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Activision UK managing director Peter Hepworth leaves company
Peter Hepworth has been with Activision in the UK for years now, first answering the call of duty (sorry!) back in 2005. Hepworth would assume various roles during his tenure, starting as CFO of Europe and eventually taking over as UK managing director in August of 2011, the current position he has left vacant today.Hepworth decided to step down amidst the ongoing layoffs initiated by Activision back in October, layoffs which have only affected the publishing side of its Minneapolis branch so far. Taking over for Hepworth is his predecessor and current VP of sales, Andrew Brown – the individual whom preceded Hepworth. Brown will now oversee the UK territory on an interim basis, until a new managing director is selected.[Image credit]
British researchers design a million-chip neural network 1/100 as complex as your brain
If you want some idea of the complexity of the human brain, consider this: a group of British universities plans to link as many as a million ARM processors in order to simulate just a small fraction of it. The resulting model, called SpiNNaker (Spiking Neural Network architecture), will represent less than one percent of a human's gray matter, which contains 100 billion neurons. (Take that, mice brains!) Yet even this small scale representation, researchers believe, will yield insight into how the brain functions, perhaps enabling new treatments for cognitive disorders, similar to previous models that increased our understanding of schizophrenia. As these neural networks increase in complexity, they come closer to mimicking human brains -- perhaps even developing the ability to make their own Skynet references.
Activision UK head polls execs from 'The Big Three' on digital distribution, cloud gaming
[Image credit: Vermin Inc] If it weren't for the fact that the recent "Andrew Brown asks" is a featured piece on UK-based MCV, the answers to his questions repeatedly starting with "Whilst" would have likely tipped us off to the Britishness of the feature and all involved. Both Sony's Ray Maguire and Nintendo's David Yarnton employ the subordinating conjunction whilst responding to questions about everything from the future of digital distribution to what the industry will look like in 2019. Though the Sony and Nintendo execs were a bit more reserved in their predictions, Microsoft's Neil Thompson believes digital distribution will "explode in the next three years." All three gentlemen admitted that retail will still play a major role for (at very least) a few more years. As for cloud computing, only Microsoft's Thompson seems to be on board. "I'm convinced cloud will play a central role in the games industry of the future ... our strategy is certainly to enable people to connect to their key entertainment content through innovative services that span across multiple devices." Our only worry is that, by the time all this future stuff arrives, we'll be too busy cruising around in our flying cars to care.
Massively Interviews: A look into Jade Dynasty's Ascension expansion with Andrew Brown
As we mentioned on Friday, Jade Dynasty is getting a brand new expansion and we the inside scoop for you. This Thursday is the release of the free update, but you don't have to wait that long to find out the story on the game's new Ascension system, brand new race, and new pet features. We sat down with Jade Dynasty's American product manager, Andrew Brown, and talked with him about the update. Not only did we find out exactly what's in the expansion, but we also got a glimpse into how the game is made and how much control American audiences have over the features in a Chinese MMO.
Exclusive screenshots from Jade Dynasty's upcoming "Ascension" expansion
Perfect World Entertainment's Jade Dynasty really is a unique offering on the MMO market. We here at Massively have been covering it and commenting on it since we got to see it at E3, and we're always interested to hear more about the MMO that "plays itself." Well, the team at Jade Dynasty hasn't disappointed us and they've let us here at Massively check out some exclusive screenshots of their upcoming expansion, Ascension.Ascension is opening up the path for players to become veritable gods, but it's also adding two new factions, a brand new race, realm versus realm PvP opportunities, aerial combat, and much more. We've also gotten the opportunity to sit down with Jade Dynasty's product manager, Andrew Brown, and talk with him about all of the gritty details in the next expansion. However, you'll have to wait until Monday to check out that interview.In the meantime, check out these screenshots and concept art of the Divine Realm area, and come back on Monday to check out our exclusive interview about the future direction of Jade Dynasty.%Gallery-77654%
Massively goes toe to toe with Jade Dynasty's Andrew Brown
Jade Dynasty. The game that plays itself. We ran an op-ed on it a while back and even got some impressions on the game from E3, looking into the game that offers all players the special ability to run a bot to play the game and lets players gain experience while offline.Needless to say, we were interested in the game thanks to, what some would say, are odd choices in game design. However, we were recently lucky enough to sit down with Andrew Brown, the project manager for Jade Dynasty, and put him to the test. Why should MMOers try out Jade Dynasty?Well, Andrew took our hard questions and sent us back some awesome answers. He didn't shy away from our question barrage. If you were looking for some answers for why Jade Dynasty took the game design path it did, or why they believe their decisions will ultimately help the many players of their game, then look no further than this interview. And what's this new immortality ability and "hardcore PvP" server that Andrew has mentioned? You're just going to have to follow after the break and find out!
Palm CFO keeps cards, products, anything interesting close to the vest
We're not certain why Palm CFO Andy Brown was being so cagey about the company's next-gen Linux-based platform during a "fireside chat" at a recent JPMorgan tech conference, but his devotion to secrecy is almost as interesting as if he had dished out some details on upcoming devices. Wait, no, it's not. Of course, Palm's new OS is being developed by Jon Rubenstein, former Apple hardware and iPod veep, so maybe the paranoia is contagious -- but Brown probably didn't convince anyone when he openly compared Palm to Apple because both companies make both the hardware and the software. That's a pretty hard head-to-head to be in when you're talking about the Centro running Garnet -- maybe some actual products might help that pill go down easier, you know? Brown did say that we'd been seeing the fruits of all this labor sometime "this summer," but didn't mention what it might actually be -- let's hope it's got more design behind it than that nasty Zeppelin prototype.
