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Record Your World in Conflict Exploits With Broadcast Tool

October 15th, 2007 by iDunzo

A new add-on for the RTS title World in Conflict will allow players with Vista and DirectX 10 to broadcast their WiC matches, TV-style.

You can use pre-set or follow cameras and even some telestration if you want to point out something especially fascinating to your viewers.

You’ll also be able to create a movie of the broadcast, to share later with friends and loved ones. The free broadcast tool should be available some time today from Sierra.

Hopefully, developer Massive will make up for delaying the 360 version of World in Conflict by using the extra time to include this new recording feature. It’s the least they can do.

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Mozilla Is Promising To ‘Rock’ The Mobile Web

October 10th, 2007 by iDunzo

Giving the mobile Web browser competition a shot in the arm, Mozilla’s Mike Schroepfer said in a blog post that Mozilla has big plans for the mobile Web.

Yes, a mobile version of Firefox is in the works, and should be ready next year.

The post showed up in Schroepfer’s blog yesterday and outlined all of Mozilla’s mobile plans, including updates on its technology, hiring, products, and partners.

According to Schroepfer, there’s a lot in store.

From his blog post:

Up until very recently device limitations required writing new mobile browsers from the ground up. Being able to leverage all the investments in the Mozilla platform across both desktops and devices is the right approach. There is far from a dominant player in this marketplace and even the best mobile browsers today have compromises in user experience, performance, and compatibility. There is still *plenty* of room for innovation.

I agree, there is still lots of room for improvement.

Just yesterday Opera, Freescale and NEC announced their own plans to improve the mobile browsing and mobile video experience.

Mozilla is promising a better experience, too. It has hired two new developers to head its mobile services operations and plans to offer a mobile version of Firefox that is as close to the desktop version as possible.

Schroepfer said mobile Firefox will be able to run Firefox extensions on mobile devices and allow others to build rich applications via XUL.

Part of the reason Mozilla held off on entering the market was that mobile devices didn’t have the right memory or CPU specs to make Mozilla happy.

Now that many phones — and smartphones in particular — are shipping with more memory and faster processors, Mozilla thinks now is the time.

The iPhone’s Safari browser really raised the bar when it comes to the mobile browsing experience.

The Nokia browser, which is based on Safari also performs well. Google is working on a mobile browser. Microsoft already has a mobile version of Internet Explorer. Opera is stepping up the competition.

Mozilla will be a little late to the game, but late is better than never.

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Apple Looses Leopard on Manufacturers

October 10th, 2007 by iDunzo

After pushing back the release date six months, Apple has officially closed development of Leopard (OS X 10.5), according to AppleInsider, and is also putting the finishing touches on OS X 10.4.11 — what looks to be the final release of Tiger.

Manufactures are expected the receive the “Gold Master” version of the OS this week and Apple has also reportedly been seeding its support staff with initial training materials for the new OS in the form of “self-paced training modules.”

The materials cover some of the operating system’s most popular features and components, such as installation methods, Mail and BootCamp, according to AppleInsider sources.

As far as OS X 10.4.11, a MacNN report says the updates focus primarily on Dashboard, including a fix the the software’s underlying Webkit foundation and two existing issues with number-oriented widgets.

While Apple has yet to announce an official release date for Leopard, all signs have pointed to a public launch sometime during the last full business week of October, with some betting on October 26.

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Microsoft Adds Free Games To Xbox 360 Consoles

October 9th, 2007 by iDunzo

With an eye on the upcoming holiday shopping season, Microsoft on Monday said it would bundle two video games with the Xbox 360 video game console.

By the end of the month, Xbox 360 and Xbox 360 Elite are expected to ship with Forza Motorsport 2 and Marvel Ultimate Alliance. The games have a combined retail price of $90.

Microsoft in August lowered the price of the consoles by $50 in an effort to keep pace with similar moves by rival Sony, which sells the PlayStation 3. The 20 GB Xbox 360 now sells for $350. The 120 GB Elite system retails for $450.

The U.S. price cuts followed Sony’s decision in July to lower the 60 GB version of the PlayStation 3 to $499 from $599.

While hardware pricing is important, games are the driving force behind consumers’ choice of video game console.

Among the most popular games on the Xbox is Microsoft’s sci-fi game Halo 3, which posted sales of more than $300 million in its first week on the market.

Released September 25, first day sales of Halo reached $170 million, and retailers took more than 1.7 million pre-orders — both industry records.

Nevertheless, Nintendo’s Wii has outpaced sales of the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3.

Nintendo in June sold 381,800 Wii consoles, compared with Sony’s 98,500 PlayStation 3 and Microsoft’s 198,400 Xbox 360 machines.

The holiday shopping season, which officially begins the Friday after Thanksgiving and runs to Christmas, is the biggest retail season of the year, and a time when Microsoft and its rivals make major marketing pushes for their consoles.

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Mythbuntu: Turning Ubuntu Into A DVR System

October 8th, 2007 by iDunzo

Mythbuntu has released a new 7.10 beta, based on the Ubuntu 7.10 beta, which features a number of enhancements and new features.

Mythbuntu is an Ubuntu derivative optimized for setting up a standalone MythTV DVR system.

The project is not part of Canonical, nor is it officially affiliated with Ubuntu.

MythTV is a popular open source DVR solution that works well for converting an old PC system into a DVR box.

Mythbuntu allows users familiar with Ubuntu to easily set up a lightweight MythTV installation.

Programs not necessary for MythTV, such as OpenOffice, Evolution, and the full Gnome desktop, are omitted from Mythbuntu.

Version 7.10 is still a beta, but the release notes provide the following list of new features:

• Xfce based setup. No more openbox, it’s not even installed on the disk
• Network Manager included.
• VNC can be installed from multiple locales on disk
• ubuntu-mythtv-frontend isn’t used at all.
• Lots of additional features for mythbuntu-control-center.

The Mythbuntu Installation can also be performed directly from an existing Gutsy installation now via Firefox.

For more details and complete list of new features and bugfixes, check out the Mythbuntu release notes.

If you’d like the give Mythbuntu a try, you can download it from the site or via your favorite bittorrent client.

Posted in Open Source + Software + Technology + Videos | 1 Comment »

Linux Driver Project Gets A Shot In The Arm From Novell

October 2nd, 2007 by iDunzo

Linux’s biggest downside remains the lack of driver support for peripheral devices of all stripes, but there’s good news: a new project from Novell is offering to write free drivers for any manufacturer that’s willing to show their specs.

The project itself is not new, it was announced last year by the main developer, Greg Kroah-Hartman, a programmer at Novell.

However, late last week Kroah-Hartman posted an update to his blog and announced that Novell has moved him onto the project full-time.

I never imagined that so many different people would offer to help out. There is a real need for a place where developers can find a “real” project to work on in the Linux kernel.

The Kernel Janitors project is a great place to start out, but what to do from there? It turns out that over 100 different developers offered up their services.

Clearly this was a huge untapped group of talented people who wanted to help out.

This is great news for Linux fans and will hopefully mean much better device support for your favorite distribution.

Something to note, while Kroah-Hartman and crew are willing to sign NDAs for the actual device details the companies hand over, all of the code generated will be GPLv2 and can thus be rolled into the Linux kernel.

There’s an announcement on the Linux Driver mailing list with more details, or you can check out the Linux Driver Project website for more information.

Via: Linux Watch

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