It's the holidays, so you know what that means: time for feuding, fighting, and battling for customers. Twitter and Instagram duke it out to be the service you send your holiday photos through, Apple and Samsung battle to be the most gifted, and more in this week's mobile news wrap.

The holiday season is one that brings thoughts of joy and giving shared among friends and family. That is, until you finally gather with your relatives and feuds get re-sparked and arguments break out between the opening of gifts. It’s out of love, of course, but there’s significantly less love when major companies get to feuding. Competing for customers, users, and sales, the holidays are the perfect time for mobile’s biggest makers to make a move for more loyal consumers. More on the fighting later, along with other stories like rumors for next year, Google Maps’ return to iOS, and more from the week of December 10-15, 2012. 

Holiday shopping is in full swing

We’re under two weeks away from the biggest gift-giving holiday of the season, which means you probably still have the majority of shopping to do. If you’d like to contribute to the companies that seem to be topping the sales chart this year, make sure you give your money to Apple or Samsung. Interestingly, if you want to give the gift your loved one probably wants, you’ll go with an iPhone. If you give what most people are giving, though, you’ll go with an Android device. Apple will probably spin that in to an argument that patent infringement is clearly costing them, rather than focus on the imposing price tag of their device. Let’s just hope it makes its finger pointing seasonal by doing it with holly and mistletoe.

Google Maps finds quickest route back to iOS

Doing some traveling this holiday season? Rejoice at the return of Google Maps on iOS to get you to your destination. Apple has made an effort to fix the problems of its often criticized Maps app, but it’s hard to update your app with a feature like, “Now no longer strands you in remote locations!” Taking a look at Google Maps on its own shows just how much work Google has put into improving the traveling tool. Putting it side-by-side with Apple’s homemade cartography project will create a stark comparison for you. We’re waiting for the first horror film that starts with a group of teens led astray by Apple Maps to a remote location where they are eventually greeted by a masked murderer.

Rumors all around

What good do rumors do aside from giving us something to talk about? Well it fills up this paragraph, for whatever that may be worth. There are always new devices coming out and others in development, but three of the current prospective portables being discussed already have current models on the market. One can never discount the idea that Apple has something shaping up at all times, and that appears to be the case now. An iPhone 5S could be on its way as soon as June of 2013, because why let people enjoy the iPhone 5 for too long? Keep it fresh! Same goes for the iPad, which will have its 5th version in under three years according to reports. Not to be left out, the iPad Mini will get a refresh as well. Samsung is Apple’s biggest competitor at the moment, so they’ve gotta keep up with the updates. First among them may be the huge Galaxy Note, will have its third installment in two years and will have a 6.3-inch screen. Samsung is apparently attempting to capture the NBA centers and power forwards market with this move.

Texting turns 20, goes through reckless years

Texting turned 20 last week, which means a couple things. First, it means that this time next year, all of our texts are going to be completely nonsensical because texting will be like bar-hopping. Secondly, it means we’ve seen a technology that has been around for two decades, which is well beyond the lifespan of many other things that have come and gone in that time. We don’t think texting is going anywhere any time soon, either. Studies are showing that people who walk while texting aren’t going anywhere good. You’re just as likely to connect with a street sign as you are with the person you’re texting if you walk and type. Keep your head up so we’ve still got people texting for the next decades to come.

Feuding over Filters

Apple and Samsung are fighting for sales and to push out updates, but the biggest feud of this past week came when Instagram discontinued its friendly relationship with Twitter. Photos from the filtered picture service will no longer show up when used on Twitter, the platform that helped make Instagram so popular in the first place. Twitter got its hands on its own set of filters and will be instituting its answer to Instagram since the two will no longer play nicely. Who would have thought that pictures with a slight tint on them would become such a battleground?

Will the concept of "good-enough" computing be relevant in the future? Or will it vanish as new technologies – and possibilities – arrive?

It’s no secret that worldwide computer sales have been on the decline, and one of the most recognized reasons for this slide is the rise of “good-enough” computing. The Good Enough revolution rode on the popularity of netbooks, making its real debut into tech culture around 2009 when a roster of publications – including Wired, The Economist, Fortune, and PC World – published articles hailing “good enough” as the future of computing. These renowned publications argued that, if given the chance, people would be happy to abandon the breakneck pace of a computer’s upgrade cycle.

There’s reason to believe today’s home computers have reached a plateau. The average home doesn’t need a new quad-core processor to run Word and check email, suggesting that today’s PCs are as powerful as they’ll ever need to be. Is this the permanent state of computing? Or has the hardware simply out-paced innovation?

The interface of the future demands horsepower

The interface you use when you sit in front of your PC today isn’t fundamentally different from that used two decades ago. It’s a two-dimensional graphical user interface (GUI) that relies on fine manipulation of different elements. Recent innovation has replaced the keyboard and mouse with touch, which is only half of a step in a new direction; use of a 2D GUI is still standard.

We’re just now beginning to see the possibilities beyond a standard GUI. They exist in technology like Microsoft’s Kinect, which can recognize gestures and voice as input. Gesture and voice are both rudimentary implementations that can only interact with users in limited ways, but the possibilities only require imagination. The days of computers being used at a desktop may be coming to an end.

But these new technologies need power. The Kinect’s task, simple though it may be, was demanding enough to require the use of a separate processor inside the Kinect rather than the hardware already in the Xbox 360. Even so, it can only handle a small number of inputs in limited situations, and its tracking is not perfect. In fact, motion tracking is a serious computing problem. A computer that’s tracking motion is taking images of an area and using algorithms to compare them and then determine where motion has occurred. Higher precision requires better images and more complex algorithms, both of which need more power. That’s tough enough as it is, but to be appealing, a future gesture-based interface would need to detect motion in three dimensions, which, of course, only increases the power needed.

We’re still years away from gesture-based input becoming a common computing interface, but it’s already being researched by some of the world’s largest tech companies. The only question is how quickly it can be made practical for home PCs.

What are the system requirements of the holodeck?

Virtual reality has been the holy grail of geeks for decades. It’s agreed to be an awesome concept, though, like flying cars and truly intelligent AI, it’s still found in fiction more often than life. VR systems exist, but most of them are expensive simulators far outside the average person’s budget. Plus, the quality of the experience isn’t on par with the life-like virtual worlds found in sci-fi films and shows.

VR differs from flying cars, however, because its only obstacle is technology. Recreating reality – even an approximation of it – needs some form of immersive display paired with advanced inputs (like the motion-tracking we’ve already discussed). Both demand incredible computing power. Even modern 3D graphics are a long way from providing the realism that VR demands.

Of course, innovation in this area won’t impact computing if it never reaches the consumer market; but there’s reason to believe it will. Microsoft has submitted a patent application for a 360-degree projector that can be used alongside a television to create a simple virtual environment. Oculus is working on the Rift, a Kickstarter-supported VR headset. And Google is working on a pair of augmented-reality glasses that are small and light enough to wear every day.

None of these technologies are full virtual reality, but they’re an indication that technology is finally mature enough to support exploration of basic mass-market VR. Once we head down this path, we’ll find that computing power will be one of two major obstacles (the other being display technology) between us and even-more-realistic VR. Good-enough computing will only be relevant when humans have literally recreated reality.

Not good enough for tomorrow

It’s not hard to see today’s computers as good-enough if your perspective is tied to their capabilities. Obviously, they’re more than capable of handling today’s tasks. What’s in contention is the assumption that today’s tasks are all computers will ever handle.

I don’t think that’s the case. Today’s home computer will eventually be replaced by a home that is a computer. It will be able to activate pre-programmed functions when you come home from work. It will let you navigate a recipe book via gestures while you’re cooking. It will envelope you in 360-degree entertainment and games. The possibilities are endless and exciting. 

This future relies on the evolution of technology that’s available today. Refining all of these elements into a complete vision, however, requires computing power and efficiency far beyond what’s available in the today’s consumer PCs. Plateaus are often large, but they’re not infinite – and this one is only the base of the next summit. 

The new year calls for a new and awesome way to play your 2013 tunes. Lucky for you, we're giving away the DIY Berlin Boombox from Firebox for your listening pleasure.

Building your own speaker may sound like an impossible feat, but not with the Berlin Boombox from Firebox. For Day 5 of DT’s “Better Than Socks” Holiday Giveaway, we’re offering up a DIY stereo that can be used to play any device with a 3.5mm audio input.

Made of industrial strength recycled cardboard, the Berlin Boombox comes flat-packed, making it portable and easy to ship. All the pieces are precut, and all you have to do is put the pieces together – no glue or tools required. If you’d rather give this black and white stereo a little flavor, take out your art supplies before assembling it and do your thing. You’ll be the only one on the block with your own personalized ghetto blaster. 

The Berlin Boombox features two 5W integrated amplifiers, two speakers, a headphone jack, and a volume knob so you can pump up the jams. Weighing less than two pounds, you can easily carry this boombox on your shoulder and strut your stuff. It comes with three AA batteries, but we have a feeling you may need a few backups on hand due to excessive rockin’. No word on whether or not it goes to 11. 

Interested in winning the Berlin Boombox? Just tell us your go-to karaoke song in the comments below. The contest ends Saturday, December 22, and we’ll notify the winner the following day.

If the Berlin Boombox isn’t your jam, check out the rest of DT’s “Better Than Socks” Holiday Giveaways all month long.

Good luck!

On Friday, AT&T announced that its Motorola Atrix HD will be updated to Android 4.1 Jelly Bean.

As 2012 comes to an end, Jelly Bean is on a rampage. In a slew of recent announcements concerning Android 4.1, Motorola’s Atrix HD has just been upgraded to Google’s most recent version of its mobile operating system.

On Friday, AT&T announced that the Motorola handset would be one many to get the Jelly Bean update as of late. This over-the-air update will bring features such as Google Now and Android beam to the 4.5-inch smartphone. It’s also worth noting that this is AT&T’s fourth device to operate on Android 4.1 Jelly Bean. Other gadgets that preceded it in getting the update include HTC’s One X +, Samsung’s Galaxy Note 2 and Galaxy S3. Jelly Bean is expected to arrive on smartphones such as the original HTC One X and LG Optimus G soon, but no launch window has been specified.

In addition to the features mentioned above, Jelly Bean brings a variety of enhancements such as a fresh, buttery smooth user interface, an improved camera app and a refreshed notification center among other additions.

Google officially announced its Jelly Bean operating system its I/O developers conference back in June. The update has been rolling out fairly slowly since then, but has seen a significant surge toward the end of the year. Verizon’s version of the Samsung Galaxy S3 was also upgraded to Android 4.1 today, and the AT&T variant saw the upgrade last week.

While many devices have been patiently waiting for Android 4.1, the search engine giant unveiled the second-generation of Jelly Bean last month: Android 4.2. This expanded and updated version of Jelly Bean saw its debut with Google’s Nexus 4 handset and Nexus 10 tablet, but was met with some harsh criticisms upon release.

The Android-loving world is still focused on Jelly Bean, but rumors about the next iteration of the mobile software have already begun to surface. Android’s next treat-themed operating system, believed to be called Android 5.0, is likely to be named Key Lime Pie.

Earlier this month a Google executive posted a cartoon to his Google+ profile that illustrated each generation of Android. The last image in the line depicted the loveable Android mascot holding a slice of Key Lime Pie, sparking speculation that Android 5.0 could be in the works. Before Google unveils “Key Lime Pie,” however, it should focus on launching Android Jelly Bean for all of its existing devices. 

This week in Jetsetter we head to Iceland, the United Kingdom and India for discussion of MMOs, Windows 8, and the complete end of reality. Just the end of the world again in Digital Trends' look at international gaming.

Welcome once again to Jetsetter, Digital Trends weekly jaunt across the wide world of video games. We cover the video game industry daily here at Digital Trends, but Jetsetter is devoted to looking beyond the biggest video game market on Earth. Weird Korean imports, Turkish MMOs, Indian-developed mobile games released in the Kenyan market, Pakistani pricing of FIFA 13—these topics and more are our bread and butter.

It was a busy week. Czech developer Bohemia Interactive was forced to delay ArmA 3 into 2013, Nintendo of Europe explained that German laws were restricting Wii U eShop sales, and Finnish studio Rovio celebrated three successful years of Angry Birds. Now let’s move onto Iceland, the UK, and India.

* EVE Online grows to 450,000 subscribers.

Iceland’s CCP Games have carved out an impenetrable and fascinating corner of the massively multiplayer online gaming world over the past ten years. Since opening EVE Online in 2003, the game’s never ascended to A-list World of Warcraft success (or even C-list Lord of the Rings Online success), but it hasn’t needed to. The game’s kept both the studio and its cultish, obsessed audience enraptured. The game’s simulated galaxy has a rich, functioning economy that’s more stable than most real world economies, and it still manages to play host to stellar intrigue. CCP Games announced this week that the game now has 450,000 players. That’s a fraction of most MMOs, but most MMOs don’t require players to make spreadsheets. This milestone came two weeks after EVE Online was added to the MoMA’s first collection of video games.

* Microsoft lifts Windows Store ban on 18+ rated games.

Prior to Windows 8’s release in October, Digital Trends reported on how Microsoft was going to have some trouble convincing developers to bring their games to the platform’s store. At the time, the Windows Store blocked the sale of 18+ rated games in the UK, meaning titles like Heavy Rain and Grand Theft Auto with PEGI 18 ratings would be unavailable even to adults. Microsoft has unsurprisingly rolled back the restriction, announcing its commitment to Windows Store gaming on its blog. “In welcoming PEGI 18 games into the Store, we again reinforce two principles—flexibility and confidence—fundamental to the Windows Store,” reads the post, “We recognize that people have come to expect and appreciate rich gaming experiences on Windows and this includes games rated PEGI 18.” Will this mean people will stop using Steam as their primary digital distribution platform on PC? Will it mean that more gamers will use Windows 8 in the UK? No. No it doesn’t.

* Indian games retailer gets into the season’s spirit with End of the World sale.

NextWorld.in, an online video game retailer serving India, is embracing the spirit this December. The spirit of Quetzcoatl and the birth of the fifth sun that is! Rather than a Christmas or other holiday theme, NextWorld is celebrating the end of the world due on Dec. 21 when the Mayan calendar runs out. If you’re a gamer in India and you don’t want to pay an outrageous price on FIFA 13, pick it up now!

The flexible smartphone screen may soon lose its science fiction status and become science fact, as Samsung and LG work hard on a new technology which could change the face of smartphone design in 2013.

Could 2013 bring with it one of the biggest revolutions in mobile phone design since the advent of the touchscreen? If the growing rumors surrounding flexible displays are true, and that one of the major manufacturers will release a device with a bendable screen next year, then yes, we could see the start of a huge trend. While flexible smartphone screens will be new to most of us, the technology has been around for some time, and is already in several devices; you just may not realize it.

A decade of hype

Reports of companies developing flexible displays date back more than a decade, with a startup named Universal Display being linked with their development in 2002. Universal Display is now at the forefront of research into OLED screen technology and the creator of the panels used in Samsung’s Galaxy S2 and S3 smartphones. At the time, Universal Display’s CFO described flexible displays as, “sci-fi stuff;” however, despite ties with Samsung, it was Philips and Sony who both demonstrated the potential of flexible screens a few years later.

Philips effort was a monochrome, rollable E-Ink screen on a device named the Readius, which was shown off at CES 2006. A year or so later, Sony demonstrated a 2.5-inch flexible color screen, which it claimed was the first of its type in the world. Since then, different interpretations of these basic ideas have appeared on some interesting, low volume products. Most notably Seiko’s Spectrum SVRD001 watch, which used a flexible E-Ink screen, and a moderately flexible E-Ink section took pride and place on Esquire magazine’s October 2008 cover.

Non-rigid E-Ink displays have gone on to be featured on many e-readers, including the Amazon Kindle, but because the rest of the components aren’t flexible, you’d never know. An offshoot of this technology is LG’s Electronic Paper Displays or EPD, as shown recently on the Wexler Flex ONE e-reader. LG’s EPD screens are higher resolution than most standard E-Ink displays, plus they’re lighter, thinner and more bendy too.

Flexible OLED panels for smartphones

As versatile as E-Ink and EPD screens are, they’re not really suitable for use on smartphones. There are many reasons for this. Most obvious is that the response times are too slow, meaning they can’t display video, and they don’t handle color very well. Cost is a prohibitive factor too. For flexible screens on our phones, we need to return to Universal Display’s OLED technology.

Flexible OLED displays are light, thin, very flexible, and crucially, don’t need to be covered in glass, so they can be flexed and twisted to your heart’s content. They also perform in a very similar way to existing AMOLED screens. Because there’s no glass layer, there is nothing to break, making them considerably more durable that today’s glass-covered screens. Exactly how tough are flexible OLED screens? Tough enough to be abused with a hammer and still operate as normal.

However, just because the OLED screens don’t need to be covered in glass, doesn’t mean we’ll want them that way. Not only is plastic easily scratched and scuffed, but it’s not as pleasant to slide your finger across as glass. This is where Corning, makers of Gorilla Glass, comes in with its new Willow Glass. This incredibly thin, strong and flexible glass sheet has been expressly designed for use with non-rigid OLED displays, solving the inherent problems of a plastic touchscreen.

Fresh smartphone designs with unbreakable screens

So, let’s take a moment to think about how flexible OLED displays with Corning glass will be marketed to both manufacturers and to the consumer. Manufacturers will like them because they provide the opportunity to come up with new and interesting designs, plus their thinness means devices can be skinnier, and it’s expected the production costs will be low. For you and me, a device with a display that could realistically be called unbreakable is a huge benefit. Overall, just think of flexible OLED screens as thinner, lighter, and more durable than their rigid counterparts.

As different form factors are explored, other opportunities to exploit bendable screens will arise. Nokia created a prototype device with a flexible display and a kinetic user interface, where twisting and bending the phone resulted in actions similar to gesture controls on a touchscreen. Nokia has had a long history of experimenting with flexible smartphone screens, just take a look at its stunning Morph prototype from several years ago.

Expect curvy, but fixed position, flexible screens soon.

However, before you start imagining 2013 as a crazy year of flippity floppety, bendy smartphone designs, we must rain on your parade. The problem is going to be all of the other very stiff hardware needed to make a phone. There has been some research into making flexible memory sticks and batteries, but none of these technologies are close to being mainstream, so phones incorporating flexible screens will be fixed in position for a start. While this isn’t quite the sci-fi dream, it still provides plenty of opportunity for manufacturers to have fun with the design of their phones.

Smartphone design has stagnated over the past few years, but twisty screens could mean a resurgence in creativity when it comes to how they’re used. No longer will the rectangular screen be standard, as screens could curve all the way round the chassis – creating a true edge-to-edge display – as well as providing yet more opportunity for different control methods. Ergonomically shaped phones which incorporate the screen as well as the chassis could become more common.

As the technology continues to advance and we start to get flexible innards too, then we’ll get the super-thin displays that can be rolled up – harking back to Philips Readius – or collapsed down to a more manageable size, much like Nokia’s Morph.

Samsung and LG set to share the glory

Samsung is probably going to be the first manufacturer to release a phone with a flexible display in 2013, something it has been rumored to do by several sources over the past year. In 2011, a concept phone with the name Samsung Galaxy Skin appeared, which used a flexible display bent around a 1-inch cylinder for storage, giving us a basic idea of what a flexible screen phone could look like. An analyst for UBS has since speculated the next two generations of Galaxy S models, “will have unbreakable and even possibly flexible and foldable displays by 2014.” Samsung’s close association with Universal Display will certainly pay off, should this be the case.

Other rumors aren’t so positive and have indicated Samsung has had problems manufacturing the screens, causing the launch to be delayed until later in 2013. There’s a chance we’ll know more during CES 2013, where Samsung has teased that something innovative and exciting will arrive. Any new branding – the bizarre YOUM name has been linked with its flexy tech in the past – could be introduced alongside a new brand identity.

Arch-rival LG is also pushing forward with flexible OLED technology and has plans to put such screens into production after summer next year. Other companies such as Sony have shown an interest in flexible screens in the past, but haven’t invested in it as highly as Samsung and LG.

So why, aside from the benefits we’ve already discussed, are Samsung and LG so interested in flexible screens? According to UBI Research, next year 20 million flexible AMOLED panels are expected to ship, which will increase to 120 million by 2015, and revenue from them will rise to $1.2 billion. That’s quite an incentive to be among the first on the scene. While revenue is great for manufacturers, for us as consumers it will be the almost inevitable wave of innovative new smartphone designs, which the flexible display panel could prompt, that truly excite.

It appears that ZTE is going to be releasing a new supposed superphone at CES 2013 early next year.  While there has been rumors and whispering of this in the past, it has now been confirmed by event information posted on the press page at CES.

The new phone will be called the ZTE Grand S and will feature a 1080p 5-inch display.  ZTE claims it will be the “world’s thinnest smartphone” in the 5 inch class, which consists of primarily consists of the HTC Droid DNA and several other phones that are on their way in the coming months.

While we have no further information as far as specs go, we would expect nothing less than a quad core chip, at least 1GB of RAM, 16 gigs of storage and an 8 MP camera.  But anything is possible, so we will just have to wait it out until January 8^th 2013.

One thing worth noting is the material used for the ZTE Grand S casing, which is said to be an unusual ceramic. Keep in mind that this is unconfirmed, though.

We will just have to wait and see what the Chinese ZTE comes out with. Does the limited information we have sound appealing to you?

2012 was a tumultuous year for the video game industry, as console sales stagnated, studios consolidated, and players spent more on downloadable games and less on retail. One thing didn't change, though: The US is still the world's biggest game market.

 

According to the Entertainment Software Association, people in the United States spent just shy of $25 billion on video games, gaming hardware, and various accessories in 2011. That’s roughly the game amount of revenue that the entire video game industry generated worldwide back in 2004. 2012’s been a year of upheaval, though. People are spending less on video games at retailers, devoting their time and dollars to cheaper downloadable games on mobile devices and PCs. Have things changed dramatically in the past twelve months?

Despite many significant changes, one thing remains the same at the end of 2012: The United States remains the financial core of video game industry in the western world. A new study compiled by Game Track found that US citizens spend more time playing and more of their income on video games than anyone else.

The study, which surveyed 6000 people in each of five countries and was conducted with the help of Ipsos nMediaCT, found that nearly 70 percent of Americans, around 165 million people, play video games. That’s compared to nearly 50 percent of French citizens (around 29 million people), and just above 30 percent of Germany and UK citizens.

What’s telling is that there isn’t a significant divide between adults and children playing video games in the US.  Game Track’s study looked at breakdowns of devoted gamers. This wasn’t determining what types of games they played, just what format they played on: Online games, mobile games, or packaged games for PC or consoles. While slightly more than 20 percent of children below 18 years old play games consume games in all three venues, just below 20 percent of adults do the same, showing that the core gaming audience in the US isn’t age specific. Hence why it appears to be so lucrative.

Online games are now the dominant force in American gaming overall. While more than 40 percent of those 165 million US gamers play packaged games at this point, nearly 50 percent are focused on online games. Naturally there’s crossover there. Call of Duty: Black Ops 2 is both chiefly a retail packaged game and an online game, but there are far more online-only games playable on PC, through social networks, browsers, and as downloadable titles, than there are retail games released.

What about the rest of the world? Video games are increasingly a global business rather than the purview of a few dominant markets. The Arab gaming market, for example, is expected to grow from $900 million in 2011 to more than $3 billion by 2016. American tastes may define the game industry today but that won’t last forever.

Source: GamesIndustry International

We sit down and speak with Gears of War: Judgment's art director, Chris Perna, about the new look and feel of Gears of War: Judgment.

When players explore Halvo Bay in Gears of War Judgment, they won’t be seeing the destroyed beauty of previous installments. With its earlier timeline — which is set just 30 days after Emergence Day and 15 years prior to the original trilogy — the environments of this world feature museums and homes that have just come under attack. Fans will even be able to see the class structure of Sera as they explore the campaign mode. For a better look at the upcoming game, check out our hands-on preview from earlier this week. 

Although the development is split between Epic Games’ headquarters in North Carolina and the Epic-owned People Can Fly in Warsaw, Poland, art director Chris Perna is the man behind the look and feel of Halvo Bay, as well as the cast of returning younger characters and brand new heroes and villains. Perna talks about what’s new in Gears of War: Judgment in this exclusive interview.

What did going back in time in the Gears universe open up for your art team?

From a visual standpoint it was interesting. We wanted a darker, more brutal take on the Gears universe. We felt we got away from that as the franchise wore on. If you go back to the original Gears of War, it was a darker, grittier time with desaturated colors and a darker pallet. With Gears of War 2 we added some more color and played around with the visuals, the bloom and the lighting and things like that. With Gears of War 3 we added a new global illumination light system and added a lot more color. It has a lighter, more mid-tone feel to it. With Judgment we wanted to make the game a sweaty palms experience again. We made the Locusts scary. While the game’s not necessarily dark in terms of nighttime, it’s darker in tone.

How did having the setting so close to the end of the Pendulum Wars impact the environments?

Gears of War is traditionally destroyed beauty, which is the term that we coined for the architectural style of the franchise. Being so close to E Day we wanted to show you a little bit of that beauty intact and some of its freshly destroyed. You’ll see stuff that’s on fire as it’s just gotten hit. There will be dead bodies and a little bit of blood here and there. Halvo Bay just got hit and you get to see it happening around you.

Can you talk about the class system we see in the Museum and Mansions levels of the campaign?

We just like to set different tones so it’s not a boring romp through the world. You get the gritty museum levels and then you go to the lighter more Beverly Hills-esque mansion area, where the upper crust of Seran (ph) society live. We thought it would be neat to give people a little glimpse into that with manicured lawns and security fences and huge mansions. There are fences and high fancy bushes and shrubs and things like that. It’s a lighter pallet and a little more upper crust and different from the Gears of War you know.

How have advances with Unreal Engine 3 technology opened things up for you creatively?

There are lots of lighting advances and performance enhancements that we’ve done. There are character lighting advancements and shader advancements that have allowed us to add further clarity to our characters and pop them off screen. We enhanced the bloom in this game to give it a little bit of a dreamy feel, which is different than in the other games where it was much harsher. Here it’s a lot softer and it allows for some of the fire play and the fire light to look almost magical in certain areas of the game. We’ve gone over a lot of the older models and updated them. It’s really a crisp experience.

What were the challenges of bringing these characters to life so much younger?

Going back in time was a little bit challenging. With Cole he’s fresh out of Thrashball. He’s an athlete, so we thinned him down and we made his face younger. They’re not as dirty as they were in Gears of War. There aren’t pimples and pox marks and dirt all over them. Baird was a Lieutenant so he’s got his Lieutenant uniform. If you look closely at the insignia on his uniform it’s all COG military hierarchical insignia, so he’s more cropped and primped as a Lieutenant than he was in the Gears of War. I think it works. And then we have Paddock, who’s an ex-UIR guy from before Emergence Day. It was almost like US and Russia kind of thing. UIR was very utilitarian, very heavy military, even more so than the COG, and a little bit higher tech, so we took some of those UIR elements and incorporated them into his armor and shoulder pads. Sophia is a member of the Elite Guard, so she has this real sleek black uniform. We wanted something a little more ninja-like for those guys, a little more stealth. We did the males first and then we retrofitted it to her.

We’ve talked a lot about the human characters, but what’s new for the Locusts?

One of the new Locust characters is General Karn. He’s the conductor of Emergence Day. He’s the guy leading the charge. In the past we’ve had the Locust Queen Mira and Locust General Rom, but this is the precursor to them. There’s a backstory with him. He’s a malformed Theron guard. You’ve got these big guys that were the Queens protectors and he’s that type of guy who wasn’t big enough to fight hand-to-hand or anything, but he just evolved and used his wits as a master planner and master general with military combat. He rides this beast called Shibola and the backstory there is that he found this thing when he was young and feeble and an outcast himself and it had a broken leg. He was smart enough to retrofit it with this kind of tech that allowed it to move and now they’re in a symbiotic relationship. He rides this thing and it’s a crazy boss creature. It’s just really cool.

How did you create the new Rager Locust?

We have this morph technology, where we can take one mesh and turn it into another on-the-fly. The Rager starts out as a withered Locust and he has a gun and a weapon. As he starts to take on damage, he’ll morph and hulk out into this crazy beast that will just come charging at you. If you don’t stop it, he’ll rip you to shreds.

Where did you come up with the Locust Serapede?

I think Lee Perry designed that guy and that was a crazy character. Just trying to make that thing work in AI pathing was a pain, but they got it to work and he had to go over cover. In Gears 3 we tried to come up with ideas that would break cover. We wanted to get a little innovative with the gameplay and that’s where the Lambent came from…things that could over cover or undercover or through cover and get you moving around so you weren’t so safe and covered.

Without there being a Gears of War bible to work with, how do you keep consistency from game to game?

We just look back at the work we’ve done it. We’ve done the three games. The guys here are familiar. There aren’t a lot of new people here. We retain talent. A lot of these guys have worked on Gears 1, 2 and 3, and they know the Gears universe inside and out. For people who haven’t, they’ll get a crash course in the art books and the art meeting folders. We have weekly art meetings. They get the dumps from all the guys who are making models and characters and textures. We look at that stuff every week and it all goes into a folder and that’s our art reference. When a new employee comes in, they’ll take a week or so and just look at the stuff. It’s like a kid in a candy store looking at all this art because it’s all the raw stuff people have never seen.

How do you work when it comes to Poland and North Carolina when it comes to art?

That’s a little bit challenging because of time of day. I have an art director of there, Waylon Brink, who is fantastic. The artists over there are fantastic. They have great character guys, great environment guys, lighters, etc. We have weekly VTCs, video teleconference calls, and we’ll send images back and forth. I thought it was going to be more challenging than it was, but those guys are really good and it’s actually gone pretty smoothly.

If you own a newer Motorola smartphone, chances are you have or will be getting in on the Jelly Bean action.  Motorola had recently promised to offer more timely updates for its devices, and seems to be keeping true to their word.

Lack of updates has been an obvious deficiency for Motorola in the past, but following through with their promise, RAZR M and RAZR/ MAXXHD users recently received a Jelly Bean update.

Now it appears that the Atrix HD will soon follow suit. Motorola’s Android 4.1 update comes with many improvements to include, the speed improving Project Butter, enhanced notifications and Google Now.  Motorola is also adding to the mix Quick Settings, Drive Smart and more.

If you own a Motorola device, click on Software Updates in the Settings > About Phone section and see if an update has dropped for you!

With the holidays two weeks away, we've rounded up just the right Facebook gifting apps to help you find the perfect gift for your friend and family.

Facebook Gifts recently launched worldwide with hundreds of partners in tote and the company is taking a second stab at physical gifting. Starbucks, iTunes and even Charities have been added to the expanding catelogue of physical gifts. But the options are rather limited.  There are expensive chocolates, bags of tea, wine, toys, apparel, and jewelry — but that’s about the end of Facebook’s variety. 

With the holidays just a couple of weeks away, we figured that you may want to check out products from some other Facebook-integrated apps. 

Treater

 

Treater uses Facebook to pull in your contacts and their birthdays. While you can browse its products on the Web app, Treater offers an iOS and Android mobile app. But the type of platform you decide to use really doesn’t make any difference. When you purchase a gift, a notification is sent to the recipient via a Facebook post, and when opened up in a mobile device, the recipient can claim their gift directly from the store.

Treater offers selections from categories including coffee, sweets, drinks, apparel, food, and “Night Out.” You’ll see products from Urban Outfitters, Pinkberry, Kiehls, various participating spas, movie theaters, and other companies. The selection of gifts is rather limited, but affordable. Only the gifts in the category for pampering cost more than $30.

As a warning to those of you shopping for a male friend or family we wouldn’t recommend Treater. Its gifts are best for the ladies in your life.

Gyft

Gyft is a mobile-only app that you can download from the Apple App Store or Google Play that takes a different approach from traditional gifting apps. You won’t find physical products here. Gyft takes the guessing game out of the equation by offering only gift cards. Users can sign in with Facebook, from which the app pulls your contact’s birthdays, and immediately purchase or upload existing gift cards by typing in the card’s number. There are hundreds of participating major retailers to choose from including Amazon, Gap, Fandango, and many others. There’s a slim chance you won’t be able to find a retailer that you’re confident in purchasing a gift card from; most are available. 

If not used for gifting, the app doubles as a personal digital wallet. You can store your gift cards on Gyft and even add your cards to Passbook. But what you might not know is that by adding and storing your gift cards, you can repurpose the credit that you may not have spent to use as a gift for your friend, without the recipient even realizing this. Sending your friends the gift after making the purchase can be done via Facebook, email, and text message. As an added bonus you can choose the date for when digital gift card gets delivered to the recipient.

The app is only available for U.S. users, and offers a $10 gift card as a bonus for new users.

Wrapp

Wrapp, like Gyft, gifts delivers gift cards and uses Facebook to find out your friend’s birthdays and send them gift notifications. But there are a few stark differences between Gyft and Wrapp.

First, unlike Gyft, Wrapp offers a Web-based app that is accessible via desktop. Wrapp does also offer a mobile app for both Android and iOS devices so you can enjoy its benefits and features on the go.

Second, Wrapp has partners globally in eight countries: Germany, Finland, United Kingdom, Netherlands, Norway, Sweden, United States, and Australia. So if your friend lives in any one of these countries, Wrapp is able to find out where they’re living and automatically tailor the location and types gift cards offered by retailers in the respective location. And if friend wasn’t living in those exact locations, the app would find the closest country and recommend gift cards from that location.

Wrapp also offers a digital wallet where you can store gift cards, and there are plenty of bonuses – for example I received $40 worth of gift cards from various retailers like Office Depot and Fab.com just for signing up. But the similarities to Gyft end there. Wrapp users aren’t able to add existing physical gift cards to the wallet, and there isn’t a way for you to purchase gift cards for yourself (for whatever reason that may be). But if you’re into freebies, Wrapp users will find a number of free gift cards that surface as promotions from time to time, although some come with strings attached. 

Wrapp is perfect for sending gift cards that might be slightly tailored for your non-U.S. friends. But the list of Wrapp’s participating retailers in the U.S. pales in comparison to Gyft. So if you’re shopping for an American friend, go with Gyft. 

Shopycat

Shopycat is a gifting Facebook app developed by Walmart Labs, an e-commerce innovation lab nurtured by Walmart. The app sits inside of Facebook, unlike those mentioned above, and it’s the simplest app to use in this roundup. The app recognizes upcoming birthdays among your friends and uses Facebook data to recommend Walmart products that would best fit that Facebook friend. In fact users aren’t able to browse for other types of gifts unless they navigate to Walmart’s website.

The types of products that are recommended aren’t cursory recommendations. Walmart spent $300 million to acquire Kosmix, social-genome startup that built the “Social Genome” techonology, which now powers Shopycat.

Giftivo

If you want an extremely personalized and customizable gift recommendation, look no further than Giftivo. The Web app launched in November 2012, recommends Amazon products. Note that the company doesn’t have a partnership with Amazon. Giftivo requires that you sign up and log in with Facebook, but in this case it’s for a good reason. Giftivo pulls all of your friend’s interests (in other words, Facebook Likes) and displays it on one page. You can even add or delete your friend’s interests to better refine Giftivo’s recommendation algorithm. Then clicking on “Find Gift Suggestions” will aggregate and list hundreds of your Facebook friend’s personalized gift recommendations.

The app works for eight different regions including the U.S., Canada, U.K., Germany, France, Spain, Italy, and Japan, and the recommended gifts change based on the location. But unlike Wrapp, the regions aren’t automatically detected. So if you want to send a gift to someone outside the U.S., you’ll have to manually select the closest region and re-click the “Find Gift Suggestions” button.

Clutch

Clutch, which recently rolled out its iOS app, is trying to be the single mobile destination for everything related to shopping and deals. Despite displaying physical products, the types of gifts that you can purchase for friends are gift cards. Other than that the only way to purchase physical gifts for your friends is if they have downloaded the app and created wish lists. Clutch does, however, provide value in other areas, such as its mobile shopping guide, which is perfect for the holidays.

Initially you won’t have to sign into the app with your Facebook account like the apps above require you to do. But if you want Clutch to store your friends’ birthdays, you’ll be required to sign in with your Facebook account. But before you make another move, we have to warn you that Clutch is not shy to admit that it’s monetizing your data. So anything you do on Clutch, from browsing the app, choosing deals, adding gift cards, all of that will be tracked so retailers can learn about your shopping habits. If you’re OK with the above (and acknowledge that nearly all online retailers are doing the same, admittedly or not), then read on.

Clutch, though fun to use, is rather dizzying to navigate and will be slow to open up new pages. There are so many features packed into one app that it almost masks the app’s potential. In addition to purchasing or storing gift cards, you can search for shopping deals among brands, find local offers, and even compare prices by scanning the product’s barcode. If you’re physically walking near a retail outlet, the app will pop up and recommend a coupon that could be used toward a purchase. If it were up to us, we’d use Clutch exclusively for browsing shopping deals, granted that we’re willing to divulge our shopping habits with unknown retailers. Leave it up to Gyft and Wrap if you’d like to purchase gift cards for friends and family, however. 

Dell has an 18-inch tablet in development, and it could open the door for the same type of “board game” computing we first saw on Microsoft’ Surface table.

Though the company hasn’t said a word about it publicly, Dell has an 18-inch tablet in development that I recently learned about at a company event. I’ll avoid calling it an iPad killer largely because it isn’t. In fact, it isn’t an anything killer, because nothing like it exists to kill. As Apple did with the iPad, Dell is trying to open up an entirely new market with this jumbo-sized tablet. You won’t be using this one to read books or play handheld games – you’ll use it in different ways entirely.

Dell, and other companies looking at this form factor, are likely going to go bigger before they go smaller. Some future Super Tablets may even approach 42-inch TV sizes. Sound familiar? Microsoft Surface covered this territory before anything else, and it was far different than the now popular Surface Tablet. Let’s take a look at where Microsoft’s innovative proto-tablet left off, and where the Super Tablet category may pick up.

Windows 8 magic

Now that Windows 8 has arrived, the move to a true touch-based OS is causing people to think differently about hardware. These super-sized tablets are only one of what will likely be stream of ever more creative touch hardware. Like every new OS, manufacturers initially try to fit it in existing form factors, and discover over time that other forms will work better. The best initial example of a fresh form factor was actually the Surface Tablet, which blended smartphone features like a kickstand and keyboard accessory with the existing tablet form factor, but with a laptop-like panoramic screen. It is a blend of technologies that likely wouldn’t have existed if it hadn’t been for Windows 8.

Windows 8 is getting people to think of things differently, and that means the limits of traditional forms and sizes will increasingly be tested.

Surface Table

One of the most interesting products that few people ever got to try was Microsoft’s Surface table. At one AMD event, I had the opportunity to sit and play with one for most of an evening, and became so enamored with it I actually tried to buy one several times. Unfortunately, I could never find the right mix of Samsung and Microsoft executives to take my money, so that desire was never met.

The Surface was uniquely fun because you played on it flat. It’s like playing a board game with multiple people, but where the game is actually a video game, so you can blend animation with traditional board-game features to make it more fun. Kind of like that chess game in Star Wars, but you could also play games made specifically for the medium. My favorite was a strategy game where you placed weapons to destroy aliens (the green kind) who were invading your solar system. I found this game addictive enough to want to pay $7,000 for the table.

Super Tablet

This is the area that these Super Tablets will explore. They are more than a portable all-in-one computer, they are a way to experience a display as you would a board game. This approach is not only better for group gaming, but better for virtual puzzles and drawing where your surface – no pun intended – functions more like a large piece of canvas.

Of course, that’s not where the possibilities end. It could also be better used to keep track of a game while sitting with your spouse who is watching one of “their” movies (you know what I mean), or by said spouse playing a social game while they pretend to watch one of your action flicks (my wife never does this). If a 10-inch iPad was OK for this second-screen experience, an 18-inch or larger lap-sized display will be even better. This size would also excel for streaming video when you’re traveling and want to watch TV as a group.

In short, Super Tablets may herald the return of the portable TV, but one that is both far more portable than the old CRT-based sets, potentially has a larger screen, and is far more useful (add a keyboard and you have a good-sized all-in-one).

Trying for the next amazing thing

I think we are all waiting for that next Amazing thing and with Steve Jobs gone it appears less and less likely that Apple will be stepping up. This opens the door for other firms to try to find the magic and a larger tablet has a huge potential to be that next thing if content, like that game I mentioned, can be found to make it as magical as the iPad initially was. Whether or not this product achieves that magic the more companies that try to find that magic product the more likely will get something amazing and I live for amazing products. And I’m still waiting to play that damned strategy game so if it doesn’t show up on this 18” tablet I’m going to be royally pissed.

Guest contributor Rob Enderle is the founder and principal analyst for the Enderle Group, and one of the most frequently quoted tech pundits in the world. Opinion pieces denote the opinions of the author, and do not necessarily represent the views of Digital Trends.