Google, Intel Set To Unveil ‘Smart TV’

Google and Intel are planning to announce a new Smart TV platform later this week, according to reports. The two tech giants will announce a deal with Sony to bring web services to televisions during Google s annual developer conference in San Francisco.

The revolution we re about to go through is the biggest single change in television since it went color, said Intel CEO Paul Otellini last week.

The web capabilities and content are big on the minds of television service providers and manufacturers. Intel and Google hope that with the combination of their Atom microprocessor and Android OS that they’ll be able to penetrate this fledgling industry, which is currently heavily fragmented.

If you had asked me a year ago, I would have said no way Intel and Google could make an impression, said Kurt Scherf, principal analyst at research firm Parks Associates. But Intel looks to have gained some traction and the operating system space is so wide open that it s a case of why not Google at this point.

Google is looking to leverage its Android developer community to create apps for TVs. The manufacturers of TVs might warm to the idea more if they get a slice of the advertising revenues. Consumer electronics manufacturers want a piece of this [advertising] pie and Google is the player in this very crowded space that can immediately offer them revenue share, said Scherf.

Source: Financial Times

GameStop Announces Call Of Duty: Black Ops Pre-Order Poster

GameStop today announced that it’s running a pre-order campaign for Call of Duty: Black Ops. The first 300,000 consumers that pre-order at GameStop will receive an exclusive two-sided Black Ops poster.

Call of Duty: Black Ops is not set to release until November 9, 2010, but Activision is putting the full court press out for the game, including recent teaser trailers. It could be that Activision is just looking to promote their biggest action franchise, or they could be eager to demonstrate that Call of Duty goes on, even with all the chaos at developer Infinity Ward.

More information about the promotion: www.gamestop.com/blackops.

Apple Calls IPhone Leaks ‘Immensely Damaging’

Apple claims that photos of a prototype version of the iPhone were “immensely damaging” to the company. This comes from court documents released recently, detailing a meeting between the police and Apple after Gizmodo posted images of the phone on its website.

“By publishing details about the phone and its features, sales of current Apple products are hurt wherein people that would have otherwise purchased a currently existing Apple product would wait for the next item to be released, thereby hurting overall sales and negatively affecting Apple’s earnings,” said George Riley, a lawyer from O’Melveny and Myers that represents Apple. Riley called the potential dollar amount lost by Apple as huge.

Brian Hogan, who found the iPhone, was turned in by Katherine Martinson, his roommate. Martinson wanted to avoid being turned in on criminal charges. “[Rick Orloff, Apple director of information security] said that Witness Martinson contacted him due to the fact that Suspect Hogan connected the stolen iPhone to her computer and she believed that Apple would eventually trace the iPhone back to her IP address,” the document stated.

Martinson and others tried to talk Hogan out of giving the phone to the press because of what it would do the the career of the Apple engineer that lost the phone. Hogan responded, “Sucks to be him. He lost his phone. Shouldn’t have lost his phone,” according to the affidavit.

No charges have been filed, and Gizmodo is currently claiming that their computers were seized illegally, citing laws protecting the press. Another prototype surfaced recently in Vietnam.

Source: Computerworld

YouTube Hits Five-Year Mark

YouTube celebrated its fifth anniversary recently. The site, which has made great strides toward profitability of late with rentals and video subscriptions, can claim some pretty gaudy numbers.

Over time, these aspirations have created a vibrant and inspiring community that helped transform a murmur of interest into something far greater than any of us ever could have imagined, reads the official blog. Today, thanks to you, our site has crossed another milestone: YouTube exceeds over two billion views a day. That’s nearly double the prime-time audience of all three major U.S. television networks combined.

What started as a site for bedroom vloggers and viral videos has evolved into a global platform that supports HD and 3D, broadcasts entire sports seasons live to 200+ countries, the blog continues. We bring feature films from Hollywood studios and independent filmmakers to far-flung audiences. Activists document social unrest seeking to transform societies, and leading civic and political figures stream interviews to the world.

Since we never could have predicted all that happened in YouTube’s first five years, we certainly can’t imagine what the future will look like. But we do know there’s a lot more to be done. For instance, we want to make it even easier for you to sort through and find the videos that matter to you. Although the average user spends 15 minutes a day on YouTube, that’s tiny compared to the five hours a day people spend watching TV. Clearly, we need to give you more reason to watch more videos! And we want to give you all the tools and support to make YouTube both your career and your community. After all, this is only the beginning of the video revolution. We re just getting started, concludes the post.

Source: YouTube Blog

HTC Starting Wildfire

HTC today announced their latest Android 2.1 device. Called the Wildfire, it will feature a 3.2-inch capacitive QVGA display, a 5-megapixel camera and the Sense UI.

“HTC Wildfire makes the HTC Sense experience available to young mobile users for the first time,” said Florian Seiche, VP of HTC EMEA. “It brings all your communications into one place, whether it’s through Facebook, Twitter, text messages, images or email, ensuring that you are never far away from the conversation and always close to your friends.”

The phone’s features include Friend Stream, caller ID and address book. The emphasis on social networking conditions with its lower price seems to make it targeted towards younger consumers.

“For the first time ever, you can recommend the newest and coolest apps to a friend or group of friends with HTC Wildfire,” said Seiche. “With so many applications to choose from, there’s a world of content to discover and pass along to your friends.”

It’s currently scheduled for relase in Europe and Asia in Q3 2010, but an American release of something similar is still feasible.

 

Iron Man 2 Trashes Robin Hood

Iron Man 2 retained its metallic box-office crown over the weekend, posting a domestic take of $53 million. The film is already the second highest grossing film of 2010, behind Alice in Wonderland, and has taken in $428.2 million in only three weeks.

By contrast, the dour and serious take on Robin Hood by director Ridley Scott and actor Russell Crowe only manged $37.1 million in its debut, good for second place. The $200 million production saw a tepid critical response and may not live up to hopes by Universal executives, who saw a possible franchise in the making.

Source: MTV.com

Google Admits To Accidental Data Gathering

At a time when privacy fears are at an all time high, mostly thanks to changes instituted by Facebook, Google has revealed that they have been collecting more information than they said they were. While Google has always asserted that their Street View cars for Google Maps only picked up SSID and MAC information it drove past, that is apparently incorrect.

At the behest of the German government, Google examined its methods and discovered that it was picking up data from non-password-protected networks, though they claim that their moving fleet of cars only picked up fragments of data. Still, Google has apologized and halted the cars until it figures out how to correct the problem.

Source: PC World

Spider-Man Veteran Alvin Sargent Spinning New Web

Reports are that Alvin Sargent has been brought on board to fine tune the script for the next Spider-Man film. He’ll work on the script by writer Jamie Vanderbilt (Zodiac); both had been working on the abortive Spider-Man 4 before Sony decided to reboot the series.

Sargent is a veteran screenwriter, having written the scripts for Ordinary People and Paper Moon and he touched up the first three Spider-Man stories. It is rumored that the next Spider-Man will focus on a 17-year-old Peter Parker still in high school, with more attention paid to realism and emotions than the previous movies.

Source: The Hollywood Reporter

Apple Asks, ‘What Is IPad?’

Apple always has great, polished ads and the treatment they’ve given the iPad is no different. Described as easy to use, beautiful and magical, the ad stays true to Apple’s proven ad formula.