Disqus - Latest Comments for techpops

Re: Could it be magic, now? The recent evolution of the Mac keyboard

techpops — Tue, 27 Oct 2015 09:40:10 -0000

When I see pictures of these tiny Apple keyboards sat in front of the big ass monitors, I can't help but think the keyboard looks lost and out of scale. That size works fine within a laptop but the driving trend to shrink everything, being applied to main keyboards, it just doesn't help the format. Our hands aren't shrinking and our desks might be but if you truly haven't got room for one full sized keyboard, you're doing it wrong and missing out if you're a heavy user who needs to get work done rather than a casual browser of the interwebs.

Re: Intel Core i7-5960X review | Processors Reviews | TechRadar

techpops — Mon, 19 Oct 2015 02:10:17 -0000

what your saying does make sense but its not really the whole story. Cinebench, the very app used in this review manages to use all those threads rendering one image. There's nothing about that process that is split into different systems or parts where a thread has to be assigned to it and the clock speed of that one thread is all that matters to get the job done quicker. So no, Cinebench is using all the cores, all the threads to render one job which is involving all kinds of systems from texturing, lighting, polygon shifting and a host of other processes like global illumination, anti aliasing and ambient occlusion

So games can be made to render this way too but as you point out, there are other systems in games that do need their own threads. The physics for instance, that can't be combined with the graphics rendering. Again going back to Cinebench, the rendering engine its using can use physics but that's handled separately from the main engine.

So yes devs are limited in a way, they couldn't just develop for a 100 core CPU and get 100 times the performance but they can use the graphics engines available to render most of the game in a highly threaded way. At the moment they don't do that because that wouldn't work with consoles. There are developers that do use all the threads to get console crushing performance with PC's that are armed with enough CPU grunt but they're in a small minority and I guess they always will be until consoles match PC performance.

Almost done! So its consoles we can confidently blame for holding back games on PC. I have a small hope that the massive demands of virtual reality could see a ramp up in hardware if VR takes off.

Re: Get a free key for Grimoire: Manastorm, with Bundle Stars

techpops — Wed, 24 Jun 2015 13:12:53 -0000

I'm with you Boose, I want nothing to do with Facebook but I'm more than happy to help promote a company giving me a free game. Anyone telling you to just make a fake account, they're the nasty ones. They don't care a jot for Bundlestars but from your reply, you clearly do and want to play fair.

Still, Bundlestars have been running these offers for some time now and they continue to value Facebook above anything else, so that's their prerogative. I hope its working well enough for them to focus on FB only and exclude customers who hate the bloody thing. I remain a fan of Bundlestars.

Re: Project Wing: Google's Secret Program for Delivery Drones

techpops — Fri, 29 Aug 2014 13:08:01 -0000

I wish I could give you reddit gold or something for this comment. It's one of my pet hates having to suffer those same piss poor jokes over and over on every damn robot/AI article.

Re: Project Wing: Google's Secret Program for Delivery Drones

techpops — Fri, 29 Aug 2014 13:05:45 -0000

I would imagine a good way to start would be to restrict delivery to people with capable phones that have gps, so ordering only through a phone app. The package could then be made sure to only drop when that phone is right near it, which would be you waiting to collect it. It's not like you have to think of delivery as something you order to come in the future an have to make sure you're in. It's more like pizza, you order it, it comes minutes rather than days

Re: Project Wing: Google's Secret Program for Delivery Drones

techpops — Fri, 29 Aug 2014 13:02:10 -0000

That would seem to defeat the whole benefit of drone delivery. No driver/pilots have to be paid for, no expensive fuel, small and cheap to mass produce an fleet and so on. You might as well argue that they could just make a four wheeled vehicle that had a human controlling it to deliver lots of parcels at once, oh wait....

Re: If Steam Starts Curating Games, Then What's The Point Of Game Reviewers?

techpops — Mon, 24 Mar 2014 16:03:37 -0000

Lekarn, I think you could explain this clearly until you are blue in the face, some people just don't want to get what the point is. They're here to troll. Some want to turn this into a personal issue with Totalbiscuit, still more an issue with anyone that agrees with the point he brought up that you just explained again.

It's a shame because it's actually an issue as a gamer that interests me a lot. I check Steam every day pretty much and would love to see pressure coming from users who see better ways of presenting the games on Steam that ultimately make everyones time with it better. The problem right now is that Valve are never going to pick up on these issues as they are mixed up with personal attacks and just plain ignorance as to what the original issues were that need to be talked about and pushed forward publicly.

Re: If Steam Starts Curating Games, Then What's The Point Of Game Reviewers?

techpops — Sun, 23 Mar 2014 17:55:27 -0000

Is Gamingblend known for getting article ideas and just blending them up into made up nonsense? If so, well done, that's an original but ultimately stupid idea. If this was just a one off lazy article, admit it, no big deal. Right now it just looks like William is so apathetic towards his own work that he doesn't care to actually understand why he's made a complete bork of it as evidenced in the comments.

Re: How Facebook Killed the Virtual World

techpops — Sun, 03 Jun 2012 11:20:44 -0000

So essentially you're saying, you can be a hobo in Second Life and feel every bit as impoverished as real Hobo's feel in real life. Sure you can get by but you've got to work at it. What an absolutely miserable advertisement for Second Life that is.

Re: How Facebook Killed the Virtual World

techpops — Sun, 03 Jun 2012 11:14:46 -0000

I think you hit a nail there at the end with "Virtual Worlds feel more like home." That's both the lure and the problem with them. I don't actually believe that the massive majority of people who use a computer, whether that be PC, smartphone, tablet or anything inbetween actually want a new home. They want to be entertained and connected to people from their own small world. They already have a home. So providing them with a completely inferior one with more limits just isn't appealing.

I'm one of the few that liked the idea of a home online. A creative place I could do things I couldn't do in the real world. Like in Minecraft, building giant structures I could never build in real life. but I'm a tech nerd and in a tiny minority and even I've abandoned such places. My online home now I guess would be an RSS reader or maybe my website I work on occasionally. But all strictly 2D stuff.

Re: How Facebook Killed the Virtual World

techpops — Sun, 03 Jun 2012 11:02:04 -0000

I really can't agree with much of that. It doesn't make any difference whether you're scrolling up and down a page or in and out of a 3D world. These are just frameworks with no inherent meaning. The meaning comes from what gets hung on the framework and how people use it. Whether you want to accept it or not, people do exactly the same things in Facebook as they do in Second Life or any other virtual land.

You're describing of this ever evolving metaverse sounds exciting. I'd like to follow along but the reality is, nothing is happening in the virtual space. In fact I'd argue its shrinking rather than expanding. Some years ago, the news was ripe with virtual world stories and how money was going virtual along with it. It was all quite exciting anticipating what would happen next. How close we were getting to the Star Trek Holodeck every year. Now there's nothing like that in the news. The buzz isn't there anymore. Nobody cares. As this article points out. Everyone got their fix from Facebook and gave up.

The only exciting thing happening in 3D apart from gaming, which has been locked in some sick ever iterating murder simulator, is in the mobile market where we're seeing virtual stuff, overlaid over the real world. I don't see any great sense of a virtual place coming from this, but it's the only thing I'm finding remotely interesting about virtual anything.

And in case I come across as some kind of Facebook lover. I never use it. Haven't been to the site for years and happily adblock those annoying facebook elements that creep out onto the web.

Re: How Facebook Killed the Virtual World

techpops — Sun, 03 Jun 2012 10:47:02 -0000

You have to be kidding, not many regular users making money with Facebook? There's millions of the little blighters selling everything from themselves and services to whatever they're choosing to make and sell. It's the main way my sister advertises her new stuff she gets in her shop. Not that I think that's any great way to market yourself, it's just that it is a hugely popular way. In contrast, making money in second life involves learning to code, work with graphics, butting your head against an ancient tech engine or all the fun of all three combined.

I saw great potential in Second Life when it first rolled out but that potential was absolutely wasted despite the efforts of what I'm sure is a great community involved in it. Terrible management with pricing but for me, even worse is the lack of understanding how to make a 3D world and how to make a UI that works well. For example, look at World of Warcraft today. It's an ancient graphics engine but it's been patched and prodded into still working for the majority of people who play it on modest hardware. Second Life on the other hand could have a Quad SLI rig hooked up to it and it still wouldn't be a smooth or satisfying engine to play inside.

Re: Aubrey's Model Behavior

techpops — Mon, 07 May 2012 15:23:26 -0000

While I'm not gay, I've loved growing up seeing gay people being normalised into society through seeing them on TV. Just having gay people own their own shows has a very powerful effect on society. So I'm cautious about how minorities are treated on TV. Lisa, well she might claim to be supporting a gay charity but I think that has far more to do with the fact she was taken up by the gay community as some comics are. Something about her just worked for them and she has a gay following because of that. I've no idea what the mechanics of that are. I've never seen her act, I refuse to see it now I've seen what a sad unstable bully she is. And no amount of editing could paint a nice person with issues into the monster that I saw on the Apprentice. So at least in this case, I don't think we have to worry about it. Lisa's a witch and gay people have no connection to that.

Re: Aubrey's Model Behavior

techpops — Mon, 07 May 2012 15:17:05 -0000

I think those were most revealing. That was tantamount to admitting I faked crying and fake anger to get what I want. For me that's worse than someone who just can't control their own emotions and feels bad about it afterwards.

But then I'm not sure I believe she can control herself. It's difficult to know such things from a show that's edited the way it is. As Penn pointed out in an article recently. He has know idea how he's going to come across on the show, that all depends on how the edit it. And that's from someone who spent the whole day there being part of that show.

Re: Aubrey's Model Behavior

techpops — Mon, 07 May 2012 15:12:56 -0000

Yes the show is absolutely that transparent. I'm glad many have seen that Clay was supposed to win from the beginning. There's a nice nugget of evidence for this too. Clay was hired to run the behind the scenes column. So each week Clay writes about what happened on the show on the main site and tweets about it. He's paid to do that, he wrote as much in one of his early articles. No one else was hired to do this. I wonder then, how would Clay be writing about behind the scenes drama on each episode if he'd of been fired week 2? He has to be on the show to write about it. So proof at least that he was contracted for at least a good run on the show.

Re: Lisa Lampanelli | Comedy | Interview | The A.V. Club Denver/Boulder

techpops — Mon, 07 May 2012 14:31:34 -0000

I'm deeply confused by this article. Did the interviewer watch the Apprentice?

As for Lisa being embraced into popular culture. If by that you mean, hated for being the most obnoxious bully we've seen on TV, yep, she's absolutely being embraced right now. Embraced by the throat. Linguistically choked in thread after thread for being a mean, no talent bully with serious social issues.

Re: Microsoft: “Corrective measures” taken at KYE factory

techpops — Wed, 21 Mar 2012 00:18:15 -0000

In this age of everything you want to know is just a click away, it's not really a valid excuse to be surprised that any products being made in China are done in ways that would break western laws. I'm not exempt from this either. I'm well aware of the working conditions in these factories and if you think the tech sector is bad, wait until you google about the working conditions for the clothing trade.

I can't really blame companies like Microsoft and Apple as they aren't people, they have to go through the most economical route to a final product and that unfortunately always involves paying the workers that create those products wages that are so low, in working conditions that are not humane. It's easy as people to argue that profit should be cut, product should be made in the west with good wages and working conditions but again, companies aren't people. They have shareholders to please and if a CEO gets fancy ecological and humanitarian ideas, he's out and the next CEO will outsource that work, or he/she too will be replaced. So you can't expect companies to behave in this respect. If you ever see the words ecological or humanitarian associated with any large corporation you can be assured that the cost of it is low enough that it's being used as a marketing tool. Make you feel a little less guilty the people who mad your shit were pratically tortured and live miserable short lives.

You can't really blame China beyond being disgusted. This is how life is for them unless you're rich enough to rise above it and few are.

So that leaves us, the consumers. I know about all this and yet I still upgraded my PC recently. There wasn't an option I could choose that didn't involve knowing somewhere in the chain of getting my product to me that at least some people were being treated as slaves.

With clothing this is much easier to deal with. I can buy locally as can everyone. So I might not have a Nike logo on my shirt but its well made and I know people weren't being worked to death to make it. The cost isn't even much greater buying homegrown either. The markups big companies like Nike put on their gear is ludicrous compared to what it cost to make. It's shocking to think a company down the road from me that makes jeans, can't have more than 10 workers there, puts out the same quality as Levis and undercuts their prices. Well some of them are cheaper at least. With electronics, where is the alternative?

That's one Google can't answer and I can only pass it on to the government level and lay the blame there. They are the only body that can force companies to do something about, but I don't really see anything changing radically. I'm resigned to knowing this is part of living in a modern world. Technology will for the foreseeable future, involve exploiting people in China, Japan, India and third world countries everywhere to get you (and me) that shiny new piece of electronics.

Roll on 3D printers that can print out circuit boards and deal with multiple materials. That may be the only solution to giving consumers like me a choice, but even then, the 3D printer has to be made somewhere right?

Sigh.

Re: CGSociety - Skate Pantech

techpops — Thu, 17 Nov 2011 13:55:00 -0000

Stunning work and again I'd like to echo it's great seeing Cinema 4D being used so well.

Re: Bill Gates Strikes Back

techpops — Wed, 09 Nov 2011 18:55:45 -0000

You raise a good point there cris but lets look at it a little more deeply than that. All of the most popular tech blogs and sites go for this kind of sensational reporting to get the hits, even the good old fashioned printed press do this too with headline grabbing articles designed to get you to read the paper. It's especially important for anyone who plans on doing this full time. If you're making a living, you have to do some hit pieces to get the traffic up and be understood as writing articles popular enough to allow you to write for the big sites like this very site were on now. So all this is a given, its the reality of working in journalism on the web and except in some special cases, the traditional press too. What you have to look for is whether the writer only writes pieces for clicks or has some decent content in there too. I don't think you can accuse Dvorak of writing only pieces designed to be controversial, just look back at the last dozen articles on this site alone to see how wide ranging his writing really is.

I think Dvorak has a reputation for the kind of writing because he openly admits it on shows like Twit, he mentions his blog whenever he can, its a running joke on the show that he'll get the link in at least once. But the guy is making a living at this, if all he wrote were in depth analysis of highly technical subjects, he'd never pay his bills or feed his family.

I'd be interested to see how you respond now, after we've dug a little deeper into this.

Re: Bill Gates Strikes Back

techpops — Tue, 08 Nov 2011 14:14:31 -0000

It's really people like you that that no one wants on sites like this. No one slighted your daughter here, there is absolutely no need to write with such a vicious tone. I'm not going to try and defend John here, you have a crazy opinion of him and I don't care. What I do care about is when people foul up the tone of tech sites like this with vicious replies and blatant trolling. It really does have an impact for the worst. People are far more likely to adopt a darker tone in face of replies like this and the knock on effects over time can be a great site turns into a gutter that no one wants to take part in leaving only the bottom feeding trolls. Just read Youtube comments for an example of just how bad it can get.

Re: Bill Gates Strikes Back

techpops — Mon, 07 Nov 2011 23:57:21 -0000

I'd buy that as from the heart if it wasn't posted on the internet from a computer, not unlike an "i" device. The fact that it is just makes everything you just wrote laughable. Also you give far too much credit to the masses. They don't need brainwashing, they go willingly with whoever looks like they're leading. Apple is nothing special in having a following. Everything from coke to running shoes, from TV talent shows to politically biased news networks, they all have their fans, fanatics and general followers.

Re: Bill Gates Strikes Back

techpops — Mon, 07 Nov 2011 20:23:31 -0000

You're talking absolute nonsense. Steve Jobs taking Bills money was what saved Apple. They were going under. Jobs engineered a very smart plan to save Apple, the money Bill Gates put into the company only gave him a temporary hold on Apple. The money was in time paid off. If Steve had gone to any other investor he'd never of been able to leverage such a devious proposal. Any other investor would want more and more control depending on how much money was going in. A bit like when Jobs kept investing in Pixar to save it, he gradually took more control until he owned Pixar outright.

I'm sure Bill Gates thought Apple would never really climb out of the mess they were in and he'd get a nice piece of the patents and technology at Apple. Jobs believed he could not only save the company but lift it up to such a success that he could get Gates off his back financially and that's just what he did.

As for this whole arch enemy nonsense. I think that was more in the minds of the crazy fanboys than anything else. They were in competition with each other, it's called rivalry, it happens and no comic book drama about arch enemies is necessary to explain their relationship.

The rest of your comment is really weird and doesn't even make sense.

Re: Bill Gates Strikes Back

techpops — Mon, 07 Nov 2011 12:52:08 -0000

Ease up the jelly insults there old boy. Steve had nothing to do with the design at Apple, beyond choosing the typeface for the logo and even then he had help from a teacher who taught a typography class. Lets not forget it was Jonathan Ives ( http://www.businessweek.com... ) that brought his design vision to the company at a time when beige and box was all the industry was coming up with.

Re: Bill Gates Strikes Back

techpops — Mon, 07 Nov 2011 12:45:50 -0000

How soon we forget what an evil tyrannosaurus Microsoft used to be and Bill was the head of the beast. Microsoft today is just a little puddy cat feeling very insecure amongst other puddies.

I think the truth is now that Gates has moved on. His main interests lie in his charity work, that's a real full time business that's worth getting passionate about for him. Tech is something he did so well at the start and really didn't know what the hell was going on towards the end of his time at Microsoft. Just think back to how Microsoft wrote off the importance of the web with Windows 98 while any techy could have told you it was the future. It was all downhill from there really and I can see how Bill Gates is apathetic towards it now, not feeling the need to talk crap about anyone from his past.

Re: Bill Gates Strikes Back

techpops — Mon, 07 Nov 2011 12:37:54 -0000

Where you see hatred, I'm seeing insightful reporting. Something so lacking today on any tech site.