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WildStar's Stephan Frost calls it quits
In a new WildStar Nexus Report livestream, Design Producer Stephan Frost stunned listeners by announcing that he would be leaving Carbine Studios. "It really pains me to say this, but this will be my last show and my last week at Carbine," he said on the show. "I'm off to a new adventure; I got an offer that I couldn't turn down and so I'm going to take it. This is super-hard for me. This is one of my proudest achievements. A lot of my heart and soul is in this game." Frost assured fans that it had nothing to do with the game and the community, and he promised that he would still be playing WildStar even after his departure.
Ask Massively: Emergency soccer practice
Today's Ask Massively question comes to us from a reader named Chris, who has had it up to here with you quitters! Yes, you, guy who just AFKed out of Warsong Gulch! After playing my fifth consecutive round of SMITE with an AFK player, I am fed up. AFKer, quitters, or whatever you want to call them -- they suck. Why is it unreasonable to expect gamers to commit to finishing a simple (even possibly enjoyable) 30-minute activity? Why can't they stay in their seat and just freakin' click some buttons? Leaving doesn't cost the quitter anything, but it certainly sucks for the team you leave short-handed. If this were a little league baseball game, we wouldn't say, "It's just a game, so you go ahead and eat pizza with your buddies instead of playing with us." And why can't game companies find a way to make this problem go away? Reporting systems are just a small step away from absolutely useless! I know that real-world stuff happens. The doorbell rings, the power goes out, or the kids set the kitchen on fire. But AFK rates seem way too high for just that. Gamers seem to conveniently forget what it really means to finish what they started. And if you can't do it for a simple game, how in the hell will you do it when it is something truly hard? Unfortunately, I know this problem well. In my guild, we call it "emergency soccer practice," an actual reason someone once gave us for quitting a dungeon group.
NVIDIA loses mobile division lead Mike Rayfield
NVIDIA's road into mobile may have just taken an unwanted (if temporary) detour. The company confirmed at week's end that its Mobile Business Unit's General Manager Mike Rayfield quietly left the company on August 24th to join another firm, although we don't know whether he's headed to a rival or in another direction altogether. NVIDIA also hasn't yet said who replaces Rayfield at the helm. No matter who takes his place, the departure is a significant blow to the crew in Santa Clara: the executive had been heading mobile development at NVIDIA since 2005, before anyone really knew the company was interested in the handheld space, and helped make the Tegra name synonymous with fast Android phones and tablets like the One X and Nexus 7. There's little doubt that more than a few competitors would like to have him onboard.
T-Mobile USA's chief marketing officer, Cole Brodman, calls it quits
Maybe he's finished running with the underdog, or maybe he's just done with the corporate gig altogether, but one thing is certain: as of May 25th, Cole Brodman will mark his exit from T-Mobile. For the past two years, Mr. Brodman has served as the carrier's chief marketing officer, and his departure concludes 17 years with the company. During his tenure, Cole Brodman railed against the subsidized handset game, helped drive the adoption of smartphones and -- sadly -- crushed our dreams for the potential of a Magenta-branded iPhone. He must also claim at least partial responsibility for the carrier's net loss of customers in 2011, with a total of 802,000 subscribers jumping ship in Q4 alone. One thing is certain of Mr. Brodman's exit, however: he seems content with the decision. Likening the move to a retirement, he remarked, "It's an opportunity to step away, get a break and start to think about how I want to do something next." Andrew Sherrard will replace Cole Brodman as T-Mobile's interim chief marketing officer while the company searches for a permanent replacement. So long, Mr. Brodman, and thanks for the smartphones. [Cole Brodman photo via CNET]
Editorial: RIM's new CEO isn't the shakeup it needed
For a brief moment, I had hopes that RIM had made a move that would unseat it from the funk it's been sitting in for years. And then I watched the introductory video of newly-appointed CEO Thorsten Heins. Anyone who assumes that a simple CEO swap is the answer to all of RIM's issues is woefully misinformed, or worse, just blinded by false hope. Sure, removing Jim Balsillie and Mike Lazaridis -- both of which have been rightly criticized for not responding to market pressures quickly enough -- is a start, but it's not like they're gone. In fact, the two are still situated at a pretty fancy table within Research in Motion's organizational chart. RIM, we've been here before RIM seems to be as lost as my BlackBerry Dear RIM, I'm your customer and I don't wear a suitHave a listen at this: Mike is hanging around as the Vice Chair of RIM's Board and Chair of the Board's new Innovation Committee. You heard right -- the guy who has outrightly failed to innovate at anything in the past handful of years is now championing an innovation committee. Sounds right up his alley, no? Jim's staying put as an outright director, and if you think anyone at RIM is going to brush aside the input of the founders, you're wrong. Jim and Mike may have new titles, but they're still here, and I have no reason to believe that they'll act radically different going forward than they have in the past. Oh, and about Thorsten Heins? Let's go there.
RIM's Jim Balsillie and Mike Lazaridis are out, new CEO Thorsten Heins may license BlackBerry 10
After months upon months of investor backlash, RIM's making some significant changes. And by "significant," we mean the co-chief executives (and founders) are out. As of tomorrow, both Jim Balsillie and Mike Lazaridis will be stepping away from the top posts, enabling "a little-known company insider" to take over, according to The Wall Street Journal. Purportedly, this is all part of "a board and management shuffle," with COO Thorsten Heins (seen above) to step into what many expect to be an impossible role to thrive in. The Globe and Mail asserts that he'll be immediately seeking a Chief Marketing Officer to polish up the company's severely damaged brand, and he "will not rule out licensing RIM's new BlackBerry 10 operating system to other handset manufacturers." In an interview with the outlet, he stated that he'll be executing "flawlessly" and with vigor -- not unexpected, but still, bold words.Startlingly, Heins also asserted that he's "confident" in the existing lineup of BlackBerry handsets and the software update recently made available for the PlayBook; call us crazy, but he'd be wise to just spout out reality and make clear that RIM's existing lineup is nowhere near competitive in the grand scheme of things. As for Mike and Jim? The former will become "vice-chair of the board with special duties to examine innovation," with the latter becoming a traditional director. In an interesting move, outgoing co-CEO Lazaridis stated the following: "I think it's that unwillingness to sacrifice our long-term value for short-term gain. That's why we didn't choose Android. That's why we decided to build the future on QNX." So wait, RIM had the chance to choose Android... and didn't? No time like the present to reach back and shake things up, Mr. Heins.Update: Catch an introduction video to the new CEO just after the break!
Yahoo's Jerry Yang quits the company he co-founded, walks away from Alibaba as well
The long, drawn-out, oftentimes melodramatic saga revolving around Yahoo itself and co-founder Jerry Yang is well-documented. Perhaps too well. Thankfully for us all, that ends today. As of January 17th, he has resigned from Yahoo's Board of Directors and all other positions with the company, and moreover, has resigned from the Boards of Yahoo Japan Corporation and Alibaba Group Holding Limited. We most recently heard from Yang during his interview at AsiaD, where he sounded none too pleased about the going-ons there. We aren't about to draw links of Yang's exit to the hiring of Scott Thompson as CEO (in fact, Yang praises him in his exit blurb), but we are drawing links to his sudden purchase of a yacht, a new sauna and a round-the-round journey courtesy of Abercrombie & Kent. Kidding. In all seriousness, it's no surprise to see Yahoo's stock rallying, as many felt that Yang was the major roadblock holding up an outright sale or other significant shake-up within its ranks. As for Jerry? He's off to "pursue other interests" -- but we didn't need to tell you that, now did we?
The Road to Mordor: Out of game on party business
Here's an odd confession for a Lord of the Rings Online columnist to make: I haven't been playing the game much in the past month. I've been, for all intents and purposes, on a gaming sabbatical from Middle-earth. It's not as bad as it looks at first glance because I do this all the time with any MMO I play. I found out the hard way years ago that nonstop gaming in a singular dedicated title was a terrific recipe for spectacular, many-onlookers-injured flaming burnouts. No matter how good that pixelated pizza is, we've been told, if you have it for every meal, sooner or later it will taste like moldy routine in our mouth. And that's not good for anyone. The good news is that my sabbatical is at an end after only flitting into LotRO on occasion over the holidays, and I'm rested up and recharged for another great year of slaughtering wildlife in Tolkien's honor. Before I do that, however, I'd like to take this opportunity to share why I feel that it's OK to "go on sabbatical" from LotRO... and why it even benefits the game as a whole for its fans not to play once in a while.
Sony quits OLED TV in the consumer market, we quietly shelve hopes for the XEL-2
Hope you're in the mood to pour one out, because the Daily Yomiuri Online has just confirmed that Sony is giving up the OLED TV in its consumer business. According to the report, it has discontinued production of OLED TV sets for the mainstream market, and while it'll continue selling 'em to its corporate clients, it'll concentrate the home-use TV portion on LCD models. For historians in attendance, they'll no doubt (fondly) recall the XEL-1 -- a devilishly thin personal OLED TV that never stood a chance at filling anything other than a luxury niche. The same sect will also remember that it discontinued OLED TV sales domestically back in 2010, but exports to America and Europe continued up until now. The real question? Whether or not those rollable OLEDs are still getting researched in a Sony lab; the futurist in us can only pray so.
ARM's Mali-T658 GPU aims to beat the world in 2013; president Tudor Brown steps down
Here's an ARM duo to digest this fine morning -- ARM's president (and co-founder) Tudor Brown has announced that he'll be retiring in May after serving a bit over a score with the company. His final day will be May 3rd of next year, with Chairman Doug Dunn confessing that Brown had played "an important role in the creation and successful development of ARM over the past 21 years and has made an immense contribution in a wide range of positions." Oddly enough, a company spokesperson has stated that ARM has "no plans at this stage to replace Mr. Brown," though we suspect that could change as the date draws closer. In more product-related news, the company's forthcoming (and by "forthcoming," we mean "perhaps by the end of 2013") Mali-T658 GPU should provide a 10x improvement in performance over the existing Mali-400. According to a slide hosted up over at AnandTech, it'll offer double the shader cores per GPU, twice the arithmetic pipes per shader core and "extensive" API support. For those unaware, the Mali-400 MP4 is a real barnburner for the Android platform, and given that the T658 can scale to eight cores, we're guessing you may have just made your mind up about timing on your next smartphone purchase. Hit the links below to dig in deeper, but remember -- 2013 is about an eternity from now. Depressing, we know.
TUAW's Daily Mac App: QuitAppsMBI
Quitting apps quickly can be a pain. If you've got loads open, but you want to quit them all fast, the best way has been Cmd+Tab then Cmd+Q. Now, the free QuitsAppsMBI app makes quitting some or all of your apps a breeze. A menu bar utility, QuitsAppsMBI sits patiently waiting for your command. Click on the icon and a drop-down menu featuring all the currently running apps allows you to quickly quit individual apps or quit them all at once with one click. QuitsAppsMBI even allows you to quit apps you couldn't normally. Things like the Adobe Update notifier (a personal bug-bear of mine) and other unquittable menu bar and background apps can all be quit from the drop-down menu. This is both a feature and an issue for QuitsAppsMBI, because there aren't any settings for excluding apps from the "Quit All Apps" command, which means if you have things like tablet support programs, Xmarks or other background apps, they will all be terminated as well. If you need more functionality such as excluding some apps from the "Quit All Apps" command, Limit Point Software offers a paid-for version of QuitsAppsMBI simply called QuitsApps, which is available for US$9.99 from the Mac App Store (trial available on the Limit Point Software website). But for just quickly quitting a few or all of your apps the free QuitsAppsMBI gets the job done.
Chrome's Warn Before Quitting
It may not be nearly as important once Lion gives us all instant-resume for our apps, but the latest version of Google Chrome (v12) adds a delightful feature called Warn Before Quitting. Set it in the File menu, and from then on Chrome will ignore a passing ⌘-Q but will quit if you hold down the key combo. No more accidental quitting when you were aiming for a ⌘-W to close a window!
TUAW's Daily Mac App: Flexiglass
There are many things that OS X does well, and a few things that it could do better. One area of potential weakness is window management, and that's where Flexiglass comes in. Flexiglass, a US$7.99 (currently 20% off) app from the Mac App Store, adds to and enhances the built-in window management features of OS X. It allows you to quickly resize and move a window using any part of said window when a modifier key is held down (the Option key by default), not just the title bar or the resize corner. With the modifier key, a left click and drag allows you to move the window, while a right click resizes the window, altering its size from the bottom or right hand-side edges. If on a trackpad, one, two or three-finger mousing does the same. The result is a fast and efficient means of window movement and resizing that doesn't get in the way of normal operations. Flexiglass also allows you to move and resize windows to set positions like full screen, half screen horizontally or vertically by dragging the window to the edges of the screen or through keyboard shortcuts. An option to double click the title bar or right click the green zoom button to maximize a window is also included, while a right click on the red button will quit the program, not just close the window. Flexiglass rolls in many features found in other separate apps, with lots of options to enable or disable features that you don't want. It's a fast, slick experience that caters to keyboard and mouse jockeys alike, so it's well worth considering if you find OS X lacking in the window management department.
Activision Blizzard: RIFT players will come back to WoW
During yesterday's Activision Blizzard conference call announcing the company's first quarter results, the massive publisher announced record profits. This was achieved despite a small decline in World of Warcraft subscriptions from the previous record of 12 million to March's 11.4 million players, a number that has barely changed since 2008. The call included not only discussions on the financial state of Activision Blizzard but also plans for Blizzard's ongoing MMO development. During the call, president and co-founder of Blizzard Entertainment Michael Morhaime confidently answered questions from participants on what the future holds for its industry-dominating title. As the financial details and subscription numbers presented in the call were collected in March, the question of how RIFT's launch in early March had affected WoW's playerbase inevitably came up. Morhaime was quick to point out that while a percentage of players have historically left WoW to try out each new game released in the MMO market, a healthy proportion of them tend to return. Blizzard expects the same to occur with RIFT, pushing players to take a break from WoW but ultimately keeping them as long-term customers. "We knew that this year was going to be a year where we faced new competitors; this isn't the first time, though, that we've had strong competitors enter the MMO market. What we have seen in the past is we tend to see our players leave for some period of time, try out the new MMOs, and then a good percentage of them historically have come back to World of Warcraft. So far, I haven't seen anything to indicate this will be different."
Breakfast Topic: What brings people back to WoW?
This Breakfast Topic has been brought to you by Seed, the AOL guest writer program that brings your words to WoW Insider's pages. My guild, like most, has seen players quit the game for a variety of reasons. Sometimes it is another game stealing their gamer hearts, and equally often it can be a real-world time constraint that is given priority. What interests me is how the majority of these players return eventually. Most of the time, this seems to happen when their real-world issues get resolved or when they discover that other MMO just doesn't love them as much as WoW did. Nearly all of our regular guildmates who have "given up WoW," including selling or deleting accounts, have returned. I had even "quit" WoW for nearly a year and let my subscription go. Just before I came back, I had been playing Fallout 3 and beat it, completing pretty much everything. When it ended, I wanted a game that I could keep playing, a place where my character could keep growing and the world wouldn't end when I beat some random boss. I instantly remembered WoW, bought Wrath of the Lich King, and have been playing strong ever since. If you or someone you know has ever made the decision to give up the game and move on -- more than just taking a break -- what has brought you or your friend or guildmate back into the world? Is it a realization that WoW just might be the best MMO on the market today? Is it a recreation of spare time for gaming? Or is it something else even more interesting?
Philips sells HDTV business to Hong Kong-based TPV Technology, will sate itself with royalty payments
Philips has been making teevees for over 80 years, but today its new CEO has announced that this storied history is coming to an end. Unable to generate a profit from its HDTV division -- it lost the company €87 million in the first quarter -- Philips will soon sell the majority stake in it to Hong Kong manufacturer TPV Technology, while retaining a 30 percent ownership share and agreeing guaranteed royalty payments of €50 million per year from 2013 onwards. It's not a bad deal for the Dutch consumer electronics maker, whose bottom line for the first quarter was €137 million in the black, but would have been double that had the new arrangement been in place. All 4,000 Philips employees working under the HDTV umbrella will be transferred over to TPV, though the company says it doesn't want the "market to misread that [it] intend to lay-off a lot of employees." Which is not to say that it won't. A video interview with Philips' chief Frans van Houten discussing the change of direction can be found after the break.
Anand Chandrasekher resigns from Intel after 24 years, leaves scandal mongers hanging
Well, as tech industry resignations go, this one's not exactly sensational, but Anand Chandrasekher's plan to leave Intel is no doubt a popular topic of conversation with chip makers this week. The chief of the company's Ultra Mobility Group (UMG) and the man behind Atom, apparently resigned "to pursue other interests." Intel Architecture Group's Mike Bell and Dave Whalen will co-manage UMG in Chandrasekher's stead -- and that's about it for sordid details. His resignation isn't apt to be marked by a Mark Hurd-style scandal, and we have a feeling this is a pretty straight forward changing of the guards, but, then again, we said the same thing when Dirk Meyer left AMD.
RIM's chief marketing officer resigns
We won't read too much into this, but it comes at an interesting time -- with only a month left before RIM is expected to debut the BlackBerry PlayBook tablet, the company's chief marketing officer has resigned. The Wall Street Journal reports that RIM CMO Keith Pardy (formerly with Nokia) will leave due to "personal reasons" after a six-month transition period is up. The publication's anonymous sources add that Pardy actually made the decision a month ago, and that the move "reflects larger turmoil" within RIM -- as opposed to any sort of knee-jerk reaction over the iPad 2 launch, we suppose. To be frank, we're a little worried about the fate of the PlayBook if it's indeed close to launch -- when we tried a prototype at the Game Developer's Conference this past week in San Francisco, the hardware was still pretty solid, but the software was a bit sparse, and what was there felt like it needed more than a few coats of polish. [Thanks, Jonathan W.]
Breakfast Topic: Share your ragequit moments
This Breakfast Topic has been brought to you by Seed, the Aol guest writer program that brings your words to WoW Insider's pages. Online gaming allows people the anonymity to be jerks if they want to and not face many actual consequences, whether it is trolling, ninjaing a piece of loot, rage-quitting a group because of a single wipe, or getting into a shouting match over Vent. Sometimes we carry real-life events in game with us. We have a bad day at work or break up with a girlfriend or worse, and we are unable to suffer noobs lightly. Sometimes we're rude, telling the guy doing terrible DPS he is bad and removing him from the group, as opposed to trying to help him; sometimes it is far worse. Back in The Burning Crusade, I was in a raiding guild I particularly liked. Good progression, mostly decent people, raid times that fit my schedule well at the time -- I thought all was good. However, there was on officer who I just did not get along with. So one Saturday, she was forming a ZG raid and asked me if I wanted to go. I said no, I was dealing with something in real life and was about to log. I didn't go into details, but we had a death in the family, and I just wasn't able to really concentrate on tanking at the time. I logged off. So a couple of hours later, I logged back on an alt and noticed they were still in ZG, so I asked what's up and how many chests they got. The officer went on a rant, just berating me endlessly, taking out their bad raid on me. I gquit on the spot -- all of my characters. Other officers talked to me later and asked me what happened, and I told them ... but I just could not go back after that. While I am currently in a guild that suits me better, I still wish I had left the previous guild on better terms. So have you done anything in a fit of rage you truly regret, something you actually felt guilty about afterwards?
ASUS officially walks away from Garmin-Asus partnership
Chalk another up to the rumor mill. Just as we'd heard, the Garmin-Asus partnership will soon be no more. After a few arguably valiant attempts to break into the smartphone market, it seems as if ASUS is walking away in hopes of finding greener grass elsewhere. According to Reuters, an unnamed ASUS official has confirmed that it would be "ending its mobile phone cooperation agreement with Garmin." We're expecting the rest of the breakup details to roll tomorrow, but honestly, you'd turn the other cheek and move on if you were classy. But we both know that's not happening, right?
