Upcoming Gadgets (Tech Friendly)
Latest News
Electronic Arts Brings ‘Madden’ to Facebook
Sep 1st
Electronic Arts is bringing its popular Madden football game to Facebook. Madden NFL Superstars launches as a free application Tuesday. The game lets players create fantasy teams featuring more than 1,500 current NFL players from this year’s team rosters. The fantasy teams compete with one another on Facebook. Or, they can play against fantasy versions of the season’s actual NFL teams.
Electronic Arts Inc. plans to make money from the game by letting players pay nominal amounts of money for better players and other game content. Those microtransactions are expected to add up, though the majority of players are expected to play the game without paying a dime.
NFL Superstars, which comes a week before the football season kicks off, follows EA’s FIFA Superstars soccer game for Facebook. That game has about 4 million players. EA Sports President Peter Moore said the idea is to bring Madden to a broader audience beyond the fans of the console version, which sells about 5 million to 6 million units each year and can be complicated to play.
NFL Superstars was created by EA Sports and Playfish, the social game company EA bought last year for $ 275 million.
Sony to Challenge Apple With Music, Video Service
Sep 1st
Sony Corp will launch a new music and video download service linking a range of its devices, in a challenge to Apple Inc’s dominant position in the market, the Financial Times said on Wednesday. The announcement is set to be made at the IFA technology show in Berlin on Wednesday, the paper said, coinciding with a scheduled media event by Apple the same day in the United States. The service will work across various internet-connected devices, such as Walkman music players, Vaio computers, Bravia TVs, Blu-ray players and Sony Ericsson mobile phones but will not be available to consumers until next year, the paper said. Sony’s Welsh-born president, Howard Stringer, has struggled to develop hit products and services that take advantage of the conglomerate’s rich portfolio of music and film.
The company launched a video-on-demand service in the United States, dubbed Qriocity, this year. But Sony has so far failed to gain ground on Apple in the download market. Apple is expected to unveil a revamped iPod at its media event on Wednesday, although speculation is also simmering it will make an announcement about its own TV project, Apple TV. A spokeswoman for Sony declined to comment.
Amazon Trying to Create Web-based TV Service
Sep 1st
Online retailer Amazon.com Inc is trying to create a service that gives paying subscribers unlimited access to some television shows and movies over the Internet, The Wall Street Journal reported. The Seattle-based retailer has proposed a Web-based subscription service to several major media companies including General Electric Co’s NBC Universal, Time Warner Inc and Viacom Inc, the newspaper said, citing people with knowledge of the proposal. Amazon did not return calls seeking comment. CBS, Viacom Time Warner and NBC Universal declined to comment.
The news comes as more companies try to boost their online TV businesses. The new service would look to take on companies like Netflix Inc that allow paid subscribers to stream TV shows and rent movies. “CBS had talked to Amazon but there is no impending deal,” a source familiar with the matter told Reuters. Viacom had also met with Amazon, another source familiar with the matter told Reuters. The Journal reported that in at least one version of Amazon’s proposal, subscriptions could be bundled with its existing Amazon Prime service immediately giving the service a large number of built-in subscribers. Prime is a service that offers members free two-day shipping on most Amazon purchases for $79 a year.
Check Your Heartbeat With Your iPhone
Sep 1st
A man named Peter Bentley has developed an application called iStethoscope which monitors your heartbeat via sensors in the phone. This free application has been averaging at 500 downloads a day since it launched last week. There’s also a pro version for 59 pence which removes ads, adds an email function and includes a hints and tips section.
The official blurb for the app in the App Store, states iStethoscope “turns your iPhone into a stethoscope, allowing you to listen to your heartbeat and see your heart waveform, or listen to other quiet sounds around you” and that the device is “used by cardiologists for research on heart disease as described in the Journal of Medical Devices”.
Samsung Galaxy S Is Getting Froyo
Sep 1st
After multiple leaked Froyo updates for the Galaxy S, Samsung’s finally provided an official one via Samsung KIES 
desktop software. The company also announced that it’s sold a million of the devices in the United States in less than two months.
The Galaxy S has various names in the United States. On AT&T customers it is the Samsung i897 Captivate, on T-Mobile it’s the Samsung Vibrant, while Sprint is about to sell it as the QWERTY gifted Samsung Epic 4G. Verizon is launching its Galaxy S version as the Samsung Fascinate in September.
Bharti Starts Corp Data Services in Thailand and Malaysia
Sep 1st
Bharti Airtel, India’s top telecoms firm, said on Tuesday it had launched data services for corporate customers in Thailand and Malaysia in association with TRUE International Gateway Co and Telekom Malaysia, respectively.
Baidu, Rakuten Virtual Shop to Open in Oct
Sep 1st
The online shopping joint venture between China’s Baidu.com and Japan’s Rakuten may start operations in the first half of October and its headcount could jump tenfold over three years, the top executive told Reuters. The biggest Internet search engine in China and the Japanese online mall operator formed the company, named Lekutian, for $48 million in January this year. The Chinese language website will aim to become the No.1 player in China, which has the largest number of Internet users in the world, estimated to be more than 400 million and growing rapidly.
“We have attracted more clients than expected and by the time we launch, there should be thousands of merchants on our website,” Koichi Nakamura, the firm’s chairman and chief executive officer, said in an interview on Tuesday. In 2009, online shopping in China totalled 258.6 billion yuan, according to the Ministry of Commerce.
Samsung Ups Its iPhone Used CPU to 1GHZ
Sep 1st
Samsung launched a new ARM processor called Humming Bird, that uses the same design as the Cortex A8 which is in the iPhone 3GS. The upgrade to it is that this one clocks at 1GHz. The previous chip clocked at 883 MHz.
This is accomplished both by a smaller, more energy-efficient 45 nanometer process as well as partly customized circuits designed to handle the load.
Angry Birds Update Available for iPhone; Android Soon
Sep 1st
The most popular paid game in the App store right now is Rovio Mobile’s Angry Birds. An update was released for the iPad a few days ago with Rovio saying they’ll be updating the iPhone and iPod Touch versions too in a matter of a few days. The update is here and has 15 new levels, new achievements, a new golden egg and more feathered anger.
Rovio, on their twitter, have also said that a WebOS version of Angry Birds is out and have also said that they’ve started a signup for Android users so they can find out when the game will be available for their devices.
Rumour: Red Dead Redemption Movie Might Star Brad Pitt
Sep 1st
Rumour has it that Brad Pitt might play John Marston in the upcoming Red Dead Redemption movie. Apparently he’s been given first refusal right to the movie.
This potentially wouldn’t work out because, hello, it’s Brad Pitt. But if he did decide to do the movie, it could be pretty awesome.
