Daily Archives: March 10, 2010

Chris Nuttall OnLive cloudy with a chance of pitfalls

March 10, 2010 9:42 pm by Chris Nuttall

We now have a date – June 17 – for the launch of OnLive, but uncertainties about the pricing and availability of the revolutionary cloud gaming service remain.

Steve Perlman did tell us the service would cost $14.95 a month and would be available in the 48 contiguous US states in his presentation today at the Game Developers Conference in San Francisco.  But, in a conversation afterwards with the OnLive founder and Mike McGarvey, chief operating officer, the pricing seemed variable and availability looks like being initially limited in terms of actual numbers. Read more

Tags:
Posted in Digital media, Games, Internet |

Richard Waters Schwartz on Steve Jobs’ “bullying tactics”

March 10, 2010 2:53 pm by Richard Waters

Silicon Valley’s best-known CEO blogger now wants to become its best-known ex-CEO blogger (and yes, there may be a book in the works as well).

Jonathan Schwartz, formerly of Sun Microsystems, has used his new pulpit to poke a stick at Steve Jobs. The Apple boss tried to bully Sun into submission back in 2003 by threatening to sue it for trampling on Apple’s intellectual property rights, he claims. He also relates a revealing meeting where Bill Gates turned up the heat with a legal threat.

Schwartz’s bigger point: bullying doesn’t work in tech. Wouldn’t it be nice to believe him? Read more

Posted in Tech |

Chris Nuttall Real guitars offer new riff for music games

March 10, 2010 12:39 am by Chris Nuttall

Sales figures for music games have hit more than a few bum notes lately, but there may be life in the Guitar Hero/Rock Band genre yet.

MTV Games announced on Tuesday there would be a Rock Band 3 later this year, implying a new distribution deal had been struck with Electronic Arts. Meanwhile, over at the Game Developers Conference in San Francisco, a new competitor emerged touting a video game with real instruments. Read more

Tags: ,
Posted in Personal technology |

Joseph Menn FTC raps identity theft prevention firm LifeLock

March 10, 2010 12:25 am by Joseph Menn

The US Federal Trade Commission said on Tuesday that heavily promoted identity theft prevention company LifeLock agreed to pay it and 35 states $12m to settle their accusations that it deceived consumers with a bogus $1m “guarantee” that it would stop fraud in their names.

The FTC’s legal complaint is the latest in a series of embarrassments for the Arizona company, which charges $10 a month and seared itself into the public’s mind with ads featuring the likes of former Sen. Fred Thompson, Howard Stern and Rush Limbaugh. Read more

Tags: , ,
Posted in Internet |