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Elite: Dangerous scores a HUD color mod and grats from Chris Roberts
The stage was set for a truly epic battle of words with the launch of Elite: Dangerous. In one corner, David Braben and Elite, a project that's launched and offers a space sandbox experience with the controversy of a removed offline mode. In the other corner, Chris Roberts and Star Citizen, another space sandbox that hasn't actually launched but hasn't managed to irritate its fans yet. The intense rivalry between these two developers is... well... it's nonexistent, actually, as Roberts recently released a letter congratulating Braben and his team on the launch and wishing them the best of luck. Roberts states in the letter that he's happy to see more games like Elite: Dangerous on the market; he says everyone benefits from having the game on the market, especially since his game and Braben's game both feeling distinct from one another. He also states that he's looking forward to playing the game himself during his time over the holidays. And thus the battle of words never happened because the rivalry doesn't actually exist. Hint, hint. In other Elite: Dangerous news, an intrepid modder has released a tool to help players change their UI HUD colors. How cool is that? [Thanks to Oliver, Cardboard, and Carson for the tips!]
WWE 2K15's historical rivalry mode stars CM Punk, Shawn Michaels
WWE 2K15 will feature a 2K Showcase career mode that spotlights two wrestling rivalries in WWE's history, 2K Sports announced. The mode will focus on the feud between Triple H and Shawn Michaels from 2002 to 2004 as well as the more recent rivalry between CM Punk and cover star John Cena from 2011 to 2013. CM Punk's contract with WWE recently ended, so the Chicago-born wrestler's inclusion in the upcoming game was previously in question. The 2K Showcase mode will span 33 matches across the two rivalries in a mini-documentary style similar to WWE 13's Attitude Era mode and 30 Years of WrestleMania in WWE 2K14, complete with video packages and scripted commentary as well as historically-accurate characters and events. By playing through the rivalry mode, players will unlock wrestlers, alternate attire and championship titles that can be accessed throughout the rest of the game. Additionally, 2K Sports will build on the 2K Showcase mode after the game's launch by introducing more rivalries as DLC packs, though it did not say what feuds will be included (fingers crossed for Heath Slater's series of losses in 2012 to various WWE legends). WWE 2K15 will launch October 28 for PS4, Xbox One, PS3 and Xbox 360. [Image: 2K Sports]
Low-power chip guru quits Samsung for Apple, with heavily implied implications
The iPhone 5 already proved Apple's desire to move away from existing processor designs and exert more control over these fundamental components. Is it too crazy to imagine that Cupertino would like the same sense of freedom with its laptops? Perhaps not, especially since the biggest company in the world just hired a guy called Jim Mergard, who helped to pioneer AMD's low-power Brazos netbook chips and who had only recently moved to Samsung. A former colleague of Mergard's, Patrick Moorhead, told the WSJ that he would be "very capable of pulling together internal and external resources to do a PC processor for Apple" -- possibly based on a mobile-style SoC (system-on-chip) rather than a traditional PC approach. That's pure speculation of course, but funnily enough it's where Intel seems to be headed too.
Microsoft's Steve Ballmer ready to take on Apple again
Microsoft's CEO Steve Ballmer met with Steven Burke of CRN and talked about his company's future. Speaking about Microsoft's strengths and weaknesses, Ballmer said, We have our advantages in productivity. We have our advantages in terms of enterprise management, manageability. We have got our advantages in terms of when you plug into server infrastructure in the enterprise. But we are not going to let any piece of this [go uncontested to Apple]. Not the consumer cloud. Not hardware software innovation. We are not leaving any of that to Apple by itself. Not going to happen. Not on our watch. It's nice to know that, like the good old days, the competition between the two companies is once again going strong. [Via GigaOM]
An ARM core in an AMD device? It just happened, but not the way you think
Yes, you heard right. AMD just added to ARM's burgeoning heap of gold coins, having licensed the British company's Cortex-A5 design for use in its own hardware. While this might sound like a dramatic capitulation on the part of the struggling giant, particularly after yesterday's news, it probably isn't. AMD says it'll use the ARM component solely for adding better security features to its next generation of business-focused laptops and tablets. A spokesperson told us the company's "commitment to x86 hasn't changed," referring to the fact that it'll continue to use its regular in-house chip architecture for the primary task of running applications. The Cortex-A5 will be one tiny core squeezed in amongst everything else on the future 28nm silicon. It'll be dedicated to running ARM's proprietary TrustZone technology, which protects sensitive apps from tampering -- stuff like mobile payments, DRM, and nudge, nudge corporate documents. Rather than invent its own system for doing the same thing, AMD reckoned it'd be easier to work with ARM's, and who can blame it? If we remember rightly, even Intel made a similar call five years ago. [Tentacles via Shutterstock]
The Engadget Interview: AMD's Sasa Marinkovic
This isn't the easiest time to be an AMD fan. The company's eight-core FX-8150 desktop chip was widely panned on the review circuit, and then NVIDIA's GTX 680 graphics card ran off with Radeon HD's thunder. Even when you look at notebook processors, where AMD has long excelled with its Fusion APUs, the hype wars currently favor Ultrabooks and Ivy Bridge. Affection for the gamers' brand and its ATI back-story may make this stuff uncomfortable, but the predicament is already starting to mess with AMD's balance sheet. Which raises the obvious question: what's to be done? Sasa Marinkovic, AMD's Head of Desktop and Software Product Marketing, bravely took up the challenge of providing his side of the story -- even after we warned him that we'd try to disrupt his flow with accusatory glances. In the end, we did get him to acknowledge some recent hard knocks, particularly with respect to the FX chips and their (lack of) single-threaded performance. But we also got some insight into the mind of a chap who remains genuinely and abundantly confident about his employer's future. Read on and see for yourself.
Drama Mamas: Rivals for love
Drama Mamas Lisa Poisso and Robin Torres are experienced gamers and real-life mamas -- and just as we don't want our precious babies to be the ones kicking and wailing on the floor of the checkout lane next to the candy, neither do we want you to become known as That Guy on your realm. Good friends vying for the attentions of the same woman -- it's a tale as old as time and certainly not new to WoW. We also have an announcement: This is the last Drama Mamas column ...
VeriFone's new Payware Mobile Enterprise for Tablets looks a little Square
VeriFone added a new wrinkle to its ongoing battle for mobile payment supremacy yesterday, with the announcement of Payware Mobile Enterprise for Tablets -- a peripheral that will allow retailers to process transactions directly from any slate. Much like the company's Payware Mobile system, VeriFone's latest product involves a magnetic card reader and accompanying app that can turn any iPad or Android tablet into a handheld checkout unit. Geared toward larger enterprises, the new device also supports PIN verification for debit cards and NFC payments, rendering it compatible with Google Wallet, though it likely won't see a widespread release until 2012. Perhaps more intriguing is what this move could mean for the company's notoriously heated rivalry with Square. By explicitly targeting bigger retailers, VeriFone seems to be distinguishing itself from the small business-focused Square, despite the fact that its new product looks a lot like one of Jack Dorsey's creations -- or, as some CEOs would call them, "skimming devices."
Facebook admits hiring PR firm to smear Google
It seems like the ongoing rivalry between Facebook and Google has taken a turn for the subversive. Last night, a spokesman for the social network confirmed to the Daily Beast that Facebook paid a top PR firm to spread anti-Google stories across the media and to encourage various outlets to examine allegations that the Mountain View company was violating user privacy. The PR firm, Burson-Marsteller, even offered to help blogger Chris Soghoian write a critical op-ed piece about Social Circle -- a service that allows Gmail users to access information on so-called "secondary connections," or friends of their friends. Social Circle, in fact, seems to have been at the epicenter of Facebook's smear campaign. In a pitch to journalists, Burson described the tool in borderline apocalyptic terms: "The American people must be made aware of the now immediate intrusions into their deeply personal lives Google is cataloging and broadcasting every minute of every day-without their permission." Soghoian thought that Burson's representatives were "making a mountain out of a molehill," so he decided to prod them about which company they might be working for. When Burson refused to spill the beans, Soghoian went public and published all of the e-mails sent between him and the firm. USA Today picked up on the story, before concluding that any claims of a smear campaign were unfounded. The Daily Beast's Dan Lyons, however, apparently forced Facebook's hand after confronting the company with "evidence" of its involvement. A Facebook spokesman said the social network hired Burson to do its Nixonian dirty work for two primary reasons: it genuinely believes that Google is violating consumer privacy and it also suspects that its rival "may be improperly using data they have scraped about Facebook users." In other words, their actions were motivated by both "altruistic" and self-serving agendas, though we'd be willing to bet that the latter slightly outweighed the former. Google, meanwhile, has yet to comment on the story, saying that it still needs more time to wrap its head around everything -- which might just be the most appropriate "no comment" we've ever heard.
Google disallows Facebook from siphoning email data, demands two-way flow of information
Feisty, are we Google? As the battle between these two internet powers continues to intensify, Google has fired the latest shot by outright blocking Facebook (and potentially others) from accessing its users' information. As the story goes, Facebook members can easily import their Google contact list in order to find friends on The Social Network, but according to El Goog, that leaves users "in a data dead end." Evidently Google is somewhat perturbed that the data flow isn't a two-way street, noting that it "will no longer allow websites to automate the import of users' Google Contacts (via its API) unless they allow similar export to other sites." We're hearing that the change is being made gradually, with no ETA on a Facebook status update regarding the tiff. Sometime tells us some serious digital drama is about to go down, though the use of bad grammar and shrtnd wrds will prbly lessn the effct.
NVIDIA thanks Intel for saying GPUs are 'only' 14 times faster than CPUs
Well, we've gone a full month since the last episode of NVIDIA's and Intel's ongoing public feud, but it looks like Intel has now stoked the flames once again (albeit inadvertently) in a paper presented at the recent International Symposium on Computer Architecture. That attempted to debunk the "100X GPU vs. CPU myth," but it also contained the tidbit that GPUs are "only" up to 14 times faster than CPUs in running application kernels, which NVIDIA has more than a happily latched onto. In a blog post, NVIDIA's Andy Keane says that it's a "rare day" when a competitor states that their technology is only 14x faster, and that he can't recall another time when he's "seen a company promote competitive benchmarks that are an order of magnitude slower." Of course, he then further goes on to note that Intel's tests were done with NVIDIA's previous generation GeForce GTX 280, and that the codes were simply run out-of-the-box without any optimization -- but, still, he seems more than happy to accept this bit of "recognition." In Intel's defense, however, the overall finding of the paper (linked below) is that the performance gap between a GTX 280 GPU and Core i7 960 processor is actually just 2.5X "on average," which NVIDIA hasn't highlighted for some reason.
The Daily Quest: The mage vs. warlock battle
Here at WoW.com we're on a Daily Quest (which we try to do every day, honest) to bring you interesting, informative and entertaining WoW-related links from around the blogosphere. Is there a story out there we ought to link or a blog we should be following? Just leave us a comment and you may see it here tomorrow! Take a look at the links below, and be sure to check out our WoW Resources Guide for more WoW-related sites. We have a friendly little rivalry going on here at WoW.com between warlock Dominic Hobbs, writer of Blood Pact, and mage Christian Belt, writer of Arcane Brilliance. They even took their viewpoints to each other's columns, with hilarious results. But this battle between mages and warlocks transcends our class experts and wages on in the blogosphere. Felfire is hosting the Official Murder a Mage Contest, which ends May 16. The Save a Soul TODAY contest on Gnomeageddon ends May 18. Destructive Reach explains why Saresa absolutely adores mages. Murloc Parliament weighs in on the mage vs. 'lock debate by interviewing caster classes. The Lazy Sniper says shadow priests don't care.
NetTalk responds to MagicJack founder's comments
MagicJack founder Dan Borislow certainly didn't mince any words in tearing apart his latest competitor in a recent interview, and it looks like those comments unsurprisingly didn't go unnoticed by the folks at NetTalk. In an (expletive-free) official statement just released today, the company says that contrary to comments made, "our company is founded and run by a staff of seasoned executives with decades of experience who firmly attests to and stands behind the high quality of netTALK's policies, customer service practices, network and product development activities." It further goes on to note that the TK6000 device offers "more convenience, flexibility and functionality" than "others on the market," and that it is, in fact, a "best-of-all-worlds communication device." Head on past the break for the complete statement.
Shuttle gears up for CES with 'we are not alien' campaign, ominous video
Shuttle isn't exactly a company known for aggressive marketing campaigns, but it looks to be changing its tune a bit in the lead up to CES, and it's not too hard to see who its target is. While the company's main website is still as bright and cheery as ever, the newly launched We Are Not AlienbWare.com is an entirely different tale, featuring an ominous teaser video that mixes Shuttle promos (and metaphors) in with footage from District 9. Of course, it is a teaser video, so it's light on any details, but Shuttle is apparently promising something fairly big for CES. Hit up the link below to check out the video for yourself, or if it's giving you fits, just hop on past the break and mash play.
Forum Post of the Day: Let's be friends
I spend an awful lot of time sifting through the various forums for quality candidates for Forum Post of the Day. My usual suspects were pretty lackluster today, so I ventured into some unknown territory. As I flipped through some of the posts in the Role Playing forum, I was briefly reminded of folks running around game shops with their arms crossed at their chests saying something to the effect of "you can't see me." I decided to give it a shot anyway. Yitrana of Twisting nether began an in-character plea for peace between the Horde and Alliance forces. The story begins with a note posted in he World's End Tavern in Shattrath City:
Breakfast Topic: Faction Pride
I remember the night of January 15, 2007. I stood outside a game store in the bitter cold anxiously awaiting the doors opening so we could get our hands on a shiny new copy of the freshly launched Burning Crusade. There were probably thirty people there, and of course the conversation was all about World of Warcraft. The air was tense between proud members of the Alliance and the Horde. Most players identify strongly with one faction or the other. It was strange to me how the faction rivalry crossed over into the real world. I play Horde. I've been known to wear a t-shirt that says "Real Women Roll Horde." I've tried playing Alliance characters, and it just doesn't work for me. My real-world friends who play WoW also play on Horde side. I gravitate toward fellow followers of Thrall. Recently I've started a new job where a number of people play the game. Much to my surprise, I've found some Ally players that I actually like.
Blood Pact: Warlocks are red, mages are blue
Between Arenas, V'Ming spends his time as a lock laughing ominously in AV, tanking Olm with his own minions and pondering troll fashion from Zul'Aman. He's recently started to plumb the depths of SSC with his 0/21/40 build and bragging about 8k shadow bolts.One of the most enduring and fiercest rivalries in WoW is the bitterness between mages and warlocks. I'll like to characterize my relationship with Mage friends to be one of friendly, respectful rivalry. In fact, Christian Belt - our Mage columnist - will be my guest here today to offer his side of the story in beautiful italics.By now, many mage players would have dabbled in at least a little warlocky DoT-slinging, and the converse is probably true. If you haven't, go on - roll a Mage or a Warlock, I'll wait.So there really isn't any grounds for misconceptions when it comes to the abilities of both classes, and we should all live in contented peace. Or is there?
Breakfast topic: Best class rivalry
Michigan plays Ohio State this week in one of the most storied football rivalries of all time. This got me thinking about WoW rivalries. Sure, we only have two teams, the Horde and Alliance -- but we have tons of classes that hate each other, particularly on the forums. Every class seems to have a rival or two. The rogues don't get along with the hunters, the paladins and priests are constantly fighting over healing, the warriors and druids argue about tanking, and none of the clothies like each other. Everyone seems to dislike a class that shares their role, whether it be DPS, healing or tanking. But the current epic class rivalry is probably mage/warlock. The mages feel their spot as top caster DPS has been taken unfairly by the locks. The locks feel like everyone hates them and are causing their nerfs. Throw in that both classes compete for the same items and you've got quite a brouhaha. What do you think is the best class rivalry in WoW?
LG's KS20 and KU990 vs. the iPhone
The silent, yet eerily palpable rivalry betwixt LG and Apple continues, secretly, growing subtlety with every new phone release (as you can see in the Windows Mobile-based KS20). Or maybe these two companies just love this design -- certainly Nokia is fond of it. It's hard to say really, but what isn't hard to say is that these phones do look alike, and there's no way around it. Please forgive the German showgirl for the upside down iPhone handling -- they haven't had the fortune of holding them here. After the break, be sure and note the UI of LG's KU990 -- the company's other widescreen touch phone -- and its familiar look. One thing's for sure: they all smudge the same.
Microsoft lawyer whines about Apple's DRM complaints
The gloves have long since been removed in the battle war between Cupertino and Redmond, and while we wouldn't deem this a direct hit, it's a mighty blow to gut regardless. Microsoft's general counsel and executive vice president Brad Smith has apparently decided that whining about whiners is the best approach to garner public support, as he mouthed off to reporters and suggested that Apple should just shut its trap in regard to the limitations of DRM, and in a completely unrelated addition, claimed that sales of the iPod should be good enough for that oh-so-greedy corporation. More specifically, Mr. Smith claimed that he wasn't a "big believer in just blaming the music industry for Apple's inability to sell every conceivable iPod," but contradicted himself ever so slightly by insinuating that Apple should leave well enough alone and enjoy the profits the player is already pulling in. Is it just us, or do you sense this vibe of bitterness mixed in there somewhere, too?[Via GizmoNews, picture courtesy of Worth1000]
