VentureBeat |
- For wider appeal, PlayStation Vita can do non-gaming apps like Twitter and Flickr (video)
- Hands-on demo of second-generation Google TV (video)
- Surprises abound as Amazon reveals its 10 best-selling games of 2011
- With Google+ favoritism, Google has decided to sell its soul — and it may pay
- SOPA author involved in copyright infringement
- Obama’s anti-SOPA stance seeks compromise to Silicon Valley-Hollywood standoff
- Battlefield 3 suffering prolonged server issues while enraged fans go “ignored”
- Goodbye remote control: PrimeSense shows off post-Kinect TV motion-sensing system (video)
- iPad 3 completes checklist: With speedy LTE by March, it maintains marketing edge against Android
| For wider appeal, PlayStation Vita can do non-gaming apps like Twitter and Flickr (video) Posted: 15 Jan 2012 08:00 AM PST Sony knows that the PlayStation Vita is going to live or die on how good the games are for it. So said Guy Longworth, senior vice president of marketing and PSN at Sony’s games division, in a dinner interview at the Consumer Electronics Show. The ads and marketing campaigns beginning soon will reflect that. But with the PS Vita, Sony has a chance to appeal to the larger mass market of non-gamers because it can do a lot more than just play games.
Longworth agreed that the PS Vita could become the mainstream controller for the home and life on the move. In that way, it represents a big challenge to Apple’s iOS devices — the iPhone, iPad and iPod Touch. It’s like a companion screen that you can use while watching TV — a role that smartphones and tablets are playing in the home. “This is why we consider the PlayStation Vita to be a generational shift in portable devices,” Longworth said. “We still all look at these devices as having long life cycles. The hardcore customers will buy first. But with accelerated competition, the life cycles move faster. We cannot wait four years before we move from the hardcore gamer to the mainstream users.” “We really wanted to focus on the games. We really wanted to make that it had the biggest and the best experiences possible” when it came to games, said John Koller, director of hardware marketing at Sony’s game division in the U.S, in an interview at CES. “We also wanted to make sure the social component was built into each game. Separate from that, we wanted to make apps that were relevant to gamers and really allowed them connect with their community.”
The Twitter user interface is different from what you see on the PC. The Twitter app is written from the ground up for the Vita, with the emphasis placed on letting gamers share their exploits in games with fellow gamers or the rest of the world. You can finish a game and immediately tweet the results to your friends. You can take photos with the camera on the PS Vita. It has a web browser for sharing and ways for you to chat with your friends. The Flickr interface looks slick and clean and it lets you post your photos automatically to the photo sharing site. “We want you to interact with the world and the world to interact with the device,” Koller said. Besides Flickr and Twitter, the PS Vita can also run Skype, Netflix and Facebook. On the PlayStation 3, Netflix is the most-used non-gaming application, so it could be a popular one on the Vita as well. You can use the Vita to watch high-definition movies, listen to music, and shop for online games. “We will never have an app store like the Android Market, but we will have relevant apps that allow gamers to be social,” Koller said. “That’s very important. We don’t want 10 billion apps. We want relevant, core apps for the experience.” Don’t be surprised if future apps allow you to view PlayStation Vita content on a big screen and do things such as replace the remote control of your TV set with the touchscreen controls on the PS Vita. For now, you can control your PS 3 console with a PS Vita, meaning that the Vita itself can serve as a wireless controller for Ps 3 game in the living room. Sony has also added is own apps such as Near, which allows gamers to see who is nearby among their gamer friends. The Party app lets players send text messages and do voice chat in real time with their PSN friends. Filed under: games, mobile        
      This posting includes an audio/video/photo media file: Download Now |
| Hands-on demo of second-generation Google TV (video) Posted: 15 Jan 2012 07:00 AM PST Smart TVs were plentiful at the Consumer Electronics Show this year, and Google TV appeared in a number of them, including models from LG and Sony. With its second run at web-connected TVs, Google's grand plan is to disrupt entertainment by bringing the full searchable web into the living room, along with a cornucopia of programming choices for consumers, on an open platform. Its rivals include Microsoft with its Xbox Live online entertainment service as well as an expected Apple TV. There’s a lot at stake. The Connected TV Marketing Association estimates that 123 million connected TVs will be sold worldwide in 2014. A year ago, Google TV systems from companies such as Logitech were duds. But Marvell believes the second-generation is more appealing, since the devices aren’t noisy and don’t use a fan anymore. One of the big questions is whether content owners — who fear the access to pirated content that can happen with the open web — will come on board with Google TV. Marvell showed a working version of the second-generation of Google TV working on a small set-top box designed by the company. The Santa Clara, Calif.-based company’s Armada 1500 Foresight platform is the foundation for the hardware, featuring an Armada 1500 dual-core processor. Google chose to use Marvell's Qdeo video processing technology in the Foresight platform to deliver 3D graphics, rich audio, and TV-friendly web content. It features the Android Market for TV apps. So far, there are about 500 apps available, from Fox News to the Wall Street Journal. The on-screen user interface isn’t as big as it was before. More and more consumers are surfing the internet on a laptop or tablet while watching TV. The logic of Google TV is that it integrates the web surfing into the TV itself, with a version of the Chrome web browser for TVs. You can use a remote to check out certain sites or use an accompanying keyboard. The keyboard is particularly necessary if you want to type internet searches on your TV. Some systems are likely to come with voice commands as well. You can type in the name of a show and it will not only search the TV screen guide for your TV service. It will also search the web for results for links related to the show, with results included from on-demand, recorded and live content sources. You can share pictures on the TV and display them on the big TV. You can fetch a bunch of pictures from Google’s Picasa site and then show them as a slide show on your TV. TVs using the new Google TV are expected to debut in the early spring. Google TV will also appear in Blu-ray players and set-top boxes. Here’s a video showing off the features of the new Google TV, demonstrated by Hanna Kang, a brand marketing director at Marvell. Filed under: media, VentureBeat, video        
   This posting includes an audio/video/photo media file: Download Now |
| Surprises abound as Amazon reveals its 10 best-selling games of 2011 Posted: 14 Jan 2012 06:06 PM PST Amazon has released their top-selling digital and physical game titles from 2011. The online retailer has quickly become the quintessential center of great gaming deals, release-day shipping, and exclusive pre-order bonuses (including up to $20 back, in some cases). There are a few surprises to be found, including Deus Ex: Human Revolution as the top digital download. Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3, the top-grossing video game of all-time, dominated physical sales, but barely made the digital downloads list. Electronic Arts walked away with 50% of the top 10 digital titles, while rival Activision only had one (Call of Duty) on either list. This dominance will likely dissipate throughout 2012 as EA restricts digital downloads of its games to the EA Origin service. Ubisoft’s casual-friendly Just Dance franchise continued to rake in the cash, with the multiplatform Just Dance 3 selling more physical copies almost every other game this year, while Just Dance 2, released exclusively for the Nintendo Wii in 2010, came in 8th, above Gears of War 3 and FIFA Soccer. Just Dance is an exception to not one, but two rules: It’s a successful entry in the mostly-extinct music rhythm genre, and it’s the only casual title to be included on either list. Interestingly, and perhaps most telling of all, Nintendo doesn’t have a single product on the lists, despite the number of Wii and DS/3DS units owned outselling any other console worldwide, and the release of several high-profile games last year, including The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword, Super Mario Land 3D, and Mario Kart 7. The last thing to note is that most of the physical titles were released during the holiday season (October-December), while digital titles have a more even spread of releases throughout the year. Physical – all platforms
Digital
Filed under: games, VentureBeat        
   This posting includes an audio/video/photo media file: Download Now |
| With Google+ favoritism, Google has decided to sell its soul — and it may pay Posted: 14 Jan 2012 04:08 PM PST Google’s introduction of Google+ links into its search results is a big departure from the company’s previous more neutral approach to search, and it exposes the company to a huge risk. It opens up the company to significant criticism from not just insiders but regular folks too, if they come to realize that Google is now favoring itself in search results, and therefore is no longer as useful. On the other hand, Google is making a big gamble: That it can favor its own results, and that no other search engine will pop up in the meantime to take its place with a more accurate and fair offering (there’s Microsoft’s Bing waiting in the wings). An explanation of how Google’s latest approach is a fundamental change is made today by SearchEngineLand’s Danny Sullivan. He, like me, has been following Google’s moves closely over the years. And until now, all of Google’s moves have been fairly careful to stay neutral. For example, when Google introduced more video links higher in its search results several years ago, it did so by offering not only YouTube links, but also links from all other video providers across the Web, Sullivan explains. Which is why the move to introduce Google+ results into its search is so troubling. By offering us only Google+ results, Google is forcing us to go outside of Google to find a fair representation fo social results competitors like Facebook or Twitter. Those companies have larger usage, and therefore they have more relevant results. Google apparently doesn’t care to show us those results. In other words, it’s another confirmation that Google has essentially “ditched search” as we’ve known it from Google since when the company started. At every turn since Google’s founding, it has managed to stay pure — or had espoused policies that showed it to basically be doing the right thing. Of course, Google doesn’t want to tell you that it has forsaken you, but read Sullivan’s post, and other examples by others who are saying the same thing, and make up your own mind. Another expert who has been following the search field for years is John Battelle. And look what happened to him when he tried to search for a recent video about Adolf Hitler (see the video above; it’s quite funny, and it’s relevant). Basically, the entire top portion of Battelle’s page is taken up first by news results, and then second by Google Plus+, many of them links created by people he doesn’t even know. It’s not a Googley experience. And Battelle is right. Google apparently thinks beating Facebook is worth selling its soul. This change by Google appears to stems from the more aggressive stance by the company’s new CEO Larry Page, who has told his entire staff that their bonuses are tied to winning in social. As Battelle notes:
Google must be betting that it has enough power — enough clout with enough people to force them to use and play by Google Plus — that it can turn the corner and make its results essentially as useful as those offered by Facebook and Twitter. Peter Yared, who wrote a piece for us this week about Google’s foresaking of search, says Google needed to do this to survive, and he thinks Google’s algorithm will be enough to make its social search results “good enough.” That may be the case, but in the process, Google may be losing our trust. And that’s going to be the huge price it pays for this move. See some of our other stories on Google’s recent Google Plus here: Google's new social search: How far can you trust it? Filed under: media, social, VentureBeat        
   This posting includes an audio/video/photo media file: Download Now |
| SOPA author involved in copyright infringement Posted: 14 Jan 2012 03:30 PM PST Lamar Smith, author of the Stop Online Piracy Act, has gotten caught up in his own case of copyright infringement. Jamie Lee Curtis Taete of Vice investigated an archived version of Smith’s official site, texansforlamarsmith.com, using Wayback Machine, a time capsule that captures different variations of websites as far back as 1996. This led to the discovery of an original background image that did not credit its owner, photographer DJ Schulte. Schulte has stated that the image is a Creative Commons photo usable by anyone so long as they give proper credit. ”My conclusion would be that Lamar Smith’s organization did improperly use my image,” said Schulte. He also gave his stance on SOPA via his Flickr account:
The irony of this situation is that, if the controversial SOPA bill is passed, Lamar’s site could potentially have action taken against it and Schulte would be free to pursue a lawsuit involving the very author of the bill. SOPA grants the government power to censor and shut down any web site in violation of its strict online piracy rules. This includes countless sites like Tumblr, Flickr, and even Google, which is planning a 12-hour blackout to protest the bill on January 18. [Update: Smith's site is a domestic one. So the shut-down rule, which applies to foreign web sites, isn't applicable. And if there were a violation under Creative Commons, Smith would either have to remove the image or credit Schulte. ] Shortly after the post ran on Vice outing the infringement, Lamar’s site went down for “maintenance.” Vice ran a follow-up post surmising that the site’s robot.txt files had been replaced to prevent further archived investigating, and Curtis Taete shed light on a number of discrepancies between the site, once it went live again, and screenshots of the old version, before the maintenance. You can join the “Copyright Hypocrite Hunt” here, which is seeking out further copyright violations on the 31 other SOPA co-sponsors’ websites. Image via Vice Filed under: games, media, VentureBeat        
   This posting includes an audio/video/photo media file: Download Now |
| Obama’s anti-SOPA stance seeks compromise to Silicon Valley-Hollywood standoff Posted: 14 Jan 2012 01:35 PM PST
The Obama administration issued a statement earlier today saying that it supports a serious legislative response to piracy problems, but will not support legislation that reduces freedom of expression, increases cybersecurity risk or undermines “the dynamic innovative global Internet.” While the statement did not mention the much debated Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) by name, it was clearly intended to respond to the furious debate around it – and to take a sensible middle road. The move suggests the White House is trying to forge a delicate balance between large media interests (think Hollywood) and innovative companies that are trying to aggregate or otherwise point information in a useful, progressive way (think Silicon Valley). [Update: Indeed, three of the main industry supporters behind SOPA issued a response to the White House statement, saying it points the way to compromise. "So now it is time to stop the obstruction and move forward on legislation," said the statement, issued by the Motion Picture Association (MPAA), the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce. The group sent the statement to VentureBeat. The statement also cited the moves by Rep. Chairman Lamar Smith (R-Texas) in the House, and Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-Vermont) in the Senate to remove some of the most austere provisions from the legislation (see more on this below), as evidence that a compromise had been been reached, and that it "clears the way for action on these important bills."] Written by three senior Obama Administration officials, the White House statement is actually a response to two petitions generated by the Obama administration’s online tool that facilitates public input, “We the People.” The petitions asked the administration to respond to SOPA. And this morning’s statement is the first stance the White House has taken on the issue. However, the statement comes after SOPA’s biggest backers, Rep. Chairman Lamar Smith (R-Texas) in the House, and Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-Vermont) in the Senate (which is debating SOPA’s sister bill, the Protect IP Act), already have backed away from one of the most controversial measures from their legislation. This measure centered around Domain Name System (DNS), and basically would give authority for any party a particularly powerful way to seek court orders to block websites associated with infringing, pirating or counterfeiting intellectual property. Under this method of blocking a website under SOPA — which Smith and Leahy apparently intend to remove — the bill would have called for Internet service providers (like Comcast, AT&T and Verizon FiOS) to block any offending site's DNS record, which would prevent people from visiting the site. That’s considered by opponents to be particularly draconian, considering copyright and fair use are often contested issues, and a Web site can sometimes be a company’s main means for survival (think Google). Short of the DNS blocking, there are other tough ways to punish web sites (de-indexing sites from search results, etc), and these are apparently still not ruled out. The DNA issue was one of the main points targeted for criticism by the White House statement: “Proposed laws must not tamper with the technical architecture of the Internet through manipulation of the Domain Name System (DNS), a foundation of Internet security,” the statement says. “Our analysis of the DNS filtering provisions in some proposed legislation suggests that they pose a real risk to cybersecurity and yet leave contraband goods and services accessible online.” The White House officials behind the statement included IP enforcement coordinator Victoria Espinel, CTO Aneesh Chopra, and cybersecurity coordinator Howard Schmidt. The White House statement continued beyond the issue DNS, however. It said it is also opposed to “overly broad private rights of action that could encourage unjustified litigation that could discourage startup businesses and innovative firms from growing.” It said it would support legislation that is “narrowly targeted only at sites beyond the reach of current U.S. law, cover activity clearly prohibited under existing U.S. laws, and be effectively tailored, with strong due process and focused on criminal activity.” In other words, the White House seems intent on striking a balance between two competing constituencies, Hollywood and Silicon Valley. Both of them have supported Obama, and they have very opposed interests. Big media companies, including big record companies and Hollywood film studios, want a hardline to protect copyright, so that they can make more money from their content, and have supported both the House and the Senate Bills. Tech companies such as Google, Facebook, Yahoo and others, however, oppose SOPA legislation, warning in a Nov. 15 letter that it would force new burdensome mandates on law-abiding technology companies: “We are concerned that these measures pose a serious risk to our industry’s continued track record of innovation and job-creation, as well as to our nation’s cybersecurity,” the letter stated. One example of a typical Silicon Valley screed is found in this interview with tech publisher Tim O’Reilly. Without the DNS provision, SOPA now looks a great deal more like the OPEN Act, a bill introduced by Rep. Darrell Issa (R-Calif.) and Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.), according to CNET. That bill was designed to be an alternative to SOPA. That maybe more likely now, given that Majority Leader Eric Cantor has promised not to bring the bill to the floor without consensus. And also yesterday, six Republican senators have asked Majority Leader Harry Reid to postpone a vote on Pro IP, also known as PIPA, CNET and others reported. [Image Credit: Flickr, Tambako the Jaguar] Here’s the text of the White House statement:
Filed under: media        
   This posting includes an audio/video/photo media file: Download Now |
| Battlefield 3 suffering prolonged server issues while enraged fans go “ignored” Posted: 14 Jan 2012 12:31 PM PST It has not been a good week for Battlefield 3 players, apparently. The forums and official Battlefield Facebook page are beseiged by users complaining that they cannot connect to the game, and are especially having trouble locating hardcore servers after a recent update. These issues seem to apply across all three platforms (Xbox 360, PlayStation 3, PC). Seeing our earlier coverage concerning Battlefield 3′s launch issues, GamesBeat reader Clint N. emailed me with the following information. “Just poke around on battlefield’s Facebook page and read some of the posts for the last 3 days or so. It is absolutely blowing up with people upset with lack of communication and servers being down with no explanation. They only direct us to their battlelog news site, which is never updated and tell us that they have “reported the problem to their DEVs” or “are looking into the root cause” but no explanation why. You talked in your article about them being more transparent and we are getting almost the opposite.” Clint’s sentiment about communication from EA is echoed in this Battlefield forum post, which started on December 7, 2011 and now has nearly 3,500 replies:
Meanwhile, EA continues to release gameplay videos celebrating their game on Facebook, only to receive thousands of comments about the server issues and rampant cheating. A few responses from forum and Facebook moderators have popped up recently, though they’re little more than non-commital blanket responses. “We have been alerted to a few issues regarding Multiplayer Server problems, we are investigating this issue and are looking to fixing it as soon as possible.” A potential solution is to try manually searching for “DICE” servers when looking for games. This doesn’t seem to be a perfect fix, as these servers are not showing up for most people having issues. Even if you do find them, you can expect lengthy wait times to get in a game. Battlefield 3 was released on October 25, 2011 in North America and sold 8 million copies in its first month, the highest-grossing release ever for publisher EA. VentureBeat has reached out to EA for any useful information and will update this story if and when it comes. Filed under: games, VentureBeat        
   This posting includes an audio/video/photo media file: Download Now |
| Goodbye remote control: PrimeSense shows off post-Kinect TV motion-sensing system (video) Posted: 14 Jan 2012 11:25 AM PST
At the Consumer Electronics Show, the Israeli company showed off a next-generation TV interface that lets you control your TV experience with a wave of your hand. Like Kinect, the system uses a 3D camera with chips made by PrimeSense that can capture your movement in a 3D space and translate those motions into commands for the TV. If it succeeds, you can say adios to your TV remote control and engage in what PrimeSense calls “total digital immersion” with your body as the control for future smart TVs.
The interface moves extremely fast in the demo, though it will likely be slowed down as your TV waits for a video stream to load when you’re switching TV channels. You can use your hands to swipe the interface from side to side. You can control movies, play music, do virtual shopping, or play simple games. By contrast, Kinect relies on voice controls for many of the actions for controlling a TV. “It brings the magic of control into the living room, like turning your TV into a giant touchscreeen,” he said. Microsoft announced at CES that it has sold more than 18 million Kinect systems. But the non-gaming TV viewing audience may need something different for a natural and intuitive interface, and that’s where PrimeSense is targeting its next products. You can use it to play dance games (pictured above) or try on clothes using an application from Bodymetrics. Check out our video of Beracha showing the PrimeSense system at CES. Filed under: games, video        
   This posting includes an audio/video/photo media file: Download Now |
| iPad 3 completes checklist: With speedy LTE by March, it maintains marketing edge against Android Posted: 14 Jan 2012 11:20 AM PST
Some manufacturers of Google’s Android-based tablets are hitting the market first with LTE. But overall, if the iPad gets LTE support by March, as expected according to these reports, Apple will have completed a checklist of extremely compelling features for the device — at least if you believe the reports leaking out in recent months. The iPad reportedly will sport an amazingly enhanced high-definition screen produced by Sharp (it will be a 2048-by-1536-pixel resolution, according to one rumor). This lets Apple’s iPad keep up with higher resolutions manufacturers are producing for Android tablets. The iPad will also run on a faster quad-core A6 processor that lets users jump faster between applications, and will have better front and rear cameras, according to the reports. True, it may be a little silly to compare the iPad with Google’s tablets, as if this was really apples to apples. It’s not. Many consumers have essentially made their mind up. For example, even though Google’s Android-based tablets are hitting market first with LTE, and may offer this or that little additional bell or whistle, there are a ton of Apple fanatics who simply don’t care about Android. There are just too many Apple features they’re already in love with, and they’re hooked by Apple’s focus on delightful design and user experience. And vice-versa. There are Android fans, who just don’t want to buy into Apple’s slightly more closed ecosystem, and will buy an Android tablet over the iPad any day. So really, no one is going to win this battle over a slight technology edge. Those religious differences aside, if you’re looking as simply a technology comparison, the latest LTE move gives the iPad an edge overall. If the iPad can boast at least a close match to any given Android tablet in the main spec areas (screen resolution, speed of processor, speed of network, app offering, etc), it wins, simply because it doesn’t suffer Android’s big “fragmentation” problem. Each manufacturer of an Android tablet can come close to matching an iPad’s offerings, but each one of them use a different version of Android’s OS, a different chip manufacturer, a different network configuration, and a different set of agreements with carriers about its deck, different marketing campaigns. It just creates confusion around branding. Each manufacturer dilutes attention from the other. Cheaper, poorly performing versions of Android tablets detract from its allure. Overall, Apple is left sitting there able to boast that it consistently offers best in class with its iPad. That’s why the move to LTE is so important for Apple’s iPad. Of course, the questions are now focusing on the iPhone, and when Apple will support LTE for that device. Carriers such as Verizon Wireless and ATT are rolling out LTE networks to give users faster access to data, and so the networks are there. But Apple is bringing LTE to the iPad before the iPhone because the tablet has a bigger battery and can better support the power requirements of the newer technology, the Bloomberg report said. According to the Bloomberg report, Apple’s manufacturing partners in Asia started ramping up production of the iPad 3 this month and plan to reach full volumes by February. Filed under: VentureBeat        
   This posting includes an audio/video/photo media file: Download Now |
| You are subscribed to email updates from VentureBeat To stop receiving these emails, you may unsubscribe now. | Email delivery powered by Google |
| Google Inc., 20 West Kinzie, Chicago IL USA 60610 | |