Let's Talk Tech
Steam Deck first impressions!
This is such a rad little PC. It’s immediately scratching that itch I’ve had for mobile gaming, and I’ve been playing through more of my Steam library in the last three days, than I have the last year.
I can’t offer any grand insight over videos that have already come out, but we have to start a conversation somewhere!
Let’s chat! Continue reading “Steam Deck is HERE! Rambling through my first impressions of this awesome Portable PC!”
At a reception in Germany, Elon Musk spoke to a crowd about Tesla’s investment in the German market. Germany is very forward on renewable energy, alternative fuels, and they seem like a natural fit for the Tesla vibe. Especially considering that Germany was the second place market for the Tesla Roadster (behind the USA).
While answering questions about their corporate plans, Musk was asked about developing apps for the huge touchscreen built into the dash of the Tesla Sedan. The Model S currently uses a build of Linux, so porting Android apps over, or running them in an emulator, should be fairly easy to do, and he does specifically mention updating the car’s browser to chrome.
Elon actually takes the stage at 14:47 in this video, and you can skip to 37:20 to hear him answer the question about apps and Android.
I still have some ergonomic and safety reservations about an automobile control surface comprised mostly of a smooth featureless touchscreen, but at least I might not have to learn a new and unfamiliar  UI when I’m finally able to get my hands on a Tesla of my very own… Some day… It could happen… Sigh…
Yup we know XBox, Playstation, and Nintendo. Between those three, you’d think the console market is all locked up. Steam hopes that assumption is wrong, and they’ll be launching a new Linux based operating system built entirely around the Steam gaming service.
SteamOS aims to pair a Linux kernel around a “Big Screen” gaming experience, and it’ll be launched soon as a stand alone piece of software for living room computing hardware. The idea isn’t without merit. Traditional computers running Windows for example need to use some of their hardware power to run the OS. Now that overhead is gone as all the computer will have to do is keep Steam running. With optimization, We could see performance gains in similar hardware simply by removing the traditional OS relationship.
SteamOS also looks to be focused on in home streaming. While hundreds of game titles will be available at launch, it’ll take a while before the entire Steam library will be ported over. Playing local music and video files over your home network is a given, but SteamOS will also allow you to play games on your PC over a local network connection on your TV. We’re also seeing user profiles, keeping adult game libraries separate from kids collections for example, and the recently announced Friends and Family game sharing will come built in.
Steam is a remarkably popular service. Currently 50 million people currently have accounts in over 180 countries. Leveraging just a small percentage of this user base could make SteamOS a serious player in the console market.
No word yet on supported SteamOS hardware, but manufacturers of shiny plastic discs probably aren’t looking forward to this console launch…
Reading the news feeds I was kind of hoping that IBM was going to make a push back into the consumer market. After transferring their consumer/business hardware solutions to Lenovo, they’ve become a company with a solid corporate reputation, but little consumer mind share.
Instead, what we’ll be seeing is a push to further Linux server solutions. Still very cool for the Linux ecosystem, and hopefully this means that some of that money and attention reaches consumer hardware down the line. It’s coming at a time where Linux has unseated Unix, but still trails Windows Server by a significant margin. IBM recently released a new line of rack mounted Linux servers, so they have a vested interest in the Linux ecosystem expanding.
The $1 Billion should be paid out over a 4-5 year period, and initially will focus on cloud solutions powered by IBM hardware.
More news to follow during LinuxCon, and I’ll update this post if there are any surprising new developments.
Now then IBM, about us consumers, could you throw us a bone? Maybe offer some contextual search services we could play with? I’d pay to have a Watson app on my phone.