CrunchGear

CrunchGear

Link to CrunchGear

Google’s Android Bear-Hug Comes To LG: New LG/Nexus Tablets Coming Soon?

Posted: 28 Mar 2011 05:29 AM PDT

Every few months Google embraces another CE company. It began with HTC and G1, giving that manufacturer resources and manpower enough to produce a powerful entrant in the smartphone race. It continued with Motorola for the Droid and has cycled through to Samsung for a brief period. This bear hug essentially gives the manufacturer access to Google’s engineers and pre-release code and leaves everyone else out in the street, waiting for a software update. Now Google has set its sights on LG and, if rumor is correct, it means a Nexus S tablet is on its way from LG running a pitch perfect version of Honeycomb. It also means that anyone with a 2.x Android Tablet, the various Gal Tabs included, will be severely disappointed.

Think of this action by Google as akin to training one athlete in a race to an Olympic level and then pitting her against amateurs. The amateurs could still win, but it’s going to be tough.

Confirming what we’ve heard, Mobile-Review notes:

Producers wishing to make tablets for Android 3.0 sign a separate license agreement with Google. It also contains a number of very interesting points. In particular, the producer who created a device in OS version 2.x, cannot update it to 3.0. It is possible that this was the reason that the HTC Flyer in most versions will be released immediately with the third version of the OS.

This is also the reason many found the Xoom to be an oddly incomplete device: it was essentially a beta release waiting for its gold master to come.

What will happen to the tablet landscape when LG releases a Nexus device? Not much. However, the LG Nexus tablet will be the baseline device against which all other Android tablets will compete and even if you don’t buy it, manufacturers will understand that its in their best interests to copy it. Because Google offers its software help and expertise in these cases, the LG Nexus device will be “pure” Honeycomb while everyone else will be mucking about with whatever Google deigns to release to them over the next few months.

Google performs this bear hug for a few extremely good reasons. First, it ensures that the manufacturer doesn’t release sub par product and it acts as a training session for the company’s internal staff. It also ensures that it has a device or two that it can point to and say “Develop for that. That’s what we’re all using.” This hug is a detriment to other manufacturers, to be sure, who fumble along with random Honeycomb releases while one company becomes the beneficiary of Google’s largesse. But them’s the breaks, as Queen Elizabeth II of England would say.

Japan’s Docomo To Sell LG’s Optimus Pad This Thursday For $980

Posted: 28 Mar 2011 04:48 AM PDT

Japan’s biggest mobile carrier NTT Docomo today announced [press release in English] that LG’s 3D-capable Optimus Pad will go on sale in the country as early as this Thursday. That means that the Android 3.0 device will hit stores in Japan earlier than in the US – where it’s expected to become available on April 20.

What’s weird is that the company doesn’t mention the 3D features (i.e. 3D video recording) of the slate at all: no word in the press release, spec sheets, brochures etc. (see below).

As far as I can see, the tablet (which will be sold as “Optimus Pad L-06C” in Japan) is the same we could try out last month:

  • OS: Android 3.0 (Honeycomb)
  • 8.9-inch LCD with 1,280×768 resolution (glasses required to view images in 3D)
  • 3G connectivity
  • WiFi 802.11 b/g/n
  • Bluetooth 3.0
  • CPU: Nvidia Tegra 2 Dual-core 1GHz
  • RAM: 1GB
  • ROM: 32GB
  • two 5.1MP main cameras, one 2MP front camera
  • HDMI, USB, microSD interfaces
  • size: 150×243×12.8mm, weight: 620g

Docomo will offer the tablet for $980 (no contract).

 

Nasa Dropping James Cameron 3D Mars Rover Plans?

Posted: 28 Mar 2011 04:45 AM PDT

Wiki’d

So much for that idea. Nasa is said to be having second thoughts about whether or not it will use James Cameron-supplied 3D lenses on its Curiosity Mars rover. The rover, which is scheduled to land on Mars in 2012, was to have a pair of 3D lenses bolted onto it, lenses that would have enabled the rover to take 3D footage of the planet's surface.

Nasa is said to be shying away from the deal because of Cameron's reputation for going over budget and over time with his projects. We all know that Nasa has approximately $47 to its name, so it's not exactly in a position to be paying and waiting for Cameron.

Cameron isn't too down, saying that even though it looks like Curitosty won't have the 3D lenses, he's "certain that this technology will play an important role in future missions."

So while it's definitely fun idea—3D footage of Mars~!—it may be a wee bit early and expensive for Nasa right now.

McAfee: Change In Corporate Culture Leaves Businesses Vulnerable To Hackers

Posted: 28 Mar 2011 04:15 AM PDT

Flickr’d

McAfee, the computer security company, has issued a fresh warning to the world's corporations and other large organizations. The firm has warned that hackers now have these bodies fully in their sights, and that a combination of the de-centralization of the workplace (thanks to to proliferation of mobile devices and the like) and the move to the cloud means in-house security technicians have their work cut out for them. And since there's a market out there for stolen corporate secrets, you can bet that the bad guys aren't going to stop anytime soon.

There's a few things at play here. The first is probably that, now more than perhaps in the past, says McAfee, there's very much a market for stolen corporate secrets. A bit of source code here, some revenue projections there, tie it in a bow, and hand it off to someone who could use that information. What did Bernie Ecclestone say, that money and sex makes the world go 'round? (I don't know, I'm reading this book and it was mentioned.) Offer enough money and you'll find someone willing to break into this or that server, no questions asked.

And it's perhaps easier to get this information. Back in the day, a corporation's private data might be stored in a server under lock and key, and you'd need physical access to get at it. That's not so much the case anymore. People work from home, and they sometimes need access to this or that file. That means you have to create some sort of remote-access system, a system that could be compromised all the more easily. (How many of you use one of those RSA keyfobs to log into your job's server? Think along those lines. Oh, almost forgot: RSA was partially compromised a few days ago. Fun for everyone!)

Then there's also the fact that seemingly all of us are carrying around mobile devices. How many of you have sensitive information about your clients (or whatever the case may be) on your smartphone or tablet? What if you lose said smartphone or tablet? That could be trouble. Ten, 15 years ago your company's network security staff didn't have to worry about you leaving your iPhone at a bar, did they?

There's also the transition to the cloud to examine. Corporations are readily storing their own information somewhere else! Now you don't even have the physical access to your own sensitive data—could be problematic.

McAfee says this has become a pointed problem in countries like Brazil and Germany, and that it's particularly troubling because you might not even know if your data has been stolen. A quick cp here and there and you're boned.

What to do? First, panic. Second, learn how to use your equipment. At the very least put a password on your mobile device in the hope that the bad guys will see it as not worth the energy to try to crack; plenty of other unsecured devices out there. Third, make sure you know who you're dealing with. If you're storing data on a third-party sever make sure you understand what their security polices are, and what they'll do in case of an attack.

Other than that? Yeah, panic. Just panic, everyone.

Kers Well That Ends Well: Victorious Red Bull Doesn’t Even Bother With Kers At Australian Grand Prix

Posted: 28 Mar 2011 03:30 AM PDT

ESPN’d

So much for all of that fancy talk about the return of Kers. The system, which is about as close as you can get to using a mushroom in Mario Kart in real life, lets Formula One drivers temporarily get an additional 80 horsepower out of their engine, made its return to Formula One this season. There was plenty of talk along the lines of, "This is great! It will help with overtaking and make for more exciting races." Well well! The winning team at yesterday's Australian Grand Prix (the first race of the season, owing to civil unrest in Bahrain) didn't even bother using the thing. Funny.

Sebastian Vettel, from Germany and driving for Red Bull, won the race by I think 800 seconds over his nearest opponent, McLaren's Lewis Hamilton. Red Bull's team principal, Christian Horner, said after the race—and it was a truly dominant performance, despite Vettel's modesty—that the team didn't even have the Kers device installed. Horner told the BBC that he didn't think installing the device would be worth it, given its negative effect of the RB7's aerodynamic performance.

But have Red Bull given up completely on the Mario Kart mushroom?

No.

That same Horner has since said that the team will have to figure out the kinks in the system if it's to maintain its wining start to the season.

The other big addition this season, the drag reduction system (basically, the rear wing folds away, allowing more air to pass through), didn't seem to have a big impact, either. The sport's governing body says that the tech is merely a tool, and that it's up to drivers to use it effectively.

Will Bernie have to make good on his thread and bring on the artificial rain to make this season not a complete Red Bull procession? Or will the likes of Hamilton, Alonso, and Petrov make this an interesting season? (No, but they’ll try.)

CrunchGear Week In Review: Direction Edition

Posted: 28 Mar 2011 12:00 AM PDT

Crysis 2: The Crisis Is Where Do We Go From Here

Posted: 27 Mar 2011 12:00 PM PDT

After playing Total War: Shogun 2, one of my concerns was how I would view subsequent Total War games. As far as I'm concerned, The Creative Assembly has now perfected the Total War formula, so to play another might result in feelings of, "Oh, this again. Hm." The same fear now applies to the first-person shooter genre post-Crysis 2, but not because the game is perfect (although it's pretty decent). It's just that we're done here*. Someone needs to stand up and say, "Folks! We get it: you know how to create point-and-click shooty games with big explosions. Can we please move on?"

Crysis 2 has a proud lineage. Crysis, released for the PC in 2007, still stands as one of the best-looking games ever created. (For better or worse, the first thing anyone is going to discuss when it comes to a Crytek game is how it looks.) The engine powering the game has since been made to do some pretty incredible things, from rendering scenes from the movie Blade Runner to making virtual trees look better than the real thing. The gameplay itself was solid but not spectacular: the first, say, two-thirds was engrossing—the jungle was a perfect setting, and the KPA was a perfect enemy—, but it fell off a cliff once the other appeared. Its predecessor, 2004's FarCry, generated similar interest, maybe even more so since nothing at the time even came close to matching its visuals. That's one of the problems with Crysis 2, that you can't say it blows away everything else that's available. You don't have to look hard to find people who are convinced that the first game looks better the sequel.

(There's a 3D mode, and while I played it at an EA event several weeks ago and thought it looked quite spiffy indeed, I don't have a 3D monitor as part of my regular gaming setup so I can't really address it here. But if you can, you really ought to trying playing in 3D. Not that it's the only 3D shooter available—I can think of Battlefield: Bad Company 2 and Metro 2033 off the top of my head—but you get the idea that Crytek is particularly proud of its work here.)

This time around you're a man in a suit, sorta like last time around. Who you actually are in that suit is largely irrelevant since it's the suit that does the talking, literally: tap the E key and you'll hear it shout "stealth engaged" as you momentarily become invisible. Tap the Q key and your already sturdy armor becomes even sturdier ("maximum armor"). The game consists of you shooting your way up and down the island of Manhattan (anyone familiar with New York City will certainly appreciate running about Battery Park, Grand Central, and Times Square) fighting a mixture of human and alien baddies (which look a lot like Fulgore from Killer Instinct). I don't want to spoil the specifics of the story, but let's just say it's standard-to-good sci-fi fare. I don't remember if the first Crysis even had a story, so the fact that I can say that Crysis 2 does, in fact, have a reasonably OK (if typical—one part in particular had me going, "Really? Didn't I see this same gimmick in Fallout: New Vegas a few months ago?") sci-fi arc represents a tremendous improvement over the first game. Pretty decent soundtrack, too. I never found myself having to play my own music in the background just to have something to listen to.

The graffiti looks OK here…

It's a solid shooter, but that's part of the problem: the graphics don't blow you away like Crysis or FarCry did (at least on the PC they don't), so all you're left with is the 900th shooter you've played in the past few years. It's not too long, but it's not ludicrously short. It took me a little more than seven hours to finish, just shy of what I'd consider the perfect length for a shooter. (I'd say around 10 hours is the sweet spot.) Any longer and you're like, "Alright already."

… this, on the other hand

Our man in Europe, Ivan, played the Xbox 360 version, so here's a quick word about that:

The console version of Crysis 2 brings satisfying visuals. If you think of the hardware found in today’s consoles it’s a miracle this game even has a console version. There are drawbacks though: occasional hiccups occur when the environment is loaded with high-res textures. And then there is the weird sensation when a complete block jumps into existence in front of your eyes. Some textures get blurred pretty soon if you move away from them. Of course these things will not compromise gameplay. Crysis 2 is not a great game because how nice it looks but because of the refined mechanics of a semi-tactical FPS. You will not spend hours figuring out tactics for sure. But without thinking you will perish quickly both online and offline. Crysis 2 is a pleasant surprise in not being a dumb engine demo. It’s easy to recommend the console version.

I'll also commend Crytek for giving you a number of different ways to play. You can play like you'd play any Call of Duty, shooting everything that moves until the credits roll. I, however, decided to stealth my way through much of the game. Outside of a few forced events, you can get reasonably close to beating the game without firing a single bullet. There are parts where firing and shooting about may be more exciting, but I liked the inherent tension of managing my energy meter, trying to find cover so I can re-charge my suit so I can then sneak past the bad guys without firing a shot in anger.

Don’t mind me, good sirs

More than a few things annoyed me—shock. As I mentioned the other day, textures are an uneven hodgepodge of perfectly acceptable to head-scratchingly bad. Some of the vending machines look like they're straight out of 2001. The floating head companion convention is straight out of BioShock (and even that wasn't the first to do it), and the lip syncing is fairly poor at points, like you're watching an anime cheaply dubbed into English. Subtitles often don't match spoken dialogue. People say the word "man" (as in, "Watch out, man!") every five seconds. Why is there no car damage after you super-kick it? The PC version launched with a number of glitches, too, including one that made it all but impossible to play with a dual-GPU setup unless the main .exe file was renamed.

Again, the unevenness is sorta jarring

Then there's the tactical options. Parts of the game let you know—more like bang it over your head—that there's more than one way to get around a particular obstacle, with numbered icons representing actions you might take: grab a ledge up and over, shoot your way through with that turret over there, etc. But wouldn't you rather discover these things on your own rather than have the game tell you "You can win by going that way!"? It's particularly egregious in the beginning sections of the game when it refuses to return control to you unless you use your binoculars to inspect the numbered icons. Hand-holding gone too far.

All in all, Crysis 2 is a fine game, but if you're not a fan of the genre you there's nothing here you haven't seen before. I genuinely don't know if I'll have the patience or interest to play another for quite a while (unless I have to!), but that's partially because Crysis 2 does enough things right to make me feel like the entire genre is approaching a wall. Die-hard PC gamers may feel let down by some of Crytek's decision (Why can't you change the graphical settings without using a fan-made application? Why is there no Direct X 11 support (yet)? Why is the default FOV clearly a leftover from the console version and patently unsuitable sitting-close-to-a-monitor consumption, and why can't you change it in-game? Why is the multi-player mode so small? Why can't I quick-save? And on & on…), but it's pretty clear we're a dying breed and our opinions increasingly mean absolutely nothing. You know things have gotten bad when I go out of my way to thank Crytek for not encrypting the .ini files~!

*Until Half-Life 2: Episode 3 comes out, of course.
Posted by at

No comments:

Post a Comment

Subscribe to: Post Comments (Atom)