After being rumored for some time now, the Zune HD has at long last been confirmed by Microsoft. The rumors about a touch screen Zune began over a month ago. Microsoft has kept quiet despite the growing amount of rumors, until now.
The new Zune HD will have a 3.3″ 480×272 OLED touch screen with up to 720p, but only through an HDMI AV dock. The new Zune will also feature HD radio, Internet browser (obviously), and Wi-Fi for instant streaming from the Zune store.
The surprising thing from Microsoft is the Xbox live capabilities the new Zune will have. There will be some type of integration between the Zune HD and live, but it is unclear at this point exactly what it will be.
A price has not been revealed yet, but we do know that the Zune HD will be release in the fall of 09. Microsoft will be showing off the new Zune , and its Xbox live capabilities at E3 09. I am looking forward to it.
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The New York Times has made a big change in the way they view the flow of information. For the first time in the history of the news paper they have created a social media editor position. In a memo released from deputy managing editorJon Landman, he details the need for this position. Landman Said “the point is that an awful lot of people are finding our work not by coming to our homepage or looking at our newspaper but through alerts and recommendations from their friends and colleagues. So we ought to learn how to reach those people effectively and serve them well.”
The person who has been named for this position is Jennifer Preston, and her experience is extensive. She has worked as a reporter, editor, and marketing manager. Jon said that “Jennifer will work closely with editors, reporters, bloggers and others to use social tools to find sources, track trends, and break news as well as to gather it. She will help us get comfortable with the techniques, share best practices and guide us on how to more effectively engage a larger share of the audience on sites like Twitter, Facebook, Youtube, Flickr, Digg, and beyond.”
Jennifer will also be the go to gal for anyone around the news room who has questions about social media. As her position will also include keeping them up to speed on the social media world.
Sprint is gearing up for the big release of their latest iteration of the palm phone, the Palm Pre. Hitting the shelves June 6, Sprint is expecting the smart phone to sell well. In fact they are expecting the smart phone to sell out.
Sprint CEO Dan Hesse has stated that they are worried about keeping up with the demand for the new Palm Pre. At a recent tech conference Dan Hesse said “We don’t intend to advertise it heavily early on because we think we are going to have shortages for awhile.” He also went on to say “We won’t be able to keep up with demand for the device in the early period of time.”
It’s rumored that Sprint has less than 400,000 units of the smart phone available for its launch. That is a pretty small number for a major launch, and that is the primary reason why people are expecting a sell out.
In this full cinematic trailer, you get a glimpse of the dark world of Prototype. Based in New York, the opening of this game shows a tactical team gunning down some type of mutant riot group that’s chasing a young woman. After annihilating the mutants, the tactical team decides to go ahead and kill the girl that they just rescued from them. Nice huh? I am guessing they killed her because they were worried about her being contaminated by the mutants. That is when the game’s protagonist Alex Mercer shows up and goes postal.
I found out about another one of Alex’s abilities in this trailer, that I was previously clueless about. Alex is able to shape shift and take on the form of other people. One scene in particular, Alex takes the form of a tactical agent to fool one of his pals, and then dispenses of him.
Courtesy of an Activision press release we are getting our first real look at the peripheral for the new DJ Hero. We first heard about it way back in October, and now we are finally getting to see the hardware for this much anticipated music title.
“The company’s groundbreaking DJ Hero expands Guitar Hero’s signature social gaming to all-new consumers with the addition of diverse music genres including hip-hop, R&B, Motown, electronica and dance. Introducing an all-new innovative turntable controller, DJ Hero transforms players into DJ’s who rule the club scene by creating original mixes of popular songs and music from the world’s most exciting artist and DJ’s.”
Kudos to the guys at Nintendo for finally finding the stones to put out a Survival Horror title for the Wii. The first trailer for Nintendo’s upcoming title Feel, reveals some of what we can expect in terms of game play. Feel seems to be a game based around exploration, in which you will have nothing more then a flashlight while traversing dark environments.
The trailer has a creepy quality, and for good reason. After all, Nintendo is working with one of the scariest directors around, Takashi Shimizu (The Grudge, Ju-On). Although I enjoyed this trailer, I really didn’t like the “Grudge Gurgle” at the end. I hope it wasn’t added to the trailer as a tease, because I have little to no interest in playing a game based on The Grudge. Reason being, you can’t beat the game, remember? The grudge finds you no matter what, so at the end of the game when you think you’ve beat it, you end up getting killed by some kid that hisses like a cat.
Despite the fact Modern Warfare 2 has not been released yet, the Call of Duty 7 rumors have already begun to spread. Yesterday TVGB heard from a reliable source that Activision is trying to license music that sounds like it’s out of the Vietnam era; leading some to believe that the next COD game could be based in Vietnam.
Another reason some are assuming COD 7 will be in Vietnam is due to that fact that the franchise has taken a step back from doing WW II style games. World at War producer Noah Heller, has stated they “are showing the final battles of the Pacific and the European Theatre and that lets us put a close to the war. I’m sure game companies will be making World War II games for years to come and World War II is a very classic war. But we’re happy that we put the war to bed.”
Modern Warfare 2 is expected for release November 10, 2009. As far as COD 7 goes we will have to wait and see.
Stop the presses! Square Enix has launched a new site for a new game. What game you ask? Well we don’t exactly know, due to the fact they are not telling us. This is without a doubt, a tease on the part of Square Enix. They even went so far as to include the word “mystery” in the URL.
When you visit the site what you will be seeing is an image of a futuristic style city, that seems to be in the middle of a war. Text appears on the screen in the form of a JFK Quote “The world is very different now. For man holds in his mortal hands the power to abolish all forms of human poverty and all forms of human life.” FYI, take advantage of the mute button on the page because the sound is ridiculously loud.
What can it mean? From here all we can do is wait and see.
