Hide Comments | Add Comment

Video game companies get ready to show new ways to get entertained

Game companies ready to show new ways to play

NEW YORK — Video game makers are about to try to convince you that fancy 3-D screens, gesture-recognition cameras and ultra-sensitive motion controllers topped with brightly glowing spheres are what you need to have a good time.

They’ll do this as they try to emerge from a slump in the recession, which shocked a business long believed to be protected from, if not totally immune to, the workings of the broader economy.

Much of the industry’s success this year is riding on whether Microsoft, Nintendo, Sony and game publishers are able to sway consumers toward new, maybe even pricey ways to experience games — even as free or inexpensive options on Facebook, smart phones and the iPad compete for their attention.

Beginning next week at E3, as the Electronic Entertainment Expo in Los Angeles is called, game companies will show off several new mechanisms for playing games. Among them will be Move, which is Sony’s new motion controller for the PlayStation 3 and launches this fall, when it is expected to cost less than $100. A black remote with a color-changing ball on top, it builds on the success of the Nintendo Wii’s popular motion-control wand, but it promises more precision. A camera called PlayStation Eye recognizes the glowing orb and uses it to track the remote’s position in a 3-D space, further immersing players in the game.

Even so, Fidel Martinez may need a bit of convincing. The 19-year-old PlayStation 3 owner says he likes his button-filled video game controllers just fine, thank you. Walking out of New York’s Nintendo World store recently after buying a wallet, Martinez said he doesn’t think he’ll buy Move.

“It’s too weird,” said Martinez. “The times I’ve played (motion-controlled) games has been strange. I’d rather use the old kind.”

Sony is betting he’ll change his mind. Richard Marks, senior researcher at the company and the brains behind Move, thinks the controller will appeal to gamers like Martinez, even if they snubbed the Wii’s gesturing wand as kids’ stuff.

“One of our design goals was to make sure it stood out as a completely different experience that has never been seen before,” Marks said.

Serious gamers like Martinez are not the only ones on Sony’s radar. The company has been pouring millions of dollars into marketing the PlayStation 3 with the tag line “It only does everything.” The goal is to rope in consumers more likely to watch movies and play party games than shoot on-screen enemies for hours on end.

“In many regards we are treating the launch of Move like the launch of a new platform,” said Peter Dille, senior vice president of marketing for Sony Computer Entertainment. “We believe (it) will help us expand the audience of PS3 users.”

Microsoft, too, wants to expand its gaming audience — a concept Nintendo mastered with the 2006 launch of the Wii, which got moms, grandmas and grandpas playing alongside kids as young as 4 or 5.

Natal, Microsoft’s upcoming game technology, uses a camera and gesture recognition to turn players’ bodies into controllers. After the camera recognizes you — your body shape and movements down to the smallest toss of your hair, you’ll be able to swing your hands to swipe at on-screen dodge balls or pretend you’re Godzilla and smash virtual buildings with swing of your arm. You could even scan in your real-life skateboard to ride a version of it in a game.

“This is really what we like to think of as the rebirth of our brand,” said Dennis Durkin, chief operating officer of Microsoft’s video game business. “We’re trying to set the stage for the next 10 years.”

To do that, Microsoft needs to keep appealing to its core gamer fans, mostly men in their 20s, 30s and 40s who count “Halo,” ”Call of Duty” and “Gears of War” among their favorite entertainment franchises. But, like Sony with the PlayStation 3, it’s also selling the Xbox 360 to families as an all-in-one entertainment device. It already streams Netflix and connects to Facebook.

E3, which runs from Monday through Thursday, is where many store chains will decide what games and gaming systems, and how many of them, to stock for the holiday shopping season. That period is crucial for the industry, which analysts say gets about 40 percent of its revenue in the final three months of the year.

Analyst firm DFC Intelligence estimates that the worldwide video game retail industry will reap revenue of $59.5 billion this year, down slightly from $60.4 billion in 2009 and well below the more than $68 billion in 2008.

Because the industry has yet to fully rebound from the recession, Jesse Divnich, an analyst with Electronic Entertainment Design and Research, called E3 an “inflection point,” with game companies under pressure to impress.

While hardcore gamers have flocked to shooters and sequels with loyal predictability, newer, more “casual” players can be fickle. Largely responsible for the runaway success of the Wii, the players who dabble in video games as a hobby but not as a lifestyle can’t be expected to spend $60 every time a new game comes out, even in a better economy. That’s why it’s important for game companies to sell a wide range of entertainment options.

“Something that is new, something that is true innovation, something that unlocks new experiences,” said Microsoft’s Durkin, is something families “are willing to pay for.”

He may be right. Walking out of the Nintendo World store with her husband with some gifts for her daughter, stay-at-home mom Terri Marrone said she hadn’t heard of the new motion controllers from Sony or Microsoft. The family has a Wii, and three Nintendo DS systems, one for each of their kids. As for another motion control system, one that doesn’t even need a remote?

“We would definitely be interested,” said Marrone, who lives in New Brunswick, N.J. “It sounds cool.”

Posted by: vepemotevi at 02:22 PM | No Comments | Add Comment
Post contains 1025 words, total size 7 kb.

Hide Comments | Add Comment

AT&T hole exposes iPad users’ e-mail addresses

SAN FRANCISCO — AT&T Inc. on Wednesday acknowledged a security weak spot that exposed the e-mail addresses of apparently more than 100,000 users of Apple Inc.’s iPad, a breach that could make those people vulnerable to precision-targeted hacking attacks.

The vulnerability only affected iPad users who signed up for AT&T’s “3G” wireless Internet service.

It involved an insecure way that AT&T’s website would prompt iPad users when they tried to log into their AT&T accounts through the devices. The site would supply users’ e-mail addresses, to make log-ins easier, based on unique codes contained in the SIM cards inside their iPads. SIM cards are used to tell cell-phone networks which subscriber is trying to use the service.

The hacker group that claims to have discovered the weakness — the group calls itself Goatse Security — said it was able to trick AT&T’s site into coughing up more than 114,000 e-mail addresses, including those apparently of famous media personalities and important government officials.

A representative for the group told The Associated Press late Wednesday that the group contacted AT&T and waited until the vulnerability was fixed before going public with the information. AT&T said the problem was fixed Tuesday but that it was alerted to it by a business customer.

Gawker Media Inc.’s Valleywag website earlier reported on the breach.

AT&T said it will notify all iPad users whose e-mail addresses may have been accessed.

“We take customer privacy very seriously and while we have fixed this problem, we apologize to our customers who were impacted,” the company said in a statement.

AT&T noted that the only information hackers would have been able to steal using this attack were users’ e-mail addresses. But that can be enough to launch a highly effective attack, since the attacker also knows that the person receiving the e-mail is an iPad user and an AT&T customer and would expect to receive e-mail from Apple and AT&T about their accounts. Criminals could use that knowledge to trick them into opening e-mails that plant malicious software on their computers.

An Apple representative deferred requests for comment to AT&T.

Apple has sold more than 2 million iPads since they went on sale two months ago. The iPad comes in two different flavors — one that only connects to the Internet via Wi-Fi, and another that also can connect through AT&T’s “3G” cellular network. The Wi-Fi-only models aren’t affected by the breach. Apple hasn’t specified how many of each model it has sold.

Posted by: vepemotevi at 01:02 AM | No Comments | Add Comment
Post contains 434 words, total size 4 kb.

PHILADELPHIA — Some of the nation’s largest cable companies are interested in buying Bresnan Communications, a mid-sized cable company operating in the West, a person familiar with the talks said.

The bidders include Cablevision Systems Corp. and Charter Communications Inc. Time Warner Cable Inc., based in New York, also put in a bid, but its offer did not survive the first round. The three are among the five largest U.S. cable companies.

Other bidders include Ascent Media Corp., a media services holding company in which media mogul John Malone has 30 percent voting control, cable company Suddenlink Communications and private investment firm TPG Capital.

The person was not authorized to comment publicly because the bidding is private, and asked not to be identified.

The bids range from $1.3 billion to around $1.7 billion.

The person said Providence Equity Partners, Bresnan’s majority owner, is seeking to cash in on its investment after owning the cable company since 2003.

Cablevision, Charter, Time Warner Cable and TPG Capital declined to comment. Providence, Ascent and Suddenlink did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

Cable systems operated by Time Warner Cable and Comcast Corp., which owns 30 percent of Bresnan, abut the areas served by Bresnan. Bresnan, based in Purchase, N.Y., has more than 320,000 customers in Colorado, Montana, Wyoming and Utah.

Privately held Bresnan ranks 17th among the largest subscription TV providers, which spans cable, satellite TV and phone companies that offer video, according to the National Cable and Telecommunications Association.

Cable pioneer Bill Bresnan, the founder of Bresnan Communications, died last year.

Shares of Cablevision, based in Bethpage, N.Y., rose 73 cents, or 3.3 percent, to $22.88 in afternoon trading. Charter, in St. Louis, was unchanged at $34.52. Time Warner Cable rose by $1.69 to $52.29. Comcast, based in Philadelphia, added 58 cents to $18.

Posted by: vepemotevi at 11:42 AM | No Comments | Add Comment
Post contains 316 words, total size 2 kb.

Google’s AdMob attacks Apple’s new mobile ad rules

SAN FRANCISCO — Google Inc. thinks its increasingly bitter rival Apple Inc. is trying to muscle it out of the mobile advertising competition on the iPhone, iPad and iPod Touch.

The latest dispute between the Silicon Valley powerhouses centers on a proposed change that could hobble Google’s ability to sell and place ads on devices running on Apple’s latest mobile operating system, which comes out this month.

Omar Hamoui, the executive in charge of Google’s newly acquired mobile ad service, AdMob, attacked Apple’s new restrictions in a blog posting Wednesday as a threat to competition. He also warned the change would decrease the ad revenue flowing to the developers of iPhone and iPad applications, a scenario that could drive up the prices that consumers pay for the programs.

Apple didn’t immediately return calls seeking comment.

Google paid $750 million to buy AdMob, partly because of AdMob’s success selling ads on the iPhone. AdMob, founded in 2006, was so good at it that Apple wanted to buy the company before being trumped by Google last fall.

Apple has since set up own ad service, iAd, fueling Google’s suspicion that its rival wants to monopolize the commercial messages shown on the more than 50 million iPhones and iPads that have already been sold.

Under the terms of Apple’s latest operating system for those devices, critical information for distributing and analyzing ads won’t be shared with services owned by makers of other mobile operating systems.

That threatens to lock out AdMob because Google’s Android operating system competes with the iPhone.

That could be a major blow to AdMob, which distributed 30 percent of its ads to iPhones, iPads and iPods in April. Hamoui indicated he still hopes to persuade Apple to scrap the rule change.

On the flip side, Apple’s restrictions could be an advantage for smaller, independent ad networks that would still have all the usual data needed to place ads on iPhones and iPads. But that could turn out to be a handicap for mobile advertising services seeking to be bought by a larger company such as Microsoft Corp. that has its own mobile operating system.

It’s unclear whether Apple will enforce the restrictions on how the ad data can be shared, said Noah Elkin, an analyst for eMarketer, a research firm.

“I think what we have here is two companies sparring for control of what is potentially a very big advertising market,” Elkin said. The U.S. mobile ad market is expected to grow from about $600 million this year to more than $1.5 billion in 2013, according to eMarketer.

Both Google and Apple believe mobile devices eventually will supplant personal computers as the main way people surf the Web. Their dueling ambitions to be shape the direction of the mobile market have transformed the companies from allies to antagonists during the past year.

If Apple’s new rules on mobile advertising data were to create a competitive barrier, it would likely attract the attention of antitrust regulators.

After a six-month review, the Federal Trade Commission approved Google’s purchase of AdMob largely because the agency believe Apple’s entrance into the mobile ad market would foster adequate competition. In its approval of the AdMob deal, the FTC vowed to continue to monitor the mobile ad market for anticompetitive behavior.

The FTC declined to comment Wednesday.

Posted by: vepemotevi at 10:22 PM | No Comments | Add Comment
Post contains 573 words, total size 4 kb.

Posted by: vepemotevi at 09:02 AM | No Comments | Add Comment
Post contains 67 words, total size 1 kb.

• Apple iPad Targeted by Avaya Device?
• iOS 4 Jailbroken Within a Day of First Release
• Barnes & Noble Offers Free Coffee To Promote In-store E-reading
• New York Times Forces Apple to Pull Popular 'Pulse' iPad Newsreader
• Pulse Has A Pulse Once Again - Already Back In The App Store
• Did Apple Tell Times to Shove Its App-Takedown Letter?
• iPhone vs. Android
• Is the A4 CPU Really Exclusively Designed by Apple?
• IBM's Lotus Notes Brings Secure Email To The iPad
• The Tech Night Owl: The iPhone 4 Report: Chipping Away Problems.......

Tags: | |

Posted by: vepemotevi at 07:42 PM | No Comments | Add Comment
Post contains 117 words, total size 1 kb.

Hide Comments | Add Comment

January 30, 2013

Senate panel sends tougher auto safety requirements to Senate floor

Senate committee approves auto safety upgrades

WASHINGTON — A Senate committee Wednesday approved a bill that would require automakers to meet new safety standards, impose stiff penalties for companies that fail to quickly report defects and double funding for the government agency overseeing car safety.

The Senate Commerce Committee plan is part of a move by lawmakers to tighten the nation’s auto safety laws following Toyota’s massive recalls.

“This is a critical public safety bill that will affect the lives of millions of Americans on the road,” Sen. Jay Rockefeller, D-W.Va., the committee’s chairman, said.

Congress hopes to approve the safety legislation by the July 4 holiday recess. It represents the most significant reforms to auto safety rules since the Bridgestone/Firestone Inc. tire recalls of a decade ago.

A House committee approved similar legislation last month.

The Senate plan would require automakers to meet new standards related to brake override systems, vehicle black boxes and auto electronics in the aftermath of Toyota Motor Corp.’s recall of more than 8 million vehicles around the globe.

Under the Senate bill, companies could face penalties of up to $300 million for a slow response to a recall. Toyota paid a record $16.4 million fine for its handling of a recall but critics said the penalty was not severe enough.

Safety advocates also have questioned the ability of the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration to protect consumers from complicated safety defects. To address those concerns, NHTSA could see its annual budget grow from $140 million to $280 million in 2013.

Separately, the Senate committee approved the creation of a $120 million grant program for states that enact laws to bar texting and driving and the use of handheld cell phones behind the wheel.

To qualify, states would need to pass new laws or amend existing ones that would prohibit texting and driving, allow law enforcement officers to have the authority to pull over motorists who use their phones behind the wheel and create minimum fines.

Posted by: vepemotevi at 05:02 PM | No Comments | Add Comment
Post contains 341 words, total size 3 kb.

Hide Comments | Add Comment

Apple Releases Safari 5.0

Along with the iPhone 4G and iAd announcements Apple also released version 5 of its Safari web browser. Versions for Snow Leopard, Leopard, and Windows available. Safari 4.1 for OS X 10.4 Tiger also released.......

Tags: | | | |

Posted by: vepemotevi at 03:42 AM | No Comments | Add Comment
Post contains 44 words, total size 1 kb.

Hide Comments | Add Comment

January 29, 2013

Applelinks Tech Web Reader - Wednesday, June 9, 2010

• Alan Zisman Gets an iPad
• Hello iPad, Goodbye Netbook
• What Does the Mac's Non-Presence at Apple's WWDC Mean?
• Unloved Mac: Apple Disses the Desktop Again During WWDC Keynote
• RIP, Macintosh?
• Safari 5 Off To Apple's Traditional Rough Start
• Apple Adds 'Make The Web Go Away' Button To Safari 5
• Apple Lifted 'Make Web Go Away' Button From Open Source
• Safari Reader: Apple's Weapon of Mass Destruction
• Is Apple's Safari 5 a Publisher Killer?
• First look: Safari 5's Extensions
• What Safari 5 Extensions Mean To Mac Users
• Safari Extensions Site Already
• A First Overview and Roundup of Safari Extensions
• Safari Purged Of Decade-old Browser History Leak
• Style On The Move: Apple MacBook
• Mac mini Enhanced Compute Cloud (Mac mini EC2)
• The Tech Night Owl: The Verdict: Jobs is Rational, Ballmer is Otherwise.......

Tags: | |

ight="1" width="1"/>

Posted by: vepemotevi at 02:22 PM | No Comments | Add Comment
Post contains 163 words, total size 1 kb.

Hide Comments | Add Comment

BPO witnesses rapid growth in the last decade: NASSCOM president

By ANI
Thursday, June 10, 2010

BANGALORE - Som Mittal, President of National Association of Software and Service Companies (NASSCOM) has said outsourcing business in India has witnessed more than nine times growth, from 1.6 billion dollars to 14.7 billion dollars in the last decade.

Addressing media persons here on Wednesday, Mittal said: “In this last decade, from 1.6 billion, we rose to 14.7 dollars.”

He further said that India’s back-office outsourcing business would post a growth of 15 to 16 percent in 2010 to March 2011 on growing demands from overseas clients.

There is a growth in the employment sector as well, as far as the BPO industry is concerned.

He pointed out that even two-tier cities have become the hub of IT industry and software development.Today, BPO industry is in 50 cities and towns. I think that’s very significant, so, a large part of the business did come from top six-seven cities, but the fact that they are already in 50 cities, is very significant,” he added.

“Several new upcoming areas such as procurement services, healthcare outsourcing and knowledge services, which include services such as research and analytics, legal services outsourcing, financial research and data management, are expected to aid the growth of the BPO industry in the future,” Mittal said.

NASSCOM is the premier trade body for the IT-BPO industries in India. (ANI)

Posted by: vepemotevi at 01:02 AM | No Comments | Add Comment
Post contains 236 words, total size 2 kb.

Hide Comments | Add Comment

January 28, 2013

Native iPad App Library Passes 10,000 Milestone

Apple’s iTunes App Store now lists more than

10,000 universal and iPad specific apps, with nearly 1,000 more being added every week. According to a report by Mac Stories, Apple’s iPad library includes over 2,100 games and includes a broad mix of content from digital books to productivity and news apps to rich media apps. Around 78% [...] Related posts:

Posted by: vepemotevi at 11:42 AM | No Comments | Add Comment
Post contains 66 words, total size 1 kb.

Hide Comments | Add Comment

<< Page 3 of 34 >>

65kb generated in CPU 0.0324, elapsed 0.1238 seconds.
30 queries taking 0.0958 seconds, 108 records returned.
Powered by Minx 1.1.6c-pink.