Here’s something you wouldn’t see every day. Bill Gates introducing the world to DirectX in 1995.
httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_JokM_fExpI
Don’t interrupt him! My how things have changed.
An interesting article tracking The Death and Rebirth of Duke Nukem Forever was posted on ArsTechnica recently, well worth a read – or at least a watch of the trailer from 1998!
Here’s to hoping 2011 is the year of the Duke. Hail to the king baby!
Quick note that the official release of Froyo (Android 2.2) is finally trickling down to Google Nexus One users. You’ll get it by the end of the week if not already. You can also download the officially signed release and update via your SD card alternatively.
UPDATE (01/07): The link above is for updating from the Google-IO Froyo release to the final.
The full OTA release is here:
http://android.clients.google.com/packages/passion/signed-passion-ota-42745.dc39ca1f.zip
The update from Froyo Google-IO to Froyo-OTA:
http://android.clients.google.com/packages/passion/signed-passion-FRF83-from-FRF50.38d66b26.zip
As mentioned in my previous post from a couple of months back, this release packs a bit of punch! Yum!
You kind of knew it was going to happen but the mighty Google has open-sourced On2′s VP8 codec and set it free (in the form of a BSD-style license). Don’t forget to read an intro to the WebM VP8 SDK and get the code (the files). Some of the companies backing it and the ideas behind WebM are posted on the first blog entry.
So what is WebM?
WebM includes:
Wonder what MSFT and Apple are going to do? In either case, interesting times ahead for video.
Oh hai, I almost forgot, from their FAQ, some interesting points – besides the Licensing bits.
If I have a video card that accelerates video playback, will it accelerate VP8?
The performance of VP8 is very good in software, and we’re working closely with many video card and silicon vendors to add VP8 hardware acceleration to their chips.
Will WebM files play on my TV, set-top box, PVR, etc.?
Stay tuned! The WebM community is working with hardware manufacturers to bring WebM support to a wide range of devices.
When will other Google products support WebM and VP8?
WebM support in Android is expected in the Gingerbread release (currently planned for Q4, 2010). We expect many other Google products to adopt WebM and VP8 as they prioritize it with their other product requirements. Keep an eye on the WebM blog for announcements.
Man, Google rocks!
Quick note after seeing this on Kotaku, Mektek has released MechWarrior 4 for download for free (as in totally). Bring back those memories! The site’s been MC hammered right now but grab the 1.7Gb and lock & load 
The title says it all. Using the Jake2 port of Quake II (to Java) the bright sparks at Google have used GWT to bring Quake II to HTML 5.
We started with the existing Jake2 Java port of the Quake II engine, then used the Google Web Toolkit (along with WebGL, WebSockets, and a lot of refactoring) to cross-compile it into Javascript. You can see the results in the video above — we were honestly a bit surprised when we saw it pushing over 30 frames per second on our laptops (your mileage may vary)!
At first I thought it was an April fools joke, but as cruel as that may be, it wasn’t. Download the source and give it ago, I nearly fell of my chair.
At the moment you have to build from source and mess about a bit, but fear not, I followed the guide on OSNews by Kroc on our MacBook Pro and it worked quite well, yet to try it on Linux.
Here’s a video stream of CES 2010 with Steve Balmer launching Microsoft’s 2010+ products.
mms://wm.MS-STUDIOSMEDIA.COM/a10065/o9/presspass/1002811_CES_750k.wmv
Skip to about 6:00 because its all marketing blah – wait till you see Steves presentation!
We Bing, We Bing & We Bing, Bing Bing Bing. (12:30)
*sigh*
Ryan Asdourian from the Windows team comes in at about 27:00 which goes into touch devices.
Enjoy!
Can’t hardly wait, this game is going to ROCK! (pre-ordered the PS3 Prestige Edition) make sure you watch the HD Trailer.
Well a special xkcd comic today to the theme of Geocities, the free website hosting company almost any nerd cool guy/gal made their mark – including yours truly somewhere down SiliconValley (97/98). Around that time, most of the javascript was thanks to The Javascript Planet, the CGI-Scripts were mostly from Matt Wright‘s ScriptArchive and most webmasters had a Fido7 script somewhere. After musing with GeoCities for a year or so I moved over and did what anyother kid would do, made a games site on FreeServers called GamesGalore. Essentially I reviewed demos I got from the PCGamer magazine at the time ($15 a pop!). Made no money but it was all good fun.
The days of marquees, ‘optimised for Netscape or IE’ camps, frames (GamesGalore had it!) and lots of flashing animated gifs, because that was where it was at.
I swear that’s the only time you’ll ever see a marquee or a blinking text on this site!
Excited about Windows 7 launch to the public in October? Organise a party and get some swagger!
Choose a day from October 22-29 and if you’re selected, you’ll not only receive a special Signature Edition of Windows® 7 Ultimate but your very own Windows® 7 Party Pack.
Countries allowed to partaye!
Get the details and lets get this party started. (Did I mention I don’t like Pink?)
