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VentureBeat — Sony today officially entered a new phase in the lifespan of the PlayStation 3 console by touting the PlayStation Move, a wireless motion-controlled device that rivals Nintendo’s Wiimote and Microsoft’s upcoming Project Natal. ~ Introduced at E3 2009 with the working title the PlayStation Wand, the PlayStation Move resembles a light-weight microphone with a colored crown. The PS3 manufacturer, which revealed the device at the Concourse Exhibition Center in downtown San Francisco, Ca., says it provides intuitive and ...More accurate 1:1 response, and showed nine playable games that utilized the Move in a variety of ways ranging from the military shooter SOCOM 4 to sports, fighting, fantasy, party, and painting games. ~ The first Move package, due this fall for less than $100, consists of a Move controller, the PlayStation Eye, and a game (to be announced). Additional packages are in development from a single Move controller to an “uber package” that bundles in the Move, the PlayStation Eye, and the PlayStation 3. An additional device, temporarily called the PlayStation Sub-Controller, which was used to demo SOCOM 4, will be sold separately. ~ Sony is betting the wireless motion controller will widen the base of the $299 Blu-ray player by appealing to families, older men and women and, interestingly, hardcore gamers. Sony countered market leader Nintendo with its Motion Controller Plus add-on, which last year completed the promise of the original Wiimote. ~ “Nintendo has done an excellent job at broadening the game market, and we think that’s great news,” said Peter Dille, senior vice president of marketing and PlayStation Network. “We’d like to think the PlayStation Move is the next generation of motion gaming, and we see it and the PS3 as a national destination for families that have the Wii.” ~ Originally developed internally in North America (with input from multiple arms of Sony’s international teams), The PlayStation Move is a wand crowned with a colored ball that picks up and... ...Less

TechCrunch — You might want to take a different approach when shopping for a 3D TV than a standard HDTV. Instead of just looking at the picture quality, you should also take a serious look at the brand's 3D glasses. Some show some clear advantages to purchase that brand's 3D TV and until there's a standard format for 3D glasses, each brand requires its own unique glasses, thereby locking you into that manufacturer's products. Yeah, it's a bit messy right now. Click through for details on all of them.

paidContent — Google’s proposed (and now delayed) acquisition of mobile ad network AdMob appears to be drawing even more regulatory scrutiny from the FTC. Bloomberg cites sources who say that regulators now want “sworn declarations” from Google ( NSDQ: GOOG ) competitors about the $750 million deal. The key sentence in the Bloomberg report comes from a former FTC general counsel, who says that “agency officials typically collect declarations ‘when they think there is some significant chance’ the agency will ...More ask a court to block a merger, or seek to modify a deal.” ~ Google announced it was buying AdMob in early November and said at the time it expected the purchase to close within “the next several months.” Soon afterwards, there were reports that the FTC was reviewing the deal, and in December, Google said it had received a “second request” from the FTC—meaning that regulatory officials wanted more information about the buy and that it would therefore not be closing right away. ~ The consensus was that the deal would close in February—although there have been no updates from either the FTC or Google. We’ve asked Google for comment and will update when we hear back. ~ Related ~ Google To Acquire Mobile Ad Network AdMob For $750 Million In Stock Sources Say FTC Is Reviewing Google's Acquisition Of AdMob Google's Acquisition Of AdMob Delayed Pending Further FTC Review ...Less

paidContent — In another bit of EMI news, less vital to the company’s future than today’s latest change at the top , OK Go and Capitol Records have parted ways after nine years through mutual agreement. OK Go asked; EMI agreed. OK Go is best known for its viral videos—and was touted by previous EMI management as an example for the digital age—but that success hasn’t been reflected in sales. According to a source, their latest video (embedded below) had roughly 7 million views last week but they sold only 3,000 ...More units of their new release Of The Blue Colour Of The Sky . ~ EMI has taken a lot of heat—much of it from the band—for refusing to allow embedding of the band’s videos for the new album, a policy that’s linked to YouTube’s own policy for major label music videos. ~ OK Go manager Jamie Kitman announced the separation via e-mail to industry observer Bob Lefsetz last night: “we secured ok go’s release from capitol—two weeks before the current video (up to 6.6 million hits in under a week)—came out. we’re living in the future, about 15 minutes earlier than we’d expected, and loving it.” ~ EMI confirmed with a mutual statement full of fun for reading between the lines: ~ OK Go singer Damian Kulash: “We’d like to thank the people at EMI Music who have worked so hard on our behalf.”  Translation: those of you didn’t do anything for us get nothing. ~ EMI Music said:  “We’ve really enjoyed our relationship with OK Go.  They’ve always pushed creative boundaries and have broken new ground, particularly with their videos.  We wish them the greatest success for the future.” Translation: Way cool videos without sales to match. Buh bye. ~ OK Go has set up its own label Paracadute Recording and is taking over the distribution and marketing of the new album. Expect lots of embedding; sample below. ...Less

VentureBeat — One thing was crystal clear during today’s mobile games panel at GamesBeat@GDC : Mobile is the next frontier of rabid competition in the game industry. The big battle between PCs and Macs is fading into the background, replaced by a new (even more hostile) face-off between Android and the iPhone OS. ~ This transition, expedited by the launch of the iPad on Apple’s iPhone OS, has massive implications for mobile game developers. The panelists, hailing from popular game makers like Ngmoco and Tapulous , as well as mobile ...More ad network Admob and the Android team at Google, agreed that this storm is brewing, but it shouldn’t necessarily change developers’ goals. ~ With most mobile games being free-to-play and relying on advertising for revenue, the goal should always be to capture market share and bring on as many users for as long as possible, period. And the strategy to do this is still the same, regardless of which platform a game is designed for. Game discovery depends on virality — namely, the ability for existing users to share games with their friends through a bevy of channels (Twitter, email, Facebook, SMS, etc.). To grow, you simply have to make this as easy as possible. ~ The difference between platforms starts to matter when you look at how Apple and Android are responding to these strategies. Android has left its system wide open, allowing third-party developers to build in all kinds of sharing tools and opportunities with very few restrictions, according to Eric Chu, group manager for the Android platform. ~ “If you’re playing a game and reach a high score, you can access email, IM, etc. and it will publish in multiple locations that you hit a high score and say others should check it out,” Chu explained. “There is a lot of facility within the platform today to do these things.” ~ Apple, on the other hand, has restricted this kind of activity, making it more difficult for players to link their mobile games to their social graphs. In fact, the company has been roundly... ...Less

paidContent — The biggest frenemies together: Eric Schmidt, CEO of Google ( NSDQ: GOOG ) & Maurice Levy of Publicis, one of the largest ad holding companies: ~ ~ We’ll have the full video of Schmidt’s speech and Q&A from here, later this afternoon. Meanwhile if you want to check out bits from his speech, chk out our Twitter feed at @paidcontent .

ReadWriteWeb — Since the announcement went live yesterday about the Google Marketplace , we've had a number of companies come to us about how its applications will fit with the service. ~ We'll do a fuller look at these companies this week but for some immediate perspective we decided to take a look at Zoho , a service that competes with Google Apps. So it is it interesting that the company joined Google Apps Marketplace in its launch. ~ Sponsor ~ Buy why would Zoho offer its applications to integrate with Google? Yes, the companies compete. ...More But Raju Vegesna of Zoho says that it is far more important to complement Google Apps. Over the past few years the company has worked to make it simple for Zoho customers to use its services in tandem with Google Apps. Zoho offers Google Sign-in, Google Apps Sign-in and recently it integrated with Google Docs. ~ Vegesna gave us three reasons why Zoho decided to be part of the launch. His perspectives should provide some insights about the symbiotic relationship Google Apps Marketplace will foster. ~ Extending The RelationshipFor many developers, integrating with Google Apps represents a significant business opportunity. Google announced at its launch that it passed the 25 million customer mark over the weekend. ~ Vegesna: ~ "First, we have 50% more apps than Google, especially on the business side (CRM, Project Management, Web Conferencing etc). This means, these additional apps can really complement Google Apps. Google has over 20 million users on G Apps and our Business apps can be sold to those customers. " Google Dominates The LandscapeTo play in this era, you have to play with Google. They dominate as much as any company has in the past 30 years. The domination in large part is now solidified by its investment in its cloud infrastructure. ~ Vegesna: ~ "Second, we understand that this is going to be a Google dominated eco-system (IBM dominated Mainframe era, Microsoft dominated PC era and Google will dominate the web era) and we wanted to be an import... ...Less

TechCrunch — Yahoo is backing a cycling team . I don’t know why — but they’re doing it. And today their passion got a little boost: from Google. ~ Google is announcing tomorrow at the National Bike Summit in Washington, DC that Google Maps will now include biking directions in the U.S. Apparently, this was the most-requested feature for the service, as some 57 million Americans ride bikes. ~ Thousands of miles of bike trails have been added to the maps. And there is also step-by-step directions, much like you can see for ...More driving or public transportation directions in the maps. There is also a new layer that shows bike trails and bike-friendly areas on roads. Yes, it’s a bike-lover’s dream. ~ To make this new feature happen, Google partnered with Rails-to-Trails Conservancy , a nonprofit group that converts old rail lines into bike trails. The group have given Google information on some 12,000 miles worth of trails in the U.S. ~ To coincide with the launch, Google also has a cycling contest . To enter, you simply have to tweet with the hashtag #bikewithgoogle. The randomly selected winner will get a voucher for $2,500 to be used at American Cyclery. ~ I fully expect that hashtag to be dominated by members of Yahoo’s cycling team tomorrow. ~ Find out more about the new feature in the video below. ~ ~ CrunchBase Information Google Maps Yahoo! Information provided by CrunchBase ...Less

Scobleizer — There’s a ton of chatter on Techmeme today regarding iPad and Flash and HTML 5. Again. In particular don’t miss posts from ReadWriteWeb regarding Flash vs. HTML 5 speed and PC World’s comparison of HP’s new Slate vs. the iPad and how the focus will be on Flash. ~ Yesterday I sat down with top execs from Adobe’s Flash team. Later today I’ll have a video demo of a variety of things they announced at the Mobile World Congress, including a new Flash player for Android and Palm Pre (I played with ...More it yesterday, very nice). I’ll link that video in here in about an hour, but wanted to get this post up while my thoughts were fresh. ~ Why won’t the iPad have Adobe Flash technology? Anup Murarka director of technology strategy and partner development for the Adobe Flash platform and Aaron Filner, group product manager of Flash platform, focusing on AIR, answer some of the reasons why Steve Jobs doesn’t put Adobe Flash onto the iPad in one of the videos I filmed yesterday when I visited Adobe’s offices in San Francisco . Things like: ~ 1. It will chew up battery. ~ 2. It will crash or be buggy. ~ 3. It doesn’t work with touch interfaces. ~ 4. It won’t perform well enough. ~ They take on each of these complaints about Adobe Flash and explain what has changed with the Flash 10.1 player. ~ ~ My thoughts? I’m buying an iPad anyway (we’re even having a party at the Palo Alto store all night on the evening of April 2nd) and I have iPhones. My life would be better if Flash shipped on iPad, but it doesn’t look like that will happen. So, developers are going to be forced to build two versions of their web pages if they care about reaching me as a customer and one of those versions will need to have no Flash or Silverlight (Apple is also resisting including Microsoft’s Silverlight platform). ~ But Adobe is doing a pretty good job of keeping Flash developers’ skills relevant. You can build apps for iPhones or iPads in Flash and compile them using some new tools that Adobe has been showing off and will sh... ...Less

Mashable! — YouTube is pushing itself further into citizen journalism with an interview with FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski, and just as it has in the past, the world’s largest video portal is allowing its users to submit questions via CitizenTube . ~ The interview, which takes place right after the release of the National Broadband Plan on Tuesday, March 16, will explore topics such as access and affordability, security, Internet in schools and net neutrality. Most, if not all, of the questions will come from YouTube user submissions. ...More ~ Last month, the FCC released a report on broadband adoption that indicated that cost is the biggest barrier to widespread broadband adoption in the U.S. We’re sure this, along with concerns about net neutrality and the FCC’s new plan around it, will be hot topics of discussion. ~ Last month was the first edition of the CitizenTube series, where President Obama answered questions live on YouTube after the State of the Union. It proved to be a major success, with more than 12,000 questions submitted and 660,000 votes registered. While we don’t expect the same type of response for the FCC chairman, there still should be thousands of questions from concerned citizens on the state of broadband and Internet in America. ~ Tags: CitizenTube , fcc , youtube ...Less