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BlizzCon Day 1 Liveblog session roundup
We've managed to commandeer a patch of the press seating area located conveniently next to a dear, beloved power outlet and have been camped out all day bringing you live coverage of all the presentations here in the BlizzCon main hall. The big news of the day was the official confirmation of Wrath of the Lich King as the next expansion, to be released, in true Blizzard style, "whenever it's ready." We've got loads of pics and specs from both the opening keynote and the Wrath of the Lich King live demo session earlier today, as well as some great mechanics discussions from the Class Panel and Dungeons and Raids Panel. Here's a roundup of all the session liveblogs from Day 1: Opening Ceremony Wrath of the Lich King live demo session WoW Class Panel Dungeons and Raids Panel
Wrath of the Lich King Demo panel: liveblogging from BlizzCon
We are live on the floor at BlizzCon, and in just a few minutes, the devs will sit down on stage and show us everything that the Wrath of the Lich King entails. Tom Chilton, Jeff Kaplan, and Lee Sparks will all be here right around 1pm (2 minutes by my clock), and updates are forthcoming.The liveblog starts right after the jump. Here we go!
BlizzCon 2007 Opening Ceremony Liveblog!
var digg_url = 'http://digg.com/pc_games/BlizzCon_opening_keynote_live_coverage'; We're set up in the front here at the Opening Ceremony of BlizzCon, enjoying some precious free outlet space in the convention center. Soon we will be officially hearing more about what seems like old news already, the new The Wrath of the Lich King expansion.Join us for up-to-the-minute liveblogging of the Opening Ceremony after the break.
Liveblogging the Apple earnings call
We're on the line live for the Apple FY07 Third Quarter earnings call, starting up in just a few minutes at 5pm Eastern. Apple is expected to announce some big numbers, and we should get an idea of what they expect from the iPhone in the next quarter or so. More updates as we post them.If you want to join in, Apple's got a quicktime link, so hit it and let the big numbers hit your ears at the same time they do us.5:08pm: Welcome to the conference call. Here we go.5:10pm: Peter Oppenheimer: record-breaking max sales and continued strong demand for iPod. Net income up 73%, huge numbers overall.5:11pm: Apple's growth rate more than 2 1/2 times the predicted growth rate for the quarter. Mac notebooks up 42%. 9.8 million iPods, 31% growth over the quarter.5:12pm: 71.5% share of MP3 players are iPods. iTunes surpassed Amazon and Target.5:13pm: 270,000 iPhones sold, 146,000 iPhones activated. Some problems during the first week, and we would like to apologize. Since then, AT&T has corrected the cause, and we are experiencing high percentage of problem-free activation.More after the break.
Joystiq live at Ubisoft's E3 07 press conference
10:44AM PDT - Yves Guillmot CEO of Ubisoft, gets up and says he believes the market to grow 50%.10:49AM PDT - Tony Keys, VP of Marketing talks about games for everyone. Talks about Petz. Announces dolpins.
Joystiq live at THQ's E3 07 press conference
9:19AM PDT - After waiting in line for over half an hour we're here in the front row of the press briefing room. Stay tuned for all the announcements as they happen.
Joystiq live at the Take Two E3 07 press conference
8:02AM PDT - Arrived! Doors closed (for an 8am conference). A small crowd is gathering. Stacks of names tags are still piled on the registration table.8:18AM PDT - More late arrivals. "Haven't they heard of LA traffic?" a disgruntled media attendee wonders. 8:19AM PDT - What's a press conference without press? That's what we're wondering. A late-arriving and confused PR woman has tried to let people enter, but is stopped by co-workers. "We can't let any media in?" (She and a few other PR personnel eventually creep in -- but no media.) 8:25AM PDT - "Sorry everyone, the press conference is full." So what did we RSVP for? Apparently not a seat ...8:29AM PDT - Thanks to the valiant and courageous efforts of 2K's Director of Public Relations, Marcelyn Ditter, we managed to quietly slide in (but we felt guilty for abandoning our patiently waiting colleagues). Sure enough, there aren't any seats, so we've grabbed some floor ... and we're off: All-Pro Football was developed to satisfy the demand of fans who thought 2K's football video games were the best games out there.
Joystiq live at the Konami E3 07 press conference
The Konamegaton is nigh. Join us for our liveblog of the Konami press conference from E3 2007.5:51PM - The press conference has yet to begin. We have front row seats to see if we can catch anything big.5:53PM - Mark Franklin joins the stage. He introduces Anthony Krause, VP of marketing. He's hyping "exclusive" announcements for the conference today.5:56PM - "Today we're announcing two new DDR titles." Wait ... didn't we already cover this?
Joystiq live at the Midway E3 07 Press Conference
The press conferences just keep coming. Check out our live coverage of the Midway E3 '07 press conference after the break.
Joystiq live from Activision's E3 2007 press conference
3:31PM PDT: We're here at Activision's press conference. Things just got underway with "comedian" Jamie Kennedy taking the stage. After about 5 minutes of really awkward jokes ("I see so many virgins out there, Richard Branson must be running this event.") we're more than pleased for the first Activision exec to take the stage. 3:34PM PDT: We'll be seeing Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare, Tony Hawk Proving Ground, Spider-Man Friend or Foe, and (of course) Guitar Hero III. Their fall lineup also includes The Bee Movie Game and Quake Wars: Enemy Territory (console releases!). Uh oh, Jamie Kennedy is back on stage. We're just gonna plug our ears. "Neversoft? Wasn't that the first name for Viagra?" A Neversoft developer on Tony Hawk: Proving Ground takes the stage, and explains what there is to prove. "You're an up and coming skater in Philly." (Editor note: Illadelph!)
Engadget & Joystiq live from Sony's E3 2007 keynote
We're running off from Nintendo's E3 2007 press conference to Sony's. Check back here shortly for our live coverage of the event. The conference is set to begin 11:30 PDT.11:30 PDT -- Ok, we're seated, and things are getting started. Swirling images on four massive displays, like the flowing background on the PS3.11:32 PDT - Opening promo movie coming up, kaleidoscopes of PS3 and PSP, but no gameplay. "Ladies and gentlemen, please welcome Mr. Jack Tretton."11:33 PDT - "We're extremely excited to unveil all our plans for the PS brand this year." Showing around Home. "We've already had our public beta going on for months, and this is the Home square."
Engadget & Joystiq live from Nintendo's E3 2007 keynote
11:34AM PDT We're taking our seats at the Nintendo press conference. Meaning we're sitting down and not, you know, exhibiting kleptomaniac tendencies. Stay tuned! 8:42AM PDT - Entering the auditorium, we're greeted (assaulted?) by the family-friendly sounds of the Monkees' "I'm a Believer."8:49AM PDT - Giant screens flanking the main stage share a dozen plus shots of various demographics all enjoying the pick up and play experience offered by the Wii and DS ... or something. No one up there looks like us ... they're all well groomed and a significant percentage of them enjoy senior citizen mass transit discounts.
Engadget & Joystiq live from Microsoft's E3 2007 keynote
Ok, we're live from Microsoft's E3 2007 keynote! The event officially kicks off at 8:30PM PDT, but we'll be doing our usual pre-game coverage here. 8:06PM PDT - Ok, so the event is being held at -- get this -- a high school? It's a damned fancy one if you ask us, full coliseum style seating. More after the break.
5th Avenue Live Blog
Live reporting from Mike Rose, our man-on-the-spot, transcribed by Erica back at the TUAW desk. (Sorry about the time! I'm on Mountain Time and Mike is on Eastern.) 3:58. It's a zoo. There are probably two times as many gawkers and press than actual people in line. Mike's TUAW shirt is recognized by a German fan. 3:59. It's officially crazy time. Apple crew members have walked down back stairway to take their positions inside the store. We've now tucked the rest of the liveblog behind the jump. Thank you for sharing the experience!
WWDC Monday at 10:00AM PST / 1:00PM EST, set your alarms
Monday morning El Jobso takes the stage to discuss Apple products for the first time since the iPhone unveiling in January (no, we don't really count D where he chatted with Mossberg and sat down with Gates). As always, you know where to turn for the whole spread, including real-time blow-by-blow coverage, live photography, and only the largest ring of iBookies taking bets on what Steve's gonna announce with Leopard and the iPhone.Go here and bookmark this page, it's where the action happens Monday morning.7:00AM - Hawaii10:00AM - Pacific11:00AM - Mountain12:00PM - Central1:00PM - Eastern5:00PM - GMT6:00PM - London7:00PM - Paris2:00AM - Tokyo (June 12th)P.S. -Feel free to leave the usual timezones / predictions / wish lists / "STEVE I LOVE / HATE YOU!"s in comments.
Steve Jobs and Bill Gates: Historic discussion live from D 2007
We kind of never thought we'd see the day where Mac and PC voluntarily shared the stage on neutral ground, but that day is today. Very soon Bill Gates and Steve Jobs -- both pioneering execs that need absolutely no introduction -- will sit up in front of the audience here at D and discuss god knows what. Don't miss this, people, who knows if this will happen again in any of our lifetimes. You'll know when we get started. Who's got odds that they don't walk out and say "Hi, I'm a PC." "Hi, I'm a Mac."?We're in! They're playing the Beatles, just like they did when Jobs came out the first time.Update: Video recap online! Right after the break, but before the rest of our coverage.
Steve Jobs live from D 2007
Steve Jobs is up here in just a few, everybody. It looks like we can probably prepare ourselves for an update on the iTunes shift to no-DRM, the status of the iPhone, and whatever else is on El Jobso's mind. It's all on Mossberg, so hopefully he'll drill down deep to the topics we hold near and dear. Stay close, you'll know when it gets underway! (Note: Walt's questions are in bold.)UPDATE: D has posted video highlights of Steve's and Walt's talk, our original liveblog follows after the jump.
Palm's Jeff Hawkins live from D 2007
There are a lot fewer Palm fanboys than there used to be, but they're all hoping that Palm founder Jeff Hawkins brings the love during his convo with Walt at the D Conference today as he introduces the Foleo. All of Walt's questions are in bold.10:31am - Last time you were here talking about the brain... you basically created the first handheld computer. You've been working on something else for a couple years.The concept of this product is five years old, devleopment is a couple hours. A little history behind all this... we started palm 15 years ago on a palm and an opportunity. Desktops and laptops were too large, expensive, complex. You're not going to build billions of these complex machines, you build mobile computers. But the technology didn't exist, but that was the goal behind Palm. We are a future-of-personal-computing.But it became clear the smartphone wasn't going to fill that role. It has a keyboard, nice display, except there's a problem. You need a full size screen and keyboard. The smartphone is a truly capable computer, billions of comptuer have one, but sometimes you need to be able to look at that big spreadsheet.
Jobs, Gates, and Hawkins: times (in approximate) for tomorrow's festivities
Ok, we've landed and have some rough times you should be ready for things to go off tomorrow. Remember, we've got a Steve Jobs presentation, Jeff Hawkins is showing off whatever Palm's got next, and the icing on the cake is Jobs (again) for a hot legend-on-legend sitdown with Bill Gates. Here are the windows to watch out for, we'll try and blog as much as our battery can hold out for:Wednesday, May 308:00AM - 10:30AM PST windowSteve Ballmer / MicrosoftJeff Hawkins / Palm11:15AM - 1:00PM PST windowSteve Jobs / Apple7:15PM PSTBill Gates & Steve Jobs 2getha 4evaThursday, May 3111:00AM - 12:45PM PST windowEric Schmidt / Google
Installing a Vista CableCARD Media Center PC (part 1): Fiasco!
How many people does it take to install a Vista CableCARD-enabled Media Center PC?The answer is six. Or at least it would be six if the installation had actually been successful.Here's the backstory: Just like a lot of you out there, we've been lusting after a CableCARD-enabled Media Center PC for years (or at least it seems like years). So ever since the first Vista betas became available we've been hassling Microsoft to hook us up with a CableCARD-enabled Media Center to test out. We figured at the very least we'd be able to get our hands on one right after Vista launched, but there were numerous delays because of CableLabs' requirement that they be able to certify every CableCARD-enabled device and some apparent technical issues with getting Digital Cable Tuners to work properly. [The funny thing is that from a technical standpoint getting a Media Center PC to handle digital cable isn't all that complicated; it's the cable industry's obsession with DRMing and locking down digital cable streams that messes everything up. And we got to see first-hand just how screwed up things can get when you make it more difficult than it needs to be for different components to work together.]Anyway, a few weeks ago we finally got the word that they were ready to send us a review unit – but that they wanted to fly a team of people out from Redmond (and bringing along a team of Time Warner Cable techs) to get us all set up. Normally we'd balk and just tell 'em what we tell everyone else – namely, that we're pretty damn good with gadgets and can set this stuff up ourselves – but the prospect of having a small army of people in our tiny NYC apartment just to set up one PC was too good to pass up.What follows is a minute-by-minute account of how what should have been a 15-minute install job turned into a multi-day fiasco that has yet to be resolved.
