Media Watcher

Many have reckoned "this is it!" and that Facebook will change the course of video games online. As per new study, this is NOT now the case.

MCV reports that IHS Screen Digest Media Research found that from the end of 2010 through 2011, gaming on social media declined 50 percent.

There have been rumors circulating that Apple will be releasing the next iPad 3 which will debut on March 7. This time around it will be 4G ready, and it will be available through Verizon and AT&T. The Wall Street Journal reported Tuesday. What excites Apple fanatics is that Apple is testing a smaller, 8-inch iPad to compete with Amazon's 7-inch Kindle Fire. The smaller iPad would also come at a lower price than Apple's standard 10-inch model.

The iPad 3 is rumored to have 2048-by-1536-pixel Retina display, a quad-core A6 processor and 4G LTE networking. The system-on-a-chip A6 would double the power of the iPad 2's A5 dual-core processor.

A cop who was framed for criminal activity and feels like there's no more reason to live. Urged by his suicidal tendency, threaten to commit suicide by jumping from a Manhattan hotel rooftop. The nearest New York Police officer immediately responds to a screaming women and calls dispatch. More Officers arrive with swat and tactical command along with FDNY. The NYPD then dispatches a female police psychologist personally requested to talk him down from the ledge. Elizabeth Banks plays the negotiator who tries to talk him out of it. However, unknown to the NYPD on the scene, the suicide attempt is a cover up for the biggest diamond heist ever pulled. The question is, will he jump from the ledge or calm down? Be ready to journey on a roller coaster ride of many twists and turns and see what happens!

Knowing where to click and what to click is a powerful aspect on the Internet or on any online interfaces/applications. It's called familiarity. Users want to know where things fit on the screen. Improvements -- no matter how helpful -- often provoke some resistance.

Facebook users, again, experienced a major update on Wednesday. The News Feed that displays other users' status updates has been changed to show real-time news or updates from friends. It is now tailored to how often a user visits the site. Updates are now ranked by factors that allow users to mark certain posts as top stories instead of simply displaying the most recent news.

Microsoft's Windows 8 operating system, as planned, will arrive on both tablets and traditional PCs, yet poses a big problem to developers entailing that they may have a lot of work ahead of them if they want their apps to run on both kinds of systems (old OS and Win 8). Different kinds of processors and different types of user interfaces may make for a complicated learning curve.

Over half a million copies of the developer preview of Windows 8 have been downloaded, according to Microsoft. The tablet versions of Windows 8 apps will be built for the OS's Metro user interface, and the Metro version of the Internet Explorer browser will not include Flash or other plug-ins. Further, they will run on devices powered by ARM (Nasdaq: ARMHY) processors, while the desktop version of Windows 8 will run on x86 PCs. That means developers will have to create two versions of Windows 8 apps if they want them to run across the two different platforms which entails that the rise of Windows 8 poses a problem for apps developers.

The lack of Flash support in Metro will not be a problem because "Windows apps today do not use Flash; they're written in native languages on Windows," Hilwa said.

By The Associated Press Posted 1:47PM 05/01/11

See full article from DailyFinance: http://srph.it/l6FuUS

Sony executives bowed in apology Sunday for a security breach in the company's PlayStation Network that caused the loss of personal data of some 77 million accounts on the online service.

"We deeply apologize for the inconvenience we have caused," said Kazuo Hirai, chief of Sony Corp.'s PlayStation video game unit, who was among the three executives who bowed for several seconds at the company's Tokyo headquarters in the traditional style of a Japanese apology.

Plot Summary: Made for about $15,000, "Paranormal Activity" became a box office sensation as it earned $151 million worldwide. Similar to "Paranormal Activity", the second film is presented in the style of found footage from the camera set up to capture what is haunting the residents. However, little has been known about the plot for the upcoming horror since the official synopsis has not been released yet.

"Paranormal Activity 2" is made as the follow-up to "Paranormal Activity" which is nominated for "best first feature" in the Independent Spirit Awards 2009. The first film follows a young couple who is haunted by a supernatural presence in their home. Tod Williams directs "Paranormal Activity 2", replacing Oren Peli who now serves a producer alongside Jason Blum. Following the warm reception of the predecessor, the upcoming film will get wide release in the U.S. on October 22.

Plot Summary: Winner of the Audience Award at the 2009 Slamdance Film Festival, this uproarious and smart new comedy tells the story of Henry Phillips, a hapless modern day troubadour who grinds his way through the heartland, living out of his car and singing his twisted satirical songs to anyone who will listen. After a booking mishap involving a Christian fundraiser, he decides he's hit rock bottom.

Seeking to shake things up, he moves to L.A. where his luck changes overnight. Thanks less to his inept manager than to a wild case of mistaken identity, he falls backwards into a string of packed gigs, a record deal and even the promise of love. But he who lives by the whimsy of show business dies by it, and reality hits him like a fist in the face: an innocent miscommunication over a bagel starts a vicious rumor about him in the tabloids. Luckily, somewhere between rock bottom and the middle of nowhere lies the perfect terrain for his dark and hilarious songs.

Plot Summary: Yusef is a first-generation Pakistani-American engineering student who moves off-campus with a group of Muslim punks in Buffalo, New York. His new "un-orthodox" housemates soon introduce him to Taqwacore – a hardcore, Muslim punk rock scene. As the seasons change, Taqwacore influences the house more and more. The living room becomes a mosque during the day, while it continues to host punk shows at night. Ultimately, Yusef begins to challenge his own faith and ideologies. A powerful and original story of punk Islam in the USA and the discovery of oneself within the confines of religion.

Gemma Arterton ("Quantum of Solace," upcoming "Clash of the Titans" and "Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time") will play Drewe, a sexy flirt who returns to her small country village and stirs up dark passions among the locals. Simmonds' novel, itself a collection of comic strips she first published in U.K. newspaper the Guardian, is a modern reimagining of Thomas Hardy's classic novel "Far From the Madding Crowd."