This week, the Motion Picture Association of America released its annual Theatrical Market Statistics Report for 2010. The headline? Box office worldwide set an all-time high of $31.8 billion, an increase of 8 percent over 2009. Lest you get too giddy, however, here’s MPAA interim CEO Bob Pisano to rain on your parade. “[T]he …
Apps & Web
MTV Unveils Digital Music Awards, Embarrassing Attempts to Be “Hip” with the Internet
MTV has announced details of its digital music awards show by proving that it’s “down with the kids” and releasing the details on its own Tumblr site. But, wait, it gets better. Officially titled the O__ Music Awards – MTV is officially saying that “the O preceding the Music Awards in OMAs will be purposely left unassigned and open for …
Don’t ‘Get Over Here!’: Australia Bans Upcoming Mortal Kombat Re-Boot
Apparently, the blokes who classify games Down Under have just been hipped to the fact that fighting to the death often involves blood. In a decision handed down yesterday, the Austrialian government has denied Mortal Kombat classification, effectively banning Warner Brothers Interactive Entertainment’s game.
Mortal Kombat‘s …
Facebook Flub: Advertiser Accidentally Charged $8.8 Million
When Facebook advertiser Joshua Niamehr logged in to his ad campaign’s account, he knew he had an outstanding balance. He didn’t think, however, that he’d racked up a bill of $8.8 million.
Niamehr’s account, however, showed this statement:
There is an outstanding balance of $8,804,978.14 USD on your account. Your ads will not be
…
YouTube UK: No Plans for Movie Rentals in the Near Future
Don’t believe what you read. That’s Google’s response to a New York Post article reporting that YouTube is about to launch a subscription streaming video movie rental service in Europe, as a trial for a similar service in the U.S.
The Post piece seemed very confident about the story, mentioning months of talks with Hollywood studios …
China Blocks LinkedIn
Reports are coming in LinkedIn is now behind the Great Firewall of China. The social networking site for working professionals cannot be accessed within the country as of Thursday. A report on CNN said that the company is looking into situation and is “currently in the process of investigating the situation further.”
Many analysts …
The Comic Book Club: Fantastic Four’s Finale and Avengers #10
This is what happens when Techland goes to the comic book store: we end up discussing what we picked up. This week, Graeme McMillan, Evan Narcisse and Douglas Wolk talk about Fantastic Four #588 and Avengers #10.
DOUGLAS: Fantastic Four #588 has a big FINAL ISSUE banner festooned across its front cover. And I’m sure it will indeed …
Why I Would(n’t) Want to Build My Own Watson Jr.
For those of you who followed the Jeopardy! IBM Challenge and were amazed by Watson, the supercomputer that cleaned the floor with the best contestants in Jeopardy! history, here’s your chance to build your own machine. Master inventor (yes that’s his official title) and senior managing consultant for the IBM System Storage product line …
Island Def Jam to Open Its Music Catalog to App Programmers
Island Def Jam–the major label that’s home to Justin Bieber, Rihanna, Fall Out Boy, Kanye West and a lot of other big names–is about to officially announce an alliance with the Echo Nest, an application-development platform that’s been doing really interesting things with music apps.
According to Billboard, under the terms of the …
Get ‘Em While They’re Young: Disney Buys Under-10s Social Networking Site
Disney clearly believes that children are the future… of social networking. The Walt Disney Co. has purchased Togetherville, a social networking site for children under the age of 10 that allows them their own Facebook-style environment in a closely monitored, age-appropriate setting.
Gaming Tip Sheet: ‘Killzone 3’
You’ve been waiting since the end of Killzone 2 to find out what happens. That day is finally here. The latest installment in the Killzone series, Killzone 3, picks up right where the previous first-person shooter’s action left off.
Hermen Hulst, the mangaing director of Guerrilla Games, humbly admitted he might not have discovered …
Google Chrome Works Behind the Scenes with Background Pages
Google is continuing to push the functionality of its Google Chrome browser by highlighting the various cool things it can do in a series of posts over at the official Chromium blog. For example: Background pages.
Chrome’s background page functionality allows extentions and packaged and hosted apps to run in the background at all …