Intel goes 3D with transistor redesign
New 3D ‘tri-gate’ designs will enable Intel to produce smaller and more powerful processors
Intel has redesigned the transistor – the building block of the chip – to add a third dimension that will let them design smaller and more powerful processors for years to come.
The new 3D “tri-gate” designs announced on Wednesday use a 22-nanometre process with a “fin” jutting up from the base. (A nanometre is a billionth of metre.) The company says chips using them will go into production this year and appear in computers in 2012 in processors codenamed “Ivy Bridge”, and allow them to keep improving performance in line with Moore’s Law for some time.
The new designs will also use less power. Kevin Krewell, senior analyst at the Linley Group, said a dual-core chip with 22nm tri-gate transistors would use the same power as an existing 32nm chip – or, alternatively, use half the power as a single-core 32nm chip.
The announcement gives Intel its best chance of breaking into the growing market for chips used in smartphones and tablet computers, where it has failed to make any impression because its existing designs use too much power. That field is dominated by chips using designs from the British company ARM. Intel declined to comment on whether it would be able to challenge ARM through these designs. In January, Microsoft announced the next version of Windows – expected in 2012 – would be able to run on ARM designs, implying to some that it no longer thought Intel was the key architecture for the future.
Intel executives said at the announcement they thought tri-gate would be “extremely competitive” with ARM on power consumption following internal benchmarking, but wouldn’t say how they compared.
Asked for a date when the chips would appear in smartphones, executives said they had a date – but wouldn’t share it.
Normally, transistors on chips are flat, with three “gates” – a base, collector and emitter. Controlling the voltage on the base turns current flow on or off through a “conducting channel” from the collector to the emitter. In the tri-gate design, the 3D “fin” is the conducting channel for the transistor, and the controlling gates are put in each of the three sides of the fin – two on each side and on across the top, rather than one on top as happens with the 2D planar transistor.
Intel has been talking about 3D transistors for nearly a decade, and other companies are experimenting with similar technology. But nobody has previously been able to make them in any quantity.
Transistors are the cheapest manufactured item in the universe: a typical chip, consisting of a few “gates”, can contain a billion transistors and cost about a hundred dollars. Their only function is to regulate the flow of electricity inside chips. Gordon Moore stated his famous “law” in a paper in 1965, forecasting that the number of transistors on a chip would double every 12 to 18 months. But as transistors get smaller they fall prey to quantum effects where electrons “leak” between the gates; it had been thought that that would bring Moore’s Law to an end in around 2015. The announcement suggests that it will be able to continue further because it lowers the voltage at which the transistors operate. That in turn reduces the leakage across the gates.
The advance doesn’t mean Intel is building a second layer of transistors on the chip. That remains a distant but hotly pursued goal of the industry; “cubic” chips could be much faster that flat ones while consuming far less power.
Analysts briefed on the work called it one of the most significant shifts in silicon transistor design since the integrated circuit was invented in the 1950s.
“When I looked at it, I did a big, ‘Wow.’ What we’ve seen for decades now have been evolutionary changes to the technology. This is definitely a revolutionary change,” said Dan Hutcheson, a longtime semiconductor industry watcher and chief executive of VLSI Research Inc.
Previous major changes to transistor design have focused on new materials that can be used for transistors, not entire redesigns of the transistors themselves. “People have been trying to avoid changing the structure,” Hutcheson said.
Other semiconductor companies argue that there’s still life to be squeezed from the current design of transistors. Hutcheson agrees, but said Intel’s approach should allow it to advance at least a generation ahead of its rivals, which include IBM Corp and Advanced Micro Devices.
The reduced power consumption addresses a key need for Intel.
The performance expectations and power requirements for PCs are much higher than they are for phones and tablet computers, so Intel’s dominance in PC chips doesn’t necessarily lead to success in mobile devices. Even Intel’s Atom-based chips, which are designed for mobile devices, have been criticised as too power-hungry.
Technological leadership alone won’t guarantee success, however, as Intel has learned in repeated attempts at cracking the mobile market.
Other chip makers such as Qualcomm Inc and Texas Instruments Inc have entrenched partnerships with cellphone makers, and there is suspicion about the performance of Intel’s chips in mobile devices.
“When it comes to the mobile market, they have their work cut out for them,” Hutcheson said of Intel. But “this gives you the transistors to build the next great system.”
Technology news, comment and analysis | guardian.co.uk
Spotify launches Apple iTunes ‘rival’
New application will synch tracks from computers to iPods, iPhones and Androids and allow users to buy MP3 bundles
If you hate using Apple’s iTunes to synchronise songs on your iPod or iPhone, the music streaming service Spotify would like your attention. It is rolling out a new version of its desktop and mobile application for all of its users, including the ad-supported “free” users, which will synchronise tracks from their computer to iPods, iPhones and Android phones.
It is also introducing its own music store, which will allow users to buy “bundles” to pay for MP3-encoded songs from the catalogue, in which buying a bigger bundle effectively gives a discount on the songs. Thus a “bundle” of 10 tracks costs £7.99, effectively costing 80p each, while a bundle of 100 costs £50.
The company says the synchronisation – which also works over Wi-Fi, something iTunes doesn’t do – has been the top most requested feature from its users for a considerable time. It has taken more than a year of programming to implement it, and led to other projects being put on hold while the engineers figured out the plumbing of the iPod to ensure seamless functioning.
While the new version will not completely replace iTunes for people with iPhone or iPod Touches – which will still need them for synchronising apps and doing software updates – and will also not change calendars, photos, videos or other content on lower-end iPods, chief product officer Gustav Soderstrom told the Guardian that Spotify saw it as important to reach more users of its free service. Premium users can already synchronise content from Spotify playlists on iPod Touches, iPhones and Android phones, but free users were limited to the desktop version.
“There are studies which say that the iPod is the biggest music device in terms of hours listened,” Soderstrom said. “Perhaps after the car, because people listen to a lot of radio in cars. But the iPod is certainly second, and the desktop comes a long way behind.” Spotify reckons that if it extends its functionality to the iPod, more people will eventually upgrade to its service.
The company said at the beginning of March it has a million subscribers and 10m registered users; no further update was provided this week.
There was also no announcement on when Spotify might reach the US: “We’re still working hard on that. We’re getting closer,” said a spokesman.
Asked how he thought Apple would react to the news, Soderstrom said he thought it would be happy: “They have encouraged third-party services through the App Store for the iPhone, iPod Touch and more recently the Mac platform. They believe that having a third-party ecosystem really drives hardware sales.”
In the past, Apple has blocked companies it thought were trying to unravel the digital protections around music on the iPod. But Soderstrom said Spotify is not doing that: it will not try to remove songs put on the device by iTunes, and will not try to synchronise DRM-protected songs, although he said that only a “small percentage” of people have such music. Apple stopped selling DRM-protected songs through its iTunes Music Store in January 2009, though some songs have not been updated.
The Spotify sync puts the music on the device a second time, though Soderstrom said that most Premium users remove the iTunes music and synchronise their playlists from Spotify directly.
At present Spotify can only synchronise “static” playlists from iTunes, and not “smart” playlists which are updated in iTunes when new songs are added to the library. Soderstrom said that functionality was being worked on both for synchronisation and for Spotify playlists generally.
• Amazon has cut the prices of MP3 downloads in the US, reducing them to 69 cents, compared to the .29 that some songs in Apple’s iTunes Store sell at. Amazon has about 10% of the music download market in the US but is now looking to expand.
Technology news, comment and analysis | guardian.co.uk
PSN hackers may have stolen data of 77m users
Sony says hackers have accessed personal information, but says there is no evidence of credit card details theft
Sony has warned that the names, addresses and other personal data of about 77 million people with accounts on its PlayStation Network (PSN) have been stolen.
Gamers have been locked out of the network for a week, but the company has revealed that the system has been suspended since it was hacked last Wednesday.
Sony said it discovered that between 17 and 19 April an “illegal and unauthorised person” got access to people’s names, addresses, email address, birthdates, usernames, passwords, logins, security questions and more.
Children with accounts established by their parents also may have had their data exposed, according to Sony, which put the warning on its US PlayStation blog – although the warning about the compromise might not be immediately visible to passing readers. The company is also emailing people who might be affected.
The intrusion is potentially one of the biggest ever into a store of credit cards. Sony’s PSN is one of the world’s biggest holders of credit cards, though not as large as Amazon, eBay, PayPal or Apple’s iTunes, which each hold more than 100m accounts.
The previous largest hacking attacks were on Heartland Payment Systems in January 2009, when up to 100m US credit and debit card details were stolen, and TK Maxx in March 2007, when up to 46m credit card details were stolen.
The company said that it saw no evidence that credit card numbers were stolen, but it added: “Out of an abundance of caution, we are advising you that your credit card number (excluding security code) and expiration date may have been obtained,”
The online marketplace launched in autumn 2006 and allows users to purchase and play video games, music and films on their PlayStation consoles.
The hack attack has put it out of action and it says that it may be up to a week before it is operational again.
Sony said it had hired an outside security firm to investigate what happened and has taken steps to rebuild its system to provide greater protection for personal information.
PlayStation members are required to submit credit card and personal details to play online games and download software, films and music.
Warning users of the network to be on the look out for telephone and email scams, Sony said: “To protect against possible identity theft or other financial loss, we encourage you to remain vigilant to review your account statements and to monitor your credit or similar types of reports.”
PlayStation Network posted an apology to users through the Sony website saying it would email those who are suspected to be victims of the hacking.
It said: “We don’t have an exact date to share at this moment as to when we will have the services turned on, but are working day and night to ensure it is as quickly as possible.
“Please note that we are as upset as you are regarding this attack and are going to proceed aggressively to track down those that are responsible.”
Graham Cluley, senior technology consultant at security firm Sophos, told the BBC that the theft of so much detailed customer information would be seen as a “public relations disaster”.
“This is a big one,” he said.
Technology news, comment and analysis | guardian.co.uk
EU decides against stricter net neutrality rules
Legislation to prevent a ‘two-speed’ internet, with some content arriving faster than others, has been ruled out
The European commission has decided against introducing legislation to protect net neutrality, saying media scrutiny and giving consumers enough information about their internet service provider will be sufficient to protect an “open and neutral” internet.
Legislation to prevent telecoms companies from introducing a tiered internet, with some content arriving faster than others, has been ruled out.
In a long-awaited report on its approach to net neutrality, the EU executive on Tuesday said “traffic management”, or the prioritising of some packets of information over others, “is necessary to ensure the smooth flow of internet traffic, particularly at times when networks become congested”.
Internet service providers have long argued they should be left alone to co-ordinate the flow of data through their networks, a position the commission has decided to endorse.
“There is broad agreement that operators should be allowed to determine their own business models and commercial arrangements,” the report continues.
Commissioner Neelie Kroes, head of the EU’s Digital Agenda department, said she will continue to monitor the sector for instances of ISPs blocking or throttling access to certain services, especially voice-over-internet-protocol offerings such as Skype.
Brussels admits there have been some instances of unequal treatment of data by certain operators, including throttling of peer-to-peer filesharing or video-streaming in the UK and five other EU states, and blocking or charging extra for VOIP services in six other countries.
But these problems were usually fixed as a result of bad press or via action by regulators, the report concludes: “Many of these issues were solved voluntarily, often through intervention by the [national regulators] or pressure created by adverse media coverage.”
However, the commission has asked BEREC, the European electronic communications regulatory group, to investigate the extent of the issue. If by the end of the year Brussels finds that there are persistent problems of blocking, the commission will take additional action.
“If I am not satisfied, I will not hesitate to come up with more stringent measures,” said Kroes. These measures could include “guidance” or a law to prohibit blocking of services.
But a “horizontal” bill, akin to that introduced by Chile last year, which goes beyond the problem of blocking and prevents any kind of tiered internet at all, the commission believes is unnecessary.
Last June, Chile became the first jurisdiction in the world to pass net neutrality legislation, forcing ISPs to “ensure access to all types of content, services or applications available on the network and offer a service that does not distinguish content, applications or services”.
According to EU digital agenda spokesman Jonathan Todd, this goes too far: “The EU telecoms market is already healthily competitive. If an online service provider is confronted with extra charges for their content, they’ll just tell the ISP to take a hike. It’s a false debate.”
Digital rights advocates for their part accused Brussels of succumbing to lobbying from the telecoms industry, saying consumers are not as able to “vote with their feet” as the commission believes.
“This simplistic spin does not stand the test of reality. In practice, millions of users can only chose one operator to connect to the internet, either because of geographical or commercial constraints,” said La Quadrature du Net, a France-based online civil liberties group.
“Ms Kroes is hiding behind false free-market arguments to do nothing at all,” added Jérémie Zimmermann, a spokesman for the organisation. He said that infringements of net neutrality are not an abstraction but already common to most mobile internet provision.
“In most EU member states, mobile phone operators agree on engaging in the very same discrimination in their so-called ‘mobile internet’ offers. These operators simply do not offer access to the universal platform of communications we call ‘the internet’.”
Technology news, comment and analysis | guardian.co.uk
The Winklevoss twins are only the start of Zuckerberg’s problems
Facebook founder faces more legal action surrounding the site’s ownership
Mark Zuckerberg might have to create a “Don’t like” button for people claiming they own all or a fraction of Facebook. Having already seen off the Winklevoss twins who claimed he stole the idea for Facebook from them, Zuckerberg now faces a convicted fraudster who says he has a contract giving him 84% of the social network.
Paul Ceglia, from Wellsville, New York, said Zuckerberg signed a contract with him that shows he should be entitled to the lion’s share of the business – and late on Monday night released, through his lawyers in the US, a tranche of emails that purport to show him and the Facebook chief executive discussing, between July 2003 and July 2004, various matters relating to “thefacebook” – as the site was known in its early days.
The case will be heard in federal court, following a ruling at the end of March that Ceglia and Zuckerberg live in different states – though the latter grew up in New York before going to Harvard, and then to California where he turned the company into the world-spanning social network, with about 600 million members.
Ceglia claims that in 2003 he hired Zuckerberg, then an 18-year-old first-year undergraduate at Harvard, to do some coding for a site called Streetfax (later Streetdelivery) that he was planning. Zuckerberg was paid ,000 on a “work for hire” contract, Ceglia has contended in court, and then put to work on a project called “The Face Book” or “The Page Book” in which Ceglia invested ,000.
Certainly, when Facebook first launched, it was called “thefacebook” – but the other details are disputed by Facebook and Zuckerberg’s lawyers.
Among the emails released by Ceglia through his lawyers, DLA Piper, is one in which Zuckerberg apparently tells Ceglia he is thinking of shutting the site down because it is having so little success, despite the payment made by Ceglia to keep it going.
In response Facebook has said the emails, and the contract on which Ceglia claims to have Zuckerberg’s signature, are fakes – and point to Ceglia’s convictions on counts of fraud and past arrests.
Ceglia was arrested and charged with criminal fraud and grand larceny in 2009, after the wood pellet company he and his wife run failed to deliver 0,000 worth of orders to customers in four states. A lawyer for the Ceglias then said the money had been invested in machinery, labour and subcontractors for the pellets.
Ironically, Ceglia has also said that fraud charge was the reason he discovered his claim to Facebook – that it was only when looking through papers relating to those cases that he discovered the old contract with Zuckerberg.
Ceglia first filed suit last summer, and has now added extra evidence in the form of the emails. DLA Piper has said it performed “weeks” of due diligence on Ceglia’s claims to show that they stood up – including an “electronic analysis” of the contract where Ceglia signed up Zuckerberg.
But the case is even more complicated. Andrew Logan, founder and chief executive of a company called StreetDelivery, claims that in 2003 Ceglia was working for him at the time he claims to have hired Zuckerberg to code Streetfax.
That could mean that Ceglia’s hiring of Zuckerberg – and any intellectual property created there – actually reverts to Logan. For Ceglia, even if he wins he might lose.
For Zuckerberg, though, it’s just another day proving that while failure is an orphan, success definitely has many, many parents.
Technology news, comment and analysis | guardian.co.uk
The Sun gets dizzy over Nintendo 3DS returns – but what ARE your consumer rights?
The Sun has reported that ‘record’ numbers are returning their 3DS consoles after becoming sick while playing. Its claims have been refuted, but is there legal recourse for dizzy gamers?
On the front page of Tuesday’s Sun, a story declares “Refund row hits Nintendo”. The article suggests that “thousands” have been affected by dizziness while playing 3D games, and that “record return levels” have been reported as a result.
Nonsense, say Nintendo, HMV and Game. Industry news source MCV spoke to a Nintendo UK spokesperson who stated:
Recent reports are incorrect. The number of calls and emails with queries on Nintendo 3DS is in fact well below the rate experienced during past hardware launches and having spoken with our retail partners there are only a handful of people who have actually gone into stores to request a refund.
Meanwhile, Game – with more than 500 stores throughout the UK – claims to have had, “fewer than five complaints”.
It would also seem that there are other factual inaccuracies in the print version of the story, which claims that HMV has been offering full refunds to customers. In fact, HMV is offering a trade-in value of £200 on 3DS consoles, which have been returned in mint condition to its stores.
When I spoke to a clearly frustrated HMV representative earlier today, he told me: “We have not had any problems, we are not issuing full refunds and we have not had hundreds trying to return it. It has been totally misrepresented.”
The implication of the article – that gamers who have experienced dizziness as a result of playing the 3DS are entitled to their money back – is also highly questionable. Retail stores are only required to provide refunds if a product is faulty, and experiencing unpleasant after-effects following the viewing of 3D images does not currently qualify.
Indeed, it is known that a small percentage of people are susceptible to these symptoms when viewing any similar technology – including 3D films or 3D television – because of the way our eyes are required to focus on two different inputs in the absence of other sensory cues. 3D TV manufacturers are regularly placing warnings in instruction manuals that some people experience discomfort while viewing 3D images.
“The law only provides you with a remedy if the goods are not of satisfactory quality,” said Espe Fuentes, a lawyer with the Which? legal department. “Shops are not to obliged to offer anything. The only way a customer is protected in this sort of situation is if the store has a no-quibble guarantee. Obviously, if Nintendo decides there is something wrong with the console, there would be a product recall, but from what the Sun has written, it’s just a few people having problems – that doesn’t make the console faulty or of unsatisifactory quality.”
If you do want to return your 3DS because of ill-effects, you’re likely only to get the current trade-in value from stores that offer pre-owned services. This will usually be higher if you swap it for items in-store rather than request cash.
But this may not be necessary. Nintendo has advised that gamers rest after 30 minutes of play, and suggests experimenting with turning down (not necessarily switching off) the 3D effect via the slider at the right side of the screen.
On Friday, the company announced that 113,000 3DS devices have been sold in the UK since the launch on 25 March.
Technology news, comment and analysis | guardian.co.uk
BBC website goes down
BBC blames technical problems rather than attack after news website goes offline for nearly an hour
The BBC’s website, bbc.co.uk, went offline for almost an hour last night. The corporation’s press office, clearly taken by surprise, said: “We apologise for the loss of BBC Online. We are looking into it.”
But just as millions of users started to look for the Ceefax button on their remote controls, the site was back. Nevali, described as a “metadata magician at the BBC”, tweeted: “it’s not a DoS [Denial of Service] attack. routing went away. software config or hardware problem.”
It didn’t take long for the Twitterverse to catch light with conspiracy theories. “So the entire BBC website is offline – a glimpse of the future if the Murdochs and their pals, David Cameron & Jeremy Hunt, have their way,” wrote DickMandrake.
GaryDelaney added: “I don’t believe all these rumours about the BBC website being down. There’s nothing about it on the BBC website.”
Peter Horrocks, director of the BBC World Service, tweeted: “We’re having technical problems with the BBC website – they are being looked into urgently. Apologies from BBC News.”
But the rumours continued, given fuel by the news this January that the BBC had confirmed it would cut its online budget by 25%, or £34m. Some of the more outlandish rumours claimed that “Aunty” might have been attacked by the collective known as Anonymous.
Some time later, Steve Herrmann, editor of the BBC news website, said in a blog post: “It’s not often we get a message from the BBC’s technical support teams saying, ‘Total outage of all BBC websites’.
“But for getting on for an hour this evening, until just before midnight, that’s what happened. We haven’t yet had a full technical debrief, but it’s clear it was a major network problem.
“We’d like to apologise to everyone who couldn’t get onto the BBC News website during that time.”
The sprawling network of websites, known collectively as BBC Online, launched in 1997. Last year, the BBC said it was investigating after members of the public said they could not access the World Cup and Wimbledon live streaming. Others could not access the site at all – getting a 500 internal server error instead.
In 2009, similar problems appeared to afflict the site. On that occasion, the BBC said it was caused by a network failure that slowed down access to the site and had prevented some people from visiting its home page.
Technology news, comment and analysis | guardian.co.uk
Nintendo 3DS: the essential guide
The 3DS console launches on Friday, bringing glasses-free 3D to the masses. Here’s everything you need to know about Nintendo’s latest mini marvel
When historians of the future look back on the emergence of 3D home entertainment, they may well point out Nintendo’s new handheld console as the minute it all went mainstream. Revealed amid much hype and fanfare at last year’s E3 event in Los Angeles, the Nintendo 3DS has become one of the most hotly anticipated games machines in history, attracting more than 100,000 pre-orders in the UK alone.
But what is glasses-free 3D actually like, and what else does this chunky box of tricks have to offer? Should you be rushing out on Friday (or midnight on Thursday if you’re especially committed) to buy your own?
Well, let’s flip one open and have a darn good look…
The hardware
There’s no getting away from it – boasting a diminutive dual-screen clamshell design and a handy stylus for the touch-sensitive lower display, the Nintendo 3DS looks an awful lot like the Nintendo DS. It’s slightly heavier and a bit smaller than the DSi and has a rather tacky gloss finish, which makes it look even more toy-like, but this is very much yanked from the same mould as the manufacturer’s previous handheld series.
Inside, there are some important changes to the controller set-up. On the left of the bottom screen is the new analogue thumb pad, which slides pleasingly around, providing a greater array of movements than the old cross-shaped DS d-pad. This works especially well with games that offer a full 360 degrees of movement, like the flight sim Pilotwings Resort. Also, just in case you need it, the 3DS does have a d-pad, too – though it is tiny and a bit awkward for those of us with thumbs like Glamorgan sausages.
On the right are the usual Y, X, B and A buttons for gaming, while other functions like Select and Start have been moved under the screen along with a new Home button, which returns you to the 3DS main menu, pausing your game or application while you’re there. The whole system handles a lot more like the PS3 XMB or Xbox 360 menu – or indeed, a smartphone – and it’s clearly an attempt to make the 3DS feel more grown-up and multi-functional.
Around the sides, you’ll find an SD card slot (perfect for saving photos, music and other stuff), a slot for game carts (it’ll play both 3DS and DS titles), a stylus port for the system’s neat telescopic pointer, two really small shoulder buttons and a headphones socket. On the right side of the upper screen there’s a slider control, allowing users to adjust the intensity of the 3D effect – you can move it all the way down to 2D if you fancy, which is handy if you DO start suffering from stereoscopic sickness, or if you want to hand it over to your kids to play (Nintendo recommends that children under six do not play 3D titles.)
The technology
There’s not a huge amount of information available about the tech specs of the 3DS, though it uses an ARM processor (just like most smartphones and Sony’s forthcoming NGP console) and features a motion sensor and gyroscope for movement controls. The 3.5-inch top screen offers a resolution of 800 x 240, but because of the way the 3D technology works, it’s actually 400 x 240 twice: each scene is rendered two times – one for each eye.
The 3DS employs a parallax barrier set-up, which consists of an LCD display overlaid by a film lined with precise slits – these direct slightly different images to the left and right eye. You need to hold the device directly in front of your face, at comfortable reading height, to get the most out of the effect. While it copes with the odd jerk of a moving bus or train, shifting less than a centimetre out of the sweet spot can be enough to make the image to go flat and blurry – especially with games that use a larger depth of field like Pilot Wings.
When it’s all lined up correctly, however, the stereoscopic visuals are immediately obvious, and can be rather magical. In Ridge Racer, helicopters and airplanes zoom overhead with convincing height and speed, while in Nintendogs, the animals tumble up and paw the screen, almost nodding their furry little heads out of it. We’ve also enjoyed the new behind-the-shoulder view in Street Fighter 4 3DS, which gets you right into the blood, sweat and hadoukens.
Right now, most games are more comfortably geared toward ‘concave’ 3D, where the stereoscopic effect extends into the screen, rather than thrusting objects beyond it, but we’ll see how it goes. Finally, although some players have complained of sore eyes and headaches after prolonged sessions, it’s not something we’ve encountered – taking a break very half hour or so seems a sensible precaution.
The camera
The 3DS features an inward-facing camera and two outward-facing lenses so that it can capture stereoscopic pictures – all in a not-very-impressive 0.3 megapixel resolution (but then, you’re not coming to a Nintendo console for those gorgeous arty sunsets). The 3D photos are a lot of fun, closely resembling the images on an old Viewmaster – that is, objects look like variously placed cardboard cut-outs. It’s a quaint effect, spoiled only by the fact that you can only share the images by gathering everyone around your console (or giving them to another 3DS owner on an SD card, I suppose).
There’s also a range of special effects including Sparkle, which adds a flowery stardust effect to photos when you blow into the mic (seriously) and Merge, which takes a photo of one person using the inside camera and another person on the outside camera and than ‘merges’ the result into one new person … great for couples considering starting a family. As with the DS, it’s also possible to customise photos you’ve already taken with lots of silly items. There’s no video facility yet, but it could well come in a software update.
The connectivity
The 3DS features built-in Wi-Fi, allowing users to connect to the internet from any nearby hotspot or wireless router. As with the Nintendo DS, there will be an online store – or eShop – where players can buy downloadable games. A new version of the Wii’s Virtual Console provides access to retro Game Boy and Game Boy Color classics, which should please old school Nintendo fans.
The 3DS can also play downloadable DsiWare titles, and you’ll be able to transfer games you’ve already bought from the DsiWare shop onto your new 3DS. There’s no web browser yet, but one is due later this year based on the Access Netfront platform. Apparently, you’ll be able to access it mid-game, pausing the action to check the footie scores (or an online game cheat, you sneaky thing), before going back in.
There are two neat little communication extras. ‘Spot Pass’ automatically connects the console to any nearby hotspot, allowing it to download game data, firmware updates and other extras, even when it’s in sleep mode and tucked in your pocket. ‘Street Pass’ constantly looks for nearby 3DS owners and will then exchange game items, high scores and Mii avatars with their machines. Several games are set to support the Street Pass function: Street Fighter IV, for example, provides each player with a small set of digital figurines – when you pass another SF IV owner, your figures fight each other and the winner gets an addition to their collection. It’s Pokemon meets conkers.
This is fascinating stuff, potentially turning any walk down the shops into an item-swapping, high-score-comparing bonanza.
The games
There are 13 titles set for the UK launch day:
Pilotwings Resort
Nintendogs + Cats: (Golden Retriever, French Bulldog and Toy Poodle editions)
Super Street Fighter IV: 3D Edition
The Sims 3
Pro Evolution Soccer 2011 3D
LEGO Star Wars III: The Clone Wars
Ridge Racer 3D
Super Monkey Ball 3D
Samurai Warriors: Chronicles
Asphalt 3D
Tom Clancy’s Ghost Recon: Shadow Wars
Tom Clancy’s Splinter Cell 3D
Rayman 3D
As you can see, the only first-party Nintendo titles are Pilotwings Resort and Nintendogs + Cats (US gamers are also getting the submarine game, Steel Diver – no idea why Europeans are being left out). The highlights from the third-party range are PES, Ridge Racer and Super Street Fighter IV 3DS. We’ll have a look through the launch games tomorrow, and Friday will see a selection of the most anticipated titles from later in the year.
The console also comes pre-loaded with a range of mini-games and apps. Face Raiders is a rather basic augmented reality shooter that takes your photo and then gets you to blast at flying representations of your own face which appear to zoom around your room – a sort of nightmarish LSD trip rendered into a light-hearted camera game. There’s also Mii Maker, which lets you, erm, make Mii avatars to put into your 3DS games (though you can also import a Mii from your Wii, via an SD card). Then there’s Mii Plaza, a little hub that displays all the Miis you’ve met via the Street Pass feature, and a collection of little AR games that work with the six cards included with your console. Simple select a card, point your 3DS camera at it, and a game erupts into action before your very eyes. It’s basic stuff, but it hints at what developers might be able to do when they start exploring the technology.
Oh and when in sleep mode, the 3DS acts as a pedometer, which (like a similar feature in Pokemon HeartGold/SoulSilver) provides virtual coins when you reach certain distances. These coins can then be used to buy items in compatible games. You see, says Nintendo, we’re encouraging people to get fit! By gaming!
The entertainment
Alongside 3D games, Nintendo’s console will also be able to play 3D movies – though the details here are rather sketchy. At the European 3DS launch event last month, the company mentioned that Eurosport would be providing downloadable sports content, and that Sky would be bringing some 3D clips to the platform. Aardman Animation, the creator of Wallace & Gromit, also revealed that it would be releasing a new series of one-minute Shaun the Sheep animations for the console. Warner Bros, Disney and DreamWorks have all signed up to bring 3D movies over to the system, though no timeframe has been announced. In the US, the 3DS will also stream videos from the Netflix online movie rental service – no UK equivalent has been revealed as yet.
The batteries
Nintendo estimates that you’ll get three to five hours of play out of a single battery charge – though most players, including us, are finding the longevity to be at the lower end of that scale when 3D is turned right up. It’s not great, but then, the poor machine is rendering the same scene twice at many frames a second. If you’re playing Nintendo DS titles you can expect much more gaming time for your buck.
The price
The suggested retail price is £229.99, but you’ll find much cheaper prices if you shop around. Most of the big supermarkets will be selling it at £200, with special offers chucked in – Tesco, for example, is slinging in one 3DS game for £10 to customers who pre-order the device. HMV and Game also have a range of trade-in deals, offering a reduced price 3DS in return for your old DS, PSP or console.
Technology news, comment and analysis | guardian.co.uk
IE9 launches as Firefox and Chrome close gap
IE9 promises faster performance, HTML5 compatibility and enhanced privacy – but rival browsers and lack of XP compatibility may hinder takeup
Microsoft has launched IE9, the newest version of its web browser which it hopes will be able to rebuild market share lost to rivals such as Firefox and Google’s Chrome.
The program is available for download now.
However, IE9 will not be available for the millions of people still using Windows XP – which includes a very substantial number in the Far East who will have pirated copies of XP and are likely to be using outdated copies of IE6, which Microsoft is publicly asking people to stop using.
Windows XP is still the most widely used version of Windows, according to browser metrics data which suggests that it makes up 41% of machines accessing a variety of web pages, compared to 26% for Windows 7 and 14.5% for Vista – though their combined share is very slightly higher than that of XP.
IE9 only works on the newer Windows Vista and Windows 7. It marks Microsoft’s latest effort to reverse the trend in which users who download specific browsers, rather than using the defaults which come on their machines, are choosing the Mozilla and Google rivals, which now between them have more than 25% of browser market share according to NetMarketshare, which puts the newer IE8 at just under 35%, with IE6 on 11.3% and the now-deprecated IE7 on 8%. Apple’s Safari has just under 4%, which “other” browsers make up 15%; a number of those will re-use the layout engine of Internet Explorer on a PC.
Among the aspects that Microsoft is touting in the new browser are increased speed by using hardware acceleration from graphics cards, enhanced privacy via an anti-tracking feature, HTML5 and CSS3 support and faster Javascript performance: tests against WebKit’s SunSpider suggest it is now as fast as Chrome or Firefox.
The HTML5 support, along with a declararation earlier by Microsoft that it will not be including support for Google’s WebM video codec, seems to imply that Microsoft was aligning itself with Apple by backing the H.264 codec for video playback in HTML5.
A number of UK sites have worked with Microsoft to offer content that will be showcased in IE9, including the British Fashion Council, ESPN, Film4oD and Sky News. National Rail had built an HTML5 journey planner and departure board application which runs off the pinned icon on the taskbar.
In its beta phase IE9 was downloaded 40m times, and shows has having a 2% share on Windows 7 machines.
The company said ahead of the launch that IE9 does not include a security flaw from IE8 that was exploited at the recent Pwn2Own hacker conference, which allowed “remote code execution” – in effect, letting the user’s machine be taken over.
However Which? magazine says that users should be wary of the anti-tracking system, called Tracking Protection Lists (TPPLs), which blocks content, such as Flash cookies, web beacons (tiny 1×1 pixel “images” that link back to a server) and images, from tracking web browsing behaviour.
Which? found a flaw: “when a user has downloaded multiple TPLs, all of the rules from all of the TPLs are grouped together into a single list where an ‘allow’ takes precedence over a ‘block’. For example, a consumer may choose to install two TPLs: one by EasyList and one by TRUSTe. The EasyList TPL might ‘block’ web beacons, whereas the TRUSTe TPL might ‘allow’ them. In this case, the web beacons would be ‘allowed’.”
Dr Rob Reid, a senior Which? policy adviser, said: “We’re disappointed with the way these lists work, and feel consumers who install multiple lists could be left with a false sense of security.”
Meanwhile, Firefox is working through a series of betas of version 4, and earlier this month made the first “release candidate” available for download for Windows, Mac and Linux – and will be available for Windows XP.
Technology news, comment and analysis | guardian.co.uk
Spotify hits 1m paying users
Online music service says 15% of its active users are now paying customers
Spotify has reached 1 million paying customers, making the online music service the largest of its kind in the world.
The company announced on Tuesday that 15% of its active users pay for Spotify, marking a significant milestone for music streaming sites.
Spotify is in the process of a 0m funding round that values it at bn (£616m) – despite long delays on its expansion to the US.
Daniel Ek, Spotify’s co-founder and chief executive, told the Financial Times: “For any kind of ‘freemium’ business, that is a really, really good number. It’s safe to say we are growing up. We are still a toddler, but we are growing faster and faster every day.”
Almost 6 million music fans use Spotify’s free service, which is subsidised by advertising, with 1 million paying subscribers. The loss-making company was previously thought to have tempted less than 10% of its users to pay, with analysts predicting a bleak future of Europe’s favourite digital streaming site.
The four major music labels – Universal, Warner Music, Sony and EMI – are also thought to have been unconvinced by the startup’s stateside ambitions.
However, with an impressive ratio of paying customers and talk of a sky-high round of funding, Spotify’s long-awaited launch in the US may not be too far away. Both EMI and Sony are understood to have put pen to paper on US deals with Spotify, with the two largest labels yet to fully commit.
In the US, potential competitors include Rhapsody – which recently signed up its 750,000th paying customer – and smaller services such as MOG and Rdio. Bigger players Apple and Google are thought to be lining up forays into music streaming within the next 12 months.
The most recent audited annual accounts for Spotify, for 2009, show it lost £16.6m in the UK on revenues of £11.3m.
“It seems like only yesterday we were hatching ideas for a new music service in a tiny office-cum-apartment with a broken coffee machine, and the party we threw having reached 1 million users almost two years ago today was one to remember,” Ek wrote on the company’s blog on Tuesday.
“From everyone at Spotify, we’d like to give you all massive thanks. We’ll continue to focus on providing you with the best music service possible, and look forward to adding even more cool new features over the coming months. What’s really exciting is that this is only the beginning.”
