Who wants to hear a squeaky, yet earthy Travis talk about the Microsoft MVP Program, hanging out in far-flung cities and waxing poetic on the topic of one Lefty Brown's birthday? You? Well, boy are you in for a treat.
The Favs: July 21st – Free-to-play gaming and Nokia Windows Phones are cool
Apparently, game development companies and publishers use some shady tactics to keep free-to-play gamers immersed. Who knew?
The Favs: July 21st – Free-to-play gaming and Nokia Windows Phones are cool
Deadliest Catch, Duck Dynasty Seasons on Sale in Xbox Video
What do you get when you put four millionaires who are responsible for the world’s best-selling duck call, two guys who like to explore the plausibility of myths and a group of men who fish the Alaskan depths for imperial crab gold? You get this week’s 50% off sale in the Xbox Video Store. For this week only users can save big on a large slate of shows including Duck Dynasty, Deadliest Catch, and Mythbusters.
Users can pick up Duck Dynasty Season 3 for 10.00, Deadliest Catch Season 9 for $26.99, Mythbusters Seasons 3-6 for $13.99, Bering Sea Gold Season One for $9.99, Gold Rush Seasons 1 for $10.99, Storage Wars Season 3 for $16.00, Flying Wild Alaska Seasons 1-2 for $12.99, American Loggers for $9.99, Swamp Loggers for Season 1-2 for $9.99, Gangland Season 5 for $4.99, Surviving The Cut for $5.99, Dual Survival Season One for $9.99 and Beyond Scared Straight Seasons 1-3 for as little as $3.99.
The sale also includes America’s Next Top Model Season 19 for $10, Unforgettable Season 1 for $11.50, Hawaii Five-O for $19.50 and CSI Seasons 1-11 for $18.50 or lower.
Additionally, the British invasion also seems to be picking up steam. The 50% boasts discounts seasons of Doctor Who Season 1 for $11.99, Doctor Who: Best of Specials Season 1 for $2.99, Bedlam Season 1 for $4.99, Being Human Season 1 for $4.99, Primeval Season 2 for $11.99, Torchwood Season 1 for $10.99, Jekyll Season 1 for $5.99 Merlin for $9.99, Misfits Season One for $4.99 and Robin Hood Season One for $10.99.
Now, how you explain the fact that you just spent a pretty large amount of your weekly Starbucks allowance on dozens of televisions shows is up to you. We suggest, gently.
Halo: Spartan Assault Now Available, Sort Of
There’s no hiding our excitement for this one. We’ve been looking forward to the prospect of a decent Halo title on Microsoft’s ancillary Xbox platforms for some time now. Starting today, you can pick up Halo: Spartan Assault for your favorite Xbox LIVE platform, well kind of.
During the announcement of Spartan Assault, the first top-down shooter in the franchise’s history, apparently Microsoft forgot to mention a few details. Users looking to play the title on Windows Phone 8 devices will need to be on Verizon. That is right, from now until August 16th, Microsoft has given the carrier an exclusive on the title. No other Windows Phones, unlocked or otherwise, will be able to download the title.
Microsoft also seems to have forgotten one of the foundations of the Windows Store: free trials. We’re sure Halo: Spartan Assault is an incredible title, but at the cost of $6.99 we suspect most won’t ever find out since there is no free trial available for the title.
Xbox Wire has a small in-depth piece with Vanguard Games, the studio who developed the game in partnership with 343 Industries.
Halo: Spartan Assault’s soundtrack is also now available in the Xbox Music Store too. It was produced by new series producer Tom Salta.
The Captain’s Log: It’s been a Long Road
And now a personal message from the editor-in-chief.
It’s feels like it’s been an absolute eternity since I announced that I’d be leaving my job of more than seven years to take on a full time job at enConnected’s publisher, and my start-up paige-aiden Media. Since then a ton has happened and you’ll noticed a ton simply hasn’t.
Let’s start with what has gone down. As part of my way to fund enConnected and paige-aiden I began doing freelance work for a number of technology publications. While doing so has limited the amount of direct time I get to spend writing enConnected stories, it has opened up another world to me in terms of hands-on experience.
To date enConnected has operated as a sort of enthusiast hangout with larger aspirations. This plus the need to support myself meant that I couldn’t invest the time and energy I needed to better develop as an editor and writer. Now that I’ve gotten a little more experience under my belt, I’d like to apply what I’ve learned to enConnected.
I want this place to have standards. I want it to be that place where people come to find stories that they just don’t find anywhere else. I also want it to have a different editorial tone from the drab non-sense that sometimes spews from other independent publications. This is technology. This is entertainment. Our stories and editorials should reflect the type of things we care about and the people we are in real life.
So far, I don’t know how most of these ambitions will translate to daily operations. Despite that, I’ve already made some course corrections. I’d like to outline a few for you.
- I’m reinstating the podcast effective August 1st. Instead of airing one hour specials we’ll move to a regular time slot of recording on Thursdays and posting on Friday mornings at 8:30 a.m.
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If we’d like to play with the big boys, we’ve got to learn all the things that they do well and adapt to them. I’ve gotten feedback from a lot of you about how great our long form pieces are and how disappointed you are that we sometimes just don’t do a decent job of checking for grammar and punctuation issues. Your message is loud. Your intentions are clear. We will adapt. As editor it is my responsibility to catch these things. I’ve started taking night classes to get better at minding these types of things and my teacher has a ruler. Trust me, I’ll get better, or end up with bloody knuckles until I do. This won’t happen overnight, but you bet your ass we’ll get there.
Finally, I’d like to talk about some issues we’re running into. Right now, it’s still just me running news operations for the foreseeable future. In a perfect world, I’d be able to patrol for breaking news every hour or so, but sometimes that just isn’t possible. I plan to address this at some point, but right now I’ve got no hard plans to announce on that front.
Most of our social interactions on Twitter and Facebook are automated. Again, it’s not an ideal situation, but I have tuned these system to at least better inform you of content that’s actually still relevant. Until the WordPress foundation gets its stuff together, or we find a decent plugin that can manage these things this will continue to be an issue.
Right now, WordPress, or rather our installation of it, is about as slow as downloading a video from the Xbox Video Store on a 56k modem. I don’t think it’s a secret that I’m rapidly approaching my breaking point with WordPress. I can confirm that we have long-term plans to either break down the entire enConnected database, or architect the with another content management system. I’ll share more about that down the road.
If you’ve got any questions, or complaints send them. I want to hear from you. Send them to tpope@enConnected.com. I’ll see you in The Social. Until then, we are enConnected. Now playing.
PSA Assassin’s Creed 2 Now Free to Xbox Live Gold Users
As part of the limited time Games With Gold promotion running until later this year, all Xbox Live Gold users can now download a full copy of Assassin’s Creed 2 for free. Interested Xbox Live Gold users will have until July 30th to download the free title before it goes back to its $19.99 price.
In celebration of the free title Microsoft has also marked down some of the Assassin’s Creed franchise’s downloable content. This content includes a full copy of Assassin’s Creed Revelations for $14.99, Assassin’s Creed for $14.99 and Assassin’s Creed Brotherhood for $19.99.
Discounted add-ons for the franchise includes the Assassin’s Creed 2: Sequence 12 Battle of Forli, Assassin’s Creed 2 Sequence 13: Bonfire of the Vanities & Secret Locations, Assassin’s Creed Brotherhood: The Dav Vinci Disappearance DLC, Assassin’s Creed: Revelations: The Lost Archive, Assassin’s Creed: Revelations: The Mediterranean Traveler Map Pack and the Assassin’s Creed 3 Season Pass. These add-on range from as low as 214 Microsoft Points or $2.65 to $20.
From The Social: Gaming Drought
We are getting dangerously close to the next gaming console transition. Depending on your experience with gaming consoles, you might already know what that means. Users are finding it hard to concentrate their gaming focus on the living room, after all, everyone is only talking about the new hotness, those games that could only be played on the latest hardware.
What games are you guys playing? What is getting you excited? Leave a few in The Social for some of us to check out.
Introducing the Lumia 1020, a Windows Phone with a 41 Megapixel Camera
As expected, Nokia used its event in New York to announce the Nokia Lumia 1020, a Windows Phone with a 41 megapixel sensor.
Though it’s that sensor that will attract the most headlines, Nokia seems to have put a lot of software engineering time into create the new Smart Camera and other app and custom firmware that will power the device’s camera. Users will be able to customize the aperture, exposure and other settings when taking photos using the new Nokia Pro Camera application.
By default the device will also take larger pictures and then automatically resize them so that users can actually save pictures of things that hadn’t even been originally preparing to take photos of.
Other hardware specifications will include a 4.5″ inch AMOLED display with a resolution of 768 x 1280 pixels, 32 GB of onboard storage ad 2GB of RAM. Nokia will use the same 1.5 GHz dual-core processor that it’s other Lumia devices feature.
This Lumia won’t include compatibility with Nokia’s wireless charging accessories out of the box. Instead users will have to purchase an add-on shell. While they’re out they’ll likely also want to pick up the Lumia 1020 Camera grip. The add-on will add a tri-pod mount and extended battery to the device. There’s no word on how much it might cost yet.
Unfortunately, the device won’t include a SD Card slot for adding external storage.
The Nokia Lumia 1020 will debut on AT&T on July 26th for $299 with a two-year service agreement. Nokia plans on rolling out the device to international markets throughout the rest of the year.
Introducing the Lumia 1020, a Windows Phone with a 41 Megapixel Camera
The Verge: Microsoft to Cut Surface RT Pricing
In life, there are only a few things you can count on. Death is the obvious one and of course taxes aren’t far off either but our favorite is that at some point the cutting edge devices of yore receive steep price cuts over time. Case in point, Microsoft’s Surface RT device.
According to The Verge, Microsoft will slash the price of all of the Surface RT devices across the board by $150. In effect that means that users could possibly pick up the Surface RT with 32GB of storage for just $349, the Surface RT with 32GB of storage and the Touch Cover going for $449.
The 64GB Surface RT with no Touch Cover would then cost just $449, while that same device would cost $549 with a Touch Cover.
Supposedly, these price cuts could come as early as next week. While we aren’t ones to throw sand on someone else ‘s enthusiasm, we feel it’s a good idea to remind users who might buy a Surface RT at this price that the device was announced about a year ago, making it highly likely that it’ll be replaced in Microsoft’s line up at some point in the not too distant future.
Still, if true, those aren’t bad prices for a tablet with a 10″ screen.
Microsoft has announced that these price cuts will go into at Staples stores Sunday, July 14th.
More Products in More Places: Microsoft Announces Company Wide Reorganization
In a newly released memo, Microsoft has outlined a new corporate structure that it hopes will allow it to deliver a products faster.
The changes were outlined in a memo that went out to Microsoft employees this morning from Microsoft Chief Executive Officer Steve Ballmer. Entitled “One Microsoft”, the memo gives a somewhat on-high look at how the company will be replacing the structure it has today.
Instead of the business division structure the company has today, Microsoft will stop focusing on specific product brands and goals with each division. For example, instead of having one division that solely focused on Windows Products, the new Microsoft will have one division whose sole job it is to create operating systems for all of its products.
It also seems that the company will centralize most of its operating departments as well. Today it isn’t uncommon to find marketing teams on each product group and division, however with the new structure, marketing will be common a division into itself.
Consumer oriented products will breakdown like this:
The Operating Systems Engineering Group will be headed by Terry Myerson, the current head of the mobile communications business that produces Windows Phone. “It [the Operating Systems Engineering Group] will span all our OS work for console, to mobile device, to PC, to back-end systems. The core cloud services for the operating system will be in this group.”
The new Devices and Studios Engineering Group will be led by the current head of the Windows division Julie Larson-Green and be responsible for “all hardware development and supply chain from the smallest to the largest devices we [Microsoft] builds. Julie will also take responsibility for our [Microsoft's] studios experiences including all games, music video and other entertainment.”
Your eyes don’t deceive you. Microsoft will be splitting the hardware and software development of its consumer facing products across divisions. For example the new Devices and Studios organization will assume responsibility for the Xbox One hardware, however the software and Xbox LIVE will be maintained by the Operating Systems Engineering Team.
Microsoft’s suite of applications and online services like Office, Bing and SkyDrive will now live in a division all on their own dubbed the Applications and Services Engineering Group.
There’s a ton of other details here, but it seems the general idea is to forget about the boundaries that form when one division is responsible for a brand and simply pool resources talent from groups who know those types of products better. For example a centralized Application group might be better at creating a Music application than the Devices and Studios Engineering group as they have more ability on the platform.
Either way, this reorganization could get all kinds of confusing. Microsoft says it will share more about the new structure through the end of the year.
More Products in More Places: Microsoft Announces Company Wide Reorganization