USA today
Latest
A million bajillion crossword games for the DS
We hope that many of you flocked to stores this week to get Barnyard Blast. If so, or if you're a fan of crosswords, you might be happy to know that the same developer (Sanuk Games) is coming out with Crossword Challenge. Or, you might be thinking, "Another crossword game?" Aside from the New York Times title, Nintendo is coming out with one in May. Then there are iterations using The Sun's crosswords and a USA Today's. So, in other words, five games. If you speak Japanese, there's also Compile Heart's release.We don't mind an oversaturated crossword market, though. New York Times puzzles can be too hard, Nintendo ones might be too easy, The Sun's will be too trashy, and USA Today's crosswords are always too similar. In our opinion, there's definitely a place for this Sanuk Games project.Of course, whether there's room in the market is another question. The New York Times rendition came out long ago, but surely sales for the other four will eat into each other, with (we think) Nintendo's being the most successful. Whether or not the publishers do well, though, there's no doubt that with competition, the consumer always wins.
USA TODAY LIVE partners with MOJO HD, Versus for series-based programming
Though many of you may not be familiar with the "television arm of the USA TODAY brand," USA TODAY LIVE is announcing a new partnership with the likes of MOJO HD and Versus (and Fuse, for what it's worth) in order to pump out a smorgasbord of series-based programming in 2008. Up first is City Limits Fishing, a six-part weekly series (starting February 15th) on Versus that highlights world class fishing spots within some of America's most bustling cities. If that's not your bag, you can check out the ten-part Gotta Get Gold series on MOJO HD (starting July 28th), which concentrates on "what it takes to train and to compete at the highest levels in athletics." For more details on each show as well as what's available through Fuse, hit up the read link below.[Via TVover]
Mac consumer marketshare doubles since 2004?
Over at Mac Daily News, they're citing a USA Today article which indicates that Apple's "home computer market share" hit 7.6% in May 2007, up from 3.2% in May 2004. MDN says "we assume that the market share number came from USA Today research." Presumably this number is for the US and obviously focuses on consumers rather than businesses, but this feels right to me. We've already mentioned that sales are way up and Mac shipments are up 30%. Let the Mac train roll on![via Digg]
USA Today calls out Sony: 'from top dog to underdog in record time'
USA Today, who purports to have the widest circulation of any newspaper in the United States, published a story today discussing Sony's fall from an almost monopolistic first place with the PlayStation 2 to less-than-stellar sales with the PlayStation 3.Drawing from the February NPD figures, writer Mike Snider places Sony in third place with 127,000 in PS3 unit sales, behind home consoles Xbox 360 (228,000) and Nintendo Wii (335,000). This is in addition to anecdotal evidence that the PlayStation 3 is easily available in stores while the Wii is still hard to find. Total Wii sales in the U.S. are estimated to 1.9 million while Sony has 1.1 million.Newsweek's N'Gai Croal chimes in on reasons for Sony's ranking, including price, software lineup and negative press. Of course, early runnings mean nothing long-term, and the PlayStation 3 could easily pick up steam following release of heavy-hitting games, PS Home and a possible price drop. Still, when you got one of the biggest newspapers giving less-than-complimentary status reports it can't be good for business.
Select subscribers getting TiVoCast web-based programming
Following last month's deal with web video publisher Brightcove, TiVo has announced another round of partnerships that will bring various on-demand video clips to broadband-equipped Series 2 owners, with a new service called TiVoCast. The company has been making moves in this direction for some time now, but this is the first time we're being offered content that we'd actually bother watching, including NBA and WNBA highlights, New York Times-produced video (featuring David Pogue's often-humorous reviews), advice from CNET, and a dose of hip hop culture from H2O, along with male- and female-targeted programming from Heavy.com and iVillage, respectively. The new content -- accessible from the "Showcases" screen when it begins appearing next month -- will not be available to everyone, however, as USA Today is reporting that neither DirecTV subscribers nor Comcast customers will have access to any of these value-added TiVoCast downloads.
Getting more HD through the same old cable; CableCard on the outs?
That's the problem cable providers are facing, as we keep pushing for more channels and capacity keeps...staying the same. USA Today had a nice writeup today concerning the problems faced as they try to add more channels and features to compete with satellite television providers, and a couple different ways they can solve them. Unfortunately for CableCard DVR and television users, one of the proposed solutions "switched digital" would make their cards useless and force them into using a digital cable box. As TV works now, every channel is sent to you all the time, the proposed solution changes things so that you are only sent the channel you are currently watching. Time Warner has implemented the technology in a few areas already, while Cox and Cablevision are looking into it. The other workaround means stripping channels from analog cable packages, and replacing them with high definition channels.This conundrum may explain the sudden disappearance of CableCard, as manufacturers wait for the 2.0 standard instead of throwing in a feature that may soon be obsolete anyway.
USA Today moron: "Boot Camp to cause exodus to Windows"
Andrew Kantor has posted a pretty darn funny piece of satire at USA Today based on the idea that Boot Camp is actually going to cause Mac users to switch over to Windows (ok, maybe it isn't 'satire.' Maybe it's 'saying anything he can for page views'). I have to hand it to Andrew - if this article wasn't obviously a clever piece of humor, he would instead have what could quite possibly be an educated, insightful and altogether accurate argument for why Mac OS X users should simply replace their cumbersome, overpriced and useless Macs with a Windows PC from, say, Gateway.Andrew, I gotta tip my hat - you really know how to hit the nail on the head. Once I used Windows on my friend's MacBook Pro "long enough to be deprogrammed," I'm already on the hunt for the nearest garbage can to dump the PowerBook I (begrudgingly) am typing this on right now. Anyone have the sales phone number for eMachines?
Mainstream media nails it!
Well done Kim Komando of USA Today. Well done. Projectors can be a great option for some consumers that seeks a HUGE screen but have space requirements. (and a budget) But they can be daunting because of the huge price range ($800 - $15,000) but Kim did a great job laying out most of the things you need to look for. She goes over LCD, DLP, and CRT options and talks about how important lumens is. Kim even talks about their Achilles heal: the pricey bulb.Ms. Komando covers most of what a person should look for but forgot to cover the different resolution. A lot of lower priced units do not produce a high enough resolution to be considered high-def. They will display the same image, but will do so by lowering the resolution of the signal to its native resolution. You can find good inexpensive projectors for under a thousand that does have a good resolution however; just stay away from the 800x600 units if you want to use it for HDTV.Check out Kim's guide to projectors if you have any questions about these mini-giants of TVs.
Watch Bubble in the theater, on DVD and on cable, but not if you live in New Jersey
Or any of the other dozen states where movie theaters have refused to show the movie, fighting like the Luddites they are to protect their antiquated way of doing business. Director Steven Soderbergh, in partnership with our friend Mark Cuban and others is releasing his new movie "Bubble" ("the weirdest goddamn movie ever released by a major American filmmaker.") in theater, on cable and on DVD on the same day, giving viewers the choice of how they want to experience it from the beginning, instead of artificial time delays between each step.Immediate (or close to it) digital distribution is the future, and these theaters are silly to fight it. If they had any sense, they'd sell copies o the DVD on the way out. if they had offered me a copy of The Island as I exited the theater, I would have gladly dropped $20 more on top of what I had just spent on a ticket and popcorn. Any HDBeat readers live in states that won't be getting a choice of how they want to see their movies?
