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Google

Google Straightens Out Its Stance On Paid Apps 55

Posted by kdawson
Julie188 writes "When the Android Market began offering paid apps last month, developers with the unlocked version of Google's Android phone quickly learned that they couldn't access them. The policy, which threatened to alienate the small developer base that Google needs to nurture at all costs, didn't make much sense. And now, with the release of Version 1.1 of Android for the developer phone, developers can access paid apps — as long as they aren't copy-protected. But in a weird way, that's good news. Very few developers currently copy-protect their Android apps simply because Android's copy-protection scheme is notoriously weak."
Wine

DirectX 10 Coming To Linux and Mac 152

Posted by Soulskill from the work-in-progress dept.
twickline writes "Jeremy White posted the 2009 roadmap for Crossover, and wrote, 'We've just shipped a lot of those "under the hood" improvements for games out in CrossOver Games 7.2. We're really pushing Direct X 9 support pretty far along, and getting ready to move on Direct X 10. ... In addition to our normal work of broadening and deepening our application support in Wine, we're going to try to dramatically improve the CrossOver GUI itself. First, the Linux version will get a fresh new look. But both versions are going to get an interface that we hope will bring the power of the Compatibility Center right into the installation view. The key idea is to make it easier to distill the gathered wisdom on unsupported applications and make it far easier to use.'"
Software

Safari 4 Released, Claimed "30 Times Faster Than IE7" 465

Posted by timothy from the don-your-pith-helmet dept.
CNETNate writes "Apple has released the beta version of Safari 4 for Mac and PC, with claims that its Nitro rendering engine is '30 times faster than IE7,' and three times faster than Firefox 3. Other new features include 'Top Sites,' which shows users the most frequently visited Web pages, 'Full History Search' for searching through not only the URLs and titles of visited pages, but also the complete text within the page itself — something Opera has been doing for a while."
PlayStation (Games)

PS2 the Most Played Console In 2008 172

Posted by Soulskill from the helps-that-they-sold-140-million-of-them dept.
An anonymous reader writes "In terms of console usage, the aging PS2 still leads the competition, according to data from US research firm Nielsen. Data the company compiled between January and October 2008 shows that the PS2 commanded 31.7 percent of the total number of minutes spent playing consoles. Only 37.9 percent of play time took place on current-gen systems, with the Xbox 360 (17.2 percent) leading the Wii (13.4 percent) and the PS3 (7.3 percent). Users even spent more time playing on the original Xbox (9.7 percent) than the PS3, while Nintendo's GameCube (4.6 percent) wasn't far behind Sony's new console either." World of Warcraft once again topped the most-played PC game list by a large margin. Tetris was the top mobile game, followed by Bejeweled and Guitar Hero III.
PC Games (Games)

Why Game Developers Should Support OS X and Linux 283

Posted by Soulskill from the good-faith dept.
kevind23 writes "Although Mac OS X and Linux have a small (but growing) market share, Jeff from Wolfire Games argues that supporting non-Windows platforms can lead to a huge increase in game sales. Using their popular game Lugaru as an example, he shows how less-popular platforms, or more specifically, their userbase can be a powerful advertising force. This can lead to a dramatic increase in popularity and exposure, which usually means a large boost in overall sales. The short article is an interesting read, especially for those working in game development and sales."
Games

Is the Gaming PC Dead? 417

Posted by Soulskill from the no-way-dude-check-out-my-$8000-alienware dept.
An anonymous reader writes "Rahul Sood, HP's CTO of gaming, argues that the days of a market that wants PCs running three $500 GPUs is history; he argues that it's really a tough or impossible sell. '... let's face it, high-end hardware has delivered diminishing returns in terms of value. This is why you don't see ridiculous offerings like Quad SLI and 2-kilowatt power supplies coming from our company.' But don't the ideas of customization and market pricing for components tend to undercut that? Is the gaming PC dead?"

Is JavaScript Ready For Creating Quality Games? 165

Posted by Soulskill from the pac-man-thinks-so dept.
kumpetan writes "After seeing so many games built with JavaScript, and considering the applications it powers and the use of Ajax, it seems like web developers are now in the game development pot. It is getting easier and more popular with libraries like jQuery, MooTools, Prototype, etc. There are even libraries like Game JS, GameQuery or JavaScript GameLib, specifically for this purpose. So, will we start to see more ambitious game projects arise using these tools?"
PC Games (Games)

Will Consoles Merge Back Into PCs? 356

Posted by Soulskill from the it's-a-definite-possibility dept.
GamePolitics is running an interview with Randy Stude, president of the PC Gaming Alliance, discussing the future of gaming on the PC and the console. Stude has some interesting thoughts regarding the long-term viability of stand-alone consoles: "The guts of every console should tell you that the capability is there for the PC to act as the central point for all the consoles. If you bought a PC and as part of that equation you said, Okay, when you're on the phone with Dell, 'Hey, Dell, on this PC, this new notebook I'm buying, can you make sure it has the PlayStation 4 option built into it?' Well, why not? Why shouldn't that be the case? [Sony is] certainly not making any money on the hardware. I mean, can't they create a stable enough environment to specify that if Dell's going to sell that notebook and say that it's PlayStation 4 [compatible] that it must have certain ingredients and it must meet certain criteria? Absolutely they could [do] that. Are they going to do it? I don't know. I predict that they will. I predict that all of the console makers over time will recognize that it's too expensive to develop the proprietary solution and recognize the value of collapsing back on the PC as a ubiquitous platform."
Programming

Comparison of Nine Ruby Implementations 75

Posted by timothy from the shades-of-corundum dept.
An anonymous reader writes "Zen and the Art of Programming published a new version of The Great Ruby Shootout, which was aimed at testing the performances of multiple Ruby implementations. On the benchmark table this time around are Ruby 1.8 (on GNU/Linux and Windows), Ruby 1.9 (aka Yarv), Ruby Enterprise Edition (aka REE), JRuby 1.1.6RC1, Rubinius, MagLev, MacRuby 0.3 and IronRuby. The results of this comprehensive comparison show that for this set of benchmarks, Ruby 1.9.1 is almost 5 times faster than the notoriously slow Ruby 1.8. Is Ruby finally going to be acceptably fast?"
Data Storage

Optimizing Linux Use On a USB Flash Drive? 137

Posted by timothy from the right-here-in-my-pocket dept.
Buckbeak writes "I like to carry my Linux systems around with me, on USB flash drives. Typically, SanDisk Cruzers or Kingston HyperX. I encrypt the root partition and boot off the USB stick. Sometimes, the performance leaves something to be desired. I want to be able to do an 'apt-get upgrade' or 'yum update' while surfing but the experience is sometimes painful. What can I do to maximize the performance of Linux while running off of a slow medium? I've turned on 'noatime' in the mount options and I don't use a swap partition. Is there any way to minimize drive I/O or batch it up more? Is there any easy way to run in memory and write everything out when I shut down? I've tried both EXT2 and EXT3 and it doesn't seem to make much difference. Any other suggestions?"
GNU is Not Unix

Creative GPLs X-Fi Sound Card Driver Code 369

Posted by timothy from the intelligent-move dept.
An anonymous reader writes "In a move that's a win for the free software community, Creative Labs has decided to release their binary Linux driver for the Creative Sound Blaster X-Fi and X-Fi Titanium sound cards under the GPL license. This is coming after several failed attempts at delivering a working binary driver and years after these sound cards first hit the market."
Software

Wayland, a New X Server For Linux 487

Posted by kdawson from the at-least-it's-not-called-Y dept.
An anonymous reader writes "Phoronix has a new article out on Wayland: A New X Server For Linux. One of Red Hat's engineers has started writing a new X11 server around today's needs and to eliminate the cruft that has been in this critical piece of free software for more than a decade. This new server is called Wayland and it is designed with newer hardware features like kernel mode-setting and a kernel memory manager for graphics. Wayland is also dramatically simpler to target for in development. A compositing manager is embedded into the Wayland server and ensures 'every frame is perfect' according to the project's leader."

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