Eric David
Latest from Eric David
Language and Big Data: Mapping social media with words
Location data may allow smartphone apps to use cell tower and GPS to pinpoint where you are in the world, but there is something less obvious in your tweets and status updates that can give away where you are from: your word choice. Text communication might remove accents from the equation, but some of the words ...
The rise and fall of Sonic the Hedgehog
There was a time when Sonic the Hedgehog stood on almost equal footing with Mario as the mascot of video games. He even had his own morning cartoon show where he was voiced by Jaleel White at the height of his Steve Urkel fame, and the franchise as a whole has sold over 80 million copies. ...
Fable creator Peter Molyneux “will not speak to the press again”
Gaming does not exactly have the most forgiving community, and developers often find themselves under the collective ire of thousands of people calling for blood over something as simple as a low frame rate or a missing feature. The latest game icon to fall prey to the anger of the mob is Peter Molyneux, a game ...
In South Carolina prisons, using Facebook is a punishable crime
If you thought getting in trouble for browsing Facebook at work was bad, a recent study the be Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) found that hundreds of South Carolina inmates are placed in solitary confinement for using social media. Thanks to a Freedom of Information Act request, the EFF discovered that there have been over 400 ...
Valve confirms it will showcase Steam Machines at GDC 2015
After rumors arose that Valve Corporation had finalized its innovative haptic feedback controller design, the company has confirmed that it will be showcasing its Steam Machine console designs at Game Developers Conference (GDC) 2015 next month. “We’re planning a very large presence at GDC with Steam Machines being front and center,” a Valve representative told Game Informer. ...
Your Facebook “legacy contact” can control your account after you die
With over a billion people using Facebook, the social network is home to a quickly growing cemetery of accounts belonging to users who have passed on. Originally, Facebook Inc. had no specific systems in place to deal with these accounts, and few users had the foresight to share account information in the event that they died. ...
Nintendo still can’t admit Wii U is a failure, says analyst
While Nintendo is still a household name and one of the most successful developers of all time, one analyst says the Japanese game company failed with the release of its most recent console, the Wii U, and still can’t admit it. Michael Pachter is a financial analyst who previously hosted Pach-Attack, a web series on GameTrailers that focused ...
Facebook introduces its own scalable networking hardware: “6-pack”
Facebook Inc. is well on its way to becoming a self-sufficient technology company, and yesterday the social network took it a step further by unveiling its own scalable networking hardware that will help connect Facebook’s 1.3 billion users. “Over the last few years we’ve been building our own network, breaking down traditional network components and rebuilding ...
Daybreak no longer “business as usual” as layoffs hit H1Z1 and Planetside teams
When H1z1 and Planetside 2 developer Sony Online Entertainment announced that it had been sold by Sony and renamed to Daybreak Game Company, the company’s president and CEO, John Smedley, said, “It will be business as usual and all SOE games will continue on their current path of development and operation.” But now, after being absorbed ...
EA exec thinks tablets could be more powerful than consoles by 2018
While mobile gaming has exploded over the last few years, current smartphone and tablet hardware could never compete with the power of modern game consoles. But that could all change in just a few years, according to one Electronic Arts executive. “What gets us the most excited is the power, the computing power, of mobile devices ...
