Ni no Kuni: Wrath of the White Witch is an expertly made role-playing game in the old style, with sumptuous art and music. Excellent as it is, it’s missing a central spark that made Level-5′s past games so special.

Level-5 has made the greatest Japanese role-playing game in history: A sweeping cartoon adventure in a familiar but still somehow surprising fantasy land, full of goofy looking monsters to draft into your service, friends to meet, magic to learn, and myriad kingdoms in need of aid. It’s a role-playing game where you take control of a simple boy who has lost something dear, and he’s willing to topple an ancient evil for just a chance to get it back. As a model of a nearly 30-year-old style of game design, the type of JRPG founded by Yuji Hori and Hironobu Sakaguchi, it is flawless. Other studios should stop making traditional JRPGs in the classic mold.

I’m referring of course to Level-5’s 2005 masterpiece Dragon Quest VIII. That game shunted Level-5 from a promising up and comer to one of the greats of RPG making. The awkwardness of its earlier games, namely the Dark Cloud series, was washed away. Collaborating with Dragon Quest creator Yuji Hori and series illustrator Akira Toriyama helped produce a sweeping vision of an RPG, where every inch of its vast overworld, each forest and mountain, was a place that could be explored on foot. Role-playing games are built to give an impression of grandeur, but Dragon Quest VIII was itself grand.

Ni no Kuni: The Wrath of the White Witch fits that description of Dragon Quest VIII above perfectly. Like that sequel, Level-5’s PlayStation 3 original (similar to, but different a Nintendo DS version) is an old-style role-playing game wrought as a lushly animated cartoon world. There are some differences: Studio Ghibli, whose Hayao Miyazaki-directed films like My Neighbor Totoro have made the studio the only living Japanese anime or manga producer more beloved than Toriyama, produced the art. Miyazaki’s regular collaborator, composer Joe Hisaishi, provides the score.

Level-5 took a break from traditional RPGs in the years since Dragon Quest VIII, focusing on action RPGs like Rogue Galaxy, online mutliplayer RPGs like White Knight Chronicles and Dragon Quest IX, and unique DS adventures like Inazuma Eleven and Professor Layton. With the artistic horsepower of Ghibli and its wealth of experience, Ni no Kuni had the potential to surpass that 2005 milestone. While Ni no Kuni is a fine game in its own right, though, it is ultimately less than the sum of its parts, a game that merely feels grand at times.

The Another World 

Ni no Kuni starts in a more vulnerable and personal place than Dragon Quest VIII’ adventure to save a king and princess did. You control Oliver, an honest boy who loves cars living with his mom in a small American town. (Like many Ghibli films, there’s a strange timelessness to Oliver’s home Motorville. There’s a ‘50s pastiche going on, with malt shops and slick roadsters, but it’s not explicit.) After saving Oliver from drowning, his mother dies of a heart attack, leaving Oliver alone with nothing but a stuffed animal to remember her by. When that stuffed animal comes to life and tells Oliver he’s the Pure-Hearted One, destined to save Another World, the two whisk off to train Oliver to be a wizard so he can possibly save his mom while also saving the world from the White Witch and her minion, the dark genie Shadar.

That’s a lot to cover in the first hour of a game, but Ni no Kuni handles it well, moving along at a swift pace before plonking you down in the green hills of Another World, a parallel world to Earth. From there, though, the game slows down significantly. Over the next 20 hours, Oliver slowly explores the central continent of the Another World, picking up the tools of the wizarding trade as he goes. Some of these are adventures, like undergoing the Great Sage’s trials in the desert, or following a kingly cat into sewers to get your first proper wand. Some of the less action-packed quests are full of emotion.

For example: Oli’s first party member, Esther, is cursed. In order to uncurse her, you have to travel back to Motorville and find her soulmate. (All people in the Other World are connected to people back home. This is how Oli plans to save his mother, by rescuing her soul mate from the bad guys.) Finding her soulmate involves literally bringing a broken family back together, saving a child’s father from nightmares caused by Shadar’s machinations, and helping a little girl overcome her fear of the outside world. It’s powerful stuff, made more moving by Oliver’s plight.

What’s at stake?

Moments like those are dragged down by dull stretches of inane fetch quests, though. Around 15 hours into the game, you need to convince the gluttonous ruler of Al Mamoon to give you passage on her boat. First you need to find out what her favorite food is, though, so you need to find her soulmate in Motorville.  But first you need to figure out what she looks like, so you have to wander into the local shops, pestering merchants for clues. As a set up for comedy and character building, this is perfect, but Level-5 wastes the opportunity with plodding pacing and low stakes for the characters.

Even the combat lacks energy. Oliver and his friends do combat with familiars, little cartoony beasties you collect throughout the Other World, like Ghibli-fied Pokémon. Each character can hold up to three familiars, and you spend a lot of time giving them little treats to help them evolve into new forms. No fight takes advantage of this endless variety, though. Attack, attack, spell, heal: The same routine of the most basic RPGs rears its head here, but fights often lack the speed, charm, or strategy of those in better examples like Dragon Quest VIII. Fights are not so much hard as they are blunt, and the simple level grinding will make even the toughest boss a pushover. Compounding this problem is the fact that the full array of fight options aren’t available until well into the game, when the third character, thief Swaine, joins up.

Conclusion

For all these problems, though, it’s hard to not be charmed by Ni no Kuni. Especially once you can travel the world map by boat, the Other World is a gorgeous place, even if too few adventuresome things take place in it. It may not be as funny as Dragon Quest or Ghibli’s films, but it’s warm all the same. Helping two crabs that are buddies find one another across islands in the south seas is just one of the light, sweet things you can get up to. The Wizard’s Companion, Oliver’s book of spells and guide to the Other World, is entertainment in and of itself, full of short stories and facts about the world that shame the kind of background material found in adult RPGs like Mass Effect and Skyrim. And then there’s Mr. Drippy, Oliver’s stuffed animal turned fairy companion. He’s a weird cross between Scrooge McDuck and Meowth, a pragmatic, funny little guide to the world. Listening to him talk is often enough motivation to keep pushing into the game.

That Level-5 was willing to devote the resources to making such a beautiful, fleshed-out fantasy game is admirable. Almost no game publisher is willing to make games like this on such a scale anymore. The result of its efforts is a game that is very good, warm and charming. It isn’t great, though. Last time Level-5 made a game like this, they made the “Mona Lisa,” a simple, flawless work of art. Ni no Kuni’s failure is that it tried to match it.

Tablets are enjoying growth, yet their days are already numbered. Hybrids – devices that dock with multiple peripherals – will soon be the master computer.

Tablets are the new darling of consumer technology. The burst of fanfare generated by the iPad’s initial release never faded, nor have sales. According to IDC, 27.8 million tablets were sold worldwide in the third quarter of 2012. Though still short of the 87.5 million PCs sold during the same period, tablets have only been serious competitors for a few years. Their rate of growth is impressive and seem unlikely to slow.

Dramatic success has encouraged definitive proclamations from industry prophets. The PC is dead – long live the tablet! Recent sales figures seem to back up these arguments – but a challenger approaches. Hybrids, a category so small that its sales are not individually tracked, is the real heir to the PC’s throne. Here’s why.

Why do tablets sell?

Before we talk about why hybrids will rule, we must first understand why tablets have become so successful. Hybrids will be forever pushed to the margins if they can’t match or exceed tablets in these areas:

Touch – Let’s start with the obvious. Touch. There’s a beautiful simplicity to the direct physical interaction that tablets offer. Content consumption is more intuitive and more intimate with a hand-held touchscreen device. Productivity is more difficult, but consumers aren’t using a personal device for productivity most of the time. Tablets are also well designed for touch because they are thin, light, and small – traits that touchscreen PCs of all stripes have yet to match. 

Portability – Portability is also important, though not for the reasons most guess. Consumers want portable devices for use at home, not for travel. Laptops proved more popular than desktops because they didn’t tie the user to a desk and instead allowed use wherever a person could sit for a few hours at a time. Tablets take that a step further by offering days of use from anywhere before the battery must be charged.

Price – And let’s not forget the price. Cheap stuff sells more than expensive stuff, and tablets are among the most affordable consumer electronics devices on the market today. Even the iPad costs no more than mid-range laptops, and some Android tablets can be had for $200 or less. Anyone looking for a PC in that price range will be forced to purchase a Chromebook.

Hybrids aren’t great tablets, but they can be

All of the current hybrid and convertible laptops on the market fail in the important areas mentioned above. They are bulkier than tablets, they fall short in endurance, and they are much, much more expensive. Models with the ho-hum Atom processor sell for between $499 and $750, and most products with Core processors are sold for $1,000 or more.

With these problems holding them back, hybrids will never overcome tablets. Fortunately, they’re all solvable. As the processors available become more efficient and more powerful, hybrids will inevitably become just as thin and light as tablets. Intel’s hybrid reference unit shown at CES 2013 was as thin as some stand-alone tablets – and it was running a Core processor. Devices built on the upcoming Atom quad-cores will be even thinner.

These same improvements will also close the gap in battery life. Large hybrids with 11.6-inch to 13.3-inch screens will probably overtake 7-inch to 10-inch tablets because they have more internal space to dedicate to a battery. A similar distinction already exists in both the tablet and smartphone markets. Big screens are usually compensated for by much larger batteries. 

And then there’s price. While certain high-end hybrids will no doubt remain expensive, low-end models will surely become more affordable as the technology they rely on becomes less expensive. Solid state memory, touchscreens and processors are areas where hybrids could see substantial savings in the future. A capable $500 hybrid is not a dream. It’s inevitable.

Once hybrids are as capable and affordable as tablets consumers will no doubt begin to wonder why they’d want a tablet instead. The main distinction between them will be the docking capability a tablet lacks – in all other respects, they will become identical. Consumers (particularly those on a budget, which is most) will realize that a hybrid offers more value.

A pair of wild cards

While hybrids seem likely to take consumer electronics by storm at some point in the future, there two more notable problems that will need to be fixed. These problems could delay hybrids because, unlike hardware, the companies that could conjure solutions sometimes have a problem with execution.

No operating system is currently capable of doing the hybrid justice. Windows 8 is a step forward, yet also deeply flawed. A few hybrids ship with Android instead, which is even worse. Consumers won’t accept hybrids until an appropriate operating system is available. 

Another obstacle may be the manufacturers themselves. Imagine that you’re the CEO of a major electronics manufacturer and you’ve learned of a device that could replace two or three of your products but sells for half their combined price. Does that sound like good news? Of course not. Manufacturers may have their vision clouded by potential red ink, but designing the proper hybrids will require a committed effort, not a half-hearted attempt from companies petrified by profit margins. 

Then again, the winds of fortune may blow in the hybrid’s favor. Apple might replace its entire MacBook line with a new hybrid device, or Google could turn Chrome OS into a truly capable do-it-all operating system. Either would give these fledgling devices a boost.

One hybrid to rule them all

Hybrids are a step towards a vision of future computing that replaces the PC with a dockable device that connects to a wide variety of peripherals. Future consumers will forgo a wide range of partially redundant devices in favor of a master computer that can do almost everything.

Most enthusiasts dreaming of this future peg the smartphone as the heir to the PC’s throne. This theory is interesting, yet unrealistic. How can a powerful processor and sufficient battery be crammed into such a small space? How can a user fully enjoy a device with such a small screen? There are no easy answers to these questions – which may be why Samsung’s Galaxy Note II has become popular despite jokes about the junk in its trunk.

The future of computing will be a story of convergence, not divergence. Multiple devices will fuse into a single master computer. This will not be tablets or smartphones, which are incapable of replacing modern PCs – hybrids will rise to take on this new role. The tablet will remain, but it will be pushed into low-cost markets or sold as an add-on to a computing ecosystem built around the hybrid. Viva la hybrid!

Google has requested FCC permission to build an “experimental radio network,” but is it worth getting hyped about?

Google has sent a to request to the FCC to build an “experimental radio network.” While this may seem like Google’s jump into the wireless space with the likes of AT&T and Verizon, don’t get your hopes up just yet.

The Wall Street Journal reports that an FCC application made by Google specifically requests permission to create a “experimental radio network” in a 2-mile radius surrounding its HQ in Mountain View, CA. The test network will run somewhere in the 2524MHz and 2625MHz spectrum, and is not only experimental in nature, but far from consumer-oriented. The spectrum being tested is inaccessible by almost all current consumer electronics, including iPhones and Android devices, meaning it will be years before you see gadgets use this.

However, what’s special about this band of spectrum is that it’s very effective with high-density locations, which makes it very efficient for rolling out wireless access in big cities, and potentially even a successor to current wireless standards. But Google actually doesn’t own the spectrum – Clearwire does, so the future of the technology is far from being in Google’s hands.

Google has been big on sharing internet with the world for some time. The company has offered free Wi-Fi not only in the area around its Mountain View HQ, but also around its New York office in Chelsea. It’s also worth mentioning that Google Fiber, another one of its “experiments,” is in the process of expanding all over the Kansas City area, and perhaps into more future cities. 

But don’t get your hopes up. Google experiments  a lot, and many of these experiments don’t make the cut – so many in fact there’s a Pinterest board dedicated to them. It may very well grow into something bigger, but for now it’s merely one of Google’s many experiments.

So much for boldly going where no one has gone before. J.J. Abrams will step into George Lucas’ shoes when he directs Disney and Lucasfilm’s Star Wars Episode VII in 2015.

The more a film director denies that he’s making a Star Wars movie for Disney, the more likely it seems that they will in fact film people swinging lightsabers around on screen after all. Following the Jan. 15 report that Zack Snyder (300, Man of Steel) will direct a Star Wars spinoff once he finishes with his current features comes word that none other than Mr. Star Trek himself, J.J. Abrams, will take control of the mainline series. Multiple Thursday reports claim that once Abrams wraps Star Trek: Into Darkness he’ll begin work on Star Wars Episode VII.

Deadline reported first on Thursday that Abrams would direct the film, working with the script penned by Michael Arndt. Arndt, writer of Toy Story 3 and Little Miss Sunshine, was the first person to be officially attached to the beginning of the next Star Wars trilogy. “It’s a done deal with J.J.,” said Deadline’s unnamed source. The Wrap also confirmed the story, claiming that its source said Disney and Lucasfilm had also been pursuing Argo director Ben Affleck.

The Hollywood Reporter’s Borys Kit backed up the story on Twitter as well. “Confirmed: J.J. Abrams will direct Star Wars Episode 7!” said Kit, “Sources say the negotiations quite down the road.”

J.J. Abrams was actually one of the very first directors rumored to be in the running for Star Wars Episode VII following the announcement that Disney had acquired Lucasfilm for over $4 billion. Abrams told Empire magazine in December, though, that while he talked with Lucasfilm, he was definitely not going to be doing the next Star Wars.

“There were the very early conversations [with Lucasfilm chief Kathleen Kennedy] and I quickly said that, because of my loyalty to Star Trek and also just being a fan, I wouldn’t even want to be involved in the next version of those things,” said Abrams, “I declined any involvement very early on. I’d rather be in the audience not knowing what was coming, rather than being involved in the minutiae of making them.”

Paramount Pictures and the newly rejuvenated Star Trek series will likely need to find a new steward going forward.

Web browsing software company Opera has just released some noteworthy statistics from the end of 2012, namely that its mobile presence has grown immensely.

It’s no secret that mobile devices are beginning to play a larger role in the way people surf the Web and communicate. But this past year, however, has shown a record-breaking increase in mobile Web browser usage, at least for Opera Software.

According to the Norway-based Web browser company, usage via mobile phones has shown the largest recorded increase in the number of users month over month since 2006. In fact, during December alone Opera mobile users climbed to 229 million. This number accounts for a mix of Opera Mini and Opera Mobile users, which are two different variants of Opera Web browsers made primarily for mobile use.

Overall, this jump represents an increase of more than 13 million users from November 2012, Opera revealed in a State of the Mobile Web report published on Thursday. The study also examined the history of the Opera Mini user base to understand how its network has grown, finding that the Asia Pacific region was one of the areas to adopt the browser early on. Other parts of the world, such as Europe, the Americas, the Middle East, and Africa, caught on later.

Since the Norwegian developer launched its services back in the 1990s, it has struggled in the shadow of larger household names such as Microsoft Internet Explorer, Mozilla Firefox and in more recent years Google Chrome. However, today’s report proves two things: Opera is a significant force to be reckoned with in the mobile space, and secondary browsers can gain prominence on smartphones.

This is largely due to the rise of Internet activity on mobile devices in general. A survey from the Pew Internet Project that was published in June further fuels this notion, reporting that more than half of adult cell phone users now use their mobile devices to go online. This is a drastic change from just five years ago, when smartphones were typically used as just phones.

As smartphones begin to replace laptops and desktops in fulfilling Internet needs, it’s not surprising that a secondary browser would see significant mobile growth. Web browser brands are even beginning to announce their own self-branded mobile operating systems. Just this week Mozilla unveiled its Firefox OS and earlier this month Ubuntu showcased its very own mobile software as well.

Sometimes the best thing a tech company can do is go back to what it’s best at. Logitech, one of the biggest names in PC accessories for 30 years, announced on Thursday that it will stop making video game console controllers.

Logitech, the 31-year-old technology company best known for its long line of keyboards, mice, speakers, and headsets for personal computers, is sick and tired of the video game console business. It’s never been a workhorse like Nyko or Mad Catz, nor an enthusiast favorite like Power A, and it can’t match specialists like Turtle Beach. After one last miserable holiday quarter, Logitech has declared that it’s getting out of the video game console business for good.

During a Wednesday night conference call reporting its earnings for the holiday quarter that ended in December, Logitech CEO Bracken P. Darrell said that to slow the company’s financial downward slide, it’s getting out of certain markets, starting with game console accessories.

“We have identified a number of product categories that no longer fit with our current strategic direction,” said Darrell, “As a result, we have initiated the process to divest our remote controls and digital video security categories, and we plan to discontinue other non-strategic products such as speaker docks and console gaming peripherals, by the end of Calendar Year 2013.”

Logitech’s sales crumbled over the period, down 14 percent year-over-year to just $615 million. The primary cause is the ongoing contraction of the PC market. The average person is using their gadget money on smartphones and tablets, not new laptops and desktops. Like many companies, the failure of Windows 8 to ignite the PC market took its toll on Logitech. Console game accessories have historically been a good way to bolster fluctuations in the PC gear market, but Logitech was hit on both fronts in 2012, as the game console market contracted almost as severely as the PC market.

As reported by the NPD group earlier this month, sales for the entire video game retail market fell 22 percent in 2012, coming to just $13.26 billion. Game makers are weathering this storm, as the exodus of players to digital distribution platforms means that more small developers have access to bigger audiences. For console makers and especially companies in the accessories business, 2012 was a tough year. Some accessory makers performed well, particularly Activision, thanks to the popularity of the Skylanders toy line. Mad Catz also saw promising sales growth at the end of 2012. Logitech did not.

When the Justice League movie debuts, the titular superhero team will only feature five members.

This morning, the good (and, more importantly, extremely reliable) people at Latino Review published a report which claims that when Warner Bros.’ film adaptation of DC Comics’ Justice League superhero team hits theaters in the Summer of 2015, the film will be primarily populated by a mere five of DC’s classic heroes. Those who made the cut are, in no particular order: Superman, Batman, Wonder Woman, The Flash, and The Green Lantern.

Surprising? Not really. Those five are undoubtedly DC’s most popular heroes, and if the Justice League roster were to be expanded you’d next need to include characters like Hawkman, the Martian Manhunter, and Aquaman. Latino Review believes its possible that these three might appear in the film in either cameo or supporting roles, but beyond winking in the direction of his existence in DC canon, does anyone have any desire to see Aquaman on the silver screen? Hawkman and the Martian Manhunter are little-known to people outside of comic book readers, but Aquaman is notable thanks to his role in the Superfriends cartoon from the 1970s. Even at that time though kids always opted to look up to Superman and Batman, and we doubt anyone grew especially fond of the blonde guy who fights crime by discussing it with nearby trout.

Granted, Aquaman is more notable than Hawkman and as Latino Review points out, it’s more likely that we’ll see the former in a cameo. Then, if the Justice League film is a success – and Warner Bros. seems to be doing everything in its power to ensure this – it’s much more likely that Aquaman and any other lesser heroes would have prominent appearances in the inevitable sequel.

We’re still waiting to hear who might be cast for the Justice League movie adaptation, and we still require an official release date for the flick. Expect us to bring you all of that information as soon as Warner Bros. makes it known to the public. In the meantime, feel free to express your hatred of Aquaman in the comments below. We’re convinced that the man must permanently reek of brine and rotted aquatic life, so that’s a nice, productive place to start.

The ongoing saga of THQ’s fiscal collapse rolls on, but according to developer Crytek it won’t have any major affect on the development or eventual quality of Homefront 2.

When THQ released first-person shooter Homefront in 2011, it was widely seen as a mediocre title with a few really promising ideas that, for whatever reason, never became fully fleshed out. It was a good attempt by relatively new developer Kaos Studios, and the game’s sales figures ensured that a sequel was all but inevitable.

Sadly for Kaos Studios, THQ was already feeling the pressure that lead to its eventual bankruptcy at that time and the studio was shuttered a mere three months after the release of Homefront. Despite this, THQ still seemed to value the idea of creating a Homefront 2 and tapped Crysis creator Crytek to work on the project. This is crucial as when THQ’s assets hit the auction block yesterday, Crytek stepped in and purchased the rights to Homefront 2 for a cool $500,000. In return for its half-million dollars, Crytek picked up the opportunity to continue development on Homefront 2, a franchise that Crytek CEO Cevat Yerli has an immense amount of faith in.

“Since we first reached an agreement to develop Homefront 2, we’ve been firm believers in the IP and its potential to excite and amaze players,” Yerli states in this morning’s official announcement. “Our cooperation with THQ was always positive and we would like to thank them for all their support over the last two years and express our sympathy to those affected by the recent events at the company.”

Development of Homefront 2 will continue at Crytek’s Nottingham, UK studio.

“From day one, the Homefront 2 team has been committed to creating a game that takes the series to new heights and features the level of quality and innovation associated with Crytek,” said Nick Button-Brown, Crytek’s general manager of games. “Nothing has changed with regards our development of the game, and we look forward to sharing the finished product with players.”

There is currently no solid release date for Homefront 2, though we’ll bring you word just as soon as Crytek makes that info public.

Say what you will of the first Homefront, but we’re tentatively excited for the sequel. Crytek knows how to make a gorgeous, entertaining first-person shooter, and while that’ll do nothing to combat the idiotic, implausible premise behind Homefront’s “North Korea invades and subjugates the United States with no warning” storyline, at least the game should have solid mechanics and gorgeous aesthetic design.

Seven years after Ragnar Tørnquist first announced Dreamfall Chapters, new studio Red Thread Games shares the first tantalizing glimpse into the sequel to The Longest Journey and Dreamfall.

The last time Ragnar Tørnquist said that Dreamfall Chapters, the episodic continuation of his adored adventure that began with The Longest Journey, was going to actually get made, he wasn’t telling his fans the whole truth. Dreamfall Chapters was something he wanted to make, he just wasn’t sure when he would get the chance to do so. It’s been nearly seven years since he first made mention of the game, after all. How do we know that this time he’s for real? The new details about the game’s development and some screenshots posted at studio Red Thread Games’ website are a good start.

“Our handsome and talented artists have been working very hard, and while most of their work in not quite ready for primetime (soon now, very very soon) we just wanted to post an exclusive teaser of what’s in store,” reads the message from Red Thread Games, “A prevue. A taster. A starter. Or, as the French would say, and hors d’oeuvre.”

The update sheds at least some light on what will actually take place in the game. Chronologically set after the end of Dreamfall, the second game in the series, the game again takes place in Marcuria. Rather than the icy winter setting of Dreamfall, Dreamfall Chapters will take place over all of the seasons, giving a longer, wider look at life in Tørnquist’s fantasy world.

“We’re actually working on Dreamfall Chapters. We didn’t make it up to avoid embarrassing questions from our parents about what we’re doing with our lives.”

Red Thread Games licensed The Longest Journey universe from publisher Funcom in November, marking Tørnquist’s return to the world after spending years developing MMO The Secret World. It may ultimately be for the best that Dreamfall Chapters didn’t release when the developer originally intended as today’s gaming market is far more receptive to literary adventure games of this kind. Most notably The Walking Dead. Adventure game developer Telltale Games announced at the beginning of January that it’s sold 8.5 million copies of the five episodes of The Walking Dead, a figure that continues to grow. Independent developers like the makers of Kentucky Route Zero continue to gain a following for lyrical adventure games as well. Dreamfall Chapters may be far more of a success in 2013 than it would have been in 2007.

Nokia first showed off the 808 PureView in February 2012 at Mobile World Congress, with the main feature of the device being its 41 megapixel camera. In addition, the 808 PureView featured Nokia’s Sybmian as its operating system, an odd choice considering Nokia’s close partnership with Microsoft these days.

As part of their Q4 report, Nokia released the following statement about the future of Symbian.

During our transition to Windows Phone through 2012, we continued to ship devices based on Symbian. The Nokia 808 PureView, a device which showcases our imaging capabilities and which came to market in mid-2012, was the last Symbian device from Nokia.

This news comes alongside Nokia’s earnings report that boasts $585 million profit and $10.83 billion in revenue. In terms of cash flow, the company is doing great. However, Symbian was not pulling its fair share of sales this last quarter. Nokia managed to sell 2.2 million Symbian smartphones, 9.3 million touch Asha handsets and 4.4 million Lumia Windows Phones. These numbers were enough for Nokia to call for the end of Symbian. Interestingly enough, rumors of a 41MP Windows Phone 8 replacement to the 808 PureView have now started to surface as well.

As for Symbian? Now that iOS and Android rule the mobile market, it is hard to believe that anyone will truly miss the aging OS. My best guess is that Symbian will make a quiet exit like webOS did. If you just asked yourself what webOS is, you proved my point.

That said, Nokia isn’t leaving Symbian users in the dark when it comes to support. Nokia has now made an agreement with Accenture, a technology and outsourcing company, to provide software development and support for Symbian through 2016. In October of 2011, 2800 Nokia employees were given jobs at Accenture.

Are you going to miss Symbian? Or was it time for Nokia’s Symbian to take an exit? Let us know in the comments below.

Within a couple of years, Intel will launch 14nm chips, some of which will be manufactured in its yet-to-be-built factory in Ireland.

Ireland will become home to one of Intel’s new factories, thanks to the Irish government giving the company permission to build a $4 billion plant on its soil. Eight months after Intel applied for a permit, construction on the new plant will finally begin. The specific product to be manufactured in that plant is none other than the company’s next generation 14nm processors.

It will take Intel a total of two years to finish building the plant, which will be comprised of a three-story main manufacturing area that’s 1,085,000 square feet big. There will also be a facility that houses liquid chemicals and waste water (which will be treated in yet another facility), a two-story building that houses the boiler and the chiller, and buildings fitted with diesel generators as a source of electricity in case of an emergency. It will create 3,500 construction jobs and will employ 800 full-time employees when it’s done. 

The Ireland plant is only one of the three factories Intel plans to devote to manufacturing 14nm chips, the other two being its factories in Oregon and Arizona. The company aims to launch its 14nm chips, codenamed Broadwell, which are smaller and more energy-efficient than its current 22nm chips, within two years. After that, it has its eyes set on the production of chips even smaller than 14nm. 

Vigil Games didn’t survive publisher THQ’s liquidation on Wednesday, even though the studio was already at work on a brand new series. While the studio is done for, its Darksiders series may find a new home.

THQ met its end on Wednesday, and while the process of drawing and quartering the video game publisher isn’t complete yet, the majority of its most valuable games have been snatched up by its former competitors. Sega is now the proud owner of Company of Heroes maker Relic and Ubisoft has brought THQ Montreal, a studio populated by former Assassin’s Creed staffers, back in the fold. Not all of THQ’s studios found a new home, though. Vigil Games, maker of the Darksiders series, will be dissolved in the aftermath of THQ’s bankruptcy. What’s more, Vigil was hard at work on a brand new game series. That game won’t survive it seems, but at least one developer wants to keep the Darksiders series alive.

“I failed to find a Vigil a home,” said THQ president Jason Rubin on Thursday, “Having just finished a product, Vigil was farthest from release of their next game, and we were not able to garner any interest from buyers, despite a herculean effort. Additionally, they were working on a new IP, which meant even more risk for a buyer.”

That game, codenamed Crawler, was reportedly going to be a significant step forward for the studio after Darksiders II failed to connect with gamers. “When the times got together recently to show each other their titles, Crawler dropped the most jaws. It’s a fantastic idea and truly unique,” said Rubin.

Vigil’s lead combat designer Ben Crueton took to forum NeoGAF to post his thoughts on the studio’s closure. “Crawler was going to blow people away. In fact it DID blow people away. We did, in TWO months, what many companies haven’t done in a year. The pride of knowing that no one was doing anything like us was so satisfying, it kept us coming to work giving 100 percent every single day, even through the dark times.”

The studio was definitely a hard sell in the beleaguered video game publishing industry. With retail sales on the decline and a console transition on the horizon with Xbox 720 and PlayStation 4, Vigil had years of development ahead of them before Crawler could be released. The studio has a strong critical track record, with both Darksiders games getting generally good reviews, but neither game was a sales blockbuster. Saints Row, Company of Heroes, and even Homefront, the properties purchased by other publishers, are all good bets for their respective buyers at Kock Media, Sega, and Crytek. Vigil was, unfortunately, a very expensive risk.

For fans of the Darksiders series, not all hope is lost. Platinum Games Atsushi Inaba, producer of the upcoming Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance, said on Twitter that he’s interested in buying up the franchise if THQ is willing to part with it for cheap. With its hulking leads War and Death and its ridiculous fantasy storyline, Darksiders seems like a perfect fit for the company that created Bayonetta and Anarchy Reigns.

Blackberry 10 is almost here, and with that it mind, it seems that the Blackberry Z10 and X10 will both be following the launch shortly after.

According to a new rumor from N4BB, the X10 could actually be coming as early as the 330th of January. For those that don’t know, the X10 is the Blackberry model that is more “traditional” in that it has a physical keyboard.
That said, it also has a smaller-sized touch screen and has ditched the older trackpad/pointer. The X10 might be more ‘traditional’ but it clearly has a more modern style that better fits the times than the aging designs of many current Blackberry devices.

Those childhood dreams of being a cyborg are getting ever closer to becoming a reality. Here’s Apple’s latest idea to appear before the patent office.

Apple’s latest interest in wearable tech is for your feet. According to TechCrunch, the company filed a patent application for a “smart shoe” system with built-in sensors that could tell the wearer when the footwear needs to be replaced. Apple has several creative ideas for the gadgetry that could be incorporated into the shoes, listing pedometers, motion sensors, or activity sensors as possible inclusions. Any of those sensors would be able to track the wearer’s motions into units of time, so you could alert them when the shoes have surpassed the recommended 500 hours of use for a walking shoe. Another option for sensors would be a body bar, which also measures weight and resistance for a fuller picture of how the shoes are being used. 

The company suggested that the hardware could be housed in the heel of a shoe. Power could come from a built-in battery or an even a generator that translates the wearer’s movement into a recharging energy store. This isn’t Apple’s first patent application for high-tech clothing. In fact, it received a patent grant last year for sensors embedded in clothing to help track data about your workouts.

Whether it’s smart shoes that know when they are about to fall apart or a watch that can sync with your smartphone, wearable tech is a growing point of interest for both companies and consumers. Multiple companies, with Google leading the way, are developing augmented reality glasses. And the options for gadgets to track your heart rate, calories burned, and steps taken are enough to overwhelm dedicated exercisers. While there are plenty of major hurdles for manufacturers to overcome before wearing our computer on our sleeves becomes commonplace, it is clear that companies see this as a promising field. Wearable tech has at least generated enough attention for the big players to want to stake their claims on the components and basic ideas. 

Image via Jack Newton 

Tim Cook has plenty of excuses for the alarming 21 percent decline in Mac sales last quarter, but ultimately, Apple’s stagnant computing product line is to blame.

By nearly every measure, Apple had a fantastic holiday season. It sold 47.8 million iPhones and 22.9 million iPads, with sales up significantly for both mobile product lines. But there’s an elephant in the room, and it’s the Mac. Mac sales were down 21 percent. Apple sold 1.1 million less Macs than it did last year (4.1 million compared to 5.2 million). You don’t have to be a rocket scientist to know that the PC market is struggling as smartphones and tablets get bigger and more powerful, but what’s the deal here? Is Apple losing its PC luster?

Apple has been a beacon of light in the PC and laptop market for a decade now, bucking static sales trends and getting people excited about buying a new PC while the Windows market essentially stood still. Apple’s Mac line – from the iMac to the MacBook Pro and the slim MacBook Air – has grown so recognizable in recent years that nearly every other PC and laptop maker has mimicked it. Like a twisted game of “Do your best Jagger,” just about every laptop on the market today has many of the design trademarks of Apple’s line – island-style keyboards, aluminum frames, clean lines, you name it. Intel liked the MacBook Air line so much that it has spent millions creating the “Ultrabook,” which began as the Windows 7 equivalent of the Air: super thin, fast-booting, and sleek. Desktop PCs have basically disappeared in favor of All-in-One computers that resemble the iMac.

So why has Apple’s Mac business suddenly dropped by more than 21 percent? Windows PC sales during the last three months of 2012 only fell by about 5 percent. Apple is the company that usually beats the market, but the Mac just dove off a cliff.

During Apple’s quarterly financial call yesterday, CEO Tim Cook could have won an Oscar for his lack of concern over the billion-dollar drop in sales, blaming it on constrained iMac sales (the redesigned iMac didn’t ship until December, and even then there were significant delays), the iPad, a short quarter, and the poor economy. Yes, minutes after his CFO announced that Apple made more than $54 billion in revenue and $13.1 billion in profit, Cook blamed poor sales on the economy. A massive 700,000 unit drop in iMac sales, he claims, accounts for a good portion of the decline.

Between June and October, Apple refreshed every single one of its Mac lines and even introduced a new Mac Mini. Yet even adding in the loss blamed on the iMac, the company was still down 400,000 from a year ago. The world and U.S. economy has been poor for more than four years. What has Apple been doing the last three years? Hovering above the earth in a spaceship that prints money?

Cook also argued that the iPad is probably cannibalizing Apple’s PC sales. “We know iPhone has cannibalized some iPod business, we know iPad has cannibalized some Macs, and that doesn’t worry us,” Cook said.

Unless Apple plans to abandon the Mac, it might need to start worrying.

With Windows 8, Microsoft (and Intel) pushed computer manufacturers to completely rethink the laptop and PC. Most new Windows 8 laptops have a touchscreen, and most of them have other fancy features like the ability to convert into a tablet (See: Lenovo Yoga). They are all thin, light, and many of them are well designed. Windows 8, though not without issues, was a ground-up rethinking of Microsoft’s OS.

Apple knew about Windows 8 and the coming touch revolution for at least a year. It’s response: it made some extremely expensive ($2,200 minimum) high-resolution MacBook Pros, made the iMac thinner (and bumped the price up by $100), and basically phoned in the rest of its lineup with minimal processing power upgrades and no design changes. It introduced a new version of OS X (Mountain Lion), but the update’s biggest additions were relatively invisible, or small iOS apps like Notes and iMessage.

Assuming they aren’t rich and don’t intend to spend a minimum of $2,200 on a new Retina laptop, what reason does a current Mac user have to upgrade? Windows 8, while controversial, at least attempts to bring the benefits of the touch revolution to PCs; but Apple, the company that ignited this revolution, doesn’t seem to think anyone wants Macs to continue to evolve. What’s the deal?

In April, Tim Cook compared Windows 8 to merging a toaster (a tablet) and a refrigerator (PC): “You can converge a toaster and a refrigerator, but you know those things are probably not going to be pleasing to the user.” Apple, he claimed, had no interest in combining large elements of its PC and iPad line.

The new iMac is extremely thin and Apple’s MacBooks have wonderfully crisp screens, but where is the actual innovation? Tim Cook has a lot of excuses why Mac sales dropped four times faster than PCs, but the bottom line is that Apple’s priorities seem out of whack. Who is Apple building Macs for? It used to build them for everyone. Lately, it’s hard to say. 

As expected, Twitter has released Vine, a cross between video and animated GIFs that allows you to create looped six second content – that you can directly embed in tweets as well.

The wrestling match for mobile app dominance just got a little more interesting. Just as we suspected, Twitter launched video looping service Vine today, giving users a video-meets-GIF creation tool. The results of which are able to be embedded directly into Twitter posts.  

David Bowie says HULLO VINE #davidbowie vine.co/v/b5HxmWlj5ph

— KateKnibbs (@KateKnibbs) January 24, 2013

Vine lets you create six-second videos to share. Basically, you can make little movies that look like high-quality GIFs and post them on Twitter, Facebook, or straight to the Vine app. It might take a while for people to get the hang of it, but the possibility for hilarious and interesting videos is enormous.

Twitter bought Vine back in October, a decision indicating the micro-blogging site wants to bulk up on its media capabilities and get an in-house video service.

Instagram’s expanding popularity threatens Twitter since it gives people an image-focused alternative platform for sharing information – and takes eyeballs away from Twitter. It makes sense Twitter is bent on acquiring services like Vine that provide novel ways to create media.

And Vine is undeniably fun to use. If you’re confused about what to do, there are super-clear step-by-step instructions to help you create your first video: You hold your finger on the screen to record, and lift it off to stop recording. By tapping and removing your finger you can create a funny, short videos, and you can also add sound.

Like Instagram and Twitter itself, you can use hashtags on Vine to hunt down interesting clips.

When you download Vine, you can find friends from Twitter, Facebook, or your address book, which will make it easy to get a good roster of videos. And the commenting and ‘liking’ options are quite similar to Instagram – the only real difference is you hit a smiley face instead of a heart to show your approval.

Right now, Vine is only available as a mobile app for iOS, but we suspect expansion is also imminent. Twitter won’t want to leave Android users hanging.

Vine is surprisingly hard to find in the App Store — it didn’t show up when we searched it — so if you want to download it, you might want to click here.

Unless Larry Page and Sergey Brin secretly want to be radio talk show hosts, Google’s got some big plans for a move into wireless. Here’s what we know.

Last week, Google sent an application to the Federal Communications Commission seeking a license to launch an experimental radio station around the company’s Mountain View, Calif., headquarters. The Wall Street Journal reported that the frequencies Google specified in its submission were channels that wouldn’t be compatible with most mobile devices, leading to speculation that this radio experiment may be a precursor to a small wireless network. 

A Google representative declined comment on the reasons for this project, but signs do point to it being an early interest in wireless. The network would only reach devices that are specifically engineered for the frequencies between 2,524 MHz and 2,625 MHz. BTIG analyst Walter Piecyk told the WSJ that the telling clue is that mobile operators in China, India, and Japan are currently building networks on those channels, which means that at some point in the future, devices tuned to those frequencies will start to appear on the market. Since Google has the hardware resources of Motorola at its disposal, it could ensure that compatible devices do launch at some point.  

For more detail in legalese about Google’s first step, check out the public portion of its actual application to the FCC. The submission says that the first deployment of the experimental radio station will happen in the building that houses its Google Fiber team, one of the units under the Google Access division responsible for launching high-speed Internet in Kansas City, Kansas. 

If this is indeed a push toward launching a network, there is no indication whether it will be just a local service for the company’s campus, or if Google has designs for getting a bigger slice of the wireless pie. Piecyk also noted that a potential wireless network could be an additional offering for Kansas City and other locations that receive Google Fiber high-speed service. Time Warner Cable currently has that type of business model, launching free Wi-Fi hubs to be made available to its customers. Google’s hold on computing is diverse and strong, so whatever the scale of the wireless project, it seems like a logical next step for the Mountain View crew. 

Image via Matthew Rutledge

Get caught up in the cloud with a simple explanation of how cloud computing works, plus see comparisons of various cloud services.

Although no longer quite the buzzword that it was back in 2011, it’s clear that the cloud is here to stay, even though some still find cloud storage hard to trust. As demand grows for faster, higher-resolution videos and games – especially on smaller and smaller devices – our dependence on cloud storage and cloud computing will only increase. But what does “the cloud” actually mean to you? It can be unnerving to rely on cloud technology without fully understanding how it works, so read on for a more substantial grasp of what’s happening.

Meaning of the cloud

The first thing to understand is that “the cloud” is simply a metaphor for various data networks, generally located somewhere far away and accessed via the internet. Despite what the name suggests, it has nothing to do with the stratosphere – and no, stormy weather can’t interfere with cloud computing, at least not unless there’s a major power outage.

As a metaphor, “the cloud” simply denotes vast, distant clusters that we may not be able to interact with physically, yet which still affect us. In cloud computing, the clusters of servers, fiber-optic cables, and software engineers may be far away, but we can still interact with them by sending information back and forth. Another good analogy is the way households pull electricity from the electricity grid. Without ever visiting a power plant or connecting a power line themselves, families are able to benefit from a massive, shared network that provides them with a much-needed service.

Types of cloud computing services

If this definition of the cloud sounds huge and all-encompassing, that’s because it is. There are a wide variety of possible cloud computing services. The three types most likely to be useful to consumers and businesses are Infrastructure as a Service, Platform as a Service, and Software as a Service.

1. Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS)

This is the foundation, or “base layer,” of cloud computing, and includes physical infrastructure such as servers, storage disks, and facilities. Organizations benefit from pay-as-you-go, on-demand storage and web hosting, which can be easily scaled bigger or smaller as need fluctuates.

2. Platform as a Service (PaaS)

This “middle layer” of cloud computing provides the operating system from which applications run. Here, the service operator provides a programming language and web server, which allows application developers to create and run their software solutions.

3. Software as a Service (SaaS)

Finally, at the “top layer,” we find software applications specifically developed for the internet. Here, consumers generally pay a monthly or yearly fee in order to use a certain software in the cloud (as opposed to traditional software, which requires a single, up-front cost for perpetual use). Because pricing is pay-per-user, organizations can quickly add or remove users without having to accordingly scale their associated platform and infrastructure. This on-demand approach allows for rapid, efficient adjustments in staffing. Examples include Salesforce, Google Apps (Gmail, Google Calendar, Google Docs), and Microsoft Office 365.

Types of cloud storage services

Of course, for the average computer user, some of the most important SaaS offerings are cloud storage services. These allow file hosting, file sharing, and remote data backup. Basically, after signing up for a cloud storage service, you get a certain amount of free storage space (usually 2–5 GB) for hosting whatever data you would like, along with the option to pay for an upgrade to access more storage space. Just like with other SaaS software, you can increase or decrease your use of the service very quickly, without having to interact with any of the related computing infrastructure.

We have previously discussed some of the best cloud storage services in detail, but for convenience, here’s a comparison chart of  common hosting services on the market (listed alphabetically) and what they have to offer.

Now that we’ve covered the basic essentials for understanding the cloud, how do you enjoy using cloud technology in your home or business life? Do you have a tried-and-true cloud storage service, or are you still fluctuating between several? Let us know in the comments.