Archive for March 22nd, 2008
The general consumer never even saw the Wii coming. They were all sucked in by the clean white gleam of Nintendo’s Wii and those irresistible tiny Wiimotes with nary a breath of warning. Even if they hadn’t played a video game since the days of Ms. Pac-Man, they suddenly found themselves reliving some glimmer of those days in their own living room, laughing aloud, calling their parents in to come join them, experiencing the pleasure of sharing a family activity.
Wii Fit is next on the horizon of Nintendo’s grand plan, and it’s aimed directly at the very consumer I speak of above — call it gaming that isn’t quite gaming, if you will. Regardless of what Nintendo’s long time fans consider Wii Fit, this peripheral is primed to be a huge hit: in fact, analyst Michael Pachter recently divulged that per Nintendo of America, the US Wii Fit launch will be supported by “the biggest marketing campaign in history.”
Wow — even if you were unconvinced when Wii Fit was announced, you might magically be convinced soon enough, even if you had no intention of buying the thing. Hell, I may even end up with one, because if Nintendo can rock anything, it’s producing irresistible marketing. I still close my DS after gaming and admire its glowy smoothness once in a while.
While Pachter couldn’t confirm for sure, he did advise that WedBush believes it is more likely that Nintendo will market the product heavily through retailers like Wal-Mart and Target, who “notoriously attract sofa potatoes.” Wow again. Is Nintendo intentionally marketing to fat people? I have the ability to see why, but I can’t help but wonder what Wii Fit has up its sleeve that will motivate the lazy.
[Via Aussie-Nintendo — thanks, Jonathan]
source Destructoid
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Posted by: admin in Mobile
 We've been following Qantas' in-flight email and SMS text messaging trial for some time now. And, after successful testing during the extended trial period, Qantas has announced that the airline will be rolling out the in-flight messaging service to its fleet of domestic Boeing 767 and Airbus A330 flights.
Starting next year, when you're traveling down-unda, you won't be left wanting for a connection to the office/friends/family. Voice communications isn't going to be part of the initiative. Baby steps, it's all about baby steps.
Still, in-flight data services would be even superior.
[Via: Courier Mail]
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Posted by: admin in Mobile
Codemasters' Pete Shea has attached handheld console publishers who blame poor games on the platform. Shea's “Race Driver: Create and Race” game (see image above) for the DS has a plethora of options, only usually found in a home console game.
Shea believes that portable console games (and I would assume to some extent mobile games) should still offer a good set of features for the price:
“It annoys me as a games consumer that many publishers seem to think it's okay to treat a portable title on DS, as if it were a mobile phone game, or a PSOne game.”
I don't personally own a DS, so I couldn't comment on the general quality of the games - but having extensively used a PSP, I have the ability to see Shea's point - some ports to wreak of being badly (or even worse, lazily) coded, when there is no need. Whilst Mobile games provide that “dip in and use” element, portable console games should offer something a bit more, especially when they are costing 5-6x more…..!
[Via: Computer & Video Games]
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Posted by: admin in Mobile
 Ahh, Google and Apple. It's nice to see these two tech innovators continuing to work together in harmony.
Google has just released a set of APIs in their GData Objective-C Client Library that’ll grant iPhone developers to use Google APIs alongside Apple's APIs in the iPhone SDK. Of course, all applications written in Objective-C should be able to take advantage of the new Google APIs, but the real draw here’s the iPhone compatibility.
Included in the new Google APIs is the Google Blogger API, Google Spreadsheet API, Google Contacts API and YouTube API - which grants the iPhone users to directly upload videos to YouTube or edit their Google contacts on the fly.
“Perhaps you want your iPhone software to send pics to a Picasa Web Albums account, or keep a journal of phone calls automatically in Blogger. Maybe your iPhone application accesses a database of information from a Google Spreadsheet or from Google Base. With the Google Data APIs Objective-C Client Library, creating software for these tasks is straightforward.”
“If you’re writing iPhone software, just drag the “GData Sources” group folder from the GData project file into your iPhone project, and use the GData APIs as you would when writing a Mac application. “
Sweet. Now we just wait to see if Apple see fit to give us iPhone owners some video-recording love with the next firmware update.
Find more information about the GData Objective-C Client Library here.
[Via: iPhone Atlas]
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Motorola is soon to demo handsets that can hand off between WiFi and cellular networks. The solution, TEAM (Total Enteprise Access and Mobility) will also support PTT ability.
TEAM devices will not be limited to just cell phoes, however it's expected that the first batch of hardware will be mobile devices, to be ready end of Q3 this year. Motorola anticipates healthcare and manufacturing to be two industry sectors that’ll be very keen on the devices, due to the existing use of two-way radios.
With the capability to hop on a Mobile network when WiFi coverage doesn't exist, the flexibility of range of user comes in to play. The device will be supported by a server who responsibility it will be to tie the calls through a corporate PBX, and handle the WiFi/cell transfers, along with maintaining a “keep alive” ping to each device.
All the devices will be WinMo-based, which immediately enables al of the message and Windows app sync functions we've come to know and love. Any thoughts as to the first devices? I am thinking Moto Q variant!!
[Via: Computer World.com]
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Spice Telecom is soon to launch UGC content for it's Mobile Television offering, according to Telecom Tiger. Obviously the idea with UGC is that “citizen reporters” (I love that term!) can submit content for others to download and consume. With some existing services, the mechanisms for this are MMS on the upload leg, and a portal for browsing and downloading from.
Spice has tied up with BBC World and CNN for news content, and is now working toward building it's own content - with channels like Bindaas, Cartoon Network, and others.
[Via: Telecom Tiger]
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Posted by: admin in Mobile
(IRIB chief Ezzatollah Zarghami watches Mobile TV on a device)
Mobile devices are bringing broadcast Television to Iranian users, utilising DVB-H technology, reports Press TV.
The service is currently delivering 10 TV and 4 radio channels to Mobiles, inlcuding 24/7 English-language news channel Press Television.Apparently the project has started in Tehran (the Iranian capital), and will soon roll out to the entire country - go DVB-H!
Iran is the second Middle Eastern country to implement DVB-H, after Qatar.
[Via: Press TV]
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Posted by: admin in Mobile
The Hindu is reporting that Indian engineers in Bangalore have contributed “core technology” behind Monsoon Multimedia's latest place/time-shifting product, called 'Hava'.
'Hava Titanium HD', to give the product it's full name, apparently erases the difference between a Personal computer and Television set, and allows the user(s) to view HD content on Television, laptop, and even Mobile Phone (apparently it's WinMo devices that are supported….).
The Hava is actually a STB that streams digitised content (from a DVD source for example) to multiple PCs (or other WiFi capable devices) around the home. If this sounds familiar to any of you, it's very much the same principle which Slingbox are using. Hava claims that this is the first HD-ready system (although I'm sure I saw a press release from Slingbox a while back claiming the same….).
Prices are apparently between $200-250, and you can find out more by checking out their website here.
[Via: The Hindu]
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Posted by: admin in Mobile
The Hindu is reporting that Indian engineers in Bangalore have contributed “core technology” behind Monsoon Multimedia's latest place/time-shifting product, called 'Hava'.
'Hava Titanium HD', to give the product it's full name, apparently erases the difference between a Computer and TV set, and allows the user(s) to view HD content on Television, laptop, and even Mobile Phone (apparently it's WinMo devices that are supported….).
The Hava is actually a STB that streams digitised content (from a DVD source for example) to multiple Personal computers (or other WiFi capable devices) around the home. If this sounds familiar to any of you, it's very much the same principle which Slingbox are using. Hava claims that this is the first HD-ready system (although I'm sure I saw a press release from Slingbox a while back claiming the same….).
Prices are apparently between $200-250, and you can find out more by checking out their website here.
[Via: The Hindu]
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Posted by: admin in Mobile
Huawei has upgraded its USB pebble HSDPA modem to include a digital Television tuner. As many of you might already know Huawei is active in a number of areas within Mobile - both as an equipment manufacturer, but also as a channel for other vendors.
The Pebble, (otherwise known as the E510) inlcudes HSDPA up to 7.2Mb/s, and tops out for upload at 2Mb/s. It will initially only be available in Europe and the price is still TBC.
[Via: USB-core.co.uk]
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