Displaying items by tag: Sony

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When you start digging there are all kinds of interesting things that you can find. For example in the Samsung V. Apple trial Samsung released documents that claimed a Sony design concept influenced the direction of the iPhone. Apple has now come back with designs that predate the “Sony” mockup that Apple put together by a few months. They (Apple) are now asking for all of Samsung’s evidence about the Sony mockup to be tossed out. We checked and would appear to be something of an unusual request given the grounds for the request. Apple dearly wants the images and depositions of their designers about the Sony mockup removed from the trial.

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Apple-sony-mockup-300x238

There are some interesting things that are coming to light in the Samsung Vs Apple trial. Among them are claims from Apple that Samsung was told by Google, its own staff and “famous designers” that their products were too similar to Apple’s patented design. These are pretty damning items when you think about it and go a long way toward proving that Samsung willfully copied Apple with some of their products. With this it would look like Apple certainly has Samsung on the ropes…

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bos-intoSony has developed an interactive book for the PS3 that is sure to delight Harry Potter fans. That is right; Sony is releasing a book that you can interact with on your PS3, if you have a few things first like a PlayStation Eye camera and Sony’s Motion Controller. If you are a fan of the Harry Potter series this is either amazing or just a bit disappointing. Many fans are saying they would rather have the often hinted at Encyclopedia of the Harry Potter world to add to their collection. With Sony’s new Wonderbook you will need so many things just to read more about the world of Harry Potter. While the new product from Sony does offer and chance to actually experience the Books in a new way, getting everything is going to get expensive. The Book of Spells will not be the only title for Sony’s series of augmented reality products, but it certainly is one that should help to interest consumers (especially Harry Potter fans)

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halo-4-screenshot-2Today was an interesting day in gaming. Considering that it is a Saturday in the US (May 19th 2012) which is normally not a big new day we found some of the information interesting to say the least. One of the first is a bit of news from Microsoft. Here the title in question is Halo 4, the next episode with the now famous “Master Chief” in a new “trilogy” of Halo games. The new was an interesting counter to the claim that the November 2012 launch date for Halo 4 was going to signal the launch of a new XboX.

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17The war for and against SOPA has once again heated up. We have already told you that the entertainment industry, content owners, and lawmakers are working very hard to push through legislation to get what they want (control of the internet as a means of distribution of their content). It does not matter that the simple act of do this violates many Civil Liberties or that it represents a violation of the very basic tenants of the existing Anti-Trust laws that we have. Now only a few days after Chris Dodd let slip that the MPAA is working to reopen SOPA (or something worse) we find that a new power lobby has sprung up from the ground to take the banner of censorship and wave it.

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Thursday, 01 September 2011 19:05

Starz Stops Negotiations with Netflix

NertflixIn what has to be rather big blow to Netflix Starz has ceased contract negotiations with Netflix. This means that once the contract expires in February 2012 there will be no more Starz movies streaming on Netflix. Although this is certainly not a death toll for Netflix it is not good at all. Starz has rights to both Disney and Sony content which makes their contribution somewhat large to the Netflix catalog.

As you can imagine the issue is the amount of money that is changing hands over the deal. Although the exact amount is not known to anyone other than Starz and Netflix there are some estimates that put the amount at around $300 Million to renew for the next four years.  This is an amount that Netflix just cannot afford to pay.
As we mentioned above this does not mean the death of Netflix, it only means that they will have to come to some sort of compromise. As both Netflix and Starz need each other we are sure this will happen but the exact details of this (or any) compromise is guess work. We would suspect a reduced number in return for more restrictive content rules. This would be similar to when Starz pull their Sony content because Netflix had reached the total number of views for those titles.

The Netflix of next year might not be the same as what we were seeing even last month. If the content dries up they will not be able to justify the price increases and they will lose customers. Conversely if they pay the higher amount to keep the content and raise their prices more they will lose customers that do not want to pay that high of a price for a streaming service. To put it bluntly Netflix is between a rock and a hard place…

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advertising-pottermoreIf you have not heard of Harry Potter then you have been living under a rock. The Boy Wizard has become this generations Star Wars. The series of seven books has amassed a serious number of followers (I have read them) while the movies have spawned a monster of a merchandising machine.

As I live in Florida I have visited the Wizarding World of Harry Potter at Universal Studio’s Islands of Adventure more than once and after being open for almost a year there is still a multi-hour wait to get into some of the stores.  However, even though the creator of this phenomenon makes a good deal of money from all of this it is not as much as she could.

The solution? Well J.K. Rowling has teamed up with Sony Entertainment to create an online virtual world called Pottermore. In this new virtual world they are extending the world created in the books to allow fans (both young and old) to take on new personalities and experience the world of Hogwarts (the best Wizarding School in Brittan and pretty much the central location in the books. Officially the new site opens up in October, but ever since it was announced they have teased about a close Beta beginning on July 31st. At first all you had to do was submit an e-mail before July 31st.

However, because of that most people submitted the e-mail and that was that. People still visited Pottermore.com but it was not as much as it could have been (at least from what we are hearing). So how do you fix that? Again a simple answer. You change your mind before the morning of the 31st.
Fans began to hear that for the Beta there was only going to be 1 million people allowed to enter. Now that is a pretty big number until you realize that more than a million people went to see Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 2 (the final film in the series) on opening weekend and it is still going strong many weeks later.

So, on the morning of the 31st at 8am London time fans flocked to Pottermore.com in the hopes to be one of the few to get in. However, the powers that be changed their minds once again. Instead of letting people in they were going to have a multiday (seven for the seven books to be exact) scavenger hunt (maybe they stole that idea from us…). On each day you would have to hit the site by 8am London time (3am Eastern Time in the US) and try to find something called the Magic Quill. Each day a clue (a question that could be answered if you have access to or have read the books) would be posted on Pottermore.com. This Clue would give you a site to go to at Pottermore.com. There you could click on a flash image that of the Magical Quill and you could put your name in for the Beta. Even if you had the answer you had to be quick. If you did not get your submission in before that days allotted number of positions was filled you were out of luck.
But wait! There were still four more days so everyone that did not get in check back tomorrow! As you can see what Sony has done is create a site that is going to have other companies clambering to put ads on it. Before the site is even live they have found a way to get multiple millions of hits (perhaps even tens of millions).  From what we are hearing although the early entries are done no one has actually gotten into the site. In order to do so you have to wait for an e-mail to arrive with a special link to gain access to the site. While everyone waits they are still going back multiple times every day to see if anything has changed. Can you imagine the advertising allure of a site like this, especially one that is already geared towards kids and teens? J.K. Rowling may truly want to create something for the fans of her books, but I am certain that the executives at Sony are seeing nothing but dollar signs at this point.

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*updated 08-08-2011 17:46PM EST with correction on number of days the magic quill was available

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