virtual

VMware today reported second-quarter earnings of $220 million, or 51 cents a share, on revenue of $921 million, up 37 percent from a year ago. Non-GAAP earnings were 55 cents a share. Wall Street was looking for earnings of 47 cents a share on revenue of $873 million.

The company's second-quarter sales were almost evenly split between U.S. ($450 million) and international revenue ($471 million).

In a statement, VMware CEO Paul Maritz said the company's results indicate "the continued adoption of virtualization."

As for the outlook, VMware projected a strong third quarter. The company projected … Read more

Would you wear this digital sombrero for a better gaming experience?

Japanese imaging equipment dealer Crescent recently showed off its head-mounted display at the 3D & Virtual Reality Expo (IVR) in Tokyo.

As seen in the vid below, the Immersive Digital Entertainment VR system provides a high-def, 360-degree display showing virtual objects that users can manipulate with their hands. User motions are tracked with high-def motion-capture cameras from Vicon.

The VR experience seems very realistic and smooth. Takahiro Akiyama of collaborator 4D Brain suggests the helmet could also serve as a brain-machine interface and react to what the user is thinking. If BMI technology were incorporated in the device, it might be able to display scenes matching certain brain wave patterns. For instance, a beach when the user is trying to relax.

That would be cool, but the entire concept is dubious. … Read more

For people who aren't musical, the process of composing and playing music seems almost magical. Virtual Musical Composer is a program that aims to bring the joys of musical creation to the tone-deaf masses. Although the program is fun to play with, be prepared to have very little control over the actual results.

The program's interface is somewhat abstruse, without any obvious menus or buttons. We finally realized that tiny arrows within the interface were what we were supposed to use to select our settings. To create a piece of music, we used the arrows to select our … Read more

Over the last several years CA Technologies has made a number of cloud-related acquisitions--3Tera, Oblicore, Nimsoft--companies focused on the management and associated necessities of cloud infrastructure, if not direct components or providers of clouds themselves.

At this week's Structure conference in San Francisco, I spoke with Jay Fry, vice president of marketing for cloud computing, about what the company is doing to address the burgeoning cloud marketplace. (The company changed its name last year from CA, and before that it was Computer Associates.)

According to Fry, this year is about figuring out what customers really want--not just from … Read more

The iPad doesn't need any gaming help, in one sense: iOS games are thousandfold and selling like hotcakes, making Apple's tablet an already-rich platform for games of all sorts. Still, I (and many others) have had a dream: what if you could add a Bluetooth controller and play real, PC/console-quality games on the iPad? Would that be a game-changer?

Check out the above video and the hands-on gallery below, and decide for yourself.

Short answer: Yes, it could be, especially if those said games weren't even stored on the device itself. OnLive, which we've written about many times, is a cloud-based gaming service that streams remotely stored PC games, while the local user controls the game via keyboard or controller. It sounds like magic, but OnLive actually works, creating a valid option for laptop owners who have underpowered Netbooks, or via last year's TV-connected MicroConsole, a console alternative. Games are saved in the cloud, and titles can be played via subscription or individual purchase license.

Now, here's the long answer.… Read more

Team Fortress 2 has gone free, and it's staying that way forever.

Valve, the game's developer, announced the news on its Web site yesterday. The company said that users can play as much of the game as they'd like for as long as they like at no charge.

Team Fortress 2 was first released in 2007. The game is an online action title, allowing users to form teams and take on other players. It is also one of the most critically acclaimed games ever released, earning a score of 92 out of 100 on CNET sister site … Read more

After nearly 25 years of relative consistency and market dominance by the likes of EMC and NetApp, there's been a recent flurry of activity in the storage industry. In the past few weeks, Fusion-io was valued at nearly $1.95 billion after its first day of public trading and next-generation storage start-ups Pure Storage and Tintri each closed sizable new funding rounds ($28 million for Pure Storage, $18 million for Tintri).

Spurred by the rise of technological innovations like cloud computing and virtualization, storage is undergoing a major transition--the likes of which it hasn't experienced since the rise … Read more

The latest build for Windows 8, known as Build 7989, has leaked onto the Web, reportedly revealing a batch of potential new features.

Windows has long offered a virtual keyboard. But with Windows 8 destined for tablets and other mobile devices, Microsoft has reportedly revamped the keyboard with a new look and feel. Unlike the current keyboard, which requires mouse clicks to operate, the new keyboard will offer touch friendly buttons along with a split keyboard option, according to WinRumors, which has posted a video demo of the new virtual keyboard.

The Win 8 keyboard will reportedly provide built-in support … Read more

There are many instances in which a virtual keyboard can come in handy. You might be using a touch screen, typing in a foreign language, or just wanting an emergency backup in case your physical keyboard goes kaput. Free Virtual Keyboard is a simple program that provides an onscreen keyboard in a portable package.

The keyboard's interface is plain and utilitarian, with a standard QWERTY layout. A slider in the bottom right corner adjusts the keyboard's transparency. We had read that the program had a few other features, but it took us a while to figure out how … Read more