Angry Birds for Windows Phone 7, or not

Microsoft had conveniently placed an icon of the highly popular Angry Birds game on its Windows Phone site. Naturally, we would all assume that this hit game would be ported over to Microsoft's new mobile platform very soon.

However, the folks at Rovio Mobile weren't too happy once they realised that their Angry Birds icon had appeared completely out of the blue, and made an announcement on their Twitter page saying that they are currently not committed to making a Windows Phone 7 version of Angry Birds, and that "Microsoft had used the Angry Birds icon on their site without (Rovio Mobile's) permission".

Microsoft later issued a statement to apologize for the oversight, claiming that "information was mistakenly posted". That alone won't make their marketing team (antics included) angels overnight, for they allegedly tempted iPhone developers of popular applications with a wad of cash to port apps over to the new Windows platform a couple of months ago.

Microsoft definitely needs the support of popular applications and games in order for its Windows Phone 7 to gain market share; well, we know of people out there who buy an iPhone just to play Angry Birds. Rovio Mobile also commented later on in a follow-up that whether a Windows Phone 7 version appears is solely at their discretion, so riling a flock of angry birdsmight not bethe smartest thing to do...

Sources: Engadget, Rovio Mobile

ASUS GameFace Messenger Gameference Feature

Taipei, Taiwan; June 15 , 2005 – ASUSTeK Computer Inc. (ASUS) and ByteSwarm, a division of AceGain, Inc., today announced the release of ASUS GameFace Messenger – the world's first Instant Messenger for gaming that provides video conferencing, voice chat and game server browsing packed in one cool client.

Aiming to improve online gaming interaction, ASUS introduced GameFace Messenger. This revolutionary innovation doesn't stop at just providing instant messaging or point-to-point video conferencing. It also enables multiple players to join a video game conference and voice chat with each other. GameFace Messenger is a multi-dimensional collaboration tool that brings online gamers together like never before.

“We were really looking at changing the way online gamers communicate with each other. We wanted to take it to the next level,” says Jerry Shun, General Manager of ASUS Graphics Business . “We needed a software partner that was really on the edge of technology and pushing the boundaries of what existed out there. We were sold with the ByteSwarm GameONE platform”.

ByteSwarm GameONE is a suite of online collaboration applications and services that provide everything a Gamer might need—except the game. For GameFace Messenger, ByteSwarm provided the core technology for instant messaging, game server browsing, contact management and data delivery mechanism.

As a newcomer to the gaming scene, ByteSwarm wanted to prove to the market that it is ready for prime time by working with ASUS, the leading company in the market.

ByteSwarm GameONE is based on AceGain's DRAMA Distributed Platform. AceGain DRAMA (Dynamic Routing Adaptive Mobile Agent) is a software platform that provides fundamental application infrastructure for routing-based data networking, management, security, and content distribution across heterogeneous operating environments.

“Now, gamers can create live video conferencing sessions with other gamers, as they strategize on a map, collaborate as a team or just shoot the breeze before or after a game,” said Shun. “This is truly the next generation of interactive gaming”.

Des nouvelles infos pour The Walking Dead

Après Retour vers le futur et Jurassic Park, Telltale Games s'attaque au comic book américain The Walking Dead. Annoncé depuis 1 an maintenant, les développeurs ont toujours été discrets sur le contenu du jeu. Aujourd'hui de nouvelles informations ont filtré sur le titre

Niveau scénario, le jeu ne suivra pas les aventures de Rick (le héros du comics et de la série) mais d'un nouveau personnage appelé Lee Everett, un ancien prisonnier qui voit l'épidémie de zombie comme un moyen de racheter ses fautes. L'histoire se déroulera chronologiquement avant le comic, c'est à dire durant la période de coma du shérif Rick Grames. Cependant, les développeurs nous rassurent qu'entre les nouveaux personnages, des têtes connues comme Gleen ou Herschel croiseront le chemin du joueur.
Le jeu sera plus proche du comic que de la série.
Les graphismes en cel-shading ressembleront au jeu XIII d'Ubisoft sorti en 2003 ainsi qu'à Borderlands sorti en 2009.
L'histoire sera coupée en 5 épisodes comme tous les autres jeux estampillé Telltale Games tirés d'une licence.

Un site officiel flambant neuf vient par ailleurs tout juste d'ouvrir ses portes. On y trouve notamment une Foire Aux Questions, une nouvelle vidéo et six images inédites.



· Forum The Walking Dead : The Game

AMD Unveils SSE5 For Bulldozer Core In 2009

AMD today announced further plans to innovate the x86 architecture byintroducing SSE5, a new extension of the x86 instruction set that is designed toallow software developers to simplify code and achieve greater efficiency forthe most performance-hungry applications. SSE5 will give developers additionalcapabilities to help maximize the performance of applications that have dailyimpact on consumers and enterprises, including high performance computing,multimedia and security applications. By making the SSE5 specification availableto developers today, AMD expects to ease the adoption of the new instructionsfor tool providers and software vendors who develop these performance-intenseapplications.

Chip advancements and software improvements go hand-in-hand, to the benefit ofconsumers and enterprises alike," said Phil Hester, senior vice president andchief technology officer, AMD. "The impact of our designs are best realized whenAMD-based servers, PCs and devices enable software to more effectively solveevery-day problems and enhance every-day experiences. By announcing our plans toadd SSE5 instructions to the x86 instruction set -- and by making thespecification available today -- we are enabling open and collaborative softwareinnovation that will bring AMD's advancements to life for our customers andend-users."

As the industry's focus is shifting from processor speeds to increasing powerefficiency, the number of instructions executed per second on one processor coreremains relatively constant. As a result, both software and hardware vendorsmust pursue new approaches to improving computing performance.

AMD is once again helping advance this process by making technical detailsavailable to the software developer community early, to foster an industrydialogue and solicit feedback. For example, AMD released an early version of theAMD Virtualization(TM) specification in 2005, at the time codenamed "Pacifica,"to the benefit of that technology's further development. Additionally, AMDrecently released the Light-Weight Profiling proposal, which is designed toenable software developers to fully leverage the benefits of multi-corecomputing. The early release of the SSE5 specification to the software developercommunity follows AMD's philosophy of open collaboration, a model thateffectively drove x86, 64-bit computing to the masses.

"PGI's goal is to provide high-performance, cross-platform, production-qualityparallel compilers and software development tools to the developer community,"said Douglas Miles, director, The Portland Group. "We are working closely withAMD to enable developers to quickly and easily leverage the SSE5 instruction setto enhance high performance computing, and the multi-core and multi-mediacapability of their software applications."

Multi-core processor technology and the integration of specialized co-processorsare effective methods for extending performance limits. Equally important isenabling the ability to maximize the efficiency of each core by reducing thetotal number of instructions needed to achieve the same result. SSE5 helpsmaximize the output of each instruction and consolidates code base byintroducing functionality previously only found in specialized, high-performancearchitectures, to the x86 platform:

3-Operand Instructions
A computing instruction is executed by applying a mathematical or logicalfunction to operands, or inputs. By increasing the number of operands an x86instruction can handle from 2 to 3, SSE5 enables the consolidation of multiple,simple instructions into a single, more effective instruction. The ability toexecute 3-Operand Instructions is currently only possible on certain RISCarchitectures.

Fused Multiply Accumulate
The 3-Operand Instruction capability enables the creation of new instructionswhich efficiently execute complex calculations. The Fused Multiply Accumulateinstruction combines multiplication and addition to enable iterativecalculations with one instruction. The simplification of the code enables rapidexecution for more realistic graphics shading, rapid photographic rendering,spatialized audio, complex vector mathematics and other performance-intenseapplications.

The SSE5 specification, which is being made available to the developer communitytoday at http://developer.amd.com/SSE5,will be implemented in products based on AMD's next-generation "Bulldozer" core,available in 2009.

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ASUS Mars II Sneak Preview

ASUS is known for taking the fastest graphics cards and making them even bigger and badder. Their last headline-grabbing attempt with a Nvidia GPU was back in 2009, when they released the dual-GTX 285 Mars.

This time round, ASUS has shoehorned two GTX 580s onto a single PCB to create the Mars II. Each GPU is clocked at 782MHz, making the Mars II even faster than the (already discontinued) GTX 590.

GTX 580GTX 590Mars IICore Clock772MHz607MHz782MHzShader Clock1544MHz1215MHz1564MHzMemory Clock
(effective)1002MHz
(4008MHz)854MHz
(3416MHz)1002MHz
(4008MHz)Memory1.5GB2 x 1.5GB2 x 1.5GB

ASUS has spared no expense here: the Mars II sports a sturdy metal shroud with two 120mm fans, and a metal backplate covers the entire rear.

However, the Mars II is considerably wider than usual, in addition to taking up three slots. Its dimensions are 13" x 6.2" x 2.5", so chances are that it will only fit into the very largest casings out there.

Three 8-pin PCIe connectors are required, and ASUS has also thrown in a 100% fan speed button. If you have too much money, you can even buy two of these and run them in quad-SLI.

One NEC Proadlizer is used for each GPU.

Each GPU gets an 8-phase power delivery system, and each set of memory 2 phases, making for a total of 20 phases on a single PCB.

To help cool this beast, each heatsink has four copper heatpipes.

Word has it that the Mars II will retail for a wallet-blowing S$2499 starting from late August. This is a limited edition card so only 999 units will be sold worldwide.

Stay tuned for our full review of the ASUS Mars II !