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Facebook is adding donate buttons to charity Live videos
After spending a week battling a fake news epidemic, getting to grips with privacy regulators in Europe and dealing with another admission of misreporting ad data, Facebook finally has some good news to share. In a bid to do more "social good," Mark Zuckerberg and his team have announced a new round of updates to community tools aimed at keeping users safe and allowing them to help others.
BlackBerry bids farewell to its hardware past by acquiring Good
If you had any lingering doubts that BlackBerry's days as a hardware-first company are over, they've just been eliminated. BlackBerry has acquired Good Technology for $425 million, giving it one of the better-known names involved in making smartphones work-friendly. The crew in Waterloo isn't shy about the reasons behind its move, either. Good is well-known for helping corporations and governments keep tabs on non-BlackBerry platforms, especially iOS. While BlackBerry already has some tools for this, the deal both improves its weak points and gives it a foot in the door at places where Good may be the only way to secure Android or iOS gear -- the firm has certifications that even BlackBerry lacks.
Storyboard: Moral framework
Every so often, I start a column and it just doesn't come together. So my original plans for this week's article are being changed. I could technically go back and edit last week's piece to erase any evidence that plans had changed, but that would just be wrong. That segues nicely into this week's actual topic: morality. We generally paint morality in broader strokes than is necessarily beneficial, as evidenced by the fact that I just said that something as harmless as editing an old article could be considered wrong. Obviously it's not harming anyone, but because of standards that I impose on myself, I feel as if it's the wrong course of action to take. Pretty much all of your characters have moral codes, and if you're not thinking about them consciously, those codes can easily default to the same ones that you have. I've touched on that idea before, but there's more to it than that. When you get right down to it, your characters need their own codes, some of which you might even find personally repugnant.
Good Technology debuts 'first secure browser' for enterprise Android deployments
Good Technology is touting the latest addition to its Good Mobile Access (GMA) Android software suite, a secure browser. The company's GMA offering gives corporate foot soldiers armed with a smartphone access to secure intranet resources without having to initiate a VPN session -- while simultaneously allowing IT folks to manage mobile ingress. By bringing a browser into the fold, Good's software will allow employees to access databases, resources and collaboration tools without ever having to leave the safe confines of GMA's sandbox. The software maker is targeting outfits with a bring-your-own-device policy in place (and war chests large enough to install the necessary back-end infrastructure). If you're interested in learning more, the full release awaits your review after the break.
Beta Testing 101: Good group etiquette
The most crucial piece of information for you to remember while beta testing is that the process can be grueling and frustrating. Servers will go up and down, instances will crash, and above all, the people playing the expansion's beta will be just as inexperienced as you are with the content. Here are some etiquette tips on how to stay calm during a productive group session during beta. Be patient. Patience is essential to the beta process. Flaws in the software or gameplay are not discovered without time for those problems to manifest. Be a good tester and log on to WoW with the mindset that you might not be in for the smoothest run. As a beta tester, your patience will be tried. You'll wipe, fail, screw up, die, whatever. It's a game that you're helping to make just that much better. Put aside the gung-ho group attitude and talk to your team about testing -- that helps me focus on the task at hand.
Apple tops Android in enterprise; little green robot still gunning for corner office
BlackBerry used to rule the boardroom, but over the past few years we've seen a steady uptick in the number of enterprise users switching to their OS of choice. So who's going to be the successor to the BlackBerry throne? Well, according to Good's latest report, Apple devices have fast become the preferred companions for its customers, and it looks like the iPad's leading the way. The enterprise provider shows that in Q2 2011, users activated more iPads than Android smartphones and tablets combined. What's more, iPads made up 95 percent of tablet activations, with Android tablets taking in only 3.1 percent. Smartphone adoption was a slight bit more balanced, but Apple still came out on top with 66 percent over Android's 33 percent. That's all well and good, but what we really want to know is who's got the stuff to win the three-legged race at the company picnic? For those of you visual learners, a representative bar graph of Good's results awaits you after the break.
Good Technology sees boost in iPhone, iPad activations in Q1
A few months ago, enterprise mobile integrator Good Technology reported on the second round of metrics from its device activation data. The story showed strong growth for Android phones; while the iPhone remained in first place, but the curves were getting closer. In the first quarter of this year, however, something rather disruptive happened. In the company's latest report [PDF], released today, the iPhone has widened the gap again -- and it's largely due to the Verizon effect. "There's no doubt that Verizon's launch of the iPhone 4, combined with AT&T's response on the discounted 3GS devices, certainly gave iPhones a bit of a lift," says Good's SVP of Corporate Strategy, John Herrema. "What we were seeing in the 4th quarter was that Android was trending upward and getting close to catching up," he says, "but in the first quarter of 2011 the iPhone has reasserted itself as the leading platform, at least with activations by our customers." The Verizon iPhone launch apparently resulted in the highest rate of activation (16.9 percent) for any new device since Good has been publicly tracking and publishing reports (Q3 2010). The tablet story is dramatically more one-sided, with the iPad and iPad 2 generating almost all of the tablet activations Good saw in the quarter. iPads represented about 20% of all device activations seen on the system, with Android tablets creeping in and reaching the 1% mark for the first time. "We're seeing the tablet momentum continuing, really driven by iPad and iPad 2," said Herrema. "We're starting to see the first glimmers of Android tablets showing up on the scene. It'll be interesting to see how that plays out in the 2nd quarter, especially as Honeycomb [Android 3.0] shows up on more devices besides the Motorola Xoom." Overall, iOS devices made up just under 70% of all device activations Good measured during the quarter. As before, Good's visibility into the enterprise is solid but not comprehensive; it cannot measure BlackBerry deployment volumes, nor does it support Windows 7 phones at this time. Nevertheless, as a proxy for deployments of the devices it does support, Good's numbers are (sorry) pretty good.
The Daily Grind: What motivates your faction choice?
Most MMOs have some sort of factional component, even if the mechanics and options aren't directly identified by a "faction" label. Whether it's heroes and villains in DC Universe Online, Alliance and Horde in World of Warcraft, or the Albion, Hibernia, and Midgard trifecta from Dark Age of Camelot, creating a character in an MMO usually requires some sort of alignment choice. Often this choice boils down to a good or evil stereotype, and while roleplayers and lore enthusiasts may argue that "the Horde isn't evil" (or similar arguments from other games and factions), the fact remains that the Horde's visual palette is filled with imagery and concepts that have signified evil throughout much of human history. In today's Daily Grind, we'd like to know why you pick particular factions, and if the visual or lore-centric baggage they carry influences your decision. Do you usually roll characters that are good? Evil? Neutral? Why? Every morning, the Massively bloggers probe the minds of their readers with deep, thought-provoking questions about that most serious of topics: massively online gaming. We crave your opinions, so grab your caffeinated beverage of choice and chime in on today's Daily Grind!
Dungeon Finder reactions from players
The long-awaited Dungeon Finder is finally out on the servers, and people have had a few days with it now, so let's jump in and gauge some early reactions. Overall, it seems to be a big hit -- tanks and healers are jumping into groups right away, and while we've heard of longer waits for DPS, it doesn't seem bad at all. While of course the initial flood of people brought instance servers down (I'd expect to see the same thing happen during peak time this weekend), everything seems to be working well since then: disenchanters are correctly dropping items out, loot is getting distributed correctly, and groups are doing what they were always supposed to do: rake in the badges and rewards for players. Hots and Dots actually has a long take on the Dungeon Finder, including "15 Things You Should Know," like that tanks and healers are still as important as ever (if you sign up for DPS and another role, you likely won't be doing DPS), and that we're finding out very quickly just how skilled or knowledgeable people really are ("the Party Leader will be forced to confess midway [through] that they actually know nothing about the instance").
The Daily Grind: Why do people love to play the good guys?
When you look at MMOs like World of Warcraft, Warhammer Online, and Aion*, you'll find that the "good guys" are usually the most popular. The primary conflicts in these games are between Alliance vs. Horde, Order vs. Destruction, and Elyos vs. Asmodian and it seems that more people choose to play on the side of good than evil. That "evil" is actually more of a "misunderstood" in two out of the three games I mentioned, yet the perception seems to stick.Is it because we were all raised on fairy tales that hammered strong values and good morals into our heads? Maybe it's because the general trend in storytelling predominantly focuses on heroes of virtue? There are even stories about anti-heroes. Flawed though they may be, these protagonists still manage to absolve themselves of their sins and save the day most of the time.I usually choose to play the villain in MMOs because I see them as the underdog. It isn't something I consciously think about but maybe there's part of me that wants to see the bad guy shine for a change. That doesn't mean I root for the latest serial killer on the nightly news, but in a fantasy world I want to escape from my normal role as a model citizen and cause a little mayhem in a place that doesn't hurt anyone.* Aion Korea, where the game is actually released.
Motorola flips Good Technology to Visto after brief, fruitless marriage
A little over two years after acquiring push email and mobile fleet management provider Good Technology for well over $400 million dollars in an apparent bid to out-BlackBerry BlackBerry, Motorola's giving up. Little consumer-facing goodness has come from the acquisition in the brief time the two firms were locked in holy matrimony, but Good's new suitor -- fellow mobile email player Visto -- seems like a better fit for the company, and in all likelihood, they're picking it up at a fire-sale price on account of the down economy and Moto's many, many misfortunes. Got anything else to sell up in that creaky attic of yours, Moto? Like a cool phone, fr'instance?
Why is Destruction more popular than Order?
There exists an interesting theory concerning gamer preference of good vs. evil. It is said that in World of Warcraft, as in many other games, the "good" seems to be the most popular choice. Most people want to be the pretty human character, save the princess and become the hero.Enter Warhammer Online, where the majority of players have flocked to the Destruction side. This isn't simply the 'darker' side, this is the burn-down-your-house evil side. This is the stuff-a-dwarf-in-a-barrel-and-toss-him-off-a-castle-wall evil side. So why do players relate more to this type of bad guy persona? Relmstein has some theories about this over at his blog, which include the fact that Mythic focused much of their hype on the Destruction side. Check out his post for the rest of his five reasons why Destruction is more popular than Order, and let us know what you think.
"Good" items in the land of the Lich King
Silrad has an interesting request for the next expansion: he would like some "good" looking items, please.No, not necessarily "attractive" items-- rather, he wants some items that look like they could be wielded by someone fighting for right, for truth, and for justice. Since Blackwing Lair in vanilla WoW, most of the higher level items look scary-- they're black and spiky, with dark magics streaming around them. Not exactly the kind of thing that a true worshipper of the Light would want to be seen with. I get what Silrad's saying-- he's not a hardcore RPer, but he wants to look like a good guy, and it's tough to do that when your shield has skulls all over it.Unfortunately, considering who we'll probably be going after in Northrend, odds are that we're in for more gothic, frosty death armor. But there is good news-- Blizzard has already said that even though we're headed into a place where they have something called the Frozen Throne, it's not going to be all ice and snow. There will be at least one Dwarven instance, and you know those Dwarves are interested in: your regular old shiny, gleaming, good-guy steel.True, if you're playing a class called a "Death Knight," your armor can't really be pink and frilly-- it's got to have some skulls, black plating, and blue magic on it. But hopefully the artists on Wrath will find a few places to put some good old "knight in shining armor" armor out there for us.
Is "ugly" the new beautiful, and "evil" the new good? [Updated]
I have a question for all the Horde and warlock players out there -- as well as anyone who plays their character in a so-called "evil" way. But first, let me explain where I'm coming from.As you know, one of the main differences between the Alliance and the Horde is their sense of style. In fact, the question of what looks and feels good to players of either side may be one of the biggest areas of disagreement that actually exists between them. To a lesser extent, this sort of disagreement exists between classes as well. Warlocks give off a very different feeling from Paladins for example, and different people are attracted to each sort of "aura."Like many players, my sense of aesthetics and beauty fits in squarely on one side of this aesthetic equation, and the other side can be rather difficult for me to understand. I play in the Alliance, and my favorite races are usually the ones that are "beautiful" and noble-looking in a traditional sense. To me personally, the Horde races are hard to relate to.I do sometimes start up a Horde character if I have a funny idea for roleplaying him or her, but eventually something about them starts to bother me. Now that the Horde has prettier blood elves to play, I admit this helped me a lot -- I am gradually leveling up a blood elf alt in my free time -- but somehow being a blood elf in the Horde feels rather out of place, as if I'm not really part of the Horde because I'm not hunched over with a ready-to-kill look on my face. For a long time I couldn't play a warlock either for similar reasons. The class just seemed inherently evil; summoning demons and stealing people's souls seemed wrong somehow. Even though I knew it's just a fantasy game, I still had no desire to mimic in the game something that would be abhorrent to me in real life. I often wondered: what is attractive about the look and feel of these characters to Horde and warlock players?
Mass Murder 101: How to be a hero
It's a fact that the majority of what we do in World of Warcraft is kill things. Nearly all the supplementary activities we engage in, from shopping to crafting, are all basically to help us improve the effectiveness of our violent capabilities. Many players have noted that if WoW were at all real, then nearly every one of our characters would be considered a genocidal maniac for all the people and creatures we have killed, and yet we view ourselves as heroes.The idea is, of course, that most of the lives we take are really evil anyway, so we're actually doing the real good guys a favor. We kill tons of demons, ghosts, zombies, dragonkin, giants, and rabid beasts -- even most of the humanoids we kill are bandits or wicked cultists of one sort or another. This way we do lots of killing, but still feel as though we are heroes.There are some situations in the game, however, that turn things around for us, in which our character is not the hero. While there are some higher-level instances such as the Black Morass, or the new Caverns of Time: Stratholme, in which one could argue either way whether what we're doing is good or evil, most of situations in which you are clearly the bad guy, as far as I am aware, have to do with the undead, and to a lesser extent the blood elves as well. Of course, you can argue that in general, undead are just misunderstood, and the blood elves are just tragically misled, but as in the case of quests in Hillsbrad that ask you to go slaughter human farmers, or help develop a new plague, there's really no denying that your character is doing something "morally wrong."
Child of the Elements
I finally finished the children's week quests on the alliance side, after being quite busy for most of the last week. It's interesting to note how different the draenei girl is from the blood elf that Elizabeth covered earlier. Far from a girl seeming fated to grow up to be a evil-doer of some kind, young Dornaa seems to be a child destined to be a kind and powerful shaman, deeply in touch with the elements.The Exodar's resident Naaru, named O'ros, seems very impressed with her and asks you to have her visit Farseer Nobundo, leader of draenei shamanism, upstairs. She and the Farseer have already met in a dream, apparently! Nobundo is astounded that the child should have such a natural connection to the elements, and says he will petition for her to stay in the Exodar and train under him after you return her to the orphanage. At the Caverns of Time, she is approached by the Wardens of Time (and saved by the great dragon Zaladormu) just like the blood elf orphan, but the feeling of this is quite different in her context, especially since she wants to befriend a dragon someday, not own one like the blood elf. It seems to me as if a great responsibility rests on her at some time in the future, not some great and evil destiny.Does the difference between the Horde and Alliance orphans reinforce the thinking that the Horde really is generally evil (with a few who are good) while the Alliance is generally good (with a few who are evil)? Is that the balance we like? Does Blizzard need to provide more kind hordies and wicked allies?(By the way, if you haven't yet done the Children's Week quests, today [the 29th] is the last day already too late. It seems that Blizzard has once again posted one time on the calendar but gone ahead and cut it off early. Personally, it irks me when this sort of thing happens for no reason -- product delays I can understand, but cutting off a fun event before you promised you would? Grrrr!)
Rumor: Ubisoft character making Super Smash Bros. Brawl roster
By way of DS Revolution, we're to believe that a gamer, who naturally has an inside source at Nintendo, is telling him that a few of Ubisoft's most notable characters are being looked at to be included in the roster of characters in Super Smash Bros. Brawl. Of Ubisoft's long line of franchise characters, the proposed character has been narrowed down to Jade, Rayman, the Prince, and Sam Fischer. Now, this is purely a rumor, but the thought of either Jade or Sam Fischer being included tickles my fancy in ways it was not meant to be tickled. Obviously, Sam versus Solid Snake would be a stealth fan's dream come true, but the thought of Jade getting in the spotlight again, which would then help bring us a much needed sequel to Beyond Good & Evil, is too much to pass up. Yes it's a rumor, but who would you like to see the cut if it turns out to be true?
The Easter Bunny brings an Animal Crossing treat
Nintendo of Europe has revealed that any gamer who takes their copy of Nintendo's amazing Animal Crossing: Wild World online via Nintendo's Wi-Fi service will receive a letter direct from Nintendo including a special gift. The window of opportunity spans Good Friday on through the end of Easter day (this upcoming weekend). Considering Nintendo's past gifts, this is sure to be one sweet surprise.[Thanks Zack McClelland!]
Super Console Wars puts spin on mascot Gamepires
We've seen Mario in the Matrix, Luigi as a Braveheart, and what we thought was everything in between. Well, hold up, 'cuz now we've seen everything: classic game icons have been mashed up with Star Wars.Super Console Wars: The Gamepire Strikes Gold is that hybrid that with good and evil roles spread out onto each platform and various gaming mascots, ranging from Mario clone troopers vs. Princess Zelda to a VMU droid and GPU-enabled android (erm, peripheral).About two-thirds of the way through the 20-minute video, you're gently encouraged to wear 3D glasses to enhance your video viewing, but even without glasses, the parody stands as an amusing take-off of gaming standards, pop culture, and retro reminiscing. Obi-Wan Shinobi, indeed.[Thanks, Cradrock]See also: Super Mario Reloaded Ready for an "Oldschool Revolution"?
Beyond Good & Evil sequel denied...for now
We recently reported about the possibility of Beyond Good and Evil 2 being Revo-bound sometime in 2007. Seems this isn't the case and the title's sequel is not currently in development, on any platform, yet Ubi wasn't so quick to say it impossible. In making contact with French Nintendo site, Puissance-Nintendo, allegedly Ubi was very shocked as to the news and claimed that a sequel was probable. [Via Revolution Portal]
