awesome too, so he probably could have re-retired again and it would have been a great bittersweet moment. But Hayao soldiered on and stepped in to take over Howl’s Moving Castle when the original director left the project. This film wasn’t as amazing as the previous two, but it was still pretty solid.
But this latest retirement announcement sounds like it could actually be legitimate. It seems that Hayao has been “training” his son Goro to take over the family business, but his son (in my eyes) is currently having one hell of a struggle to fill his father’s gigantic shoes. From Up On Poppy Hill was painfully boring. Even if Hayao doesn’t make a second return to film, hopefully he’ll be working with his son behind the scenes to improve the quality of his work.
At 72 years old, Hayao is one of the most celebrated figures in animation. The Wind Rises is his 11th feature length film. Together with Isao Takahata, he founded Studio Ghibli in 1985 which has produced 18 feature films to date, so Hayao’s had a pretty fulfilling career. Studio Ghibli films are loved by many and several of them have topped the Japanese box office. Spirited Away even won an Academy Award for best animated feature over in the good ol’ US of A.
Hayao’s latest film does have the makings of a director’s swan song. The Wind Rises is described as Hayao’s first film made specifically for adults. It’s a very personal film, and it’s also stirring up a bit of debate among the political circles of Japan. Let’s get into that.
The Wind Rises
Hayao’s final film, The Wind Rises, tells the tale of a man named Jiro during World War II. Jiro is a brilliant but naïve engineer, and his character is based on the real designer of Japan’s Mitsubishi A6M Zero fighter plane, Jiro Horikoshi. The story looks to explore love, responsibility, and death.
From what I can tell, it’s certainly not going to be as lighthearted as what we’ve come to expect from Hayao’s films. This one looks to be more akin to the likes of Ghibli’s most famous heart-string puller, Grave of the Fireflies.
Even so, the film still seems to maintain a bit of that classic Ghibli whimsical feel. This should add a nice contrast to all of the terrible sorrowful feelings that look to be so prevalent in this film. The sad things will probably be made even more sad and striking due to the dichotomy between them and the occasional fantastical whimsy.
The film takes us along on Jiro’s journey from a child fascinated by planes to a man creating one of the most feared aircrafts of the war. Jiro’s love for planes and flight is depicted as simple and pure. Jiro doesn’t care about the war effort, he just wants to make a great plane that he can be proud of. But by the end of the film, Jiro starts to question everything.
The Reception Thus Far
Hayao has traditionally been somewhat of a pacifist, so some fans were a bit confused as to why he would choose a film like this to go out on. Some people think that it was strange for Hayao to choose the manufacturer of a vehicle of destruction as the star for his film, but Hayao doesn’t see it that way.
Hayao was drawn to the story because it featured one of Japan’s eccentric geniuses and this appealed to him. Plus Hayao has always been fascinated with planes and flight himself. In an interview, he stated that “It was wrong from the beginning to go to war, but it’s useless to blame Jiro for it.”
“Pipe down, Hayao.”
The film has also sparked some political debate. Hayao recently published an article saying that he was disgusted by the government’s plans to expand Japan’s army. He was also taken aback by the government’s apparent ignorance of history. Though not mentioned specifically by name, most believe these statements were directed at Japan’s prime minister, Shinzo Abe.
Japanese conservatives have pretty much told Hayao to keep his opinions to himself and stay out of politics.
“I’m watching you.”
As for the film itself, some feel that its slow moving style and lack of visual flair make it boring. Overall, though, it’s received favorable reviews and is a box office success. I can understand the slow moving complaints though. I feel that way about a decent amount of Japanese movies, but if Japanese critics are the ones calling this movie slow moving, it must be really slow moving.
I wouldn’t say I’m getting my hopes up too high for this film though. My two favorite films of his were Princess Mononoke and Spirited Away, and I don’t think he (or Ghibli for that matter) have come close to matching them since. I do really hope my expectations are exceeded though.
Now I’m not saying that I’m not looking forward to The Wind Rises. I just don’t want to set my expectations too high only to be disappointed. I feel like the film will be a good one, I’m just not sure if it’ll be blowing me out of the water with how good it is. But I really want this film to surprise me and make me glad that it’s the last film he left us with. The trailer makes it seem like the film could be really moving and powerful, and I sincerely hope that it is.
Hayao’s Future
“Sayo~nara~”
I think it would be absolutely fantastic if Hayao returns to Butaya and does what he was doing the last time he retired. His son could still use a lot of training and improvement and I’m sure many other animators could benefit from his vast pool of animation knowledge too.
And just because he’s retiring from film doesn’t mean that he won’t be creating anything. Last time he made a manga and some animated shorts. Who knows what he’ll come up with this time? I know I’m certainly looking forward to finding out.
So, do you think The Wind Rises will be a good one to end his career on (if he really does retire for good)? What do you think he’ll get into over at Butaya? Think he’ll stay retired for good this time? Either way, Hayao Miyazaki has had a brilliant career and he certainly deserves all the respect in the world.
In one of the best collaborations this blog has seen in ages, professional illustrator Mica Angela Hendricks has been collaborating with her 4-year-old daughter on a series of wonderful drawings that pass back and forther between mother and daugher until reaching an always unexpected final form. Each drawing begins with Hendricks drawing a detailed retro-ish head, after which her daughter snatches away the sketchbook to create rudimentary body (or animal!) parts as well as other random details. Afterward Hendricks goes back in to polish things up a bit and behold: dinosaur women, slug ladies, and beaver astronauts are born. Of the collaboration Hendricks shares:
Sometimes I would give her suggestions, like “maybe she could have a dragon body!” but usually she would ignore theses suggestions if it didn’t fit in with what she already had in mind. But since I am a grownup and a little bit (okay a lot) of a perfectionist, I sometimes would have a specific idea in mind as I doodled my heads. Maybe she could make this into a bug! I’d think happily to myself as I sketched, imagining the possibilities of what it could look like. So later, when she’d doodle some crazy shape that seemed to go in some surrealistic direction, or put a large circle around the creature and filled the WHOLE THING in with marker, part of my brain would think, What is she DOING?!? She’s just scribbling it all up! But I should know that in most instances, kids’ imaginations way outweigh a grownup’s, and it always ALWAYS looked better that what I had imagined. ALWAYS.
The most striking difference you'll notice in the just leaked announced new Kindle Paperwhite isn't something on the device's screen -- it's on the backplate. AMAZON. That brand, once so subtly tied into the company's game-changing e-reader, is now big, bold and garishly displayed in gloss across the upper part of the Paperwhite's posterior. Why? Well, the answer is quite simple really: compared to the Kindle brand, Amazon's brand equity is much stronger in overseas markets. If you're a longtime Kindle user like me, you'll probably find this design tweak annoying, but that's about all it is. The rest of this new Paperwhite is a matter of finessing the tried-and-true Kindle experience, not disrupting it.
A handheld gaming console that plays Conker's Bad Fur Day, Halo, Uncharted 3 and Day Z ? We're intrigued. The Cross Plane resembles a Wii U GamePad and the two have something more in common than just a launch price: both mirror video and audio output to their respective controllers. The difference is that unlike Nintendo's faltering console, the Cross Plane uses wireless HDMI to do so and (as demonstrated in the video after the break) can basically stream content from any device with an HDMI port -- including Ouya, PC, PS3 and Xbox 360. Whatever it's plugged into bears the processing load, meaning that if your PC can't run Crysis 3, neither can the Cross Plane.
Designer Advanced Gaming Innovations (AGI) also implemented swappable cartridges (the red bit sticking out in the above picture) containing system-specific hardware support. This serves two functions: One, it cuts down on "interference and issues" between the analog and digital layouts of certain architectures. Next is that it ensures you only have to buy carts for the systems you want, presumably cutting down on price. Speaking of which, a $349 pledge snags you a unit with one system cartridge and $410 nets you a handset with two. Both of these help push AGI closer to a $350,000 Kickstarter goal that even the company admits is lofty. It's not like more expensive ideas haven't been crowdfunded before...
A security startup has unveiled a wearable device that's designed to replace the hassle of passwords by using a person's unique heartbeat signature to log on to computers and unlock car doors. While the device is intriguing, the dearth of key technical details makes it impossible to assess the marketers' promise that it provides "complete security without compromising convenience."
The Nymi is a small bracelet equipped with a sensor that reads the electrocardiogram (ECG) of the person wearing it. Once it has verified that the heart signature belongs to the person who registered it, it provides a means of authentication that can in theory be used to access a virtually endless supply of electronic devices, including airport kiosks, hotel room doors, and sensitive computer networks. It relies on three factors of authentication—that is, two things the user has in the form of the bracelet and a paired mobile device, and one thing the user has in the form of a verified ECG. A slick promotional video shows someone gliding from bed to airports to hotels to cafes, effortlessly logging into devices and unlocking doors without once having to enter a password or procure a key. Sure sounds tempting.
Nymi by Bionym.
Alas, there's not enough information available about the Nymi's inner workings to know if it is truly groundbreaking or another dose of the kind of snake oil that's all too common in the security circuit. Karl Martin, CEO of the Nymi creator Bionym, said the device hasn't yet undergone a formal security audit. That means even he can't say just how impervious it is to the kinds of sophisticated attacks that would inevitably target a universal sign-on gizmo, although he gave some high-level details that are encouraging. That said, there are several classes of hacks that might be used to compromise the security assurances of the device.
This nonsensical string of Arabic characters renders fine in Firefox, but it crashes any iOS or OS X browser that uses Apple's CoreText API.
Andrew Cunningham
There's a new bug in town, and it's here to crash your Mac and iPhone applications. Posters in a HackerNews thread from late yesterday have discovered that it's possible to crash Web browsers and other apps running on current versions of iOS and OS X by making them render a specific, nonsensical string of Arabic characters. The title of the HackerNews thread implies that the issue is with the WebKit browser engine, but it actually affects any browser or application that uses Apple's CoreText API to render text. Ars Microsoft Editor Peter Bright has taken great pleasure in sending the text string to his co-workers, which has crashed the Limechat IRC client and Adium chat client, among other programs.
Safari crashes in both OS X 10.8.4 and iOS 6.1.3 when it attempts to read the text string, and rendering the string in the current stable release of Chrome prompts the browser's typical "Aw snap!" error page (though Chrome's sandboxing implementation keeps the bug from bringing the whole browser down). Firefox, which uses its own font rendering engine, can display the text just fine. This supports the idea that it's a CoreText issue and not a problem with any particular application.
Some Mac and iOS device users on Twitter were only half joking when labeling the string the "unicode of death." Text messages that display the characters caused some people's iMessage apps to spiral into an extended crash loop, since the string would be displayed each time the user loads previously sent messages. Many e-mail programs were also felled by the text. It can even be triggered by including the text in the network name of a wireless access point, creating problems for vulnerable devices that encounter the name when a user looks for available connections. Tweets and other social networking dispatches were enough to cause browsers to crash, so within a few hours of the bug becoming public, Facebook was already preventing the characters from being posted to user walls and timelines by displaying the message below.
No matter how hilarious it is on video, I always feel a little guilty watching a successful prank. Sure, it's fun as all hell to watch, but more often than not the victim of a prank is unlikely to find it very funny, except in retrospect.
Imagine then how guilty I felt when I saw this amazing gag a Japanese TV show pulled on various celebrities, including idol Haruka Christine and comedian Shinji Saito (below). Being scared half to death by a f*cking dinosaur chasing you down a hall when all you wanted was to get to work and sip your coffee has to be some kind of milestone in the history of prankery.
Glorious Nippon, I salute you...and then feel bad about it later.
If Kickstarter had a 24-hour funders club, Pebble and the Bolex Camera would be welcoming Pressy today. In under a day, the multifunction Android controller has more than doubled its $40,000 goal (raising $108,435 from 4,889 backers as of this writing) and with 45 days left to go, the numbers keep climbing. Perhaps its simplicity is what's making it such a hit. Pressy plugs into any Android device's headphone port (Gingerbread and above), and clicking its unobtrusive 0.7mm-tall button controls and automates any manner of your gizmo's functions. Through its app you can assign a given task to a sequence of clicks; it's up to you if it takes two short clicks to speed-dial your mom or one long press to snap an unobtrusive picture, for example. You can still use it if you have a pair of headphones in too, with the cans' play button subbing in for control. Clever.
Unlike other Kickstarters, this isn't some far-off prospect: Developer Nimrod Back has promised Pressy will be available within four months. A basic Pressy will set you back $17, for a choice of colors with a keychain storage sheath you'll have to pony up $25. Oh, and if you fancy yourself a programmer and want the device's API, then drop $1,000 and make that tier's oneother pledge less lonely.
This week, Barcelona announced a €100m extension to their lucrative shirt sponsorship deal with Qatar Airways, which will see the Arabic flag carrier advertised outside the Nou Camp, on the seats and within the club museum.
To coincide with the announcement, the airline released a new commercial that features a plane landing in "The Land of FC Barcelona." Once there, Gerard Pique plays a grumpy customs officer, Neymar needlessly kicks someone else's luggage instead of picking it up, Andres Iniesta paints a wall with a ball, Gary Lineker drives a cab and Leo Messi leads a dance class exclusively for attractive young people.
The highlight of the clip, however, is when Carles Puyol heads a falling flower pot and smashes it into a thousand pieces, saving a couple of ladies and a dog from serious injury (but presumably showering them in dirt and pieces of terracotta).
Most players would insist on CGI for a scene like that, but we can only assume Puyol did it for real. It's the reason he's banned from most garden centers in Catalunya.
There are a lot of world records out there in the world. Some are genuinely difficult while others are… just weird (or plain useless). Knowing Japan’s love of useless inventions, you can only imagine the kinds of world records out there done (or attempted) by Japanese people. We’ve found twenty such examples for you, video and all. Not all of them break a record successfully. Not all of them do something particularly amazing (sometimes it’s just unique or weird). I also don’t know how many of these records have been broken since they were broken in the following videos. I do know, however, that many of them are quite entertaining. Seems like I could get myself a World Record if I thought of something weird enough.
Cutting Cucumber Quickly
I think I may hold the world record for fewest slices of cucumbers cut in twenty seconds. This guy challenges the previous world record holder. It looks like the video is on 4x speed when he cuts, or something.
272 Person Theremin Concert
I had to look up what a theremin is. Also known as an etherphone, it’s an early electronic musical instrument controlled without physical contact by the theremist. Whatever it is, 272 people got together to play the Theremin in Japan. I’m guessing all 272 theremists in the world had to get together to make this happen.
Flash Arithmetic
So Japanese. Flash a bunch of numbers on the screen and make people do math. Even if these numbers were on a static piece of paper in front of me I’d still have trouble adding them together. Then you see what these people can do and it makes you realize how sad you really are at arithmetic.
48 Leepfrogs In 1 Minute
While he doesn’t have an official Guinness representative in his videos, Megwin is always good for a world record breaking attempt, as you’ll soon see. In this one, he tries to do 48 leapfrogs in 1 minute. Definitely harder than it sounds, I think.
Cutting Apples In Midair
Not only does somebody try to break the world record for cutting apples in midair, but he also dresses up like a ninja to do it. His ninja ancestors would be proud mortified.
Ice Cold Endurance
An utter failure, but who doesn’t want to see Megwin suffering in a bathtub of ice? Seems like every child’s dream, to me.
Highest High Vaulting
Remember the little horse things you had to vault over in PE class? Remember how they were a couple feet tall? This guy’s jumping over something insanely tall. He also takes his shirt off for you.
Longest Distance In A Cave With Only One Breath
Not sure why you would want to see how far you can go into an underwater cave with only one breath, and I’m not sure why anyone would want to encourage this, but Ai Futaki does it anyways. Is there a world record for the most insane person in the world, too?
Ukulele Picnic
One step up from theremin concert, a bunch of people get together to play the ukulele. I have a feeling some of these people didn’t know how to play the ukulele for real. Someone put an asterisk next to this record.
Speed Duct Taping Yourself To A Wall
Duct taping someone else to a wall is difficult, but duct taping yourself? There’s a world record for that. It also is just about as hard as it sounds.
Jump Roaping
Okay, so this video isn’t really a world record, but it does show you the world record holder for jump roping doing her thing. Gives you the idea of the kind of jump roping skills you need to break jump roping records.
Longest Stick Bomb
I’d never heard of “stick bombs” before. Whatever it is, it looks as though it’s not following the laws of physics to me. In this video, you see 10,000 sticks stick bombing. Blows my mind.
Drifting
It wouldn’t be Japanese racing without drifting. Drifting around a track thirty something times is no easy feat. I’d be afraid to play Mario Kart with this guy.
Catching Popcorn Challenge
If Megwin can catch 26 pieces of popcorn as they fly off the frying pan in one minute, he can have the world record! Even by cheating and putting glue on his hands he fails miserably. But that’s more fun anyways, isn’t it?
Putting Pairs Of Socks In A Box Only Using Your Feet
This is where you have to start asking “why?” Do we really need another world record? Do we really need to know how fast someone can put pairs of socks into a box only using their feet? The answer is “no,” in case you were wondering.
323 Girls Wearing Bikinis In A Parade
If you’re going to break a world record, at least advertise your product in the process. That’s what happened in this world record.
The Longest Pasta
Lawson Convenience Store decided make the least convenient pasta possible and attempted making the longest strand of pasta in the world. Luckily it looks like they cut it up and served it later on, though.
Most People Wearing Yukata
How many people in yukata can you get together in one space? In this case, it seems like the answer is 1122 people. How embarrassing would it be if you showed up in your jeans and tshirt on this day, by accident?
Balancing 18 Spoons On Your Face
I’m impressed that he could put spoons on his face in that way. By the end, I was surprisingly on the edge of my seat. Spoons be intense, bro.
Most Connected Rafts
“Let’s see how many rafts we can connect and then ride downstream!” somebody said, for some reason. “Okay, let’s make it happen!” someone else said. Some people have a lot of time and resources on their hands.
There Will Be More
With the likes of Megwin (not to mention every Japanese variety show ever) world records will continue to be made up and broken. When future aliens come visit the smoking hull that was once called “Earth” and come across the Guinness Book Of World Records, they will surely nod knowledgeably at each other, knowing that we probably all deserved our tragic fate.
That being said, they will probably worship the cucumber cutter, because seriously, how does he not cut his fingers?
Let me know your favorite world record. Then, if you’re feeling brave, try to challenge said record and then share it in the comments below…
This past week, I told you about the five anime you should be watching this summer. To prepare, I asked Kotaku readers to vote on their picks. The winner by a landslide was Watamote. I am dumbfounded by this. Watamote is, quite simply, the most mean-spirited anime I have ever watched.
The Xbox One definitely puts the "box" in Xbox—it has none of the contours or curves of the various 360 models.
Kyle Orland
After spending months and months focusinglargelyonthehardware of the Xbox One, Microsoft today unveiled a list of 50 pieces of gaming software that have been formally announced for the system. It accompanied this list with a few statistical factoids: 38 percent of the games are "exclusive," 37 percent are new IPs, and so on.
That got us in a number crunching mood, so we spent some time slicing and dicing the current announced games list in a number of ways. Here are some of the more interesting numbers we came up with.
Number of "Xbox platform" exclusives: 19
Number of "exclusives" that will also be on Xbox 360 and/or PC: 9
Number of exclusives being published by Microsoft Studios: 16
Number of those "exclusives" that are actually "timed" exclusives that could come to other systems later: 3 (minimum)
Non-exclusive games that have Xbox One "exclusive or timed" content: 3
Games with a planned 2013 release date: 21
2013 releases that won't also be available on a current-generation system: 5
2013 releases that are just ports of annual sports franchises that will be out first on current systems: 4
Games with a planned 2014 release date: 20
Games with a planned release date after 2014: 2
Games with an unknown release date (most likely 2014 or later): 7
Games first announced back in 2006: 1 (Final Fantasy XV)
Games that are largely about shooting and or hitting people/things: 23
Games primarily about role-playing or exploration (and sometimes shooting/hitting things too): 9
Sports games: 7
Games primarily about driving: 3
Games primarily about music: 3
Games primarily about building things: 2
Games based on existing franchises/licenses: 32
Games based on the Lego franchise: 2
Sequels to franchises that had a game in 2012: 9
Sequels to movie/game franchises that haven't seen a new release in at least five years: 5
Games that are exclusively or heavily controlled by Kinect: 4
Games that were originally announced for as Kinect-based Xbox 360 before becoming controller-based Xbox One exclusives: 1 (Ryse)
"Free to play" games: 1 (Killer Instinct, and possibly more)
Just for your reference (or if you want to check our math), here's the list of currently announced Xbox One titles straight from Microsoft:
The Heisenberg Conspiracy: Wired's posted a whole bunch of theories about how to read Breaking Bad and predict what'll happen at the end of the series. Some are way too out-there, but a couple are sharply observed and even a little bit mind-blowing.
In this ongoing series titled Unlikely, artist and photographer Giuseppe Colarusso imagines bizarre and humorous objects, each of which is either technically impossible, improbable, or simply useless in its proposed design. Colarusso tells me via email that many of the pieces he fabricates himself, however some are digitally created in Photoshop. So what’s the point? He hopes each image will make you stop, think and hopefully bring a smile to your face, which is definitely a worthy cause. Also, I would pay top dollar for that spray paint can with adjustable hue sliders, so could somebody make that? See some 50+ additional concepts over on his website. (via Bored Panda)
If you've been lamenting the closure of RSS reading app The Old Reader, its founders have some surprising news for you. After cutting new user registrations and announcing it would cease development of the web app just three days ago, The Old Reader team updated users with news that they have "received a number of proposals" to resurrect the service, later adding they were confident that it would reopen, but with "a proper team running it."
The team's updates suggest the company has been able to find funding or will end up handing over development to another party. Both Digg and Feedly moved fast to develop and overhaul their own RSS readers in the wake of Google Reader's termination on July 1st, leaving Anton Tolchanov, Elena Bulygina, and Dmitry Krasnoukhov exhausted. The team described their life as "hell in every possible aspect we could imagine" as they tried to keep pace with rival services. However, It appears this may no longer be an issue and the team say they will provide another update later this week, signing off their blog post with a grovelling apology: "Sorry about Monday. Again."
Here’s the new visual compilation of the upcoming anime series that will be aired for the upcoming Fall Season 2013 compiled by neregate. Looking at the list, I’ve shortlisted a couple that I plan to watch:
This is Boo. Earlier in the month Boo went to her first ever PAX, in Melbourne, Australia. Boo spent the weekend as a cosplay clotheshorse for her parents.
Ecuador international Christian "Chucho" Benitez died on Monday, a day after playing his first match for Qatari club El Jaish. He was 27.
In the confusion that erupted as the shocking news spread, the cause of death was not immediately clear. But, as pointed out by SB Nation's Callum Hamilton, this didn't stop Sports Illustrated and the Associated Press from trying to link Benitez's death to the summer heat in Qatar — a controversial issue as the possible decision to move the 2022 World Cup in Qatar to the winter in order to avoid dangerous temperatures continues to be fiercely debated. The AP's report notes that the Sheikh Jassim Cup match against Qatar Sports that would be Benitez's last "was played in hot and humid conditions, which are typical of the Persian Gulf at this time of year." It ends not with any words about Benitez or his life, but with explanation of the Qatar weather controversy.
Qatar will host the 2022 World Cup and the searing temperatures have prompted many former football stars as well as FIFA President Sepp Blatter to call for the competition to be moved to the cooler, winter months. Blatter plans to ask FIFA's executive committee later this year to move it.
The problem with invoking Qatar's weather as relevant information is that, at the time of these writings, there is no evidence to suggest that it is relevant. An official statement from the Ecuador FA said that Benitez was taken to a Hospital in Qatar with stomach pains and died hours later from cardiac arrest. And according to The Mirror, Benitez's father in law, Cleber Chala, told Ecuadorian radio that Benitez was diagnosed with appendicitis upon arrival at the hospital, which "developed into peritonitis and complications led to a respiratory arrest."
At this point, so much is still unknown and unconfirmed about what ended Benitez's life far too soon that to suggest an as of yet baseless connection to the much discussed weather that could face the 2022 World Cup comes off as an attempt to sensationalize what is already a great tragedy.
Here's a tribute video to Benitez made by former club Birmingham City, where he spent the 2009-10 season on loan from Santos Laguna. He only scored four goals that season (as opposed to the 52 he scored in his last two season with Club America), but he clearly made an indelible impression on the team as a person.
Apple released the information just a few moments ago in an email to registered developers, saying that sensitive emails, names, and physical addresses could have been compromised, and that it took the website down on Thursday to prevent any further damage:
Last Thursday, an intruder attempted to secure personal information of our registered developers from our developer website. Sensitive personal information was encrypted and cannot be accessed, however, we have not been able to rule out the possibility that some developers’ names, mailing addresses, and/or email addresses may have been accessed. In the spirit of transparency, we want to inform you of the issue. We took the site down immediately on Thursday and have been working around the clock since then.
In order to prevent a security threat like this from happening again, we’re completely overhauling our developer systems, updating our server software, and rebuilding our entire database. We apologize for the significant inconvenience that our downtime has caused you and we expect to have the developer website up again soon.
The last time Apple’s developer website went down, it was due to a rush on the company’s iOS 7 beta release in early June. This week’s outage, however, was longer-lived — for much of a day — and for a much more damaging reason.
Previous Apple hacks have all been clientside, often through vulnerabilities in the Java software the company used to ship with OS X, and occasionally via social-engineering attacks on iCloud passwords. This is potentially a much more serious issue, as there are 300,000 iOS developers in the U.S. alone, and probably well over a million globally.
Apple is a tempting target not just for its developers, but also for its users.
iCloud and iTunes have over 300 million accounts, all with juicy credit card information. An attacker who could penetrate Apple’s security in one place — the developer site, for instance — might be able to penetrate Apple’s security in other places. I’ve contacted Apple for more information on what the company is doing to protect those users and to ensure that none of their information has been affected.
Apple’s worst fear, of course, might be that hackers could gain access to its app store or the signing credential technology that certified iPhone apps as safe, known, and malware-free. Google recently had a major scare of exactly that category — which it so far appears to have been able to contain — and the last thing Apple wants is for its iPhone-buying public to consider the iOS ecosystem anywhere near as malware-laden as Android sometimes appears to be.
The front page of the site is currently live, but developers attempting to log into the site will find this message:
In order to prevent a security threat like this from happening again, we’re completely overhauling our developer systems, updating our server software, and rebuilding our entire database. We apologize for the significant inconvenience that our downtime has caused you and we expect to have the developer website up again soon.
Hayao has traditionally been somewhat of a pacifist, so some fans were a bit confused as to why he would choose a film like this to go out on. Some people think that it was strange for Hayao to choose the manufacturer of a vehicle of destruction as the star for his film, but Hayao doesn’t see it that way.
“Pipe down, Hayao.”
“I’m watching you.”
The Heisenberg Conspiracy: Wired's posted 
