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Samsung rumored to tweak Galaxy Note 10.1 inside and out
It certainly looks like Samsung has redesigned the 10.1-inch version of its Galaxy Note, which it promised back at MWC. At a German event this week, a slimmer version of the tablet was snapped sporting a built in S-Pen slot that had also been sweating off some extra pounds. So much so, that the company will retail a dedicated pen holder to make your electronic doodling more comfortable. We've also heard unconfirmed rumors that the biggest change to the tablet was internal -- with the Galaxy S III's quad-core Exynos chip replacing the original dual-core innards we'd seen previously. We reached out to the company on that point to see if it could shed any light, but its people weren't able to make any comment ahead of its official debut. [Image Credit: Eraser112]
Fable developer seeking online game designer for 'ambitious new project'
Hey guys, since long-standing single-player titles' becoming MMOs is all the rage these days, did you know that the folks at Fable developer Lionhead Studios are looking to hire someone with a deep understanding of online multiplayer games to help them "define the multiplayer levels and experience of [their] ambitious new project"? Because according to the official job listing at Microsoft, they totally are. Of course, the first thing that came to our minds was could this mean a Fable MMO? Well, it could, but we're not sure yet. All we know right now is that Lionhead is looking for help to design a particularly ambitious (cough) online game, and if you take into consideration that late last year the studio was looking for an MMO-oriented programmer... well, fans of the Fable series or the studio itself should definitely keep their eyes on this one.
A Mild-Mannered Reporter: How City of Heroes almost died
If it hasn't become clear over the past two and a half years, I really enjoy speculation. I like crazy theories, I like exploring possibilities, I like thought exercises, and so forth. There's some speculation that I find particularly ill-informed or lacking in some fundamental point of logic, but that doesn't mean I don't learn about them first. Why am I making a point out of this? Because I've developed a theory about the state of City of Heroes, and I want to make it clear before I launch into this somewhat grim theory that I'm basing this entirely on outside observations. I want it to be clear that I could, in fact, be totally wrong, and when I say that City of Heroes nearly committed unintentional suicide a couple of years ago, I don't want that to be seen as some grand behind-the-scenes revelation. And if it weren't obvious from that line, yes, that's where I'm going. I think Going Rogue nearly gutted City of Heroes and burned the whole game to the ground. And I think everything the game has done since can be directly traced back to that expansion.
Datamining hints at Mists of Pandaria Collector's edition mount
A new round of datamining has uncovered an interesting string and spell in the new code pushed with recent updates to the beta -- specifically, a reference to a placeholder for a Mists of Pandaria collector's edition mount. Here's the string/spell change, courtesy of MMO-Champion: [PH] MoP CE Mount - [PH] Summons and dismisses a ???. This mount changes depending on your Riding skill and location. Traditionally, collector's editions of World of Warcraft expansions included a pet, usually a whelp that resembles a key figure or theme of the expansion. The original collector's edition of WoW included three pets, the Zergling, the panda cub, and the mini Diablo. No collector's edition has ever shipped with a mount before. Here's the kicker: There is also a string and spell in the new build for a collector's edition pet as well, which means more stuff packed in to this next release's premium package. Does upping the ante on cool in-game stuff, from pets to mounts, put the collector's edition of Mists of Pandaria closer to your shelf? As a consummate purchaser of Blizzard collector's editions, I will be shelling out the cash notwithstanding. However, it would be nice to see a bevy of new rewards in the collector's editions other than just the whelps. They will, however, be excellent editions to my Pet Battle Army. What do you think the collector's edition mount could be? It's open warfare between Alliance and Horde in Mists of Pandaria, World of Warcraft's next expansion. Jump into five new levels with new talents and class mechanics, try the new monk class, and create a pandaren character to ally with either Horde or Alliance. Look for expansion basics in our Mists FAQ, or dig into our spring press event coverage for more details!
The road to OS Xi: Where iOS and OS X suffer a teleporter accident and merge
Remember The Fly? That's the one where Jeff Goldblum tries to teleport but instead gets his genes all mixed up with a fly. "[T]he Telepod computer, confused by the presence of two separate life-forms in the sending pod, merged him with the fly at the molecular-genetic level." Look at Lion/Mountain Lion and iOS; it's easy to see that the two operating systems are growing closer together, starting to converge. If you're willing to put on your crazy hat (tinfoil is optional), you might consider the following thought experiment. What if Apple consolidates the two into a dual-mode OS that supports both mobile and desktop use? Developers have seen OS X 10.8 Mountain Lion pick up numerous mobile features like Game Center, Reminders, and Notification Center. Apple is implementing an iOS-like sandboxing approach to application development with high levels of permission requirements. Apple is integrating share sheets (a UI metaphor that helps users route data from one app to another using a centralized delegation mechanism) in a manner similar to iOS. Even Xcode, the bulwark of traditional "general computing," is being assimilated. Starting this spring, Xcode is now available only through the App Store, distributed in a compliant sandboxed app bundle. When even the main developer IDE for the Mac is subject to the onslaught of the future, Apple's transformation of the Mac OS has few obstacles ahead of it. Sure, Tim Cook has warned us about the fate of the toaster fridge. "I think anything can be forced to converge," he said last week during the Apple Q2 financials call (referring, in this case, to Windows 8 Metro). "The problem is that products are about trade-offs, and you begin to make trade-offs to the point where what you have left at the end of the day doesn't please anyone. You can converge a toaster and a refrigerator, but those things are probably not going to be pleasing to the user." I don't think Cook's statement rules out a unified OS that adapts, depending on the user's situation, instead of forcing users into a single UI for mobile and desktop access. Under the hood, there's already very little separating the core technology of OS X and iOS. I also think Apple is smart enough not to force desktop users into an interface better suited for use on the road, and vice versa. The key isn't creating a chimera that tries to please everyone and suits no one. Instead, I think Apple is capable of delivering a satisfying computing experience that works in multiple environments. Call it "situational computing." It's not as if they haven't explored this arena before. Add in the ever growing importance of AirPlay, which allows interfaces to be wirelessly mirrored outside one device to another display, and iCloud, which sublimates data out from any single device and syncs it to all your computing platforms, and you're diving into an amphibious core technology, one that can adapt to sea or land as needed. (To stretch a metaphor to near-breaking.) In many ways, OS X is "too much computing" for a great proportion of Apple's consumer audience. A simplified user interface would suit many needs, and cover nearly everything users need to accomplish -- although I do believe they need more sophistication than an iPad currently offers. It's just that OS X Lion and Mountain Lion is a bit of overkill. Yes, OS X (and going back to Mac OS 9) offers Simple Finder, but even dropping most of the complexity of the file management environment doesn't change the inter-application experience, which remains fully OS X complex. iOS as it currently stands, however, will never be a perfect solution for students creating research papers. It's designed for serial unitasking, not the multiple research threads and tasks of academic work. Hopping between a text editor and Safari is horrific, and even good apps like Daedalus Touch or Writing Kit at best provide Frankensolutions. In fact, most creative work requires app-to-app switching: creating pictures in Photoshop, editing text in Word, updating spreadsheets in Numbers, and presentations in Keynote. I trust that Apple can create a multi-windowed version of iOS, simplifying the need for a multitasking interface. I also believe Apple can leverage wireless ways to treat every monitor as a potential extra screen. This display outreach feature already exists with Apple TV and AirPlay in current iOS deployments. So why not extend it to all Macs and all displays? The third party Reflection app, which I have been using a great deal since it debuted, provides a hint of the possibilities. That's because AirPlay isn't just about mirroring. It's also about adding extra screens. You already see this in a few games like Real Racing and Bartleby 2. The device acts as the controller, and the AirPlay destination works as a secondary screen. These apps represent just the start of where the technology might take off, especially if Apple introduces a hardware touch-based Apple TV. I should mention that the hardware TV is a possibility that I'm a bit dubious about; others here at TUAW believe in it a lot more than I do. I'm happy to be proved wrong. But think about taking AirPlay to the next level, passively expanding its functionality to offer to transfer control to your iMac or Thunderbolt Display when your iPad comes in range of AirPlay Bonjour services. Imagine redirecting iPad computing to your home screen while sitting at your desktop, with your data and your application state travelling back out with you as you once again hit the road, courtesy of iCloud. Imagine a slide-in laptop shell that transforms the iPad's retina display back to desktop/laptop mode for more intense work sessions when needed. The thing is this: I don't see any big roadblocks preventing this vision from being implemented today, with current tech and current software capabilities. It's as if all the pieces are there already, just waiting for Apple to give the signal to go and productize them. Sure, Cook has warned us away from Toaster Fridges. But do you think Apple has made a habit of developing Toaster Fridges ever? I trust Apple. And I think they could easily go in this direction, delivering high quality consumer technology. When Apple says "No", we hear "maybe." This is not the first time we've gone to the Apple dance. It is classic Apple. They make fun of some tech (netbooks, tablets, whatever) and then they create the definitive version of that device, building something that redefines the market forever. Sure, this entire post is wild speculation -- but remember this: the capacity for implementing this kind of development path is already there. There's nothing I've discussed that's groundbreaking or would require huge R&D. Will iOS and OS X merge into OS Xi? Maybe. Can they? Definitely. Perhaps Apple will surprise me and deliver this unicorn? Possibly. What do you think? Jump in and leave a comment with your thoughts.
TUAW TV Live: Hardware, accessories, and "fabulous new products in the pipeline"
Welcome back to another hour of fun, live discussion on TUAW TV Live! Today my topics will range from the flood of hardware and accessories that have made their way to the legendary TUAW Labs to the curious line uttered by Apple CEO Tim Cook yesterday. Cook noted that Apple is "shipping the best products ever, and we have some fabulous new products in the pipeline." What those products could be is a matter of speculation, and it would be fun during the show to hear your "outside the box" ideas about what new and completely mind-boggling products could be coming out of Cupertino in the future. Apple has created a new market segment for tablets and redefined what a smartphone is, and now the TUAW TV hive mind just needs to figure out what totally off-the-wall, gotta-have-it product we could see soon. Below, you'll find a Ustream livestream viewer and a chat tool. The chat tool allows you to participate by asking questions or making comments. You can also choose to watch the show on Justin.tv if you wish, by visiting our portal at http://justin.tv/tuawtvlive. In either case, you'll be watching the show in glorious HD! If you're driving somewhere and would like to watch TUAW TV Live while you're stuck in traffic, please don't -- keep your eyes on the road! However, if someone else is doing the driving, you can watch the show on your iPhone and join the chat by downloading the free Ustream App. It's a universal app and is wonderful on an iPad, both for viewing and participating in the chat. We'll start at about 5 PM ET, so if you're seeing a prerecorded show, be sure to refresh your browser until you see the live stream. For those of you who are not able to join us for the live edition, you'll be able to view it later this evening on our TUAW Video YouTube channel and as part of the TUAW TV Live podcast viewable in iTunes or on any of your Apple devices.
Talkcast tonight, 7pm PT/10pm ET: AirPro Edition!
Well well well, Sunday. It's that time again, Talkshoe time! It's also time for some nice new hardware speculation live from my house, and we'll talk a little bit about some real news this week as well, such as a preview of NAB and a quick episode of Where's Tim? Kelly hosting the show means Kelly hosting the aftershow, a lovely non-recorded conversation about whatever strikes our fancy. A lot of times it's cake, but sometimes we solve the world's problems as well. You just never know. Since it's really all about you, the community, join me won't you? To participate, you can use the browser-only Talkshoe client, the embedded Facebook app, or download the classic TalkShoe Pro Java client; however, for +5 Interactivity, you should call in. For the web UI, just click the Talkshoe Web button on our profile page at 4 HI/7 PDT/10 pm EDT Sunday. To call in on regular phone or VoIP lines (Viva free weekend minutes!): dial (724) 444-7444 and enter our talkcast ID, 45077 -- during the call, you can request to talk by keying in *8. If you've got a headset or microphone handy on your Mac, you can connect via the free X-Lite or other SIP clients (aside from Skype or Google Voice), basic instructions are here. (If you prefer Blink, the pro version is available in the Mac App Store.) Talk to you tonight!
Re-envisioning iTunes: How Mountain Lion portends the future
Victor has been promising to write a post about iTunes and how it fails to live up to OS X's potential for over a year. Fortunately, the guys over at Macworld sprang to the rescue, discussing how Apple might want to save their syncing ship. Since I can't rebut Victor's non-existent post, as I had originally planned to, I'm going to take Jason as my muse and start rambling about iTunes, its future direction, and how I'd redesign it all. Here are facts that almost everyone at TUAW can agree on: iTunes is an unwieldy behemoth, slowly suffocating from its own size and age. Music on iPad is less bad than it used to be, but it's still far from ideal. Breaking out the Mac App Store from iTunes hasn't been a huge success in terms of serving discoverability of new and hot apps. Unfortunately, too many users have no idea that MAS even exists. Further decomposition gets more and more cluttered and confusing, whether in iOS (Apple Store, iTunes Music, App Store, Music Player, Built-in Music Controls, etc.) or OS X (Safari Apple Store, iTunes, Mac App Store). Instead of iOS moving more and more towards general computing, Mountain Lion shows that Apple is moving OS X more and more towards consumer-friendly appliance computing. iTunes is really awful And that's the starting point for the big question: How should Apple redesign it all from the ground up to make it less awful without losing all the good stuff that iTunes can and does deliver. So here's my first take on the situation. Mind you, I tend to see the world through big general-computing glasses, so I'm sure I'm missing a bunch of "moving to Mountain Lion simplicity" key points here. What follows is a baseline. I'm then going to throw the keys over to you, our readers, so you can drive the discussion further. Tell me what points you think are reasonable and which of them are so deluded as to be incomprehensible. Tell us how you would revamp iTunes? Kill the entire app? Redesign it? Or strategically break out functionality? Here's my go at it. Playback needs to be part of the OS, not part of iTunes. Just as iOS lets you double-click the home button and access its playback controls, OS X needs to incorporate immediate gratification and playback directly from its home field: the OS X desktop. Forget about launching iTunes: music browsing and playlist selection (not to mention creation) needs to migrate into Spotlight (or some similar always-on feature). Tunes should be part of the computing experience, not a separate app. Folders. Want to organize your music, audio books, videos, and apps? There are folders for that. Real folders, in a real file system. Want OS X to manage those folders for you? It already does. The iTunes library folder is the right idea, but it's missing a simple "move to my media library" Finder option. The store should be completely integrated -- hardware, software, music, etc -- and ubiquitous. Just as Mountain Lion offers a built-in notification center, available at the swipe of a mouse, there's no reason the OS shouldn't provide a similar shopping option. Basically, the iTunes store is nothing more than e-commerce web pages. Instead of pretending people don't have to shop, I propose that Apple goes full-Monty. Add the store to its own swipe-down icon, complete with full OS integration. Make it simpler for people to see specials, find media, buy it, and enjoy it. Forget about separate apps, just build the thing into the menu bar and get on with the selling already. Device management should be transparent. Want to backup, upgrade, or even look at the device Document folders on an app-by-app basis? Do it from the Finder. There's no reason any of this stuff should be taking place in iTunes. Right-click > Check for Firmware Update, or Upgrade all Apps. Bingo. Need to set up email accounts or sync bookmarks? Preferences panes. Move library management functions outside of the device-by-device screens. Sure, add an app for this. I want to be able to disable certain items from syncing to all devices without losing sight of them forever. Make it simple to create global choices ("don't sync this", and "always sync this") and add some advanced user features hidden from the norms ("sync this to all iPads and iPod touches" and "only sync this to Bologna"). Think beyond "playlists" to "synclists". And for heaven's sake, make the sync options work consistently, especially in the age of iCloud. Add an iCloud manager. A standalone iCloud manager should allow you to review all the stuff you've sent into the aether, and help you manage your storage as well as access data from devices. It should, on demand and with sufficient warnings and administrator privileges, let you review your files on your entire device whether connected or not, with the option to move data to the cloud, and from the cloud to any device or computer you own. Okay, that's our take on this. Now it's your turn. How would you redesign iTunes and ancillary services? Join in the discussion and design away.
The Mog Log: Head of the newer class
The Final Fantasy series, particularly the online installments, is all about class. This is not entirely surprising, since the series has built up a series of character types that, while sometimes kind of random, are beloved just the same. The jumping spear-wielding Dragoons, dual-wielding and sword-throwing Ninjas, the ubiquitous Summoners... if these concepts don't exist in some form within a game, it raises some eyebrows. It's a symptom of the linking the games by certain broad pseudo-mythological concepts rather than by any actual continuity. We've gotten our Job system in Final Fantasy XIV, we've got our classes to the point that they're at least somewhat balanced, and we've got a new version on the horizon. The question, then, is what we're getting next. What new classes or jobs can we look forward to? What do we need? What gaps are obvious within the Final Fantasy pantheon, and what is just lacking in terms of a traditional MMO setup?
A Mild-Mannered Reporter: Countless marvelous powers
There were a lot of reasons I decided to stop collecting Transformers a couple of years back, but chief among those reasons was the fact that it was increasingly a hunt for novelty over permanence. A new wave of toys was released, and fans were expected to buy the lot of them, admire the novelty, and then almost immediately move on to the next wave. The idea of new releases playing into past toys was increasingly left out in the cold, meaning that you could essentially just keep grabbing a new set of toys every two or three months rather than enjoying the ones you had. Of course, Transformers are meant to be toys for children, so the marketing strategy is pretty defensible. But I'm beginning to wonder whether City of Heroes isn't adopting a similar attitude with the steady onslaught of new powersets. Since Freedom hit, we've seen an absolute explosion of new sets with new mechanics and new ways to play... but we've also seen a real dearth of anything tying players to a given powerset. It's novelty on a steady basis, but we might not have appreciated the slow pace of new sets before.
A Mild-Mannered Reporter: City of Heroes 2
Before the comments light up, I'm just going to say outright that City of Heroes 2 does not currently exist. We've heard no news about it, no announcements, nothing beyond the speculation of many City of Heroes players such as myself. I'm deviating (again) from the set schedule and talking about a purely hypothetical sequel that all of us are kind of expecting but that does not, at this point, exist. But considering all of the recent talk about Guild Wars 2, I think it's apropos. Let's assume, for the purpose of this article, that Paragon Studios is knee-deep in development of City of Heroes 2 and simply isn't telling anyone. What sort of things would the game need? What would be the best possible route for the game to take? How could it satisfy fans of City of Heroes while drawing in new players? I don't have the absolute answers... but it sure does make for some interesting speculation, based on the things the team has been doing over the past several years.
EVE Evolved: Setting the universe on fire
This week CCP Games announced the name and focus of EVE Online's upcoming summer expansion. The Inferno expansion aims to re-invigorate PvP with some long overdue gameplay changes. CONCORD-sanctioned wars will be iterated on for the first time in half a decade, and faction warfare will hopefully be getting the updates it should have received in 2008. Following on from the success of the Crucible expansion with its hundreds of small features and gameplay changes, Inferno will also contain dozens of small gameplay changes, usability fixes, and minor improvements. We'll hear more about DUST 514 in the coming months as CCP reveals more concrete details of the game's link to EVE Online and the motivations behind planet-bound wars. Incarna fans will apparently also see some movement, with Team Avatar focusing on avatar-based updates for this release. While Inferno is a rather uninspired name and coincidentally would make three of the last four expansions start with the word "in," the expansion's content is genuinely exciting. Fundamental changes are coming to EVE's PvP mechanics for the first time in several years. CCP hasn't revealed the exact changes, but that hasn't stopped players from speculating on what might be heading their way. In this week's EVE Evolved, I speculate on the changes coming in the upcoming Inferno expansion and what changes I think might be coming to EVE's PvP.
Microsoft Office for iOS gets blurrycam treatment in weird party-room
What you see before you is a single image purporting to be Microsoft's new Office app for iOS. We can certainly believe such an app exists, and according to The Daily, the UI is similar to OneNote with an added dash of Metro. You'll be able to produce and edit Word, Excel and PowerPoint files locally and online, but the app is still to run the Cupertino's approval gauntlet. The report also claims an Android version is isn't in the works and but that a Metro-styled refresh of OneNote is due in "the coming weeks." That said, we're not sure what sort of place doesn't take the plastic off its carpets, leaves big "product of Spain" crates lying around with leopard-print plushies and USS Enterprise logos hanging on the wall -- but perhaps we've underestimated Redmond's capacity for a good party. Update: We incorrectly reported that an Android version was forthcoming, we've edited to correct our mistake -- please accept our sincere apologies.
Samsung's GT-i9300 is probably not the Galaxy S III, as revealed by its low-res screen
Straight from the Dana Scully school of debunking, Android Community has poured cold water on the notion that the GT-i9300 is the quasi-mythical Galaxy S III. Having happened upon the user agent profile of the device bearing that codename, the stats reveal a lackluster 1024 x 600 resolution display that's easily beaten by the Galaxies Nexus and Note. We'll be keeping our eyes peeled at Mobile World Congress and hope that Samsung isn't planning to ruin the pedigree of the handsets that have previously born that code: the i9200 i9100 was the Galaxy S II and the i9250 was the Galaxy Nexus, after all.
If it looks like an MMO, walks like an MMO, and quacks like an MMO...
Then it might just be an MMO! Indie gaming fans out there are probably already familiar with thatgamecompany, creators of hit PSN titles such as Flower, flOw, and the to-be-released Journey. Journey is going to be the studio's first experience with online interaction between players, but a new job listing from the studio seeking a scalability engineer states that the studio would "like to take it a step further with [its] next game." Taking online interaction a step further, you say? Why, they could be talking about an MMO! The job listing further corroborates this theory as it continues on to state that "while [thatgamecompany is] pretty experienced making games, [the studio has] never built a full scale online service available to hundreds of thousands of users." Hundreds of thousands of users, you say? Why, that sounds even more like an MMO! Of course, this is all pure conjecture at this point, but surely we're not alone in our belief that an MMO from the minds of the folks that brought us Flower and flOw would be pretty groovy. But the fact remains that Journey won't even be released until next month, so this next project -- whatever it may be -- is still far off the horizon, but stay tuned. Hopefully we'll know more about this new project before too long.
Considering Aperture for iOS
Gabe Glick over at Macstories has a proposal: Aperture for iOS. On the surface, it sounds like a pretty silly idea -- Apple's high end camera app is really made for a desktop environment, and with the hassle required to get high quality photos onto iOS devices, there really isn't a point bringing Aperture over to a platform like the iPad. But Glick, though he agrees with the naysayers to a certain extent, is willing to take the opposite position. He says that he thinks Aperture is coming to the iPad with the announcement (expected sometime this year) of the iPad 3. So we'll let him make his case. He says the Retina Display is a big benefit, for photographers who really want to see their pictures close up and in full color. Of course, the iPad 2 doesn't have a Retina Display, but if the iPad 3 gets the same kind of high definition screen that the iPhone 4 already has, Aperture would be more likely. iCloud's photo stream would make it easy to get pictures on the mobile device, a better A6 processor would make editing RAW photos and other high end resolutions easier as well, and finally, Glick says that a "professional workhorse" app like Aperture shouldn't be automatically dismissed from the iPad. Most people would have said the same thing about iMovie and GarageBand on the iPad, and both of those have done quite well. When you put it like that, well, sure. Obviously this is all just speculation -- we won't know that Apple is releasing an app like this until it's actually announced on stage. But I will say as well that I've been trying to make noise lately for a sort of "iCamera" -- a more professional DSLR camera made and produced by Apple -- and I've been answered most of the time with the suggestion that Apple is betting on the cameras in its mobile devices rather than a separate dedicated device. If that is true, then sure, why wouldn't we want to see better official tools to deal with photos than the current Camera app offers?
THQ still planning on WAR40K launch in fiscal 2014
It seems as if the recent brouhaha over THQ's future was a bit overblown, as were concerns about the fate of the firm's Warhammer 40K: Dark Millennium Online MMO. Our sister site reports that DMO is on track for "fiscal 2014 and beyond" based on a THQ earnings report released today. We consulted our corporate-speak decoder rings and determined that fiscal 2014 translates to April 2013, which puts the launch window slightly behind the original target date, according to Joystiq. Last month THQ debunked a rumor tweeted by Kevin Dent that had the firm canceling its entire 2014 catalog and prepping for a firesale. Gamespot, meanwhile, is reporting that THQ is actively seeking publishing partners for the game.
Storyboard: Three guys walk into a bar
My days of playing Magic: the Gathering are... well, they're not over, exactly, but I'm certainly not in my heyday any longer. Despite this, I've made no secret of the fact that I still avidly read Mark Rosewater's Making Magic column because the stuff he says in the column is applicable to game design in general. There are a lot of ideas that I've drawn out of there over the years, and one of the ones that's stuck with me is the Timmy-Johnny-Spike split that Rosewater's quite fond of explaining at length. For those of you not interested in reading a decade's worth of columns just to understand what I'm talking about, the three names in questions are the so-called "psychographics" for Magic's audience, three psychological snapshots of why people play and enjoy the game. They're useful tools for understanding the reason certain cards resonate well with some players and not with others. And they're applicable to almost everything -- even roleplaying.
Max Schaefer talks Torchlight II development, potential MMO plans
There are a lot of people eagerly anticipating Diablo III, but there are also several people looking forward to Torchlight II, the followup to the hugely successful spiritual sequel to Diablo. A recent interview with Max Schaefer, co-founder and CEO of Runic Games, discusses the development of the sequel including some of the contrasting points between it and Diablo III -- including the lack of any sort of virtual item shop. As Schaefer puts it, the team wants to put together a good game that stands on its own, and if it's successful the developers will look in the direction of an expansion rather than a straightforward shop. Schaefer also discusses a potential MMO coming out of the studio, something that's long been among the studio's plans -- one of the big reasons that Runic partnered with Perfect World Entertainment was due to its expertise with running an MMO. He claims that it's definitely still on the table, but it would be a big change for the studio, since the company has focused on staying small and launching an MMO is a very long-term commitment. Somewhat sad news for those hoping that Torchlight II's launch would spearhead MMO development directly, but the possibility certainly remains.
Tim Cook: The tablet will be bigger than the PC one day
This probably shouldn't shock too many people but, Tim Cook believes the future isn't with the PC, but with the tablet. After shipping 15.4 million iPads in Q1 Cupertino is clearly comfortable with the idea that tablets are taking off and, as we begin to demand our devices become more mobile, it only makes sense that these finger-friendly slates will one day outsell less portable options like laptops and desktops. When might that day come? Well, Mr. Cook refused to speculate, but he was confident that the tablet market will be bigger, at least in terms of units sold, than traditional computers. Cook is already seeing a shift, with the iPad cannibalizing some Mac sales, but he does believe "there's more cannibalization of Windows PCs by the iPad," a trend he clearly loves. We hope, for their own sake, Dell and HP are ready for the coming revolution.
