Tablets can be great but when you fancy a gaming session it's nice to have a proper controller, like those we get with our favourite games consoles. Now you can have both thanks to a new handheld (or should that be tablet?) called the Wikipad that debuted at CES earlier this year and which is set for release soon.
The finalised specifications for the new tablet / handheld were revealed yesterday and while not entirely groundbreaking they promise a decent experience.....
A 1.4 gigahertz quad core Tegra 3 processor partnered with one gigabyte of ram, Android version 4.1 (JellyBean), two cameras (eight megapixel rear and 2 megapixel front facing), a 10.1 inch IPS screen (with a 1280x800 resolution) and a minimum of at least sixteen gigabytes of internal storage space certainly makes this an attractive tablet in its own right but unlike most tablets the Wikipad has a special treat in store for those who love their games.
What treat?
The tablet becomes a self contained handheld gaming system thanks to a clever controller bundled with it that makes the tablet screen function as a large handheld display while allowing game and menu control with a joypad type interface that include two sets of triggers and bumpers, two analog sticks, four buttons as well as a start button and a select button and of course a d-pad.
As you can see from the pictures it transforms the already decent tablet into a proper Tegra 3 powered portable gaming system that will run all your favourite high end Android games, let you use a proper joypad to control them as you'd expect from a handheld gaming console, and yet can revert back to your everyday tablet should your inner adult feel the need to come out for a while and get some work done.
Aside from the obvious possibilities this offers there is also the less obvious one of being able to play all those old school favourites from your Playstation or arcade gaming days thanks to the use of emulators. Now you can play them as you remember, with proper controls, uninterrupted by the outside world or of course just use the controller to blast away at zombies.
But the fun doesn't stop there for hardcore gamers. Want to play your favourite PS3 or XBox 360 titles on your new Wikipad? Well thanks to their partnership with Gaikai (a games streaming service that rivals OnLive) you can do just that.
That's right, without ever needing to buy another console title you can still play the top games on them using the Wikipad.
Okay, okay, so it sounds great but what's it going to cost?
Originally the price was set to be $250 but at the time it had a glasses free 3D display and eight gigabytes of internal storage. The change in specifications means it should still hit that target price and retail at $250 (£160).
At that price it promises to steal away potential buyers of tablets such as the Nexus 7 and even Asus Transformer series, offering a fun gaming experience combined with the everyday benefits of a decent tablet.
Samsung have made a concerted effort to get people watching tv in the third dimension with this budget priced 3D tv that sells for £400, but does it do the job?
The 43 inch Plasma screen produces deep rich colours with excellent black levels and a good sharp picture. On a 1080p high definition source, such as a BluRay or the BBC HD channels, the picture quality is impressive and looks better than rival LCD televisions.
The tv is NOT (as some claim) full HD, it is in fact a 720p HD set.
This is quite common for large screen Plasma sets (particularly 3D models) because at a typical viewing distance the difference between 720p and 1080p is difficult for most people to notice, and because the majority of broadcast material is actually in 720p as are most high definition console games (XBox 360 games, for example, are upscaled to display at 1080p resolution but are in reality rendered in 720p resolution).
But, getting back to the tv and on a 1080 source it performs its magic to reduce the resolution to 720 very well, to the extent that you'd be hard pressed to find a noticeable difference in quality between this and a 1080p model, good news for those after a big screen on a small budget.
If you just want a decent high definition tv without 3D you might want to stop reading now because you can get a similar sized tv without 3D for less, the key reason to buy this set or something similar is the addition of 3D, which we'll discuss in a moment.
The only real drawback to this television is the sound. It can be loud when needed, that's a good thing, but it never quite sounds perfect. It lacks something, it can be heard and it's not annoying but the sound quality is sub par when compared to the picture and although it's fine for everyday use, and easy enough to get used to, you may find yourself wanting to plug in a surround sound system when watching your favourite movies.
That said however this tv really comes into its own when it enters the third dimension.
This tv uses Active Shutter glasses, some people love these types of glasses and some don't. Yes that's right there are two types of 3D in the tv world (but don't worry, your 3D games and videos will work with whichever you prefer).
There are passive glasses which halve the resolution of your 3D tv when in 3D mode and then there are active shutter glasses, the method the Samsung uses and which retain the full resolution which produces a clearer more defined and better quality image.
They take what you see on screen and feed the left eye view to your left eye and the right eye view to your right one. They send these views to each eye so fast that you can't tell they are sent seperately and your eyes merge them together so they are a true 3D image.
Some people find this to be a problem, some glasses are said to flicker or cause nausea. The truth is that the glasses with this set are very good and even though I am sensitive to flickering (some flourescent lights and strobing for example) I have not found any flickering evident with the tv in 3D mode.
If you stare really hard at a paused image with lots of bright white in it then flick your view from one side of the screen to another you can make yourself have a sort of flicker effect momentarily as your eyes refocus but you have to go out of your way to do so.
The only flicker issues I have found actually come from buying additional glasses that were rechargeable, for some reason the rechargeable set had a tiny flicker noticeable when looking quickly from one part of the screen to another which while only noticed in such a situation was notable enough that the rechargeables are relegated to be a backup should the batteries in the glasses shipped with the television run out.
So flickering, what's it like? The fact is the 3D flicker just is not noticeable except on the rechargeable glasses and if you stare at a particular image with bright elements and shift views very quickly. Watching 3D content you really don't notice anything but is the 3D itself any good?
The answer is yes. Avatar, for example, really shines in 3D. Not a fan of the two dimensional version I have to say that watching it as it was filmed, in the third dimension, is like watching a completely different movie and serves as an excellent demonstration of the sets 3D prowess.
If you're a fan of the Olympics then you'll want to check out the BBC's 3D coverage of the Judo, volleyball and gymnastics which add a definite sense of depth, and in some cases a feeling of almost being there, to the events shown in their nightly 3D highlights broadcast but remember that when it comes to films some 3D titles are better than others.
For example the latest Transformers is somewhat underwhelming in 3D because as with a number of big budget films it plays it safe and doesn't really utilise the full power of 3D in case it causes some of its viewers to feel nauseous which is a shame, but of course not the fault of the tv you watch it on.
Most of the big Hollywood releases try and go more for a feeling of depth in 3D but don't be too concerned as there are still plenty of well made 3D films out there including the love them or hate them final destination movies (it's quite hard not to wince when you see a sailing mast thrust out of the screen toward you as it impales a helpless victim dropped on it from a bridge that's breaking apart).
The television can view side by side (sbs), above and below and of course BluRay 3D content but it also has a clever party trick that increases the amount of 3D you can find to watch by converting two dimensional video into that of the third.
Using it's closely guarded technology, widely acknowledged as superior to that of other manufacturers, it guesses at what should be nearer the viewer, and what should be further away, by deconstructing every frame of video and then analysing every pixel that makes it in such a way that it can guess quite well where to place things on screen relative to the viewer.
I still have no idea quite how they do it but it is different to how other tv sets convert 2D content and does produce more effective results. Of course it can never beat content filmed in 3D, and some things don't convert very well, but in general it does do a good job of converting and it adds another string to the sets 3D bow.
One type of conversion it excelled at was the first test I threw at it, Top Gears Stig driving a supercar round their track, surprisingly effective so whatever Samsung are doing they certainly seem to be doing it well.
Other than 3D video what else does this set offer?
It lets you play a wide variety of different video formats from either a usb stick or a networked dlna device including those in avi, mp4 and mkv containers whether they use the Xvid, DivX, H264, X264 or WMV video codecs which a lot of tv sets have trouble playing.
It also plays music files and allows you to view pictures of course and if you happen to use an Android phone or tablet you can download a free app from the Play store that lets you use your touch screen android device to control the tv (if the tv is connected to the same wifi network as your android at the time).
It only has two hdmi inputs, which might put potential buyers off, but if you're in the market for a good all round high definition tv that can play films off a usb stick, or dlna device, but can also play 3D content as it was meant to be seen then this is definitely one set to consider and certainly the best 3D set at this price range.
If you have a 3D tv you might want to tune in to BBC HD tonight where you'll be treated to over three hours of the opening ceremony of the Olympics in side by side 3D starting at ten to nine this evening (27th July).
Every night at eleven, through out the Olympics, there will also be a recorded 3D highlights show for one hour every day with the mens 100 metres final at half past eight (through to ten pm) on August fifth, and the closing ceremony (nine pm to twelve thirty am) on August twelfth being broadcast live.
At the start of each evenings coverage you might be interested to see the sixty second films of atheletes in action, filmed with a phantom camera, which Kim Shillinglaw (head of 3D at the BBC) promises to be breath taking.
For those who don't have a 3D tv but are thinking of getting one, the 3D broadcasts are unecrypted and completely free so you might want to record them and play them back at a later date. There are a variety of 3D televisions out there but for the highest definition you will need the type that use active shutter glasses as the other type, commonly known as passive 3D, halves the resolution.
I won't wade in to the "active 3D versus passive 3D" debate here, each have their merits, my own 3D set uses active shutter glasses and is definitely a good option but it's really down to personal choice.
The MK802 isn't, as it's name may imply, part of a Milton Keynes postcode but is in fact a full blown android computer packed into a case the size of a usb stick that turns any HDMI equipped television into a smart one that runs the popular Ice Cream Sandwich version of the Android operating system.
It features a one gigahertz single core processor, one gigabyte of ddr3 ram (there are 512 megabyte versions available but this article concerns the higher ram one gigabyte model), a Mali 400 gpu (despite some sellers listing it as an AMD gpu it is actually the better quality Mali that is actually used), 802.11 b g and n wifi, micro sd card slot (supporting up to thirty two gigabytes of additional storage space) and two USB ports (one standard and one smaller usb port for USB On The Go devices).
Using the stick is easy enough, attach the hdmi cable between the stick and your tv, then plug a controller into the usb port (ideally a wireless keyboard and mouse, although you can buy some remote controls that will also work). After this you simply plug in the power lead and about a minute later the mk is up and running and ready for use.
You will no doubt have heard that this is a perfect way to make a "dumb" tv into a "smart" one but just what does that mean in practice?
Well it means that your tv can now, thanks to the stick, do all the things that a high priced internet enabled smart tv can do and surprisingly, despite the fact that you can buy one of these for less than fifty pounds, it does so quite well. It's not without its problems however, and there are drawbacks. The biggest of which is the lack of a power button. Yes, that does mean you can only turn it on or off by connecting or disconnecting the power lead.
However while disconnecting the power suddenly can, in theory, damage the device (because it doesn't give time to close down the operating system first) you can in, reality, get round this by using a free app such as "real reboot" which will tell the device to reboot.
Using this, when the screen goes off and is about to restart (some tv's will also say "no signal") you pull the power and it has the same effect as performing a proper shutdown, meaning there is then no chance of it causing problems.
Another drawback is the small size of the unit. Because it generates heat this can build up and after three or four hours watching movies this could be a worry for some, although in practice it shouldn't be much of a problem unless you plan on say a twelve hour movie marathon or gaming session. Certainly after a good four hours of solid use it does get very warm but never to a point that it causes any problems and it's the price you pay for having a lot of power in this form factor.
But don't assume this Android stick is bad, there is a lot to like about the MK802. It runs all the expected apps that a decent smart tv would run (NetFlix, Ebay, Amazon for example) but also a lot more that they couldn't, which makes it a handy thing to have around.
Email, web browsing, streaming media from YouTube Netflix or Hulu, this will do all of these with ease but it will also play pretty much any file format you can think of thanks to the use of android apps such as VLC or the built in media player which easily copes with a wide range of tasks such as playing full hd 3D video for example.
It comes with Angry Birds Space installed, should you fancy playing a game or two, and will handle similar casual games (such as TileStorm HD) but the single core cpu is not going to be enough for serious gaming fans, so don't buy this expecting to play DeadSpace or Nova 3 any time soon although some people are running Dead Trigger quite well on it so some higher end games clearly are more ok with it than others.
Speaking of games, it runs the MAME emulator app (available free from the Play store) very well. You can use a wireless mouse or keyboard to control MAME, or use a usb joypad plugged into a usb hub, and I have to admit that playing your favourite arcade games on a big screen is definitely one of the perks of owning the MK802.
Of course another perk is that, being portable, you can take this with you. An Android computer that fits in your pocket isn't something you expect to find, at least not for a low price, but thanks to advances in technology (and mass production) it's here to stay.
Should you mess anything up on the 802 (which you won't unless, like me, you decide to poke around with system files) it's a breeze to put right. In less than five minutes you can re install the whole operating system using a Windows computer connected via usb, you can also simply install updates over the top of the existing operating system when they are released in the same way so that you keep everything intact (your apps and settings, for example) but still get the benefit of updated features from new firmware updates.
And that is one more good thing about the MK802 over similar devices, it is supported with updates whereas many android pc sticks are simply sold and then abandoned with no updates. Only this week an update added features such as a 3D video player and full 1080p output while fixing a few software bugs along the way.
The MK802 runs apps well, including some emulators, and plays a wide variety of decent Android games. It comes pre installed with the official Android app store as well as a very good media player that supports a surprisingly large number of video and audio formats and of course the aforementioned 3D video player.
If you fancy getting your hands on one you can do so here or if you want to know more, or get help with the MK802, you can always check the forum at the Rikomagic website.
This week saw Apple being awarded a potentially killer patent that could be the ultimate weapon in their war on Android.
Patent number 8,223,134 essentially covers the user interface of a smartphone, particularly displaying electronic lists and documents on a portable multi touch device that features a processor and memory. What you may not realise, unless you read quite a lot of the patent, is that it also covers the use of widgets on a portable device, which may be something that Apple try to use against Android at a later date. But for this article we're looking specifically at the content of the abstract which specifically applies to displaying lists and electronic documents on a multi function touch screen device that features a processor and memory and that runs its own software.
If you have read some of this patent already you may have noticed it prominently mentions the use of a scroll bar, and you may be thinking that because it specifies using a scroll bar then you can avoid court action over this patent by simply eliminating the scroll bar altogether.
But you'd be wrong, as Apple specifies within its patent that the scroll bar can even be totally transparent (ie not even visible), yes that means even if you eliminate the scroll bar you may still be found liable in court.
So how is this a killer patent? Because the iphone did it first and now every other smartphone does the same, Apple invented the idea of a multi touch portable device with its own user interface so why shouldn't they use it, even if it is to stifle competition, right?
Well, unfortunately for Apple, no they didn't invent the idea and unsurprisingly there is prior art to this that shows as much, including a multi touch mobile phone that pre dates the newly approved Apple patent application by a year.
The Onyx multi touch phone from 2006
And if prior art exists before Apples 2007 patent application then it should invalidate that patent, although if you follow the "patent wars" you'll be all too aware that despite numerous cases where prior art has been found judges typically continue to allow Apple to assert the same patents in court and use them to cause their competitors problems such as the recent Nexus ban in the United States.
Still, it doesn't hurt to know there is prior art and so I've been doing some digging around to try and address this specific patent issue that could be used against Android, the fact that it uses scrolling electronic lists and does so on a multi touch device that incorporates at least one processor and that runs software.
Before the iPhone existed, or was patented, computers had used what is called a graphical user interface (GUI). Now we call them simply a user interface (UI).
These computers and their interfaces, as any pre 2007 computer user will be aware, used scrolling lists as part of their daily operation albeit scrolled through with a mouse or keyboard. In fact the use of scroll bars and displaying electronic documents stretches as far back as at least 1973 with the Xerox Alto computer.
Of course these can't be used against the Apple patent simply because they were not accessed using a multi touch touchscreen device. Apple invented the portable multitouch touch screen device.
Or did they?
In 2006 Synaptics Onyx mobile phone, an actual real and usable device (albeit a concept one), was able to differentiate two simultaneous touches (multi touch) and was a small mobile phone able to do things mentioned in Apples later patent such as scrolling through a list on screen using a finger (it could also do drag and drop actions).
You can see pictures of the phone here or a video of it in action, being demonstrated using a computer (because it was a bigger display and therefore more appropriate for demonstration purposes, however as the video explains all the actions performed are done with fingers on the Onyx) here or in the video below from SlashGear.
So already we have an example of a portable multi touch devices performing the ui interactions described in Apples patent, but one that was a physical reality and in use before the relevant patent submission in 2007.
I'm not sure even the most ardent Apple supporter could honestly disagree that the Onyx concept phone meets the requirements of a portable multi touch device, nor that it demonstrates at least some of the user interactions described in Apples later patent application such as scrolling through a list.
But there are other examples that may be acceptable as evidence of prior art such as the 2006 Plastic Logic e-ink multi touch display which comprised of a flexible display mounted over a multi point touchpad which made the portable tablet sized display able not only to interact with user elements such as scrolling through pages (lists) but also allowed the user multi touch control. This was the basis of their later ebook reader the QUE proReader.
Hopefully by now you are starting to see that Apples patent application does indeed stem from actual devices that predate it. Of course Apples patent covers in particular the use of a portable multi touch device with a processor and ram and running at least one program. There are not lots of examples of this before the iphone but the Onyx is indeed one and one is all it takes to serve as an example of prior art.
Apples patent is very vague in certain areas, and so it remains to be seen whether it will indeed be viable as a weapon against any portable device that has a user interface, certainly it is unlikely to succeed in European countries which tend to frown upon software related patents particularly where the concept or implementation was in use or detailed by others in advance of the patent application but in America, Apples home, it is likely to be used more than once in court battles against manufacturers of Android devices such as Samsung Motorola and HTC.
Because the patent mentions the use of widgets it is possible that this could indeed be used against Android even if only in that regard, which would be a shame but given some of the decisions made in Apples favour in American courts, despite some courts in other countries such as Holland and the UK finding against them using the same patents, it is certainly a possibility.
The patent wars rage on, and yes Apple have a new weapon in the form of this ui patent but not quite the doomsday one they hope for.
Later this month the 2012 Olympics kick off in London and thanks to the BBC it promises to be a tech fans dream, or at least impossible for gadget lovers to miss.
The opening and closing ceremonies will be broadcast live in 3D along with the mens one hundred metres final, and there will be a nightly highlights programme, again in 3D and broadcast, as was the case with the recent Wimbledon coverage, in side by side (sbs) 3D.
If you don't have a 3D tv the BBC still have good news for sports fans with live coverage of all the events in full hd on terrestrial and satellite tv as well available around the clock on twenty four dedicated hd channels and, if you have an android or iOS device, you can even watch all the action from any event live on your mobile platform of choice whenever you choose (providing you're using one of the two already mentioned of course) using 3G or Wi-Fi.
There will also be live statistics and data along with the ability to rewind streamed footage.
But what if you don't have an android or iOS device to watch the action live as it happens? Well the BBC have you covered there too, simply press the red button on a BBC TV channel to go interactive and watch the Olympics at a time that suits you.
Back to news for 3D fans and there is more good news from the BBC, yes there will be more 3D broadcasts on the BBC HD channel this year including the recently confirmed last night of the proms concert and Planet Dinosaur.
Britains first 3D comedy drama is to air on the Beeb early next year along with other planned 3D broadcasts in a variety of different genres as the BBC test the appeal of tv in the third dimension.
It's the best funded kickstarter project of all time, raising over two million dollars in its first day of fund raising, and it has gadget fans and gamers around the world longing for its arrival...but what exactly is it, and can it really succeed where others have failed?
For those who haven't heard of it, Ouya is a new games console, but not like any you've seen before.
It has one gigabyte of ram, a quad core Tegra 3 cpu and 12 core gpu, wifi, bluetooth, a USB 2.0 port, 1080p HDMI output, eight gigabytes of storage, uses a wireless joypad (there is also a touchpad) and runs a modified version of the Android operating system (version 4.0, Ice Cream Sandwich). It should also support PS3 games controllers (though that's not official).
Games will all be free, or at least free to try, and available from the Ouya app store. Developers will need to modify their existing Android games to make them work with the console but it is a simple process according to the Ouya team.
If you want an idea about why gamers are excited, or what graphics quality you can expect from the Ouya when it goes on sale check out the following video showing off the graphics quality of games that use the consoles Tegra 3 processor.
There will of course be non gaming applications available for it so you could watch streaming movies, or browse the internet for example, rather than only be able to play games and as a result the console appeals to many different people, from those who want a cheap way to play games, to those who want a powerful android device they can modify, and of course those who just want a multi function home entertainment system.
While the general reception to Ouya has been very positive there are some dissenting voices. Some claim that developers will avoid the system because it is not an established format, that gamers no longer want to be tied to a tv but instead prefer mobile devices and that hardware specs change so fast that the Ouya will become obsolete sooner rather than later and as a result will be a bad investment.
But is there merit to these assumptions?
Ouya uses an existing operating system (Android) which already has a good number of great games, these games can be easily modified to work on the Ouya system which means that for very little extra work Android developers can reach more people with their products, and on a system where every user will have the same hardware.
This means if it works on one Ouya console it will work on all of them, it helps remove one of the problems currently facing android developers, that of having to allow for multiple different devices, and also allows for games targeted at the system to focus on utilising the full power of the hardware.
The argument that this is a new system would hold a lot of weight were this a completely new unknown operating system, but it's not. It is a known and well used operating system, customised to suit the specific hardware in use, and as such it is a safer bet for developers than a totally new console operating system would be precisely because it uses android as it's core, making it much easier to transfer existing android games to and thereby also extending the customer base for those developers.
There is of course the argument that gaming now is moving away from the traditional "let's sit in front of the tv and play a game" experience to a more mobile one. While mobile gaming is more popular than ever before it has not made consoles any less popular with gamers, indeed Microsoft and Sony both have new games consoles of their own coming out and would not be doing so were there no market for them.
Mobile gaming is generally preferred when out and about, when not at home, dedicated gamers still prefer to use a console when they're at home because there is something about gaming on a big screen that the smaller mobile devices can't offer. Mobile gaming is a compliment to traditional console gaming and not, as some argue, a replacement.
So what about that other key argument, that hardware specs change and so the Ouya will quickly be outdated?
This is true, the Playstation 3 and XBox 360 are already outdated...but still very popular, and still on sale around the world.
Consoles have a longer life span than gaming pc's, people know they are making an investment in the platform and don't expect it to be constantly upgraded, what they want are the games to take advantage of the hardware, to be optimised for it, rather than have to keep spending out every six months for more hardware just to play the latest games and with Ouya utilising good gaming hardware such as the Tegra 3 the console could easily go for two years without being obsolete, in fact maybe more.
Why? Because people buy consoles specifically because they want good games without having to shell out for new hardware on a regular basis, they want to be able to switch on and play without worrying about whether the game will lag or whether they need a new graphics card to run it to its full potential and so console owners expect consoles to have a longer shelf life, games tend to get tweaked to better utilise the hardware because that is the only improvement they can do and, as they find new techniques the games get better and better.
Here the Ouya has the potential to really shine. The Tegra 3 is well supported and is very good, when you realise that the Tegra 2 is already two years old yet still handles gaming very well you can see that the new more powerful Tegra 3, used in the Ouya, can also used for two years and still be a useful gaming processor.
But one gigabyte of ram will really cause problems for gaming, won't it?
No, surprisingly, it won't. Let's take the example of Playstation 3. How much ram do you think it has, one gigabyte, two?
Half a gigabyte, that's half of what the Ouya has. The PS3 splits its ram between the system and the graphics (video ram) so each gets half of that half gigabyte. That means the PS3 has just 256 megabytes of memory for graphics.The Ouya can use much more than the Playstations 256 megabytes of memory for graphics and so, while it has a less powerful gpu and so cannot produce that high standard of graphics, the developers can couple the Tegras horsepower with much more ram to achieve some stunning graphics and therefore make gaming graphically impressive for the next few years.
Of course I am not saying it could rival a PS3 but simply illustrating that by using the additional ram available the Ouya can do something PS3 cannot to help prolong its shelf life and that is to split it's ram between graphics and the system in any way it needs to, so if a game needs to eat up some memory to help and make no mistake about it the Tegra 3 brings console quality graphics to the Ouya which will make it a worthwhile investment.
Capcoms Jun Takeuchi says about the Tegra 3 "NVIDIA’s GPU architecture delivers the best gaming experience, bringing true console quality games to mobile devices. Our Lost Planet 2 test demo makes it clear - the quad-core muscle of Tegra 3 brings hyper realistic visuals, smooth frame rates and sharp images. The result is a whole new level of realism".
Tobias Persson, co founder of Bitsquid (a high end gaming engine), says about the twelve core gpu used in Ouya "From a hardcore gamer’s customized PC to a phone or tablet with Tegra, you’ll get identical game play and buttery smooth graphics, anywhere any time", it is a fact that the Ouya will have great graphics albeit not quite as high as a PS3 or XBox 360 but more than good enough to maintain players interest until a follow up model gets released a few years later.
The argument that console technology gets outdated is a true but flawed one, it assumes that this is a disadvantage when, as the popularity of current consoles show, people want a system that they can use for a few years without needing to worry that in a few months a new model will take its place and that now they can't go and buy games for the one they have.
And while the tech does become outdated during a consoles lifespan the fact that developers have to work within the restrictions of a specific and defined hardware configuration inevitably means they learn to get the best out of that hardware, look at early PS3 or XBox 360 games and compare them to the latest releases and you'll see the benefits of this process in action.
The Ouya will retail for $99, that's around £64 (although with taxes and delivery, etcetera, it's probable the Ouya will cost more like £100 in the UK). It's a cost effective way to get a decent console system and a multimedia system built into one, it costs not much more than a smart tv stick such as the MK802, less than some dedicated home media centres and less than any competing games console yet offers the advantages of all three and for this reason will continue to be an attractive proposition.
The console will come with an sdk to make developing your own apps for it much easier but also allowing developers keen to develop commercial products for it to do so with more ease than on more established consoles, again giving the Ouya that little extra edge it needs to grow its library of titles.
We don't know a lot about the operating system it uses, other than that is a version of android. A brief demo of it can be seen here.
The operating system is a slimmed down version of android so as to take up less ram, and also to enable it to boot up quickly.
It boots a clean user interface comprising of a menus displaying installed applications, rather than a full blown android user interface, but may load in other features as needed, and is unlikely to retain apps in memory in the same way as native Android currently does but instead to quit them upon exit and so retain much of its memory free for starting the next application the user chooses.
How the console will protect developers from having their games copied on a system that can and will be rooted by many owners is unclear, it would make sense to employ a drm system of some kind for applications that can be purchased and it is also unclear whether there will be a specific system in place to allow multiplayer gaming.
Given that multiplayer games are available on android it would make sense to simply continue using the same system available to existing games but that remains a question for the developers and the Ouya team to answer and one which can only be guessed at for now.
Can Ouya beat the current games consoles? No, but then it isn't aiming to.
It's a high quality gaming system on a budget that can also serve as a home media player. But with only eight gigabytes of storage, which won't be enough to permanently store a big collection of games, don't be surprised if someone brings out a memory expansion pack in the form of an external usb hard drive that lets users install apps onto it and save their built in storage space for their latest game of choice.
It's been eight years in the making, and taken the help of Terry Pratchett and a kickstarter project by its maker Snowgum Films to complete, but Terry Pratchett's "Troll Bridge" has finished filming and is in post production with a growing army of fans keen to see the finished work.
The film finds aging barbarian Cohen (seen here in a great poster by Georgina Gibson at Deviant Art) planning to prove himself by defeating a troll in single combat. With his talking horse he heads for a troll bridge, but in a world where the undead want equal rights and the creatures of legend no longer fit in, things don't quite go according to plan (not that they ever do in Discworld).
No word yet on when post production ends and the film sees it's release but with the blessing of (and some extra dialogue by) Terry Pratchett himself (and his instruction to not mess it up) this should be a faithful and funny adaptation of his short story and with some new trailers coming very soon hopes are high for a release later this year.
Made by fans, albeit professional ones, this really is a work of love for director Daniel Knight and for all those involved who used all the money invested in the project to make the film, and continue to do so while it is in production (so if you fancy helping financially head over to their kickstart page where you can also get goodies of your choice as a thank you from the team).
In the mean time here's the original teaser trailer....
That's the kind of scare story surfacing this week about a new android rootkit that needs no special permissions at all, and is completely invisible to users - and to antivirus apps.
The truth about this new threat is definitely not good, but it's far from being the terrifying android apocalypse that some would like to make it out to be.
Let's start with the rootkit itself.
Professor Xuxian Jiang of North Carolina State University created a proof of concept rootkit to highlight security flaws within Googles Android operating system. It can hide without detection from any antivirus app in any version of Android up to and including Android 4.0 (Ice Cream Sandwich), can replace system applications and secretly install malicious apps which can steal sensitive data and log everything the user does.
It works by "clickjacking", redirecting a users touchscreen interactions, it needs no special permissions nor root access and the user simply thinks they are agreeing to something different than they are when installing it thanks to the redirected input. Professor Jiang says the user would have to download a malicious app designed to infect the users android device for the rootkit to be installed, this app would then trick the operating system and its user, allowing the install of the rootkit itself.
This is indeed scary news but let's look at the facts more closely.
This is a one off application developed specifically for research purposes by a professor who is helping develop a security application called "RiskRanker" for mobile security providers NQ. It is meant to help them identify and fix security issues and the rootkit will not be released.
Indeed the mobile app he helped create for NQ is specifically designed to look at seemingly innocent apps and find such hidden dangers, and in tests on real apps from around the world successfully identified 322 zero day (meaning brand new and unknown) threats. The proof of concept rootkit is meant to highlight these security flaws and find a way to fix them which means it is a good thing that this has been discovered, not a bad thing because it means companies are working on stopping this type of attack before anyone else figures out how to carry it out for themselves and tries to put it into an actual app.
It is likely that Google can change the Android operating system to make this a non issue in the future but for now there are people looking out for such a threat, and there will be apps designed to help prevent it - not least of which is Googles Bouncer software which checks applications that developers submit to the Play store.
What we have is a single rootkit which will never be released, this means the only way you will get infected by something using the same techniques is if someone else can replicate it without access to the professor and his code.
Professor Jiang is working on ways to combat this method of access and by the time anyone else figures out how to do what he has already succeeded in doing there will be apps available that will help identify and prevent the method from working.
For now Android users need not be worried about this happening to them because no one else has yet figured out how to do this (except the professor) and, with a number of security companies constantly checking for such new threats (and with this new understanding of how the worst possible type of threat could manipulate the operating system to infect it) if such a rootkit ever gets created for non research purposes, and used, it will be detected quickly.
As with any malware or virus threat the advice to minimize your androids chances of becoming infected are simple. Download only from trusted sources such as the Play store or Amazon market and read what permissions the app you're about to install actually asks for because if a live wallpaper, for example, needs to be able to send sms text messages then it's probably not just a live wallpaper and shouldn't be installed.
So while this is not a threat always remember to use some common sense, dubious apps tend to be found on less trustworthy sites and if you are going to download from those you should at the very least read app permissions and perhaps install an antivirus app.
While I don't consider an antivirus app essential they can be useful, mainly in identifying already known malware, and though more experienced android users may berate those who wish to install extra security there is nothing wrong in having an extra "pair of eyes" looking out for known malware.
Before he died Apples Steve Jobs declared all out war on the Android operating system and vowed to do whatever it took to destroy it. Apples weapon of choice in their self declared war would be their vast array of patents, and so began what is now better known as "the patent wars".
One key patent used by Apple in this ongoing war is US patent number 7978176. It covers a feature used by almost all modern mobile phones, that of changing the view on a touchscreen phone from portrait to landscape depending on its orientation.
The specific part relevant to Android reads "The method includes displaying information on the touch screen display in a portrait view or a landscape view based on an analysis of data received from the one or more accelerometers."
The MyOrigo smartphone could auto rotate its view four years before Apple invented the idea
It was filed for in December 2007 and means that any touchscreen phone that can change its viewing mode from landscape to portrait, based on the input of one or more accelerometers, is violating their patent. And Apple have used this patent against the makers of Android devices.
Under US law a patent is not supposed to be granted if the invention being patented was "known or used by others in this country, or was patented or described in a printed publication in this or a foreign country" before the date of the application.
So if a touchscreen phone existed prior to the patents application date of December 2007 that used an accelerometer to automatically alter the phones view based on input from that accelerometer, and this device is known about in the US before 2007, then prior art exists and the patent should not be granted.
Four years before Apples patent application, in 2003 the MyOrigo smartphone, a touchscreen phone, was unveiled by its creators and shown to the world.
It could auto rotate its view based on data from an accelerometer and was reported in a number of American publications, and on American web sites, a full four years before Apples application was made and yet somehow the US patent office still accepted and granted it, making Apple the legal rights holder to technology first seen on a non Apple device four years before Apple claim to have invented it.
But perhaps the best known patent used against Android to date is the "slide to unlock" patent, a patent Apple see as a magic bullet and which has helped secure it some high profile victories against companies that produce Android devices.
In Europe it is patent EP1964022 (filed in 2006) and in America the relevant patent is number 8,046,721 (filed in 2009). You can skip the next three paragraphs if you're not interested in the relevant text from sections of those patents.
The key part of the European patent states "In some embodiments, a method of controlling an electronic device with a touch-sensitive display includes: detecting contact with the touch-sensitive display while the device is in a user-interface lock state; moving an image corresponding to a user-interface unlock state of the device in accordance with the contact; transitioning the device to the user-interface unlock state if the detected contact corresponds to a predefined gesture; and maintaining the device in the user-interface lock state if the detected contact does not correspond to the predefined gesture".
The key part of the US patent states "The device is unlocked if contact with the display corresponds to a predefined gesture for unlocking the device. The device displays one or more unlock images with respect to which the predefined gesture is to be performed in order to unlock the device.
The performance of the predefined gesture with respect to the unlock image may include moving the unlock image to a predefined location and/or moving the unlock image along a predefined path. The device may also display visual cues of the predefined gesture on the touch screen to remind a user of the gesture".
Both the US and Europe have a similar understanding of prior art, it means that if a pre existing device uses the action of sliding a finger over a touch screen to lock or unlock the device and it existed before the earliest filing made by Apple (in 2006) then these patents should be invalidated because they were applied for after the technology had been invented and used by someone else (prior art).
Watch the video below and skip to four minutes in. You'll see some one reviewing a touch screen phone in 2005, using the exact method of unlocking it that Apple 'invented' a year later and later used in the iPhone (which came out two years after the phone shown in the video).
In one Dutch court case the court in question did see sense and say the unlock patent was too obvious to be patentable but the patents themselves still stand and are still allowed to be asserted, in fact they recently helped secure more high profile injunctions against Android devices.
The other key patent used against Android, and so far the hardest to defend against, is Apples "data tapping" patent, US patent number 5,946,647 (applied for in February 1996).
For the technically minded the patents abstract (description by Apple, the patentee) follows in the next paragraph, if you don't want to read it you can skip past the next block of text but for those interested in just how Apple describe and summarise their invention here it is....
"A system and method causes a computer to detect and perform actions on structures identified in computer data. The system provides an analyzer server, an application program interface, a user interface and an action processor. The analyzer server receives from an application running concurrently data having recognizable structures, uses a pattern analysis unit, such as a parser or fast string search function, to detect structures in the data, and links relevant actions to the detected structures. The application program interface communicates with the application running concurrently, and transmits relevant information to the user interface. Thus, the user interface can present and enable selection of the detected structures, and upon selection of a detected structure, present the linked candidate actions. Upon selection of an action, the action processor performs the action on the detected structure."
This patent covers what is now known as data tapping, when applied to Android it simply means that if you have information (such as an email address or phone number) in a document (for example if someone sent you a phone number by text or email) and your phone or tablet can act on that (for example it can dial the phone number if you click on it) then it is using Apples patent.
Androids can do this and so the patent is a key weapon, except that there is prior art for this patent too.
Lotus Agenda, a personal information manager for the DOS operating system, received its first stable release in 1992 a full four years before Apples data tapping patent application was made. In 1990, six years before the application by Apple, Agendas designers wrote about how it used heuristics and algorithms to infer and recognise unformatted information (data) in a document and generate actions as a result.
A description of the software from Wikipedia highlights this feature "Lotus Agenda is a "free-form" information manager: the information need not be structured at all before it is entered into the database. A phrase such as "See Wendy on Tuesday 3pm" can be entered as is without any pre-processing".
Six years before the Apple patent application the feature they claim is their own had already been described in detail by others, and four years before the application this feature was actually being used in a real product to do exactly what Apple described.
This case of prior art seems, however, to have gone un noticed and I have yet to hear of it being presented as evidence in a court case.
I am not a patent lawyer but I have spent a lot of time reading the specifics on what constitutes prior art in a patent application case and while the above examples are the earliest I have found to pre date the Apple patents it is a fact that they existed before the relevant Apple patent applications were made and should therefore serve as examples of prior art, so it is a surprise that despite this information the patents continue to be used successfully against the Android operating system.
One can only hope that sooner or later such erroneous patents will be discounted but for now, despite examples of prior art, Apple seem to have a knack for getting away with using patents that they should never have been awarded.
Originally the price was set to be $250 but at the time it had a glasses free 3D display and eight gigabytes of internal storage. The change in specifications means it should still hit that target price and retail at $250 (£160).
