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Tuesday, August 6, 2013

EA reinvents Tetris on iOS by adding monsters

Tetris is one of the most popular games of all time, selling over 70 million copies on various consoles and handheld devices, as well as over 100 million copies on cell phones. So it makes sense that whoever owns the publishing rights at the moment wants to continue releasing new games carrying the Tetris name.

That company is EA, and their new take on the series is calledTetris Monsters.

Tetris Monsters has just been announced for release in Japan. It’s set to be a free-to-play title on iOS and is currently only confirmed for Japan this summer. It differs from previous Tetris games by adding a monster-collecting/battling element to the gameplay.

Although details are sparse, it looks as though EA has decided to copy the formula that has made GungHo Online Entertainment’sPuzzle & Dragons game so popular. In P&G, the gameplay combines a monster fighting rpg with a match 3 gem game. Basically, you progress through dungeons by using your match 3 skills to defeat any enemies you encounter. In the case of Tetris Monsters, EA has swapped out the gem matching for Tetris.

It’s understandable why EA has chosen to take this route and target Japan first. Puzzle & Dragons is currently the number one grossing app on both iOS and Android and counts 16 million downloads in Japan alone.

The money P&G generates is through in-app purchases that require the player regularly spend about $1 in order to retain any rewards, stamina, and progress they have made over the past hour or more of play. Using the tactic of “if you don’t spend you lose a lot” clearly works as P&G is thought to generate upwards of $62 million a month. I expect EA will attempt to use the same tactic for Tetris Monsters.

EA reinvents Tetris on iOS by adding monsters

That company is EA, and their new take on the series is calledTetris Monsters.

Doom 4 didn’t feel like Doom, so id Software started again

There’s very few game developers that have the luxury of making a game, realizing it isn’t good enough, and scrapping it to start all over again. But id Software is one of those developers, and that’s exactly what they have done with Doom 4.

The 4th game in the Doom series was originally announced back in 2009. It was (and still is) expected to use the id Tech 5 engine and see a release on PC, PS3, and Xbox 360. However, in 2011 theproject was restarted, and id Software’s studio director Tim Willits has now explained why during QuakeCon 2013.

When they looked at the state of Doom 4 in 2011, when the art was in place and most of the programming done, the team realized it just wasn’t Doom. By that Willits means it, “did not have the spirit, it did not have the soul, it didn’t have a personality.” There was nothing wrong with any specific aspect of the game, it just didn’t feel like a Doom game and id weren’t prepared to release it in that state.

It’s nice to know that id Software is willing and able to look at a game, realize it isn’t good enough, and go back to the drawing board. If they had released it anyway, the Doom name would have still ensured millions of sales, but the name would have quite probably been tarnished. Now, we can hopefully expect a much better version, and probably a much larger game as it’s unlikely they’d throw away the art and level design from those first two years of development.

Right now, Doom 4 is the only major project id Software is working on, but as ever there’s no set release date. It will be ready when it’s ready, and hopefully it will be a game we enjoy playing over and over again just like the original.

Jeff Bezos just bought the Washington Post for $250 million in cash

Jeff Bezos, otherwise known as the founder of Amazon, just bought the Washington Post for $250 million in cash. For fans of the Washington Post, Amazon won’t have anything to do with the company, and the only influence Bezos will have on a day-to-day basis is that The Post Co. will change to a new name, which is currently undecided.

Amazon will not be involved because this was a personal purchase by Bezos, who made clear that he will not be leading the Post on a daily basis, and that the current team of leadership will remain on-board. The Post will continue life as a publicly traded company, just under that new, currently undecided name. Donald Graham, chief executive of the Post said that his family — who owned the Post for four generations — would not have dreamed of selling, but quietly shopped the organization around and began to think differently when Bezos was a potential buyer. Graham cited a long life as the reason to sell to Bezos, but explained that the Post could’ve continued living on its own. Selling to Bezos, however, gives the Post a greater chance at success.

Bezos, having never run a newspaper before — and quite frankly, running a business that sells a popular device that contributed to the decline of print — said that he is wading into uncharted territory, and that the Post will require some experimentation for a little while. He did note, though, that the values of the Post don’t need to change, so you don’t have to worry about the storied paper publishing lists featuring the best 26 moments from last night’s episode of New Girl.

Bezos will become the Posts’s only owner when the sale is completed, which is estimated to be around two months from now.

What it looks like to be flung into space away from Earth

If you’ve been eagerly awaiting the Alfonso Cuarón helmed thriller about being trapped up in space all alone with George Clooney and Sandra Bullock, Gravity, but have been wondering what it’d be like for real, then this time-lapse video of NASA should do the trick.

The Messenger spacecraft, which provides scientists with oodles of detailed information about Mercury, captured a great deal of imagery as it was flung away from Earth on August 2, 2005. The spacecraft’s camera, the Mercury Dual Imaging System (MDIS), snapped hundreds of images during a gravity-assisted swing-by of Earth. The images were pieced together, forming a short video of what it looked like being flung from Earth.

The video is composed of 358 frames shot over a full 24 hours, and showcases a full rotation of Earth. When the camera began snapping photos it was 40,761 miles above South America, and when it the final image was captured, the camera was 270,847 miles from Earth, which is farther than the Moon’s orbit.

As NASA notes, the Earth is so bright, that the background stars aren’t visible in the images.

Though different from Sandra Bullock’s dramatic wild ride through space, seeing the Earth quickly shrink in size as it moves into the distance, surrounded by nothing but black, is certainly nerve-racking. Messenger doesn’t even have George Clooney’s dulcet tones to calm it down. In fact, when Messenger completes its mission, it will crash into the surface of Mercury — something even George Clooney couldn’t save.

Thursday, August 1, 2013

10Gbps USB 3.1 spec finalized, compatible gadgets expected next year

Back in June we reported that the USB Implementers Forum and Intel were working on the spec for USB 3.5. That would see data transfer speeds increased to 10Gbps compared to the 5Gbps USB 3.0 currently offers. Less than two months on and the revised spec has been finalized, albeit with the name USB 3.1 rather than 3.5.

USB 3.1 (also known as Superspeed+) will remain backwards compatible with existing USB equipment, however, you are going to have to invest in new equipment to take advantage of those 10Gbps transfer speeds. Devices offering support should appear next year once the developer days in August, October, and December have been completed. Taiwan’s ASMedia is expected to be the first company to offer a USB 3.1 host controller early next year.

USB 3.1 is being viewed as a stop gap solution on the way to USB 4.0, but one that was required to try and keep pace withThunderbolt, which offers both 10Gbps and 20Gbps data transfer speeds. USB does hold the advantage though, with so much more support on the market for the standard.

For now, know that USB 3.1 kit will be arriving next year and we should learn more about the new standard once the developer days kick off later this month on August 21. Also don’t forget that the USB 3.0 spec is being improved to allow up to 100 watts of power output to be handled, meaning you may be able to ditch a few power leads in the near future.

Hands on with the Samsung Ativ Book 8

In a continued effort to chase down the elusive “no compromise” design for a laptop, Samsung’s Ativ Book 8 offers power and touch with impressive battery life and a nice display.

Ultrabooks are a great way to accomplish portable computing, but you inevitably sacrifice something with that design. The light and thin designs are amazing for sliding into your bag and heading out to work, but rarely are you able to do so without also packing your power cord. If you are able to go without your power cord, you’re probably stuck with a 128GB or smaller SSD with not enough RAM to perform complicated tasks. Samsung has made a laptop that packs the right amount of storage, processing power, RAM, and an 8 hour battery that adds up to a machine that is a little too heavy to truly be an Ultrabook.

Samsung’s 5.6 pound laptop comes with a 10-finger 1080p touch display that is fantastic as long as you are alright with reflecttve surfaces. Outside of being a serious fingerprint magnet, the laptop previously known as the Series 7 Chronos isn’t quite bright enough to use outdoors. You’ll be fine in brightly lit rooms, but in direct sunlight the laptop dowen’t stand a chance.

The 1TB 5600 RPM drive in the Ativ Book 8 causes it to feel a little sluggish on startup compared to its SSD wielding siblings, but the obvious trade off there is the significant boost in storage. Anything else you go to do with this laptop is nice and fast, the 2.4GHz Core i7 and 8GB of RAM deliver more than enough power for most serious tasks and casual gaming.

The Ativ Book 8 fits squarely in the desktop replacement category. It’s just enough hardware that you can do anything with it, and just heavy enough that you have to think about it before picking it up and hefting it around. It has 4 USB ports, an SD card slot, an HDMI slot, and an ethernet port. As long as you don’t need an optical drive, there’s no reason this couldn’t replace a desktop for most productivity users.

The touch pad and the touch screen both respond to Windows 8commands, allowing you to take advantage of the Modern UI however you choose. The 15.6-inch form factor makes it just small enough that it is still comfortable to reach out and touch the screen, but just big enough to deserve a full sized backlit keyboard.

Despite being slightly heavier than a 15-inch Macbook Pro, the Ativ Book 8 feels like a great machine. Its very clearly targeting users who want just a little more than an Ultrabook can offer, and at $1,100 it’s priced to compete with most of the devices in that category.