Digital Trends
The wireless industry trade association 3G Americas has announced new estimates from Informa Telecoms & Media for the number of active mobile connections in service around the world. The verdict? There are about 4 billion mobile connections in service around the world in December 2008, which, if one applies a little arithmetic, implies that some 60 percent of humanity has a cell phone.
The entertainment publication Variety reports that Pirates of the Caribbean director Gore Verbinski may be working to bring the Second Life virtual world to the big screen…although perhaps not in a way that would please Linden Labs. According to the paper, Verbinski and Universal have acquired the rights to a 2007 Wall Street Journal article detailing the case of a 53 year-old, married man who spent as much as 20 hours a day in Second Life, where he played the role of a buffed-out entrepreneur…with his own virtual relationship.
Last month, both Delta and American Airlines announced they would be offering in-flight Wi-Fi services on domestic flights via AirCell’s GoGo mobile broadband service. This month, in-flight Wi-Fi hops to the Great White North, with Air Canada announcing a deal to offer GoGo in-flight Wi-Fi on Airbus A319 planes that fly cross-border routes to the United States. The service should come online in spring 2009.
“Adding Air Canada as Aircell’s newest airline partner and first international customer will mark yet another milestone for our company,” said Aircell CEO and president Jack Blumenstein, in a statement. “As we continue to grow our U.S. network and explore our international expansion plans, Air Canada will have the distinction of being the first.”
For some folks, Memorex might be a name associated with hazy memories of VHS, cassette decks, or even (gasp!) reel-to-reel decks, but the company has long since transitioned to the digital age, producing optical media, flash drives, CD and DVD drives, and a plethora of accessories for many years now. Today, the company announced a new line of portable hard drives, the Essential TravelDrive series, complementing its existing flash-based Mega TravelDrive and HDD-based Ultra TravelDrive offerings.
Universal Studios has started the wheels rolling on creating a feature film based on the hit first-person shooter video game BioShock, with Pirates of the Caribbean’s Gore Verbinksi assigned to both direct and produce. Aviator writer John Logan is attached to write the first draft of the screenplay.
According to Variety, the deal is structured in such a way that BioShock won’t get stuck in a stagnant turnaround cycle (like Microsoft’s plans for a motion picture based on the Halo franchise); BioShock publisher Take-Two Interactive—which also handles the Grand Theft Auto franchise will receive a multi-million dollar advance against a percentage of gross revenue on the film.
Five Hollywood studios—Walt Disney, 20th Century Fox, Columbia Pictures, Paramount, and Universal—represented by the MPA have reached a settlement (PDF) with Beijing Jeboo Interactive Science & Technology Co. over setting up Internet cafes with software that enables customers to watch pirated versions of Hollywood movies. Among the movies available via the "Jeboo Bar" were Click,Hitch, and Pirates of the Caribbean 2: Dead Man’s Chest. Terms of the settlement weren’t released, Jeboo has apologized and will pay a "significant amount" in compensation to the studios.
If you like David and Goliath stories, the ongoing saga of Antigua’s battle with the US over online gambling is one you’ll relish. The tiny Caribbean island, which gains a lot ofits revenue from online gambling, has already won victories against the US at the World Trade Organization over the issue. The US has greatly restricted online gambling, which Antigua asserts breaksa free trade agreement. Recently the WTO arbitrators agreed and approved a landmark idea. Since Antigua can’t really put sanctions up against US goodand services, they could suspend their obligations to intellectual property rights. In other words, the island can take things like US software, which would normally be protected by copyright,and sell them without their protection. Under the arbitrator’s ruling, their trade loss is estimated at $21 million, slightly more than the $500,000 the US estimated, but a lot less than the$3.4 billion Antigua claimed. The panel reached the figure by basing it on compliance with US law. However, Mark Mendel, the attorney for Antigua in the case and the person who came up withthe idea of appropriating US intellectual property as a punishment, wasn’t happy at the figure. "What appears to have been done here is assuming a form of compliance that has nothappened and probably will not happen without giving Antigua the ability to contest the method under the WTO’s normal procedures," he said in a statement. But he did call the suspension ofintellectual property rights “a very potent weapon.” But one, no doubt, that Antigua will use.
Internet giant Yahoo and América Móvil have inked a deal that will bring Yahoo’s mobile data services—including Yahoo’s oneSearch—on mobile phones in 16 countries in Latin America and the Caribbean. América Móvil, based in Mexico City, is Latin America’s largest mobile phone operator, with over 140 million wireless users.
“Our partnerships with leading global operators like América Móvil are essential to expanding Yahoo’s mobile reach and demonstrates our commitment to working with partners to enhance consumers’ mobile Internet experience,” said Bruce Stewart, Yahoo’s VP and general manager for Connected Life Americas, in a statement.
Viacom’s MTV Networks and well-known television and movie producer Jerry Bruckheimer (CSI,Armageddon,Top Gun, the Pirates of the Caribbean trilogy, etc.) have inked a deal to launch a new video game development studio. The new units will operate with the existing MTV Games operation and work on developing new games and intellectual property that, of course, can be promoted and leveraged across the entire MTV broadcast and digital platforms.
The battle of evangelism between the Blu-ray and HD DVD high-definition disc camps saw another broadside today, as the Blu-ray Disc Association claims to have sold its one millionth Blu-ray movie in Europe, and cites "industry sales data" showing Blu-ray discs account for some 73 percent of all high-definition movie discs sold in Europe to date.
The Blu-ray Disc Association also announced that Blu-ray recorders account for 97 percent of the HD recorder market in Japan, and that HD DVD recorders have "failed to make any penetration into Japanese homes."
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