HipstaCase appeals to retro iPhone 4 snappers

29.04.2011, 13:08

If you are a regular user of the retro-camera Hipstamatic app on your iPhone 4, then this new retro camera case is sure to appeal.

The new HipstaCase is currently only available in the US ($40 plus international shipping costs), so it doesn’t come cheap.

Tripod-mount

Hipstamatic commissioned designers at Agent 18 to create the new HipstaCase, which also comes with a tripod mount, to truly finish off the retro look.

HipstaCase also has a handy wrist lanyard, to truly top off the toy camera feel to this unique snap-on iPhone 4 case.

You can grab the Hipstamatic iPhone app from the iTunes App Store, if you have somehow missed out on what the nostalgia-cam fuss was all about in the first place.

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Marvel Entertainment’s new MMO set to be free

29.04.2011, 12:30

Marvel’s new MMO superhero game is set to be free to play, in news that is sure to please penny-pinching comic book guys everywhere.

Marvel Entertainment announced that its Gazillion-developed new Massively Multiplayer Online (MMO) super-hero game will be free to play at a San Francisco event this week.

Micro-payment strategy

Marvel plans on going down the FarmVille route, offering the main bulk of the game free to players, with options for micro-payments for those players that want to buy virtual goods in the game.

Gazillion Entertainment President and COO Dave Brevick said his studio’s new Marvel MMO game will be a legitimately free experience that will also be a “triple A, high-quality, high-production value experience that is very accessible.”

Gamers will have the chance to play as one of their favourite Marvel superheroes – including Spider-Man, Captain America, Iron Man and many others – and the game will initially launch on PC.

Expect more news on the new Marvel MMO from E3 2011 this coming June.

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RIM slashes profit forecasts

29.04.2011, 12:24

BlackBerry maker RIM has cut its current profit forecasts, following disappointing smartphone shipments for its latest financial first quarter.

RIM forecast that it would ship 13.5 to 14.5 million smartphones over fiscal Q1 2012, with the latest estimates suggesting the numbers will be much closer to the lower of those two estimates.

PlayBook plays nice

Despite this, RIM reports that initial shipments of its BlackBerry PlayBook are in line with its expectations and this, combined with a number of new smartphones set to be released early May, should result in considerably healthier financial results later in the current financial year.

Expect lots more news on RIM’s latest touchscreen phones direct from the BlackBerry World conference in Florida next week next week.

The new phones are set to feature an OS upgrade and all-round improvements to the hardware.

“The interest is global, the products are truly fantastic,” said RIM’s co-chief executive, Jim Balsillie, while also admitting, “I would have liked to have them sooner.”

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Hackers offering to sell PSN credit card details

29.04.2011, 12:00

In the ongoing Sony PR nightmare that is the PlayStation Network hack, the latest rumours suggest that hackers are trying to sell the credit card details of 2.2 million PSN users.

Not only that, the hackers are also alleged to have offered to sell back the data to Sony, with the group claiming that Sony refused to buy back the list.

Sony offered PSN data?

The New York Times reports that Sony was offered the chance to buy back the information for around $100k but that the company has ignored the requests.

Sony has refuted the paper’s claims.

“To my knowledge there is no truth to the report that Sony was offered an opportunity to purchase the list,” said SCEA PR boss Patrick Seybold.

“The entire credit card table was encrypted and we have no evidence that credit card data was taken.”

Kevin Stevens, senior threat researcher at the security firm Trend Micro, told the New York Times that he had seen talk of the database on numerous hacker forums online.

“Sony is saying the credit cards were encrypted, but we are hearing that the hackers made it into the main database, which would have given them access to everything, including credit card numbers,” added security consultant Mathew Solnik, from iSEC Partners

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Rumour: Spotify inks deals with movie studios

29.04.2011, 11:50

Spotify is reported to be finalising a number of high profile deals with US movie studios, in the run up to launching a movie streaming service later this year.

The Swedish music streaming company is looking to start offering movies, too, according to latest reports on Techcrunch.

Worldwide exclusives

TechCrunch’s anonymous source claims that the service will be launching worldwide in the autumn of this year.

Spotify is allegedly looking to offer users exclusive early access to movies before they are available on disc or on other download services.

Spotify CEO Daniel Ek has so far denied the reports. However, we’ll be sure to keep a close eye on developments here.

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Project Café to stick with buttons and d-pad

29.04.2011, 11:10

The latest news about the successor to Nintendo’s Wii – currently codenamed ‘Project Café’ – is that the Japanese gaming company plans to stick with traditional buttons and directional pads (d-pads).

According to Nintendo president Satoru Iwata, the company is unlikely to abandon these traditional and well-loved forms of game controls.

Even so, the rumours about Project Café do seem to indicate that Nintendo is planning on integrating some form of touchscreen tech into the console, with the controller allegedly set to feature a 6.2-inch touchscreen.

Nintendo will make the big unveil at E3 in Los Angeles this coming June, when gamers will finally see what the company has in store for Project Café.

Buttons and d-pad paramount

“Whenever we make a new game console, we’ve done it without throwing away buttons and the directional pad,” Nintendo president Satoru Iwata told an analyst this month.

“The reason for that it’s better to have them, because buttons and directional pads benefit gameplay response.”

Iwata added that Nintendo plans to stick with what it knows its customers like, and “isn’t planning on completely ditching buttons, nor …thinking of taking tablets as they are today and implementing them in a game console.”

Thank god for that! That sounds like it would be an awful idea (and is clearly a sideswipe at Sony, which announced its own tablet computer plans this week).

Stay tuned for lots more on Project Café in the run up to E3 2011 over the coming weeks.

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Sony faces lawsuits over costly PSN data breach

29.04.2011, 10:40

Following the PR disaster that is the massive Sony PSN hack Sony is already facing a number of legal cases from groups of irate PlayStation fans across the globe.

Sony shares were down by nearly 5 per cent following the widespread publicity in both tech and mainstream media about the high-profile PlayStation Network hack.

Angry gamers demand answers

Sony CEO Howard Stringer or his deputy Kazuo Hirai have both refused to comment publicly on the PSN hack to date, angering gamers even further.

Michael Wang, manager of overseas funds at Sony shareholder Prudential Financials, told Reuters: “Gamers are angry that Sony’s CEO hasn’t come out to explain the situation and investors are disappointed over the company’s corporate governance.”

The cost to Sony of the PlayStation Network hack is already being estimated by some analysts to be in the region of $1.5 billion (£0.89 billion).

UK ICO investigates

Clearly, it is way too early to estimate the longer term costs incurred by the damage to the PlayStation brand and the loss of trust from gamers in the PSN service.

Sony is yet to comment on the latest class action cases being brought against the company.

Here in the UK, the Information Commissioner’s Office has contacted Sony and is investigating whether the company is guilty of violating British laws pertaining to a company’s responsibility to safeguard customers’ private and personal data.

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Xbox 360 and Kinect boost Microsoft profits

29.04.2011, 10:14

Microsoft reports record revenues of $16.43bn (£9.86bn) this week, with sales of the Xbox 360 and Kinect helping to boost Redmond’s coffers.

Revenues were up 13 per cent year-on-year, with overall profits climbing 10 per cent to $5.7bn (£3.42).

The past year has seen record sales of Xbox 360 consoles, increased by the launch of the new Kinect motion controller in late 2010.

Microsoft’s Entertainment & Devices Division (EDD) posted revenues of $1.94bn (£1.16bn), up 60 per cent compared to the first quarter in 2010, with EDD profits up 50 per cent to $225m (£135m).

2.7m Xbox 360s were sold over the quarter, which means total Xbox 360 sales are now near to 53m units worldwide.

Microsoft sold 2.4m Kinect units in the same quarter, which takes total sales since launch to around 10.5m

“We delivered strong financial results despite a mixed PC environment, which demonstrates the strength and breadth of our businesses,” CFO Peter Klein said. “Consumers are purchasing Office 2010, Xbox and Kinect at tremendous rates, and businesses of all sizes are purchasing Microsoft platforms and applications.”

Microsoft predicts EDD revenue should increase by around 25 per cent in the next quarter.

The company also added that it has sold 350m Windows Phone 7 licenses.

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Elop: Nokia tablet will have a ‘uniquely Nokia perspective’

28.04.2011, 14:15

Stephen Elop, Nokia’s CEO, has waxed lyrical on the subject of a Nokia tablet, saying that it is taking the soflty-softly-catchee monkey approach to building a slate.

While the company focuses on getting its first Windows Phone 7 handsets out the door and getting back into the smartphone race, it isn’t taking its eye off the tablet prize:

“We could take advantage of Microsoft technology and software, and build a Windows-oriented tablet, or we could do things with some of the other software assets that we have.

“Our team right now is assessing what’s the right tablet strategy for Nokia,” said Elop, speaking to a Finnish television show.

Spoilt for choice

So Nokia is considering a number of tablet OSes; Windows (whether the Windows Phone OS or the long-time-coming tablet-optimised OS), Symbian or MeeGo; but it certainly doesn’t sound as though we’ll be seeing a Nokia iPad competitor any time soon.

Elop continued, “There are now over 200 different tablets on the marketplace, only one of them is doing really well.

“And, my challenge to the team is I don’t want to be the 201st tablet on the market that you can’t tell from all of the others.

“We have to take a uniquely Nokia perspective and so the teams are working very hard on something that would be differentiating relative to everything else that’s going on in the market.”

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Sony Blu-ray production kickstarts in May

28.04.2011, 13:37

Sony has announced that it is to re-open its Blu-ray manufacturing plant in Japan in late May; two months after operations were suspended at the facility due to the tsunami.

In a statement released this week, Sony noted that nine out of its 10 sites are now operational and, as of May, core production at these plants will resume.

“Optical disk manufacturing operations, including Blu-ray, are expected to resume around the end of May 2011, and magnetic tape manufacturing operations are expected to resume around the end of July 2011,” said the release.

“Manufacturing of other products and components previously carried out at the Tagajyo Plant will be transferred to Sony’s core manufacturing facilities for these products and components located in Miyagi, Fukushima and other prefectures, in order to quickly restore full production capacity.”

Share slump

Sony’s share price slumped this week to a low comparable to when the tsunami hit back in mid-March, this was due to the PSN debacle.

It seems that share prices could be affected further in the long term, however, with the statement noting: “The Company is continuing to evaluate the full impact of the Earthquake, tsunami and related power outages, including the impact of these production level adjustments, on Sony’s businesses and consolidated financial results.”

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