Talk about burying the lede. In a blog post about the Sundance Film Festival, YouTube slipped in that they’re going to offer rentals of five Sundance faves as a first step into the movie rental business. YouTube’s been long-rumored to be interested in this space, but its a crowded one: iTunes has offered video rentals since 2008, Amazon …
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America’s Top Game Tester: Sony Announces the Cast of Its New Reality Show
Seriously: Sony Computer Entertainment is producing a reality show about contestants competing to be an official PlayStation game tester. To prove it’s really happening, SCEA just announced the cast of the show, whose collective list of favorite games and characters suspiciously references titles that you can only play on the …
Seesmic Look: Twitter Made Easy
Love it or hate it – Twitter is here to stay. It’s managed to become invaluable for a number of reasons and if you haven’t already jumped on board, well, you’re actually missing out. The speed with which news can be delivered and shared via the social networking site is astounding. Businesses like Dell and Zappos have been …
Amazon Launches The Kindle Dev Kit (aka Kindle App Store)
With Apple’s looming Tablet launch next week and its rumored e-book deals, e-book giant Amazon is on full alert. Just yesterday, Amazon announced that it would be restructuring its royalty rates and now the NYT is reporting that Amazon is set to announce a Kindle app store today.
So what does a Kindle app store entail? Well, it …
Amazon Increases Royalty Rates for Kindle
Amazon is stepping up to the Apple plate by announcing that it will introduce a 70% royalty option program to authors and publishers.
Amazon recently announced their Digital Text Program, which it bills as “a fast and easy self-publishing tool that lets you upload and format your books for sale in the Kindle Store.”
Is it a …
Battle of the Final Fantasy XIII Theme Songs: Leona Lewis vs. Sayuri Sugawara
When Final Fantasy XIII hits U.S. shores in March, it’ll have a different theme song than its Japanese counterpart. Leona Lewis’ “My Hands” is the official anthem for the North American and European releases while Sayuri Sugawara serenades players of the already-released Japanese version with “Kimi ga Iru Kara” (“Because …
Techland Roundup: The Daily Dose
Wednesday Jan. 20, 2010
Today in Techland: Superman is a dick, Lev seeks out the meaning behind Twilight and Peter brings us the news that PS3’s motion controller won’t be here until the fall. Bummer. The good news? Techland launched its very own YouTube page. You should probably subscribe to it.
Here’s what else going on in nerd
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Harmonix Launches The Rock Band Network
Recording artists longing to see their songs performed on plastic instruments are one step closer to seeing their music dreams come true now that Harmonix’s Rock Band Network entered its open beta today.
The entire process looks pretty intricate: to participate in the network, you’ll need a $99 XNA Creators Club license, authoring …
NYT To Start Charging In 2011
It’s finally happened and I can only imagine the number of jaws that have just dropped.
The NYT has announced that starting in 2011, frequent visitors of the dot com will be charged after they’ve been given a handful of stories for free. Pricing wasn’t announced today, but those of you who don’t subscribe to the print edition …
Sony PS3 “Motion Controller” Coming Fall 2010
Contrary to popular belief, the name of Sony’s motion control system will be called just that: motion controller*. Actually, that’s its tentative name until Sony can figure something else out.
Motion Controller will be released in the fall in Japan, Asian regions and countries, North America and Europe/PAL territories along with an …
Techland Roundup: The Daily Dose
Tuesday Jan. 19, 2010
Today on Techland: Peter brought us the latest on the Apple Tablet unveil, Steve chatted up the talented Alex Proyas and Matt will probably be in the dog house for a few nights…
Here’s what else going on in tech news around the Web:
Pandora Habitat Lust. An essay in The New York Times lays out just why …
EA’s Mass Effect 2 DLC Plans: A Subtle Salvo Against the Used Game Market?
With one week to go until Mass Effect 2 comes out, developer Bioware has finally handed out some meaty details on their downloadable content plans.
The good news: free DLC will be available on January 26th and include a few new missions, one of which will introduce Zaeed, a ruthless merc (pictured above right) who becomes a member of …