Thurrott Daily: April 10

Thurrott Daily: April 10

Happy Sunday. A few tech tidbits and random musings.

4/10/2016 12:26:32 PM

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Microsoft says it’s “ready to play” with PS4

You may have heard of Microsoft’s Chris Charla, the Director of ID@Xbox, who in March penned an Xbox Wire blog post in which he discussed cross-network play.

“We’re enabling developers to support cross-network play as well,” he writes. “This means players on Xbox One and Windows 10 using Xbox Live will be able to play with players on different online multiplayer networks – including other console and PC networks.”

Other console and PC networks. That clearly means The PlayStation Network (PSN) for PS4, and Steam, which works on Windows PCs, Macs, and Linux/Steam Machines. That … is amazing.

Well, Forbes asked him to follow-up on that comment. Is Microsoft really opening up to cross-network play with PS4?

Yes.

“As far as we’re concerned – we’ve made the announcement and we’re ready – whoever wants to get on board. It remains an open invitation to any network that wants to do the same.”

Still, Sony has little motivation to accept Microsoft’s offer. The company is sitting on the largest multiplayer base in the console world, and plenty of people pick one console over another because their friends are already on one network.

Yes, “the year of desktop Linux” really is a joke

The notion of Linux succeeding on the desktop is the long-running joke in personal technology. Based on a recent headline, that joke is in no danger of ending.

As proof, here’s an actual headline from 2014:

Linus Torvalds still wants the Linux desktop

Now flash forward to 2016:

Linus Torvalds still wants Linux to take over the desktop

Seriously.

Note to Linus, world. No one cares what you want, sorry. I want Amiga OS to take over the desktop, and webOS to take over mobile. They aren’t happening either.

“Microsoft’s Hub Keyboard for iOS is nifty but there’s no emoji”

Small typo there. Should read: “Microsoft’s Hub Keyboard for iOS is nifty because there’s no emoji”.

Redditor unearths Easter egg in ‘Mike Tyson’s Punch-Out!!’ 30 years later

This is fun. Sporting News reports (because, I don’t know):

Remember “Mike Tyson’s Punch-Out!!” on the original Nintendo Entertainment System? Remember how each opponent got increasingly more difficult to defeat as you traversed your way through the rankings as “Little Mac?”

It’s been 29 years since it first came out, but gamers are still fascinated by the title. So much so that a Redditor recently unearthed an Easter egg, a visual clue, that tips you off as to when to throw a knockout punch against two of the game’s tougher foes, Piston Honda and Bald Bull.

Here’s the video.

This is why RTFM is still a thing

I don’t mean to call out Jason Perlow here per se, as we all made mistakes like this. But having signed up for Google’s Project Fi a few months back, and having also ported over my existing Google Voice number in doing so, all I can say is this: Google couldn’t have been clearer about how this would work.

Put another way, this is why you don’t do important things on a tiny smart phone screen: Maybe if he had read the Project Fi information on his PC, and signed up from there, this could have been avoided. (Spoiler alert: I literally signed up for a new credit card on my phone this week. So, yes, I’m a hypocrite.)

If I had known more about what I was getting into, I wouldn’t have signed up for Project Fi using the Gmail account I have had for twelve years, the one that was attached to my Google Voice account.

This is the bottom line — as an existing Google Voice user, you’re not going to like the migration path to Project Fi as it exists today.

If you move to Project Fi on your existing Gmail account — which is linked to everything you do within Google’s ecosystem — you will lose Google Voice. Period.

I had no problems with this. Also, I realized what I was doing when I did it. That helps.

Google launches Android Studio 2.0

This week, Google launched Android Studio 2.0, the latest version of its Visual Studio-like Android development environment.

Android Studio 2.0 is the fastest way to build high quality, performant apps for the Android platform, including phones and tablets, Android Auto, Android Wear, and Android TV. As the official IDE from Google, Android Studio includes everything you need to build an app, including a code editor, code analysis tools, emulators and more. This new and stable version of Android Studio has fast build speeds and a fast emulator with support for the latest Android version and Google Play Services.

Android Studio is built in coordination with the Android platform and supports all of the latest and greatest APIs. If you are developing for Android, you should be using Android Studio 2.0. It is available today as a easy download or update on the stable release channel.

You can download Android Studio 2.0 from the web. It’s free, of course. But note that Android Studio—and Android development in general—also requires you to download the latest Java JDK. Which is also free. But is, well, Java. Which isn’t the only reason I’m excited by the possibility of Google embracing Swift. But it’s on the list.

 

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