super bowl xlv
Latest
Super Bowl XLV Blu-ray hits shelves next week
While we wait to find out if there will be a 2012 NFL season, Green Bay fans can keep celebrating with the NFL Super Bowl XLV Champions: Green Bay Packers Blu-ray disc that ships March 8th. Produced by NFL Films we expect it will maintain the usual standards of excellence while recapping the Packers' run to the championship and including a few Blu-ray exclusive features in Shots of the Year, Players Wired for Sound and Coaches Wired for Sound. Check after the break for more details and the back of the box. MSRP is $34.99, but Amazon and most other places are currently showing preorders for $25.99.
Angry Birds ties into Super Bowl ad with secret level hint
During the Super Bowl game last night, you may have seen an ad for a soon-to-be-released animated feature called Rio. Cleverly tied into that advertisement was a way to get access to a secret level in that special app installed on just about every iPhone, iPad, Mac and iPod touch in the universe: Angry Birds. If you happened to be watching closely about 26 seconds into the 32 second ad, you would have seen the infamous red bird, a golden egg and the numbers 13-12 on a wall behind a couple of characters from the movie. According to ex-TUAW blogger and current Mashable writer Christina Warren (Hi, C-Mac!), to uncover a special golden egg, you need to go to level 13-12, shoot a white bird backwards and then drop an egg (I am not making this up). Performing this arcane ritual will reward the patient Angry Birds player with a football-shaped golden egg. Completing the game level gives you the opportunity to enter a contest to attend the Rio premiere. Let's make sure it's an Apple fan (and hopefully a TUAW reader) who is walking the red carpet the night of the premiere. Rovio, the publisher of Angry Birds, will also be delivering a special Rio version of the game when the film is released on March 22, 2011. Check out the ad video on the next page if you think that we may have Photoshopped the image seen at the top of this post.
Super Bowl XLV Media Day: Packers split on iOS / Android, Cowboys CIO talks mobility
We woke up this morning in Dallas to 20 degree temperatures and a parking lot covered in ice. Not exactly the kind of weather the NFL was hoping for when it selected the new Cowboys Stadium to host Super Bowl XLV, but it didn't stop both teams and media from making their way -- however slowly -- to Arlington for Super Bowl Media Day. Naturally, the likes of ESPN were there in full force, but rather than picking apart defensive schemes and seeing who could outgun Troy Polamalu for the longest mane in North Texas, we spent our time asking about mobile OS preferences and soaking up knowledge from Cowboys CIO Pete Walsh. With a price tag well north of $1 billion on the new Cowboys Stadium, the home to the world's largest HD display is certainly one of the most technologically advanced in the world. It's packing 884 wireless access points throughout (not to mention an internal network operations center that constantly monitors activity on each one), 260 miles of fiber optic cabling, capacity to handle over 100,000 simultaneous wireless connections, over 3,100 IPTVs and micro cell towers for each major carrier within -- you know, so that kickoff video that just can't wait actually sees its way onto YouTube prior to the start of the second half. Head on past the break to catch of a video of us talking smartphone platforms with Green Bay Packers center Scott Wells, as well as a lengthy (and insightful) interview with the Chief Information Officer of the Dallas Cowboys. Everything from the Cowboys' rejection of FanVision to their hopes to blanket the stadium with gratis WiFi is covered, and we're even given a hint that contactless payments and mobile food ordering systems could be just a season or so away. %Gallery-115523%
Steelers win Madden 11 Super Bowl simulation
Computers can be used to calculate all sorts of truly helpful data ... or they can be used to simulate the Super Bowl. If you're going to use processing power to predict the outcome of a sporting event, then you'd better be pretty darned accurate if you hope to maintain any semblance of a reasonable use of life (it still takes human people to run, recap and even report on -- hi there! -- the simulation). EA Sports' Madden games have at least been that, accurately calling the winner of six of the last seven Super Bowls. This year, Madden 11 sees the Pittsburgh Steelers defeating the Green Bay Packers 24-20 in Super Bowl XLV, which sounds like a good enough guess. But now, do you put money on that? (After the break, delve into the video highlights and box score ... of the simulated game.) Also vying for "reasonability" will be this Thursday's Madden Bowl XVII (wait -- there have already been sixteen of these?). The annual tournament of NFL players gamers whose seasons have been reduced to playing as themselves will be broadcast live on ESPN3 (on your Xbox Dashboard) at 9PM ET, February 3. Hey Niners fans, did you know Alex Smith* has won a record two Madden Bowls? That's the same number of Super Bowl rings that Roethlisberger has -- well, until Sunday's victory, according to Madden. [*Update: Oops! Sorry to get your hopes up San Francisco faithful -- it's Alex Smith the tight end (currently playing for the Cleveland Browns) who holds the Madden Bowl record. Alex Smith the quarterback has never participated in the event.] %Gallery-115477%
Totally blow out the big game! Super Bowl XLV
It's been confirmed, Super Bowl XLV will not be the first one with a full HD 3D broadcast (no gimmicky 3D commercials this year either, you can put the paper glasses away) despite featuring a halftime show by James Cameron's BFFs, the Black Eyed Peas. Still, considering what happened the last time they tried 3D at the House That Jerry Jones Built it's probably for the best. Still, just because you don't have one of Cowboys Stadium's record breaking HD screens you should still enjoy the game in style. In 2011 that means going beyond just the screen, the sounds and the seats -- we'll tell you how after the break.
