Continue reading »]]> iOS (known as iPhone OS prior to June 2010) is Apple’s mobile operating system. Originally developed for the iPhone, it has since been extended to support other Apple devices such as the iPod touch, iPad and Apple TV. Apple does not license iOS for installation on third-party hardware. As of January 14, 2011, Apple’s App Store contains more than 300,000 iOS applications, which have collectively been downloaded more than 10 billion times. In the last quarter of 2010, it had a 16% share of the smartphone operating system market in terms of units sold, third behind Google’s Android and Nokia’s Symbian. As of May 2010 it accounted for 59% of mobile web consumption (not including the iPad) in North America.

The user interface of iOS is based on the concept of direct manipulation, using multi-touch gestures. Interface control elements consist of sliders, switches, and buttons. The response to user input is immediate and provides a fluid interface. Interaction with the OS includes gestures such as swipe, tap, pinch, and reverse pinch, all of which have specific definitions within the context of the iOS operating system and its multitouch interface. Internal accelerometers are used by some applications to respond to shaking the device (one common result is the undo command) or rotating it in three dimensions (one common result is switching from portrait to landscape mode).

iOS is derived from Mac OS X, with which it shares the Darwin foundation, and is therefore a Unix-like operating system by nature.

In iOS, there are four abstraction layers: the Core OS layer, the Core Services layer, the Media layer, and the Cocoa Touch layer. The operating system uses roughly 500 megabytes of the device’s storage, varying for each model.

Continue reading »]]> A social network game is a type of online game that is distributed primarily through social networks, and typically features multiplayer and asynchronous gameplay mechanics. Social network games are most often implemented as browser games, but are not necessarily so. They are amongst the most popular games played in the world, with several products with tens of millions of players. Mafia Wars, FarmVille and FrontierVille are examples of popular social network games.

While they share many aspects of traditional video games, social network games often employ additional ones that make them distinct.

Continue reading »]]> Android is a software stack for mobile devices that includes an operating system, middleware and key applications. Google Inc. purchased the initial developer of the software, Android Inc., in 2005. Android’s mobile operating system is based on the Linux kernel. Google and other members of the Open Handset Alliance collaborated on Android’s development and release. The Android Open Source Project (AOSP) is tasked with the maintenance and further development of Android. The Android operating system is the world’s best-selling Smartphone platform.

Android has a large community of developers writing applications ("apps") that extend the functionality of the devices. There are currently over 200,000 apps available for Android. Android Market is the online app store run by Google, though apps can also be downloaded from third-party sites. Developers write primarily in the Java language, controlling the device via Google-developed Java libraries.

The unveiling of the Android distribution on 5 November 2007 was announced with the founding of the Open Handset Alliance, a consortium of 80 hardware, software, and telecom companies devoted to advancing open standards for mobile devices. Google released most of the Android code under the Apache License, a free software and open source license.

The Android open-source software stack consists of Java applications running on a Java-based, object-oriented application framework on top of Java core libraries running on a Dalvik virtual machine featuring JIT compilation. Libraries written in C include the surface manager, OpenCore media framework, SQLite relational database management system, OpenGL ES 2.0 3D graphics API, WebKit layout engine, SGL graphics engine, SSL, and Bionic libc. The Android operating system, including the Linux kernel, consists of roughly 12 million lines of code including 3 million lines of XML, 2.8 million lines of C, 2.1 million lines of Java, and 1.75 million lines of C++.

Other Information

• Company / developer : Google Inc., Open Handset Alliance
• Programmed in : C (core), Java (UI)
• Working state : Current
• Source model : Free and open source software (3.0 is currently still closed source)
• Initial release : 21 October 2008 (2008-10-21)
• Latest stable release :
  • Tablets: 3.1 (Honeycomb)
  • Phones: 2.3.4 (Gingerbread) / 24 February 2011; 3 months ago (2011-02-24)
• Supported platforms : ARM, MIPS, x86
• Kernel type : Linux kernel
• Default user interface : Graphical
• License : Apache 2.0, Linux kernel patches are under GPL v2

Link

• android.com

Incoming search terms:

• android xbox gamepad

Continue reading »]]> A smartphone is a mobile phone that offers more advanced computing ability and connectivity than a contemporary feature phone. Smartphones and feature phones may be thought of as handheld computers integrated with a mobile telephone, but while most feature phones are able to run applications based on platforms such as Java ME, a smartphone allows the user to run and multitask applications that are native to the underlying hardware. Smartphones run complete operating system software providing a platform for application developers. Thus, they combine the functions of a camera phone and a personal digital assistant (PDA).

According to an Olswang report in early 2011, smartphones are experiencing accelerating rates of adoption: 22% of UK consumers already have a smartphone, with this percentage rising to 31% amongst 24-35 year olds.

Growth in demand for advanced mobile devices boasting powerful processors, abundant memory, larger screens, and open operating systems has outpaced the rest of the mobile phone market for several years. According to a study by ComScore, over 45.5 million people in the United States owned smartphones in 2010 out of 234 million total subscribers. Despite the large increase in smartphone sales in the last few years, smartphone shipments only make up 20% of total handset shipments, as of the first half of 2010. In March 2011 Berg Insight reported data that showed global smartphone shipments increased 74% from 2009 to 2010.

Continue reading »]]> Xbox Live (trademarked as Xbox LIVE) is an online multiplayer gaming and digital media delivery service created and operated by Microsoft Corporation. It was first made available to the Xbox video game console. An updated version of the service became available for the Xbox 360 console at that system’s launch. The Windows Equivalent is Games for Windows – Live that makes certain aspects of the system available on Windows PCs, with plans to extend Live to other platforms such as handhelds and mobile phones as part of the Live Anywhere initiative.

History

As Microsoft developed the original Xbox console online gaming was designated as one of the key pillars for the greater Xbox strategy. Sega had made an attempt to capitalize on the ever-growing online gaming scene when it launched the Dreamcast video game console in 1999, including online support as standard. Nevertheless, due to lack of widespread broadband adoption at the time, the Dreamcast shipped with only a dial-up modem while a later-released broadband adapter was not widely supported or widely available. Downloadable Content was available, though limited in size due to the narrowband connection and the size limitations of a memory card. The online features, while praised as innovative, were largely considered a failure, and the Dreamcast’s immediate competitors, the PlayStation 2 and Nintendo GameCube did not ship with built-in network adapters.

Microsoft, however, hoped that the Xbox would succeed where the Dreamcast had failed. The company determined that intense online gaming required the throughput of a broadband connection and the storage space of a hard disk drive, and thus these PC-style features would be vital to the new platform. This would allow not only for significant downloadable content, such as new levels, maps, weapons, challenges and characters, to be downloaded quickly and stored, but also would make it possible to standardize bandwidth intensive features such as voice communication. Based on this reasoning, the console included a standard Ethernet port in order to provide connectivity to common broadband networks, but did not include a modem or any dial-up support, and its online service was designed to support broadband users only. Critics scoffed at the idea, citing poor broadband adoption at the turn of the century.

When the Xbox launched on November 15, 2001, the as-yet unnamed online service was destined for a Summer 2002 deployment. Xbox Live was finally given a name at E3 2002 when the service was unveiled in its entirety. Sound dampened booths and broadband connected Xbox consoles – featuring an early version of Unreal Championship – demonstrated the service on the show floor. The Epic title was one of the flagship titles for the service, which was slated for a debut on November 15, 2002, marking the anniversary of the Xbox launch. Microsoft announced that 50 Xbox Live titles would be available by the end of 2003. Utilizing the required broadband bandwidth, Xbox Live featured a unified gaming “Friends List”, as well as a single identity across all titles (regardless of the publisher), and standardized voice chat and communication; a feature that was still in its infancy, even on the PC.

Leading up to the launch, Microsoft enlisted several waves of beta testers to improve the service and receive feature feedback. When the service debuted, it lacked much of the functionality that later titles included, but Xbox Live grew and evolved on the Xbox and many aspects of the service were included with the Xbox 360 console out of the box, rather than through a later update. Microsoft’s 5000th patent was Live-related and gave Xbox 360 users access to watch other gamers compete against each other over Xbox Live.

The packaging for playable Xbox Live titles on the original Xbox console featured the trademark gold bar underneath the Xbox header. Tom Clancy’s Splinter Cell and Brute Force sported a Live “bubble” design, as they only featured downloadable content. This was changed later, wherein all Xbox Live titles included the universal gold Live bar. By the time of the Xbox 360, all titles were required to provide at least a limited form of Xbox Live “awareness”.

Xbox Live hit a milestone in July 2004, when it achieved 1 million subscribers; and again in March 2007, when it achieved 6 million subscribers. In August 2007, Xbox Live had over 7.1 million active users. On November 15, 2007 Microsoft celebrated Xbox Live’s 5th anniversary by offering its then over 8 million subscribers the title Carcassonne free of charge and awarding gamers who had subscribed to Live since its inception 500 free Microsoft Points. Over the 2007 Christmas period a lot of Xbox 360′s would not load as they should due to the problems with the Xbox Live service (they would not load the profiles and would just show a moving round circle).Due to intermittent service interruptions during late December 2007 and early January 2008, Microsoft promised to offer a free Xbox Live Arcade game to all Xbox Live users as compensation, concluding that, Marc Whitten has released an open letter to all Xbox Live members.[10] Increased demand from Xbox 360 purchasers (the largest number of new user sign-ups in the history of Xbox Live) was given as the reason for the downtime. On January 18, 2008, Microsoft announced Undertow would be offered free for the week starting January 23 through January 27 as compensation. The game was for both Silver and Gold users, so people who paid for their Xbox Live service got the same compensation as non payers.

Xbox Live has since passed the 10 million member mark for Gold and Silver subscribers. This occurred 6 months earlier than Microsoft originally anticipated. On May 14, 2008 Microsoft announced 12 million members.

Microsoft’s Entertainment & Devices President Robbie Bach claims that Xbox Live sets the 360 apart from its rivals. “Xbox Live is a big differentiator for us,” said Bach to investor.com, “That drives a significant amount of energy around what’s on with Xbox.” Bach cites the exclusive downloadable content for GTA IV as a reason why Microsoft’s online service is superior to its rivals.

Xbox Live exclusive servers are based in Seattle, Washington while using some of Microsoft’s other servers in Quincy and Yakima, Washington.

Xbox Live features (specific to the Xbox 360)

• Mottos for display on gamer profiles
• Game achievements, which are earned during gameplay
• Reputation rating which is voted on by other players who decide to either prefer or avoid another player
• Gamerscores, which are a total of a player’s achievement points
• Friends list, which is a list of a player’s chosen friends, up to 100 friends allowed
• Recent player list, which lists the last 50 players a user has played with
• Complaint filing system, which allows a user to report another user that has broken the Xbox Live Terms of Use
• The Xbox Guide, which opens a window on the left side of the screen at any time for easy access to common features
• Windows Live messenger integration
• Access to Xbox Live Marketplace content, including new game content, games and movies
• Voice Chat (wireless or wired headset required)
• Video Chat (Live Vision camera required, with headset optional for chatting)
• Multiplayer gameplay, where a user can link up 4 Xbox’s to play together (known as system link), or connect online (Online requires Xbox Live Gold)
• Enhanced matchmaking using cumulative gamerscore, reputation, location/language profile, and gamer zone
• Bio section in which one can list personal interests, URLs, etc.
• Parental controls, limiting children’s exposure to other users (“Family Settings”)
• Inside Xbox is a newsletter about Xbox Live news, events, products, interviews and games that is integrated in the Xbox 360 Dashboard. Content for Inside Xbox is created by the Xbox global marketing team and features streaming video segments “Pick Up and Play”, “Major’s Minute” with Larry Hryb and “Game with Fame”.

Xbox Live – Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia