By Mark Milian, Feb 22, 2011

Software developers will be able to tap into the Kinect gaming system thanks to an application builder that Microsoft plans to release this spring, the company announced Monday. With this new development kit, Microsoft is hoping its innovative, controller-free camera system will woo more developers to Windows. Many developers have shifted their focus from desktops toward mobile platforms like Apple's iOS and Google's Android. Unlike current Kinect games, which can be played only on an Xbox 360 game console, these apps would run on Windows computers connected to the device. Enterprising app makers hoping to get in early on some kind of Kinect app gold rush will have to wait, however. This first version, slated to release by late June, is being offered only to volunteers willing to give their programs away for free. Microsoft has a name for this target audience: "enthusiasts and academic researchers." Microsoft says it plans to release a version later for people who want to sell their apps but declined to provide a time frame. Company spokespeople also declined to make executives available for interviews. Developers have been attracted to the Kinect technology because unlike normal webcams, Microsoft's gadget has a depth sensor, making it more useful as a controller. 

Read more here –>edition.cnn.com

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By Rick Merritt 2/15/2011 repost here 2/22/2011

Both Advanced Micro Devices and Intel are expected to sample this year PC chip sets that integrate support for the new USB 3.0 interface. The chips are expected to be in production early next year, as much as two years later than originally expected. Official word on the AMD and Intel chips could come as early as March 9. That's when the USB Implementers Forum holds a developers conference in Amsterdam and is expected to release news about USB 3.0. Multiple sources said the chips have already appeared in an early form at plugfests hosted by the USB-IF where vendors conduct interoperability testing. One source said the Intel chips sets were implemented in FPGAs, and other sources said AMD is ahead with sample chips now in the process of getting certification. Intel originally planned to sample chip sets supporting USB 3.0 in early 2010 but pushed out its plans, disappointing many companies banking on a fast uptake of the interface. USB 3.0 revs the 480 Mbit/s USB 2.0 spec up a theoretical maximum data rate of 5 GTransfers/second. Both AMD and Intel declined to comment on the reports. The emergence of PC chip sets supporting the USB 3.0 specification will seed a broad market for peripheral devices supporting the spec. To date the market has moved relatively slowly due to the need for separate discrete USB host controllers, an added cost that PC makers sometimes avoid. To date, only two companies are shipping USB 3.0 host controllers certified by the USB IF. Renesas is by far the leader, shipping a two-port chip. Fresco Logic is shipping a single-port host and has a dual-port host in the certification process. "Last year was limited to high-end PC models and adapter cards," said a spokesman for Renesas. "We are seeing a big uptick in number of models [using USB 3.0] this year," he said. 

Read more here –>eetimes.com

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By Chris Foresman Feb. 22,2011

While some publishers have bemoaned Apple's new rules regarding subscription based content, certain developers are starting to feel the pinch as well. Arc90, developer of the Readability Web service, has taken Apple to task for rejecting Readability's native iOS client on the grounds that it doesn't abide by the new subscription rules. Keyone Productions, maker of TinyGrab, has also decided to not even finish developing its iOS app, claiming Apple's rules are so confounding that it is impossible for the company to make an "acceptable" app. Arc90's Rich Ziade wrote an "open letter" to Apple after receiving a rejection notice for Readability. The Readability service works via a bit of JavaScript code that reformats Web pages into an easy-to-read format that strips out ads and other elements not related to the main text. The company recently launched a web-based subscription service in which 70 percent of the money collected is paid to site publishers based on the content that its subscribers read—ostensibly paying those publishers for lost ad revenue. Readability keeps the remaining 30 percent. Ziade complained that Apple's wording of its rules includes not just apps that offer content, but also "functionality or services." From Apple's point of view, Readability is offering a paid service without offering a method to pay for that service within the app itself using the in-app purchasing APIs, and for that reason rejected the app. However, according to Ziade, "if we implemented In App purchasing, your 30 percent cut drastically undermines a key premise of how Readability works"—namely that 70 percent of the revenue goes to writers and publishers. Ziade's complaint is a bit disingenuous, since Arc90 is keeping a 30 percent cut for itself for essentially reformatting websites and removing ads. But Readability's model is unique in that it does offer readers a way to "pay" for the content they read more or less on a per-article basis. Giving Apple a 30 percent cut of the total revenue means Arc90 would either have to forgo its own cut or renegotiate terms with publishers. 

Read more here –>arstechnica.com

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By Michael Kan Feb 17, 2011

Chinese PC maker Lenovo plans on selling its LePad tablet worldwide in June, but will first launch the device in China at the end of March, a company spokesman said on Friday. The LePad, Lenovo's first tablet computer, was unveiled in January during the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas. The device is built with 10.1-inch screen that runs the Android 2.2 OS on a 1.2GHz Qualcomm Snapdragon processor. Lenovo said the device would be priced between $399 and $449. But at the time, the company was still unsure whether it would sell the product outside of China. While Lenovo now plans on selling the tablet overseas, company spokesman Jay Chen couldn't say which markets will be targeted. Lenovo is the world's fourth largest PC maker, and dominates the Chinese market. Recently, it has began developing products in the emerging areas of tablets and smartphones. Last month, the company established a new business unit focused on developing such gadgets. Tablet shipments are expected to reach 54.8 million units in 2011, up 181 percent from the previous year, according to research firm Gartner. Other PC makers like Hewlett-Packard, Dell and Acer are also shifting their focus toward developing more tablets. 

Read more here –>www.pcworld.com

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By Mark Hachman February 17, 2011

Advanced Micro Devices plans to launch an opportunistic ad campaign on Friday designed to lure channel partners worried about Intel's "Cougar Point" chip flaw. Dubbed "Ready. Willing. And Stable," the campaign will kick off with a global advertising program, online marketing campaign, and a Twitter-based contest that will run over the next 8 to 10 weeks, the company said. "It's really to emphasize the point that whatever difficulties [customers] may find themselves in at this point in time, we're there with competitive products," said Tim Martin, AMD's director of marketing for the channel. Intel discovered the "Cougar Point" flaw at the end of January and resumed shipments about a week later, but only under certain specified conditions where both Intel and the OEM could guarantee that the flaw would not manifest. Because the Cougar Point chip left only the first two SATA ports unaffected, this meant that OEMs could ship a "closed" product like a notebook with only a system hard drive and an optical drive. Intel has also said that it has already begun production of the fixed Cougar Point chip. Still, that has left distributors and white-box resellers with a hole in their inventory that AMD hopes to fill. AMD executives have been quoted saying that the Cougar Point misstep represented a tactical opportunity. According to Martin, that represents a chance for AMD to engage with the large multinational distributors like Avnet, both to fill holes in their inventories as well as to cement longer-term relationships. 

Read more here –>www.pcmag.com

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By CTV.ca News Staff Feb. 18 2011

He is the face of one of the biggest tech companies in the world. But with rumours swirling that Apple CEO Steve Jobs is dying, many observers are wondering about the future of the company he co-founded. The supermarket tabloid, the National Enquirer reported this week that Jobs has just six weeks left to live. It says the billionaire is being treated at the Stanford Cancer Center in Palo Alto, California, the same hospital where actor Patrick Swayze sought treatment before his pancreatic cancer death. The Enquirer also posted grainy photos of what it says is Jobs, looking extremely gaunt. While the predictions of Jobs' imminent death appear to be guesswork of Enquirer reporters, it's likely that Jobs' health is poor. Last month, the 55-year-old stepped away from Apple to take his third medical leave in seven years. The tabloid reports likely won't affect Apple's stock prices today – particularly given the source of the rumours. But the possibility of Jobs' death is raising questions about the long-term health of his company. Apple's identity has long been closely linked to its founding CEO, who helped create unique, coveted products and made his company one of the best known brands on the planet, despite intense competition from the corporate behemoth that is Microsoft. 

Read more here –>calgary.ctv.ca

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By Mike Snider Feb. 15, 2011

Most fans of role-playing games can only imagine themselves in their favorite alternate universe. Felicia Day actually gets to become part of the lore. Already well-known to video-game fans as the creator of Web comedy series The Guild about online game players, the actress has written and stars in a new Web series, Dragon Age: Redemption, based in the world of BioWare's role-playing Dragon Age game franchise. Day's six-episode run, due to hit the Web this year, is set in Ferelden, the same fantasy land in which 2009's Dragon Age: Origins and the upcoming sequel Dragon Age II play out. In the Tolkienesque sword-and-sorcery adventure game, several races join forces to combat a scourge called the Darkspawn (think of them as cousins to the orcs in The Lord of the Rings). A peek at the Dragon Age II narrative shows Day wrote an original story line around a character for herself, Tallis, an Elven assassin. 

Read more here –>www.usatoday.com

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