After phasing out console games relating to the “Mission: Impossible” series, Paramount Pictures has created a social game on Facebook to promote the franchise.
The game, which introduces an entirely new storyline, awards players with real prizes and new content. Paramount is using the game to give out premiere tickets in addition to other promotional material.
The studio is working with Funtactix, a social game developer, on the project.
According to a related article from TheNextWeb, Paramount is also hoping to generate buzz by making it possible to rent all previous iterations of the franchise directly from the movie’s Facebook Fan Page. Each movie costs 30 Facebook credits ($2.99) to rent for 48 hours.
“Utilizing the sharing capabilities and Facebook ticker, which will alert your friends to the fact that you’re watching one of the movies, could help build excitement for an opening weekend that will destroy the last,” suggests TNW.
Miramax launched a similar Facebook rental model a few months ago. TNW wonders if Facebook rental services will take off in the face of customer comfort and loyalty to Netflix and other streaming services.
The Walt Disney Company is working to replicate the success of “Angry Birds” with its new “Where’s My Water?” iPhone and iPad game.
Since its September 22 release, the game has proven rather successful, even taking the top spot from “Angry Birds” for three weeks.
“The logic is pretty simple; games are a cost-effective way of not only testing new characters, but also building a fan base for a potential movie,” reports Market Intelligence Center. “Developing the game cost a couple of hundred thousand dollars and about seven people. The time to build the game was less than eight months.”
The article points out that the financial risk is minimal when compared to a feature animation project: “Animated movies can easily run in excess of $100 million to produce, so each one is big gamble. If the game continues to find success, Disney can start to plan an animated movie around the game knowing they already have a fan-base for the movie’s characters. Disney will also be able to use its merchandising muscle to create and sell all kinds of toys and clothes around the game’s characters before it ever gets a movie into theaters.”
ETCentric staffer Phil Lelyveld adds: “Entertainment technology must now be defined VERY broadly. The ‘Halo II’ launch incorporated thousands of calls to pay phones into a coordinated transmedia market development campaign.”
Roger Craig, who defeated Ken Jennings’ single-game winnings record on “Jeopardy,” says he used an app created specifically to help him train for the competition.
“A computer scientist with a Ph.D. from the University of Delaware, Craig built an app that used an archive of past ‘Jeopardy’ questions to help identify show trends and the strengths and weaknesses of his own knowledge base,” reports Digital Trends.
For example, Craig’s app dtermined: “…questions with the highest value typically come from certain academic fields (like science or architecture), while low-value questions usually come from topics like food or more mainstream subject matter. With the app, he was able to identify specific academic and mainstream topics he needed to study more (like fashion).”
Digital Trends has posted video coverage of Craig’s recent presentation at the Quantified Self Show & Tell conference, in which he provides details about the app.
The “Jeopardy” champion has plans to create an iPhone version of his app for the public.
Facebook has selected Taiwanese phone manufacturer HTC to build a smartphone code-named “Buffy,” after the television vampire slayer.
Ironically, the device will run a customized OS from its main competitor, Google’s Android, and integrate a number of Facebook’s services, many of which will run as HTML5 apps.
“Facebook only recently chose HTC, after also considering at least one other potential hardware partner — Korea’s Samsung,” reports AllThingsD. “That means the products themselves are still a ways from hitting the market, potentially as long as 12 to 18 months.”
According to a Facebook spokesperson: “Our mobile strategy is simple: We think every mobile device is better if it is deeply social. We’re working across the entire mobile industry; with operators, hardware manufacturers, OS providers, and application developers to bring powerful social experiences to more people around the world.”
Although other companies have released phones with dedicated Facebook buttons, Buffy is expected to provide deeper integration, “bringing friends and social activities deep into the mobile interface.”
A recent survey of dedicated music demographics indicates access to music from services like Spotify, YouTube, Grooveshark and others significantly decreases the interest in purchasing across all groups except the least dedicated.
“Services like Spotify increase access, but also decrease spending in many situations. Which means less money from higher-returning formats like iTunes downloads, CDs, and LPs,” according to Digital Music News. “But free access also includes a range of other services, including YouTube, Grooveshark, and various freebie competitors. And all of these are sapping the juice out of higher-end impulse buying, once a music industry lifeblood.”
The recently released findings from NPD Group and NARM have already had an impact. “Following a study that claims that streaming music is damaging to record sales, a distributor representing more than 200 labels has withdrawn its entire catalogue from Spotify, Napster, Simfy and Rdio,” reports Huffington Post.
“As a distributor we have to do what is best for our labels,” STHoldings explained in a statement. “The majority of which do not want their music on such services because of the poor revenues and the detrimental affect on sales. Add to that the feeling that their music loses its specialness by its exploitation as a low value/free commodity.”
In a related All Things D story, Spotify announced it has new things on the horizon, but has yet to provide details. “In New York on November 30th, we are holding our first press conference to unveil the latest major development from Spotify — and a new direction for the company. The press event will be hosted by CEO and Founder Daniel Ek, along with special guests,” wrote the company’s PR unit.
All Things D speculates Spotify may be releasing a U.S. service to buy songs (already available in Europe) or an iPad app, but “it is courting the risk of overpromising” if these are the only developments to be announced.
At a recent CES Unveiled event in London, Shawn DuBravac, director of research for the CEA, predicted that a large number of ultrabooks will debut at the 2012 CES conference in January. “We expect to see 30 to 50 new ultrabooks launch at CES,” said DuBravac. TechCrunch responded with, “That’s a whole lot of MacBook Air clones.”
Each year, there seems to be a single prominent device showcased at the annual confab. “iPad killers were out in force at 2011′s show. 2010 was all about 3D TVs while netbooks was the popular product in 2009,” suggests the post. “It seems that ultrabooks might be 2012′s hot product. But can they break the dreaded CES curse that plagued the previous hot products?”
TechCrunch describes how Android tablets failed to challenge the iPad and how 3D TVs and netbooks failed to achieve significant adoption. If ultrabooks dominate the 2012 event, will they face the same fate?
“Ultrabooks are supposed to be the answer to Apple’s increasingly popular MacBook Air. Intel designed the computing platform to be as thin as possible while keeping the price low. The first batch of ultabooks start at $899 and offer competitive performance. But they’re still not built as well as the MacBook Air.”
Technology R&D firm Fraunhofer Heinrich Hertz Institute in Berlin has announced a major breakthrough in direct eye-to-eye contact for video conferencing. Fraunhofer HHI hopes to implement the new technology in consumer laptops and office desktop systems.
“Called the Virtual Eye Contact Engine, the software module analyses the scene in real-time 3D from three cameras mounted around the display,” reports 3D Focus. “It computes the depth structure information of the person’s head which is used to generate a 3D model. The 3D model is then used to compute the view of the virtual camera for both parties and the rendered output appears to show each person looking directly at each other.”
Fraunhofer HHI believes the technology will help resolve the problem experienced with eye contact during video conferencing. “Eye contact is one of the most important elements of non-verbal communication and without this, each person can feel slightly disconnected from the conversation,” suggests the article.
“We are working on a product release for our system,” says Ingo Feldman, scientific project manager 3D Video & Immersive Media Group. “We expect the first version on the market in about one year’s time…On one hand we plan to provide an office desktop system with high quality virtual eye contact correction. On the other hand, we plan a consumer market solution which is capable to run on laptop environments. As we are a research institution, we are always interested in industry partners which will finance our product development.”
Boxee is augmenting its broadband box for cord-cutters with a USB dongle that provides users access to broadcast TV.
According to paidContent: “Boxee, which has been working mightily to get people to cut their cable cords with its own broadband box for five years, is preparing a new add-on product in January that will let users pull out the cable cord and plug a USB device into their cable box, giving them access to broadcast TV channels like ABC, CBS, FOX, and NBC for free.”
“If you live and die by ESPN, then yes, you have to stay on cable. But we believe there are plenty of people who just want access to regular broadcast channels,” says Avner Ronen, CEO and co-founder of Boxee.
However, Ronen believes there are consumers interested in basic broadcast content that would benefit from this approach. “The problem with canceling your cable subscription and relying just on the Internet has been the lack of live sports, a presidential address, local news, special events and live TV shows,” he told paidContent. “But these things are all available on broadcast TV channels…for free, over the air in HD.”
The Live TV stick will be available for $49, as an add-on to the $180 Boxee Box.
Cisco recently launched a wireless IPTV service with AT&T U-verse that features new wireless receivers and wireless access points (WAPs).
“Consumers can now rely on wireless technology to deliver high-quality video services throughout the home without the need for cables or wires,” explains the press release. “TV content is sent from the Cisco wireless access point via in-home Wi-Fi to the Ciscowireless receiver next to the TV.”
Based on the 802.11n standard, the wireless solution can deliver SD and HD programming to multiple receivers with integrated Wi-Fi, provide interactive services and function as an HD DVR.
In addition to enabling consumers to view television anywhere they choose in the home, the “wireless TV solution offers service providers the means for faster service activations and consumer self-installation with easy-to-use Wi-Fi kits…The integrated Wi-Fi receiver also offers service providers the ability to monitor the device’s performance via the network, as the receiver comes equipped with remote diagnostics.”
Although only 13 percent of Internet users have chosen Google Chrome thus far, Digital Trends makes a compelling argument why the browser may be a step above competitors such as Internet Explorer, Firefox and Opera.
The author believes Chrome is a leader in speed, compatibility and Web page rendering — and credits the V8 JavaScript engine for the browser’s superior performance.
“Chrome remains the unchallenged performance leader. Peacekeeper browser benchmark scores for Chrome are much higher than they are for other browsers — in fact, when compared to IE9, the latest version can almost double Internet Explorer’s score.”
The post includes tips for installing Chrome, understanding the interface, helpful shortcuts, bookmarking and downloads, security and privacy settings and more.
“It’s an impressive suite, and generally better than what other browsers offer by default,” suggests Digital Trends. “But some of its biggest advantages — such as its speed — are only apparent after using the browser for a few minutes.”
Kobo announced it will release its $99 Kobo Touch with Offers in time for the holiday season.
The 6-inch e-reader is the same as the company’s $130 offering, but “the screen will display ads when it is in sleep mode or turned off, as well as in what the company mysteriously refers to as ‘discreet places,'” reports VentureBeat.
The device “will be a direct competitor to Amazon’s Kindle Touch with Special Offers and Barnes & Noble’s Nook Simple Touch,” suggests the article.
Although not widely known in the U.S., Kobo hopes to change that with unique features such as support for HTML, RTF and various image files.
According to the article: “Just last week, the Canada-based e-reader manufacturer was acquired for $315 million in cash by Rakuten, the largest online shopping mall operator in Japan, which may help the reader become an international hit. As for this season’s e-reader wars in the U.S., it’s still a scrappy underdog.”
Skype has released new versions for Mac and Windows that features the ability to connect to social networker Facebook.
“After installing Skype 5.4 Beta for Mac or Skype 5.7 Beta for Windows, users can click the Facebook icon on the left side of the screen and authorize Skype to access Facebook data through the Facebook Connect button,” reports Digital Trends.
Facebook Connect includes text and video chat functionality. “When a call is placed through the Skype software, the user on Facebook can accept the call and a video chat window pops-up on the Facebook screen,” explains the post. “Ideally, this will eventually allow Facebook users to place calls to anyone running an active version of Skype rather than being logged into Facebook at the time.”
Microsoft, which recently acquired Skype for $8.5 billion, is expected to integrate the Windows Phone platform with Skype and possibly include Skype in its upcoming social network called “Soci.”
Soci is expected to include a video chatting “party” feature for friends.
“A new take on the search engine called Trap.it uses the same AI technology that Siri does courtesy of the CALO project (which was funded by DARPA), and has launched its public beta,” reports Digital Trends.
Described as something similar to a hybrid of Pandora and Qwiki in its approach to an “information experience,” Trap.it uses Facebook and Twitter accounts to help curate the Web for individual users.
“Via the ‘discover’ bar, you ‘trap’ information that comes up in visual-heavy icons with short text summaries. Hovering over these images lets you vote up or down if this is what you were looking for, share the information, or bookmark it for later,” explains the post. “Your feedback on these ‘traps’ is how the search engine learns and gets smarter, so eventually you’re receiving more and more spot-on results.”
“It’s yet another signal we’re moving from search to discovery,” suggests Digital Trends.
Some 47 years ago, author and inventor Arthur C. Clarke predicted the modern reality of “a world in which we can be in instant contact with each other, wherever we may be, where we can contact our friends anywhere on earth even if we don’t know their actual, physical location.”
In this 3-minute video clip from a 1964 episode of the long-running BBC series “Horizon,” Clarke also predicted that “it will be possible in that age, perhaps only 50 years from now, for a man to conduct his business from Tahiti or Bali just as well as he could from London.”
He emphasized the importance of advancements in communications technologies, including the transistor and satellite.
Clarke suggested that “the whole world would have shrunk to a point,” when cities would no longer serve as traditional meeting centers while executive, administrative and even physical skills could be made independent of distance. He concluded: “Men will no longer commute, they will communicate. They won’t have to travel for business anymore; they will only travel for pleasure.”
The Microsoft Kinect 3D camera was a hot seller last holiday season, but now it seems that the buzz has subsided.
According to PC Magazine writer John C. Dvorak, the Kinect is in phase 10 of an 11-phase process that most high-tech products go through…
Phases 1-3: A hot product generates rumors, there’s a pre-announcement to either downplay or exaggerate the product, followed by media speculation, which is drawn out until the product arrives.
Phases 4-6: The product is rolled out and a shipping date is set, followed by shipment of the first batch ship and afterwards, a shortage announcement.
Phases 7-9: The black market, described by Dvorak as “a short-term black market for the device emerges, sometimes arranged by the company itself,” followed by the product’s complete release and then a PR effort to sustain interest.
Phase 10: New uses. “Out-of-the-blue, new uses are ascribed to the device if possible. These supposed new uses should have been planned from the beginning.”
And finally, Phase 11: an analysis determined by long-term public reception of product, leading to three options: do it all over, make routine minor adjustments/improvements, or let it sell until it runs out and call it quits after that.
“The Kinect is now in phase ten and new uses are being ascribed, mainly 3D telecommunications,” writes Dvorak. “You can spot the hand of the PR folks involved by the repetitious and redundant messages seen in far too many of the stories. In this case, it’s that 3D Kinect is ‘now cooler than Skype.'”
After phasing out console games relating to the “Mission: Impossible” series, Paramount Pictures has created a social game on Facebook to promote the franchise.
