Apple is Headhunting Gaming Executives

The evidence keeps coming that Apple is getting serious about gaming. In just the past week, the company has hired a senior Xbox executive from Microsoft, and earlier this week, a graphics expert from ATI. Apple’s headhunting follows its investment in a graphics chip maker in December.

Today, Gizmodo reported that Apple now employs Richard Teversham, the former senior European director of business, insights and strategy for the Xbox. Bob Drebin, CTO of AMD’s graphics group, and creator of Nintendo GameCube’s graphic chip, joined Apple earlier this week.

In December, Apple took a 3.6% ownership stake in UK-based chip maker Imagination, and licensed its PowerVR graphics technology. PowerVR provides advanced graphics capabilities including OpenGL ES 2.0 support, and shader-based 3D graphics.

iPhone games are becoming more clever, and the platform’s library of titles is increasing day by day. While most next generation iPhone rumors are vague, Apple’s gaming-related investments are transparent. It’ll be fascinating to see what the results are.

GameStop Looks Into the Future, Sees Trouble

It’s easy to imagine video games without discs or cartridges, but this downloadable future could spell disaster for GameStop. In a recent SEC filing, the world’s largest game retailer acknowledged that it sees the writing on the wall:

While it is currently only possible to download a limited amount of video game content to the next generation video game systems, at some point in the future, this technology may become more prevalent. If advances in technology continue to expand our customers’ ability to access video games, PC entertainment software and incremental content for their games through these and other sources, our customers may no longer choose to purchase video games or PC entertainment software in our stores.

This is sort of obvious, but as Gamasutra notes, in past filings GameStop has only referred to classic downloadable titles (such as Nintendo’s Virtual Console offerings) when discussing this subject matter. Never before has the company been so ominous about its ability to sell games of all kinds.

The gloom is appropriate as rumors abound regarding Sony’s next PSP handheld console. It would be the first time a major manufacturer dropped physical media entirely in favor of downloads and built-in memory. Handhelds are an ideal place to start with this business model, but come the next generation of home consoles, I wouldn’t be surprised if most games were offered for download, even if the disc-based model sticks around.

After writing about the PSP yesterday, it occurred to me that there’s still plenty of room for GameStop in a downloadable future, but not as it exists now. A better GameStop would mimic the resurgence of hands-on tech outlets, like the Apple Store, but with incentives for customers to purchase games at the store instead of at home. I’d like to see frequent buyer cards and an atmosphere that encourages try before you buy, to name a couple ideas. Download codes and kiosks may save GameStop from obsolescence, but it’ll take forward thinking, not fear, for the retailer to maintain its dominance.

Palm’s First Post-Pre Phone?

One major bright spot during Palm’s recent rocky history has been the success of its Centro–a Palm OS device that’s cheap, small, simple, and a best-seller. Even once the far fancier Pre is out, you’d think that Palm wouldn’t want to abandon the low end of the market. And it looks like you’d be right: Engadget has a photo and some other details on a WebOS phone allegedly called the Eros Eos which is allegedly coming to AT&T. If it’s real, it looks like the Centro’s successor. And even if it’s someone’s fantasy…well, the basic idea is so logical that I’d be stunned if Palm doesn’t come up with something similar. And with the Pre debuting exclusively on Sprint, it also makes perfect sense for the company to have something else it can sell via other carriers to keep its partnerships with them from fading away.

Windows 7 Release Candidate: The Rollout Begins. Rockily.

When Microsoft set a release schedule for the Windows 7 Release Candidate–which will apparently be the last major version before it finalizes the OS–it said that members of its TechNet service for IT types would get it on April 30th, and everyone else would have to wait until May 5th. If that was to ensure trouble-free downloads for everyone involved, it didn’t work: As Ed Bott reports, a database glitch prevented a lot of TechNet members from getting the download.

I had trouble myself, at first–but now, the download seems to be proceeding properly. I plan to install the RC on both a general-purpose notebook and a netbook, and look forward to sharing impressions. And if you snag the RC–either right now or at any time between now and general release–I’d love to know what you think.

Disney Does the Hulu

Hulu was already by far the most ambitious and interesting purveyor of free video from traditional sources on the Web. Today, it’s taking a great big step towards solidifying its lead: The Walt Disney Company is joining NBC and Fox as a partner in the venture, getting an ownership stake and providing content it owns.

The deal will bring shows such as Lost, Grey’s Anatomy, Desperate Housewives, Scrubs, and Jimmy Kimmel Live to Hulu, along with old episodes of Dancing With the Stars and Who Wants to Be a Millionaire, plus stuff from other Disney outfits like the ABC Family Channel and SOAPNEt. Movies from the Disney library will also be available.

Me, I’m most interested in the one type of content that first leaps to mind when you think of the word “Disney.” That would be classic animation in short-subject and feature-length form. Oddly enough, that’s just about the only thing that isn’t mentioned specifically in the announcement. Mickey, Minnie, Dumbo, and Bambi, where are you?

5Words for April 30th, 2009

Google data barges? Love it!

Apple’s becoming a chip company.

Palm’s first post-Pre phone,

Peewee’s convertible laptop for kids.

Google data centers…on boats?

Real’s Glaser testifies on RealDVD.

XP for netbooks isn’t disappearing.

Amazon hikes Kindle document charges.

Facebook Phishing Attack

A couple of hours ago I got an oddly terse message from a Facebook friend who I’m not used to hearing from:

It wasn’t hard to identify it as a hoax, one that wasn’t really from the “sender” in question–especially when I noticed that the “Facebook” URL mentioned something called fbaction.net. Out of curiosity, I clicked anyhow–hey, I like living dangerously–and got a fake Facebook login screen. I therefore entered a fake user name and fake password, whereupon it sent me to the real Facebook (and, presumably, stole my fake credentials).

Over at TechCrunch, M.G, Siegler explains that I was one of many Facebook users who heard from these guys. Facebook blocked the site from being shared via Facebook, and reported it as a bad actor, so recent browsers with anti-phishing features could protect their users. But I’m sure some other random troublemaker will try precisely the same trick again soon.

Bottom line:

1) Be suspicious of odd Facebook messages, especially ones that demand you click on something without explaining why;

2) Be suspicious of messages you receive from random Facebook pals that don’t carry any clear indication they’re real and personal;

3) Be very suspicious of anything involving a URL that’s a variant on Facebook.

4) If you do click, watch the URL you go to very, very carefully.

5) Remember that none of this advice is Facebook-specific–it applies to…well, everything.

6) Be grateful that so many phishers really aren’t very good at their job–and paranoid about the possibility of being fooled by one who knows what he’s doing.

Office 2007 Service Pack Boosts Performance

Service Packs are usually limited to fixing bugs, but Microsoft has added some major pep to Office 2007 with Service Pack 2 (SP2). Microsoft says that SP2 is a “major performance enhancement,” and anecdotally, that is what I’m hearing from Office users.

Office 2007 SP2 became available yesterday, and will be available via Microsoft Update in August. It may be downloaded from Microsoft’s Web site.

Jane Liles, group program manager, Office Sustained Engineering at Microsoft detailed the performance tweaks in a prepared statement. “Outlook 2007 SP2 is 26 percent faster than its predecessor on a set of common e-mail tasks and is even faster, 35 percent, with larger mailboxes,” she said.

Further, she added that users now greater control over visual representation of data in Excel, and that Microsoft Office SharePoint Server was given security and performance updates in addition to support for the Firefox browser.

For what it’s worth, a friend that works for a financial company IM’d me today saying that Excel 2007 is now noticeably faster. I’m also seeing similar comments being made in forums across the Web. If you’ve already made the upgrade, feel free to leave a comment here.

Even more importantly, SP2 adds significant support for open document formats. The average user may not notice it, but SP2 makes great strides toward interoperability with support for non-Microsoft document formats such as OpenDocument Format (ODF) 1.1, PDF 1.5, and PDF/A.

Now, I just wonder what the incentive will be to upgrade to Office 14. The only thing that I can thing of offhand are the forthcoming Office Web services. That, and Microsoft is holding off support for ISO International standardized Open XML until that release.

A Brief History of AOL Annoyances

One of the longest-running rumors in tech (it dates at least to 2003) is finally fact: Time Warner has told the SEC that it plans to spin off AOL, thereby undoing the gargantuan, famously disappointing merger that put an aging dial-up service, AIM, Marvin Martian, and Sports Illustrated under one corporate roof. By way of unintentional celebration, let me steer your towards 20 Years of AOL Annoyances and Foul-Ups, a story I wrote for my pals at PC World. (Did you know that AOL took the name “AOL” in 1989? Neither did I, until PCW’s Anne McDonald told me. That was also the year that it first began telling users that They Had Mail!)

My story covers the ill-fated merger, outages and busy signals, cheesy marketing tactics, sleazy chat rooms, some really bad TV commercials, the infamous recording of an AOL rep refusing to cancel some poor guy’s service, the even more infam0us privacy problems relating to AOL’s publishing of search logs, and, of course, all those millions of demo disks. I had a good time writing it, but the experience left me feeling a little sorry for AOL, a service which, for all its self-inflicted wounds, did more than anyone to jump-start the online revolution. Maybe I’ll write a story about all the stuff it did right at some point.

Is Sony’s Next PSP a Go!?

First off, that’s not me getting really excited in the headline. It’s just the dilemma you get when a product name comes with its own punctuation. Sigh.

Anyway, 1UP heard from unnamed inside sources that Sony’s next handheld console will ditch the UMD drive and get a spunky new name, likely the PSP Go!, but possibly the PSP Slide or PSP Flip. This story, of course, goes into the rumor pile at least until E3, when Sony will probably show its hand.

But it’s a juicy rumor. We’ve heard rumblings about a new PSP before, most notably from Acclaim COO David Perry, who said with certainty that the next model would lack a physical disc drive. This time, the proximity to E3 and the amount of detail in 1UP’s story lends greater credibility. Besides, the “Go!” name seems to be sticking in other reports around the Web.

The new PSP will reportedly include a choice of 8 GB or 16 GB of flash memory and a sliding screen with the controls hidden underneath. 1UP says the controls will not include a second analog stick as previously speculated, but will instead closely resemble the existing PSP’s combination of D-Pad, analog nub and buttons. If the story pans out, the new model will reach Japan in September and the US a month or two later.

The biggest change, of course, would be the lack of physical media. Recent announcements of download-only games for the PSP were billed as experimental, but perhaps Sony has already made up its mind. If so, its a pretty staggering change when you think about it. Sure, the iPhone’s App Store, et al, are carving out their own downloadable territory, but no major game console has shown the daring to drop hard copy games completely.

There are concerns to be addressed, of course. What would owners of existing PSPs do with their UMDs if they want to upgrade? And how does GameStop feel about this? Would the store carry boxes with download codes, as is planned for the upcoming Patapon 2, or would it somehow sanction Sony for gradually moving customers away from retail?

If only to see how the industry transforms, I hope this story comes to fruition, and that Sony finds success with the new business model. Shelf space only constrains the amount and type of games a console can offer, so perhaps a UMD-free PSP will attract new developers and audiences, and breathe life into the brand.

5Words for April 29th, 2009

Guaranteed 100% swine flu-free:

Justice Dept. eyes Google Books.

iSuppli prices the Palm Pre.

Getting Twitter takes some patience.

Microsoft wraps up Vista SP2.

A virus-fighting cloud panda!

A new Sony PSP for E3?

Lots of new financial services.

Windows Mobile 6.5 voice features.

Wolfram|Alpha gets a preview.

Five Web Services You’ve Got to Try

Junk and clutter: It’s the blaring banner ads and annoying boxes that slide across the screen that are ruining the Web. I avoid it all with a smart ad blocker–Ad Muncher, a miraculous tool.

But there’s still a problem.

Web pages aren’t designed for reading, and that’s one of my pleasures: Reading product and movie reviews, for instance, or devouring John McPhee’s lengthy pieces in The New Yorker, or James Fallows (read his old, but still valuable What Was I Thinking? in The Atlantic).

Up until now, I’d click the Print button if the site offered one. Then I discovered Readability, a site that reformats any page of text to conform to your reading style. Set up Readability by choosing a style, font size, and margin width, and then drag the Readability bookmarklet to your browser’s toolbar. The next time you’re on a Web page you want to read, click the Readability link and the transformation happens immediately. (You can get a better idea by watching the video.)

Continue reading this story…

Is Palm Planning to Pre-Empt (Get It?) the New iPhone?

Over at MobileCrunch, M.G. Siegler engages in some speculation that’s entertaining–even if it turns out to be wrong. (And we don’t yet know whether even Palm knows a firm ship date for the Pre.)

It’s now just about May and there’s still been no official word from Palm when it comes to an official launch date or pricing for the Pre. All we know is what we’ve known for a long time — it’ll launch the first half of 2009; a window that is quickly closing. But a few pieces of new evidence today point to an actual specific date. And it’s a very intriguing one — June 7: The day before a likely Apple keynote address at its WWDC conference.

New Online Mac Ad Rickrolls New York Times Readers

Apple’s “Get a Mac” guys are back in another Windows-bashing ad–on NYTimes.com and PCMag.com and maybe elsewhere–in which PC claims that PCs are “as easy as one to twenty-three.” It involves a list of PC-related woes that captures the spirit of Windows irritations, although you can certainly quibble with the specifics. (I seem to have disk-related issues that cause mysterious glitches at least as often on Macs as I do on Windows machines.)

Like other recent Apple online ads, this one involves a special page configuration and action going on outside of the banner ad’s real estate-PC unfurls the list of twenty-three items partway through the ad. But the list doesn’t cover up editorial content. It blocks two ads that were there already:

Except the ads seem to be fakes–if you click them before the list falls down, you go to Apple’s Get a Mac page.

It’s a sort of innocuous-but-commercial form of Rickrolling. (I’m not sure if earlier Apple beyond-the-banner ads have done anything similar.) Wonder how many people looking for mortgages or European trips have unwittingly clicked on them, and if they’re more or less likely to buy Macs once they figure out what happened? Although I’m noticing now that Monn Credit Union’s rates are bizarrely uncompetitive–maybe Apple’s trying to ensure that nobody who actually knows anything about getting a mortgage will bother to click…

Let the E3 Hype Begin!

We’re a little over a month away from the 2009 Electronic Entertainment Expo, more commonly known as E3, and Gamasutra has a nice create-a-story to get everyone excited.

If you ever read video game magazines or Web sites in the late 1990s or the earlier part of this decade, you know how huge E3 was for the industry. What started as a simple trade show for publishers evolved into a spectacle of huge announcements, flashing lights and hardly-dressed “booth babes.” For the last two shows, the Entertainment Software Association cut back considerably, stripping away much of the glamor and allowing press by invitation only. The restructuring didn’t go over well. Some publishers backed out of the second show, and Will Wright said the expo “almost feels like a zombie.”

This year is supposed to be a rebirth, with press registration restored, big announcements saved up and, yes, booth babes. The Entertainment Software Association, in addition to claiming that 150 companies will attend, gathered some hype from the big three console manufacturers for its story at Gamasutra.

The biggest hype comes from Microsoft, whose senior VP of the Interactive Entertainment Business, Don Mattrick, said the company’s presence “will completely transform how people think about home entertainment.”

Nintendo and Sony were slightly less restrained. Nintendo of America President Reggie Fils-Aime said the company promises its “full support” to the show, adding that it’s the place “where creativity is on display, and as a ‘sneak peak’ for our entire industry it helps generate excitement for gamers around the world.”

SCEA president and CEO Jack Tretton simply said that the expo is an “ideal place for us to unveil the latest PlayStation news and products at our press event on June 2.”

Would anyone care to speculate what we’ll see at this year’s show? A streaming video solution for the Playstation 3? A new Mario game? Some new integration between the Xbox 360 and the Zune?

We’ll find out in June. (Shameless plug: I’ll be there to cover the show, so feel free to get your live coverage here.)

People’s Music Store Gets A Big Label Boost

As a concept, I like the People’s Music Store. It allows users to set up their own digital storefronts, in which they recommend music to other visitors through reviews, news and widgets on other Web sites. Aside from gaining cred as music buffs, these citizen salespeople earn store credit worth 10 percent of every sale.

It’s a solid system for word-of-mouth music downloads, and it’s certainly more personal than a recommendation algorithm, but two major problems are holding back the People’s Music Store from greatness. The lack of content, chief among these issues, is on the way to being solved, with Universal signing on to provide 300,000 tunes for download. The Killers, Abba and Amy Winehouse are among the newly-available artists.

The label will be the first major to climb aboard, and wisely so. Labels should jump on any sales opportunity they can, especially those that actively encourage more and more sales. “We are excited to have the Universal Music catalog on People’s Music Store because it shows that forward-thinking labels are willing to try new ways of connecting artists with fans,” said founder Ged Day, who also created the DRM-free indie boutique Bleep.com.

Now, about that other problem: Much of the content at the People’s Music Store is walled off for US consumers, including the new tracks from Universal. From reading earlier articles about the site, I see that consumers outside the US have run into similar problems with existing songs.

I know international licensing is complicated, but consumers should at least be able to filter out the stores and bands that are inaccessable to them. Really though, record labels should find a way to make their content available to everyone.