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Coda: Gameloft Loves Android After All!

Posted by Jared Newman on November 25, 2009 at 8:13 am

The developer behind mobile phone versions of Assassin’s Creed and Brothers in Arms isn’t as anti-Android as its finance director led us to believe.

Less than a week after Gameloft financier Alexandre de Rochefort said the company has “significantly cut” investments in Android, Gameloft issued a press release saying, essentially, that it still loves Google’s mobile platform, and wants to make sweet, sweet “High Definition games” on it.

In particular, Gameloft will develop titles for second-generation Android phones such as Motorola’s Droid and Sony’s Ericsson Xperia X10.

When I previously outlined the problems with Android gaming, I said there’s room for improvement, particularly with multi-touch technology in the Droid. It’s worth noting that both the phones Gameloft mentions allow for 3D games as well — something Gameloft excels in with the racer Asphalt 5 and the Grand Theft Auto clone Gangstar: West Coast Hustle.

So it appears that Rochefort’s statement about Android investment was misinterpreted, but remember that he also knocked the Android’s ability to actually sell games. His words: “It is not as neatly done as on the iPhone. Google has not been very good to entice customers to actually buy products. On Android nobody is making significant revenue.”

That issue isn’t addressed in Gameloft’s latest press release, but I imagine there’s a chicken-and-egg theory in play. If developers take the first step of making high quality games on Android, phone manufacturers can market gaming as a key feature in their products, attracting more game sales, which in turn brings in more interest from developers. So I’m glad Gameloft isn’t bailing out on a mobile gaming platform that has potential to grow.

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Uh Oh, It’s Almost Black Friday

Posted by Harry McCracken on November 25, 2009 at 1:16 am

I like shopping for gadgets as much as the next technonerd–more so, probably–but I don’t plan to rush out to the mall on Black Friday. I like to do my splurging on my own schedule, thank you very much. Besides, I’m too young to be crushed to death by a stampede of wild-eyed, shopping cart-wielding consumers. (I’m also planning to skip Black Friday’s Web-based counterpart, Cyber Monday–even if it’s safer.)

But I did have fun thinking about both landmark shopping days as I wrote the first piece I’ve done for WePC.com in awhile. This one’s called “A Smart Skeptic’s Guide to PC Deals on Black Friday, Cyber Monday, and Beyond,” and is my attempt to summarize much of the advice I give friends and relatives who are shopping for computers during the holiday season. Take a look, share any tips of your own, then poke around WePC a bit–there’s lots of cool stuff there, including the opportunity to win free computers.

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Run Chrome OS Like a Native

Posted by Harry McCracken on November 25, 2009 at 12:22 am

Run in a virtualized machine, Google’s Chrome OS feels pretty much like Chrome-the-browser–which makes the whole exercise kind of pointless, since it’s a lot harder to install and run a virtualized OS than a browser. But now f0lks are trying Chrome OS as a native, non-virtualized OS, a simple, non-invasive experiment if you install it on a thumb drive you can boot your PC from. Engadget’s Paul Miller has given it a go and is enthusiastic about the OS’s speed and the overall experience. He’s got a quick video review, and links to the BitTorrented copy of the OS you need to try this yourself. (I haven’t yet, but will try to fit it into my busy schedule for the rest of the week: traveling to a turkey-eating location, eating turkey, and resting from eating turkey.)

 

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Microsoft Pats Its Back for New Xbox Live Features

Posted by Jared Newman on November 24, 2009 at 8:00 pm

Last week, Microsoft brought Facebook, Twitter, Last.fm and the Zune Marketplace to Xbox Live. And it’s been a rousing success! According to Microsoft, at least.

The company says nearly two million people signed into Facebook from Xbox Live in less than a week since the feature launched on November 17. Almost one million people created Last.fm Internet radio profiles, and 1.7 million people checked out the Zune Marketplace, which is the Xbox 360’s new digital storefront for 1080p video. Microsoft suspiciously left out usage numbers for Twitter, saying only that the service “was abuzz” with Xbox-based tweets.

There is, of course, reason to be skeptical about these numbers and what they mean. Usually, Facebook and Twitter are only open to paid Xbox Live Gold subscribers, but from November 20 until yesterday, those services along with the rest of Xbox Live Gold were open to everyone in the United States, including non-paid Silver members. That means more of Xbox Live’s 20 million total active users may have tried the new services than usual.

And besides, trying doesn’t mean liking. I signed in to Facebook and sent a Tweet from Twitter, but didn’t particularly enjoy either experience. I fired up the Zune Marketplace but didn’t buy anything (and actually, I was sort of offended that music videos cost $1 to $2, when you can easily find them for free on YouTube). The only service I used in earnest was Last.fm, which came in handy for a party I happened be throwing over the weekend.

There was one statistic from Microsoft that was truly impressive: On November 10, launch day for Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2, more than 2.2 million people logged in to play. It’s proof that no matter how hard Microsoft tries to show the value in all of Xbox Live’s extra services, it’s still all about the games.

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Vertrue, the World’s Most Saintly Company

Posted by Harry McCracken on November 24, 2009 at 3:32 pm

As I mentioned earlier today, I recently discovered that I was a newly-inducted member of something called SavingsAce, a discount club that had begun charging me $25 a month. I called it, canceled, and got my twenty-five bucks back. I also asked how I came to be a member, and the rep told me that I’d agreed to join in return for a $10 discount on a purchase I’d made from information provider Intelius. I had indeed made a purchase at Intelius, but remembered neither agreeing to join SavingsAce nor being offered $10 back. So I called Intelius.

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Core i7 iMacs Showing Up Cracked, DOA

Posted by Ed Oswald on November 24, 2009 at 11:39 am

Apple has a bit of a quality assurance problem on its hands, according to press reports. Several publications are reporting that the new iMacs based on Intel’s Core i7 platform are inoperable out of the box, and some have even appeared with cracked LCD screens.

While the cracking issue is definitely not associated with the new Intel chip, the booting issue very well could be. Making matters worse for Apple, tech blog Engadget was one of the (un)lucky recipients of one of these faulty iMacs. According to reports on Apple’s own support forums, Cupertino is estimating a two-week wait on getting out replacement Macs to these customers.

While the cause of the screen cracks–which commonly appear on the lower left hand corner–is unknown, speculation points to the packaging. The cardboard box is delivered undamaged, so the problem could be in the packing or just simply the fragility of these new larger models.

Apple has not commented on the issue so far.

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More Power, PDF for the Kindle

Posted by Harry McCracken on November 24, 2009 at 10:29 am

There’s almost no such thing as “enough” in the world of tech. But Amazon’s Kindle e-reader, which can run for two weeks on a charge, surely has enough battery life. But the two-week figure only applies if you shut off the gizmo’s 3G data connection. Leave it on, and you reduce the list to four days.

Until now: Amazon says that it’s managed to improve wireless-on life to seven days on a charge, which surely counts as enough. It’s also added native support for documents in PDF format. (Until now, you’ve had to convert PDFs to the Kindle’s native format to read them.)

The best news: Existing owners of the current Kindle model will get both of these enhancements via an over-the-air software update. Owners of “some” earlier Kindles will get the PDF support, but not the extended battery life.

It may not be entirely coincidental that Amazon is making this announcement shortly before the arrival of Barnes & Noble’s Nook. That imposing Kindle competitor has more features overall than Amazon’s e-reader has had, including PDF support. I don’t see a figure for wireless-on battery life in B&N’s specs list, but the Nook goes for ten days if you turn the wireless off. Which is still a heck of a lot longer than most electronic devices, but the device’s color touchscreen presumably sucks enough power to reduce the life compared to that of the Kindle.

Both the Kindle and the Nook still have some features that the other one doesn’t. The Kindle, for instance, can read books out loud and has a crude Web browser; the Nook has Wi-Fi as well as 3G and lets you lend books to Nook-owning pals. I’m not going to come to any conclusions about whether there’s a clear winner until the Nook shows up, but it’s going to be fun to watch the two book megamerchants duke it out.

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Online Merchants: It’s Not Our Fault Our Customers Are Chumps

Posted by Harry McCracken on November 24, 2009 at 9:43 am

Over at Cnet, Greg Sandoval has blogged about the post-purchase online marketing tactics that the U.S. government is currently investigating. These are the discount offers you get at checkout that involve you agreeing to a monthly charge that’s explained only in fine print. The “deals” are powered by marketing companies such as Affinion, Vertrue, and Webloyalty.

Sandoval has quotes from three of the merchants–Orbitz, Priceline, and United Online–insisting that the offers are sufficiently explained and that the companies don’t pass on customer information to third parties without permission. Which reminds me of a famous piece of video, also involving corporate executives apparently believing that insisting something makes it true:

Orbitz, Priceline, and United Online seem to be saying that if any consumers get confused by the offers and sign up without intending to, it’s the consumer’s own fault. But as Sanodval says, if it’s really true that the companies involved insert these offers into the sales process for their customers’ convenience, and that consumers understand what’s going on, the fix here is obvious: Have the shopper enter his or her credit-card number one last time to confirm acceptance of the offer.

I’ve  already stopped doing business with Orbitz after it slipped items I hadn’t asked for into my shopping cart and later told me it was doing so for my convenience. But did I mention that I recently found myself a member of something called SavingsAce, which costs $24.95 a month–and that I’m not sure how I got signed up? (SavingsAce is a program run by a division of Vertrue, one of the marketing companies under investigation.) I’m about to waste some time calling SavingsAce up and attempting to get my first twenty-five bucks back.

As I’ve said before, I hope that these sleazeball tactics disappear from the Web, one way or another. Legislation would be fine. But so would the merchants in question deciding that they’re driving away customers by treating them like stooges.

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