There are three games in development: Flags, Blocks and Hoops. The games are in prototype stage and there will be a series of playtests to develop the games. You can get involved in PlayStation Game Runners, where you can learn about the different games, meet the Game Runners and get involved. Fans are invited to comment on the games and support The Game Runners. The most popular game – as decided by the fans – will be selected and put forward into development and then put into action at a live event to be announced, where fans can try out the game for real. Details of the three games in development: Hoops is an urban adventure that takes the backyard past-time of shooting hoops to an intense new level. Played out across a large area, teams of eight must work together to discover hidden stashes of balls, find shooting points, and then get the ball through the hoop. There are many hoops hidden around the streets, so be on the look-out… Sometimes the player will be able to shoot the hoop in one throw; sometimes, the team will have to work together to pass the ball from the shooting point to the hoop. Many teams play simultaneously, so there are lots of chances for interceptions. This is a game where teamwork, communication and a good throwing arm are key… Blocks is a three-dimensional game of strategy and precision movement. Two opposing players take it in turns to place the blocks in a 2 x 2 tower. Every face of the block has a PlayStation symbol on it. When a player places a block, the symbols on all touching faces must match. Here’s the tricky bit: all the blocks are a little bit uneven, and so stacking a high tower gets harder and harder. The player who lets the tower topple, or who runs out of time to make a move, loses the game. You’ll need a logical mind and a steady hand to triumph! Flags is Noughts and Crosses transformed into a fun, social team game. Played on a 3 x 3 grid with a flag in the centre of each square, teams of three compete against one another to make a winning row. Players capture a flag by out-numbering their opponents on the square for a full ten-count. If you don’t get to ten, you don’t raise the flag… Flags begins as a fun and chaotic game. but players soon develop complex tactics to dominate squares. You’ll need great communication, quick thinking and fast movement if you want to succeed… Check out Game Runners on facebook to find out more and vote for your favourite.

The Serendipity – Search Axis You either search for content or you see it serendipitously without seeking anything specific. Search is actively initiated by the user and is goal-driven, while serendipitous discovery is gifted with the user being passive at the receiving end. This gives us our second axis:

The Filtering for Relevance Matrix (FORMAT) We combine these two axes to form the backbone of our visualization. We then place different services within our matrix as per their core filtering approach. The result is the Filtering FOR Relevance Matrix (FORMAT) as seen below:  

Let us now look at each quadrant closely. Popular – Search Quadrant This is the simplest and oldest of all. Search powered by algorithms to surface most popular content online. This also includes other Twitter search services like Topsy. These services are powered by algorithms such as PageRank, PersonRank, Resonance, etc. to surface the most popular result relevant to a query. This approach dominated the Web 1.0 era before the advent of the social web. Popular – Serendipity Quadrant Services in this category help you find the most popular content being shared online across different social networks. These were the next to evolve in the Web 2.0 era, beginning with social bookmarking services like Reddit, StumbleUpon, etc. There is an element of personalization provided by many of these, in that you “follow” some users, but the motive behind such following is less to seek personalized content, more to seek trending, viral content. Note how Digg is attempting to move from this quadrant to the personalized quadrant, and facing hurdles along the way. Search – Personalized Quadrant A breed of services has evolved around delivering personalized recommendations and content tailored for your needs. Hunch learns about you and acts as a “taste engine”, while Blekko allows you to personalize your searches with slashtags. Google is making forays in this space with its Social Search service, which tries to personalize search results based on your social graph. Personalized Serendipity Quadrant This is the hottest space where most of the competition is today. Twitter Lists are personalized (created by you) and deliver fresh, serendipitous content relevant to your interests. Facebook Likes give you serendipitous discovery from your personal friends. Flipboard provides a social magazine based on your personal social circle on Facebook and Twitter. My6sense delivers new content using ‘Digital Intuition’. Vertical networks like Last.fm deliver music recommendations based on your individual taste. Personalized Twitter newspapers give you fresh content filtered by your social graph on Twitter. Note how Datasift lies at the center of the matrix. This is because Datasift is a platform providing different filtering services and approaches. Developers may use the platform to develop different services and apps that can lie in any of these quadrants. How does FORMAT help? So what is the point of this exercise? Using FORMAT:

We see the big picture of how services providing relevance and filtering are evolving. We see how personalized serendipity is the holy grail of the social web right now. We see how different services relate to each other and who is competing with whom and how. We see how identifying the target quadrant is important for any new startup in this space. We see how users provide friction when a service tries to change quadrants (Digg).

If you are involved in a startup aiming to provide filtered, relevant content to users, which quadrant would you target? See how FORMAT helps?

That brings us back to the latest example of Sony’s particular brand of crazy: music streaming. Despite the fact that there are other perfectly good music streaming applications out there, Sony has created one of their own. The new service, called Music Unlimited, is designed to work with many of Sony’s existing products to provide access to millions of stored tracks via the internet. I can’t really see a widespread adoption of Music Unlimited, unless they make it the only option to purchasers of their products. Sony announced this new service last night at the IFA show, just hours before Apple announced their latest and greatest. Brilliant. [via DeepTech]

[Thanks, Stephen]Amazon streaming 99-cent ABC and Fox shows... right now originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 01 Sep 2010 17:28:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.Permalink | Email this | Comments

Update: You asked for them, so we added the PS3, Xbox 360 & WDTV Live as well, after the break.

        Device:
        AppleTV
        Roku XR
        Pop Box
        LG BD550









        Price:
        $99
        $99
        $129
        $130 - $150


        Form Factor/Size:
        3.9 x 0.9 x 3.9
        5 x 5 x 1.75
        8 x 1.4 x 6 inches
        16.9 x 1.8 x 7.9


        Available Content:
        HD TV shows from ABC & Fox ($0.99), HD Movie rentals ($4.99/$3.99), Netflix, iTunes, YouTube
        Netflix, Amazon VOD (now with $0.99 HD TV show purchases from Fox & ABC), MLB.tv, UFC, NBA GameTime, YouTube, Pandora
        YouTube, Revision3, Blip.tv, h.264 / XviD / MPEG-4, MKV / AVI / WMV
        Blu-ray discs, VUDU, Netflix, CinemaNow, YouTube, Pandora, Napster


        Apps / SDK:
        N/A
        Roku Channel / SDK available
        Popapps Store / SDK available
        NetCast widgets


        Connectivity:
        WiFi N, Ethernet
        WiFi N, Ethernet
        Ethernet, optional WiFi adapter
        Ethernet, Disc


        Video Quality:
        720p, 5.1 audio
        720p (1080p upgrade coming soon), 5.1 audio
        1080p, 5.1 audio
        1080p, 7.1 audio, DTS-HD MA / Dolby TrueHD audio

Continue reading Apple TV vs. the competition -- how does it stack up?Apple TV vs. the competition -- how does it stack up? originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 01 Sep 2010 18:14:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.Permalink   |   | Email this | Comments

TV and film streaming on a subscription basis has been Netflix’s turf for a while now (sorry, Blockbuster). But Amazon may be looking to change that, according to sources speaking anonymously to the Wall Street Journal.

The Journal reports that Amazon has been proposing a web-based subscription service for TV shows and movies to a bunch of media companies, including NBC, Time Warner and Viacom. The service would be viewable on the web as well as through devices like the Xbox, Roku and Internet-ready TVs.

At least one version of the proposal suggested that the offering might be bundled with the Amazon Prime service. That subscriber base would consist of people who give Amazon $79 a year for free two-day delivery on physical media — i.e., not exactly the audience you’d imagine as early adopters of a streaming video service — but it would help them launch with a bang.

This would be on top of Amazon’s current VOD service, which we thought might have been planning a redesign due to some recent job postings for designers. But a new streaming service would also potentially explain this.

One ironic twist in this potential faceoff between Amazon and Netflix is that Netflix relies on Amazon’s cloud services to power its website and recommendations engine. Anyone want to place their bets now?

Photo courtesy of Flickr user markg6.

Related GigaOm Pro Content (subscription required): Three Reasons Over-The-Top TV Apps Will Beat Big-Cable

Eagle-eyed viewers might have also noticed we've added a new category to the trends page: clicked trends - now you can see which sources you click on the most. And finally, something many of you have asked for before...we now show you your lifetime read item count. That's right. Every. Single.* Item.**

*Only things you've scrolled by, or clicked on - doesn't count mark all as read. **Okay, that's not quite accurate - once you hit around 300K (which we know some of you are already over) we stop counting for performance reasons. Consider that "beating the game".

CrunchBase InformationGoogle ChromeInformation provided by CrunchBase

Eine Plattform, die sich zum Finden, Sammeln und Aufbereiten von Nachrichten eignet ist das ausreichnd bejubelte Flipboard, das leider auf die iPhone nicht funktioniert, weshalb ich die Jubelarien nur aus zweiter Hand weiter geben kann. Nicht nur auf dem iPhone, sondern auch mit einer Android-App kommt Pulse daher, das für 1,59 Euro auch auf dem iPhone funktioniert. Und zwar so:

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