DC Comics Turns the Occupy Movement Into a Superhero Title

Eighteen months after the phrase first entered the collective public consciousness, the plight of the 99 percent is coming to mainstream superhero comics — via a new series from the second biggest publisher in the American comic industry, which just happens to be a subsidiary of a multi-national corporation that makes around $12 billion a year. Irony, anybody?

In May, DC Comics will launch two new series taking place in their mainstream superhero universe that offer different insights into the class struggle in a world filled with superheroes, alien races and inexplicable events. The Green Team, written by Tiny Titans and Superman Family Adventures creators Art Baltazar and Franco, with art by Ig Guara, revives an obscure 1975 concept about teenage rich kids who try to make the world a better place with their outrageous wealth. In an interview promoting the series, Franco promised that it would address questions like “Can money make you happy?” and “If you had unlimited wealth, could you use that to make the lives of people better?”

Obviously, this is one of the more fanciful series DC will be publishing.

But while DC is promoting The Green Team series as the adventures of the “1%,” its companion title, The Movement, is teased as a chance for us to “Meet the 99%… They were the super-powered disenfranchised — now they’re the voice of the people!”

“It’s a book about power,” explained The Movement writer Gail Simone. “Who owns it, who uses it, who suffers from its abuse. As we increasingly move to an age where information is currency, you get these situations where a single viral video can cost a previously unassailable corporation billions, or can upset the power balance of entire governments. And because the sources of that information are so dispersed and nameless, it’s nearly impossible to shut it all down.”

“The thing I find fascinating and a little bit worrisome is, what happens when a hacktivist group whose politics you find completely repulsive has this same kind of power and influence,” she elaborated in an interview at Big Shiny Robot. “What if a racist or homophobic group rises up and organizes in the same manner?”

While the concept is ambitious, the idea that a comic capable of living up to the book’s populist inspiration could come from DC Entertainment still strikes some as unlikely. Matt Pizzolo, the editor of the Occupy Comics anthology, told Wired that “though DC Comics did help launch Alan Moore and David Lloyd’s seminal anarchist epic V For Vendetta over two decades ago, it’s unlikely they would do so today. Between dismantling Vertigo and frankensteining Watchmen, the past year has demonstrated DC isn’t a safe place for bold creators who want to tell the kinds of stories that would inspire things like Occupy, rather than just cash in on them.”

Still, Simone says that the use of the iconography and language of a real-world populist movement is deliberate, promising that the book will reflect today’s decentralized political world and offer ”a slice of rarity that we’re unlikely to see in most superhero books.”

This wouldn’t the first time that DC has attempted to offer pre-packaged populist rebellion, of course; in addition to the aforementioned publication of the anti-establishment V For Vendetta, the company’s Vertigo imprint also published Grant Morrison’s The Invisibles, a series centering around an international organization struggling against forces of authority and repression that included anti-corporate themes.

Only time will tell whether The Movement will live up to the subversive examples of these earlier books, or just end up a well-intentioned piece of topical super heroics that trades on, and commodifies, a real political movement.

The Movement #1 will be available in both print and digital formats on May 1, while The Green Team #1 will be released on May 22.

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Mary J. Blige honored by Vibe at pre-Grammy party

LOS ANGELES (AP) — Babyface called her an icon; Diddy said she was like a sister; and Anita Baker credited her for helping secure her latest Grammy nomination.

There was no shortage of superlatives bestowed on Mary J. Blige on Friday night as Vibe magazine celebrated the Queen of Hip-Hop Soul’s career, which has now spanned for more than two decades.

“She’s a musical soulmate, she’s my sister, she’s one of my best friends in the world,” said Diddy, who has worked with Blige since the beginning of her career. “Mary is our queen. … There is no one to come after her.”

Blige was feted during Vibe’s first Impact Awards, which coincided with the magazine’s 20th anniversary. The event included guests like MC Lyte, Jermaine Dupri and Queen Latifah. Blige appeared to wipe away tears at moments as she was lauded by one guest after another.

Babyface, who wrote one of Blige’s biggest hits, “Not Gon’ Cry,” recalled being a little intimidated by the idea of working with Blige, whom he saw as a tough New Yorker.

“Mary walked in and she was so sweet … and so respectful and totally melted me right there,” he said.

Diddy recalled how Blige worked with him after he got fired from one of his first high-profile jobs in the industry and when no else one would, and also said she was one of his best friends.

One of the more emotional tributes came from Baker, who was a childhood idol of Blige’s. Baker thanked Blige for seeking her out for collaborations and helping a new generation discover her music.

“That kind of generosity is non-existent in our business,” said Baker, who is nominated for a Grammy at Sunday’s awards. “This Grammy nomination that I have is in great part because you spoke my name into the 21st century.”

Latifah noted the personal transformation of Blige, who overcame substance abuse and other obstacles to become one of music’s leading role models.

“For me when I look back at you and the journey you’ve taken, I find you to be extremely inspirational and aspirational, especially to young women,” Latifah said.

When Blige got up to accept her honor, she thanked everyone for embracing her throughout her career, even during her very public missteps. She also thanked people for accepting her imperfections. She recounted a story about being sent to charm school early in her career by handlers who thought she needed to smooth over her rough edges. But Blige was not a good student.

“I just walked out and I never went back,” Blige said. “I’m glad I didn’t go back because I don’t think that I would have had an impact on anyone’s life had I lived someone else’s life.”

Blige recently starred as Betty Shabazz, the widow of Malcolm X, in the Lifetime movie “Betty & Coretta” co-starring Angela Bassett.

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Online:

http://www.maryjblige.com

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Follow Nekesa Mumbi Moody on Twitter at http://www.twitter.com/nekesamumbi

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In Nigeria, Polio Vaccine Workers Are Killed by Gunmen

At least nine polio immunization workers were shot to death in northern Nigeria on Friday by gunmen who attacked two clinics, officials said.

The killings, with eerie echoes of attacks that killed nine female polio workers in Pakistan in December, represented another serious setback for the global effort to eradicate polio.

Most of the victims were women and were shot in the back of the head, local reports said.

A four-day vaccination drive had just ended in Kano State, where the killings took place, and the vaccinators were in a “mop-up” phase, looking for children who had been missed, said Sarah Crowe, a spokeswoman for the United Nations Children’s Fund, one of the agencies running the eradication campaign.

Dr. Mohammad Ali Pate, Nigeria’s minister of state for health, said in a telephone interview that it was not entirely clear whether the gunmen were specifically targeting polio workers or just attacking the health centers where vaccinators happened to be gathering early in the morning. “Health workers are soft targets,” he said.

No one immediately took responsibility, but suspicion fell on Boko Haram, a militant Islamist group that has attacked police stations, government offices and even a religious leader’s convoy.

Polio, which once paralyzed millions of children, is now down to fewer than 1,000 known cases around the world, and is endemic in only three countries: Nigeria, Pakistan and Afghanistan.

Since September — when a new polio operations center was opened in the capital and Nigeria’s president, Goodluck Jonathan, appointed a special adviser for polio — the country had been improving, said Dr. Bruce Aylward, chief of polio eradication for the World Health Organization. There have been no new cases since Dec. 3.

While vaccinators have not previously been killed in the country, there is a long history of Nigerian Muslims shunning the vaccine.

Ten years ago, immunization was suspended for 11 months as local governors waited for local scientists to investigate rumors that it caused AIDS or was a Western plot to sterilize Muslim girls. That hiatus let cases spread across Africa. The Nigerian strain of the virus even reached Saudi Arabia when a Nigerian child living in hills outside Mecca was paralyzed.

Heidi Larson, an anthropologist at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine who tracks vaccine issues, said the newest killings “are kind of mimicking what’s going on in Pakistan, and I feel it’s very much prompted by that.”

In a roundabout way, the C.I.A. has been blamed for the Pakistan killings. In its effort to track Osama bin Laden, the agency paid a Pakistani doctor to seek entry to Bin Laden’s compound on the pretext of vaccinating the children — presumably to get DNA samples as evidence that it was the right family. That enraged some Taliban factions in Pakistan, which outlawed vaccination in their areas and threatened vaccinators.

Nigerian police officials said the first shootings were of eight workers early in the morning at a clinic in the Tarauni neighborhood of Kano, the state capital; two or three died. A survivor said the two gunmen then set fire to a curtain, locked the doors and left.

“We summoned our courage and broke the door because we realized they wanted to burn us alive,” the survivor said from her bed at Aminu Kano Teaching Hospital.

About an hour later, six men on three-wheeled motorcycles stormed a clinic in the Haye neighborhood, a few miles away. They killed seven women waiting to collect vaccine.

Ten years ago, Dr. Larson said, she joined a door-to-door vaccination drive in northern Nigeria as a Unicef communications officer, “and even then we were trying to calm rumors that the C.I.A. was involved,” she said. The Iraq and Afghanistan wars had convinced poor Muslims in many countries that Americans hated them, and some believed the American-made vaccine was a plot by Western drug companies and intelligence agencies.

Since the vaccine ruse in Pakistan, she said, “Frankly, now, I can’t go to them and say, ‘The C.I.A. isn’t involved.’ ”

Dr. Pate said the attack would not stop the newly reinvigorated eradication drive, adding, “This isn’t going to deter us from getting everyone vaccinated to save the lives of our children.”

Aminu Abubakar contributed reported from Kano, Nigeria.

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Strategies: At Dell, a Gamble on a Legacy

IN 1984 — the year Mark Zuckerberg, the Facebook creator, was born — Michael S. Dell started a tech company in his dorm room, dropped out of college and changed the world.

By making personal computers that were powerful, reliable and inexpensive, and by selling directly to buyers who customized their PC features, Mr. Dell revolutionized his industry.

“The original PC industry was long on people with great technical ideas but short on people who were able to turn those ideas into opportunities — into products that people really wanted,” said Timothy Bresnahan, a Stanford economist. Along with Steve Jobs and Bill Gates, as well as Scott Cook of Intuit, Mr. Dell was one of those few great innovators, he said. “These people are very rare.”

Mr. Dell’s early achievements were formidable, but unless his latest effort to turn around his company is successful, the Dell legacy today is very much in doubt. Last week, along with Silver Lake Partners, a private equity firm, he made a $24.4 billion buyout offer for his company — an apparent bet that, without the scrutiny of public shareholders, he can get Dell back on track.

Dell, the company, has been losing ground for years as the industry it once dominated has undergone upheavals that its founder failed to foresee. “The very nature of technology is that it changes a lot,” said Toni Sacconaghi, an analyst at Sanford C. Bernstein. “And Michael has conceded publicly that he has missed some big changes — he failed to foresee smartphones or tablets — and both of these shifts have been highly detrimental to the PC world.”

He has lagged in a crucial area of corporate strategy as well, said Shaw Wu, an analyst at Sterne Agee in San Francisco. While Mr. Dell has always been attuned to the needs of corporate clients, he is 20 years behind I.B.M. in embracing a strategic shift to enterprise software and services, Mr. Wu said: “That’s a higher-margin business that Dell would like to go after, but I.B.M. and others have got tremendous leads. It will be very difficult for him to catch up.”

If Dell shareholders accept an offer price of $13.65 a share, Mr. Dell, who is contributing his stake of more than 14 percent in the company plus hundreds of millions more, would end up with more than 50 percent of the new company’s equity, Mr. Sacconaghi estimated. Mr. Dell, who declined to comment for this article, would control the company without being subject to the day-to-day pressures of the stock market, which has pummeled Dell shares because its earnings have weakened.

While Dell reports that 50 percent of its revenue is directly related to PCs, Mr. Wu says the figure is 70 to 80 percent when indirect revenue, like that for computer monitors, printers and services, is included. “The company has made big investments in other areas, but it’s still mainly a PC company,” he said.

That’s a big problem for several reasons. Once considered the low-cost provider in the field, Dell now faces lean Asian competitors like Lenovo, Asus and Acer that make PCs more cheaply and accept lower profit margins. Yet these companies, particularly Lenovo, have also garnered praise for making excellent computers, not merely well-priced ones. At the same time, Dell’s vaunted reputation for quality and service has waned.

Lenovo, which makes the ThinkPad line of notebook computers formerly sold by I.B.M., “has been picking up corporate customers from Dell,” Mr. Wu said.

THEN there is a deeper issue: the entire PC industry is stagnant at best. Worldwide PC shipments declined 4.9 percent in the fourth quarter, versus the year-earlier period, according to Gartner, a market research firm. Consumer preferences are shifting. With the ubiquity of smartphones and tablets — segments where Dell is absent or very weak — consumers aren’t replacing PCs as often.

“We don’t expect people to abandon PCs, but they won’t rely on them as much in the future,” said Mikako Kitagawa, a Gartner analyst. Dell’s share of this no-growth market has been shrinking, to 10.2 percent worldwide in the fourth quarter of 2012, from 12.2 percent the previous year, Gartner said.

Facing such headwinds, Mr. Sacconaghi said, Dell hopes to “hold PC profits flat or, worst case, down 5 percent a year, while they grow the rest of the business to more than offset that.” But the market is skeptical. Dell’s shares fell 30 percent in the 12 months before Jan. 14, when reports of an imminent buyout appeared.

The leveraged buyout will layer $15 billion of new debt on the company. Microsoft, with which Dell has had close ties, is providing $2 billion. Because interest rates are extraordinarily low, servicing all that debt should be manageable, assuming that Dell maintains its current cash flow, Mr. Sacconaghi said.

It’s not clear how much the debt load will constrain Dell’s investments in research and development. Josh Lerner, a Harvard Business School professor, said a study for which he was a co-author found that after leveraged buyouts, most companies maintained their ability to innovate, largely by focusing research in “their core competencies.”

In other words, he said, “Dell might be able to prosper after a buyout; it would depend on how Michael Dell manages the company.”

Is the price being offered for the company fair? It’s often unwise to bet against company insiders, especially founders like Mr. Dell, who may be presumed to know their companies’ value better than outside investors.

Consider John W. Kluge, who took Metromedia private in 1984 in a $1.1 billion leveraged buyout. Mr. Kluge, Metromedia’s founder, promptly liquidated it, selling television stations (to Rupert Murdoch) and sundry assets like the Harlem Globetrotters and the Ice Capades. In the end, Mr. Kluge tripled his take — to the chagrin of many former shareholders.

Mr. Kluge, who died in 2010, wasn’t interested in preserving his company or revolutionizing an industry, however. He merely wanted to make money. “When we buy an asset, we look at it as a return on the investment,” he said in 1980.

For Mr. Dell, whose name is on the door, other factors may be in play. “Another chapter is still to be written,” Mr. Bresnahan said. Money will be part of it. So will the Dell legacy.

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Big Bear locked down amid manhunt

The bustling winter resort of Big Bear took on the appearance of a ghost town Thursday as surveillance aircraft buzzed overhead and police in tactical gear and carrying rifles patrolled mountain roads in convoys of SUVs, while others stood guard along major intersections.

Even before authorities had confirmed that the torched pickup truck discovered on a quiet forest road belonged to suspected gunman Christopher Dorner, 33, officials had ordered an emergency lockdown of local businesses, homes and the town's popular ski resorts. Parents were told to pick up their children from school, as rolling yellow buses might pose a target to an unpredictable fugitive on the run.

By nightfall, many residents had barricaded their doors as they prepared for a long, anxious evening.

PHOTOS: A tense manhunt amid tragic deaths

"We're all just stressed," said Andrea Burtons as she stocked up on provisions at a convenience store. "I have to go pick up my brother and get him home where we're safe."

Police ordered the lockdown about 9:30 a.m. as authorities throughout Southern California launched an immense manhunt for the former lawman, who is accused of killing three people as part of a long-standing grudge against the LAPD. Dorner is believed to have penned a long, angry manifesto on Facebook saying that he was unfairly fired from the force and was now seeking vengeance.

Forest lands surrounding Big Bear Lake are cross-hatched with fire roads and trails leading in all directions, and the snow-capped mountains can provide both cover and extreme challenges to a fugitive on foot. It was unclear whether Dorner was prepared for such rugged terrain.

Footprints were found leading from Dorner's burned pickup truck into the snow off Forest Road 2N10 and Club View Drive in Big Bear Lake.

San Bernardino County Sheriff John McMahon said that although authorities had deployed 125 officers for tracking and door-to-door searches, officers had to be mindful that the suspect may have set a trap.

"Certainly. There's always that concern and we're extremely careful and we're worried about this individual," McMahon said. "We're taking every precaution we can."

PHOTOS: A fugitive's life on Facebook

Big Bear has roughly 400 homes, but authorities guessed that only 40% are occupied year-round.

The search will probably play out with the backdrop of a winter storm that is expected to hit the area after midnight.

Up to 6 inches of snow could blanket local mountains, the National Weather Service said.

FULL COVERAGE: Sweeping manhunt for rampaging ex-cop

Gusts up to 50 mph could hit the region, said National Weather Service meteorologist Mark Moede, creating a wind-chill factor of 15 to 20 degrees.

Extra patrols were brought in to check vehicles coming and going from Big Bear, McMahon said, but no vehicles had been reported stolen.

"He could be anywhere at this point," McMahon said. When asked if the burned truck was a possible diversion, McMahon replied: "Anything's possible."

Dorner had no known connection to the area, authorities said.

Craig and Christine Winnegar, of Murrieta, found themselves caught up in the lockdown by accident. Craig brought his wife to Big Bear as a surprise to celebrate their 28th wedding anniversary. Their prearranged dinner was canceled when restaurant owners closed their doors out of fear.

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Building of the Week: Bank of Georgia

Each week, Wired Design brings you a photo of one of our favorite buildings, showcasing boundary-pushing architecture and design involved in the unique structures that make the world's cityscapes interesting. Check back Fridays for the continuing series, and feel free to make recommendations in the comments, by Twitter, or by e-mail.

The Soviets were not known for comfortable or ornamental architecture, and the Bank of Georgia headquarters is neither of those. But despite being a series of massive, stacked concrete blocks (or perhaps, because of that), it is an interesting adaptation of its period's stark, square style.

Built in 1975 as the Soviet Ministry of Roads and sold to the bank in 2007, the Tetris-like structure is actually 18 stories high and 44,000 square feet. Like many examples of constructivist architecture, its blocky, three-dimensional form is almost a variation on an industrial bunker, but re-imagined to allow a forest to grow underneath. Giorgi Chakhava was in the envious position of being both minister of highway construction and architect, and with Zurab Jalaghania, he was able to both follow and expand beyond typical Soviet brutalism.

Photo: Matt Bateman/Flickr

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The New Old Age: The Executor's Assistant

I’m serving as executor for my father’s estate, a role few of us are prepared for until we’re playing it, so I was grateful when the mail brought “The American Bar Association Guide to Wills and Estates” — the fourth edition of a handbook the A.B.A. began publishing in 1995.

This is a legal universe, I’m learning, in which every step — even with a small, simple estate that owes no taxes and includes no real estate or trusts — turns out to be at least 30 percent more complicated than expected.

If my dad had been wealthy or owned a business, or if we faced a challenge to his will, I would have turned the whole matter over to an estate lawyer by now. But even then, it would be helpful to know what the lawyer was talking about. The A.B.A. guide would help.

Written with surprising clarity (hey, they’re lawyers), it maps out all kinds of questions and decisions to consider and explains the many ways to leave property to one’s heirs. Updated from the third edition in 2009, the guide not only talks taxes and trusts, but also offers counsel for same-sex couples and unconventional families.

If you want to permit your second husband to live in the family home until he dies, but then guarantee that the house reverts to the children of your first marriage, the guide tells you how a “life estate” works. It explains what is taxable and what isn’t, and discusses how to choose executors and trustees. It lists lots of resources and concludes with an estate-planning checklist.

In general, the A.B.A. intends its guide for the person trying to put his or her affairs in order, more than for family members trying to figure out how to proceed after someone has died. But many of us will play both these parts at some point (and if you are already an executor, or have been, please tell us how that has gone, and mention your state). We’ll need this information.

Editor’s Note: More information about “The American Bar Association Guide to Wills and Estates” can be found here.

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Paula Span is the author of “When the Time Comes: Families With Aging Parents Share Their Struggles and Solutions.”

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Japanese Still Seeking Link in 787 Battery Incidents

Japan’s investigation of a battery that was smoking on a Boeing 787 flight there last month has not yet determined if the incident started in the same way as a fire on another 787 in Boston, a Japanese official said Friday.

Akinobu Yokoyama, a spokesman for Japan’s Transport Safety Board, said it was still not clear whether a short-circuit or other malfunction occurred within one or more of the eight cells in the new lithium-ion battery.

His comments in an interview came a day after Deborah Hersman, the chairwoman of the National Transportation Safety Board, said that the problems on the Boston jet seemed to have originated in the battery. She said one of the cells had a short-circuit that created a “thermal runaway” as it cascaded through the rest of the cells, heating the battery to 500 degrees.

Given that the problems on the innovative jets occurred just nine days apart, it is crucial for investigators to determine whether they started in a similar manner. If the incidents seem to parallel one another, it could be easier for Boeing and its regulators to find a fix than if they are dealing with two different problems.

The Japanese investigation started later than the American one. Mr. Yokoyama said it was “not appropriate to talk yet about whether proximity of the cells within the battery is a structural problem or a cause of the battery malfunctions.”

“By looking at the battery, it is obvious there was a thermal runway,” he said. “But we have yet to determine with any certainty why that happened.”

Ms. Hersman said Thursday that American investigators still did not know what caused the short-circuit in the cell of the Boston battery. She also said that in certifying the lithium-ion batteries in 2007, the Federal Aviation Administration accepted test results from Boeing that seriously underestimated the risk of smoke or fire.

The 787 is the first commercial plane to use large lithium-ion batteries for major flight functions. The batteries are more volatile than conventional nickel-cadmium batteries, but they weigh less and create more power, contributing to a 20 percent gain in fuel economy over older planes.

All 50 of the 787s that have been delivered so far have been grounded since mid-January.

That has also stopped Boeing from delivering more of the planes. Two European carriers, Thomson Airways and Norwegian Air Shuttle, said Friday that Boeing had notified them that the deliveries they had expected soon would be delayed until the problems with the batteries could be resolved.

Boeing’s rival, Airbus, plans to use smaller — and it says safer — lithium-ion batteries in its next-generation A350 jets, which will compete with the 787. Airbus reiterated Friday that it was watching to see how the investigations of the Boeing battery turned out.

“There is nothing that prevents us from going back to a classical battery on the A350, which we’ve been studying in parallel to the lithium battery from the beginning,” said Justin Dubon, an Airbus spokesman in Toulouse.

Hiroko Tabuchi reported from Tokyo. Nicola Clark contributed reporting from Paris.

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Fugitive cop stayed in San Diego this week; military bases on alert

Military bases in the San Diego area have been warned to be on the lookout for a fugitive former LAPD officer suspected of shooting three police officers early Thursday morning -- one of them fatally -- and killing an Irvine couple on Sunday.

Christoper Jordan Dorner, 33, is a former Navy reserve lieutenant with multiple weapons at his disposal, including an assault rifle, officials said. He is considered armed and extremely dangerous and alerts have been issued in California and Nevada.

Guards at military bases have been alerted that Dorner may have military identification and military-issue clothing. He has a military sticker on his vehicle windshield and was station in San Diego at times during his Navy career.

Dorner is believed to be connected to an attempted boat theft at the Southwestern Yacht Club in Point Loma, where he allegedly held an 81-year-old boat owner at gunpoint, tied him up and tried to steal the boat to flee to Mexico.

When that attempt was thwarted by mechanical difficulties, he apparently drove north to Corona.

Sometime after 1:30 a.m., Dorner is suspected of shooting an Los Angeles Police Department officer in Corona, then heading to Riverside where authorities say he "ambushed" two Riverside officers. Both officers were shot, one fatally. Police said he was seen wearing military fatigues.

Dorner is also wanted in connection with the slaying Sunday in Irvine of the daughter of a retired LAPD captain and her fiance.

Authorities confirmed Thursday morning that Dorner had stayed at a hotel on a local military base several days ago.

Dorner was able to check in at the motel on the San Diego Naval base but it was not clear how he gained access to the secured area, police told reporters.

"We have confirmation that he stayed here several days ago," Lt. Joseph Ramos said at a news conference.

He said Dorner had not been seen in the area on Thursday despite reports that he was still at the motel.

[Updated at 11:55 a.m.: Navy officials confirmed that Dorner checked into the base on Feb. 5, using military identification. He did not check out.]

Law enforcement authorities said they were concerned about Dorner's military background and weapons training.

Dorner received awards for his expertise with a rifle and pistol, according to military records obtained by The Times. He received an Iraq Campaign Medal and served in a mobile inshore undersea warfare unit.

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Valve's Newell: How PCs Will Take Over the Living Room

LAS VEGAS — At the DICE Summit on Thursday, Valve CEO Gabe Newell laid out his vision for how the PC, as a gaming platform, can move into the living room.

“Traditionally, people say nobody wants a PC in the living room,” Newell said. But he sees that changing soon, and pointed to a “good/better/best” scenario in which different users will have different solutions for playing PC games on their television.

“Good,” he said, is “home streaming” — devices like Nvidia’s Shield that stream games from your PC to a mobile screen. “Think of it as, your PC now has an extra monitor and an extra set of inputs,” Newell said. “The price point is going to be much, much lower than what we’ve traditionally seen in living-room devices.”

Streaming setups like this, he said, “do require [game creators] to do some work to ensure the customer experience is seamless.”

“Better” is a “PC in a console form factor at a console price point,” or what has become colloquially known as a Steam box. “Nowadays, making small quiet cool PCs is a well-solved problem by multiple vendors,” Newell said.

“We’re developing console form factor PCs, and working with partners on that as well,” he said, devices that have “all the characteristics of a great console device while taking advantage of the price performance of a PC.”

“Best,” Newell said, is “pretty straightforward.” If you want a $4,000 living room PC with all the bells and whistles, he said, there are plenty of vendors who will provide that.

Newell stressed the need for free and open platforms like Linux. “Our company wouldn’t exist if it weren’t for the openness of the PC. Steam wouldn’t exist if not for the openness of the Internet,” Newell said, noting that he sees Linux as a “get out of jail free pass for our industry, if we need it.”

He also restated his previous assertion that Apple is “more threatening to the PC in the living room than anything that would be happening on the console side,” noting that the company has a “natural progression into the living room.”

Newell said he sees PCs in the living room as a way of ending “disruptive console transitions.”

“You don’t have to say, oh my god, how are we going to get that application running on our dedicated hardware in the living room?” he said.

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