ny-times
Latest
New York Times crossword references World of Warcraft
Today's New York Times crossword includes a clue that any non MMO player wouldn't know. Amongst the standard pop-culture references and strict definitions, today's crossword puzzlers encountered the following clue, as shown by Jack Thompson (no, not that Jack Thompson) via Twitter. @cm_zarhym @warcraft You guys made the Times crossword this morning. 4 letters, beginning with "R." twitter.com/Thejackthompso... - Jack Thompson (@Thejackthompson) May 2, 2013 Raid is the obvious answer -- to us. But I would think it's a pretty hard answer for a non-gamer to come up with. Does this mean that World of Warcraft is part of the mainstream? Are we going to be able to use MMO lingo around the water cooler now? Do we want to?
How Apple's mobile devices are re-defining medicine
The New York Times examines how Apple's iPhone, iPod touch, and iPad are changing the way the health industry works. Of course, a light, powerful, and simple touchscreen computer can be handy almost anywhere, but that's especially true in the field of medicine. Much of the work involves reference materials and careful measurements, and Apple's little devices are quickly becoming many doctors' first step in helping patients. From huge reference books slimmed down into easy-to-access apps and websites, to special accessories designed to measure specific patient conditions. In fact, the Times notes, some professors of medicine are cautioning their students to remember that they have more tools at their disposal than just that iPhone in their pocket. Examining and dealing directly with the patient is always a priority, obviously, and some doctors in the piece say certain tasks just call for a good old fashioned pen and paper. But Apple's iOS devices are certainly great tools to be used in the medical field, as we've seen before. Apps and accessories both, in conjunction with Apple's great computers, are just adding more and more weapons to doctors' growing arsenal of tools to do their jobs.
New York Times releases 'experimental' HTML5 iPad app, puts Twitter trends front and center
The New York Times isn't beyond a little "experimentation" -- not when it comes to iPad apps, at least. The old gray lady today is showing off its "experimental" iPad web app, an HTML5-powered reading experience available to digital subscribers with its Web + Tablet and All Digital Access packages. The app's got four ways to consume all the news that's fit to digitize, including the Trending format, which offers up the past hour's top 25 trending stories on Twitter and the more traditional Today's Paper, which recalls those days when people used to get their news from dead trees. More info can be found in the press release after the break, and if you're on an iPad, you can access the site via the source link below.
The New York Times is coming to Flipboard Thursday
Well, it's hardly the release of a new summer blockbuster, but getting full length content from the New York Times in Flipboard is certainly going to excite news hounds that also appreciate fine UI design. A lot of content from magazines and newspapers is presented in abbreviated format in the slick app, but now Times subscribers will have unfettered access to the "paper of record's" reporting. Even non-subscribers will be able to read some of the publications articles for free, just as they can through the site. Now all you have to do is wait for the switch to be flipped on Thursday and hope that other outlets follow suit.
Suspected Sony hackers arrested in Spain
If you've been wondering when (or whether) authorities would be bringing some of the Sony PlayStation hackers to justice, the New York Times has a brief report that you'll want to check out. Three hackers were recently arrested by Spanish police in the cities of Almeria, Barcelona, and Valencia, all of them with suspected connections to the attacks that took the PlayStation Network offline last April as well as cyber assaults on Spanish banks and government websites. The Spanish National Police claim to have "dismantled the local leadership of the shadowy international network of computer hackers known as Anonymous," though the Times article casts doubt on whether or not the three individuals arrested were solely responsible for the Sony brouhaha. The cyber shenanigans will end up costing Sony somewhere in the neighborhood of $173 million due to damages, IT spending, legal fees, lost sales, and expenses related to customer win-back programs.
Chrome Web Store, HTML5 and the iPad: symbiosis at its best
It's all coming together, folks. It doesn't take much of a gander at the Chrome Web Store to notice a trend: some of the flashiest, most mature "apps" are actually just in-browser versions of iPad apps. And you know what else? Most of these "apps" actually run fine in Safari on the iPad. We're not sure how long Google gave developers to port their experiences over, but it seems like most of the best work had already been done in the form of HTML5 apps that were merely wrapped in app form for App Store delivery. Google's just taking things to the next logical step. Continue after the break as we expand this thesis paragraph into a number of supporting blocks of text, a few jazzy pictorial examples, and a stunning closer.
NYTimes for iPad app delivers entire newspaper for free... until 2011
Remember that New York Times Editor's Choice app that hit right alongside the iPad's launch? Hello, overhaul. NYTimes for iPad was just unleashed today, with many describing the results as an ideal newspaper-to-tablet port. The primary difference? This is the entire New York Times, delivered to your iPad free of charge (assuming you're a registered member of the site, which can also be accomplished for no charge). The new app brings over 25 sections of content to readers, but the glorious fun is sure to be short lived; The Times is planning to launch a pay model next year, and after that wall goes up, the app will also require a paid subscription. Enjoy it while it lasts, we guess.
New York Times to begin charging for access... something something, Apple Tablet
Is it a stretch of logic, or purely logical? You be the one to judge. New York Magazine is reporting from what seems to be pretty solid word that the New York Times will start charging online readers for its content. That's all well and interesting for a media hound, but there's additional word that the announcement of this in "a matter of weeks" might coincide with the rumored January 27th Apple launch. You know, the tablet thing. We already know (or are pretty sure) that Apple has shopped around a theoretical device to content providers, including almost assuredly the New York Times, so it makes "sense." Still, we aren't putting solid money down on a single thing until Steve Jobs pulls this device out of a largish pocket of his and shows it to our face.
Pixar talks about what it took to upgrade Toy Story to 3D
And some people didn't know it is possible to make an old movie look good in HD, and here Pixar is going back and making 15 year old movies 3D. Evidently Pixar has always thought about how its movies would look in 3D and decided to go back and make it happen with the first two Toy Story movies. The timing is due to the fact that Toy Story 3 is right around the corner, but while fans wait to see it, they can go to the theater and relive the first two like never before. What's interesting is that the original data took about 4 months to convert just to make it compatible with Pixar's current technology, and after that was done, it took another 6 months to convert each movie to 3D. The other interesting nuget is about how the distance between the two cameras help determine how "3D" an image will look -- an interesting read even if you're not interested in 3D.[Via TVSnob.com]
The New York Times reviews Free Realms
These realms may not be completely free, but darn if the New York Times loves them anyhow. It's a little strange to see a major publication like the NY Times reviewing Free Realms, let alone any review for an MMO from any outlet. Still, the fact that SOE's little free-to-play game-that-could smacked down the one million accounts mark in record time probably has a little to do with this much attention.As far as reviews go, this one is highly positive and praising of both Free Realms and SOE, and its not very surprising at this point. Just about everyone has had nothing but good things to say about the title -- not that any game is without its faults, especially at launch.The message the NY Times' review ends with is one we agree upon. Free Realms is definitely a triumph for the company that lost much of its EverQuest thunder to Blizzard's World of Warcraft. And really, there's no greater proof than having everyone talking about the game. Well that one million account record is also good proof, we suppose.
New York Times R&D group is braced for the future of content delivery, being totally chill
In a collision of journalistic labs heretofore unseen, the folks at Harvard's Nieman Journalism Lab hit up The New York Times' R&D lab for a look at what those ink-stained word-slingers think about the future of newspaper delivery. Nick Bilton, "Design Integration Editor" at the NY Times, and ever calm in the face of futurism, gave a guided tour of the devices they're currently looking at, and while there aren't a lot of surprises, it is nice to see they're taking ebooks, netbooks and touchscreen PCs all very seriously. Of particular note is a (sadly damaged) e-ink prototype with a newspapery layout, complete with typography, designed for an "e-ink device that [doesn't] exist yet." Nick also makes mention of Mary Lou Jepsen's upcoming Pixel Qi display, along with the marvelous world of RFID-based ads. Check out the full content delivery nerd-out on video after the break.
Times Reader coming to the Mac
I live in Philadelphia, but I'm a native New Yorker, and for my money there is no better newspaper on the planet than the New York Times. The Times has really embraced the new realities that the digital age has foisted upon the newspaper business by trying a number of new things (running a great website included).Sadly, it seemed that the Gray Lady was ignoring Mac users when it first released the Times Reader. The Times Reader, for those who don't know, is a dedicated application which displays the last seven days of the New York Times. It has many of the benefits that one gets from reading nytimes.com (changeable fonts, searchable content, ease of printing) with the added benefit of not requiring an internet connection. The Times Reader syncs content on your computer, and lets you take it anywhere. Luckily for me (and I am betting there are some other New York Times fans out there) the Times will be launching the Times Reader Beta for Mac at some point this month. The Times Reader for the Mac is a native Cocoa application powered by Webkit and Silverlight (yes, you'll have to install Microsoft's Silverlight to use this app). This is not the same as the RSS reader called Times which Mat posted about last week.This is a beta, and so there are some features that the PC version has that aren't in the Mac version: Resizeable windows: yep, the Times Reader on the Mac only has 4 preset window sizes at the moment. Copy and paste of text: this is a pretty big feature that I hope they sort out sooner rather than later. It isn't all bad though, the Mac version supports search across all seven days of content while the PC version only searches the current day's edition.During the beta the Times Reader for Mac will be free to use, but once the beta is over it'll revert back to being free only for New York Times subscribers (though you can subscribe just to the Reader service for $14.95 a month). Check out the blog post for more images of the app.As soon as I get a chance to look at the Times Reader for Mac beta I'll post an in depth review.
Full DS downloads not coming to DS, Reggie misinterpreted?
When Reggie sat down with the NY Times recently, many might have misinterpreted what Reggie said in regards to future plans regarding DS downloads and the Everyone's Nintendo Channel. Gamasutra states that a nameless Nintendo representative issued a statement regarding the rumor of downloads directly to the DS as "incorrect." An anonymous Nintendo representative apparently said that the real functionality will reside in the Wii being able to download DS titles to be played on Wii. "Users can download games to play on Wii," the nameless NIntendo rep said. This rep also supposedly went on to say "and, in the future, the Nintendo DS will be able to receive demo versions of some DS games from Wii, but not the entire game. The demo will be erased once the Nintendo DS is turned off."We're wondering at the possible alterations our DS games would need to go through in order to be played on Wii. How about you?
NY Times sings praises for Ratchet & Clank
What? The mainstream media has a glowing review of a PS3 game? Yes, it's true. Insomniac's Ratchet & Clank Future is garnering the attention of many traditionally non-gaming news sources, such as the prestigious NY Times. Once again, the illustrious Pixar comparison is made for Ratchet's latest outing -- the game is visually compared to the likes of pre-rendered Hollywood blockbusters, like Monsters Inc. and Toy Story.This is important for Sony. The New York Times notes that this can be exactly what Sony needs to convince consumers about the true power of the PS3. "Ratchet, however, will surely become a showcase game for Sony because, given current technology, it seems unlikely that any game for either the 360 or the Wii will be able to match Ratchet's overall visual quality." Such praise from a mainstream news source will go a long way to alleviate Sony's ailing public image."The biggest problem with Ratchet is that at times it is so lushly compelling that you find yourself just staring at the screen, as if it were a movie, rather than actually playing the game. And that, of course, is not a bad problem at all."[Thanks, Will!]
Hollywood eyes the iPhone
iPhone fever, have you caught it yet? It would seem that Hollywood has. The iPhone has set the cellphone market on fire (even though almost no one has used it yet) and Hollywood has taken notice. They are now scrambling to work out deals with a variety of companies to serve content to the iPhone (and other cellphones as well) according to the New York Times.The movie industry has largely ignored the mobile phone market mostly because historically the only phones that would offer a pleasant viewing experience (i.e. sport a large screen) have been limited to phones targeted to the corporate market. Apple has the consumer in mind, and that is an audience that Hollywood knows, and wants to sell things to.Even if the iPhone fails (which is a pretty big if, but possible) it will have lasting ramifications on the cellphone industry. People will expect more, and there are some companies out there that seem to finally be getting that.
Gray Lady confirms Wii's early success
You can always count on the New York Times to confirm what most people have acknowledged as conventional wisdom weeks ago. To that end, the Gray Lady today has an article looking at the relatively warm welcome the Wii has received when compared to the PS3. The Times recounts more now-tired tales of hard-to-find Wiis, PS3s piled in shops, and the Wii's potential appeal to new gamers ("My husband broke a sweat playing golf on there," one mother declares). The biggest fireworks come from Sony spokesman Dave Karakker, who derisively calls the Wii an "impulse buy" and Nintendo marketing head Perrin Kaplan, who angrily argues that Sony's reports of slow Wii shipments are "absolutely inaccurate." Save it for the ring, fellas. Possibly the most notable thing about the article, though, is the absence of any practical discussion of the Xbox 360 and its effect on the next gen race. Sure, the 360 might seem like old news compared with the more recently released systems, but it does have a multi-million unit head start and just this past holiday saw a multi-platinum ultra-seller. Surely its impact warrants more than a passing mention in the eighth paragraph. [Thanks to everyone who sent this in.]
NY Times: It's a Wii60 Holiday
The New York Times' Seth Scheisel, who already gave a critical review of the PS3, comes back in this morning's NYT to finish the job with console holiday picks. Scheisel says, "If you are anything other than a complete Sony fanboy (that's Internet lingo for an obsessed, myopic groupie) go ahead and forget about the PlayStation 3 this year." He goes on to say that the "overhyped PS3" doesn't deliver with its $599 price (plus accessories).The Wii becomes a holiday pick at the NYT for being a "riotously fun experience" for the whole family. When comparing the Xbox 360 and PS3, the Xbox 360 won in every given category. The only two toss-up groups were graphics and movie-playback. Graphics were called a tie, but Scheisel points out developers have complained about difficulty programming for the PS3 system and that Gears of War looks better than anything on the PS3. Movie playback was considered a wash because both systems offer the same thing, in different formats, for what would end up being the same price. Scheisel says, "Right now there is basically no rational reason to buy a PlayStation 3 instead of an Xbox 360."
