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Businesses

World of Goo Dev Wants Big Publishers To Build Indie Teams 74

Posted by Soulskill from the and-a-pony dept.
Ron Carmel, co-founder of game developer 2D Boy, which created the indie hit World of Goo, gave a speech at Montreal International Games Summit in which he encourages large game publishers to put more time and money into smaller, indie-like teams. Quoting GameSetWatch: "'We need a medium-sized design studio. Something that is larger than a typical indie, but has the same propensity for of talent density, focus, and risk-taking,' said Carmel, formerly an employee of major publisher Electronic Arts prior to going independent. Notably, a focus on profit must be eliminated from the equation. 'Creating this within a major developer doesn't present a problem,' said Carmel. With a budget of $1-$2 million dollars, 10 staffers could be hired to work on 'creatively ambitious and forward-thinking projects.' He likened it to the automobile industry, which alongside its mainstream consumer products works on concept cars — few of which enter production as regular models. The concept car is, said Carmel, 'a marketing expense to build your brand, and say, "Look at all the amazing things we're creating."' It also helps with recruitment. Said Carmel, 'there's no reason the larger game companies can't do that.' He also said that developers must move away from the notion that a team comprised primarily of programmers and artists can create a great work. Why do Valve's games have such amazing environments? Because, said Carmel, 'Valve has architects on staff.'"
Microsoft

Windows 7 Benchmarks Show Little Improvement On Vista 369

Posted by kdawson from the second-verse-same-as-the-first dept.
snydeq writes "InfoWorld's Randall Kennedy examines Windows 7 from the kernel up, subjecting the 'pre-beta' to a battery of benchmarks to find any signs that the OS will be faster, more responsive, and less resource-intensive than the bloated Vista, as Microsoft suggests. Identical thread counts at the kernel level suggest to Kennedy that Windows 7 is a 'minor point-type of release, as opposed to a major update or rewrite.' Memory footprint for the kernel proved eerily similar to that of Vista as well. 'In fact, as I worked my way through the process lists of the two operating systems, I was struck by the extent of the similarities,' Kennedy writes, before discussing the results of a nine-way workload test scenario he performed on Windows 7 — the same scenario that showed Vista was 40 percent slower than Windows XP. 'In a nutshell, Windows 7 M3 is a virtual twin of Vista when it comes to performance,' Kennedy concludes. 'In other words, Microsoft's follow-up to its most unpopular OS release since Windows Me threatens to deliver zero measurable performance benefits while introducing new and potentially crippling compatibility issues.'"
Space

Journal Journal: Second Test Launch of SpaceX Falcon 1

Journal by Mick Ohrberg
The second test launch of the SpaceX Falcon 1 rocket took place today at 6:10 pm PST. After successfully having completed launch, first stage separation (2m 51s), second stage ignition (2m 55s), fairing separation (3m 16s), and reaching an altitude of 300 km, the vehicle was seen entering what is referred to as roll oscillations (4m 30s). Shortly thereafter, telemetry was lost. The second stage is assum

Feed Get a Job! Apple's Hiring (wired.com)

From feed by wiredfeed
Apple's iPod engineering division beefs up to get the iPhone out to eager consumers, posting more than 30 jobs in engineering and QA. In Cult of Mac.


Feed Futuristic Fridge Mimics Tree (wired.com)

From feed by wiredfeed
The Tree House Fridge looks like a Wile E. Coyote prop -- a multi-chambered whatnot box rather than a big, cold rectangle. Separate branches hold meat, cheese, produce and other stuff -- cool! In Gadget Lab.


Feed Toyota Fights a Sea of Recalls (wired.com)

From feed by wiredfeed
The company's attention to detail verges on OCD and consumer problems bring out more than ritual self-abasement. Toyota's first full-time quality chief cracks down to catch and fix glitches early. In Autopia.


The Courts

Submission + - Cisco lost rights to iPhone trademark last year?

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: An investigation into the ongoing trademark dispute between Cisco and Apple over the name "iPhone" appears to show that Cisco does not own the mark as claimed in their recent lawsuit. This is based on publicly available information from the US Patent and Trademark office, as well as public reviews of Cisco products over the past year. The trademark was apparently abandoned in late 2005/early 2006 because Cisco was not using it. TFA: http://blogs.zdnet.com/Burnette/?p=236

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