I tell ya: you go away for 5 weeks, and suddenly, everyone has shiny new products that just came out of nowhere (well, except Apple). Valve, Sony, AMD… these are interesting technology times that we live in. Everyone wants to turn the market on its ear. Let’s see who manages to do it.

Valve –The Steam Universe is Expanding in 2014.

• Steam OS
• Steam Machines
• Steam Controller. Dev feedback from using it.
• Game Sharing service.
• PC game sales on Steam up 76% year on year.

AMD

• Announces new series of GPU’s topping out with the R9 290X and prices.

  • “The R9 290X also sports Ultra-HD graphics at native 4K resolutions, this is beyond anything you will see on the Xbox One or PlayStation 4 and the 290X is aimed at running those native resolutions at 60 frames per second. This is a benchmark in home gaming.”
  • Also targeting Creative Labs and Asus with their new True Audio Processor built into the R9 and one R7 –

• AMD ‘Mantle’ aims to take over Directx. It’s OpenGL/DX all over again.
• Teams up with Raptr for Gaming Evolved App, an alternative to the nVidia Geforce Experience.

nVidia

• Partners up with SteamOS. I wonder what Linus Torvalds thinks?

Tech/Hardware News:

Apple

• iPhone 5c

  • iPhone 5 guts in a new plastic shell (5 colors)
  • $99 (16GB), $199 (32GB)
• iPhone 5s

  • A7 64-bit ARM SoC (2X faster than A6)
  • M7 motion-tracking co-processor
  • Camera upgrade with burst mode, 120 fps video
  • Fingerprint authentication “Touch ID”

    • Already defeated by “fake finger” technique
  • New gray and gold colors along with silver
• iOS 7

  • v7.02 released to combat privacy bug.
• 9 million iPhone 5c and 5s sold in first weekend

Samsung

• Galaxy Gear watch, Galaxy Note 3 for $299 each
• Plans to launch phone with curved display in October. Remember CES 2013?

Microsoft

• Ballmers ‘emotional’ time of your life farewell.
• Buys Nokia for $7.2 billion
• Cash for iPhone offer goes live.
• Announces Surface RT 2 and Surface Pro 2.

Blackberry

• Reports massive second quarter loss, on the verge of being sold has gone private with a single investor. This is not a good thing. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/09/23/blackberry-sale_n_3976373.html

Tesco launches budget tablet called the Hudl.

Kickstarter Products:

Phonebloks modular phone.

Crossplane controller.

Gaming News:

GTA 5 rakes in $1 billion in first 3 days of sales

Sony

• Vita TV microconsole announced
• Redesigned Vita with LCD screen.
• PS4 bundles announced by Sony.

Nintendo

• Nintendo 2DS announced for $129

• Long-time president Hiroshi Yamauchi dies

Archos launches the Gamepad 2

Hyperkin launching the Retron5.