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Augen mysteriously dies, dirt-cheap Android tablets can't keep it afloat
Tragic. Just tragic. It seems like just yesterday we were dashing to our local Kmart in hopes of securing one of the hottest, most demanded products on the market. First, it was the $99 GenBook, and days later, it was the Gentouch 78. Now, it appears that neither of those absolutely astounding pieces of kit will ever be produced again, as Augen's website has been cold and unresponsive for the better part of a month. It's not picking up the phone, and it's not replying to emails. We'd bother to weep, but we have to wonder how bad things truly are if it took the world four full weeks to notice one's disappearance.
Norio Ohga, former Sony chairman and multimedia pioneer, dies at 81
There's more sad news out of Japan this morning, we're afraid -- Sony is reporting that former chairman Norio Ohga passed away in Tokyo yesterday from multiple organ failure. He was 81. You may not personally remember a Sony under his reign -- Ohga directly helmed the company from 1982 to 1995 after decades of service in product planning -- but Norio Ohga was arguably the man responsible for turning Sony from a high-profile analog electronics manufacturer into a digital multimedia conglomerate. He helmed the deals that formed Sony Music, paved the way for Sony Pictures and established the very same Sony Computer Entertainment that would birth the PlayStation, and it was he who pushed the optical compact disc standard that all but replaced the magnetic cassettes and diskettes that held portable media. Without him, DVDs and Blu-rays might have fallen by the wayside, and that's another thought that brings tears to our eyes. You'll find Ohga's official obituary after the break.
Jerry Lawson, creator of cartridge-based video game consoles, dies at 70
Gerald "Jerry" Lawson, the man who invented the video game cartridge, died Saturday morning of a heart attack at a Mountain View, California hospital at the age of 70. His brainchild, the Fairchild Channel F Video Game System, more commonly referred to as the Channel F, came out just one year before Atari's cartridge-based console, the VCS, opening the floodgates of modern gaming. His earliest foray into consumer electronics began early on, but it wasn't until he joined Fairchild in 1970 that he really made his mark on the tech industry. During that time, he became the only black member of the infamous Homebrew Computer Club that counted Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak as members. He was honored at this year's GDC for his monumental contribution to modern gaming.
Pierre-Gilles de Gennes, father of LCDs, passes away
We'll admit, Pierre-Gilles de Gennes didn't exactly get the ongoing credit he deserved for spearheading discoveries that gave us the liquid crystal display, and it's with regret that we convey the news that he has indeed passed away at 74. Pierre-Gilles was born in Paris where he graduated from the elite Ecole Normale Superieure school after working in "neutron scattering and magnetism before moving to the realm of supraconductors and later to liquid crystals." He went on to take home the Nobel Prize for Physics in 1991, and was even dubbed the "Isaac Newton of our time" by some of the judges. Thankfully, much of his brilliance can still be enjoyed via his 1974 book "The Physics of Liquid Crystals," and while we're sure the context is way over our heads, we can certainly appreciate the end results of his unwearying work.
Obese gamer collapses, dies after "marathon" gaming session
Well here we go again. Reuters is reporting that a Chinese gamer has died after a "marathon," weeklong gaming session. The 26-year-old apparently collapsed on Saturday after he spent the entire week before (he'd been on break because of the Lunar New Year's celebration) playing an unidentified online game. A local teacher says the reason he played games for a full week was that because of the holiday, "there are only two options. TV or computer. What else can I do in the holiday as all markets, KTV and cafeterias are shut down?"Be prepared, I guess, to hear about this in all future media examinations of whether or not WoW is addictive. I won't argue that this isn't a sad thing to hear-- no matter what the real cause of this poor guy's death, there were serious problems there that should have been fixed a long time ago.But I will note that the article mentions the 26-year-old weighed 330 lbs. Why doesn't the headline say "Food addict dies"? Also of note, the last line of the article says that China considers 13% of its Internet users under 18 addicted. WoW, according to "experts," is supposed to be 40% addicts, but neither figure, as far as I can see, actually says what they define as "addicts"-- are they setting the bar for "addiction" low or high?
