Game development, like it or not, remains a territory largely off limits as it involves hard coding. And if this is the general rule, Microsoft offers the exception. The Redmond company has evolved its web and mashup tool in order to accommodate game creation. Now, the fact of the matter is that users won’t be able to create their very own sequel to a preferred title, but Popfly will enable the creation of simple, casual games without writing a single line of code. This is now possible through the addition of the Popfly Game Creator.
“Popfly is about more than mashups and web pages. It’s about making it fun to build things and share them with your friends. And one of the things we’ve heard loud and clear is that games are the kinds of things that people would like to try to build. What kinds of games can you create? Just about any kind of two-dimensional game, a category that includes things like the original Super Mario, Frogger, Asteroids, and a host of other old arcade games”, revealed a member of the Popfly team. Read the rest of this entry »
You knew it was coming. Gateway, to our knowledge, has become the first large PC vendor to ship most of its retail PCs with the 64-bit version of Windows Vista Home Premium. The refreshed product line also brings back an Intel quad-core processor, which had been dumped by the company in the previous product cycle.
When we wrote about Gateway’s spring retail PCs back in January of this year, it was quite obvious that, at least for that product cycle, Gateway had thrown out Intel’s Core 2 Quad Q6600 quad-core processor in favor of an AMD Phenom X4 chip. Back then, company representatives assured us that an Intel quad-core would return soon. It took some time (four months), but an Intel chip is back, but only for the pricey “FX” version. Read the rest of this entry »

Windows XP Service Pack 3 is a case of “much ado about nothing” when it comes down to gaming. SP3 was released to manufacturing on April 21, 2008, almost two months after the RTM date of Windows Vista Service Pack 1. But if Vista SP1 does bring to the table advances that will affect the gaming experience of end users in comparison with the original version of the latest Windows client, SP3 will not do the same for XP SP2 users. This is, of course, due to the fact that Microsoft has virtually ignored the graphics components of XP in the move from XPSP2 to XP SP3.
With Vista, SP1 delivered DirectX 10.1, an incremental update from DirectX 10. In fact, Microsoft has continually referred to version 10.1 as a superset and a minor update to the component which is shipped by default with Windows Vista. Read the rest of this entry »
On April 25, 2008, Microsoft introduced the next version of its Windows XP operating system, detailing revamped plans for the business built around the platform, a brand overhauling and the road map for upcoming products. However, the desktop version of Windows XP got no play as the Redmond company focused entirely on the embedded version of the platform. The Embedded Systems Conference Silicon Valley 2008 in San Jose was also synonymous with the introduction of the Windows Embedded Ready, a brand umbrella for the company’s forthcoming key device products. Read the rest of this entry »
In a three-day contest, held at a major security conference in Vancouver recently, teams of hackers were challenged to break their way into three laptops, running Mac OS X, Windows Vista and Ubuntu Linux operating systems, reports CNet News.
Now I know what you are thinking but you’d be wrong… On the first day all three machines repulsed attacks on the operating systems and via a network connection. The Mac Air laptop was the first to fall, however, two minutes into the start of the second day’s session. This was after the judges relaxed the rules to allow the hackers to attack browser and email vulnerabilities. Read the rest of this entry »