Ludology or narratology?

These are the two generally accepted approaches to thinking about games. Though not incompatible, these two branches of knowledge nonetheless contend for pre-eminence among video game designer priorities. Read the rest of this entry »

Apple’s (Nasdaq: AAPL) announcement of its upcoming iCloud service has sparked a flurry of excitement in the industry.

Some analysts expect the iCloud will help Apple keep customers closer to its bosom — make them “stickier,” in analystspeak. Others think the iCloud will give a boost to cloud computing. Read the rest of this entry »

Nobody expected AT&T (NYSE: T) to have an especially easy time convincing regulators to allow it to buy up rival wireless carrier T-Mobile. AT&T announced its intentions last Spring to purchase the fourth-largest U.S. carrier from parent company Deutsche Telekom (NYSE: DT) for US$39 billion, and critics from all corners wasted no time expressing why they thought that would be a very bad idea. Read the rest of this entry »

The HP (NYSE: HPQ) TouchPad’s demise and semi-resurrection seems to have lent new strength to rumors that Amazon (Nasdaq: AMZN) is working on its own tablet.

Some rumors hold that Amazon will offer one tablet; others contend it will offer two. The speculation is that Amazon will sell the hardware at a loss and make up for that through selling content, which it has in abundance. Read the rest of this entry »

The Mozilla Foundation is enhancing the tablet version of its Firefox browser.

It’s leveraging Android Honeycomb but retaining familiar visual elements of Firefox such as the signature big back button and distinctive tab shape, according to a blog post by Ian Barlow, who works on Mozilla’s mobile user experience team. Read the rest of this entry »

Another global security mess is in the making, on the heels of the publication of thousands of sensitive security documents obtained by WikiLeaks. However, in this particular instance, WikiLeaks insists it didn’t mean to do it. Read the rest of this entry »

Samsung has unveiled the Galaxy Note, which sports a 5.3-inch screen — a size that places it between a typical smartphone and a tablet. It features an HD Super AMOLED display with a 180-degree viewing angle. The device comes with a slide-out stylus called the “S Pen” and sports a rear 8 MP camera capable of capturing video in 1080p HD, as well as a front 2 MP camera for video chat. The unit is powered by a 1.4 GHz dual core processor and runs theAndroid 2.3 Gingerbread operating system. Read the rest of this entry »

Travel tools for the road include some of the killer apps that have driven the smartphone market, like mapping. However, the ball and chain is the cost of getting that data outside of your home market. Read the rest of this entry »

Well the wild ride that was August appears to have tapered off a bit as the month drew to a close, so Linux bloggers have finally had a few days to stop and catch their breath. Read the rest of this entry »

Samsung Telecommunications America has announced it will launch its latest Androidsmartphone, the Galaxy S II, on AT&T (NYSE: T), Sprint (NYSE: S) and T-Mobile in the U.S. this fall. Read the rest of this entry »