Quote

Above: CEO and Creative Director Min-Liang Tan was quite happy to show this thing off

The main claim for the Blade is that it’s “the world’s first true gaming laptop.” Bold claim, we know. They explained to us what it means: the power of a monster laptop like the ones Alienware produces, but without the excessive bulk, which makes typical gaming laptops not conveniently portable. The Blade has a 17-inch screen, making it basically the same size as
a MacBook Pro as far as width and length, but it’s even thinner than the Mac at 0.88 inches. They’ve also managed to shrink the power supply to about half that you’d find in an Alienware, adding to the overall portability.

Above: We told you it was thin

The feature that makes the Blade unique, though, is the Switchblade interface. On the right side of the keyboard is a massive touchpad/screen with mutlitouch capability and gestures for control, and the pad also serves as a second screen. Some of the uses mentioned were being able to train the screen at a different point of the map during a match of League of
Legends so you can watch two places at once, or running YouTube on it so you have a video walkthrough handy while playing a game on the big screen. We don’t know how well the touchpad will work for actually controlling a game, say in an FPS, but the huge size of it could make it a viable option, at least in single-player where the pressure of competition isn’t present. Above the pad are ten keys with their own displays, meaning you can program commands into them and also have backlit icons from the actual game within each key. Certain games will have official support for icons and commands, but users can also generate their own templates and share them with others.

Above: The Switchblade interface

The whole package is damn sexy to look at, but unless we get a chance to actually play some games on it, we don’t know yet how it all handles. It may not be totally competitive with a top-of-the-line desktop, but it’s close. Here are the specs:

·2.8GHz Intel® Core™ i7 2640M Processor

·8GB 1333MHz DDR3 Memory

·17.3" LED Backlit Display (1920x1080)

·NVIDIA GeForce® GT 555M with NVIDIA® Optimus Technology

·2GB Dedicated GDDR5 Video Memory

·Built-in HD Webcam

·Integrated 60Wh Battery

·320GB 7200rpm SATA HDD

·Wireless Network 802.11 b/g/n Compatible

·16.81" (Width) x 10.9" (Depth) x 0.88" (Height); 6.97lbs (Weight)

Of course, none of this will come cheap. Hold onto your wallets – the Blade clocks in at a retail price of $2799.99. While that is nothing to sneeze at, on paper it’s much more powerful and thinner than a MacBook Pro, so it’s in theory competitively priced. We’re also curious to see how the Switchblade interface works, since it’s something we haven’t seen in other laptops. We’ll find out if the Blade can fulfill all of its promises sometime later this year.

]]> Sun, 28 Aug 2011 07:53:40 +0000 af21d0c97db2e27e13572cbf59eb343d http://www.adkgamers.com/page/index.html/_/tech-news/steve-jobs-resigns-from-apple-r99
Here is a copy of Jobs' resignation letter:

Quote

Quote

• Microsoft Press Conference | 9:30am
  
• Electronic Arts Press Conference | 12:30pm
  
• Ubisoft Press Conference | 2:20pm
  
• Sony Press Conference | 5:00pm
  

• Nintendo Press Conference | 9:00am
  
• Mass Effect 3 | 1:00pm
  
• Battlefield 3 | 1:30pm
  
• Batman: Arkham City | 2:00pm
  
• Resistance 3 | 3:00pm
  
• Starhawk | 3:20pm
  
• Twisted Metal | 3:40pm
  
• NGP Demos | 4:00pm
  
• Journey | 4:20pm
  
• Uncharted 3: Drake's Deception | 4:40pm
  
• Gears of War 3 (Campaign) | 5:00pm
  
• Forza Motorsports 4 | 5:20pm
  
• Super Secret Remake | 5:40pm
  
• Ms. 'Splosion Man | 6:00pm
  
• Modern Warfare 3 | 6:30pm
  

• Spider-Man: Edge of Time | 11:00am
  
• Dead Island | 11:20am
  
• Gears of War 3 (Horde Mode) | 11:40am
  
• Rage | Noon
  
• Prey 2 | 12:20pm
  
• Shinobi | 12:40pm
  
• Saints Row III | 1:00pm
  
• Lord of the Rings: War in the North | 1:30pm
  
• Ninja Gaiden III | 2:00pm
  
• The Darkness II | 3:00pm
  
• Street Fighter X Tekken | 3:20pm
  
• Resident Evil: Operation Raccoon City | 3:40pm
  
• Deus Ex: Human Revolution | 4:00pm
  
• Tomb Raider | 4:20pm
  
• Super Secret Sequel #1 | 4:40pm
  
• The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim | 5:00pm
  
• WWE 12 | 5:20pm
  
• Super Secret Sequel #2 | 5:40pm
  
• Prototype 2 | 6:00pm
  
• BioShock Infinite | 6:30pm
  

• Star Wars: The Old Republic | 11:00am
  
• Dark Souls | 11:20am
  
• Inversion | 11:40am
  
• Warhammer 40k: Space Marine | Noon
  
• X-Men: Destiny | 12:20pm
  
• Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning | 12:40pm
  
• Jurassic Park: The Game | 1:00pm
  
• Sniper: Ghost Warrior 2 | 1:30pm
  
• Bastion | 2:20pm
  
• Assassin's Creed: Revelations | 3:00pm
  
• Tom Clancy's Ghost Recon: Future Soldier | 3:20pm
  
• Rayman Origins | 3:40pm
  
• Sonic Generations | 4:00pm
  
• Catherine | 4:20pm
  
• Need For Speed: The Run | 4:40pm
  
• SSX | 5:00pm
  
• Madden 12 | 5:20pm
  
• FIFA 12 | 5:40pm
  

The coffers of Lime Wire founder Mark Gorton will be $105 million lighter, but he lucked out nonetheless.

The founder of file-sharing company Lime Wire agreed on Thursday to pay $105 million to the Recording Industry Association of America to settle a 5-year-old copyright case. Sure, that's a lot, but consider that the settlement figure is equal to only 7 percent of the $1.4 billion the RIAA sought.

This is likely the final chapter for LimeWire, after 10 years in operation. The two sides agreed to settle a year to the day after U.S. District Judge Kimba Wood ruled that Gorton was liable for willful copyright infringement. Later, Wood ordered that the LimeWire peer-to-peer network be shut down. The financial agreement between Gorton and the labels came amid a jury trial to determine how much Gorton would have to pay in damages.

For fans of cheap, easy-to-obtain music, a few modest reasons for hope sprung up during the two-week-long damages trial.

Edgar Bronfman, CEO of Warner Music Group, one of the four largest record companies, said under oath that he supported the unbundling of music. You might be saying to yourself: "So what?" People have had access to unbundled music for a decade now, thanks to services like iTunes and, yes, LimeWire. All I can tell you is that there are plenty of decision makers at the labels who believe the industry won't recover until consumers are buying albums again.

Bundled music, mostly in the form of the CD, was a boon for the recording industry. Instead of selling individual songs, for say $1 each, they sold CDs for $15 that typically came with 12 or 14 songs. Too often though, music buyers would shell out for a CD only to find that two of the tracks were any good. What did the record companies care? Rather than generating $2 for each of those two hit songs--like they do now--the labels pocketed $15.

In five years covering digital media, I haven't heard a single high-ranking label executive publicly come out against music bundling--just the opposite. But during questioning by Gorton's lawyer, Joseph Baio, Bronfman said the unbundling of songs is a great opportunity for consumers and record companies.

"The truth of the matter is," Bronfman said, "if a consumer goes and spends $25, $30 to buy a couple of albums and that's what they spend each year on music, and from those albums they're getting two, three, four songs that they really like...that may not be a great experience. But if the consumer can spend the same $25 and get 25 songs that they love, that is a fantastic experience."

Spotify's conversion numbers up?

Baio also asked Bronfman about Warner Music's business relationship with Spotify, the European music service that has unsuccessfully attempted to jump to the United States for nearly two years. Before licensing Spotify, the big record labels want to see the company converting about 15 percent of the users of its free-to-consumer, ad-supported service to the paid-subscription service, music industry sources told me last year.

When Baio mentioned that 95 percent of Spotify's users obtain music from the service free of charge, Bronfman corrected him. "It is currently about 85 percent," Bronfman told the court.

Click on photo for complete recap of Lime Wire case. It's thorough, I promise.

(Credit:
Screenshot by Greg Sandoval/CNET)

In March, Spotify reported 1 million paying subscribers and generated some buzz by claiming the figure represented 15 percent of the users. That didn't sound right because in September, the company reported 10 million users and the 1 million paying users would have equaled 10 percent. But Spotify said it was referring not to total users but to "active" users.

Tweaking the numbers that way didn't fool anybody at the labels, according to my industry sources. However, if Bronfman made an issue in court about the higher percentage of paid users, perhaps Spotify's 15 percent number is solid. If it is, it could mean Spotify is generating the kind of revenue the labels want to see before letting the company enter the U.S. market.

No reliable piracy data


One other note about the RIAA's case against file sharing: the record companies still can't seem to point to any hard numbers about its impacts. For the days I was in court, which included the opening statements, and testimony from several music industry executives, there was no reliable data to pin specific dollar losses to piracy. The best the RIAA could do was point jurors to the decline in annual music sales for most of the past 10 years and studies from NPD Group, which are based on samples, and claim that all the bad news is because of file sharing.

Baio asked Bronfman to compare the damage caused by some of the other factors pressuring the industry besides piracy, such as waning interest in CDs and more competition from video games.

"Well, it's hard, I think, to compare, because there is no specific factual evidence," Bronfman said. "But to me, you know, the economic recession...in 2009 probably had some effect on the industry's growth into part of 2010, but Internet peer-to-peer piracy and all that is derived from, that...seems to me to be the majority of the issues that have hurt the industry so badly."

To prove that piracy is harmful, say music industry critics, more evidence is required than someone's gut feeling.