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Amazon Studios: If Youtube can do it, so can we
Amazon is going Hollywood with the expansion of its Amazon Studios division. The media super power will develop comedy and children’s programming. It is going to be all original content. They are currently accepting proposals if you have a great idea. If they like your idea you will get $55,000 and up to 5% of Amazon’s net receipts from toy and t-shirt licensing, along with other royalties and bonuses. YouTube already does original programing. The folks from Sword & Laser have a great show. Roy Price, director of Amazon Studios said “Amazon Studios wants to discover great talent and produce programming that audiences will love. In the course of developing movies, we’ve heard a lot of interest from content creators who want to develop original series in the comedy and children’s genres. We are excited to bring writers, animators and directors this new opportunity to develop original series.”
Press Release:
Amazon Studios to Develop Original Comedy and Children’s Series for Amazon Instant Video
Writers, animators and filmmakers around the world are now invited to submit comedic and children’s series proposals
SEATTLE—May 2, 2012—(NASDAQ: AMZN)—Amazon.com, Inc. today announced that Amazon Studios is expanding its development efforts into comedy and children’s series. Amazon Studios is Amazon’s content development division that uses audience feedback to identify great, original entertainment customers will love. Starting today, series creators are invited to upload their proposals for comedy and children’s programming to Amazon Studios at http://studios.amazon.com/getting-started/series. The best comedy and children’s series will be distributed through Amazon Instant Video, Amazon’s digital video streaming service.
“Amazon Studios wants to discover great talent and produce programming that audiences will love,” said Roy Price, director of Amazon Studios. “In the course of developing movies, we’ve heard a lot of interest from content creators who want to develop original series in the comedy and children’s genres. We are excited to bring writers, animators and directors this new opportunity to develop original series.”
Each month, Amazon Studios intends to option one promising new project and add it to the development slate where it will be tested for viability with an audience. If Amazon Studios elects to distribute a full-budget series, the creator will receive a $55,000 payment, up to 5 percent of Amazon’s net receipts from toy and t-shirt licensing, and other royalties and bonuses. Amazon Studios’ production company, the People’s Production Company is signatory to the Writers Guild of America and to The Animation Guild, Local 839.
To submit, a project must have a five-page description, along with a 22-minute pilot script for comedies, or an 11-minute pilot script for children’s shows. Within 45 days of submission, Amazon Studios will either extend an option on the project for $10,000 or invite the creator to add the project to the Amazon Studios site. If a project is not optioned, creators may remove their idea from the Amazon Studios site or leave it to get community feedback.
Amazon Studios new series development is led by Joe Lewis, previously with 20th Century Fox and Comedy Central and Tara Sorensen, formerly with National Geographic Kids.
Amazon Studios launched in November 2010. Since then, more than 700 test movies and 7,000 scripts have been submitted and 15 movie projects are currently under development.
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Toshiba Excite10 LE vs. iPad 3: The winner is….
Toshiba’s new Android tablet to be called the Excite 10 LE will be available on March 6th. The price for the “thinnest 10 tablet” is only for $529. It will also be out a whole day before Apple’s iPad 3 unveiling. I saw the Excite at CES it is very impressive. It has a 10.1-inch HD Gorilla Glass screen. (Sidebar: Dear Apple please add Gorilla Glass to all your products) There is also a dual-core processor running at 1.2GHz. It should be interesting to see if the iPad 3 will have the rumored quadcore processor. The Excite 10 LE comes with 16GB of storage but also has a microSD slot for extending that space. As for the cameras, there is a 2-megapixel in front and a 5-megapixel in the back. The Excite 10 LE will come with Honeycomb. Toshiba promised an upgrade to Ice Cream Sandwich later this spring. Will this be enough to take on the iPad 3? on paper maybe. In the real world that is a no.
PRESS RELEASE:
Toshiba Brings World’s Thinnest 10-Inch Tablet to U.S. Market
World’s Thinnest and Lightest 10-inch Tablet, Excite 10 LE, Available for Purchase on March 6, Starting at $529.99
IRVINE, Calif.–(BUSINESS WIRE)–Toshiba’s Digital Products Division (DPD), a division of Toshiba America Information Systems, Inc., today announced that the Excite™ 10 LE tablet will be available for purchase from select U.S. retailers on March 6. Previously introduced as the Excite X10, the Excite 10 LE is the world’s thinnest and lightest 10-inch tablet measuring just 0.3 inches (7.7mm) thin and weighing just 1.18 pounds (535g).“We have engineered this tablet with premium materials and components, given it elegant yet durable styling and more connectivity options than any other tablet in its class, while fitting everything into an astonishingly thin and light design.”
The Excite 10 LE tablet, powered by Android™, carries a starting price of $529.99 MSRP2 for the 16GB model and $599.99 MSRP for the 32GB model.
“Excite 10 LE embodies what a luxury tablet should be,” said Carl Pinto, vice president of product development, Toshiba America Information Systems, Inc., Digital Products Division. “We have engineered this tablet with premium materials and components, given it elegant yet durable styling and more connectivity options than any other tablet in its class, while fitting everything into an astonishingly thin and light design.”A More Premium Design with All the Essentials
The thin and light Excite 10 LE features a vivid high-resolution 10.1-inch diagonal AutoBrite™ display3, delivering optimum browsing, reading and entertainment. Designed for durability and style, the device also features a high-quality magnesium alloy surface and scratch-resistant Corning® Gorilla® Glass display with an anti-smudge coating for greater resiliency.
The tablet also comes with an array of connectivity interfaces and ports on board, including micro-USB and HDMI® ports, a micro-SD slot to share content and files with other devices, plus Wi-Fi® and Bluetooth® connectivity. Stereo speakers with exclusive sound enhancements by Toshiba and SRS® Labs deliver superior audio capabilities. Front and back HD cameras provide convenient photo capture, plus 1080p video recording and video chatting.Smart Multicore Performance with Long Battery Life
Powered by the 1.2GHz Texas Instruments OMAP™ 4430 multicore mobile processor4 and dual-channel memory, the Excite 10 LE offers smooth web browsing and multitasking plus the performance for high definition video and entertainment. Extremely power efficient, the Excite 10 LE delivers up to 8 hours of battery life.Powered by Android
The Excite 10 LE tablet features Android 3.2, Honeycomb, and will be upgraded to Android 4.0, Ice Cream Sandwich later this Spring. Also included is a full suite of familiar Google™ Mobile Service applications, including the Android Market™, YouTube™, Gmail™, Google Maps™, Music, Videos. Additionally, the tablet comes pre-loaded with a mix of Toshiba software and third-party applications including TOSHIBA App Place, TOSHIBA Book Place, TOSHIBA Media Player, TOSHIBA File Manager as well Netflix™ and Zinio™.
Docking and Accessories
Toshiba will also offer a suite of tablet accessories for the Excite 10 LE, including a docking station, multiple cases and more.
Specifications
• Android 3.2, Honeycomb (upgradeable to Android 4.0, Ice Cream Sandwich)
• 10.1-inch diagonal LED Backlit widescreen Corning Gorilla Glass display with IPS technology and 10-finger multi-touch support
• 1280 x 800 resolution, 16:10 aspect ratio
• Texas Instruments OMAP 4430 multicore processor; 1.2GHz with 1GB LPDDR2 RAM
• 16GB and 32GB configurations6
• 2 megapixel front-facing camera
• 5 megapixel rear-facing camera with LED flash
• Micro USB, Micro HDMI ports
• Micro SD card slot
• Wi-Fi (802.11b/g/n) and Bluetooth 2.1 + EDR
• Gyroscope, Accelerometer, GPS, eCompass and Ambient Light Sensor
• Stereo speakers with sound enhancements by Toshiba and SRS Labs
• Built-in 25 watt-hour rechargeable lithium ion battery
• 10.1″ (W) x 6.9″ (D) x 0.3″ (H)
• 1.18 pounds (535g)
Verizon Fios on Xbox 360? Yes, thanks Microsoft
Microsoft has finally made good on its E3 pledge for live TV via your Xbox Live. Verizon Fios was download and we will have a full review later today. Standby..
Game systems are not for just games anymore
Nielsen published a new study this week on game console usage within the US. Seems that gamers have spent notably more time streaming video to their systems than they did in last year. When you have so many options for media. It is a an easy thing to do. You have the option of Netflix, Hulu, MLB Network, ESPN3. Xbox 360 users who have spent 14% of their time streaming video this year have even more options. They have Fios, Comcast and UFC. PlayStation 3 owners on the other hand have spent 15% streaming. Nintendo Wii users who have no games worth mention whats so ever have spent over 33% this years.
Xbox 360 users spent 34% of their time to online gaming, Wii owners spent 55% of their time on offline gaming. So, you mean that there are people who are playing Wii games online? Who are these people and what are they are playing? PS3 players spent most of their time not surprisingly watching Blu-Ray movies.
Twitter gets a makeover
Twitter is not in any way shape or form complicated. What it is however is cluttered. Well, a new redesign of its web site and mobile apps have added four new tabs to help you out. The “Home”, “Connect”, “Discover” and “Me” — that make things a lot simpler to navigate. If this was too much to read, check out the video.
Scientists Turn Brain’s Visual Memories into a Video
Scientists Turn Brain’s Visual Memories into a Video
The left clip is a segment of the movie that the subject viewed while in the magnet. The right clip shows the reconstruction of this movie from brain activity measured using fMRI. The reconstruction was obtained using only each subject’s brain activity and a library of 18 million seconds of random YouTube video. (In brief, the algorithm processes each of the 18 million clips through the brain model, and identifies the clips that would have produced brain activity as similar to the measured brain activity as possible.
The clips used to fit the model, those used to test the model and those used to reconstruct the stimulus were entirely separate.) Brain activity was sampled every one second, and each one-second section of the viewed movie was reconstructed separately.
YouTube adds Google + Hangout: Watch videos along with friends. Could Netflix be next?
It seems that you can now watch a video with your friends on Google Plus’ Hangout. It works very similar to Xbox Live’s Movie Party. I was able to get 3 people to Hangout and watch a short clip. It worked very well without any issues.
Once Google + adds business to the to the mix. I see this feature becoming very useful for marking. You could debut a trailer to only very loyal fans or contest winners. Think how this might work for Superbowl ads. You could all do Hangout instead of flooding my inbox with links. I mean other people’s inboxes with links.
So far I have not been able to find a video that Hangout does not work on. From Tech New Today with Tom to even the very limited movie selection that YouTube has. This is a feature I would love to see come to Netflix. Unlike the Facebook Like button. The Google + Hangout only goes to who you invite to participate. Thus circumventing the whole its illegal to share the entertainment you rent law that is stopping Netflix from using Facebook.
You can watch the #RoyalWedding live. This how to do it
You can watch the Royal Wedding live and the replay on YouTube via the www.youtube.com/theroyalchannel
YouTube is showing a live stream of the wedding of Britain’s Prince William and Catherine Middleton. The replay starts right after the live feed ends. Catch the two kisses that is making history all on it’s own.
The live stream, hosted on the official Royal Channel, will run for four hours beginning at 10 a.m. BST (9:00 a.m. GMT, 2:00 a.m. PST, 5:00 a.m. EST). It will follow the pair’s journey to and from Westminister Abbey (which Google has already outlined with 3D Street View), the Wedding Service, balcony appearance and aircraft ceremony.
A multimedia live blog will accompany the stream. It will have commentary, historical information, extra footage and an integrated Twitter feed from the staff at Clarence House and St. James’s Palace. The event will likely be the biggest YouTube has broadcast live to date, with more than 2 billion expected to watch video footage of the wedding via their TVs, web, mobile devices and other channels. Watch the replay now.
2K Sports shows off Serena William’s sexy moves in a new ad but she did not authorize it
2K sports has released a new Serena Williams ad. The thing is it is a way bit too sexy. So they are claiming that it is unauthorized. Humm, that seems a bit odd with a new tennis game coming out. I will say that is a great way to sell a game. Good job 2K sports. Now only if you would get the NFL back from EA Sports. I miss the competition.
