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Bithell has become one of a growing number of prominent indie game developers known by name after releasing a hit game. New platforms like Steam and iOS have made it easier than ever for a single developer to create a successful game, and sometimes those games really blow up - developers like Minecraft creator Markus "Notch" Persson have become fast millionaires solely off of a single title. But after the elation of a hit game comes a sudden realization: you need to make another one.This is pretty common among artists; the second album is always the hardest.

In the beginning there was the word, and the word was Metro. And then it was Windows 8-style. And then it was Modern. And then it was Windows Store. And then it was Universal. And today, Microsoft has decreed that henceforth these apps - which are all ultimately based on Windows Runtime - will be known as Windows apps.Historically, of course, "Windows apps" (or "Windows programs") referred to standard, Win32-based executables that ran on the Windows desktop. Under the new naming scheme, these Win32 apps will now be called Windows desktop applications. As you can see in the slide above, despite the new nomenclature, the differences between the two types of app remain the same.Microsoft can paint itself red and call itself a girl scout until the pink cows come home, but everyone will still, and will continue to, call them Metro applications.

This is one of the most satisfying projects I have done I think. Mainly because this is a real device and something so historically important. It is a fully functioning Enigma machine you can wear on your wrist. This is a three rotor Enigma machine as used by German Wermacht in WW2 for encoding messages.Way cooler than any Android Wrist or iPhone Mini watch.

The feature phone. Still big in Japan. Still being sold in the millions. Still relevant, though? And does it even matter what a 30-something tech writer at a Western tech site thinks? Japan's large elderly population - people who haven't even heard of Angry Birds, Gmail or Uber - they're the ones sticking to their flip phones. Hardy, easy to use and cheaper than an iPhone. (If you need a primer on the phenomenon of gara-kei, you should probably read up on that here, but in short, it's how Japan's mobile phone market sped ahead with early technologies, then faltered when smartphone competition arrived.) So let's try using one. The best and newest feature phone available in Japan, no less. It's pitched as bringing the best smartphone features to the flip form factor. Is it better than a plain, old smartphone? Good lord, no.

AnandTech reviews the ASUS Zenbook UX305.Overall, even with the knocks against it, this is a heck of a device for just $699. A Core M processor, which allows a fanless and therefore silent device, but still offers good performance, and much more performance than any other CPU which would allow for a fanless design. 8 GB of memory standard. A 256 GB solid state drive standard. A 1920x1080p IPS display, once again standard. ASUS has really raised the bar for what someone can expect in a mid-range device.I honestly cannot believe that you can buy this much laptop for that kind of money these days - and unlike other cheap laptops, this actually isn't a piece of crap, but a proper, all-metal laptop that doesn't look like two stoeptegels slapped together.

I remember a time when I didn't know - or care - what a bezel was. Now, thanks to the efforts of Chinese smartphone manufacturers, I may be able to forget about this component all together. (If you don't already know, it's the metal or plastic bit that surrounds a screen.) A slew of new devices have appeared this month - some leaked, some released officially - all showing companies doing their best to erase the bezel. It's one of the latest trends in smartphone design and has already made its way to the US in the form of the $239 Sharp Aquos Crystal and its infinity pool-like display. Looking at these devices it seems we'll be seeing a lot less edge in future.I'm quite pleased about the bezel disappearing. The bezel is an irrelevant, useless part of displays, and it can be shaved off and removed.

At its WinHEC hardware conference in Shenzhen, China, Microsoft talked about the hardware requirements for Windows 10. The precise final specs are not available yet, so all this is somewhat subject to change, but right now, Microsoft says that the switch to allow Secure Boot to be turned off is now optional. Hardware can be Designed for Windows 10, and offer no way to opt out of the Secure Boot lock down.I am so surprised. The next step, of course, is to ban the disable-secure-boot option altogether. Just like everyone who knows Microsoft predicted.

Apple has seemingly decided to crack down on antivirus and antimalware apps, removing them from the App Store. Although there has been no official statement from Apple on a policy change, Apple's loose guidelines allow them to pull pretty much anything at any time, particularly something like antivirus which has questionable utility within the sandboxed iOS environment of iPhones and iPads.Great move by Apple. Get rid of these scammers. I hope Google follows soon.

According to the report, for one example, Google took content from companies like Yelp, TripAdvisor, and Amazon. In the latter case, Google lifted product rankings and placed them in their own search results for those products. When the companies complained to Google about the process, Google threatened to remove them entirely from results. The Journal quotes this section of the report: "It is clear that Googleâs threat was intended to produce, and did produce, the desired effect, which was to coerce Yelp and TripAdvisor into backing down." The Commission ultimately had Google agree to let websites opt out of the process.And this is one, why the authorities need to keep close tabs on large companies, and two, why the close ties between those same authorities and companies need to be severed as much as possible. Even mere lobbying should be illegal.

The Korean government has finally announced its plans to start removing the troublesome ActiveX software from public websites later this month in order to create a more user-friendly Internet environment.For long, this tech-savvy country has been stuck in a time warp with its slavish dependence on Internet Explorer.ActiveX is an ancient piece of technology that is still prominent in South Korea. It has its multiple problems that sometimes bring down the whole banking system or the public service system every year. The good news is that it will finally be over according to this news.

Swiss watchmaker TAG Heuer is creating a smartwatch in partnership with American technology firm Google. The watch is an attempt to compete with devices by consumer-electronics makers, particularly the much-hyped watch by Apple. While TAG is the first traditional watchmaker to pair with Google, the partnership could open the door to other collaborations with high-end brands owned by LVMH, including Hublot and Zenith. One of the questions raised by Apple's $10,000 gold smartwatch is whether users will consider it a luxury item, and wear it for status as well as convenience.TAG Heuer is a pretty big player in the classic, mechanical watch market, so this could be pretty big for both Google and classic watchmaking. Imagine a watch with a traditional, mechanical movement and a modern chip and display - stamped with that ever-important Swiss Made. A step closer to my ideal.Unless it's square, of course, because that would be tasteless.

Sure - if you want a fast, well-built, well-equipped 4K laptop preloaded with Ubuntu, with most of the potential edge-case configuration issues already taken care of, with an active set of developers working to ensure that the necessary repos are kept current, and with an actual, for-real OEM warranty and support. The M3800 Developer Edition is what an OEM-loaded Linux laptop should be, and it's got the added bonus of being supported by Barton George and a small, dedicated group of Linux enthusiasts at Dell. Those folks are backed by Dell's significant resources and are in constant contact with Canonical.The value proposition is pretty clear there, but the question is whether or not that value proposition is worth the extra money versus buying a less-expensive base laptop and loading the Linux distro of your choice. There's going to be a lot of overlap between the M3800 Developer Edition's target market and the segment of potential customers who have no problem with just rolling their own Linux installation on a Thinkpad or even on a MacBook. For those folks, how much is it worth to have Dell do the heavy lifting?I guess the problem is this: a machine like this is for developers and enthusiasts. However, developers and enthusiasts have no issues with getting a cheaper model and installing and running Linux themselves. This puts this expensive Dell Linux laptop in a sort of demand limbo - which is sad, because it looks like a great machine.

Stallman expanded and formalized his ideas in the GNU Manifesto, which he published in the March, 1985, issue of Dr. Dobb's Journal of Software Tools, thirty years ago this month. "So that I can continue to use computers without dishonor," he wrote, "I have decided to put together a sufficient body of free software so that I will be able to get along without any software that is not free. I have resigned from the AI Lab to deny MIT any legal excuse to prevent me from giving GNU away." The nearly forty-five-hundred-word text called for collaborators to help build a freely shareable Unix-like operating system, and set forth an innovative method to insure its legal protection.Stallman is one of the greatest technology visionaries. He will never achieve the popularity status of businessmen like Jobs and Gates, but his contributions to technology - directly and indirectly - are immeasurable.And he was right all along.

Microsoft is putting a big effort into improving trackpad navigation for Windows 10. While Windows 8 introduced new precision trackpads with the help of Intel, Microsoft is building on its previous work by standardizing gestures for laptops that use precision trackpads. Windows 10 will include multi-finger gestures to access new features like the notification center, Cortana, and virtual desktops. Windows trackpads have traditionally been a pain point for laptop owners, and it's something PC makers have largely ignored despite it being the primary input mechanism and key to using a laptop.I've heard this promise so many times from Microsoft and its OEMs, but while improvements have been made, they're simply not even close yet to Apple's trackpads.

The Unicode Consortium has launched a very controversial project known as Han Unification: an attempt to create a limited set of characters that will be shared by these so-called "CJK languages." Instead of recognizing these languages as having their own writing systems that share some common ancestry, the Han unification process views them as mere variations on some "true" form.To help English readers understand the absurdity of this premise, consider that the Latin alphabet (used by English) and the Cyrillic alphabet (used by Russian) are both derived from Greek. No native English speaker would ever think to try "Greco Unification" and consolidate the English, Russian, German, Swedish, Greek, and other European languages' alphabets into a single alphabet. Even though many of the letters look similar to Latin characters used in English, nobody would try to use them interchangeably.Pretty damning explanation of how some of the most popular languages in the world are treated as second class citizens by the Unicode Consortium. Not coincidentally, this consortium is pretty much entirely run by American and European men and (a few) women.

Nintendo finally confirmed today it will be making the leap to mobile game development as part of a new partnership with DeNA.According to a statement released by the companies today, new Nintendo IP will be developed for smart devices and specifically optimized for this platform. In other words, rather than porting games created specifically for the Wii U or the Nintendo 3DS you can expect entirely new titles on mobile.I'm interested to see what Nintendo can do to cope with the inherent limitations of touchscreen gaming.

Neptune is calling its new project the Neptune Suite. At its most basic, it's six different pieces of hardware that Neptune promises will work seamlessly with one another. Yet where every major company with a smartwatch (short of Samsung), has put the heavy lifting on people's smartphones for things like network connectivity and apps, Neptune wants to put it on your wrist.hubIn the middle of it all is a wrap-around, water-resistant smartwatch called "the hub," which has a 2.4-inch capacitive touchscreen, a 3G/LTE modem that works with nano-SIM cards, and runs Android 5.0 Lollipop. Joining it are a "pocket screen" and "tab screen," which expand the screen on the hub using super-fast, short-range wireless standard 802.11ad WiGig. Adding to that are three accessories: a keyboard that can turn the tablet into a notebook of sorts; a dongle with HDMI that will let you push what's on your hub to other screens (like Google's Chromecast); and last but not least, a set of wireless headphones.A very interesting idea, but in my view, a misguided one. This idea would work a lot better if the central device wasn't an unwieldy, huge bracelet, but the smartphone. I long for the day my smartphone can replace my PC, connecting to displays and peripherals without ever taking it out of my pocket.

Google Play, Google's marketplace for Android applications which now reaches a billion people in over 190 countries, has historically differentiated itself from rival Apple by allowing developers to immediately publish their mobile applications without a lengthy review process. However, Google has today disclosed that, beginning a couple of months ago, it began having an internal team of reviewers analyze apps for policy violations prior to publication. And going forward, human reviewers will continue to go hands-on with apps before they go live on Google Play.I haven't noticed any slowdowns or complaints from developers so far.

While Microsoft has dropped hints that the Internet Explorer brand is going away, the software maker has now confirmed that it will use a new name for its upcoming browser successor, codenamed Project Spartan. Speaking at Microsoft Convergence yesterday, Microsoft's marketing chief Chris Capossela revealed that the company is currently working on a new name and brand. "We're now researching what the new brand, or the new name, for our browser should be in Windows 10," said Capossela. "We'll continue to have Internet Explorer, but we'll also have a new browser called Project Spartan, which is codenamed Project Spartan. We have to name the thing."The only sensible move. The Internet Explorer name is tainted far, far beyond repair.

Apple Pay itself should, in theory, cut down on fraud because it makes stealing credit card information almost impossible. Each time a transaction takes place, Apple generates the equivalent of a new credit card number so the merchant never actually sees a customer's information.The vulnerability in Apple Pay is in the way that it - and card issuers - "onboard" new credit cards into the system. Because Apple wanted its system to have the simplicity for which it has become famous and wanted to make the sign-up process "frictionless", the company required little beyond basic credit card information about a user. Nor did it provide much information to the banks, like full phone numbers and addresses, that might help them detect fraud early.The banks, desperate to become their customers' default card on Apple Pay - most add only one to their iPhones - did little to build their own defenses or to push Apple to provide more detailed information about its customers. Some bank executives acknowledged that they were were so scared of Apple that they didn't speak up. The banks didn't press the company for fear that they would not be included among the initial issuers on Apple Pay.It seems the Apple Pay fraud is a bit more complex than it just being the banks' fault. This is what happens when one company becomes so big and dominant that everyone else dances to their tunes. We've seen it before in technology, and it seems we are entirely unwilling to learn.In any case, letting a secretive, closed technology company take care of my payments seems like an incredibly stupid thing to do. I much prefer our banks to handle it - they're shady, too, of course, but at least here in The Netherlands, there are at least a lot of government and media eyes focussed on them, and they have far stricter laws and regulations to adhere to than a random technology company.

Windows devices can be lightweight and highly mobile, yet, when you need it, have the full capabilities of the Windows OS. The Windows Storage and Deployment Teams, the people who bring modern storage APIs, Storage Sense, setup, and servicing to your phone, tablet, laptop, and desktop would like to introduce you to how they are giving Windows 10 a compact footprint.Now that Windows runs on all manners of devices - from cheap phones to expensive gaming rigs - Windows' storage footprint is even more important than it already was. I'm glad Microsoft isn't losing sight of these lower-level things while working on Windows 10's user-facing features.That being said, the measures detailed in the blog post look an awful lot like treating the symptoms instead of the actual cause.

Engadget takes a look at the Recreated Sinclair Spectrum.With no embeddable games, the keyboard relies upon existing iOS and Android apps. Elite bundles a free app that launches with a short soundbite of the Spectrum loading sound and offers a number of free games, including exclusive rights to Chuckie Egg, and access to Sinclair BASIC. Other games can be unlocked via 79p ($1) in-app purchases. During my demo, I led Hen-House Harry through a number of levels and the gameplay was exactly like I remember it, as was the tactile feel of the rubberized keyboard. You don't realize just how much you missed those 8-bit soundtracks and super-simple graphics.I love that we live in an age where incredibly niche devices like this can be made and sold.

Exactly 20 years ago today, one of the best - I would argue, the best - video game(s) of all time was released: Chrono Trigger. This Gamastura article from 2012 gives a lot of fantastic insights into the game's complex, modular story.From Mass Effect to Skyrim, modern RPGs go to great lengths to merge linear, carefully crafted narrative with dynamic, emergent gameplay. Hundreds of thousands of man-hours are poured into these incredibly complex works, all in the effort to create a believable, cohesive story while giving players a sense of freedom in the way they play their game. The results of these efforts have been best-loved play experiences video games have offered.But the goal of marrying linear narrative to dynamic gameplay is not out of reach for developers that don't have the resources to create such complex systems. No game shows this better than the classic RPG Chrono Trigger. Crafted by Square's "Dream Team" of RPG developers, Chrono Trigger balances developer control with player freedom using carefully-designed mechanics and a modular approach to narrative.Chrono Trigger is something special, something one-of-a-kind that cannot be replicated. You see its influence in so many games today, and even on its own, despite its age, it can still hold itself up very well next to all the Quadruple Turbo HD Mega Graphics games of today. While Marle (or Nadia in the Japanese version) is my favourite character, it's hard to deny that as far as storyarcs go, Glenn's story is the most heartbreaking and emotional story ever told in 16 bits - and beyond (well - almost beyond).While originally a SNES game, Chrono Trigger is currently available for both iOS and Android.

Google has unveiled its new Chromebook Pixel, and The Verge has its review up.The new Chromebook Pixel is slightly cheaper than its predecessor, at $999, but it's still wildly more expensive than other Chromebooks. It has almost the exact same design as the original, and thus is a beautiful machine. It still runs Chrome OS, which has advanced significantly in the past two years, but not enough to be a real replacement for what you can do on a Mac or a PC.But the improvements in battery life and speed are both huge. When you use it, the dichotomy between what your heart wants and what your brain says is almost bittersweet. It's an amazing laptop that I want to use all the time, but when I really need to do more intensive "computer" things, it's not quite enough.Core i5, 8GB RAM, 12.85" 2560x1700 touchscreen, 12 hours of battery life (The Verge got 14 hours), $999 - but ChromeOS.

While some things about computers are "virtual," they still must operate in the physical world and cannot ignore the challenges of that world. Rear Admiral Grace Hopper (one of the most important pioneers in our field, whose achievements include creating the first compiler) used to illustrate this point by giving each of her students a piece of wire 11.8 inches long, the maximum distance that electricity can travel in one nanosecond. This physical representation of the relationship between information, time, and distance served as a tool for explaining why signals (like my metaphorical sign above) must always and unavoidably take time to arrive at their destinations. Given these delays, it can be difficult to reason about exactly what "now" means in computer systems.

Researchers working with the Central Intelligence Agency have conducted a multi-year, sustained effort to break the security of Apple's iPhones and iPads, according to top-secret documents obtained by The Intercept.The security researchers presented their latest tactics and achievements at a secret annual gathering, called the "Jamboree," where attendees discussed strategies for exploiting security flaws in household and commercial electronics. The conferences have spanned nearly a decade, with the first CIA-sponsored meeting taking place a year before the first iPhone was released.Outrage something something not surprised exclamation point.

Last month my fourth iPhone in six years was, in medical terms, crashing. The screen, which had pulled away from its glue, was behaving strangely. The charging port, no matter how thoroughly I cleaned it, only occasionally took power. Repair would be expensive, especially considering that my contract would be up in about six months. Buying a newer iPhone would mean spending $650 up-front, spending $450 with a new two-year contract or amortizing the price with my carrier's new early upgrade plan. I felt trapped, as every smartphone owner occasionally does, between two much more powerful entities that take me, an effectively captive chain-buying contract iPhone user, for granted. I began to take offense at the malfunctioning iPhone's familiarity. Our relationship was strained and decreasingly rational. I was on a trip and away from home for a few weeks, out of sorts and out of climate, slightly unmoored and very impatient.And so the same stubborn retail-limbic response that prevented me from avoiding this mess in the first placeâ-âby buying an AppleCare insurance planâ-âactivated once more, and I placed an order I had been thinking about for months: One BLU Advance 4.0 Unlocked Dual Sim Phone (White), $89.99 suggested retail (but usually listed lower), $76.14 open-box with overnight shipping. 1,829 customer reviews, 4.3 stars. "This isn't the best phone out there, but it is by far the best phone for only around $80-90," wrote Amazon reviewer Anne.Excellent article about what it's like to move from a top-of-the-line smartphone to the cheapest models.This is eventually going to be a huge problem for companies relying on high-end smartphones. It won't affect Apple as much (in fact, it isn't affecting them at all), but Android OEMs are feeling the heat. While the really cheap ones are probably not that interesting to us, the â¬200-â¬300 models (no contract) certainly are. They deliver similar performance at less than half the price of the latest iPhone or Galaxy.

Watch expert Benjamin Clymer, founder and executive editor of luxury watch site HODINKEE, writing for The Verge:With Apple Watch, the price differentiation between the entry-level Sport at $349, the standard Apple Watch at $549, and the Edition at $10,000 is about perceived value - what materials are used in the case, bracelet, and straps, but also how much people believe they should be paying for the product. In addition to perceived value, mechanical watches are also priced by human value: how much of the work is done by hand (in many cases using 200-year-old methods). For example, a watchmaker named Philippe Dufour makes just 12 watches per year, alone in his one-room atelier in the mountains of Switzerland. A simple, time-only piece can cost $100,000. Whether the case is gold or platinum, the price of a Philippe Dufour watch remains (roughly) static - you are not paying for materials, you are paying for Mr. Dufour's time and touch. The Apple Watch has minimal human value, and that is the biggest difference between it and its mechanical counterparts.Just how much human value can a customer expect from a mechanical watch, relative to a similarly priced Apple Watch? The difference is startling.I'm linking this excellent piece not because I believe the Apple Watch - or any other smartwatch - competes with mechanical watches; I link to it to illustrate why it does not. No matter how much Ive-narrated gold you encase your smatwatch with, at its core, it's still just a machine-produced mass-market gadget that will be obsolete only a few years down the line. This is antithetical to what traditional, high-end horology is all about.As I've detailed before, I love watches. I'm not rich, so I buy watches in the â¬150-200 range. However, I dream of one day owning a watch from my favourite watch brand, Officine Panerai (something like this one). This company doesn't make a lot of watches, and many models are only sold on invitation. It's the kind of brand where if you have to ask about the price, you can't afford it. Luckily, the used market is a bit more forgiving.Buying a watch like this is not something you do with your mind - but with your heart. It's like buying a beautiful painting or a classic car; something that can eventually be passed down onto your children and become part of the family heritage. That's either something that appeals to you, or it doesn't. It will take a long time before smartwatches can achieve that kind of status.This, however, does not mean the gold Apple Watch models will fail - quite the opposite. I'm only trying to illustrate that high-end mechanical watches and the golden Apple Watch do not really compete with each other; they kind of exist on a plane where money doesn't matter. It's a world that us non-rich folk do not understand. A golden Apple Watch will not take the place of a high-end mechanical watch in the same way that someone's BMW 6 series isn't taking the place of her classic Jaguar E-Type.

Today we are rolling out Android 5.1 - an update to Lollipop that improves stability and performance and offers a few new features like support for multiple SIM cards, Device Protection and high definition (HD) voice on compatible phones.Not coming any time soon to an Android device near you.

Apple held its Apple Watch event today, but despite all the hype, the two most exciting announcements had nothing to do with the Apple Watch. I want to start the announcement that excited me the most, even though the general public won't care all that much: ResearchKit. ResearchKit combines the iPhone and HealthKit to allow iPhone owners to participate in medical research.This may sound like something trivial, but anyone who has ever done any serious scientific research - medical or otherwise - knows how hard it is to find enough quality participants. ResearchKit will allow users to opt-in into medical research programs, so you can collect data through your iPhone and send it straight to researchers. They can then use this data to aid in research for conditions like diabetes or breast cancer.In addition - and this is hugely important - Apple announced that it will release ResearchKit as open source, so that other platforms can participate in this endeavour too. In other words, Android or Windows Phone users could install applications to aid medical research as well, assuming developers implement support for it. I'm really hoping the big players - Apple, Google, Microsoft, etc. - come together to make sure this is a proper open standard, implemented on all the major smartphone platforms.Cancer has had a huge impact on my life - even though I - thank the goddess - have never had cancer, I've had people close to me and my family die all around me ever since I can remember. I've seen families torn apart by it, I've seen people fight through it to live another day (like my mother), and I've seen people suffer horrendous pain. In fact, I'm sure we all have.However, I've also seen what medical research has done for those suffering from cancer. Even a few years can make a huge difference - breast cancer treatment today is better than it was only a few years ago. And of course, while my personal frame of reference is cancer, there are countless other horrible diseases that could benefit greatly from more and easier research participation.So yes, this was, at least for me, as a human being who cares about the people around him, the most significant and most important part of today's event. I'm setting my cynical self aside for a second, and I'm really hoping the industry gets behind this as quickly as possible. Please.That being said, on to new products. Apple announced a new MacBook that's crazy thin, has a fancy new keyboard, and a nice new touchpad. It's only 0.92kg, 13.1mm thick, and has a 12" 2304x1440 display, and comes in silver, blackish-silver and gold. The specifications are a bit disappointing, though: a 1.1GHz dual-core Intel Core M with Intel HD Graphics 5300. It's got 8GB of RAM, and a 256GB SSD (configurable to 512GB). Best thing: it's completely fanless.The keyboard replaces the scissor mechanism with a butterfly one, which sounds like marketing nonsense, but actually makes sense. Whereas scissor hinges causes keys to wobble upon keypress, the butterfly gine has a more uniform keypress. I'll have to try it out to see if it translates into actual benefit, but it sure does look like it. Similarly, the touchpad has been redone as well, and now implements Apple's confusing force touch stuff from the Apple Watch. I think a force touch is a harder press, but I still have no clue.All in all, this looks like a fantastic, if not underpowered laptop - until you hit the price. The price is very hefty - $1549 in the US, and â¬1449 in the EU. No thanks.Lastly, we have the Apple Watch. Apple essentially just redid the demo from late last year, showing very little new information or functionality. Basically, take any Android Wear device, add the ability to answer calls on the device itself, make the software more complicated and the UI uglier and messier, add several hundreds of dollars or euros to the price, and you've got yourself an Apple Watch. In other words, dangerously close to that Tizen Samsung Gear thing nobody wanted.Apple had one job this evening: tell us why we want an Apple Watch. Tell us why we should spend at least $349/â¬399 (the price of the small version of the cheapest model), all the way up to â¬17000 (the most expensive gold model) for a gadget so we have to take our phone out of our pockets slightly less often. The cold and harsh truth is that Apple failed to answer that question - what they showed us was a very complicated, finnicky device with an incredibly hefty price tag (only the garish aluminium/rubber small models are $349/â¬399 - the better-looking models are all around â¬900-â¬1000).You don't have to believe me - take it from The Verge's Nilay Patel, not exactly a vocal Apple critic, who actually tried the device out after the event.That's sort of the defining theme of the Apple Watch so far: it's nicer than I expected and I'm sure the confusing interface settles down into a familiar pattern after you use it for a while, but I'm still not sure why you'd want to put this thing on your wrist all the time. Apple's big task at this event was convincing people that a use case for the Watch exists, and at this moment it still feels like an awful lot of interesting ideas without a unifying theme. We'll have to wait until we get review units in hand and spend way more time with one to really understand the value of the Apple Watch.The device is riddled with unintuitive and arbitrary UI conventions, and just as I predicted when the device was first announced, Patel states it feels disjointed and confusing. This is by no means a surprise to me, but it is a surprise for a first-gen Apple product. The iPod, the first iPhone, the iPad - they were all quite intuitive and easy to grasp, but the Watch, clearly, seems not to be so.This is a matter of taste, of course, but the applications Apple showed didn't look particularly nice, either. Words like garish, information overload, cramped come to mind. Android Wear is already confusing and cumbersome at times due to the small screen, and Apple is cramming a lot more functionality and user interface in that same space. It doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure out that's not going to be easy to use. All in all, nor this event, nor the first hands-on reports seem to allay my initial concerns about the confusing and cumbersome UI.Apple promises "all-day" battery life of 18 hours, which is less than what I get out of my Moto 360 (two days easy, three days with effort), and more or less forces daily charging. It'll be available in select countries starting in April.

The Raspberry Pi 2 offers a striking resemblance to its precedessors, retains its price point of £30, but with design issues ironed out and a stonking increase in performance. It's a must buy. No, buy two or more; they are that good value.Well, that's a clear endorsement.

They're at it again.For years consumers have lifted up iOS as the safe mobile operating system. Comparatively, it does see much less malware than Android likely due to its rigorous manual testing of App Store apps and technological limitations that only allow approved apps on iOS devices. But to believe youâre 100 percent in the clear if youâre using an iOS device is a mistake.This comes straight from an antivirus peddler - the people who spread lies and FUD non-stop to scare unsuspecting users into buying their useless, crappy, resource-hogging bloated software. For every person here on OSNews who see through these companies' lies, there's a dozen regular users falling for their scams.Now, it's iOS' turn apparently. I will continue to hammer on this issue until the cows come home. Whether you're using iOS or Android, you do not need antivirus software.

After years of rapid growth, HiSilicon is now the number one IC design company in China, and in 2013 generated $1.4 billion USD. The company was formed in Shenzhen in 2004 and has since set up offices in: Beijing, Shanghai, Silicon Valley (USA) and Sweden. They predominantly produce the Kirin series of processors for Huawei which is known for appearing in the Honor and Huawei Ascend series of phones. It is possible we may even see a Kirin Processor in the upcoming Nexus which is rumored to be manufactured by the Chinese company. While nothing has been officially confirmed, a Kirin chip in the upcoming nexus would make an interesting advancement for the brand. This would be a large blow for competitor Qualcomm who has made the possessors for the previous models. Much like we saw with the Xiaomi in our article, Huawei's approach with HiSilicon appears to be growing the brand internally and locally until it is big enough and ready to branch out in to the larger world. Despite recent rumors, both Huawei and HiSilicon companies have confirmed that there are no current plans to separate.Interesting. I never realised Huawei had its own chip maker.

Microsoft hasn't released a new build of Windows 10 in several weeks but that doesn't mean we can't get a look at the upcoming Spartan browser. Thanks to a new leak from a build that has not been released, we can get a closer view of what this new feature will look like.A whole bunch of screenshots of Microsoft's new browser.

Ever since my Moto 360 and Android Wear review, I've been hammering on my disappointment in Wear's unfinished, unpolished state, and the many issues that plague the platform. Since I've been using my Moto 360 again over the past few weeks, I think it's time to give a few short updates, because a seemingly minor release - from Wear 5.0.1 to 5.0.2 - has changed a few things for the better.One of the biggest issues I encountered with Wear on the Moto 360 was laggy performance, stuttering, choppiness, that sort of stuff. After using 5.0.2 for a week or so, I've noted that this problem now seems resolved - at least for me. Touches are registered instantly, responsiveness is perfect again, and animations no longer lag and stutter. It's a world of difference.A short note on battery life: after a full day of use, my Moto 360 usually sites at around 65%-70% battery left. In other words, with some careful planning, I could squeeze a full weekend out of my Moto 360, without needing to carry my charger with me. Quite nice.None of this changes my overall perception of current smartwatches, though: they are too much computer, and too little watch. Still, these few improvements do lessen the blow somewhat, and that's always welcome.

Sometimes a few inches is all it takes to make a difference. Back when Jolla first started, a team of former Nokians taking MeeGo and spinning it into their own Sailfish OS, it became a smartphone curio. The simple UI and gesture-based navigation had promise, but compared to an iPhone, Android, or even Windows Phone device, it felt underwhelmingly simple. Now, the Finns are back with not only Sailfish 2.0, but a tablet for it to run on, and it turns out that makes for a great pairing.I can't wait for my Jolla tablet to arrive and for Sailfish 2.0 to become available for my Jolla phone. Quite exciting times.

I'm a programmer. I write games. Games programmers get a lot of respect, but none of them, not me, not Carmak, and not Abrash. None of them deserve the honour which I want to bestow on David Horne. This is because David Horne wrote the greatest program ever written: 1k chess on the ZX81.David Horne is not an urban myth. David Horne achieved what many would even now consider impossible. He wrote a chess game, with AI, that ran on a poorly documented, buggy machine that contained only 1k of memory.Sometimes I feel like these kinds of programmers are a dying breed.

It's slowly approaching five years since Microsoft first released Office for Mac 2011 in October 2010. While a final version of Office 2016 for Mac isn't ready just yet, Microsoft is announcing a preview program today for Mac users to get an early look at the company's work. Microsoft has been doing some great work with Office, bringing it to the iPad, extending it to Dropbox, and even acquiring impressive apps like Acompli to power Office on iOS and Android. Office 2016 for Mac is the latest result of Microsoft's focus on cross-platform apps, and it finally matches its Windows equivalent.Considering Office is the primary tool for my work - and thus, my livelihood depends on it - I recently jumped from Office 2011 to Office 2013. However, I decided to not buy the traditional software package, opting for an Office 365 subscription instead. For â¬99 a year, you get the full Office 2013 suite, and you can install it on 5 PCs and 5 tablets/phones. So, as a heavy user, I'm very glad Office for Mac is finally getting a new version. For us Office 365 subscribers - we get this new version "for free".Now that I've made the jump to Office as a subscription, I wonder how I ever did without.

Google's Sundar Pichai has essentially confirmed reports that the company will become a wireless provider of sorts in "the coming months." During his appearance at Mobile World Congress today, Pichai acknowledged that Google is working with "existing partners" to create its own MVNO, but stopped short of confirming that Sprint and T-Mobile are those partnering networks, as has been rumored. But he did reveal that Google has been in contact with Verizon Wireless and AT&T about its plans - likely to head off any potential ugly conflict between Mountain View and the largest, most powerful providers in the United States. "Carriers in the US are what powers most of our Android phones, and that model works really well for us," he said.Additionally, The Verge has an interesting article about just how far along Google's Project Loon is.

As of the release of Ubuntu 15.04 Vivid Vervet Beta 1, Ubuntu MATE is now officially a Canonical project, alongside the likes of Kubuntu, Xubuntu, and friends. MATE is the continuation of GNOME 2.

Jolla has "introduced" Sailfish OS 2.0. It didn't really introduce it though as it's not available to anyone right now - it's only potentially available to OEMs.The independent Sailfish OS is soon reaching a major milestone as it is scaling from smartphones to tablets with the introduction of the Jolla Tablet. The first shipments of Jollaâs second Sailfish OS product are expected to start in Q2/2015. At this point, Sailfish OS is maturing to the next generation, 'Sailfish OS 2.0', and is introducing e.g. a new enhanced user interface, support for Intel architecture, and previously unseen software integration capabilities for partners.The new interface is interesting - it greatly simplifies all the gestures and seems to function much more like Harmattan on the N9. As awesome as all this sounds, this still doesn't address the biggest concern: applications. Some may be content running Android applications (poorly) on Sailfish, but I want the real deal. However, without - still - any word on paid applications, it doesn't seem like this issue will be addressed any time soon.That being said - I'm an early backer for the tablet, and can't wait for it to arrive this May. I hope Sailfish OS 2.0 will find its way to my Jolla phone at around the same time.

Big news a few months ago: Google announced that all new devices which ship with Lollipop would have encryption enabled by default. Fast forward to today, and aside from Google's own Nexus devices, none of the new Lollipop devices actually seem to have encryption enabled by default. It turns out that Google has quietly relaxed this requirement in the Android Compatibility Definition, from 'MUST' to 'very strongly RECOMMENDED'.Why? Performance, supposedly.Our best guess at this point is that the encrypted-by-default requirement was relaxed to give OEMs more time to prepare their hardware for the transition. The performance problems can be offset by using faster flash memory, faster file systems like F2FS, and chips that are better at encrypting and decrypting data quickly, but phones and tablets take long enough to design that OEMs will need time to make these changes. Whether the change in policy was prompted by external pressure or an internal decision isn't clear, but the performance explanation makes the most logical sense.Ouch. It's pretty clear Google wanted to quickly gain some positive press, especially after Apple announced it would turn encryption on by default in iOS, but failed to look at any possible performance repercussions. Sleazy move.

NXP Semiconductors said on Sunday that it would buy a smaller peer, Freescale Semiconductor, in an $11.8 billion deal that would create a big maker of chips for industries as varied as automobiles and mobile payments.The merger will also offer some relief to the private equity firms that bought Freescale at the height of the leveraged buyout boom, only to see the financial crisis bring the company low.NXP is Dutch, and I have to admit, seeing a Dutch chip maker acquire Freescale makes me feel a little bit proud. Together with ASML, my little swamp does contribute at least something to the world of computing.

Samsung, naturally, is hoping to put the Galaxy S series back on people's radar as a top device, and it's doing so by starting afresh with the Galaxy S6 and S6 edge. Though it numerically follows the GS5, the Galaxy S6 bears little resemblance to the previous model, and marks a pretty significant change in the way Samsung designs phones. At the same time, the S6 edge picks up the fun parts of the Galaxy Note Edge and leaves behind the poor software experience.There's a brand new design philosophy in play with the Galaxy S6 and S6 edge, starting with the radical hardware change and flowing into a more considered software experience. These are the phones that Samsung's hoping will change the perception of its devices in 2015 - let us show you what they're all about.After HTC, Samsung was up. Most of the information regarding the new Galasy S6 and Galasy S6 Edge were leaked before their official unveiling, so we already knew what to expect. I'm particularly pleased with Samsung greatly simplifying TouchWiz, and the simplified camera interface and performance are very welcome too. The all-metal construction is nice, and I personally really like the Edge's curved display - not because of any software functionality, but because it just looks really nice and ergonomic.During the unveiling event, one thing really stood out: confidence. Rarely have I seen Samsung personnel being this genuinely enthousiastic and confident about their new phones. They didn't resort to crazy antics or heavy buzzword dropping - they showed the device, its strengths, and that was it. For the first time, it felt as if Samsung truly believes the S6 and S6 Edge can stand on their own merit, instead of being held up by marketing and similar tricks.My contract renewal is up later this year, and the S6 looks quite intriguing, and I haven't found any Samsung phone even remotely intriguing since the SII.

It's hard not to have high hopes for the HTC One M9. Its immediate predecessor and the first phone in this rebirth of the HTC's flagship line - that'd be 2014's HTC One M8 and 2013's M7 - were fan favorites, and highly regarded by those of us who critique phones for a living.But those phones were not without their flaws. And as we've seen HTC slowly address its devices' shortcomings (while growing and innovating in other areas), it's been difficult to not expect it to finally get things - all the things - right.At least that's what we've been hoping, especially when it comes to its one tragic feature: The inconsistent performance of its UltraPixel camera.And that brings us to this. The HTC One M9. We've spent a little time with HTC's latest, and this is what we've found thus far.The HTC One M9 - the new one, announced today - looks very similar to the M8, but of course with better specifications and updated software. As much as I think the One series might be the best Android phones out there in terms of build quality, I just can't get myself to like its overall design. I do hope, though, that the M9 sells in large enough numbers, because HTC is going to need it.

Today, after 2 years and 10 months of work, we are pleased to announce the release of the Xfce desktop 4.12, a new stable version that supersedes Xfce 4.10.This long period can only be explained by how awesome Xfce 4.10 was. But as all things, it needed some refreshing - and for that we saw lots of new contributors providing valuable feedback, features and bugfixes. As always, Xfce follows its steady pace of evolution without revolution that seems to match our users' needs.In this 4.12 cycle, we mainly focused on polishing our user experience on the desktop and window manager, and on updating some components to take advantage of newly available technologies.

Huawei is about to make its presence felt at MWC with the announcement of the Huawei Watch. The watch itself was first spotted yesterday on a billboard, but we now have full promo videos for this Android Wear-powered beauty that will be made official in a few hours. Posted to the Huawei YouTube channel, two videos walk through the design process for the watch and also show how cheesy Euros are when they take vacations with their brosephs. Aside from the cheese, the videos do show one of the prettiest (this actually might be the prettiest) smartwatches we have seen to date. It features sapphire glass, a heart rate sensor, interchangeable leather or metal straps, crown, a bunch of classy watch faces, and a perfectly round watch face.This thing is just gorgeous - full stop. Of course, it still has Android Wear which needs a lot of work, but it's clear that round is the way to go. Square just looks bulky, computery, and geeky.

A Lenovo press release today:The events of last week reinforce the principle that customer experience, security and privacy must be our top priorities. With this in mind, we will significantly reduce preloaded applications. Our goal is clear: To become the leader in providing cleaner, safer PCs. We are starting immediately, and by the time we launch our Windows 10 products, our standard image will only include the operating system and related software, software required to make hardware work well (for example, when we include unique hardware in our devices, like a 3D camera), security software and Lenovo applications. This should eliminate what our industry calls "adware" and "bloatware." For some countries, certain applications customarily expected by users will also be included.A step in the right direction, but still way too much wiggle room. Why, for instance, do they insist on shipping third party antivirus crap when Windows has its own, faster security software built right in? And what are "Lenovo applications"?

Although long talked about, the Ubuntu Edge campaign exemplified the concept best with its "super phone" boast: your phone would hook up to a monitor, mouse and keyboard and become a fully functioning Ubuntu desktop PC. Phone apps would run on the desktop in an appropriate guise like responsive websites do on phones.Today, ahead of Mobile World Congress next month, Ubuntu Desktop Manager Will Cooke has posted a three-minute video that shows how Canonical's engineering team is progressing.My dream smartphone would be a phone that automatically turns into a PC the moment I get home. It knows I'm home, wirelessly and automatically hooks up to my display, mouse, and keyboard in my office, and done. Of course, it'd also automatically detect other displays and input devices in my house - say, a remote control and my TV.Ubuntu is working on it.

With version 15.02, the Genode OS project complements its existing virtualization support for the x86 architecture with virtualization on ARM by turning their base-hw kernel into a microhypervisor. Besides virtualization, the most prominent underlying theme of the current release is the project's increasing focus on test automation and optimization.Virtualization has a long history within the Genode project. After originally focusing on paravirtualized Linux kernels (L4Linux and OKLinux), the added support for the NOVA kernel and the Vancouver VMM in 2011 cleared the way towards hardware-based virtualization on the x86 architecture. In 2012, the project started exploring ARM TrustZone as another flavour of virtualization. With the Noux runtime, Genode introduced their take on OS-level virtualization. Finally, the transplantation of VirtualBox to NOVA last year marked the project's most ambitioned virtualization-related work. It enables VirtualBox to run as unprivileged user-level program on top of the NOVA microhypervisor.During 2014, the Genode developers used those accumulated experiences to conquer another ground, namely the ARM virtualization extensions. The current release extends their custom kernel (called base-hw) with support for hosting virtual machines and adds a user-level virtual machine monitor that is capable of running an unmodified Linux-based system as guest OS. At a high level, it mirrors NOVA's virtualization architecture but for ARM-based systems. The microkernel/hypervisor implements merely the VM world switch and the virtualization of memory but leaves all the complex work to untrusted user-level virtual machine monitors. In fact, the added kernel complexity on account of virtualization support is less than 1,000 lines of code.Besides the virtualization-related work, the base-hw kernel gained a further improved scheduler that takes IPC relationships into account, which is inspired by the pioneering work of NOVA. Furthermore, the project is happy to announce the principal ability to run Genode as secure-world OS on the upcoming USB Armory hardware platform.Most of the other topics of the current release are concerned with improving the performance and stability of Genode-based system scenarios. The centerpiece of these efforts is a new tool kit for automating tests on a large variety of kernels and hardware platforms. In line with this overall theme, the new version vastly improves the user experience of VirtualBox on NOVA, comes with updated rump-kernel-based file-system support, and lifts long-standing scalability limitations on PC platforms.More background information about all the improvements of version 15.02 are available in the extensive release documentation.