Was Skyrim ever going to use Games For Windows Live?

Was Skyrim ever going to use Games For Windows Live?

Posted on 18th Aug 2011 at 14:59 by Clive Webster with 34 comments

The news that Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim will definitely use Steamworks rather than Games For Windows Live has shot around the Internet today, but (and with the greatest of respect to those reporting the story) it doesn?t appear as if Skyrim was ever going to use GFWL.

That hasn?t stopped the rumour of GFWL rubbishness afflicting the next Scrolls Elder Scrolls game (that is confusing, isn?t it?), resulting in the Elder Scrolls Twitter stating that ?We can confirm today that we're using Steamworks for Skyrim?

The confusion came from the promotion picture for Skyrim, where the PC version was placed behind the Xbox 360 and PS3 boxes. The Games For Windows logo was showing and many people worried that the word ?Live? might be on the end. However, the Games For Windows logo features on a lot of game boxes and merely means? actually, I?m not sure what it means, or guarantees and implies. That the game doesn?t run on Linux and Mac?


Anyway, the point is, this logo is harmless and does not mean you have to use GFWL. Moreover, the Games for Windows Live logo is larger, with the Live bit underneath the word Games. It?s easy to spot, and therefore avoid when possible, as these images show:


Quite why Microsoft insists on such stringent online authentication and activation procedures on the PC and is so much more relaxed on the Xbox 360 is beyond me ? piracy is as much of a problem on console as on PC and yet it?s PC gamers that have to suffer the counter-measures. Anyhoo, hope the above helps when you?re out shopping, or looking at future cross-platform release photography!

Check our GamesCom 2011 news hub for all the information from Cologne this year.

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Perry Mines Texas System to Raise Cash

Mr. McHale, a Perry spokesman said after the initial donation, ?understands Governor Perry?s leadership has made Texas a good place to do business.?

Including, it turned out, for Mr. McHale?s business interests and partners. In May 2010 an economic development fund administered by the governor?s office handed $3 million to G-Con, a pharmaceutical start-up that Mr. McHale helped get off the ground. At least two other executives with connections to the firm had also given Mr. Perry tens of thousands of dollars.

Mr. Perry leapt into the Republican presidential primary this month preceded by his reputation as a thoroughbred fund-raiser. But a review of Mr. Perry?s years in office reveals that one of his most potent fund-raising tools is the very government he heads.

Over three terms in office, Mr. Perry?s administration has doled out grants, tax breaks, contracts and appointments to hundreds of his most generous supporters and their businesses. And they have helped Mr. Perry raise more money than any politician in Texas history, donations that have periodically raised eyebrows but, thanks to loose campaign finance laws and a business-friendly political culture dominated in recent years by Republicans, have only fueled Mr. Perry?s ascent.

?Texas politics does have this amazing pay-to-play culture,? said Harold Cook, a Democratic political consultant.

Mark Miner, a spokesman for Mr. Perry, said there was no connection between Mr. McHale?s contributions and the grant to G-Con. He said that the purpose of the state money was to create jobs and that it was appropriate for Mr. Perry to appoint people who support his vision and policies to state oversight posts.

?These issues have been brought up in previous elections to no avail,? Mr. Miner said.

Mr. Perry is not the first governor to have taken contributions from contractors or appointees to state commissions and boards, which oversee many of the agencies that in other states are controlled directly by the governor.

But because he has been in office more than a decade, he has had greater opportunity than any of his predecessors to stock the government with loyalists ? he has appointed roughly 4,000 people to state posts ? while enacting policies that have benefited allies and contributors.

And Mr. Perry has been much more aggressive than any past governor in soliciting money from them. According to a study last year by Texans for Public Justice, a watchdog organization, Mr. Perry has raised at least $17 million from more than 900 appointees or their spouses, roughly one dollar out of every five that he has raised as governor.

Among the state boards that have generated the most campaign contributions for Mr. Perry, the study found, were the State Parks and Wildlife Commission and the board of regents of Texas A&M, Mr. Perry?s alma mater. Those appointees have donated more than $4 million to his campaigns for governor.

?I know that at least some of the people who were initially approached to be regents have been later turned down because they didn?t pass what I would call a loyalty test,? said Jon L. Hagler, a prominent A&M alumnus and a major donor to the university.

Mr. Perry has also drawn scrutiny for two of his signature economic development efforts, the Texas Enterprise Fund and the Texas Emerging Technology Fund. The enterprise fund, which is intended to be a deal-closing tool for the state as it competes for jobs, has dispensed $435 million in grants to businesses since 2003. The technology fund, which has doled out nearly $200 million to companies since 2005, has a similar job creation mandate.

More than a quarter of the companies that have received grants from the enterprise fund in the most recent fiscal year, or their chief executives, made contributions to either Mr. Perry?s campaign dating back to 2001 or to the Republican Governors Association since 2008, when Mr. Perry became its chairman, according to an analysis by The New York Times.

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Perry Mines Texas System to Raise Cash

Mr. McHale, a Perry spokesman said after the initial donation, ?understands Governor Perry?s leadership has made Texas a good place to do business.?

Including, it turned out, for Mr. McHale?s business interests and partners. In May 2010 an economic development fund administered by the governor?s office handed $3 million to G-Con, a pharmaceutical start-up that Mr. McHale helped get off the ground. At least two other executives with connections to the firm had also given Mr. Perry tens of thousands of dollars.

Mr. Perry leapt into the Republican presidential primary this month preceded by his reputation as a thoroughbred fund-raiser. But a review of Mr. Perry?s years in office reveals that one of his most potent fund-raising tools is the very government he heads.

Over three terms in office, Mr. Perry?s administration has doled out grants, tax breaks, contracts and appointments to hundreds of his most generous supporters and their businesses. And they have helped Mr. Perry raise more money than any politician in Texas history, donations that have periodically raised eyebrows but, thanks to loose campaign finance laws and a business-friendly political culture dominated in recent years by Republicans, have only fueled Mr. Perry?s ascent.

?Texas politics does have this amazing pay-to-play culture,? said Harold Cook, a Democratic political consultant.

Mark Miner, a spokesman for Mr. Perry, said there was no connection between Mr. McHale?s contributions and the grant to G-Con. He said that the purpose of the state money was to create jobs and that it was appropriate for Mr. Perry to appoint people who support his vision and policies to state oversight posts.

?These issues have been brought up in previous elections to no avail,? Mr. Miner said.

Mr. Perry is not the first governor to have taken contributions from contractors or appointees to state commissions and boards, which oversee many of the agencies that in other states are controlled directly by the governor.

But because he has been in office more than a decade, he has had greater opportunity than any of his predecessors to stock the government with loyalists ? he has appointed roughly 4,000 people to state posts ? while enacting policies that have benefited allies and contributors.

And Mr. Perry has been much more aggressive than any past governor in soliciting money from them. According to a study last year by Texans for Public Justice, a watchdog organization, Mr. Perry has raised at least $17 million from more than 900 appointees or their spouses, roughly one dollar out of every five that he has raised as governor.

Among the state boards that have generated the most campaign contributions for Mr. Perry, the study found, were the State Parks and Wildlife Commission and the board of regents of Texas A&M, Mr. Perry?s alma mater. Those appointees have donated more than $4 million to his campaigns for governor.

?I know that at least some of the people who were initially approached to be regents have been later turned down because they didn?t pass what I would call a loyalty test,? said Jon L. Hagler, a prominent A&M alumnus and a major donor to the university.

Mr. Perry has also drawn scrutiny for two of his signature economic development efforts, the Texas Enterprise Fund and the Texas Emerging Technology Fund. The enterprise fund, which is intended to be a deal-closing tool for the state as it competes for jobs, has dispensed $435 million in grants to businesses since 2003. The technology fund, which has doled out nearly $200 million to companies since 2005, has a similar job creation mandate.

More than a quarter of the companies that have received grants from the enterprise fund in the most recent fiscal year, or their chief executives, made contributions to either Mr. Perry?s campaign dating back to 2001 or to the Republican Governors Association since 2008, when Mr. Perry became its chairman, according to an analysis by The New York Times.

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Source: http://feeds.nytimes.com/click.phdo?i=174ff7a491100ea6c03ad266b7a5e260

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Weekend Open Forum: A PC industry without HP

Big business has become obsessed with profit margins.
It is not enough to have large market share and make money.

I'm a retired DEC-Compaq-HP employee.
It was easy to see after HP bought Compaq, that HP was NOT the company that Hewlett and Packard built. It was just a big corporation, with a board and CEO that had no passion for
the Tech industry.

This obsession with being IBM will lead HP to become a small player.

They had all the pieces--Tandem fault tolerant, Proliant servers, HP-UX, Compaq PC business, printers, Storage, networking.
Instead of being IBM they should have been a unique multi faceted tech giant.
The board and CEO have blown it.

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Source: http://www.techspot.com/news/45167-weekend-open-forum-a-pc-industry-without-hp.html

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Google?s new sign-in page. Try it now.

Google is updating its sign-in page, and users are now able to preview its brand new look.

If you go to the main Google sign-in page (you?ll need to sign-out first), it?s likely it may look as it normally does, but if you look at the bottom of the page, there should be an option that says: Coming soon: A new sign-in page! Preview it. And here?s what it looks like:


It?s thought that this has been available for some people for up to a week, but is only now being rolled out further afield. If you compare it with the old one here you can see some of the changes that have been made:

The most immediately obvious change is the new grey band across the top of the page, and rather than seeing a ?Sign in with your Google Account,? message, it simply says ?Sign in,? beside a Google logo. Also, the ?Gmail? logo has been replaced with simple plain text.

This is all part of a larger redesign of Google products, which it has outlined in its Changes to the sign-in page of Google Products page. And in June this year Chris Wiggins, Google?s Creative Director for Digital, said in a blog post:

?We?re working on a project to bring you a new and improved Google experience, and over the next few months, you?ll continue to see more updates to our look and feel.?

When you click the ?preview? button at the bottom of the sign-in page, the new page will become your default sign-in page across all Google products that have the new design enabled. And if you don?t immediately like it, you can still switch back to the old look by clicking to return to the old look.

It?s not immediately clear when the new log-in page will permanently replace the old one.

Thanks to @CraigReville for the tip.

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Source: http://thenextweb.com/google/2011/08/20/googles-new-sign-in-page-try-it-now/

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For President at Play, Family Outings, Golf and Lots of Advisers

If that seems a bit like going on vacation with your lawyer and accountant, well, that?s part of being a president at play.

The Obama administration, as much as its predecessors, is acutely sensitive to criticism about the president taking time off ? complaints that are noisier this year because his annual retreat comes at a time of economic pain and market turmoil.

By bringing along Mr. Brennan, who was photographed Friday giving Mr. Obama his daily national security briefing on deck chairs ? before the president took his daughters to a local bookstore; before even, he played his first round of golf ? the White House is sending a message: this vacation is less a chance to kick back than a change of scenery.

?The president understands that he has important responsibilities to fill,? the deputy White House press secretary, Joshua Earnest, said to reporters on the way to Martha?s Vineyard. ?And it?s his job to fill those responsibilities 24 hours a day, 365 days a year.?

The trouble for this White House ? from a public relations point of view, if not a quality-of-life point of view ? is that this is such a delightful place to do the hard work of governing.

The administration flew about 150 people to Martha?s Vineyard: Secret Service agents, military aides and staff members ? from Mr. Brennan down to the handler who walked the Obama family dog, Bo, onto Air Force One. (Neatly trimmed for his Vineyard romp, Bo sneaked in by the rear stairs, ahead of the press contingent.)

Some staff members are housed in bed and breakfasts, with ruffled bedspreads and gaily painted shutters. Others are at a hotel in Edgartown, a stylish port known for its stately homes built by whaling captains. The first family is renting a 28-acre waterfront estate, Blue Heron Farm, which has horse paddocks, a boat house and an apple orchard.

Few locals in this Democrat-friendly terrain begrudge Mr. Obama his time off. A banner at the Mansion House Inn, where reporters are staying, declares, ?Having achieved so much against division and dysfunction, President Obama deserves a Vineyard vacation.? (Full disclosure: the hotel is swell, too, with a rooftop deck that looks out to yachts in the harbor.)

Contrast that to the quarters where staff members were billeted when President George W. Bush vacationed at his ranch in Crawford, Tex.

Because it was so remote, with few hotels nearby, the White House leased 11 acres outside the gates from a neighbor of Mr. Bush, and put in five trailers, said Steve Atkiss, a former special assistant to the president for operations, who helped set up the outpost.

The trailers housed Secret Service agents, military aides, a communications center, helicopter pilots and members of the president?s senior staff.

?They were pretty run-of-the-mill double-wide trailers,? said Mr. Atkiss, who now works for Command Consulting Group, a security and intelligence consultancy. ?They were functional spaces without being in the least bit luxurious. It was not Martha?s Vineyard.?

And Mr. Bush spent a lot of time in Texas: 180 days, at the same point in his administration where Mr. Obama is now, according to the CBS News reporter Mark Knoller, who compiles such statistics. Mr. Obama had spent 61 days on vacation before this holiday began.

As with Mr. Obama, Mr. Bush?s sojourns were not vacations in the normal sense of the word. He played host to world leaders at the ranch, and held national security meetings. Mr. Atkiss argued that presidents can actually get more done on vacation, since they are not interrupted by White House ceremonial duties.

Mr. Obama did play golf in Edgartown, after he took his girls home from Bunch of Grapes, a Vineyard Haven bookstore. But his aides say he will devote time next week to honing proposals to revive the economy, to be announced in September. Fast-moving events in Syria and Libya guarantee that Mr. Brennan will be kept busy, too.

For now, though, the president?s staff members are savoring the sea breezes in a place they insist functions perfectly well as a New England White House. Working out of a B&B, Mr. Earnest said, is ?better than doing my job at my desk in lower press? ? referring to the cramped West Wing space where press aides field calls from reporters.

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Source: http://feeds.nytimes.com/click.phdo?i=33cd8ad8e033e18aba1d3c6ec8084223

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Weekend Open Forum: A PC industry without HP

Big business has become obsessed with profit margins.
It is not enough to have large market share and make money.

I'm a retired DEC-Compaq-HP employee.
It was easy to see after HP bought Compaq, that HP was NOT the company that Hewlett and Packard built. It was just a big corporation, with a board and CEO that had no passion for
the Tech industry.

This obsession with being IBM will lead HP to become a small player.

They had all the pieces--Tandem fault tolerant, Proliant servers, HP-UX, Compaq PC business, printers, Storage, networking.
Instead of being IBM they should have been a unique multi faceted tech giant.
The board and CEO have blown it.

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Source: http://www.techspot.com/news/45167-weekend-open-forum-a-pc-industry-without-hp.html

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Gaming 31 ? OMFG Hats

The TV That Watches You

Many people surf the Web while they watch television. Soon­­­ the websites they visit could adapt in real time to the shows being watched?automatically presenting information relevant to the show, or even tuning their ads in response to what's on screen.

A new type of Internet-connected television, due out before the end of the year, has built-in software and hardware that send data about what is on-screen to an Internet server that can identify the content. Web pages being viewed using the same Internet connection as the TV set can then tap into that information. The system can identify any content onscreen, whatever the source, whether live TV, DVDs or movie files playing from a computer.

Flingo, the San Francisco-based startup that developed the technology, known as Sync Apps, says the new set is already being mass-produced by one of the top five television brands in the U.S. and will retail for less than $500.

"Any mobile app or Web page being used in front of your TV can ask our servers what is on right now," says David Harrison, cofounder and CTO of Flingo. "For example, you could go to Google or IMDB and the page would already know what's on the screen. Retailers like Amazon or Walmart might want to show you things to buy related to a show, like DVDs, or what people are wearing in it." Social sites such as Facebook or Twitter can use the service to connect viewers to a TV show's official page or stream. When a user flips channels, or a show ends, the Webpage being viewed knows about it and can instantly update to the new viewing.

Flingo has made available a public API (application programming interface), so developers can build mobile and Web apps that use the television's inside knowledge. The TV will also display pop-ups on-screen, offering further Web-retrieved information about a show, or links to apps on the set itself.

All of this occurs with the permission of the television's owner, says Harrison. The first time the TV is switched on, it asks users if they would like to opt in to the data-sharing service. If they say yes, it prompts them to accept a terms-of-service agreement. Individual sites and apps must ask for, and be granted, permission to access the data the TV makes available.

Ashwin Navin, Flingo's CEO and other cofounder, says he expects people to opt in because the service offers an automatic way to do what people are already doing manually. "People are doing the work to search for information to go with their viewing," he says. "We'll have all that information right there."

The data generated by a television with Sync Apps is also valuable to advertisers. Already, online ads can be targeted based on the content of a Web page and the viewer's browsing history. Navin says that his company will enable sites to match ads to a person's TV-viewing history too, at least on sites that have received permission to use the television's data.

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Source: http://feeds.technologyreview.com/click.phdo?i=c433f83d84c57787cf18961d605e40ca

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The TV That Watches You

Many people surf the Web while they watch television. Soon­­­ the websites they visit could adapt in real time to the shows being watched?automatically presenting information relevant to the show, or even tuning their ads in response to what's on screen.

A new type of Internet-connected television, due out before the end of the year, has built-in software and hardware that send data about what is on-screen to an Internet server that can identify the content. Web pages being viewed using the same Internet connection as the TV set can then tap into that information. The system can identify any content onscreen, whatever the source, whether live TV, DVDs or movie files playing from a computer.

Flingo, the San Francisco-based startup that developed the technology, known as Sync Apps, says the new set is already being mass-produced by one of the top five television brands in the U.S. and will retail for less than $500.

"Any mobile app or Web page being used in front of your TV can ask our servers what is on right now," says David Harrison, cofounder and CTO of Flingo. "For example, you could go to Google or IMDB and the page would already know what's on the screen. Retailers like Amazon or Walmart might want to show you things to buy related to a show, like DVDs, or what people are wearing in it." Social sites such as Facebook or Twitter can use the service to connect viewers to a TV show's official page or stream. When a user flips channels, or a show ends, the Webpage being viewed knows about it and can instantly update to the new viewing.

Flingo has made available a public API (application programming interface), so developers can build mobile and Web apps that use the television's inside knowledge. The TV will also display pop-ups on-screen, offering further Web-retrieved information about a show, or links to apps on the set itself.

All of this occurs with the permission of the television's owner, says Harrison. The first time the TV is switched on, it asks users if they would like to opt in to the data-sharing service. If they say yes, it prompts them to accept a terms-of-service agreement. Individual sites and apps must ask for, and be granted, permission to access the data the TV makes available.

Ashwin Navin, Flingo's CEO and other cofounder, says he expects people to opt in because the service offers an automatic way to do what people are already doing manually. "People are doing the work to search for information to go with their viewing," he says. "We'll have all that information right there."

The data generated by a television with Sync Apps is also valuable to advertisers. Already, online ads can be targeted based on the content of a Web page and the viewer's browsing history. Navin says that his company will enable sites to match ads to a person's TV-viewing history too, at least on sites that have received permission to use the television's data.

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Source: http://feeds.technologyreview.com/click.phdo?i=c433f83d84c57787cf18961d605e40ca

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