Pantone, the self-declared official body in control of the entire visible spectrum, has announced the color of the year for 2014. You're looking at it.
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If Haswell innards weren't enough to incite a purchase of Alienware's X51 gaming PC, perhaps an extra choice of GPU could push you over the edge: Dell's little gaming-machine-that-can is now available with AMD's Radeon R9 270X. The card adds $100 to the base price of the Core i7 model, bringing the total to $1,200. In return, this configuration brings the chipset maker's Eyefinity tech into the fold for multi-monitor support, although you probably wouldn't want to attempt gaming on it beyond 1080p. While we're scraping together enough pennies for a true 12K gaming rig, we suppose this may just have to do.
Update: Apologies for the earlier error regarding this being a flagship 4K-capable card. The post has been corrected.
A little earlier than expected, Motorola's entry-level Moto G is now available to purchase directly from the manufacturer's U.S.-based website. The 4.5-inch Android 4.3 handset is available for $179 (8GB) or $199 (16GB) SIM-free, with U.S. and global-optimized versions of both available. (Moto's site says both devices can roam globally, but the U.S. version is optimized for American networks, and vice-versa for the global model.) In the U.S. you'll be able to use this unlocked Moto G on T-Mobile or AT&T HSPA+, but there's no CDMA or 4G LTE support on this particular model — a CDMA version will be coming in January, Moto says.
The Moto G is one of the most impressive budget handsets to pass across our desks this year. It sports a Moto X-like polycarbonate exterior, a 720p LCD display and a quad-core Qualcomm Snapdragon 400 CPU. On the software side it's near-stock Android 4.3 Jelly Bean running the show, with a few Moto software tweaks.
Here's a snippet from our recent review of the Moto G:
"Depending on your perspective, the Moto G can be seen as a ridiculously cheap phone considering its quality, or a ridiculously good phone for its price. Either way, it’s a lesson to other manufacturers in how to make a good, cheap Android phone. The screen is the best you’ll find on a budget handset, the CPU, while by no means high-end, strikes a great balance of performance and energy efficiency, allowing the built-in battery to drive the device through a fully day of use with ease."
Moto G orders placed today on Motorola.com should start shipping from Dec. 2.
Source: Moto G on Motorola.com
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Apple has just launched a new section of their iPad site called Life on iPad featuring the video of the same name they originally debuted last month during the iPad Air and Retina iPad mini event. Perhaps the best example of "technology alone is not enough" marketing Apple has employed since 2011. From Apple:
We designed iPad to be the best tool for all the things you do. But we never imagined where you'd end up taking it. Here are just a few stories.
In addition to the video, Life on iPad includes: balancing work at new heights (wind farm), finding the extra edge (skating), modern making of a vintage (winery), gearing up for the win (endurance racing), leading moves on Broadway (musical), new eyes for hands-on surgery (medicine).
This is how Apple originally figured out how to sell the iPad, and it's great to see them returning to it. Thinner, lighter, faster are all good things, but the stories of how it touches, enhances, and improves lives is what matters. Specs exist only to support features. What a tablet can do is meaningless. What you can do with it is everything.
It's great to see Apple bringing the experience fight again.
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If you start counting from the Magnavox Odyssey, we've been playing console games for seven generations now. Yes, it's crazy to think of, but it's even more alarming to realize that the industry has been in an all-out "war" since generation three. For better or worse, competition became a part of the hardware cycle. The players (you know, Sega, Nintendo, Sony and Microsoft) have changed several times through the years, but until recently, the game hasn't -- the console wars were fought over who had more bits, what had the most RAM and how fast a machine could render frames. Now, as we kick off generation eight, we're seeing a very different kind of contest.
We're not saying that hardware specifications don't matter -- they absolutely do -- but this time, the two leading armies are packing painfully similar heat. On paper, the Xbox One and PlayStation 4 really aren't that different. So, what's going to win the war? Software, services and brand.
Filed under: Gaming, HD, Sony, Microsoft
One year ago today Guy English and I started the Debug podcast. We were lucky enough to score Loren Brichter as our first guest. It was humbling and enlightening to say the least, and show after show, guest after guest, that feeling never changed. Over the last twelve months we're been fortunate to talk to supremely talented developers, and engineers and pioneers who've shaped our collective history. The highest compliment we've gotten, and one we both take very much to heart, is that Debug has become something like technological archeology, helping to document, at least in some small way, the origins and evolution of the software we love.
26 bi-weekly episodes later - including a few cross-overs, panels, and not including a couple of shows that, for various reasons, have yet to be released - and the experience has beyond anything I could have imagined. Guy and I intended the show to be the conversations we wished we'd had time for after conferences. The talk at the bars, casual, enjoyable, and interesting. Thanks to Guy's knowledge, research, and skills in precisely those areas, and the generosity and brilliance of our guests, I think we've succeeded in that, or at least started to.
We really appreciate everyone who's taken the time to listen to Debug, to send us feedback, and to share stories of their own. Now, as we close the book on season one, if you haven't heard of the show before, if you joined us in-progress, or if you simply want to go back and re-listen to any of the episodes, here they are, organized by category.
If you're curious about the history of Apple, the technical details of coding apps and games, the importance of quality assurance and the extremes gone to for customer support, or you simply want to hear Jordan Mechner expound on the creation of the cut scene, or Don Melton tell the tech world to calm the f--k down, here's your chance. I recommend them all.
P.S.: Season two of Debug kicks off later this week with Jonathan Deutsch. We'd love for you to join us!
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