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New Media News Every Morning

Muppets Launch YouTube Channel

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Entertainment industry execs, take note: this is how an old classic can successfully make the transition into new media. When The Muppet Show was cancelled in 1981, a lot of us felt like we lost our old gang of childhood friends. Fortunately, the Muppets just launched their own YouTube channel, and they’re hitting the medium of online video with the force of Gonzo shooting out of a cannon.

Kermit and crew clearly did their homework. With punchy new original content perfectly tailored to the viral, shortform, fourth-wall-breaking nature of online video, the Muppets know exactly what they’re doing on YouTube — despite Statler’s and Waldorf’s constant assertions to the contrary. Apparently, old frogs can learn new tricks.

Originally posted on November 27, 2009 @ 9:08 am

Droid Ad Calls iPhone Digitally Clueless

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Once again, Verizon plays up the hardcore techie appeal of the Google Android-based Motorola Droid. Their latest advertisement contrasts the Droid’s raw mechanistic power with the iPhone’s glitz and glamour. In the words of this particularly edgy ad, the iPhone is a “digitally clueless beauty pageant queen”.

Contrary to Apple’s claims, more than one frustrated developer would probably agree with that assessment. After all, the iPhone app approval process is as fickle and arbitrary as any blonde bimbo. Sure, you’d show off your beauty queen girlfriend in public, and you’d certainly have lots of fun with her in private — but she probably wouldn’t make the most engaging conversationalist, or the most effective executive assistant.

With the open application development offered by the Google Android mobile OS, Verizon is clearly positioning the Motorola Droid not as a buxom blonde beauty queen, but as a fluent and flexible executive assistant. That certainly jives with their thrust to get developers and early adopters using the thing. Geeks love girls with glasses.

Originally posted on December 4, 2009 @ 6:53 am

Joel Comm Appeals to Steve Jobs for iPhone App Approval

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Love him or hate him, Internet marketer Joel Comm has been bringing us fun stuff decade after decade. In 1996, he founded the company that Yahoo bought and turned into Yahoo Games. At the end of 2008, he released iFart Mobile, which spent three weeks at the top of the iPhone app charts.

That’s why Apple CEO Steve Jobs should listen to Joel when he vents his frustration over the rejection of his latest iPhone app — especially when the app store carries so many other applications with similar functionalities.

Joel’s appeal should help remind Apple’s SVP of Worldwide Product Marketing Phil Schiller that, contrary to his deluded claims, developers are not happy with the arbitrary and opaque iPhone store approval process.

Originally posted on November 27, 2009 @ 7:09 am

Air Force Buys 2,200 PS3s. Sony Loses.

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Sony PlayStation 3 Server ClusterAh, the Sony PlayStation 3. A Blu-Ray player, an online video player, a Linux box — it’s used as anything but what it’s supposed to be: a game console. Now the US Air Force is buying 2,200 PS3s to build a supercomputer.

No, I’m not kidding.

The U.S. Air Force is looking to buy 2,200 Sony PlayStation 3 game consoles to build out a research supercomputer, according to an document posted on the federal government’s procurement Web site.

The PlayStation 3s will be used at the Air Force Research Laboratory’s information directorate in Rome, N.Y., where they will be added to an existing cluster of 336 PlayStation 3s being used to conduct supercomputing research.

The Air Force will use the system to “to determine the best fit for implementation of various applications,” including commercial and internally developed software specific to the PS3’s Cell Broadband Engine processor architecture. The research will help the Air Force decide where Cell Broadband Engine processor-derived hardware and software could be used in military systems.

You might think that Sony’s the big winner in this deal, and that the Air Force is stupid for buying thousands of overpriced game consoles. You’d be wrong, on both counts. Sony sells PS3s at a loss, hoping to make their money in games and accessories. That means the Air Force is getting Cell hardware for a fraction of the cost. [Read more…]

Originally posted on November 28, 2009 @ 12:04 pm

Nokia Pirates Nintendo Games in N900 Demo?

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Nokia N900 SNES EmulationOh Nokia, how far you’ve fallen from your once-lofty mobile gaming ambitions. The Nokia Mosh repository carried so many wild and wacky games — until you threw away your entire developer community in favor of your clean and shiny Ovi app store. Now you can barely give away top-tier titles for free. N-Gage held so much promise as a mobile online gaming service, boasting such big titles as Tomb Raider and The Sims and Metal Gear Solid — until you unceremoniously killed the whole thing.

Now, to demonstrate the gaming capabilities of your new N900 smartphone, you’ve resorted to running classic games on retro console emulators. Never mind the sheer absurdity of using software emulation to sell the native capabilities of a piece of hardware. Sure, emulators are legal, and hardcore mobile gaming aficionados love emulators, but the game ROMs in your promo video are of questionable legality.

Now Nintendo’s thinking of taking you to court for copyright infringement. Considering that you’re the world’s largest cellphone manufacturer, that’s pretty frickin’ embarrassing.

Originally posted on November 29, 2009 @ 2:51 pm