Interesting News Of The Week 23/07/2012

New week, new story, you get the idea by now.
Here's the stories.

Windows 8 a 'catastrophe'

Slightly technical story for the first one this week about Microsoft's Windows 8 operating system.

Here's the story.

It has been said that the operating system Windows 8 will be a "catastrophe" for the majority if not all PC game makers.

Speaking at the Casual Connect game conference in Seattle, Gabe Newell said the next version of Windows could mean big changes to the PC market, many people took his comment as a criticism of the changed user interface in Windows 8 as well as its built-in Windows Store, but it is unsure that whether that is truly what he meant.

The Windows Store could dent the success of the Valve's (involved in software for computers and other devices) own online market, some of you will know Valve through Steam, which players buy games through.

Mr Newell, who has worked for Microsoft for 13 years on Windows and is now the boss of the company Valve, said his company had embraced the open-source software Linux as a "hedging strategy" designed to offset some of the damage Windows 8 was likely to do to the market.

He followed it up by saying: "We want to make it as easy as possible for the 2,500 games on Steam to run on Linux as well. Windows 8 is a catastrophe for everyone in the PC space.".

Let's put this into perspective, the arrival of Windows 8 would be likely to drive some PC makers and others out of the business because it put so much pressure on them and their sales margins.

He said the success of Valve, known for its Half Life, Left4Dead and Portal titles, had been down to the open nature of the PC. "We've been a free rider, and we've been able to benefit from everything that went into PCs and the internet," he told the conference. "And we have to continue to figure out how there will be open platforms."

The openness of these things that helped Valve also helped firms such as Google and Zynga could disappear with Windows 8.

The new "Windows Store" in the Microsoft operating system is a shop through which users will be able to buy apps for their Windows 8 device and appears to only be those devices, not being open to Windows 7 and earlier versions.

On some versions of Windows 8, it will be the only way to get downloadable software such as games.

Microsoft will take a cut of up to 30% of every sale made through this store, meaning that they could be making a lot of money out of this. This could also be a significant threat to the massively successful Steam online game store.

Windows 8 links with Microsoft's Xbox Live online game service, basically taking that and updating it for their new devices.

Mr Newell left everyone with the following statement:
"This isn't about video games, it's about thinking about goods and services in a digital world.".

Here's an image of Valve and their Steam's logo's:

Flag Fallout - London To Blame?

Well I'm sure you've all heard about this story by now,

but here it is anyway.

Olympic officials in London are said to be to blame for a flag row which jeopardised a women's football game at Hampden Stadium in Glasgow.

The North Korean women's team walked off after a video produced to introduce their players showed the South Korean flag rather than their own.
Fortunately they later returned to play the match.

BBC Scotland understand that the video package was sent from London but Hampden organisers had no input.
Prime Minister David Cameron described it as "an honest mistake".

In a news conference on the eve of the opening ceremony of the Games, he told assembled journalists: "This was an honest mistake, honestly made. An apology has been made and I'm sure every step has been taken to ensure these things don't happen again. We shouldn't over-inflate this episode - it was unfortunate, it shouldn't have happened and I think we can leave it at that.".

The North Korean team could only be persuaded to return for their match against Colombia after the error was corrected, which in my opinion is rightly so, why would they want to play under the wrong flag.

As yet the London games organisers have been reported to be unable to clarify who made the video, either that or they don't want to say.

Now you might be wondering why this flag error had the impact it did, well it's because of the situation which exists between both Koreas.
Both countries are still technically at war after the 1950-53 conflict ended in an armistice, so they were extemely right to be offended.

Speaking after the match, North Korea's coach Sin Ui Gun said: "Our team was not going to participate unless the problem was solved properly." rightly showing their flag and respecting not only the team but the country.

The incident has made headlines around the world except in communist controlled North Korea, probably because of the outrage it would cause.
State news agency KCNA reported the women's Olympic football team beating Colombia 2-0 but made no mention of the flag row, once again avoiding conflict.

Meanwhile, Hampden Stadium will host two more Olympic football games on Thursday and hopefully getting the flags right this time, more checks are expected to be made before the next games.

In the men's preliminaries, Honduras will play Morocco at 12:00, followed by Spain v Japan at 14:45.

Here's the BBC's news coverage of the situation:

Summary of the week

So this week we have Microsoft possibly making big mistakes causing upset to a lot of people and London 2012 getting of to a bad start.