Will you be scared if you see a horde of tiny green armies raiding your commute station in the morning? The master of bizarre marketing ploys, HTC, has employed a more militant approach to its latest PR stunt. In a move apparently aimed at promoting the launch of a bunch of new Android phones (specifically the Flyer, Sensation, Incredible S, Desire S, and Wildfire S), the outfit meticulously filled railway stations in Antwerp, Brussels, and Namur with varied configurations of the little green monsters. More Android army pictures await you at the source link below.
Starting from the very first button press and the resulting cassette blasting the theme to Knight Rider, the video you see above may very well be the best beer commercial ever. It comes from Hahn Super Dry, which is our new favourite beer from Australia. Looks like we’ve found ourselves a new Australian word for beer…
Just in case gender-bending bodybuilders, beer-filled panthers and a ferret wearing a hair net weren’t enough awesome for you, pay special attention about 25 seconds into the commercial. Your eyes do not deceive you, that is indeed a DeLorean monster truck.
Magellan’s RoadMate GPS app has always been one of the better options within the App Store, and it just got a heck of a lot better with v2.0. One of the main reasons for sticking with Google Maps Navigation on the Android side is the availability of continually updated maps… at no charge.
Now, folks who split with $59.99 will get the newest build of RoadMate, which just so happens to have lifetime map updates, Yelp and Google local search. Curiously, those “lifetime” maps run out after three years, but well, your iPhone 4 won’t be staying long with you anyway once Steve announce the next iPhone in a few months’ time.
Amazon may not be shipping HP’s first webOS tablet until July 17th, but why wait? The outfit itself just affirmed that the long-awaited TouchPad will go on sale to eager Americans on July 1st, with the UK, Ireland, France and Germany a few days later (and Canada in mid-July).
Following that, a phased rollout will take it to Australia, Hong Kong, Italy, New Zealand, Singapore and Spain “later this year.” It’ll be on sale pretty much everywhere for $499.99 (16GB) / $599.99 (32GB) — or £399 / £479 across the pond — with pre-orders starting at your favorite e-tailer just ten days from today.
For those looking for a highly connected version HP also made clear that it’ll be partnering with AT&T for a 3G (or will it be “4G?”) edition later in the summer.
It looks like Apple has decided to make some pretty major changes to its App Store Review Guidelines — and, in particular, to its controversial in-app subscription policy. Under the new guidelines, publishers will be able to offer subscriptions to content outside of the App Store, as long as their apps don’t include a “buy” button that directs users away from Apple’s marketplace. Under the previous version of the policy, which was set to go into effect at the end of this month, app owners offering subscriptions outside of App Store were required to sell equivalent, in-app services at the “same price or less than it is offered outside the app,” while giving a 30 percent cut to Cupertino. Now, however, they can price these in-app subscriptions as they see fit, or circumvent the system altogether, by exclusively selling them outside of their apps. Apple will still receive 30 percent of the revenue generated from in-app subscriptions, but won’t get any money from purchases made outside of its domain. Theoretically, then, publishers would be able to offer in-app subscriptions at higher prices, in order to offset Apple’s share. This is how the new rules are worded:
11.13 Apps that link to external mechanisms for purchases or subscriptions to be used in the app, such as a “buy” button that goes to a web site to purchase a digital book, will be rejected
11.14 Apps can read or play approved content (specifically magazines, newspapers, books, audio, music, and video) that is subscribed to or purchased outside of the app, as long as there is no button or external link in the app to purchase the approved content. Apple will not receive any portion of the revenues for approved content that is subscribed to or purchased outside of the app.
It’s important to note, though, that Apple hasn’t made any changes to its policy on sharing user information. Publishers had been lobbying to gain access to subscribers’ credit card data and other personal information, which they see as critical to applying a TV Everywhere model to online publishing. With today’s concessions, though, these demands may become less insistent.
In a move that’s bound to get at least a few MADD moms smiling, Apple’s officially decided to block apps that encourage drunk driving. Section 22.8 of the newly revised App Store Review Guidelines reads:
Apps which contain DUI checkpoints that are not published by law enforcement agencies, or encourage and enable drunk driving, will be rejected.
That revision comes on the heels of a request from Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, asking that Google, Apple, and RIM yank offending apps from their respective mobile outlets. At the time, Google declined while RIM was quick to jump on the bandwagon, leaving Apple to stew. For now, it looks like the rest of us still have to keep our eyes out for Android users with a propensity for boozing and skirting the fuzz.
After just barely revealing that an Assassin’s Creed title is in the works for Nintendo’s Wii U, Ubisoft reps took to the Nintendo roundtable this evening and spoke to some of the features we’ll see in the still untitled game (we’re calling it “Assassin’s Cwiihd”).
Well, okay, first Ubisoft wanted to talk about the console itself. First and foremost, the Wii U has “powerful multi-core architecture” which allows Ubisoft to port its engines and assets directly over. And if you’re anything like us, you’re all about graphical shaders — you’ll be happy to know, then, that the Wii U is totally capable of handling that.
Beyond that, the game will, like previous AC titles, have the usual Eagle Vision sense ability. Specific to the Wii U, however, is an interactive map and database — presumably for use with the WiiPad — as well as some form of “alternative” puzzles solving. Ubi wouldn’t confirm whether the title will be Assassin’s Creed 3 or a Wii U version of Revelations or something else entirely.
Neither the single-player nor multiplayer modes of Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 are playable at this year’s E3, but Activision is running a demo for a brand new version of co-op that Infinity Ward is calling Spec Ops Survival. I say Infinity Ward is calling it that (and they are, because that’s its name), but given that this is multiplayer, it was probably developed in conjunction with Sledgehammer Games and/or Raven Software. Activision wasn’t completely clear on just how the co-development work is being divvied up, so we’re not sure who to credit for it. Read more…
It looks like Apple has decided to make some pretty major changes to its App Store Review Guidelines — and, in particular, to its controversial in-app subscription policy. Under the new guidelines, publishers will be able to offer subscriptions to content outside of the App Store, as long as their apps don’t include a “buy” button that directs users away from Apple’s marketplace. Under the previous version of the policy, which was set to go into effect at the end of this month, app owners offering subscriptions outside of App Store were required to sell equivalent, in-app services at the “same price or less than it is offered outside the app,” while giving a 30 percent cut to Cupertino. Now, however, they can price these in-app subscriptions as they see fit, or circumvent the system altogether, by exclusively selling them outside of their apps. Apple will still receive 30 percent of the revenue generated from in-app subscriptions, but won’t get any money from purchases made outside of its domain. Theoretically, then, publishers would be able to offer in-app subscriptions at higher prices, in order to offset Apple’s share. This is how the new rules are worded:
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