Rise of the YouTube Video Games?

YouTube is a wonderful promotional tool for video games, among other things, but as a gaming platform itself? A couple creative examples show that it’s possible.

To promote both the Chrome Web browser and Adobe Flash, which is now integrated into the browser, Google put together Chrome Fastball. It’s a set of simple mind games using APIs from other websites, all strung together by video clips of a Rube Goldberg device. So, at one point you must answer a trivia question on Twitter (anonymously), and at another point choose the best way to travel between two points on a map. Each successful answer moves your ball along the contraption towards the finish line. It’s a cute little game that actually works just fine in other browsers, too.

The funny thing is, Chrome Fastball isn’t the only YouTube game I played today. To celebrate the premiere of Twilight: Eclipse, Benny and Rafi Fine created Twlight Eclipse: The 8-Bit Interactive Game. This series of YouTube videos is actually a choose-your-adventure with NES-style animations and audio. At the end of each clip, players must make decisions that send them on multiple branching paths. It’s a nice way to waste an afternoon even if you’re not into young adult vampire drama (I still can’t believe that’s a genre).

Obviously, YouTube can’t have full-blown games with controllable avatars, because it just wouldn’t be YouTube anymore at that point. But there’s potential to do some clever things with the interactivity YouTube does allow, as these games show.

One last note: Both games back up Google’s point that Flash is still relevant; neither one works on the iPhone’s HTML 5 version of YouTube.

Dis-Kin-Tinued: Microsoft’s Social Phone is Dead

Microsoft is confirming for us what you may have already read elsewhere: after only two short months on the market, the Microsoft Kin line has officially been killed. Here’s the official statement:

“We have made the decision to focus exclusively on Windows Phone 7 and we will not ship KIN in Europe this fall as planned. Additionally, we are integrating our KIN team with the Windows Phone 7 team, incorporating valuable ideas and technologies from KIN into future Windows Phone releases. We will continue to work with Verizon in the U.S. to sell current KIN phones.”

While the Kin certainly made some waves when Verizon cut the prices of the phones in half just two days ago, I figured Microsoft would give the device some time to see if it catches on. Sales for this device must have just been so dismal that it wasn’t even worth it to give it a chance, which is a shame because at least I saw it having some potential.

Continue reading this story…

Amazon May Have Lost $9.2 Million in Sales Due to Outage

For some on Tuesday afternoon, visiting Amazon may have been a shock. Its pages were devoid of products, its search functions malfunctioning, its shopping cart unusable. For some unknown reason, one of the web’s largest retailers was out of commission for almost three hours, the longest the site has ever been down for any reason.

The site has yet to specify exactly what happened. But within minutes of the first signs of trouble, thousands across Twitter began reporting that the company’s pages suddenly went blank. For a site that averages some $51,400 in sales and revenue every minute, the downtime could have cost Amazon a stunning $9.2 million dollars.

Amazon is not responding to press’ requests for a better explanation, only calling it a “technical difficulty” that impacted the U.S. version of the site. It’s only the fourth major outage in the 15-year history, with the others happening in 1999, 2006, and 2008.

Are Amazon’s tight lips about the cause of the outage bad for its business? Barron’s Eric Savitz says yes. “It certainly seems odd to me that Amazon has taken what appear to be a defensive and closed-mouth stance on an issue so basic to its customers: the ability to simply use the site,” he argues. “Jeff Bezos, your customers deserve better.”

What’s Next For Android?

Rumors from a Russian podcast about “Gingerbread,” the next major upgrade to Android, supposedly due in October. My favorite new feature: a radically revamped user interface…

Amazon HTML5-izes Kindle

This is intriguing: Amazon is saying that it will soon roll out the ability to view Kindle books in an HTML5-capable browser–complete with fancy formatting, color pictures, and rich media.

Its initial use of this capability isn’t that big a whoop–it’ll let book lovers sample a tome in their browser before buying it for consumption on a Kindle e-reader, smartphone, or other device. But there’s presumably no reason why the company couldn’t expand on the idea with a fully cloud-based incarnation of Kindle. What if you could pay a flat monthly fee for streaming access to all the books you could read?

Verizon iPhone Questions

Over at ZDNet, my friend Sam Diaz has some good questions about the impact of Verizon’s iPhone, assuming it exists…

The State of iPad Satisfaction

Long before anyone knew much of anything about the iPad, people were expressing strong opinions about it. But the opinions that matter most didn’t begin to get formed until April 3rd, the day Apple’s tablet finally went on sale. That’s when teeming masses of consumers spent their own money on iPads, took them home, and put them to an array of utterly real-world tests.

We gave those folks a few weeks to explore their new gadgets. And then we fielded a survey earlier this month to gauge the satisfaction level of  some of the first iPad owners. More than six thousand people responded, the largest response to a Technologizer survey to date.

Executive summary in case you don’t feel like reading the rest of this article: They like it. A lot. Ninety-eight percent say they’re satisfied with their iPads overall; ninety-six percent think it’s a good value. In category after category–3G service, most of the individual bundled apps, battery life, speed, the absence of Flash–a majority of respondents are pleased.

Continue reading this story…

Supreme Court Leaves Software Patent Issues Unanswered

Yesterday, the Supreme Court handed down a long awaited decision on a patent case that could have changed how or whether software patents are granted. Ultimately, little changed, except that the Court’s decision was at odds with 150 years of patent law, says a legal expert.

The Court’s Bilski v. Kappos decision could have invalidated many software patents had it accepted a Federal circuit court’s “machine or transformation” test for what is patentable. Proponents of the lower court’s decision had hoped that the high court would finally bring an end to excessive patent litigation and eliminate questionable patents that they say can slow the pace of innovation in technology.

The Bilski case involved a patent claim for a business method for hedging risks in commodities trading. The Justices affirmed the lower court’s decision that the Bilski patent was too abstract and therefore un-patentable. However, it did not accept the machine or transformation test, thus failing to provide any guidance to government patent examiners, defendants, or patent filers.

Continue reading this story…

Playstation Plus: Required for Hulu Plus?

Hulu Plus may cost a bit extra — the price of a Playstation Plus subscription, actually — when the service comes to Playstation 3 in July, according to some language hidden in one of Hulu’s Web pages.

I stumbled upon the evidence when double checking that neither Sony nor Hulu had acknowledged the other’s subscription service. Hulu did announce upcoming support for Playstation 3, but a lack of details made me wonder why Playstation Plus, which launched today, wasn’t mentioned at all; some sort of deal for PS Plus subscribers seems like a no brainer. (If you’re not caught up on either of these services, by the way, see Harry’s post on Hulu Plus or Sony’s rundown of Playstation Plus).

Just to be sure I didn’t miss anything, I did a quick Google search, and found this (see the second result):

The text of the second result comes from the page source of Hulu Plus’ device page, and appears in Google’s search results even though it doesn’t show up on the website itself. “The instructions below will help you install Hulu Plus on your PS3,” the hidden language says. “Note: you must be a subscriber of the Playstation Plus Network.”

The next few lines describe a “Playstation 3 Activation Procedure,” in which you go to the Playstation Store and redeem a download code that lets you install a Hulu Plus application. View my screen grab of the page source if you like.

So it looks like Hulu Plus won’t be available to PS3 owners without a Playstation Plus subscription, which costs $50 per year or $18 per month for three months. That seems like a raw deal, considering that Netflix doesn’t cost anything extra on the Playstation 3 (it does require an Xbox Live Gold subscription on Xbox 360, and Microsoft has already confirmed that the same rule will apply to Hulu Plus when it arrives on Xbox 360 early next year). Still, it’s not clear whether PS Plus subscribers will get a deal on Hulu content, or if it costs the same $10 per month as everyone else.

I’ve pinged Sony and Hulu for clarification and will post an update if I hear anything.

Update: Apparently, the text is not hidden to people who already have a Hulu Plus preview invite, as one Kotaku reader reported after reading about our coverage. If that’s the case, I’m not sure why Hulu or Sony PR haven’t said anything.

Update 2: “We don’t comment on rumors and speculation which is all that is at this point,” Sony told G4 (but not us).

Is There a Verizon iPhone? Definitely, Reportedly

Bloomberg’s Amy Thomson is reporting that unnamed sources have told her that Verizon Wireless will begin selling the iPhone in January of 2011. She seems pretty sure they’re right–so much so that part way through the story, she stops couching the possibility in language like “people familiar with the plans said”  and treats it as a done deal.

I hope she’s right, and maybe she is. I mean, odds are that somebody will report this news and be accurate sooner or later. But so far, Apple-Verizon rumors–including some as convincing-sounding as Thomson’s–have an unblemished record of resulting in absolutely nothing. After the jump, a little nostalgia from 2007 through earlier this year.

Continue reading this story…

Hulu’s For-Pay Service is Official. You Excited?

Speaking of browser-based entertainment services that are branching out: Hulu has finally announced its plans for a for-pay version of its extremely popular TV service. Hulu Plus will cost $9.99 a month and provide full access to entire seasons (current and past) of shows from ABC, NBC, FOX, and other TV networks. And it’ll be the first version of the service that’s available on devices that aren’t PCs, including the iPhone 4, iPhone 3G, iPod Touch, iPad, Playstation 3, Xbox 360, and TVs and Blu-Ray players from Samsung, Sony, and Vizio. (That helps explain why Hulu has done everything in its power to prevent other companies such as Boxee from letting their users watch Hulu shows.)

Hulu says that the freebie, ad-supported version of the service isn’t going away–it’ll just offer fewer episodes, and won’t be available on a cornucopia of gadgets.

Continue reading this story…

MOG Headed for the iPhone, Android, and Roku

Music service MOG has a number of attractive features, including Rhapsody-like on-demand access to albums and tracks, “artist stations” that only play songs by the artist in question, and a low price ($4.99 a month for unlimited streaming). It’s also had one major limitation: It’s only been available in your browser. But MOG has plans to change that, starting next month.

As TechCrunch’s Jason Kincaid is reporting, MOG says that Apple has approved a MOG app for the iPhone–one that lets you stream or download any song from its catalog. It intends to release the iPhone app and a similar Android one in July, and to charge $9.99 for all-you-can-listen access in the browser and on a phone. (That’s low by historic standards, but the same price that Rhapsody charges for a plan that lets you listen online and on one mobile device.)

July should also see the debut of a version of MOG for Roku’s cool, inexpensive TV set-top box. Unlimited on-demand Roku listening will be included in the basic $4.99 plan; for music fans who want to listen a lot without spending a lot, it sounds like a deal.

Apple Facing Possible Lawsuit Over iPhone 4 Antenna

California-based law firm Kershaw, Cuttiner, and Ratinoff is asking for customers with iPhone 4 signal reception issues to contact it, likely signaling the beginnings of a class-action suit against Apple over the issues. An announcement was posted to their site this week.

The reception problem looks like it won’t be going anytime soon. While some have tried to argue that the problems are related to iOS4 itself, it seems highly unlikely it’s a software issue alone. With Apple confirming that the metal band around the phone does serve as an antenna, it seems only logical that any interference(including putting your hand over it) would impact signal quality.

Google Pulls a Hail Mary in China

Earlier this year, Google killed its censored version in China and began redirecting users on the mainland to its uncensored Hong Kong engine. Now it’s saying that the Chinese government is unhappy with this approach and that Google’s license to run a Web site will likely expire as of the end of this month. But it’s trying a last-ditch workaround: Giving Chinese users a page with various services that the government doesn’t find objectionable, plus a link to the Hong Kong search engine.

I hope it works–but even if it doesn’t, I admire what Google is doing.

Kindle for Android: Basic, But Still Welcome

On Sunday night, Amazon began embedding audio and/or video in a handful of Kindle e-books for the iPhone and iPad. On Monday, it released a Kindle e-reader for Android phones–and it can’t play those sounds and movies. As with other first incarnations of Kindle apps, it gets the job done but feels a bit bare bones: For instance, if you tap on your phone’s Search button while you’re reading a book, you get a message saying that search is coming soon.

This is still good news for Android handset owners–especially ones who (like me) have already invested in Kindle e-books. It also cements Kindle’s position as the most widely-deployed of the e-reading apps associated with a major book merchant: You can read Kindle books on Amazon’s devices, PCs, Macs, iPhones (and iPod Touches), iPads, BlackBerries, and now Android phones. ePub, championed by Barnes & Noble, Sony, and others is more theoretically open, but it’s kind of moot so long as everyone wraps their e-books up in copy protection and Amazon’s books work with the widest variety of hardware.

Comments Under Construction

If you’re a regular in Technologizer’s comments, you may have spotted a new look today: We’ve switched from plain old vanilla WordPress comments to IntenseDebate, a much fancier system that, like WordPress itself, is a product of our pals at Automattic. It brings a bevy of new features with it, including threading (so you can reply to a particular comment) and the ability to log in using your Facebook or Twitter account. (As before, you can long in with a WordPress.com ID, or comment without registering for or logging into anything.) We’re also displaying tweets that refer to a particular post along with the comments on it.

One of the best things about IntenseDebate is that it’s highly customizable. So let me know what you think–I expect to tweak our setup a bit in the days to come.