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Microsoft confirms Internet Explorer 9 will launch on March 14th
We had a hint that Microsoft would be releasing the final version of Internet Explorer 9 on March 14th, and now the company has finally, officially confirmed it. That launch will coincide with a press event / party at SXSW, and downloads will be available starting at 9PM Pacific time (or midnight Eastern time). Wondering what's in store? Then you can always check out our review of the beta version, or simply download it yourself, of course -- suffice it to say, it's no Internet Explorer 6.
Internet Explorer 9 expected on March 14th, definitely released by March 24th
The IE9 Release Candidate came out on February 10th, so you might think it's about time it stepped its game up to a final release and Microsoft seems to be of the same mind. Download Squad reports insider sources have pinpointed the South by Southwest gathering in Austin, Texas, this month as the launch platform for the non-beta, non-RC Internet Explorer 9, with a direct download becoming available around 9PM ET on March 14th. That's highly specific, though still unconfirmed, information. For some more official word on the matter, we have to go to the Indian branch of the Microsoft Developer Network, which has tweeted out the announcement that IE9 will launch on March 24th at Tech.Ed India 2011. We imagine that's a launch party specific to India itself, however it does provide an official date for the latest time we can expect Microsoft to take the training wheels off its newest, shiniest browser.
SXSW debuts Propeller indie game awards this March
Between schmoozing with record company executives and debating the merits of Lester Bangs, you may want to take a breather at South by Southwest to play a video game or two. Beyond relaxing in the ScreenBurn Arcade, you'll have a chance to demo games submitted to the first annual SXSW ScreenBurn Independent Propeller Awards. Indiepub Games is sponsoring the event, where finalists for "Best Art, Best Audio, Best Design and Technical Excellence" will show off their games from March 11 - 13. If you're a developer interested in competing, submissions are open now through February 18 -- finalists get a free flight and accommodations to SXSW at the very least, where they'll be tasked with impressing attendees. One grand-prize winner will be decided on March 13, closing out the awards as well as the first annual SXSW ScreenBurn Game Developer's Meetup (a series of "informal round tables, impromptu talks, and a barrage of industry war stories").
HP's Phil McKinney teases three mystery prototypes on Twitter
Well, this is certainly interesting -- that's HP CTO Phil McKinney pictured above in a pair of redacted shots that were posted to Twitter by HP's Mark Budgell. Described only as "early protos" by McKinney himself, the pictures show what appears to be phone-sized device, a tablet-sized device and, perhaps most curiously, something on McKinney's wrist (all mysteriously blacked out). Before you get your hopes up too much about a new wave of webOS devices, however, you might want to take a look at the second part of Budgell's tweet, which encourages folks to vote for McKinney's SXSW 2011 panel -- a panel in which McKinney promises to make some "bold predictions for the future - backed up with a number of breakthrough prototypes," and specifically talk about what the future will look like in "5 to 10 years." Now, we can't be certain of course, but that doesn't exactly suggest these are right around the corner. Head on past the break for a slightly bigger image.
Interview: Twisted Pixel's Mike Wilford talks Comic Jumper
After a grinning Peter Molyneux told Joystiq that Comic Jumper reminded him of a game he would have made twenty years ago (that's a compliment!), we stopped by developer Twisted Pixel's humble South by Southwest booth where CEO Mike Wilford told us about the encounter. "He gave us such a compliment, it was amazing!" Wilford said. After seeing what all the buzz was about, courtesy of a ten-minute demo, we rapped all about Comic Jumper's roots, how Twisted Pixel has changed after the success of 'Splosion Man, the return of 2D mascots (Hello, Sonic! Hello, Rocket Knight!), and where they find inspiration. Read on! Joystiq: What kind of games are you harkening back to with Comic Jumper? It looks like there's a little bit of everything in there. Mike Wilford: Definitely Contra, Gunstar Heroes, and a common theme across all of our games is that they're character-driven. We try to put a lot of personality and humor into the characters, so Earthworm Jim is a huge influence for us. Back in the day, there seemed to be a whole lot of mascot-type characters in games, like Mario, Sonic, all those things, and not many devs seem to be doing that anymore. We're trying to bring that back a little bit with our games.
Seen at SXSW: rejected app Holopic
There's nothing offensive about Holopic. It's a rather ingenious app that (according to the developer) uses just a couple of pictures to create a sort of lenticular lens pseudo-3D effect. That is, when you tilt the image you can see other angles in the image, like 3D, but it isn't true 3D. Unfortunately the developer spent a bunch of money getting attractive models into bikinis and then into the app right before Apple put the kibosh on nearly every app with so much as a bare ankle exposed (let alone cleavage). The fact that the app was rejected doesn't really surprise me, given Apple's new stance, but you could tell months of planning had been thrown off track by the decision. The developer was less than pleased about the situation. Apologies for the fuzzy video, the Kodak Zi8 has no macro capability.
Molyneux says Heavy Rain offers the 'first glimpses of the future' of games
If only Sony had waited until after the South by Southwest festival to release Heavy Rain, the publisher could have printed several glowing quotes from a known Xbox consorter on the back of the PS3-exclusive's game box. Oh, well -- there's always the "Game of the Year" edition. During a a one-on-one conversation with writer Frank Rose at SXSW this week, Fabled designer Peter Molyneux heaped praise on Heavy Rain, calling it "absolutely brilliant." "I recommend anyone who wants to start to see the first glimpses of the future of video games to go out and buy it," Molyneux advocated, before exposing his softer side to the audience. "But, personally, I could not bring myself to play more than 90 minutes, because the world that was there was so dark and so emotionally involving I felt emotionally beaten up." Aww, Mr. Molyneux. "But there's no question in my mind that games like Heavy Rain -- games that have a new fidelity in the way that they present their experiences; obviously made with cinematography and motion capture in mind -- can really show the way forward to a new form of entertainment, which is evolving the story and choices and consequences." Molyneux steadfastly declared, having apparently recovered from painful memories of the game (perhaps cries of Jason? Jason? Jason! still faintly echoing in his head). Molyneux also commended developer Quantic Dream's design choices, observing that the QTE interface "really meant that you had to pay attention all the time because you didn't know whether these quick-time events were going to come up"; though he noted that such gameplay mechanics "may be a little bit tired after a while." Still, he said, "I have to take my hat off to [Quantic Dream] ... There's a couple of things they do in that game which were really revolutionary, and what they do with quick-time is fantastic." "Us designers were just laughing because we thought quick-time was dead, but that really was part of the drama of Heavy Rain."
MOG bringing unlimited music streaming to iPhone and Android, Rhapsody taking iPhone music offline
While we all wait patiently for Apple to concoct its own subscription-based, unlimited music streaming service (hello, Lala acquisition!), MOG is jumping on the opportunity right away. Er, almost right away. Down in Austin this week, the company announced that an iPhone and Android app would be out "in early Q2" in order to bring unlimited music streaming to both operating systems for $10 per month. We're told that a catalog of seven million songs will be available, but there's no way to know if 6.99 million are of the "no one cares" variety. At any rate, your monthly fee will also allow unlimited streaming from the desktop, but alas, you'll be left with nothing but hollow memories should you ever stop ponying up. In related news, Rhapsody has announced (video after the break) that offline playback support is coming to the iPhone, with the updated app expected to be passed along for Apple's confirmation "shortly." Granted, the Rhapsody to Go subscription is $5 per month more than MOG's option, but with all this competition popping up, we wouldn't be shocked to see that slide lower in due time.
Molyneux explores Fable 3's episodic potential (with the aid of Charles Dickens)
During a one-on-one conversation with writer Frank Rose at South by Southwest titled "The Emotion Engine: Can a Video Game Speak to the Heart?," Lionhead's Peter Molyneux offered some early details on the episodic potential of Fable 3, citing the serial nature of Charles Dickens' novels. He began by comparing Fable 3's industrial setting to the mid-19th century setting of Charles Dickens' London, calling it a "brilliant time to set a game." "You look at the characters and the world that someone like Charles Dickens developed and you think, 'Well, it would be brilliant to feel like you're walking through that Dickensian version of London with a little bit of darkness.' Those novels, if you don't know them, are very, very dark," Molyneux explained. "They're written in a way that breaks the story up into these episodes. So why don't we do a similar sort of thing?" Though Molyneux told Joystiq just last week that Fable 2's episodic experiment had been "massively successful," he stopped short of promising similar functionality for Fable 3; however, yesterday, he seemed to suggest they would be doing just that. "So what we're thinking with Fable 2 to start off with, and with Fable 3, we're going to give you the first big episode and then allow you to continue to download new episodes," Molyneux said. "And that's analogous to the way Charles Dickens wrote his books." Asked if he would be developing these episodes "as you go along," Molyneux responded, "This is the new world of computer games where in fact, a lot of us are now saying, is, 'If we can have a really strong digital relationship with people then that means you don't have to entirely finish your game or your universe or your experience on release.'" Now, before you get upset, appreciate that Molyneux knows how "strange and bizarre" that sounds, so he's got two examples to help you better understand.
Comic Jumper first video!
What a treat! Tucked away amongst the South by Southwest Screenburn Arcade was a humble booth for Twisted Pixel Games. Sure, they were demoing The Maw and 'Splosion Man (one of Joystiq's top ten games of 2009!) for curious passers-by, but at 4pm CEO Mike Wilford demoed the first ten minutes of the heretofore unseen Comic Jumper. The price for this early look at the video: shaky cam footage! Wilford promised us some direct feed video this week; but, in the interim, enjoy this first look at Comic Jumper.
Garriott's Mission trailer offers a sneak peek before SXSW
You may love him, or you may hate him; but nobody can deny the influence Lord British has had on the MMO industry. Many feel that Ultima Online was a shining example of MMO mechanics, not since repeated in quite the right combination. Later, Richard Garriott went on to create Tabula Rasa for NCsoft -- a game beloved by some, reviled by others. As part of his own trip to space, he launched Operation Immortality, in an attempt to draw more interest to Tabula Rasa. He went up in space, he came back down, NCsoft released him. We all know the story by now. But what you may not know is that Garriott had a crew filming the entire time he was involved with the space program. They've compiled the footage into a documentary called Man on a Mission, which is slated to be released later this year at South by Southwest. However, for those who would like a little taste what life was like for Garriott during those hectic days juggling public appearances and training in Russia, you can check out the trailer on his Facebook page now. [via GameSetWatch]
SXSW 2009: Datapop tuneage for your Tuesday
While we're scampering around GDC in the hunt for gaming goodness, we thought we'd drop a bootleg tune from last week's Datapop concert party at SXSW, which went exceedingly well. The venue was packed with sweaty chiptune lovers, and it actually rocked a lot more than we thought it would. Check out the gallery below from the event, and bounce along to the song from Sievert -- embedded at the bottom of the post.If you're itching for more tunes, hit up the 8bitpeoples site for a ton of free music from most of the artists at the show. Warning: listening is addictive. %Gallery-48344%
SXSW 2009: Gaming as a Gateway Drug: Getting Girls Interested in Technology
The "Gaming as a Gateway Drug: Getting Girls into Technology" panel at SXSW proved to be extremely interesting, and sparked quite a debate on Twitter during the talk. The panelists focused both on the increasing number of girls getting their game on and the ones that eventually become employed within the gaming industry.Ostensibly, they want to use gaming to get girls interested in the STEM career tracks, which are usually boy heavy: science, technology, engineering, and math. The panel was moderated by Dee Kapila of Girlstart, a non-profit organization aimed at getting girls interested in those fields. Kapila and the rest of the panel brought up some interesting points, and you can check out the highlights after the break.
SXSW 2009: EA Dead Space - A Deep Media Case Study
One of SXSW's panels that showed off the effects of Panelitis Fakeoutitis (where a panel sounds much better on paper than it actually is) was "EA Dead Space: A Deep Case Media Study," which sounded like it would be a dissection of the game and what went into creating it.A closer reading of the synopsis noted that it was all about "the method and the madness behind Electronic Arts' use of cross-platform marketing." Wait? What? Marketing?! Well, we went anyhow, and you can check out the highlights beyond the break.
TUAW @SXSW: Christina talks to Guy Kawasaki
Former Apple evangelist Guy Kawasaki was at SXSW Interactive this week and I had the chance to catch-up with him and talk about the announcement of My.Alltop, a customizable version of Alltop.com. Alltop is a really good way to quickly catch up on a lot of news about a specific topic. NetNewsWire is another app that's great for that, but I don't always have the time to space-bar my way through the latest news and events. Alltop started out small, with only a few categories and niche areas. Now it's huge, and it indexes and large number of topics and sites. This is great, but can lead to information overload. With My.Alltop, you can customize a personal page with your favorite links in one place from all across Allto.. As someone who is frustrated by trying to manage RSS feeds on my iPod touch, I prefer the iPhone optimized Alltop interface for getting information quickly. My.Alltop just launched and it doesn't look like the mobile stylesheets have been rolled out yet. But I'm sure just a matter of time. Guy also said that an iPhone application is in the works so you can add, edit or access your feeds more quickly. Also, be sure to check out the TUAW MyAlltop page. We've started to load it with some of our favorite Mac, iPhone and general tech links and I know this is what I'll be rocking when I want to read news on the run.
Foursquare tries the Dodgeball concept again on the iPhone
We're right in the middle of convention season and as I noted last night on the Talkcast, I'm here in Chicago (at least the weather's nice) instead of down in Austin with the rest of the gang. But there is a little consolation: I've had a chance to try out SXSW's newest software darling, Foursquare. It's an app (and a social networking site, and a service, and a game) from the guys who made Dodgeball, that social network that just recently got shut down by Google, who bought it out a while ago.The basic premise is very close to Dodgeball, in that the system basically revolves around "checking in" -- whenever you go out to a bar, you hit a button in the app that says something like "Hey, I'm at Tin Lizzie," and then everyone in your friends list (and your Twitter followers, if you have that option set) sees where you are. In addition, however, they've added some new features into the mix: you get "scored" on how many times you go out and when you go out to different places. And there are even "achievements" you can earn (eventually user created) for trying a hot dog at everyone's favorite stand, or drinking x number of beers at a popular bar. In fact, there's even awards for going to bars where less-than-fashionable people appear, so watch where you decide to spend your Saturday night, lest you pick up the d-bag award.
SXSW 2009: Free Datapop Gameboy chiptunes party open to the public
If you're interested in all 8-bit music and chiptunes, then you'll want to get yourself to the free Datapop party in Austin this Wednesday night, March 18th. It's free, open to everyone, and will be full of Gameboy music from people like Bit Shifter, Nullsleep, IAYD, Anamanaguchi, 8Bk OK, Graffiti Monsters, and Sievert. Free game-related music, free drinks, and free admission? Three of our favorite free things. We'll be there, and if you will be too then let us know and come say hi.
SXSW 2009: Being Indie and Successful in the Video Game Industry
There's a wealth of indie-related gaming panels and goings on at SXSW this year, ranging from the previous "Games By The People, For The People" panel, the GameSalad folks, and the retro-cool Get Outta My Face arcade cabinet. Heck, there's even a company that wants to bring back Hypercard stack games. So we went back for more indie gaming panel goodness, just because we could. This was a panel by the game developers this time, rather than the people who run the companies ... so what did we learn? A lot of the same from the previous panel. Sadly Jonathan Blow couldn't make it, and was replaced by the above inflatable doll with the Freddie Mercury mug. Although covering his absence nicely were panelists Kellee Santiago from thatgamecompany, John Baez of The Behemoth, Ron Carmel of 2D BOY, and Joel DeYoung from Hothead Games who moderated. Check out the highlights after the break.
SXSW 2009: Game Design Competition rewards elite game designs with Elite Xbox 360s
This year's SXSW ScreenBurn Festival was the first to hold a game design competition for amateur developers. The finals in the two categories, Casual and AAA, were held back-to-back, with the four finalists in each category presenting their designs to an audience whose applause would determine their fate, and a panel of judges who would ask questions about the concepts and the possible execution of the games.
Found Footage: Kevin Rose on iPhone 3.0 features
Here's a short video from SXSW with DiggNation hosts Alex Albrecht and Kevin Rose, where Rose goes through a laundry list of iPhone 3.0 features that will allegedly be announced tomorrow during the Apple Press Event. This video sounds rather alcohol-fueled -- at least it appears that the audience members, who are screaming out their most-wanted features for most of the video, were rather drunk -- and Rose has a somewhat checkered past with his Apple predictions, but his description of cut & paste on the iPhone sounds quite realistic. He also states at one point that the point of the 3.0 release is to bring the iPhone's feature set to the level of the Palm Pre. If that's the case, then we should also hear about Bluetooth tethering and integrated MMS messaging for the iPhone -- which I, for one, seriously doubt. Of course, we'll all see what's coming tomorrow, and you can get your coverage of the event here on TUAW. Note that the video contains words that may be offensive to some people.[via Engadget]
