Sony's Shu Yoshida: the PlayStation Vita will kill it in the U.S.
Shameful: Sony raised prices on Whitney Houston’s digital music 30 minutes after her death
As much criticism as record labels receive for how they treat artists, Sony Music might take the cake. The company pulled the ultimate in shameful activities this weekend by raising the price on Whitney Houston’s Ultimate Collection album on iTunes and Amazon within 30 minutes of her death on Saturday.
Music mega-star Whitney Houston died on Saturday at the age of 48. And when a high-profile artist passes away, fans often look to re-experience their … Continue Reading
By surrendering to Facebook, MySpace was able to find a pulse. Adds 1M new users
It’s alive! MySpace, once the king of the social networking space, has been bleeding users for years. Now it’s set to report a million new users have signed up since December, says the New York Times. (Maybe new investor Justin Timberlake’s experience acting in the “The Social Network” is rubbing off on Myspace.)
The big change strategic change Myspace has made is to stop competing head to head with Facebook. Instead, it’s trying to leverage … Continue Reading
Boxee plotting a new DVR subscription service
Boxee may be planning to launch a new DVR subscription service aimed at users who’ve purchased its new Live TV stick, according to a new survey the company sent to users over the weekend.
The Boxee Box is a streaming set-top box featuring Boxee’s open-source media software, which transforms televisions into internet connected media centers. The company launched its Live TV tuner stick back in January, which is a $49 add-on that acts as a … Continue Reading
RIM avoided an outside CEO because they’re all children or morons, says director
As if Research in Motion needed more controversy surrounding its appointment of new CEO Thorston Heins, now a RIM director is arguing that it simply couldn’t have chosen a new CEO from outside the company because the only available choices (at that time) were idiots.
“So we’re supposed to hand it over to children, or morons from the outside who will destroy the company?” RIM director Roger Martin told the Globe and Mail in an … Continue Reading
Making Fun’s Hidden Haunts joins the hidden-object game fray on Facebook (exclusive)
Making Fun, the social game division of Rupert Murdoch’s News Corp., has launched a hidden object game called Hidden Haunts that will set itself apart via photorealistic scenery. The game is part of the company’s strategy to become a major player on Facebook by publishing games developed by both inside and outside game developers.
Hidden Haunts is a major effort by John Welch, chief executive of San Francisco-based Making Fun, to enter the fray of … Continue Reading
EA and Tencent to take The Sims Social game to China
Electronic Arts and Chinese social network Tencent are taking EA’s The Sims Social game to China.
Beijing-based Tencent, which has hundreds of millions of users, will publish the game on the Tencent Open Platform under the Chinese name Mo Ni Shi Guang. EA’s Playfish studio in Beijing is developing the title, which was a big hit last fall on Facebook. The move helps EA keep pace with rival social game maker Zynga, which has taken … Continue Reading
Samsung debuts 7-inch Galaxy Tab 2 with tasty Ice Cream Sandwich
Samsung has unveiled the successor to its first 7-inch Android tablet, but this time the device will run the latest feature-rich version of Android, Ice Cream Sandwich.
The Galaxy Tab 2 (7.0) will be one of the first tablets available with Ice Cream Sandwich, which has a haltingly beautiful design and tons of new features like facial recognition unlocking that make using Android elegant and fun. The Galaxy Tab 2 will join Samsung’s diverse family … Continue Reading
Why Sony’s Shu Yoshida thinks the PlayStation Vita will kill it in the U.S. compared to Japan (interview)
Shuhei Yoshida is in charge of all of the games that Sony makes internally for the PlayStation 3 and its other platforms. The president of worldwide studios for Sony Computer Entertainment was at the recent DICE Summit in Las Vegas, and he showed up with the PlayStation Vita, the new handheld gaming device that will launch on Feb. 22. in the U.S. Yoshida’s team helped shape the features of the Vita and has been busy … Continue Reading
Science launches its third startup this month, mom-commerce site Wittlebee
Sean Percival and his wife, Laurie, are known in the L.A. tech scene for being a particularly stylish couple.
So of course, when the couple welcomed their first child, the world expected the child to, you know, live up to the family standard. But there was a slight roadblock.
“Laurie had a lot of trouble just finding simple, solid-colored clothes without some kind of horrible logo on it,” said the Percival patriarch during a phone … Continue Reading
Following heavy criticism, Apple announces new investigation into Foxconn labor conditions
Last month saw several big stories on poor working conditions at the factories in China where makes Apple products. Chief executive Tim Cook initially responded by saying that Apple had nothing to apologize for. Now Apple has announced a series of special “voluntary audits” at Foxconn factories in Shenzen and Chengdu, China by the Fair Labor Association.
It’s the first big step by Apple to be proactive about the horrendous working conditions at its suppliers.… Continue Reading
Reddit tries to crack down on child pornography with new rules banning suggestive subreddits
Running a massive online community is a tricky business. The administrators who police the site are trying to strike a balance between encouraging users to contribute and keeping unsavory and illegal behavior to a minimum.
Reddit, a news aggregator and online community which has seen massive growth over the last year, allows users to create subreddits, which are essentially themed forums centred around topics like technology, humor and thousands of more obscure pastimes. Over the … Continue Reading
Ad startup Marin Software takes a late-stage $30M
Marin Software, a San Franisco startup focusing on online advertising, has just announced a $30 million round of venture funding.
This is the company’s sixth round of funding in as many years.
Marin offers an all-in-one platform for managing display, search, social, and mobile marketing.
It mainly focuses on clients spending $100,000 or more monthly on online media buys. Altogether, this adds up to around 1,500 clients pumping $3.5 billion through Marin’s system each year.… Continue Reading
Google TV YouTube updates on the way, just in time for original content
One of the best upgrades in Google TV 2.0 was the addition of a dedicated YouTube app — now, it’s about to get even better with an update set to launch this week.
The new YouTube GTV app will offer a smoother interface and a new feature called Discover that will (surprise!) make it easier to find interesting videos. Discover will be a particularly useful addition as Google readies its plans for YouTube original content, … Continue Reading
Steve Jobs gets a Grammy, one award out of Adele’s reach
The late Steve Jobs was honored with a Grammy Trustees Award on Saturday for his contributions to the music industry, which included helping to develop the iPod and reshaping the way music is sold with the iTunes Store.
The award is meant to “recognize contributions to the music industry in areas other than performance,” CBS News reports, and was accepted by Apple’s SVP of Internet Software and Services Eddy Cue.
“Accepting this award means so … Continue Reading
SNL on Verizon’s 4G marketing: “It’s an old person’s nightmare”
While it’s pretty much hit-or-miss these days, when Saturday Night Live scores, it still does so with a vengeance.
Last night the sketch comedy show aired a segment that ripped apart Verizon’s 4G LTE marketing confusion, bringing to light the biggest problems facing the smartphone market today when it comes to general consumers.
In short, there are too many devices vying for your attention (many with terrible names), and the advantages of 4G LTE seems … Continue Reading
Microsoft India Store gets hacked, passwords and usernames exposed (updated)
You can now add Microsoft to the list of companies that have recently been burned by hackers.
Microsoft’s online store in India was hacked this morning by Chinese hacker group EvilShadow team – 7z1&Ancker, reports WP Sauce. Even worse, it appears that the store’s database of usernames and passwords has been leaked as well, potentially exposing those users’ payment information.
At the time of this post, Microsoft’s India online store is still offline. We’ve dropped … Continue Reading
Google planning massive “Experience Center” and secret test labs at Googleplex
There are big changes ahead at the Googleplex, Google’s Mountain View headquarters
The company is developing a huge 120,000 square foot “Google Experience Center,” which will serve as a sort of private museum and meeting center, as well as labs for secret projects and the company’s @Home automation endeavour, reports the Mercury News.
The new buildings are big part of Google’s $120 million constructions efforts at the Googleplex, and they show how the company is … Continue Reading
Spotify takes music quality to the “extreme” on iPhone
If you’re a Spotify user with an iPhone, it’s time to pump up the volume.
The popular music streaming service has added support for extremely high quality 320 kbps music streaming and offline synchronizing — just about the best sound you can get from compressed music files.
Spotify originally offered low quality (96 kbps) and high quality (160 kbps) settings for streaming and syncing on its mobile apps, but an update over the weekend has … Continue Reading
An animated explanation of how your personal data gets tracked and sold
Keeping up with our theme from yesterday’s post about how frictionless it has become for users to give unfamiliar apps broad and permanent access to their data, we stumbled on this interesting video about the personal information people unwittingly share with their mobile phone carriers.
The video comes from Michael Ringley, a graphic designer living in San Francisco. It tracks the life of an MMS message, 28,000 of which are sent every second, and shows … Continue Reading
Activision’s Eric Hirshberg: turning games into brands and other non-douche moves (exclusive interview)
Eric Hirshberg was an experiment when Activision Blizzard‘s chief executive hired Hirshberg as CEO of the Activision Publishing division about 18 months ago. Hirshberg was an art school graduate who rose through the ranks of the creative side of advertising and eventually became CEO of billion-dollar ad agency Deutsch LA. Most video game CEOs rise through the ranks of finance or game development. But Hirshberg was a lot more comfortable with a paint brush in … Continue Reading
