Geekout 42: Motorola to Lenovo, Nintendo on life support, and Microsoft’s missin

Stream:

News Bot

Your News Bitch
3,282
0
0
0
Console: Headset:
Android By Russell Holly Jan. 30, 2014 5:18 pm
Welcome back to our weekly trip around the water cooler of the tech world, the Geekout. It’s our weekly break to talk face-to-face about the interesting stuff, and open the doors to anyone who has a question they’d like to ask during the broadcast.
While I find it hard to believe that there’s anyone out there actively cheering on the demise of Nintendo, there sure are plenty of people out there fully aware that the company is in a lot of trouble. The Wii U stumble was an expensive one for Nintendo, and recovery is going to take a while. The 2014 plan has been laid out, and some of it feels like the company still doesn’t get why mobile devices are important. Their current plans for the year make it sound like we’ll get some DS games in the Wii U Virtual Console, but there’s no telling what that experience will be like until it gets here.
Microsoft may be slightly behind Sony when it comes to which next-gen console is doing the best, but there’s plenty of information out in the world that suggests the company has some other plans for the console world. The first is primarily a cosmetic change, but surprisingly the new look is very sharp. The all-white version of the Xbox One and the Titanfall skinned black version of the Xbox One have been spotted, and hopefully will be available soon.
The next version of the Xbox One appears to be a slightly smaller 1TB version of the console, which would be digital only and not accept optical discs of any kind. If you’re planning to use your Xbox as a Blu-Ray player this is obviously not the way to go, but if you’re interested in the all digital experience that was so heavily advertised alongside the original Xbox One announcement you may want to pay attention for this version of the console.
Xbox One owners can also soon expect to see a performance boost in some of their favorite games thanks to a functionality change that is coming with the console update. The update is expected to increase performance by 8% by disabling certain Kinect features during gameplay, unless you’re playing a game that actively requires the camera to be functional. This isn’t going to be noticeable in most cases, but it will probably go a long way towards the gap in between Microsoft and Sony’s console graphics quality.
Google’s curious ownership of Motorola is on its way to a thrilling conclusion, thanks to a new deal with Lenovo. When the company was first purchased by Google there was a lot of question regarding why Motorola was worth buying, and now that the Moto X and Moto G have come and gone it appears the company is in a good enough state to start competing globally. With Lenovo as a parent company, there’s a chance Motorola could do some really great things. Google got some goodies out of the deal as well, like a colossal list of mobile patents and the Motorola ATAP lab. That lab will be merged into Google’s Android unit, which is a great deal all around.
This week’s App of the Week is Marvel Run Jump Smash! by Marvel Games. This $.99 side scroller is a fun excuse to run around as your favorite Avenger and complete basic obstacles like jumping and attacking bad guys. You play either Agent Fury or Maria Hill right until you need a hand, and then an Avenger comes in and saves the day for a little while. It’s available on both iOS and Android, and is worth almost exactly $.99 of your time.
If you’ve got a topic you’d like us to discuss on our Geekout, or questions for us during a live broadcast, leave us a message here or on the Google+ page.



More...