Alpha Protocol is built on the philosophy of having to make snap dialog decisions in the style of Jack Bauer, James Bond or Jason Borne. This launch trailer for the game emphasizes that, and honestly seems like something that could be out of a blockbuster movie.
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Ozzy Osbourne engaged in a bit of fun pranking at Madam Tussaud’s wax museum, where he pretended to be inanimate on a bench and rose up when fans approached or looked to have photos taken with him. This is a great bit of viral promotion for his latest album, aptly called Scream.
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LionsGate recently unveiled their first trailer for the film Alpha & Omega, a CG film about wolves. Notably, Dennis Hopper, one of the most prolific actors of the past five decades, just so happened to lend his voice to the role of Tony in the movie. Hopper will be remembered for his intense acting in the Twilight Zone, Apocalypse Now, Easy Rider and Speed though his path occasionally crossed into gaming with roles in Hell: A Cyberpunk Thriller, Black Dahlia, Grand Theft Auto: Vice City and Deadly Creatures, along with the part of King Koopa from the Super Mario Bros movie.
Sony Online Entertainment announced today that it is launching a free-to-play game based upon the Star Wars: The Clone Wars animated television series. Called Star Wars: Clone Wars Adventures, it will be available online and in retail stores in Fall 2010.
“We have a long running and extremely successful partnership with Sony Online Entertainment and look forward to working together on our next project, Clone Wars Adventures,” said Mary Bihr, Global VP of Publishing, LucasArts. “Working hand in hand with Lucasfilm, LucasArts and Sony Online Entertainment ensures that Clone Wars Adventures will be the most authentic and accessible Clone Wars experience for kids and families to play in their very own living room.”
Star Wars: Clone Wars Adventures will have mini-games, dynamic activities and social events. Players can fly spaceships, duel with lightsabers, and subscribe to get more options with Station Cash.
“Clone Wars Adventures is the ultimate destination for fans of The Clone Wars series and will bring the action and excitement of the show to players online so they can experience The Clone Wars universe firsthand,” said John Smedley, president of Sony Online Entertainment. “We’ve worked with LucasArts and Lucasfilm to create a virtual world that is seamlessly integrated with the TV series and a true extension of the show. It’s also just flat-out fun to play.”
Considering the high popularity of the Star Wars brand with kids and the success of SOE’s Free Realms, this seems like a very natural move.
MSI has unveiled a new laptop called the Sketch Pad. The prototype features a keyboard that flips over to reveal a sensor pad for pen input, alleviating the space problem most computers with handwriting input have.
“I think this is really cool,” said Sam Chern, product director at MSI, speaking at a Taipei news conference. “You can use your handwriting, and we also built in recognition software.”
Additionally, they showed off a new tablet PC called the Wind Pad. The device has 3G and Wi-Fi, GPS and HDMI high-definition video output, and will be releasing with both the Android and Windows 7 OS.
Source: PC World
While Memorial Day weekend was expected to be dominated by Sex and the City 2 and Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time, Shrek Forever After instead topped the charts with a $55.7 million haul. The film has taken in over $171.3 million in just two weekends.
Prince of Persia came in second with a $37.8 million domestic take; while the film had $95.5 million in sales internationally, its tepid reception in the U.S. may prevent it from becoming a franchise. Meanwhile, Sex and the City 2 was dogged by negative reviews and a third place showing at the box office with $37.1 million, which could spell the end to the adventures of Samantha and company.
Filling out the top five are Iron Man 2 at number 4 with $20.6 million and Robin Hood bringing up the rear at $13.6 million; considering the cost of this biopic, the Russel Crowe film is probably yet another stillborn franchise.
Source: MTV
May 31, or Quit Facebook Day, came and went and the overall impact on the social media site was minimal. In the end, only 33,000 people signed up for the event; the site has nearly 500 million users worldwide.
Additionally, Google has announced that Facebook.com is the most visited site on the Internet. 540 million people, over a third of the Internet population, visit the site monthly. 570 billion pages are viewed monthly at Facebook.com, a rate eight times better than the second-place site Yahoo.com, which has 490 million visitors.
Facebook recently announced an overhaul of their security features in response to mounting criticism.
Source: AFP {link no longer active}
Liberty Mutual today announced a different sort of futuristic racing game. Called 2099, the racing game puts extra emphasis on driver safety, with new tracks and cars and an insurance level dictated by the driver’s performance, which can then be used with the accident recovery feature, apt for a insurance company.
“In designing the 2099 game, we posed the question: what would responsible driving look and feel like in the future,” said Greg Gordon, senior vice president of Consumer Marketing at Liberty Mutual. “Certainly, we envision our cars being more high-tech. On the other hand, there is one element of driving that will never change an area we wanted to spark awareness around the importance of staying safe behind the wheel.”
The game also allows for multi-player and lets users connect with Facebook. Find out more at LibertyMutual.com/2099.
Asus recently unveiled their Eee Tablet at Computex 2010. With a reflective LCD display and built-in camera, the device can also sense 2450 dpi from pen-input.
The Eee Tablet is designed mostly for students and artists and is expected to release in Fall 2010. “We want to put it in the hands of every college student,” says Will Chuang, product manager with Asus.
Source: PC Mag
According to insiders, Google is phasing out the use of the Windows operating system internally. This follows an incident in January, when Google’s Chinese operations were hacked.
“We’re not doing any more Windows,” said one Google employee. “It is a security effort.”
“Many people have been moved away from [Windows] PCs, mostly towards Mac OS, following the China hacking attacks,” said another.
New hires are given an option to use Mac computers or a PC running Linux. The new inititive will also see more emphasis put on Google’s Chrome OS.
“A lot of it is an effort to run things on Google product,” the employee said. “They want to run things on Chrome. Before the security, there was a directive by the company to try to run things on Google products. It was a long time coming.”
Source: Financial Times
