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Microsoft Details Features of IE9

Bart Salisbury — Fri, 20 Nov 2009 14:24:59 -0600

Attendees at Microsoft’s Professional Developer Conference in Los Angeles got a sneak preview of IE9 yesterday. From what was presented it’s not really clear what type of personality IE9 will take on.

Ray Ozzie, chief software architect, stated Microsoft want’s IE9 to be “a good balance between things we know and have to do and moving the whole notion of browsing forward.” The task of delivering the “most world class browsing experience we can develop,” he added, has to be done “in the most responsible way.” Which suggests IE9 will be brought into line with existing browser potential, but won’t be pushing any cutting-edge technology.

Changes and improvements are plenty. First off, IE9 will use the Trident rendering engine, running on DirectX instead of GDI. DirectX will shift graphic processing from software to hardware, which will boost the display of graphics and text, and provide smoother rendering of animation and video.

While DirectX adds advantages, apparently it also tosses up some roadblocks. Dean Hachamovitch, the general manager of the Internet Explorer team, says DirectX is hard to get right: “there's a huge benefit but it takes a lot of work to get all of the details right – like how do controls like Flash work and what about printing?” Being best positioned to “get all the details right”, DirectX helps Microsoft, but may not help out cross-platform browsers, which may not want to make the commitment.

Sunspider JavaScript benchmarks put IE9 about five times faster than IE8. And IE9 scores 32 out of 100 on the ACID 3 test. That’s faster than IE6, but still seems a bit pokey. I’m using my PC-inferior Mac to write this, and Firefox 3.5 scores 92, while Safari 4 hits 100. Steven Sinofsky, Windows senior vice president, concedes: “that’s a test we need to do a better job on.”

IE9 will better support standards, such as CSS, including CSS3. IE9 scores 574 out of 578 on the CSS3 selectors test--much better than the 330 out of 578 scored by IE8. (Again, Safari and Firefox on my Mac both score perfect 578s.)

IE9 is at best a work in progress. Right now there is no canvas or SVG support, and no real commitment to HTML 5 standards. But, with no release date yet announced, and a technical preview not available until sometime next year, it’s a good bet IE9 will evolve into something a bit different than what we’re seeing today.

Image Credit: Microsoft

Microsoft to Announce IE 9 Plans Tomorrow

Pulkit Chandna — Tue, 17 Nov 2009 19:12:28 -0600

Microsoft uses the Professional Developers Conference (PDC) as a platform to showcase new technology and make some key announcements. This year is no different. Today, Microsoft’s Chief Software Architect Ray Ozzie tried to woo those attending his opening keynote speech at the ongoing PDC09 with the promise of making Internet Explorer 9 the "best Internet browser without compromise.”

Microsoft VP Steven Sinofsky is expected to shed more light on the company’s plans vis-à-vis IE9 when he delivers tomorrow’s keynote speech. According to Cnet, Microsoft will not be previewing IE9 at PDC. It also ruled out the possibility of Microsoft switching its browser to the WebKit engine.

Restoring Preview Thumbnails

The Maximum PC Staff — Sun, 01 Nov 2009 12:45:54 -0600

I was recently reviewing different graphics programs for showing video files when I noticed that Explorer now refuses to display a miniature version of video graphics files when I go to the thumbnail view. It still shows miniatures of picture files (.jpeg and .bmp) but not video files. What would cause this? Is it possible to fix it without reinstalling the OS (XP Pro)? The video files show the miniature version when exported to another computer, so there must be something different with my OS. I’ve tried everything I could think of but no luck.

—Stephen Brown

Whether or not thumbnail previews show up for video files depends on your file associations and DirectShow filters. If you’ve been installing and uninstalling different video players, your file associations could be messed up. Make sure video files are associated with the player that is currently installed on your machine and that it can handle video preview thumbnails. You can do this in Windows Explorer; just click the Tools menu, go to Folder Options, and hit the File Types tab. Then make sure you have preview thumbnails enabled for all file types that support them by going to the Start Menu, opening Run, typing regsvr32 shmedia.dll, then hitting Enter. You could also have a problem with your codec pack. The Doctor recommends uninstalling whatever codec packs you currently use and replacing them with ffdshow tryouts (http://ffdshow-tryout.sourceforge.net).

By going to Windows Explorer's Tools menu, then Folder Options > File Types, you can change file associations and restore your graphical preview thumbnails.

SUBMIT YOUR QUESTION Are flames shooting out of the back of your rig? First, grab a fire extinguisher and douse the flames. Once the pyrotechnic display has fizzled, email the doctor at doctor@maximumpc.com for advice on how to solve your technological woes.

2010 Technology Preview

The Maximum PC Staff — Fri, 16 Oct 2009 10:00:00 -0500

We've seen the future and it's full of new and exciting hardware for power users

So much in life is unknowable. Will the economy rebound? Hard to say. Will oil prices skyrocket? Maybe, maybe not. Will Brangelina add to their brood? Frankly, we don’t care. But one thing’s for sure: Technology is ever-changing and each year guarantees new advances for the PC user.

As we do every year around this time, we got on the horn with our industry contacts—experts in their respective fields—and pressed them for details about what new and exciting hardware power users can look forward to in 2010. Some of what we learned was expected (SATA speeds will double), some came from out of left field (six 30-inch panels on a single videocard?!), and some just plain make sense (like a Nehalem chip for the masses).

Read on to find out how your personal computing landscape stands to be altered in the year ahead.

Core i7 Goes Mainstream

Intel's latest troika of new CPUs brings Nehalem goodness to the masses

Nehalem for everyone! That simple sentence best explains Intel’s brand-new series of CPUs, which is sure to please budget users everywhere while confounding power users.

Why would a new CPU that gives you the best bang for the buck in town be greeted nervously? Because Intel’s new CPU brings with it a new socket as well as a new infrastructure. This new infrastructure is essentially a fork in the road that forces users to make a difficult choice: Save money today but get locked out of the high-end, or splurge today knowing that the budget CPU is damn near as good as the top-end part.

For the details on Intel’s new budget monster, savor our full report, consume the specs, and then digest the benchmarks to see just which path your next PC should take.

AMD Pins Hope on 32nm Parts

New Orochi core, based on Bulldozer, will see the light in 2011

Even before Intel released its first Core i7 last year, AMD didn’t really have a part that could compete in the high end. Now the company says it will get back in the ball game—but not before 2011.

That’s when its enthusiast Orochi chip is expected to begin shipping. Based on the new “Bulldozer” modular microarchitecture, Orochi will have four or more cores and 8MB of cache, and dump support for DDR2 in favor of DDR3. The company originally hoped to have Bulldozer out much sooner using its existing 45nm process, but has had to postpone the chip so it can be built on a 32nm process. AMD’s fab partner, Global Foundries, won’t actually have that up and running until next year.

For mainstream users, AMD plans to release a version dubbed Llano. Llano will have 4MB of cache and DDR3 support, and some versions will feature integrated graphics cores.

Until Orochi and Llano arrive, however, AMD will have to rely on its existing Deneb and Propos cores. The big question that’s up in the air is whether Orochi will introduce a new socket design or not. AMD isn’t saying and observers seem split on whether AMD can continue to use the AM3 socket for the redesigned chip. Reusing AM3 would make the loyalists happy, and AMD has been far more careful not to force its users to buy new motherboards, so AM3-compatibility wouldn’t surprise us.

Still, with a new budget Core i5 part already faster at far lower clocks, 2011 is a long time away for the AMD faithful.

PCI Express 3.0

New spec removes bottlenecks and improves throughput, but when will we see it?

PCI Express 3.0 will offer a substantial increase in both bandwidth and efficiency over the existing PCI-E 2.0. A good thing, as bandwidth requirements are being pushed ever higher by the increasing capability of graphics cards, with frame buffers now at two gigabytes on high-end cards; increasing graphics features in DirectX 11; and demands made by multiple GPUs on a single card.

PCI Express 3.0 pushes the peak bandwidth from five to eight gigatransfers per second. The new standard will also use 128- and 130-bit encoding, rather than the current 8/10-bit encoding, which should improve efficiency. Additional features include optimizations for improved signaling and better data integrity, while maintaining backward compatibility with PCI Express 1.0 and 2.0 hardware.

However, it’s an open question as to when we’ll actually see PCI Express 3.0–capable hardware. The PCI-SIG, the standards body responsible for PCI Express 3.0, has pushed back the final definition for the new version until mid-2010, with hardware availability pushed to mid-2011. The strong need to ensure backward compatibility as well as a high degree of reliability have been cited as the reasons for the delay.

Even the new generation of DirectX 11 graphics cards, due to hit the streets this fall, will only be PCI-E 2.0 cards. The recently announced Intel P55 motherboards are also built with PCI-E 2.0 slots. The good news is that bandwidth limits aren’t likely to hit a wall with the new generation of GPUs. So, while it’s disappointing to see PCI Express 3.0 pushed back, we won’t suffer performance bottlenecks in the near term.

Graphics

Hang onto your wallets—a new generation of videocards is about to arrive

The speculation about AMD's Direct3D 11 graphics card offering has come to an end. AMD's Radeon 5870 is the fastest single-GPU videocard we've ever tested, packing 2.15 billion transistors and 1600 shader units into an RV870 chip built on the 40nm process.

What about Nvidia? The company has been uncharacteristically quiet about consumer graphics, instead touting design wins with its Tegra and Ion mobile platforms. It's next-generation Fermi chip has a focus on compute functionality (given Nvidia's heavy bet on CUDA), and we've yet to see performance numbers in consumer products like PC games, let alone any definitive release timeframe for Fermi graphics cards outside of the workstation market. This means that AMD has a substantial lead in the push to the next GPU generation.

Trailing behind AMD has got to hurt Nvidia’s pride, and allows AMD to play the pricing game—charging a little more for cards early on, before the competition can ship an equivalent GPU.

Nvidia should be racing to get its new GPUs out because the 900-pound gorilla that is Intel is readying its own GPU, code-named Larrabee. Based on a modified, multicore version of the venerable x86 architecture, with significant vector extensions, Larrabee is unlikely to ship until late Q1 or Q2 of 2010.

In some respects, these new GPUs will actually bring PC graphics hardware just a little closer to game consoles, as DirectX 11 builds on and enhances the tessellation features built into the Xbox 360 GPU. Hardware tessellation is a substantial departure from previous generations of DirectX, which used triangles and vertices as key graphics primitives. Instead, patches are passed to the tessellation pipeline, which contain control points that define areas within which triangles can be automatically generated by the hardware. This is different than previous approaches, which required the application to generate the triangles passed to the GPU.

What this means is that geometry can be automatically generated where it’s needed, allowing smoother curved surfaces. Using hardware tessellation also reduces the number of steps required by game artists to create the artwork, since they only have to create one representation of an object, instead of multiple versions for different levels of detail.

DirectX 11’s other major feature is compute shaders. Using graphics processors for general computing tasks has become a hot topic in the graphics world. Applications like video transcoding, certain Photoshop filters, and scientific applications lend themselves well to the massively parallel floating-point engines built onto graphics chips.

While the main target for DirectX 11 will be Redmond’s newly minted Windows 7 operating system, the new API will run on Windows Vista, as well (but not on Windows XP). Full DirectX 11 support will require new hardware, but a few of the features—particularly multithreading—will run on existing DX10-, DX10.1-, and DX9-capable hardware. So, even owners of older GPUs may see some performance improvements once DirectX 11 actually ships, late in 2009.

USB 3.0

Like USB 2.0, but 10 times as fast

The maximum data transfer speed of USB 2.0 is 480Mb/s, which was fine when it was invented. Now that you have to fill dozens of gigabytes of apps, music, and movies on your cell phone or iPod, it seems kind of pokey. Enter USB 3.0, dubbed SuperSpeed USB (2.0 is officially Hi-Speed USB). The new spec boosts transfer speeds 10x to 4.8Gb/s, which means in the real world you might see transfer speeds up to around 400 megabytes per second. It also operates in full-duplex mode, meaning the USB host can send and receive data simultaneously. All previous USB specs are half-duplex.

SuperSpeed USB ports will be backward compatible with Hi-Speed USB—of course, you won’t get the additional speed. You’ll notice that the ports and cables used for SuperSpeed mode are a little different, though. The heads are a little longer, with the additional pins for the SuperSpeed mode data extending beyond the usual USB plug.

Other nice additions to the spec include new power management modes and an increase in the base power load, so charging your USB 3.0–compatible devices may be 50–80 percent faster than with USB 2.0. The best part? Motherboards with USB 3.0 ports should start rolling out by the end of this year—if we’re lucky.

DisplayPort

Smaller, simpler, faster

DisplayPort is not so much an “upcoming” technology as an “already here” one. AMD, Dell, and Apple already ship a few products with DisplayPort support, for instance. This new VESA digital display connection standard is essentially a replacement for DVI for external monitors and LVDS for internal connections to notebook displays.

What’s so special about it? Well, the connector is smaller, simpler, and doesn’t have those annoying thumb screws that catch onto every cable like a grappling hook, for starters. The cables are slimmer, and a DisplayPort-only monitor could itself be slimmer—and cheaper.

Primarily, DisplayPort provides more data per wire than DVI. You know how you need a dual-link DVI cable to use a monitor with a resolution over 1920x1200? A “single-link” DisplayPort cable should provide enough bandwidth for 2560x1600, or deeper color modes. There’s also an auxiliary 1Mb/s bidirectional data channel that could be used to carry touch-screen data, data for a built-in microphone, etc. The spec supports HDCP content protection, but don’t expect it to replace HDMI on consumer electronics. Each will serve its own market. DisplayPort might pick up traction fastest in notebooks to replace LVDS to drive the display with fewer wires. Hinge space is already at a premium and crammed with wires, so less is more.

Touch

It's not just for your cell phone anymore

It seems like touch-screen technology is everywhere these days. The resistive touch screens seen on old Windows Mobile devices and the Nintendo DS are quickly being replaced by more finger-friendly capacitive multitouch technology (iPhone, Zune HD). It seems like every smartphone in the world and half the portable media players these days are built around the idea that you’ll operate them entirely by smearing your grubby fingers all over the screen.

Touch might be poised to enter the main computing world, too. Sure, you can get an HP TouchSmart all-in-one or a Tablet PC today, but those aren’t exactly the norm. Microsoft is desperately interested in touch technology these days, and where Microsoft goes, the PC industry often follows. Witness the Surface computer and Windows 7. The latest OS out of Redmond incorporates native touch controls throughout and a multitouch API for developers. Windows 7 is clearly designed primarily for a mouse, but the seeds have been planted.

All we need now is a proliferation of touch-screen PC hardware. We need desktop monitors that are touch-enabled, and notebooks with touch screens (that aren’t necessarily Tablet PCs). Building this kind of support into devices is getting cheaper all the time, but the push these days is to lower-cost PCs, not premium features. Will touch for mainstream PCs and notebooks take off? It’s hard to say, but it’s definitely worth keeping an eye on.

Storage

Bigger, faster, solid-state-ier drives await in 2010

To say that in 2010, hard drives will get more capacious, faster, and cheaper is to state the obvious. Shelves have been stocked with 5,900rpm 2TB 3.5-inch drives for months, and Hitachi’s 7,200rpm 2TB drive comes out in September. But how will 2010 improve on that? Henry Fabian, executive director of marketing for Seagate, says, “We’ll see 3TB drives, probably even higher, as everyone’s vying in the areal density race.” But the more data you have, the harder it is to back up.

Three terabytes is way more storage than we estimate most desktop users will need—but then again, Maximum PC readers aren’t most users. Video editing takes up a lot of space, and those of us who back up our movies to hard drive will quickly find that 3TB holds only about 120 Blu-ray movies.

In the solid state market, expect capacity to go up quickly as prices come down—but maybe not as quickly. Troy Winslow, director of marketing at Intel’s NAND Solutions Group, says he expects solid state drives to double in capacity—at least. Already, we’re seeing lots of gaming PC vendors ship rigs with speedy SSDs for the OS and games, and terabyte-plus drives for storage; expect this to become even more mainstream as 2.5-inch SSDs approach 320GB—or even 500GB. But don’t expect them to match magnetic-drive prices any time soon.

We’ll also see widespread adoption of the TRIM command, which helps keep solid state drives performing at their fastest by informing the controller of empty blocks before a write cycle, so writing files to blocks containing deleted data goes faster. The command is implemented in Windows 7 and in the Linux kernel, and will be available in new drives as well as old drives (with a firmware update).

Is 2010 the year that solid state drives overtake standard hard drives in any sector?

It all depends who you ask. Troy Winslow says that in 2010 SSDs will “continue to displace high-rpm hard drives in enterprise applications, and standard HDDs in corporate and consumer laptops and enthusiast desktops.” But Henry Fabian doesn’t think so. “We don’t see flash today overtaking hard drives, in enterprise or anywhere else, until costs come down. Early adopters will have them, but they’re not ready for prime time,” says Fabian. He cites other concerns besides costs, saying solid state drives won’t replace magnetic enterprise drives until they can match the durability and reliability of enterprise drives. Intel and Hitachi, however, are betting that that happens in 2010, when they jointly release a line of SAS and fiber-channel SSDs.

What about magnetic hard drives with a large solid state cache? Several manufacturers released hybrid drives in 2007 and 2008, but the lines have been allowed to languish, leading many to wonder if the market segment is dead. We’d love to see terabyte-plus hard drives married to a few gigabytes of NAND for speed. Seagate’s Fabian wouldn’t tell us whether Seagate has any hybrid drives in the works, saying merely, “It’s a capacity game, so hybrids could definitely have a role. You get your capacity, with a little boost of speed. It makes perfect sense.”

6Gb/s SATA Will Give SSDs Some Growing Room

Expect 2010 to be the year of SATA 3.0, the 6Gb/s follow-up to the current 3Gb/s SATA spec. High-speed SSDs are already starting to bump up against the 3Gb/s ceiling with their read speeds, so SATA 3.0’s doubled speed gives SSDs some much-needed breathing room. SATA 3.0 also adds greater support for Native Command Queuing and better power management. Drives, motherboards, and adapters utilizing the new spec will appear before the end of 2009—expect announcements at the Intel Developer Forum in late September. We expect widespread adoption by the end of 2010.

Mobile Broadband

LMDS is dead, LTE and WiMax are coming

LMDS

Not too many years ago, it looked like LMDS (Local Multipoint Distribution Service) was going to solve the "last mile" problem and bring broadband to rural areas, while enabling urbanites to roam around with their laptops at broadband speeds anywhere they go. It never really caught on. There are a few providers, but in practice the technology never really sees the 8-mile range or 1.5Gb downstream, 200 Mb upstream connection rates it promised. In reality, this relatively expensive and high-power technology is limited to less than 2 miles and rarely achieves high bandwidth rates. It's going to be all but killed by WiMAX and LTE.

WiMAX

Intel spearheaded the development of WiMAX, now ratified by IEEE in the 802.16d and 802.16e specifications. With speeds of over 100 Mbit/s downlink and 30 Mbit/s uplink, WiMAX has been poised as both a "last mile" solution for bringing broadband to rural areas and a 4G solution for mobile phones and notebooks. Sprint has fallen way behind on their promised WiMAX rollout, and other carriers are opting for LTE as their 4G technology of choice. It's far from a dead technology, though, especially since it's so technically similar to LTE. Clearwire, which is mostly owned by Sprint, plans to roll out WiMAX service to quite a few major metropolitan areas over the next year.

LTE

The 3GPP Long Term Evolution or "LTE" technology looks very hot...on paper. As with WiMAX, this "4G" technology is an all-IP based, low latency network that could truly be called mobile broadband. With enough antennas, bandwidth should be 2-3x what WiMAX offers. Early devices won't show off the full speed, but you could still see notebooks and smartphones getting 10+ Mbit/s with low latencies. Best of all, it seems as if every cell company (save Sprint) has jumped on the LTE bandwagon for their 4G rollout. Verizon, AT&T, T-Mobile, MetroPCS, Rogers Wireless and Telus in Canada, and many others around the world are all adopting LTE and rolling out service over the next year or two. Fortunately, the fundamental radio technology and communications protocols between LTE and WiMAX are so similar that some chipmakers are simply building one chip that can be configured to work with either standard.

Multiscreen Madness

If you think a 30-inch monitor insufficient, how about gaming on six?

Today’s graphics cards can barely handle one 30-inch monitor in gaming. Pushing around 2560x1600 pixels is a challenge for current-generation GPUs. While it’s true that each new generation of graphics cards can push performance, we weren’t quite prepared for the preview AMD gave us of its upcoming DirectX 11–capable graphics hardware.

AMD ushered us into its Sunnyvale, CA, test lab, where it had a high-end system set up with a single graphics card. AMD would only disclose that the card had a single GPU, and was one of the company’s upcoming DirectX 11–capable chips—nothing about the amount of video RAM, clock speeds, or anything else. This particular graphics card also sported six DisplayPort connectors. Attached to each DisplayPort connector was a 30-inch Dell display. The whole affair was configured as a single, 7680x3200 monitor. That's 24.6 megapixels!

Sure, you say, you can hook up six monitors and run Windows… but can it do 3D?

The short answer: yes, in spades. We witnessed the flight sim XPlane 9 running at full resolution, as well as Far Cry 2. Also shown was the flying ship scene from 3DMark 2006, running at a full 7680x3200, at between 12 and 20 frames per second. Dubbed Eyefinity, the tech demo was an amazing tour de force, and we can’t wait to get our hands on one of those cards.

Hands-On with Spotify Music Streaming Service

Veronica Belmont — Wed, 09 Sep 2009 14:30:19 -0500

It's no secret that the music industry has been in a bit of a bind over the past decade or so: they claim illegal downloading has lost them millions in sales while distribution deals with companies like Apple have left the labels feeling as though they've lost control over pricing.

The What's New section is a snapshot of the wide range of artists available.

Meanwhile, consumers have seemingly endless ways to download, stream and discover music. Streaming sites like Pandora, Blip.fm, Hype Machine and Last.fm are all great ways to listen to music from your browser while you're online, but picking specific artists to stream can be a haphazard process. Buying music presents a whole new set of problems, with companies (iTunes, Rhapsody, eMusic, Amazon, Zune Marketplace) that all offer different pricing models and collections of artists.

You can listen to all the "country hip-hop punk" you please!

Spotify (Windows, Mac, Linux, Free BSD), which has had a popular debut in Europe and the UK, is a new music service that hopes to streamline the way we both stream and purchase new music. The company was launched with the blessing of several major labels, in a refreshingly forward-thinking move on the part of the music industry. Because of this, Spotify is able to stream full, high-quality tracks from these labels without fear of retribution. Though not yet available in the US, we got our hands on a beta-code to test out the service.

Adjust the cache, change proxy settings and enable scrobbling in the preferences.

The Spotify client itself is a thing of beauty: the interface is slick and easy to navigate, and the extreme lack of buffering when playing tracks comes from a locally stored cache client-side that's expandable based on your preferences (up to 100GB, not that you would). When you first load Spotify up, you're presented with the top tracks and ablums on the service, as well as what's been recently added. After you've been using the service for a while, the recommended artists that are listed also become a valuable way of discovering new tunes.

Probably best to stick to the automatic cache settings!

If you're in the mood to let Spotify entertain you, the Radio Station will pull from it's seemingly endless supply of 160 kbps Vorbis-encoded tracks (320 kbps if you're a premium subscriber) based on parameters that you set. It should be noted that the streaming tracks are saddled with DRM, although customers in the UK, Sweden, France and Spain can purchase DRM-free tracks through media delivery company 7digital. Choosing more genres will add more flavor to your mix, and you can use the slider to pick which decades you want your music to originate from. Comically, we originally thought that the selected genres became “hybrid-genres,” and would only pick music that could be categorized under all selected. Then we realized there probably weren't too many “punk country hip-hop” bands out there to make for a decent mix.

Sharing playlists on social networks is the new mixtape.

Our favorite feature is the ability to create and save playlists for later. This really adds to the illusion that you now have an unlimited music library on your computer (you know, until you're disconnected from the Internet). Searches are also saved, which is a nice feature but can also lead to a bit of embarrassment when someone notices your recent Bryan Adams or Britney Spears search. You can easily share your playlists to Twitter, Facebook and Delicious, and collaborate on playlists with other users.

Save your searches for later, or drag them into a playlist.

Spotify also has a lot of nice social features built in, like the ability to scrobble to Last.fm and to make widgets for your blog. The downside is that it's not quite available here in the US yet; some people are able to use it via proxy, but the company probably still has some work to do in terms of finalizing label deals before they can officially launch. The record labels should take heart: while actual paid music downloads over Spotify are only available in four countries in Europe, Sweden saw the startup sells more tracks for Universal than iTunes this past year. It seems Spotify has created a nice little package of usability and convenience that works for almost everyone. Well, for those of us lucky enough to have it now, anyway!

Check out the hot albums and tracks under Top Lists.

[Editor's note: The version of Spotify we tested was the Mac client, though a Windows client is also available. Both versions share identical features]

Hands-On Impressions: Diablo III is Good Old-Fashioned Fun

Nathan Grayson — Sat, 29 Aug 2009 01:38:02 -0500

I had the pleasure of taking a stab (and a hack and a slash) at an obscure little game called Diablo III during last week’s BlizzCon and, well, it was pretty nifty. How nifty, you ask? Well, let’s see, I think I abandoned my infinitely stealable laptop to play the demo, oh, four or five times. (Happily, my laptop remains safe-and-sound. How anyone could refuse the allures of its sexy 900 MHz Celeron processor and cutting-edge integrated graphics card, though, is beyond me.)

So, Diablo III’s shaping up quite nicely. If you were afraid (or… hoping?) Blizzard might finally stain its spotless reputation with a sub-par game, you can put those fears to rest. Now then, without further ado, let’s dive into the specifics of Diablo III’s diabolical brand of fun.

The demo I played opened with my character in a small desert outpost. Other characters told me that leaving the outpost would mean certain doom and all that jazz, so – of course – I completely ignored them and dove headlong into the sandy deathtrap. As I strolled about, clicking on things until other things came out (usually blood, loot, or some combination of the two), I quickly noticed something: the desert was enormous. A departure from Diablo’s usual linear dwellings, it presented a plethora of potential paths, and without that medieval global positioning system sometimes known as a “map,” I would’ve gotten all kinds of lost.

Fortunately, my semi-aimless wanderings were anything but uneventful. When I wasn’t poking and prodding enemies until they erupted into gore geysers (more on that later), I was partaking from a veritable buffet of sidequests. One saw me avenging the death of a girl who was both exploited and exploded (no joke) by cultists, while another sent me into a rapidly deteriorating tomb to raid its treasures before its time -- and mine -- ran out. Better yet, from what I could tell, a number of tombs – basically, mini-dungeons – littered the demo's landscape, each with its own treasures and objectives. If you want mission variety, Diablo III looks to have it in spades. And knowing Blizzard, I’m sure my Aladdin-style collapsing cave encounter was only the tip of iceberg.

During my many runs on Diablo III’s demo station, I toyed around with each of the game’s thus-far-announced classes, but for the purpose of this preview, I’m going to focus on the recently unveiled Monk – partially because I’m assuming you guys have already dug up and devoured plenty of information on the other classes, but mostly because the Monk is awesome.

Really, I can see why he’s chosen to devote his life to whatever religion he practices; I mean, its main teachings involve pummeling people into putty, and, well, I certainly wouldn’t refuse a pamphlet from a religion like that. The upside of this? The Monk cuts through hordes of demonspawn like a hot knife through butter. He’s a damage-dealing machine, and – even better – he’s fun as hell to play.

Remember when I said we’d talk about the “gore geysers” later? Well, that’s happening now. The Monk’s default combo ends with a strike that causes a “bleed” symbol to appear over enemies’ heads. If those enemies happen to eat one too many knuckle sandwiches while bleeding, they explode into a bloody, chunky mess, damaging nearby enemies with their airborne giblets. The Monk does have other attacks, but I nearly didn’t notice.

That's not the only "combo" in the Monk's repertoire, either. Many of his strikes can be chained together, with each strike having different effects on your enemies. The "exploding strike," as it's known, then, is merely the end strike on an already devestating combo.

Also useful is the seven-sided strike, which Blizzard described as “chain lightning, only you’re the lightning.” I have to agree with that assessment. The attack sees you warp into the fray, bathed in holy aura, bouncing from enemy-to-enemy in a Tasmanian Devil-esque ballet of violence. The strikes themselves aren’t too damaging, but it’s a nice attack for closing distance, and it’s fun to watch, to boot.

Gear-wise, the Monk can’t equip much, which may give loot lovers second thoughts about playing him. In fact, during the demo, I didn’t even encounter a single weapon he could actually use. However, if you’d rather forget all those complicated equipment-based distractions and focus on the pure art of demon-slaughter, the Monk’s probably your man.

Be warned, though: Even when the Monk is clad in his finest threads, he's still no Barbarian. The Monk's best defense is a good offense, but when the going gets too rough, he tends to crumble. Watch your health meter; you may feel all high and mighty with all your blood inside your body now, but within a few seconds, that might not be the case.

With all that said, Diablo III’s looking great. Really, the BlizzCon demo was so polished that I’d have sworn it came from a completed game. Sadly though, that’s not even close to being the case. Blizzard’s keeping its lips sealed in regard to an exact release date, but since the developer hinted that a fifth Diablo III class will probably be revealed at next year’s BlizzCon, I’m not getting my hopes up for anything earlier than a late 2010 release.

So, uh, Blizzard, do you need any beta testers? Huh? Why am I asking? Oh, no reason. Just curious.

Microsoft, Yahoo, and Amazon Join the Open Book Alliances Fight Against Google

Justin Kerr — Sun, 23 Aug 2009 13:30:39 -0500

Google is the company that is world famous for its motto “Do No Evil”, but in the world of online book scanning, the Open Book Alliance isn’t ready to take them at their word. The OBA, founded by the Internet Archive, has become a united voice for those who feel Google was handed a monopoly with its $125 million settlement with publishers. The primary argument is that competitors such as the Internet Archive, are forced to negotiate individual contracts with rights holders, while Google can simply scan now, and pay later when the author makes a claim.

“If this deal goes ahead, they’re making a real shot at being the library, and the only library” claims Internet Archives founder Brewster Kahle. Until recently the Open Book Alliance has been lacking any real corporate muscle, but with the recent inclusion of Microsoft, Yahoo, and Amazon into the alliance, they definitely will be taken much more seriously. With the outcome of the Department of Justice investigation into the matter still pending, Google is quickly finding itself in a very public battle over digital book rights, and they seem to be making many more enemies than friends these days.

According the OBA, anti-trust and anti-competitive concerns are an important focus, but they also worry about Google’s commitment to privacy. The American Libraries Association claims “When it comes to privacy, the agreement is silent on the issue with regards to what Google intends to do with the data it collects”.

Will the addition of Microsoft, Yahoo, and Amazon into the alliance help ensure equality in the book scanning industry?

Get Up Close and Personal with the Zune HD at Select Best Buys

Pulkit Chandna — Fri, 21 Aug 2009 14:48:42 -0500

Zune zealots, skeptics, and all the people that lie in between and outside the two groups can get up close and personal with the Zune HD at select Best Buys over the weekend. The preview has been organized by Nvidia and Best Buy. The GPU maker’s ebullience for the Zune HD stems from the fact that it has lent its Tegra chip to the PMP. The portable media player is scheduled for release on September 15. Nvidia has released a PDF document that lists all the Best Buys where the Zune HD will be available for preview.

Image Credit: Walyou