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Will Apple’s iCloud Forecast Include the Business Market?

Posted by David Worthington on June 15, 2011 at 9:38 am

Apple’s iCloud announcements last week were very focused on the consumer electronics industry, but Apple has the opportunity to create an offshoot for business customers.

The iPhone, and more recently the iPad, are becoming standard corporate issue within large companies. iCloud services will need to be adapted to meet rules and regulations that govern data.

Cloud computing is most commonly used to offload back-office applications from IT staff; e-mail and other non-proprietary data is hosted in public clouds such as Amazon Web Services or Windows Azure. In theory, that gives IT staff more time and flexibility to focus on services that make the business more competitive.

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No Blu-ray or DVD Playback for Wii U

Posted by Jared Newman on June 15, 2011 at 9:12 am

Last week, I wrote a list of unanswered questions about Nintendo’s Wii U, the upcoming home game console revealed at E3. But I neglected to ask one biggie: Will the Wii U be a game console or a multimedia device?

The answer is still unknown, but if you’ve got a big collection of DVDs or Blu-ray discs, you won’t be enjoying them on the Wii U. Speaking to investors, Nintendo President Satoru Iwata confirmed that the new console won’t support movie playback in either format, Kotaku reports. The Wii U will only accept discs in a 25 GB proprietary format.

Nintendo figures that enough people already have DVD or Blu-ray players, so including the capability — and licensing the associated patents — wasn’t worth the extra cost.

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Google Doubles Down on “Ten Blue Links”

Posted by Harry McCracken on June 14, 2011 at 5:58 pm

Google's Johanna Wright shows off the new Search by Image feature.

“I don’t need ten blue links — just give me the answer!”–Bing Search Blog post, October 2010

“Yahoo Vows Death to the ’10 Blue Links'”–IDG News article, May 2009

It’s funny: Google’s competitors spend a lot of time explaining that “ten blue links”–the traditional search results that we’ve known since the dawn of search engines–are annoying and/or obsolete. But I haven’t noticed any consumer uprising over them, or a mass exodus from search engines that use them. Actually, I suspect that any company that rails against “ten blue links” would cheerfully swap places with Google if it had the chance, dependent on blue links though Google may be.

And at Google’s Inside Search event today, thee was lots of news–but the company didn’t seem to be on a mission to deemphasize traditional results pages. Instead, most of the news was about making the blue links more useful–getting you to them more quickly, in more ways, then letting you get past them and onto a Web page that provides the information (Google would probably say “knowledge” rather than “information” which you’re looking for.

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Vizio Set to Shake Up Tablet Industry?

Posted by Ed Oswald on June 14, 2011 at 3:43 pm

Vizio looks set to introduce the Android-powered tablet that it first demoed at CES back in January. This Is My Next has images from a reader in Indiana showing that a local Walmart already making space for the device. According to the image, the tablet will retail for $349.

That would make it $150 cheaper than the lowest-cost version of the iPad. The Vizio Via does look an awful lot like the iPad from the front: it includes an 8-inch screen, a1-GHz processor, a front (but no rear) camera, 802.11g/n wireless, and integrated GPS.

An important feature of this device is Via Plus, which is intended to act in concert with the company’s line of televisions and offer some neat integration such as viewing of content across devices and a remote-control featuee.

We’re still not sure what version of Android this tablet’s going to run — Walmart’s placard isn’t too specific on what’s inside of this bad boy. But the price sounds right, and Via Plus could be a point of differentiation in a market full of me-too tablets.

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Angry Birds to Get the NFC Treatment

Posted by Ed Oswald on June 14, 2011 at 2:59 pm

And you thought near-field communication (NFC) was just for mobile payments! Angry Birds developer Rovio said Tuesday that it will incorporate the technology into a future release of the game.

Called “Magic Places,” the feature will unlock functionality or new game levels when two NFC-enabled phones are tapped together, or a gameplayer visits a certain location, say company executives.

According to GigaOm’s Ryan Kim, Rovio has plans to use the “Magic Places” functionality across all its games. However, with the game now passing 200 million downloads, its a good place to start. The goal is to make the game a more social experience, and using technologies like NFC and GPS (also apparently planned) will accomplish that.

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Duke Nukem Forever Arrives, and Apparently It’s Awful

Posted by Jared Newman on June 14, 2011 at 1:07 pm

I haven’t played Duke Nukem Forever, which hits stores today, but after reading a bunch of reviews from other game critics, I’m not sure it’s even worth the effort to put it in my GameFly queue or find a Redbox game rental kiosk. The opinions — at least from writers whose work I admire — are unanimous: this game is not just poorly designed, it’s offensive and unfunny.

I’ll paste some highlights from my favorite reviews below, but first, a little background: Duke Nukem Forever was in development for 12 years by 3D Realms, becoming a legendary tale of video game vaporware. In 2009, publisher Take-Two finally pulled the plug on funding, and 3D Realms disbanded. You can read that whole story at Wired.

Last September, Take-Two subsidiary 2K Games announced that developer Gearbox Software would pick up where 3D Realms left off, developing a first-person shooter that preserves the series’ tradition of foul-mouthed humor.

Gearbox has a good track record, having previously developed the hit shooter Borderlands. What could go wrong? Apparently, everything.

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Unlocked iPhones. A Great Idea. In Theory!

Posted by Harry McCracken on June 14, 2011 at 12:16 am

When rumors surfaced yesterday about Apple beginning to sell unlocked iPhones in the U.S. this week, I said I was intrigued by the idea of an unlocked iPhone 5. But I didn’t elaborate. And the scuttlebutt persists.

So here’s a little more detail: my interest is more emotional than rational. I can pull together enough money to pay for a phone in one large chunk. I don’t particularly want to be sign a contract with a wireless carrier if I don’t have to do so. I sometimes travel overseas. So the notion of owning a phone outright, avoiding obligation, and being able to use it outside the U.S.  with a local carrier rather than via pricey AT&T roaming is appealing. It’s what I’ve done several times in the past. (I’ve also bought locked-but-unsubsidized phones that weren’t iPhones from AT&T, which has cheerfully unlocked them for me a few months after purchase.)

Except…

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