Wednesday, 30 October 2013

Facebook's Messenger app: Practical is the new sexy

10/30/2013 10:49:00 am TECHNOLOGY No comments

Facebook's Messenger app: Practical is the new sexy

The app's fundamental change is a philosophy christened "mobile-to-mobile," which is meant to signify that people using Messenger are immediately available to each other.

The conversation view in Facebook's new Messenger app for Android.

With the Tuesday release of a new Messenger application, Facebook is making a much stronger case to be your go-to smartphone app for instantly getting ahold of friends and address book contacts.
The new Facebook Messenger app constitutes a dramatic renovation over versions past and introduces enhancements in speed, function, and design. The app, available to a limited audience on Android to start, attempts to again make compelling a growing stale experience that simply mirrored the messaging experience inside Facebook's flagship mobile application.
Messenger's fundamental change is something Facebook calls "mobile-to-mobile," an apt catchphrase meant to signify that people using the app are immediately available to each other on their smartphones.
The philosophy is embodied in how Facebook Messenger displays contacts, delivers messages, processes notifications, and allows people to send over-the-top messages in lieu of text messages to their smartphone contacts who are not already their Facebook friends.
Contacts that also use Messenger, for instance, are denoted by a little blue lightning bolt badge. Everyone else gets a Facebook badge. And if a Messenger user doesn't have push notifications enabled than that person won't get the lightning bolt badge because they may not be able to be reached right away.

Facebook Messenger is all about visual cues. Lightning bolt badges, for instance, signify that a contact is also using the Messenger app and, therefore, likely to be reached instantly.

The idea is to give people visual cues as to which of their contacts will be potentially quicker to reach via Facebook message as opposed to say text, e-mail, Twitter direct message, or any other competing mobile messaging app.
"Other people didn't know who had Messenger and who didn't," Peter Martinazzi, product manager on the update, told CNET. With the new badges, however, Martinazzi said that he can see that his colleague Luke, for instance, is using Messenger. "That's really important if I'm going to trust this channel as the way to reach Luke in an emergency."
Messenger is also said to be much swifter in delivering updates, a technological improvement that should support badges as markers of accessibility and make the app feel significantly faster to users. Facebook declined to quantify just how much faster the new Messenger is over older versions, but Martinazzi said that the app loads faster and should feel snappier in overall performance.
"Every millisecond matters when you're messaging in a mobile-to-mobile world," he said.
In terms of functional improvements, Messenger now lets people Facebook message their address book contacts who they have not friended on the social network. The update means that, so long as you have a phone number, you can use start pinging a person who is also on Facebook but is not necessarily a person you want to formally befriend. Facebook simply matches a member's stored phone number to make the Messenger connection.
The social network has even designed a new logo and color scheme -- yes, there's a new kind of Facebook blue -- meant to distinguish the single-purpose Messenger from the more feature-rich Facebook app. The application's design is also linked to distinct conventions and user interface patterns on both Android and iPhone, which should make new elements immediately familiar to people on either operating system.

Altogether, the updates are meant to make Facebook Messenger a more practical rival to rising mobile messaging competitors such as WhatsApp, which has stolen a bit of the social network's thunder with youngsters and has amassed an audience of 300 million active users.
Facebook Messenger for Android is being released Tuesday to a limited audience. The company said it will make Messenger available to all members on Android and iPhone in the coming weeks.

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Intel to make quad-core 64-bit ARM chip

10/30/2013 10:43:00 am TECHNOLOGY No comments

Irony alert: Intel to make quad-core 64-bit ARM chip

Intel will make quad-core chips for a customer that uses technology from rival chip designer ARM.

Intel is slated to make what will probably be the first 64-bit quad-core ARM processor on an advanced manufacturing process.

In what can only be described as highly ironic, Intel is set to make what will easily be one of the first quad-core 64-bit ARM processors.
On Tuesday, Altera announced that its Stratix 10 system-on-a-chip (SoC) will incorporate a "high-performance, quad-core 64-bit ARM Cortex-A53 processor."
That chip will be manufactured for Altera by Intel on its most advanced 14-nanometer manufacturing process. Current Intel chips on the market, such as its Haswell processor, are made on a 22-nanometer process. Generally, the smaller the geometries, the more advanced the process.
Apple recently announced the first 64-bit chip -- also based on an ARM design -- for smartphones, the A7. But the CPU is dual-core (the graphics component is quad-core).
Intel confirmed with CNET that the chip would constitute the first 64-bit quad-core ARM CPU.
"Altera and Intel are pleased with the early results of the relationship between the companies and this announcement from Altera is consistent with the agreement we announced earlier this year. We have said that we will be open to manufacturing competitive architectures and would evaluate them on a case by case basis," said Intel spokesman Chuck Mulloy.

The quad-core 64-bit ARM chip is part of semiconductor device called a field-programmable gate array or FPGA, which is a chip that can be configured by a customer after manufacturing.
In this case, the chip is targeted at high-end networking and communication equipment, among other specialized applications, so it won't be competing directly with the likes of Samsung, Nvidia, or Qualcomm. Those companies supply processors to smartphone and tablet makers.
But it does mean that Intel is leading the charge on manufacturing multiprocessors based on designs from ARM -- a rival of Intel's in the smartphone and tablet markets.
And it does point to the potential conflicts that lurk in its contract manufacturing business, aka "foundry" business, founded in 2010 -- for which Intel is aggressively recruiting talent.
Intel is slated to begin production in 2014.

Google+ boosts photo, chat features

10/30/2013 10:42:00 am TECHNOLOGY No comments

Google+ boosts photo, chat features

The social network is flexing new photo and video muscles to lure in content creators. Also, Amazon sells cheap e-books with the MatchBook program.

CNET Update is always Auto Awesome:

This episode of Update offers a quick overview of the new features on the Google+ social network. The changes rolling out this week include updates to the Hangouts chat service, allowing users to send animated GIFs, SMS messages, and maps of their current location. Hangouts also improved video chats with the ability to enhance the quality of webcam video.
The bulk of the changes to Google+ center around photos. The iOS app will be updated with automatic syncing in the background and can upload full-resolution images. Search is smart enough to detect some objects in your photo, like a sunset or snowman. And new Auto Awesome tools offer some creative ways to edit a photo or turn a series of shots into a short movie. You can see an example of how the movie feature works on Google's blog post about the changes.
Also in today's rundown, learn how to get discounted digital versions of print books bought from Amazon, with the new Kindle MatchBook program.

This is why there aren't more Samsung Galaxy Gear apps

10/30/2013 10:40:00 am TECHNOLOGY No comments

This is why there aren't more Samsung Galaxy Gear apps

The Korean electronics giant still operates under an invite-only strategy for apps to run on its smartwatch, and it's unclear when that will change.

SAN FRANCISCO -- Wonder why the Samsung Galaxy Gear has so few apps? The answer is simple -- the Gear app store is still invite-only for developers. Gear debuted last month with about 70 apps. Since that time, one of the biggest criticisms of the smartwatch is that there aren't a lot more apps available. However, Samsung says that for now, it's sticking with its plans to seek out apps instead of opening up the platform to developers at large.
"We've had sort of an an invite-only world," Curtis Sasaki, senior vice president of Samsung's Media Solution Center Americas business, told CNET. "We need to make sure we're ready to go big."
He declined to provide a timeline for when that could happen, only saying "we'll have to see how that goes." The Korean electronics giant is hosting its first developer conference in San Francisco to get app makers excited about its devices. It wants them to create software unique to Samsung devices, setting its products apart from all the other Android vendors on the market. And it wants developers to build apps that connect together its various devices, such as smartphones, TVs, and home appliances.
To make that easier for partners, Samsung released five software development kits, including one for mobile. However, those SDKs don't apply to the Galaxy Gear.
Samsung launched Gear in September during a splashy event at the IFA consumer electronics show in Berlin. The device sports a 1.63-inch Super AMOLED screen surrounded by a metal frame and includes a 1.9-megapixel camera embedded into the rubberized band. Gear runs Android and syncs with Galaxy smartphones and tablets, allowing users to do things like control their music or check messages without touching their mobile devices.

The Galaxy Gear initially only worked with the Note 3.

(Credit: Andrew Hoyle/CNET)

Earlier this week, Samsung said Gear soon will work with the Galaxy S4, Galaxy S3, and other devices, rather than only running with the Note 3. Galaxy Gear represents a new area for Samsung and is the company's answer to the white-hot trend of "wearable computing." Samsung views wearables as a way to counteract the slowdown in smartphone sales. The introduction of Gear also marks an important shift in the company's position in technology: long known as a "fast follower" that's able to pick up, emulate, and even improve upon existing industry trends, it is now moving to cut its own path with the unproven watch.
But for such a key technology, Gear's presence at the developer conference was minimal. Samsung held only one session specifically focused on wearables during its developer conference, a panel about the present and the future of the devices. Speakers included executives and developers from eBay, Path, and Intel Capital.
"Wearables is a category that's here to stay," Harry Singh, a director at Intel Capital, said during the panel.
However, Samsung may soon need to get more developers involved if it wants its device to really take off.

Motorola unveils Project Ara for custom smartphones

10/30/2013 10:38:00 am TECHNOLOGY No comments

Motorola unveils Project Ara for custom smartphones

The highly modular approach aims to let you swap in items such as keyboard, battery, or display so that your handset stays up-to-date much longer than today's smartphones.

An example of a Project Ara customized handset.

Motorola has announced a new initiative to help smartphone users take handset customization beyond ringtones, wallpaper, and body colors to its very form and function.
The Google-owned handset company on Monday announced Project Ara, a free, open hardware platform for creating highly modular smartphones. An endoskeleton, or structural frame, holds the smartphone modules of the owner's choice, such as a display, keyboard, or extra battery. The approach should allow users to swap out malfunctioning modules or upgrade as innovations emerge, providing a handset that stays up-to-date much longer than today's smartphones.
"Our goal is to drive a more thoughtful, expressive, and open relationship between users, developers, and their phones," Motorola wrote in a company blog post. "To give you the power to decide what your phone does, how it looks, where and what it's made of, how much it costs, and how long you'll keep it."

Early design ideas from Project Ara.

This isn't Motorola's first foray into smartphone customization, though Project Ara takes things much further. Over the summer, the company launched its Moto Maker service, which lets buyers of Moto X phones indulge their build-to-order desires, mixing and matching body and interface features including onboard memory, wallpaper, and front, back, and accent colors for the device's shell.
In the works for more than a year, Project Ara recently partnered with Dave Hakkens, the creator of Phonebloks. Although still largely in its infancy, Phonebloks' build-your-own-phone approach has garnered plenty of interest online, with nearly a million people signing up to support it.
"We want to do for hardware what the Android platform has done for software: create a vibrant third-party developer ecosystem, lower the barriers to entry, increase the pace of innovation, and substantially compress development timelines," Motorola said in its blog post.
The project plans to begin inviting developers to create modules for the platform in the coming months. It also expects to release an alpha version of a module developers kit this winter.

Nokia sold 8.8 million Lumia phones in Q3

10/30/2013 10:37:00 am TECHNOLOGY No comments

Nokia sold 8.8 million Lumia phones in Q3

The wallet-friendly Lumia 520 drove the 19 percent quarter-on-quarter increase.

Nokia sold 8.8 million Lumia phones in the past three months, a 19 percent increase over previous numbers, driven in large part by the success of the wallet-friendly Lumia 520.
The company also appears to be gaining ground in North America. Although Nokia only sold 1.4 million phones in North America this past summer, that's nearly four times as many as this time last year.
Nokia revealed the numbers Tuesday in its third-quarter results for the three months from July to September. Net sales for the third quarter totaled $7.85 billion, as the total number of units sold, including both smartphones and feature phones, rose by 4 percent to 55.8 million. Operating profit was $162.4 million.

Adobe hack attack affected 38 million accountsAdobe hack attack affected 38 million accounts

10/30/2013 10:36:00 am TECHNOLOGY No comments

Adobe hack attack affected 38 million accounts

The recent security breach that hit Adobe exposed customer IDs, passwords, and credit and debit card information.

A cyberattack launched against Adobe affected more than 10 times the number of users initially estimated.
On October 3, Adobe revealed that it had been the victim of an attack that exposed Adobe customer IDs and encrypted passwords. At the time, the company said that hackers gained access to encrypted credit card records and login information for around 3 million users. But the number of affected accounts has turned out to be much higher.
The attack actually involved 38 million active accounts.
"So far, our investigation has confirmed that the attackers obtained access to Adobe IDs and (what were at the time valid), encrypted passwords for approximately 38 million active users," Adobe spokeswoman Heather Edell told CNET. "We have completed e-mail notification of these users. We also have reset the passwords for all Adobe IDs with valid, encrypted passwords that we believe were involved in the incident -- regardless of whether those users are active or not."
Adobe hasn't received indications of unauthorized activity on any Adobe account affected in the breach, according to Edell.
The attack also gained access to many invalid or inactive Adobe accounts -- those with invalid encrypted passwords and those used as test accounts.
"We are still in the process of investigating the number of inactive, invalid, and test accounts involved in the incident," Edell added. "Our notification to inactive users is ongoing."
Following the initial report of the attack, Adobe reset the passwords on compromised customer accounts and sent e-mails to those whose accounts were breached and whose credit card or debit card information was exposed. At the time, Adobe had also issued the following statement:

Our investigation currently indicates that the attackers accessed Adobe customer IDs and encrypted passwords on our systems. We also believe the attackers removed from our systems certain information relating to 2.9 million Adobe customers, including customer names, encrypted credit or debit card numbers, expiration dates, and other information relating to customer orders. At this time, we do not believe the attackers removed decrypted credit or debit card numbers from our systems.

. Adobe has posted a customer security alert page with more information on the breach and an option whereby users can change their passwords.

Samsung's curved display is no gimmick, says researcher

10/30/2013 10:35:00 am TECHNOLOGY No comments

Samsung's curved display is no gimmick, says researcher

The Galaxy Round's curved display has an appreciable impact on display quality, says DisplayMate Technologies.

Samsung Galaxy Round with curved display: 'a major and very important new display technology.'

(Credit: Samsung)

The curved display on Samsung's Galaxy Round offers distinct advantages in reducing reflections and the high glossiness of flat displays, according to a report out Tuesday.
"There is widespread misunderstanding regarding curved displays. They aren't simply a marketing gimmick as has been widely reported," Raymond Soneira, president of DisplayMate Technologies, a firm that does display testing and evaluation, said in a report published Tuesday.
"In fact, curved screens are a major and very important new display technology innovation," he said in his introduction to the report, which is based on his own in-house testing of a Galaxy Round.
Soneira's findings about Samsung's curved 5.7-inch OLED display include:

Concave screen: The curvature on the Galaxy Round is fairly small -- the left and right edges of the screen are just 2.66 mm (0.10 inch) higher than the center. "So the effect is subtle, but it's very important."
Improved screen privacy: Screen privacy is improved because the curvature makes it harder for other people to see the screen.
Lower reflectance: A curved screen cuts down on reflections. The curvature directs reflected ambient light "coming from behind away from the viewer's line of sight. This is very important because you want to minimize the amount of ambient light that is seen reflected off the screen." The screen also magnifies the size of objects reflecting off the screen which "substantially cuts down on the interference of light reflections."
Glossiness reduction: Flexible OLED displays are manufactured using a flexible plastic substrate, "so they don't have the glossy cover glass used on virtually all existing mobile displays." And without the cover glass, the OLED display appears to be right on the surface of the screen, which is "visually striking."

The Galaxy Round -- which has the same-sized 5.7-inch display that is on the Galaxy Note 3 -- also features a Qualcomm Snapdragon 2.3GHz quad-core processor, 32GB of internal storage, 3GB RAM, and an up-to-64GB microSD card slot.
As CNET Reviews noted, it's not clear how much the Round will cost. But it does have specs similar to the Galaxy Note 3, which starts at about $300.

(Credit: Samsung)

Samsung shipped more phones than Nokia, Apple, LG combined

10/30/2013 10:34:00 am TECHNOLOGY No comments

Samsung shipped more phones than Nokia, Apple, LG combined

The Korean handset maker captured 29 percent of the global mobile phone market in the third quarter, says research firm Strategy Analytics.

Samsung's Galaxy Note 3 helped it win 29 percent of the mobile phone market.

Samsung shipped a record 120 million phones last quarter, beating Nokia, Apple, and LG combined, Strategy Analytics said Tuesday.
The quarter showed a 7 percent jump in overall global shipments from a year ago and gave Samsung a 29 percent slice of the mobile phone market. Strategy Analytics attributed the gain to strong demand for Samsung's Note 3 phablet and mass market devices, such as the Galaxy Y.

In second place, Nokia bit off 15.5 percent of the worldwide mobile phone market, followed by Apple with 8 percent and LG with 4.4 percent.
Nokia's share and shipments were down from a year ago, despite greater demand for the Lumia lineup.
"Nokia shipped a slightly better-than-expected 64.6 million mobile phones worldwide in Q3 2013," Strategy Analytics Executive Director Neil Mawston said in a statement. "Nokia's 15 percent global mobile phone market share is showing signs of stabilizing sequentially as demand for the Microsoft Lumia smartphone range is improving. However, Nokia's feature phone unit remains a problem child as global volumes dipped ... 27 percent year over year."
Apple's mobile phone shipments rose by 26 percent from the prior year's quarter, faster than that of the overall industry. Further gains in market share are expected this quarter due to heavy demand for the iPhone 5S.
With a market share of 3.5 percent and global shipments of 14.6 million, Huawei became the fifth-largest mobile phone vendor in the world. Total worldwide mobile phone shipments grew by 7 percent to hit 418 million units.
But how do shipments to retailers translate into actual sales to consumers?
Some Chinese vendors, such as Lenovo, may be sitting on some inventory, Mawston told CNET. Apple also may have a slight inventory buildup of iPhone 5Cs around the world. But he said he doesn't see any major disparities between shipments and sales right now.
"Of course, in a 2-billion-unit market, someone somewhere will always be under-shipping or over-shipping at any one time," Mawston added, "but overall the picture for mobile phones looks reasonably buoyant in most parts of the world.

(Credit: Strategy Analytics)

Correction at 8 a.m. PT: The increase in overall global shipments was corrected.

ARM unveils graphics chip design with up to 16 cores

10/30/2013 10:32:00 am TECHNOLOGY No comments

ARM unveils graphics chip design with up to 16 cores

ARM licensees such as LG Electronics will likely be shipping graphics chips in the coming years based on a new Mali-T760 design.

Samsung Galaxy Note 3: Samsung designs its Exynos chips with ARM's Mali graphics.

ARM, which designs processors for smartphones and tablets, has disclosed a new graphics chip design with many more processor cores than in the current generation.
A future Mali-T760 graphics processing unit (GPU) -- due in products in the coming years -- will have up to 16 processor cores, ARM said Tuesday in a statement.
By comparison, the iPhone 5S' A7 chip boasts four GPU cores. The A7 chip is based on a design from Imagination Technologies, an ARM competitor.

In addition to offering up to 16 cores, ARM said the Mali-T760 chips will see an increase in both performance per processing unit -- referred to as a "shader" -- and overall performance. Energy efficiency will be boosted by about 400 percent from the current generation of Mali chips, the company said.
There are 85 Mali licensees to date. About 152 million Mali GPUs shipped in 2012, and about 300 million units shipped so far in 2013.
Lead licensees for the new ARM Mali GPUs include MediaTek, Rockchip, and LG Electronics, ARM said

Google+ fires up its photo features

10/30/2013 10:31:00 am TECHNOLOGY No comments

Google+ fires up its photo features

The company announces a bevy of photography upgrades, including improved tools for photo editing and search.

Google introduced new photography features for Google+ on Tuesday.

SAN FRANCISCO -- Google's social network might not have the fire power the company would like, especially now that Facebook has gone public and Twitter is on its way to doing so. But Google+ has steady footing in some sets. Shutterbugs, in particular, have embraced the service and on Tuesday Google doubled down on these users, adding a bevy of photography tools.
The company gathered press and attendees to NWBLK, a warehouse here that had been transformed into a gallery, with vibrant photos hanging on the walls taken by Google+ users.

"We are not building a service for lightweight sharing," said Vic Gundotra, senior vice president of engineering at Google. He added that the service is "revolutionizing the field of photography." The new features include new algorithms that let users search more easily through big dumps of photos and better back up photo files. With the app Snapseed, users can add HDR filters that automatically fix and brighten photos in low light. The company also introduced Auto Awesome Movie, a live video version of its photo editing feature, that lets users create quick films by stringing together movie clips. The software adds background music and filters. Google also improved its Hangout feature, adding things like location sharing and support for animated GIFs.
Gundorta also announced that Google+ has 300 million "in-stream" users -- or people who actively view the main news page or feed -- and that 1.5 billion photos are uploaded each week on the service.
Google's game plan has been to sprinkle Google+'s social features throughout all of the company's different services. Earlier this month, the company announced an initiative that would allow it to use people's Google+ photos and comments, as well as other data culled from Google's ecosystem, in advertisements.
Appealing to photographers is in line with what Google has already been trying to do with its social network. The company has also targeted writers and other content creators, using information from their Google+ profiles to tie them them to their work when they are searched online.

Nintendo cracks open door to smartphones, tablets

10/30/2013 10:29:00 am TECHNOLOGY No comments

Nintendo cracks open door to smartphones, tablets -- sort of

President Reggie Fils-Aime breaks from his usual no-mobile shtick and shares with CNET how Nintendo uses smartphones and tablets to build buzz.

Nintendo President Reggie Fils-Aime at the CNET offices in New York.

(Credit: Sarah Tew/CNET)

The latest "Super Mario" or "Zelda" title may never end up on a smartphone or a tablet, but that doesn't mean Nintendo isn't thinking about ways to extend its presence to mobile devices.
"We're constantly thinking about how to leverage mobile as a marketing vehicle," Nintendo President Reggie Fils-Aime said on Tuesday during a meeting with CNET editors. "How do I give little tastes of content, little experiences that then drive the consumer back to my hardware environment?"
Despite the tease of bringing "experiences" to mobile devices, Fils-Aime didn't provide additional details beyond noting that its Miiverse service can be accessed by tablets and smartphones. And while it isn't exactly an Earth-shattering revelation, the comments represent a rare moment when Nintendo and Fils-Aime concede that it needs to somehow better take advantage of the growing phenomenon of smartphone and tablet usage. He even prefaced the comments as "a little opening" to CNET.

Super Mario 3D World.

Nintendo has been steadfast against taking its exclusive first-party titles, with well-known characters such as Mario and Link, and making them available outside of Nintendo-made handheld and console gaming systems. The company realizes the draw of those titles and wants to ensure that the only way to play them is to keep buying Nintendo products.
The company, however, could tap into a significantly larger pool of consumers if it opened itself up to smartphones and tablets. In its last fiscal year, ending March 31, Nintendo sold 3.45 million units of its Wii U system. In the last quarter alone, Apple sold 33.8 million iPhones and 14.1 million iPads.
Of course, the ability to buy a Super Mario or Pokemon game for an Apple iPad Air or Samsung Galaxy S4 would mean overall less need for a Wii U or Nintendo 3DS, which Fils-Aime said would destroy both its hardware and third-party software businesses.
"That's why we're so focused on having content exclusive to our platform," he said. "When the consumer wants to play Mario, Zelda, and Pokemon, they have to purchase our hardware to do so. And that preserves our overall financial model."

Hands-on with the Nintendo 2DS (pictures)

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Nintendo, however, is increasingly dealing with questions about its ability to compete in this new world of gaming. Its home console, the Wii U, stumbled out of the gate, and the 3.45 million units sold in the last fiscal year was considered a disappointment. This holiday, hard-core gamers will be swept up by the launch of Microsoft's Xbox One and Sony's PlayStation 4.
The casual gamers that once flocked to the original blockbuster Wii, meanwhile, have moved on to more affordable, simpler games found on smartphones and tablets.
Fils-Aime, however, says he believes Nintendo can get its groove back through a steady stream of software launches. The arrival of "Pikmin 3" and "The Legend of Zelda: Wind Waker HD" has kicked off a number of high-profile title launches in the near future: "Super Mario 3D" on November 22 and "Donkey Kong Country: Tropical Freeze," "Mario Kart 8," and "Super Smash Brothers" for Wii U coming next year.
"In the end, the consumer wants to be entertained. They want to play great software, and we feel very good about the plethora of software behind our platforms," he said.
It's the standard pitch: Nintendo is relying on the strength of its first-party titles to carry it through during the busy holiday season.

Secondly, Nintendo will stress the value of the Wii U, which dropped its "deluxe" bundle price to $300 in late August, Fils-Aime said. The price of the system, which is a year old at this point, is $100 less than the PlayStation 4 and $200 less than the Xbox One.
Fils-Aime also said that Microsoft and Sony would likely face limited supplies during the holiday season for their next-generation consoles, hinting that Nintendo hopes to fill the gap. He downplayed their threat, insisting he was more focused on what Nintendo was doing.
The Nintendo veteran also touted the success of the Nintendo 3DS handheld gaming device, which he said amounted to an annual $1 billion business in the US when counting hardware, software, and accessories. Nintendo will launch an exclusive Zelda bundle, complete with gold 3DS, as part of the launch of "The Legend of Zelda: A Link Between Worlds."
Fils-Aime also talked a little about the Wii U's media capabilities, noting that the company would continue to update Nintendo TV.
"It's going to be a viable, ongoing piece of our platform," he said.
But unlike Microsoft, which positions its Xbox One as more of a media hub, Fils-Aime insisted Nintendo wouldn't stray too far from its core business.
"Our proposition is on the backs of games," he said. "That's how we see driving the business going forward."

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