Daily Archives: March 5, 2012
Why Apple won’t be introducing a touchscreen TV
(WIRED) — In the emailed invitation for its March 7 press event, Apple included an image that’s provoked intense speculation.
Some observers suggest the hardware in the image doesn’t relate to an iPad at all, but rather a touchscreen television.
In decoding the image above — which features hardware lacking the iPad’s tell-tale home button — IBTimes concluded that instead of an iPad, “Apple could instead reveal Apple TV” and that “this would explain the lack of a home button a lot better.”
Mashable also noted in a slideshow that we may be seeing a TV set at Wednesday’s event, based on evidence from the invitation image. In this case, the word “see” in the image caption text is a big indicator.
And how’s
Article source: http://rss.cnn.com/~r/rss/edition_technology/~3/v7hVR-jn7-k/index.html
Independent game developers have their day
The business of creating games with smaller teams and budgets — and no aid from major publishers — comes into focus at the Game Developers Conference, the annual industry confab kicking off today in San Francisco.
The extra attention stems in part from the film Indie Game: The Movie, which premiered at January’s Sundance Film Festival and will be screened at GDC. The movie recounts the struggles of developers and their efforts to get their titles published.
“We wanted to show that video games are like any other creative medium,” says Indie Game director Lisanne Pajot. “It’s not just a bunch of people coding in a room. It’s people pouring their hearts and souls into that code and making something special.”
Pajot and her co-director, James Swirsky, shot more than 300 hours
Article source: http://rssfeeds.usatoday.com/~r/usatoday-TechTopStories/~3/NXhdg6IXodA/1
Behind the scenes with ‘Indie Game: The Movie’
It’s fitting that co-directors Lisanne Pajot and James Swirsky planned to host a screening of their independent film Indie Game: The Movie at the Game Developers Conference in San Francisco. It was here that the duo was sold on creating a movie looking inside the development of independent games.
Pajot and Swirsky first considered Indie Game after filming a documentary on Canadian game designer Alec Holowka and his action title Aquaria.
“It was sort of eye opening for us,” says Pajot. “We didn’t really know about indie games at the time, like we didn’t realize there were one or two groups of teams making games on their own and really reaching various people online through their work. And his work was extremely personal.”
After Aquaria, Pajot and Swirsky attended GDC and discovered other indie developers with the same personal journeys toward game development. That’s when
Article source: http://rssfeeds.usatoday.com/~r/usatoday-TechTopStories/~3/xAeenSD-elc/1
‘Fez’ a nod to video games past
Most video game players would love the prospect of an interactive experience that meshes elements of two iconic franchises: Super Mario Bros. and The Legend of Zelda.
That was the intention of designer Phil Fish when he imagined the idea for Fez, the side-scrolling puzzle game slated to hit Xbox Live later this year.
“It’s a 2-D platformer like Mario, but it’s a huge open world that is non-linear to explore like a Zelda game,” says Fish.
The game follows pixelated character Fez living in a two-dimensional world similar in graphical style to classic home console titles.
“Then one day, it’s revealed to (Fez) that there’s a third dimension to the world,” says Fish. “So, as it turns out, the 2-D space he’s occupying that looks like old school pixel art is actually 3-D, where every little pixel is actually a cube with four sides on
Article source: http://rssfeeds.usatoday.com/~r/usatoday-TechTopStories/~3/UDc5gdVjmQA/1
Poison text messages and malicious mobile apps on the rise
Poison text messages, nearly non-existent in the U.S. a few years ago, grew 300% in 2010 and 400% in 2011, accounting for about 1% of all text messages. “We’ve gone from totally clean to a trickle,” says Rachel Kinoshito, head of Cloudmark’s security operations. “Most people are seeing about one a month.”
That foothold is part of a broader concern. Variations of scams that infest the Internet, through PC browsers, have begun spreading on a meaningful scale through mobile devices. And it looks like the bad guys are just getting warmed up.
One type of poison text message involves tricking people into signing up for worthless services for which they get billed $9.99 a month. Another type lures them into doing a survey to win a free iPhone or gift card. Instead, the attacker gets them to divulge payment card or other info useful for identity-theft scams. “Malicious
Article source: http://rssfeeds.usatoday.com/~r/usatoday-TechTopStories/~3/UZTDH_uqyiA/1
