What a topsy-turvy world we live in! Valve's Steam is expanding beyond games next month, while Verizon js hoarding some not-so top-secret data plans for its new Share Everything program. Don't know what we're talking about? Then you clearly haven't read today's news recap, which includes all the details on this and much more. Here's the latest for Wednesday, August 8, 2012.
Valve announced today that beginning September 5, the company's Steam platform will be home to more than just popular games such as Counter-Strike, Left 4 Dead and Portal. The company is planning "a major expansion" to the Steam platform next month, with both Mac and PC software titles planned for categories from creativity to productivity and everything in-between. Many of the launch titles will take advantage of popular Steamworks features like easy, cloud-based installation, automatic updating and the ability to save your work in your personal chunk of Steam Cloud storage space. "The 40 million gamers frequenting Steam are interested in more than playing games," explained Valve's Mark Richardson. "They have told us they would like to have more of their software on Steam, so this expansion is in response to those customer requests." Developers will be welcome to submit software titles via the Steam Greenlight following the September 5 launch.
If the six tiers in Verizon Wireless' new Share Everything program simply aren't enough for you, a new ComputerWorld report has exposed five more data tiers not included on the carrier's website. At the very top is a $150 per month 20GB plan, which a Verizon spokeswoman confirmed to the website on Tuesday. Others include 12GB for $110, 14GB for $120, 16GB for $130 and 18GB for $140 per month. So what's with the little secret? It seems Verizon just wanted to keep its website neat and tidy, given that "the majority of customers use under 2GB a month," according to Verizon's Brenda Raney. But don't let that stop you from taking advantage of those higher tiers -- you'll just need to call into Verizon's customer service line via phone or step into one of Big Red's retail stores to do so.
Ars Technica is reporting that something appears to be draining the battery life of Mac notebooks with OS X Mountain Lion installed, and Apple doesn't seem to quite know what's going on. The situation seems to affect all supported MacBook products and causes the battery to drain much faster than it did under OS X Lion. Strangely, some users claim that battery life is "as good or better" with OS X Mountain Lion than it was under Lion. Others have filled Apple's support forums with suggestions ranging from "repairing disk permissions or access control lists, disabling or reinstalling Dropbox, or resetting GateKeeper to allow apps to install from any source," although none of these solved the problem across the board. Anyone else out there suffering from this malaise?
Even though the new MacBook Pro with Retina Display received a basically "unrepairable" score from the folks at iFixit, far be it for them to discourage someone who's hell-bent on doing it themselves. That's why the company has now published a full set of repair guides for the MacBook Pro with Retina Display for those who want to get their hands dirty (and presumably have cash in the bank to replace their precious notebook should things go horribly awry). But iFixit claims the guides are published with a disclaimer: "Fair warning: working on the laptop is no easy task, even with a full set of guides," they warn. "Barely a month ago, we called the MacBook Pro with Retina display 'the least repairable laptop we’ve taken apart.' It’s clear that Apple did not design this computer for the sake of repair-conscious customers." iFixit calls Apple's design direction "disturbing" while noting that "finding replacement parts is currently difficult" -- but if that doesn't scare you off, have at it, folks.
A quick follow-up to this morning's news item about Apple suspending over-the-phone password resets: Apple has now confirmed with Wired that this is indeed the case, and issued a statement about it. “We’ve temporarily suspended the ability to reset Apple ID passwords over the phone,” said Apple spokesperson Natalie Kerris. “We’re asking customers who need to reset their password to continue to use our online iForgot system (iforgot.apple.com). This system can reset a password in one of two ways -- either have a password reset sent to an alternate email address already on record or challenge the customer to answer security questions they had previously set up. When we resume over-the-phone password resets, customers will be required to provide even stronger identify verification to reset their password.” No word on exactly when telephone-based resets might go live again, but we'll let you know when they do.
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brandonwalkermedia
August 09, 2012 at 7:28pm
i think all this complaining is coming from people in redmond filling board with FAKE complaints. as i have had no issues and no one i know has had problems.
