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You might have to be a die-hard fan to get ‘Star Trek: Picard’
Star Trek: Picard feels like a watershed decision in the streaming TV wars: A show so niche that it cannot possibly find a mainstream audience. I'm not complaining since it seems to have been designed to appeal to my fanboy brain. But is Amazon going to get the army of new worldwide subscribers with a show this hostile to newcomers?
Watch the first teaser for CBS' 'Star Trek: Picard' series
CBS has offered the first real peek at its upcoming Star Trek: Picard series with a minute-long teaser trailer. It doesn't offer much in the way of detail beyond a look at some vineyards, a case of Chateau Picard wine and a noticeably older Jean-Luc Picard (Patrick Stewart). It seems as though he's leading a peaceful lifestyle, but there's almost zero chance Picard's world will stay that way for long.
Found Footage: Sir Patrick Stewart adores his iPhone
Don't even bother questioning why there is video of Jean-Luc Picard bashing Twitter and talking about his love for the iPhone, just watch and enjoy. Okay, okay, it's from a PBS interview designed to promote some of their Shakespeare programming, but that doesn't matter, really. All that matters is that Sir Patrick Stewart calls his "beautiful" iPhone "an extension of whom I am," in the way that only he can. He also bashes gaming, but only because he says it's extremely addictive, so we'll let that one slide. Here's the really important question: Has anyone pointed out the Star Trek phaser [iTunes link] to him yet? What apps (besides the weather one, we guess) does he run on a daily basis? [via iPhone Savior]
STO team to be at Star Trek Convention this weekend
The 2010 San Francisco Star Trek Convention is going on this weekend, and tickets are still available at the door, so grab whatever version of the souvenir communicator badge you happen to have and head to the Westin St. Francis Hotel. The convention will have Patrick Stewart and William Shatner, sure, but that's not the really big news. The Star Trek Online team will be in attendance, so keep an eye out for them on the show floor. Should you miss them there, just go to the Swig Bar near Union Square Saturday, where the team will be holding a meet and greet from 7:00 pm - 9:00 pm. For those two hours, they'll be hanging out with fans, talking about Star Trek Online and buying a drink for anyone in a Star Trek Uniform. If you're in the area and a fan of STO, it'll be a fun way to spend a few hours Saturday evening -- have a great time!
Nintendo UK wheels out the celebs ...
... with mixed results. But let's start with the good ones: Patrick Stewart will be back this Christmas to sell the DS and Brain Training to Brits (as he was last year), and he'll be doing it alongside Julie Walters. Hurray! The rest of Nintendo's celebrity line-up will be quite obscure to Americans, but when they produce lifestyle photography as brilliant as this, who the hell cares? They include: Girls Aloud. British girl pop group, and actually a pretty big name in Blighty. Most famous member is one Cheryl Cole, who seems lovely and sincere on X Factor, though isn't quite as pleasant if you meet her in a nightclub toilet. Fern Britton, once-cuddly, now gastric-band-wearing TV presenter, will be advertising Cooking Guide. Ronan Keating, one-fifth of Irish boyband Boyzone. Incidentally, in the process of writing this post, we discovered Boyzone were reforming. Ugh. Anyway, Ronan will be promoting Big Brain Academy. Jamie and Louise Redknapp, slightly thick but good-looking soccer pundit and his former pop star wife. Will join forces with their extended family to push Mario Kart Wii, Wii Sports, and Super Smash Bros.: Brawl. That's a lot of responsibility on the Redknapps' shoulders! We hope they're up to it. And going by Nintendo's current record in the UK, they'll probably do really well. Best of luck to all of them.
Brain Training celebrates 100th week in UK charts
Every Saturday, we document sales charts from the UK and other European countries, and every week, there's one game that appears in the UK top ten without fail: Dr. Kawashima's Brain Training. The sheer longevity of Brain Training's stay in the charts is genuinely exceptional, with this week marking the game's 100th consecutive week in the British charts.Since its June 2006 release, us Brits have seen the likes of Chris Tarrant (in happier times), Nicole Kidman and Patrick Stewart shilling Nintendo's mind-honing software, but we're curious: has it worked? Well, decide for yourselves.
Scientists scold celebrities for promoting Brain Age
Charitable organization Sense About Science has published its report on celebrities endorsing "scientific mumbo jumbo" that is of debatable merit. While diet pills and skin care lotions are obvious targets, the report (PDF file) also criticized Nicole Kidman and Patrick Stewart, among others, for endorsing Brain Age 2 (also known as More Brain Training in Europe).Kidman, who also did a commercial for the game, was quoted as saying, "I've quickly found that training my brain is a great way to keep my mind feeling young." Not so, according to Dr. Jason Braithwaite, a cognitive neuroscientist at the University of Birmingham. Said Braithwaite, "While practice at any task should lead to some form of improvement for that specific task, it is not clear that this improvement reflects anything other than a basic learned process for that specific task."The Brain Training games have been developed by Ryuta Kawashima, a neuroscientist and professor at Tohoku University in Japan. So which neuroscientist should we trust? That is, of course, debatable, but we'd wager that pushing yourself to do quick math calculations is a fairly healthy recreation. Not seen: a floating, polygonal head of Dr. Braithwaite.[Update: video fixed]
Promotional Consideration: On screen(s)!
Promotional Consideration is a weekly feature about the Nintendo DS advertisements you usually flip past, change the channel on, or just tune out. As we posted two weeks ago, Nintendo UK has commissioned Patrick Stewart for its latest round of commercials for casuals. The company's previous celebrity-starred ads, featuring Nicole Kidman and Chris Tarrant as spokespersons, propelled Brain Training sales in Europe to heights the US releases still haven't matched. We tracked down the Starfleet Captain's new Brain Training advertisement and put it up for your viewing pleasure. We haven't left it at just that, though. Plot a course past the post break, warp 9!
Patrick Stewart to star in new DS ads? Make it so!
Nintendo was wise to sign Nicole Kidman up last summer for its DS advertisements across the Atlantic, pushing Brain Age to the casual market with the international movie star's image. According to Nintendo UK's marketing director, Dawn Paine, the company will further broaden its target audience by recruiting Patrick Stewart, an intergalactic movie star, for its upcoming campaign.Several other British celebrities have also been called on for Nintendo's holiday season Touch Generations commercials -- Julie Walters (Molly Weasley in the Harry Potter films), Phillip Schofield, Fern Britton, Zoe Ball, and Johnny Ball -- but none of them can claim to match the starship captain's list of accolades. As Jean-Luc Picard, he facilitated first contact encounters with over a dozen alien races and saved humanity several times over during his Star Trek: The Next Generation tenure. Hopefully, Nintendo UK will be able to successfully leverage his skills as a diplomat to sell you its training games.
Patrick Stewart to voice Final Fantasy XII (the ad)
Square Enix figured a little dose of Patrick Stewart would help generate sales of Final Fantasy XII in Europe and Australia, so the publisher signed up the ever-bold(-ly exploring) voice for the game's ad campaign, which begins next week. Stewart does not provide actual in-game voice-work for FFXII, but he did win Spike TV's 'Best Performance by a Human (male)' for his work in The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion. Stewart's voice has also been cast in the upcoming TMNT film; out next month.Final Fantasy XII will launch in Europe and Australia on February 23; the ads begin rolling on February 19.
