Hasta La Gadget!

Gamescom is once more upon us, and a quartet of Engadget’s finest are here in Cologne, Germany to cover all the major game happenings live from the (enormous) show floor at the Koelnmesse. We’ll be at Sony’s big event tomorrow afternoon bringing you liveblog coverage, and from Microsoft’s “showcase” event — Nintendo isn’t holding anything formal, though we’d love to see a surprise Wii U price drop this week. Also, Valve and Epic are notoriously absent from 2013’s proceedings.

This year’s show promises the first big European news assault on Microsoft and Sony’s next-gen game boxes, not to mention a more specific date for PlayStation 4’s launch. Our friends at Oculus Rift are also milling about, and we’re always hoping to hear more about their upcoming consumer-grade Oculus headset. First up this week we’ve got the Euro version of the Game Developers Conference — should you wish to follow along with our intrepid team as the week progresses, we’ve put together a convenient Twitter list right here. Willkommen!

Filed under: Gaming, Software, HD, Sony, Microsoft, Nintendo

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Each week Ross Rubin contributes Switched On, a column about consumer technology.

Today’s hottest and best-selling tablets and smartphones have one thing in common: they are powered by ARM processors. Offered in such variations as NVIDIA’s Tegra, Qualcomm’s Snapdragon, Samsung’s Exynos and Apple’s A6, ARM processors dominate the leading edge of mobile products. At LG’s recent announcement of its clever and well-appointed G2 smartphone, much was made of it being the first globally launched phone to include Qualcomm’s Snapdragon 800; Android, in contrast, wasn’t mentioned once. And the long reach of ARM extends far beyond the bleeding edge. The Hisense Sero 7 Pro — recently cut to $129 just a few weeks after its launch — has a Tegra 3 processor while ARM chips from Rockchip and MediaTek power Android tablets at even humbler price points.

For years, Intel has promised it would be competitive with ARM in terms of performance per watt (if not in price). It has made great strides both in its smartphone-focused Atom chips and its performance-oriented Core chips (including Haswell, the CPU behind the MacBook Air’s huge gains in battery life), but those in the ARM camp have kept their processors’ competitive heat up while keeping their generated heat down.

Filed under: Software, Intel

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If you’re one of many Windows Phone 8 users who downloaded the Fresh Paint app when it arrived on mobile devices a few weeks ago, you might’ve been disappointed to find it wouldn’t run on certain devices. That’s because the initial release of the program was only for higher-end WP8 phones with a healthy dosage of RAM. Now, however, it has been updated to run on Windows Phone 8 handsets with just 512MB of RAM, which includes models like the HTC 8S, the Nokia Lumia 520/521, 620, 625 and 720. So if you now have a qualifying handset, feel free to hit up the Windows Phone Store link below to unleash that pent-up creativity on a digital canvas.

Filed under: Cellphones, Software, Mobile, Microsoft

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Source: Windows Phone Blog, Fresh Paint (Windows Phone Store)

We’ve heard you, and we agree — our iPhone app has needed a re-envisioning, and we’re thrilled to announce that the fruits of a lot of behind-the-scenes labor can now be seen in the App Store. Engadget’s iPhone app has been completely rebuilt from the ground-up, with an all-new design taking center stage. Behind the new visuals, you’ll find plenty of new functionality. Here’s a quick breakdown on what’s new and what has changed:

• Left and right slide-in rails have replaced the five buttons along the bottom, providing a cleaner view and the ability to slot new tools into those bars
• The left rail provides scrollable, adjustable navigation, while the right rail houses media such as podcasts and videos
• Within an article, you’ll find one-tap access to comments and sharing options right at the top
• Within the Share icon, you’ll also be able to save an article to Instapaper, Evernote, Pocket or into the app’s Read Later section
• Added the ability to save all of the day’s stories for offline reading with a single tap.
• Font size adjustment slider
• One-tap access to send Engadget editors a news tip, and to send feedback to our developers
• Support for Events (including Expand!) and recurring Buyer’s Guides

Our devs are also working hard right now to implement additional features (yes, beyond just tweaks and fixes) later this year. As for our loyal readers that rely on Android and Windows Phone, be assured that we’re overhauling those builds as well in order to elevate our entire stable to a new standard. Our hope is to have those platforms served with a redesigned app before the year’s end. Give it a download right here, and be sure to submit any issues to our support staff within the app itself (pull up the right rail -> Send Feedback). We’ll be poring over each submission in a bid to make things even better as we go. Thanks for reading, and enjoy! %Gallery-slideshow61513%

Filed under: Announcements, Cellphones, Software, Mobile, Apple

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Source: Apple App Store

If Microsoft hiring a former Valve employee wasn’t proof enough that it’s looking to overhaul the Windows gaming experience, it’s now announced that PC titles will be dropped from the Xbox.com store come August 22nd. An announcement on the Xbox support page loosely ties the closure to the impending death of MS points in favor of real currency, although we can’t see how they’re necessarily related. If you’ve splurged on PC games and extra DLC through the Xbox storefront, not to worry, as everything will continue to be accessible though the Games for Windows Live client, which will persist unaffected. Additional game content will also remain on sale in some instances, but that’ll vary by title.

When the PC Marketplace within Xbox.com does shut down, any Windows Live games published by Microsoft won’t be available anywhere, although one can only assume they’ll return to some new platform in the future. Newer PC games and XBLA ports are up for grabs in the Windows 8 store, of course, so perhaps MS will end up offering them there. Or, maybe it’s time to revive the dedicated portal model — that seems to be working for the other guys.

Filed under: Desktops, Gaming, Laptops, Software, Microsoft

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Via: Ubergizmo

Source: Microsoft