Chrome, Opera pass Epic Citadel demo's Web graphics test

The Epic

Citadel demo of Unreal Engine 3 running in a browser using high-speed JavaScript and WebGL.
(Credit: screenshot by Stephen Shankland/CNET)

Chrome and Opera have become the first browsers to match Mozilla Firefox's support for Epic Games' Unreal Engine 3 and the Web-based Epic Citadel demo that's built on the 3D graphics technology. The demo's computing challenges include 3D graphics covered with 2D textures, rustling leaves, flowing water, reflective stone floors, lens flare, and shadows and other lighting effects.

Mozilla and Epic Games demonstrated the advanced Web programming in March using a combination of Mozilla technologies: Emscripten that converts C or C++ software into JavaScript, and asm.js that can run a specialized subset of JavaScript much faster.

Mozilla has been trying to drum up support for asm.js, but Chrome and Opera used their own JavaScript technology. (Opera Software, earlier this year, shifted away from its browser engine, adopting Chrome's and benefiting from Google's investment in the software.) The Epic Games demo also uses the WebGL standard for 3D graphics, which Chrome, Mozilla, and Opera all support.

The new browser support is notable, given the push toward Web programs that run on any machine with a browser -- cross-platform flexibility that has big advantages over writing native code that only works on iOS, Windows, or some other specific operating system. But the maturity and consistency of Web programming still leave a lot to be desired, especially for complicated, performance-intensive Web apps.Epic Games added Chrome 31 and Opera 18 to its Unreal Engine 3 supported browsers list. Martin Best, the product manager of games at Mozilla, noted the rival browsers' achievementin a blog post Tuesday.

Mozilla and Google got their Unreal performance with significantly different approaches. Asm.js uses a technology called ahead-of-time (AOT) compilation for its performance boost, with the Web app sending a "use asm" hint to the browser to trigger the technology. Compilation is the process of converting human-written source code into machine language that a computer can execute. AOT compilation means the browser can build an optimized version of the software in advance.

The Epic Citadel demo of Unreal Engine 3 running in a browser using high-speed JavaScript and WebGL.

(Credit: screenshot by Stephen Shankland/CNET)

But Chrome uses a different approach with its V8 JavaScript engine called just-in-time (JIT) compilation that's standard nowadays for most Web sites and Web apps. The JIT approach means the browser compiles the JavaScript, monitors how it runs, and optimizes with new compilation as it goes.

"V8 people seem to want to JIT-optimize harder, not process 'use asm,'" said Mozilla Chief Technology Officer Brendan Eich, but he's not convinced the performance will catch up to AOT compilation. In his experience, Unreal Engine 3 on Chrome shows more "jank" from pauses triggered by recompilation.

"Yet they do well," Eich said, praising Chrome's virtual machine that runs the JavaScript programs. "V8 is a formidable JIT'ing virtual machine."

In my tests of the two, Chrome showed a higher frame rate on a 2012 Retina-equippedMacBook Pro. Firefox Nightly version 28.0a1 (2013-11-26) showed 52.4fps, but Chrome 33.0.1712.4-dev ran at 59.8fps.

Both versions sent the CPU fan whirring, though, so there's still work to be done.

The Epic Citadel demo of Unreal Engine 3 running in a browser using high-speed JavaScript and WebGL.

(Credit: screenshot by Stephen Shankland/CNET)

Nokia takes a shot at iPad, touts its own Lumia 2520

The Lumia 2520 tablet.

(Credit: James Martin/CNET)

It's Nokia's turn to fire a potshot at Apple and the iPad.

In a Web video ad (which is admittedly pretty cheesy with the British narrator), Nokia whimsically attacks Apple's hit tablet by going after the lack of keyboard and weak battery life, and touts its own Lumia 2520 as the "right tablet."

The Lumia 2520 can be paired with a $150 keyboard accessory that also acts as a cover, a bulkier cousin to the Microsoft Surface's thin keyboard accessory.

The Lumia 2520 is Nokia's first attempt to breach the tablet business, where the iPad remains king. Still, the hot tablet segment is fragmenting, with Android steadily gaining market share.

Nokia's tablet is running on Windows 8.1 RT, a stripped down version of Windows 8.1 that doesn't run legacy applications. Windows RT is widely considered a flop, with the only other new product running the platform being Microsoft's own Surface 2. Microsoft has released its own attack ads against the iPad.

Nokia, which is set to merge its devices business with Microsoft, believes its Lumia 2520 can stand out -- even from the Surface 2 -- through an LTE connection and its trademark colorful design. The battery life and keyboard accessories are some of the other advantages it has staked a claim to, leading to a video depicting a user annoyed with a dying iPad who also needs to bring out his laptop to do real work.

The ad can be perplexing at times. It's not like an iPad user can't buy a keyboard accessory, with many third-party options out there. It seems Microsoft and Nokia both believe a first-party-built keyboard is the way to go.

Game review: Batman Arkham Origins

Batman Arkham Origins

Rocksteady have passed the baton to new developers Warner Bros Montreal and have successfully expanded the Arkham series of Batman games to bring us Batman Arkham Origins published by Warner Bros Interactive. It felt good being in control of one of the most famous superheroes once again soaring around an expanded game world, beating up bad guys and hunting down some of his most infamous foes.

The most concerning thing for me was the frame rate, playing for a prolonged time period caused the game to gradually stutter to the point of being almost unplayable making me turn the game off, this has to be patched as soon as possible as this really bogged the whole experience down for me. Visually though, Gotham City looks the very same as it did in Arkham City (remember Arkham was a cordoned off section of it) however now there is a newly added island joining onto it by a ridiculously long bridge which the game makes you cross more often than id have liked.

The new Gotham is by no means a huge playground for Batman to play in but it is eerily quiet. Other than goons and cops, there is no one around. I mean Arkham City had a reason for this but this is meant to be Gotham. Texture popping plagues Origins too on its environments but the characters look just as good as they have done since Arkham Asylum.

The challenge maps remain to keep you busy after you have finished the story and if you preordered the game, you will be able to play as Deathstroke who has his very own unique move set. Origins introduces multiplayer for the first time which pits two players who control Batman and Robin

Summary

Arkham Origins brings Batman back to doing what he does best however his cape is constantly being tugged on due to terrible frame rate drops and rough texture filtering however gameplay wise, Origins is fast paced and exciting and tells one of the most infamous stories quite well. It’s not the best title in the series technically but it’s a worthy addition and it’s worth a playthrough.

To read the full review visit www.thethingy.co.uk

Story – 4/5

Gameplay – 5/5

Graphics – 3/5

Overall – 3.5/5

Micromax Canvas HD A116i with quad-core processor available online

Ketan Pratap, November 26, 2013

Micromax has introduced the Canvas HD A116i, the successor to the Canvas HD smartphone for the Indian market. The Canvas HD A116i is listed at ecommerce website, eBay and is available at Rs. 14,299 (with free shipping). However, one can find cheaper deals on the online retailer as well. The domestic handset maker is yet to announce the smartphone officially, though.

The Micromax Canvas HD A116i runs Android 4.1.2 Jelly Bean, with the listing claiming that the company plans to roll-out an update to Android 4.2.1 soon. Much like the Canvas HD, it is a dual-SIM device with support for GSM+GSM. The Canvas HD A116i is powered by a MediaTek's MT6589 quad-core processor clocked at 1.2GHz along with PowerVR SGX544 GPU and 1GB of RAM. The smartphone features a 5-inch display with a resolution of 720x1280 pixels and boasts of a pixel density of 294ppi.

For optics, there is an 8-megapixel rear shooter with LED flash and 4X zoom, and a 2-megapixel front-facing camera. There is 4GB of inbuilt storage, which is further expandable up to 32GB via microSD card. Connectivity options on the smartphone include Bluetooth, Wi-Fi, GPRS, EDGE and 3G. There is no mention of the battery included on the Canvas HD A116i.

Looking at the specifications, we are unable to see the difference between the predecessor and successor, and perhaps the only unmentioned detail, battery capacity, might be the singular change in the models, with the A116i expected to bear a larger battery. Micromax announced the Canvas HD in February this year.

Previously, on Monday, Micromax's new budget smartphone, the A77 Canvas Juice was listed online at Rs. 7,999. The Micromax A77 Canvas Juice runs Android 4.2 Jelly Bean and is a dual-SIM phablet with support for GSM+GSM and dual standby. It features a 5-inch FWVGA display with 480x854 pixels resolution. The phablet is powered by a dual-core 1.3GHz processor along with 1GB of RAM.

It sports a 5-megapixel autofocus rear camera accompanied by an LED flash and also includes a VGA front-facing camera. It comes with 4GB inbuilt storage, which can be expanded up to 32GB with the help of a microSD card. 

Micromax Canvas HD A116i key specifications

• 5-inch HD (1280 x 720 pixels) display
• 1.2 GHz quad-core MediaTek MT6589 processor
• 1GB RAM
• 4GB inbuilt storage, expandable up to 32GB via microSD card
• 8-megapixel rear camera
• 2-megapixel front camera
• Dual-SIM (GSM+GSM)
• Android 4.1 planned Android 4.2 upgrade

Yahoo pushes further into news, hires Katie Couric as global anchor

Agence France-Presse, November 26, 2013

Yahoo made a fresh move Monday to expand as a media group, naming a star "global anchor" to be the face of its digital news brand.

The California Internet giant hired longtime newscaster and talk show star Katie Couric, well-known to American television viewers, having hosted programs on three top broadcast networks.

"Couric is joining the company as Global Anchor, as part of Yahoo's ongoing commitment to re-imagine how news and information is delivered and consumed," a Yahoo statement said.

Yahoo chief executive Marissa Mayer, hired last year to help revive the fortunes of the faded Internet pioneer, said Couric "will lead a growing team of correspondents at Yahoo News who will cover the world's most interesting stories and newsmakers."

"From pivotal coverage of natural disasters and historic elections to the Royal Wedding and the Olympic Games, groundbreaking interviews with heads of state and leading tastemakers, her experience is unmatched," Mayer said in a blog post.

Couric, 56, will continue to host her daytime television talk show "Katie" while being the "face" of Yahoo News and being part of features for the Internet pioneer's home page, according to Mayer.

Couric will begin with Yahoo News in early 2014 to help reshape coverage for the Internet giant, which hosts the biggest global news website and is gradually moving to control more of the content.

Couric told news website Capital New York the format for Yahoo's programming has not yet been defined.

"I don't think it is going to be a half-hour evening news broadcast or a two-hour morning show," she said.

"We are trying to be very open-minded. What I really am excited about in working with the team at Yahoo is that there are no rules right now, we are going to try things, we are going to see how they go, we are going to see what people are interested in, we can do everything from a town hall meeting to in-depth interviews to a breaking news story."

On Twitter, Couric tweeted: "Thrilled to join @YahooNews as Global Anchor! Great team there led by @MarissaMayer & an exciting future ahead!"

Couric joins a team of other respected journalists including Megan Liberman, David Pogue and Matt Bai, hired from the New York Times.

Yahoo last month named Pogue to head a grand expansion of consumer-focused technology news.

Liberman was hired in September to be editor in chief to "lead a major expansion of Yahoo News, bringing in new voices and defining features for the site."

Bai was hired this month to be a national political columnist.

The Couric recruitment comes as Yahoo continues a quest to redefine itself as an online venue for "premier digital content."

Couric joined the CBS "Evening News" in 2006 after 15 years presenting NBC's "Today" show. She left CBS in 2011 and since 2012 has had her own show with ABC, which has a news partnership with Yahoo.

The Turkeys of 2013 by CNET

This Is Apple’s New Mothership Of An HQ

The most realistic and detailed images yet of Apple’s new spaceship headquarters have just been published in an awesome piece on Wired.

The latest images of the 2.8 million square-foot campus show an expansive cafeteria, an underground parking garage, and a subterranean auditorium where forthcoming Apple products will be unveiled to the media.

The office will sit on a 176-acre plot of land, most of which will be dedicated to indigenous flora and fauna to act as a barrier between the floor-to-ceiling glass walls and the outside world.

There will also be separate facilities outside of the main campus for R&D.

Enjoy a peek inside the new Apple campus, and make sure to check out Apple CFO Peter Oppenheimer’s presentation after the approval of the campus, and/or Steve Jobs’ initial presentation to the city of Cupertino.

Windows 1.0: The flop that created an empire

Two years later than planned, Microsoft's new graphical operating system went on sale November 20, 1985. It wasn't worth the wait. But a bigger story was soon to unfold.

n the beginning....

(Credit: Screenshot by Remember the dot)

The big story in The New York Times on November 20, 1985, concerned Hurricane Kate's advance as it smashed into northern Cuba and the Florida Keys before barreling north to threaten the Gulf Coast. But another big story -- for the technology world -- was about to unfold thousands of miles away in Las Vegas, where the Comdex trade show was getting under way.

Apple had grabbed headlines a year earlier with the introduction of its graphical Macintosh. Now, after two years of delays, Microsoft was finally ready to debut the much-promised Microsoft Windows.

Ford's Edsel arguably received better reviews.

Computer reviewer Erick Sandberg-Diment wrote in his column that "running Windows on a PC with 512K of memory is akin to pouring molasses in the Arctic." That critique was one of many describing the product as an unadulterated flop.

Microsoft Windows 1.0, where it all began (pictures)

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This was just a momentary setback for Microsoft, which shrugged off the initial embarrassment. (Tandy Trower, the product manager charged with shipping Windows. 1.0 offers a great write-up here about the history of how the company labored to get things right.) Unfortunately for Microsoft, Windows 2.0 wasn't much better than Windows 1.0. However, by the time the third incarnation of Windows came out, in 1990, Microsoft had a clear winner.

It also caused a rancorous split with longtime partner IBM, which had its hopes on another graphical user operating system for PCs it co-developed with Microsoft called OS/2. But Bill Gates stuck with his vision and Windows became a veritable money machine that would create billions of dollars in wealth for Microsoft and its investors.

To this day, you'll still hear Microsoft critics complain that the various flavors of Windows through the years have never come close to offering the simplicity or elegance of the Macoperating system. (You'll hear a similar refrain from many OS/2 diehards.) I'll leave that one for a bar stool debate. With the benefit of 20-20 hindsight, however, this much is clear: Windows 1.0 was a flop. But it also was the embodiment of a technology vision which would create a tech empire.

Microsoft launches Xbox One SmartGlass app

(Credit: Microsoft)

Those of you aiming to buy the Xbox One can now download a companion SmartGlass app onto your mobile device.

Released or updated on Tuesday for iOS, Android, Windows 8/8.1, and Windows Phone, Xbox One SmartGlass ties in with the Xbox One in a few different ways. You can use the app as a remote control device for the gaming console, letting you navigate the dashboard to play games or open various applications. The app also lets you browse the Web via the Xbox One using your mobile device.

Xbox One SmartGlass can act as a second screen, displaying or supplementing the action appearing on the console. Users of the app can also search for and select games to play on the Xbox One, track gaming achievements, get a helping hand on games, watch clips of games, and chat with friends.

But Xbox 360 owners need not feel left out. Microsoft also offers an Xbox 360 SmartGlass app.

The $500 Xbox One hits stores on Friday.