Red Dead Redemption takes place in the Western frontier during the early 20th century, around the time of some interesting historical events. One such situation that players can take part in is the beginning of the Mexican Revolution against autocrat Porfirio Díaz, as shown below. Take-Two and Rockstar have very high hopes for the game, and the game’s already being heavily advertised on TV.
The long rumored Men in Black 3 is finally set to enter development. Columbia has signed Will Smith to return as Agent Jay, along with other veterans of the series in director Barry Sonnenfeld and producers Walter F. Parkes and Laurie MacDonald.
Tommy Lee Jones is currently negotiating to return as Agent Kay and Josh Brolin is in talks to play a younger version of the character. Their involvement is apparently dependent on the script, which is reportedly now being ironed out between Etan Cohen (Tropic Thunder) and David Koepp (Mission: Impossible, Spider-Man, Angels & Demons).
Men in Black 3 will be filmed in 3D and open May 25, 2012.
Source: The Hollywood Reporter
Apple recently started the debate on the future of Flash on the Internet, eliciting a tacit agreement from Microsoft. Now, Opera’s product analyst Phillip Gronvold has joined in with his opinion.
“Today’s internet content is dependent on Flash,” said Gronvold. “If you remove Flash you do not have today’s internet. We are trying to give the best internet experience for our users therefore we need Flash – there is no way to beat around that bush.”
“But at Opera we say that the future of the web is open web standards and Flash is not an open web standards technology, he continued. Flash does have its purposes and will have its purposes, the same as [Microsoft’s] Silverlight and others, especially for dynamic content. But Flash as a video container makes very little sense for CPU, WiFi battery usage etc. you can cook an egg on [devices] once you start running Flash on them and there’s a reason for that.”
Gronvold believes that the web is heading towards open standards, and that Adobe must head there too if it wishes to remain relevant. “For some reason it’s not part of the fabric of the web currently and Flash either needs to include itself in the future of the web and open web standards or its technology is going to be consistently under attack from all sides as the open web standard movement grows further and further,” said Gronvold. “Because eventually we will have the canvas [of the web] in good quality and we’ll have the toolsets to use that canvas in the quality but in the foreseeable future, 18 months or so, Flash is not going away and it is critical.”
Source: Tech Radar
The first trailer for Super 8 aired for the first time this weekend attached to Iron Man 2. While its contents reveal very little, it is only the beginning of the movie’s marketing campaign.
So industrious forum-goers have watched the trailer and found a connection to a website Scariest Thing I’ve Ever Saw. Right now it features an old-style PC interface and ends in a countdown predicted to be ending May 15, beginning a viral campaign before the movie has even begun filming.
Source: Cinematical
Nokia has announced that it has filed a lawsuit against Apple in Federal District Court in Wisconsin’s Western District. The phone and portable electronics company is claiming that the iPhone and iPad violate five of their patents.
“We have taken this step to protect the results of our pioneering development and to put an end to continued unlawful use of Nokia’s innovation,” said Paul Melin, Nokia’s general manager for patent licensing.
The various patents in question (that vary from data positioning, speech transmission to antenna configurations) are related to making portable devices more compact. This marks the latest legal clash between Apple and Nokia, with Nokia having asserted Apple violated 10 of its patents last year and Apple counter-suing and charging Nokia with violating 13 of its patents.
Tron is a movie based on gaming concepts and has seen a few video games released based upon its universe. The principal video game in the movie Tron, however, was a title called Space Paranoids that has never been playable in any form . . . until now.
As part of the viral marketing for the movie Tron Legacy, fictional Encom Corporation has released a playable version of Space Paranoids. There are apparently codes hidden within the game itself that unlock production photos, so there’s plenty more to uncover than just getting to the next level.
Check out the game at spaceparanoidsonline.com.
As upheavals occur on Facebook, some aftershocks have hit games on the social network hard. When third-party notifications were removed in March, 14 of the top 25 games lost active users as a result and in April 18 of the current top 25 experienced a decline.
Zynga was hit hard, with FarmVille losing 4.4 million active users, Cafe World losing 2.6 million, and Mafia Wars 1.4 million, resulting in a total of over 10 million active players gone across all of their titles. Things weren’t all bad for the social games industry leader, however, with Texas HoldEm Poker seeing a slight gain of 100,000 players, new app Treasure Isle quickly rising to 2.2 million MAUs and FarmVille still far and away being the biggest Facebook game app with 78.4 million monthly active users.
Source: Inside Social Games
The Resident Evil series has bucked the trend of video game movies being unsuccessful, having a solid fanbase for those who like action and horror. Producer Don Carmody knows that part of the balance for such series is maintaining some connection to the gaming roots while still moving forward in a new direction.
We can’t make the movies just for gamers, said Carmody. I think with Resident Evil, after the first installment, fans realized the story was moving forward in a cinematic way. When you play the game, you are using your imagination — you kind of sense what things will look like. The games have progressed, and are more cinematic now. In fact, the games are taking a bit from us as well. They are using our sets and characters, we are using some of their storylines . . . things like that. We’re probably a little closer to the game now than we were with the first film.
He brought up the Silent Hill series, saying, Of course, we always run the risk of incurring the wrath of the gamers — who are very vocal. I did Silent Hill and we are planning a Silent Hill 2 — we were getting hate mail for that one, he said, and when asked about more details he responded, Just that we are hoping to start it in late spring in Toronto.
Source: Fear Net
After the recent snafu where private chats were made viewable by friends on Facebook, the social network service has come under intensified scrutiny. Bloomberg reported that 15 groups have complained to the FTC about Facebook with Marc Rotenberg of the Electronic Privacy Information Center saying that the social network’s changes violate user expectations, diminish user privacy, and contradict Facebook s own representations.
A writer for Cnet chimed in and talked about Facebook like a force of nature. With changes coming slowly but assuredly to make more information public, users should get used to sudden and jarring shifts.
You could choose to err on the side of paranoia, assume that Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg is greedily dreaming of how awesome it will be when he sells everyone’s data to marketers and uses the profits to buy himself a private island, and delete your Facebook account. Or you could just be aware, be cautious, and figure that maybe your credit card data is something you want to keep off of Facebook for now, writes Caroline McCarthy. Because while Facebook is the company it is today–subject to constant and frequent volatility, eager to tread into new marketing and networking territory–this is how it’s going to be.
A blogger for the New Zealand site Stuff, however, came to Facebook’s defense, saying that most of the criticisms are sensationalist overreactions. He said that any complaints with privacy can be fixed with a few clicks.
I can’t stress this one enough. People seem to think that social networking services like Facebook owe them something. The truth is – they don’t, writes Luke Appleby. We tend to feel a sense of ownership with our accounts, but in reality, we are just borrowing their servers, their investment and their programming – for free. If you don’t like it, don’t sign up, or if you already have, you can find the option to remove your account under ‘Account’, ‘Account Settings’, ‘Deactivate Account.’
While the game Lost Planet 2 is currently slated for release on May 11, the screenplay for the movie is moving along as well, according to producer Avi Arad. David Hayter has written up several drafts of the script, having previously done screenwriting work for Watchmen, X-Men and having voiced Solid Snake for the Metal Gear Solid series.
“We never come at it with the intention of stomping all over the core audience,” said Arad. “We want to express all of the ideas from these games in a way that someone unfamiliar with them can understand and enjoy as much as the most diehard fan.”
The script right now is similar to the plot of the game, but focuses on Gale Holden, father of main character Wayne. Gale was an early casualty in the game, but the plot of the movie will apparently give him greater priority.
Source: IndustryGamers
