GearWERKZ TechBlog

Pencil's down. It has been one of my roughest semester's in school, but it is over. Time enough to lick my wounds and reflect on why I am subjecting myself to this pain. Six weeks before the Spring session starts. Time enough to play games in something less than the grey blur that I saw them through in the waning weeks of this past semester.

Yep; you read that correctly. Despite getting my can kicked up and down the academic avenue, I was able to find time to squeeze some gaming in. The sessions were mainly just study breaks to keep me from becoming completely demoralized. And they were short. And because of those two points I just made, they were mostly mobile.

The last few months while I have been incognito on the interwebs have seen some significant changes in my thoughts on gaming. Here is what went down and how:

* Most of my mobile gaming had been on the iPad. It quickly supplanted my PSP as my primary mobile gaming device. However, it died a few months ago, and I was unwilling to replace it. So, into the power gap rushed all of my Android devices.

* And I realized that I had been sleeping on Android, or maybe compeling games just happened to come to the fore at the moment that my iPad died. I have two of those Android devices sitting next to me now as I type this; my primary cell phone, which is an HTC Evo 3D, and my #4 tablet, which is a Kindle Fire. There are 32 games loaded on the Evo, and 8 loaded on the Kindle, which I do not use as a gaming device primarily

* the explosion in Android titles has been fueled not only by an improvement in quality, but also by a spate of great sales. Google's $0.10 celebration run this month, and the daily free apps available on Amazon, made for some early self-gifts

* I love PC gaming and console gaming, but I sometimes go for weeks not getting any gaming done because I feel like if I cannot sit and invest at least an hour in gaming then it is not worth doing it at all. Enter mobile gaming, or maybe I should say, Enter mobile gaming to the top of my gaming priority list. The experiences may not be as deep, complex, or fulfilling, but I will be hitting the mobile gaming scene before just going for weeks without gaming at all

A few of these titles really helped me get through finals. It was just not possible to leave my study and take breaks in the Media Room or in the basement Home Theater; if I was going to give my cramping brain a little rest, I had to do it in a medium that would not snag me for more than 30 minutes at a time. Over the holiday break and periodically from now on, I will post a few notes on the mobile titles that keep me coming back for 5 minutes of joy. Here is the first.

Fieldrunners: I first encountered this title as an iOS game. It was one my first significant forays into the Tower Defense sub-genre, and it had me hooked from the beginning. I play it now on Android, and it is one of my go-to titles on the Kindle Fire. My only gripe about the Kindle Fire version is that, with its smaller screen, it is much easier to wind up hitting an undesired control when placing or upgrading units in the lower left-hand corner of the screen where the systems controls are for the game.

That being said, there is precious little fault I can find with this game. With most games on any platform, there are a few bugs or design choices that make me absolutely irate, evern if I love the game overall. Fieldrunners, and any other mobile title, are, by definition, limited in their scope, so I hesitate to call the game flawless. That would invite an unbalanced connotation when considered in the same category with PC and console games. Still, what I can say is that there is no one aspect of the game design that makes me feel like poking myself in the eye. Maybe the start game menu could be a little cleaner; I am not sure that the goofy carousel effect for selecting maps really adds any value, and it can make just jumping into a game quickly less than optimal, but that is a small nit.

The graphics positively drip with eye-candy. A lot of times I just enjoy sitting and watching my erected defenses wreak havoc with the would-be invaders. While I was skeptical about its ability to render the game well, the Amazon Kindle Fire makes beautiful imagery out of exploding waves of enemies.

As well as the game looks on the Fire, it is that much more beautiful on a 10" tablet. I put a few rounds in on the Lenovo ThinkPad Tablet as well on the walk-up to final exams. Good stuff. Quite honestly, I do not think you can go wrong with the game on any platform on any device. It is pure fun, and a welcome challenge in geometry. I am sure that gamers truly steeped in the Tower Defense genre will have strong feelings on the title, both good and bad. There seems to be a very deep and passionate community engaged in this gaming type, and they all speak and critique titles at a much more granular level than I. What I will say is that, for someone who is new to the genre, Fieldrunners is a wonderful experience that keeps me entertained on the go, or when time is short.
- Vr/Zeuxidamas..>>

I like it when I do my small part to help make some news. Clearly, my recent purchase of a Thinkpad Edge E420 (pictured below) was the one sale that pushed Lenovo over the top to score killer earnings in Q1. Leading the charge to one of its highest earnings reports since the Chinese company bought the PC arm of IBM 6 years ago, were largely increased sales in China and emerging markets. Sales in China were up 13% and comprised nearly half of the company's revenue this past quarter. Sales in emerging markets were up 26%.

Lenovo is attempting to make the tablet product category a core part of its portfolio. However, with so much momentum behind Apple's iPad, to call that prospect an uphill battle is an understatement. Still, Lenovo has debuted their K1 Tablet with review scores comparable to other Android tablets on the market. The hook of the K1 is that the GUI is designed to surface functionality more so than an emphasis on discrete apps. Lenovo is hoping that this approach to simplifying functional access at a higher level will give the tablet an ability to compete with the iPad's perceived ease of use, as well as differentiate the K1 from other Android tablets. Android devices continue to be seen as tools for tinkerers, although it has gained significant mainstream appeal. However, the mobile OS is still not the first one that consumers new to smart mobile devices reach for on store shelves.

Despite Lenovo's gains, the company is still projected to come in lower than HP and Dell in terms of total PC market-share. However, Dell has reduced its year-end revenue projections, and Lenovo has closed the market-share gap to within 0.5% of Dell, with the latter holding 12.5% ahead of Lenovo's 12.0%. This represents a 2% market-share increase from the previous quarter for Lenovo, resulting in the company almost doubling their net profit from last year, coming in at $108 million.

In addition to tablets, Lenovo will now try to drive increased market-share by entering the ultrabook market. However, COO Rory Read does not feel that the company will get the product under the magic $1000 mark until sometime in 2012. In the company's earnings call, Read intimated that he "...wouldn’t say by the end of the year necessarily but…that’s definitely going to happen.”

Here is the link to the Press Release: Lenovo Earnings Call

Source: Bloomberg

Source: Athenna

It appears that Microsoft has started another run of the marketing tactic that has proven effective for it in the past, which a lot of media outlets have previously coined "rolling thunder". MS is certainly not the creator of this strategy, but across multiple product lines, MS has built pretty decent buzz when it has trickled out info at a steadily increasing pace up until the actual product launch. This time around, it is Windows 8 that is getting the treatment.

Microsoft recently launched its blog for Windows 8, called "Building Windows 8". I have also seen rumor of a Twitter account, but I have not been unable to track it down. One of the most significant statements in the new blog is reference to a potential pre-release build of Windows 8 that may be made available before the end of the year. Targeted primarily at developers, the blog and pre-release are designed to open a discussion on Windows 8's design and implementation throughout the remainder of the development process. The blog cites lessons learned in previous Windows version releases, and indicates that MS is attempting to respond to complaints from the developer community about how little is known about Windows 8 so far.

The Windows 7 beta was a wonderful experience. Having access to the pre-release candidate accomplished a few things. It restored a disillusioned public's faith in the Windows platofrm, after the poor reception of Vista. Second, it allowed people to become comfortable with some of the new GUI implementations so that when the retail release hit, we were not learnign it for the first time.

Hopefully, Microsoft's continuing trend to engage developers and users early will pay off this time, as well. I am happy to see a desktop build coming, but what would be really interesting would be a pre-release that could run on ARM. I am not convinced this is likely, but there is always the chance that something will get out into the wild, whether officially endorsed by Microsoft or not. Dell is actively testing Windows 8 builds on their tablets, so hopefully MS will be able to deliver on its promise of a single release window that covers all platforms.

Source: MaximumPC

Yesterday, a crop of new HBO content hit the Apple store, and much of it is now being offered in HD. Do not get your hopes up of completing your digital collection of certain series, however, as much of the content has gaps, and not all of it is available in HD from series start to finish. For example, Entourage Seasons 1 through 7 are available, however the first two seasons are only available in SD.

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Earlier this summer, I finally bade farewell to my Barnes and Noble Nook (1st edition) after about 15 months of service. The faults were not solely with the Nook, which, all-in-all, is actually a fairly decent device. However, in combination with the Barnes & Noble storefront and some quirkiness with customer service, I had finally had enough. At the end of the day, I periodically had to invest effort in keeping the Nook working from an end-to-end system perspective, and that was not what I bought into when I ordered it.

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Intel announced their new concept for Ultrabooks back in May. Since then, there has a been a steady buzz around the devices. As we have seen with concept devices that have launched in the past, manufacturers are interested in the concept, but a lot of prodding needs to be done to get them off the ground and into mass production. To push them towards the door, Intel has recently set up a fund through their investment firm to fund Ultrabook design and innovation. It is a little unclear exactly how corporations will get access to these funds, and not everyone wants that system to work the same way.

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I have crossed over. From tech blogger to tech tinkerer. Let me be frank: while I write an awful lot about tech, I am certainly not as deep into the hands-on as a lot of other kids on the block. I wrote a little code as a kid in high school; I mean the on your own original type, not just the stuff every kid does in a high school basic computing class. But I got out of it. I did a little configuration tinkering in college, mostly because I could not stand Windows and so I set my PC up to boot straight into DOS and ran everything from the Command prompt. In grad school and the years since, I got myself to where I could build any rig with the right crop of parts from Newegg or TigerDirect. And I have dabbled a little in Java, but that is about it.

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Or should I just thrown all-in with Google? This is a question I have been asking myself since the launch of Google +.  A friend of a friend of mine was invited to the beta, and through a set of round-about channels, I now have an invite as well. I am currently only a member of one social media service, and that is Twitter. But the advent of Google+ makes me question if my reasons for holding out are still valid.

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Near the end of July, images popped up on Flickr with tag information indicating they had been taken by a device named the HTC Ruby. Very little was known about the device then...and we know about the same amount now. Other than some obvious and basic assessments that can be gleaned from the photos, there just is not much skinny on this device out on the street.

Phonedog reported in the initial leak that, in the original images, you can see the expected camera, two flash-LEDs, and a 3.5mm headphone jack. New images have surfaced with the device in T-Mobile accoutrement, so that gives us a little more on where to look for this device to arrive. While it may seem uncanny (and I may seem obsessed), I honestly believe that that the screen looks similar to the Nexus S 4G, so I am guessing this is a 4 inch display we are looking at.

Source: Engadget

Images: via PocketNow

Just before midnight last night (US East Coast Time), images of what is expected to be T-Mobile's riff on the Samsung Galaxy S II hit the web. For anyone not familiar, Samsung's approach is to take a reference design smartphone and then pump out many variants for specific carriers. The company will then even leverage that design into its tablet-sized devices. Last year's Samsung Galaxy spurned Samsung on to become one of the tops in smartphone sales, and they look to attempt the same thing this year with their Galaxy S II design.

The pics display a lot of design touches reminiscent of the Samsung Nexus S 4G, which I recently picked up from Sprint. The images show the same lipped-edge on the back of the phone as the Nexus S. Also clearly evident is a certain degree of glass curvature, and that effect is possibly similar to the curved-glass face also on the Nexus S 4G. Other leaked images do not show the curve as prominently, so it is tough to tell right now just what aesthetic touches have been placed on the display itself.

The Galaxy S II is expected to show up on each of the major US carriers this fall in unique variants. Many Samsung Android smartphones, including the Nexus S 4G, are going for $99 on-contract, but you can expect the Galaxy S II to go for the more standard $199 for debuting smartphones. Of course, Verizon has stuck it to customers in the past with $299 smartphone debuts, running against the industry grain of releasing new smartphones for $100 less, so the other flavors of the Galaxy S II may go for more. T-Mobile customers should be pretty confident that the phone will show up for them wearing a $199 price-tag, however.

Source: Slashgear

Images via: TMoNews