Gossip Girl
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Screen Grabs: Serena's packing Steam, Gossip Girl turns gamer
Screen Grabs chronicles the uses (and misuses) of real-world gadgets in today's movies and TV. Send in your sightings (with screen grab!) to screengrabs at engadget dot com. Didja hear the latest? Little Ms. Serena van der Woodsen is a closet gamer. Well, at least that's what her icon tray is saying. A screen grab from a fresh episode of Gossip Girl betrays the little busybody while she's negotiating the future of show's namesake hearsay blog over chat. No, not Steam chat -- she's obviously running games distribution service in offline mode. We'd like to think she's putting that HP Envy 14 Spectre to good use, but let's face the facts: she's probably just playing Bejeweled. [Thanks, Michael]
Screen Grabs: Big Bang Theory's Raj falls head over heels... for Siri (video)
Screen Grabs chronicles the uses (and misuses) of real-world gadgets in today's movies and TV. Send in your sightings (with screen grab!) to screengrabs at engadget dot com. Finally! A TV show that we've actually seen (sorry, Gossip Girl). The Big Bang Theory's most recent episode featured Raj finding love with Siri. The uptight astrophysicist is incapable of speaking to women unless he's been on the sauce, but finds no such social inhibition with his iPhone's virtual assistant. Of course, like any geek receiving attention from the opposite gender, Dr Koothrappali soon becomes unhealthily infatuated with the handset, leading him on a trip to Cupertino to meet the person behind the microphone symbol. We won't spoil what happens, but you can probably work it out -- there's video past the break.
Screen Grabs: Serena's magically got herself an HP Envy 14 on Gossip Girl
Screen Grabs chronicles the uses (and misuses) of real-world gadgets in today's movies and TV. Send in your sightings (with screen grab!) to screengrabs at engadget dot com. We'd be lying if we said we were frenemies with Gossip Girl's goings-on (one of them's in the Pretty Reckless, right?). Fom the picture above, it looks like Serena van der Woodsen's shipping magnate father must have lifted this HP Envy 14 Spectre off the back of one of his shipments, given that the glass-built Ultrabook doesn't arrive in stores until February 8th. It wouldn't be the first time the show's squeezed in some unrealistic product placement: there was the time Serena had a SIM-card packing Verizon Droid X, or when someone had actually bought a Kin.[Thanks, Ross]
Screen Grabs: A Droid X with a SIM card? XOXO, Gossip Girl
Sure, Verizon has the lock on Gossip Girl product placement, but even the technological reality of CDMA must bow to plot development, and if that means Serena's Droid X sprouts a SIM card so Lil' J can steal it and surreptitiously swap in a new one, well, so be it. Of course, this clever plan assumes that Serena doesn't text or call anyone using her new SIM, but, you know, just go with it. Video after the break.
Motorola exec struts Medios TV guide platform capabilities in IBC video
After seeing Motorola's sweet-looking NYXboard QWERTY remote last week, we were itching to know if the hardware was part of a bigger plan. A new video featuring exec Malcolm Latham now answers that question, highlighting several key features in the company's Medios TV guide platform. We've known that at its core the HTML-based software was created to provide a similar viewing experience across phones, TVs, and computers, but more meaty bits like cross-platform bookmarking, a content recommendation engine, and so-called "Social TV" have been revealed. We're certainly all for our devices playing together nicely and new content suggestions, but Social TV has us a bit skeptical. The idea is similar to any instant message client in that it allows your friends to know when you're on Medios and then view what exactly you're watching. Sure, there might be some value in it -- Ping is betting that's true with music, -- but the potential for getting caught watching Gossip Girl is a serious deterrent. What's worse is that your friends can then rag you about it via chat right on the screen using their handy NYXboard remote. To see where we're coming, from check out the video after the break.
Screen Grabs: Gossip Girl's Nate Archibald drops a blast from Kin Two
Screen Grabs chronicles the uses (and misuses) of real-world gadgets in today's movies and TV. Send in your sightings (with screen grab!) to screengrabs at engadget dt com. Given Microsoft's Generation Upload marketing and Verizon's exclusive Gossip Girl placement deal, it's not surprising a Kin phone made an appearance on the show's season finale, but we're having a hard time believing that even Nate Archibald is chump enough to trade in his heat-seeking Droid for a Kin Two. Not that we'd know, since we don't watch the show. At all. Ever. Video after the break. [Thanks to everyone who sent this in] %Gallery-93186%
Screen Grabs: Nate Archibald dials up Google Latitude to locate poor Jenny
Screen Grabs chronicles the uses (and misuses) of real-world gadgets in today's movies and TV. Send in your sightings (with screen grab!) to screengrabs at engadget dt com. Oh, Jenny Humphrey -- will you ever learn? It's not at all smart to sneak out at night wearing a seductive outfit, only to find your way into a club, get drugged and open yourself up to all sorts of regrettable mischief. Thankfully, Gossip Girl's own Nathaniel Fitzwilliam Archibald is an experienced Droid owner, and he's also in the business of saving damsels in distress. Having Google Latitude just a click away sure is convenient, but having this particular gal's phone number just a Tommy Tutone jam away doesn't hurt, either. Makeshift vid of the rescue is just past the break.
Engadget's back to school guide: mid-range
Feature Index | On the cheap | Money's no object So you're off to college / university / whatever they call it in your neck of the woods, and you've got a bit of a budget, but you're still looking to lay down a nice bit of cash. Luckily for you, we've got a huge list of recommendations that won't break the bank, but still deliver where it counts. These items were chosen with price range in mind, but of we kept an eye on the specs and capabilities in order to give you the best range of options within this budget. Laptops Netbooks Mobile Phones E-reader Dock / Alarm Printer Digital Cameras Laptop Bag Television Fun Stuff!
Schrodinger's Gossip Girl: It's dead but it's still alive
It's been a long run for the Gossip Girl simulation on Second Life, two years in the making actually, but all good things must come to an end. The well trafficked sims will be closing the doors tomorrow, as Warner Brothers and The CW discontinue their virtual marketing campaign for the show of the same name.But that doesn't mean the Gossip Girl community is dying...Fans of the simulation will be overjoyed to hear that the Gossip Girl community is transitioning to a new home thanks to the Metaverse Mod Squad, the builders and moderators of the original official sims. While the official sims, and the setting of the Upper East Side, will be retired on June 30th, the new doors will open on July 1st to large fanfare and a great number of festivities.
Warner Brothers rejects non-English-speaking Gossip Girl fans
Warner Brothers has a very successful setup in Second Life, centered around its popular Gossip Girl property. All isn't exactly rosy there, of late, as WB's actively moderated environment collides with Second Life's and Gossip Girl's rather broad popularity demographics. Warner Brothers uses the Metaverse Mod Squad for active moderation of the Second Life presence. The question is, how do you moderate conversations in languages you don't understand? The answer, it seems, is that you don't. Visitors who communicate in languages other than English are warned to switch to English. Failure to comply sees the visitor ejected.
Screen Grabs: Verizon Hub tells of Serena's galavanting
Screen Grabs chronicles the uses (and misuses) of real-world gadgets in today's movies and TV. Send in your sightings (with screen grab!) to screengrabs at engadget dt com. We didn't happen to spot Nelly's shiny new BlackBerry Storm on last night's Gossip Girl, but we did see that cast-wide Verizon contract rubbed in our faces again. Verizon's newest non-cellphone (that'd be the Hub) made a brief appearance at the tail end of the episode to inform Lily van der Woodsen that her dearest Serena had reverted to her old carefree ways and hopped a private jet to Spain. Hope she took a worldphone over there, else making that "I'm here!" call is going to be just a wee bit difficult in GSM world.
Screen Grabs: Nelly Yuki sees Yale acceptance email on BlackBerry Storm
Screen Grabs chronicles the uses (and misuses) of real-world gadgets in today's movies and TV. Send in your sightings (with screen grab!) to screengrabs at engadget dt com. We had a feeling that cast-wide Verizon contract on Gossip Girl would eventually lead to at least one BlackBerry Storm showing up, and sure enough, it's Nelly Yuki proving our assumptions correct. Ms. Yuki made good use of her touchscreen 'Berry too, showing off her Yale acceptance email to her closest pals and one fuming Blair Waldorf. Meanwhile, all the other rich girls get stuck with Verizon's free-on-contract lineup -- what's up with that?
Metaverse Mod Squad raises over $200,000 from Angel Investors
Back in 1970, futurist Alvin Toffler coined the term "Future Shock", which is the personal perception of too much change in too short a time. While reading a press release for a virtual avatar staffing company, future shock hit this blogger upside the head like a ton of bricks. Thirty eight years after Toffler described the trouble people were having keeping pace with the ever-increasing rate of technological progress, a company has acquired $200,000 to populate virtual worlds with virtual people, living virtual lives.The Metaverse Mod Squad, creators of avatars for projects like a series of machina "Gossip Girl" episodes, celebrated the closing of their $200K "angel" investment deal in their virtual offices, of course. Remember, every avatar with a job is one less avatar on the streets. By putting avatars to work as greeters, actors, friends for the friendless and so on, they are doing well, by doing good.
Rumors: Touch-sensitive Guitar Hero guitar, tons of new Spidey games, Bill Nye and more!
Xbox 360 Fanboy found some super secret info about Microsoft's plans for a Mii-like avatar on the site of market survey firm Intellisponse. The X3F story was posted on NeoGAF, whose members then began messing around with the Intellisponse URL. And that's when Internet Magic happened. A wealth of unannounced Microsoft, Activision, and Disney games were revealed in .swf files containing game descriptions.Some of these are clearly just pitches -- see the five million Spidey games -- but given the evidence of Ultimate Band (which we already knew about), some of them are definitely on the way. There aren't any massive megatons like the Xbox got, but unannounced games are always news! Until they're announced! We're marking it all as rumor for now, because we don't know what's real, what's proposed, and what could be some kind of elaborate trap!The site has since been taken down, but we've got most of the text, and you can fill in the gaps with Joystiq's posts on the subject, as well as the NeoGAF thread. Kotaku has a roundup of the Spidey-related titles.The full list follows after the break. Highlights include a touch-sensitive Guitar Hero World Tour (referred to here as Guitar Hero IV) guitar, a Marvel Ultimate Alliance sequel, a Spidey game built around the Balance Board, and -- perhaps most exciting -- a Bill Nye the Science Guy science minigame collection. Weirdest of all, and least likely to be as exciting as it sounds, is Trioxide, some kind of system for playing Wii, PS3, and 360 games on the PC with their original controllers? Streaming video, maybe?
Rumor: Marketing website reveals new licensed games
After Xbox 360 Fanboy found some unreleased information on marketing firm Intellisponse's website, NeoGAFfers quickly figured out how to access more of their info (because it was a very simple process). As a result, Xbox 360 fans had a sort of impromptu E3 of rumors, videos, and news. The DS fallout from the release of Activision and Disney survey materials isn't quite as explosive, but it has enabled us to learn a bit about some planned or proposed new games from the companies. Unfortunately, the newly-"announced" DS games consist solely of licenses, from the expected (Transformers 2) to the sadly kind-of expected (Extreme Makeover: Home Edition) to ... what? (Gossip Girl). We've posted the full text about each game from the now-defunct site after the break.
Cinemassively: Iron Man in The Fall
Iron Man is kicking butt both in the theater and in the virtual world of Second Life. The Warner Brothers Reitz-Lang (Sorry, Jason!) machinima team in charge of the Gossip Girl set took some time out of their busy schedule to enter the Silverscreen Iron Man Fan-Art Contest. They chose a humorous and silly approach to the video, but all professional. Everything about this video, including the lipsynching, the falling scene, and the way the bad guy was saved, makes us drool. We previously featured their initial effort in SL, UES Insider, but had some serious criticism about it, and they've improved 100%! We can't wait to see what kind of trouble Gossip Girl will write about next, and when it will premiere. Don't leave us hanging![Thanks, Jason!]If you have machinima or movie suggestions from any MMO, please send them to machinima AT massively DOT com, along with any information you might have about them.
GDC 08: Entertainment content convergence in online worlds
We spent most of Monday ensconced in the GDC Worlds in Motion summit track, which made "standing room only" seem extremely spacious -- most of the sessions were packed to the gills and then some. It seems like more than a few industry types are interested in the intersections between gaming and virtual worlds. Case in point, the following session we've paraphrased (hopefully not too liberally!) from Reuben Steiger, CEO of Milllions of Us, a company that builds marketing campaigns and content for virtual worlds. Reuben: Storytelling is the bedrock of human culture. (Looking at a slide with a real campfire on the left and a user-created campfire in Second Life on the right) -- users in virtual worlds are recreating this storytelling tradition. I'm going to make a contention: the internet has failed as a storytelling medium. Instead, the norm is bathroom humor and ridiculous jokes. So virtual worlds: are they games or not? What defines a game -- linguists and semioticians get real worked up about it. The audience might say "virtual worlds are games without rules, competition, goals or fun." And it's hard to blame them. Extreme openness has defined virtual worlds, where fun can be in a way you define as opposed to what some game developer feels is fun. But the appeal of virtual worlds is that we can tell stories on a broader and less walled playing field.
Cinemassively: UES Insider - Noob to Knockout
Warner Brothers created a promotional Machinima showing the Metaverse Mod Squad making over a newbie in Second Life. It is narrated by Gossip Girl, the character in the TV show that anonymously blogs all the happenings in Manhattan's Upper East Side. She starts out by explaining that there was an asian-themed party for Blair Waldorf's 17th birthday. All of the familiar faces were there, but a mystery girl stood out in the crowd. They go on to show how she went from "noob to knockout."The video, created by WB Worldwide TV Marketing – New Media, in conjunction with Reitz-Lange Productions, is a fun look at what goes on in the Gossip Girl sims. However, it could have been so much better had they not left the UI in the shots. You can clearly see chat going on in the bottom left corner. Another complaint is that the press release calls it an "animated video." This is supposedly the first in "The Upper East Side Insider" series, so hopefully next time they'll call it what it is; Machinima.[Thanks, Stormy!]
