Editorials

Ubisoft is under a lot of pressure since the launch of the Assassin’s Creed Unity. The game had a large number of bugs along with some rather disappointing performance to boot (30fps). In the days leading up to the launch Ubisoft attempted to tell everyone know that 30fps was more than enough and that it was in line with a cinematic experience. The number of articles making fun of these rather poor excuses was quite large and while trying to pass off a poor performing game as something wonderful is not unexpected it is still in rather poor taste if circumstances make it look like you might have done it on purpose.

Encryption is an interesting thing. On the surface it offers protection from prying eyes and sense of security in protecting your communication and files. At least that is what you should feel when talking about encryption. The problem is that encryption is only as secure as the protocol and API that is in use. Even if you have a rock solid certificate the protocol and APIs that you use to connect can be compromised to by-pass this. This is what has happened to almost every major SSL/TLS stack. So far in 2014 we have watched them fall one at a time to the dismay of security experts.

AMD has been something of an unusual company ever since they first decided to dive into the x86 market with their purchase of NexGen. The would-be CPU maker had an interesting knack of building CPUs that performed well, but were always just a pace behind their rivals. That was the case until AMD pulled off a minor miracle in the form of the Athlon and Athlon64 CPUs. AMD seemed to have stolen the crown from Intel and looked likely to keep it for a long time.

If there is one thing I do not like it is the way that some members of the technical press show their bias. This morning, while I was trying to have a nice cup of coffee, I had to stomach several articles that seem to feel that NFC (near field communication) is now the wave of the future simply because it is rumored that Apple will have it in their next devices. This despite the fact that some of these same reporters claimed it was nothing when everyone else did it years ago.