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Ars Technica — Green Day: Rock Band has a release date, so you can finally exhale. The game is coming to the PlayStation, Xbox 360, and Nintendo Wii on June 8, for $59.99 on the two high-definition systems and $49.99 on the Nintendo Wii. ~ The game features 47 Green Day songs, vocal harmonizing for multiple singers, and you'll have the ability to export every song to Rock Band or Rock Band 2 for an additional $10. Joystiq is reporting that if you preorder the game from GameStop, you'll be able to export the songs to your hard drive for free. ...More A $69.99 special edition version of the game will include the ability to export the songs as well, and will include previously released Green Day tracks from the Rock Band Store. ~ The story mode of the game will take you through Green Day's career, with images to unlock and videos to watch. For the hardcore Green Day fan this should be a day-one purchase. For everyone else? We're just going to have to take a look at how much Green Day we need in our rhythm games. ~ Harmonix has also announced Rock Band 3 for release this year, but has yet to provide any details. ~ Read the comments on this post ...Less

The Next Web — As relations between Google and the China become even more strained, Microsoft have reached a deal with Motorola that will see Bing search and mapping tools featured on phones that run the Android mobile operating system. ~ Motorola are set to launch a new range of Android powered handsets aimed at reversing their fortunes in China and will seek to reduce their reliance on Google by offering handset owners search alternatives. ~ With this in mind, Motorola have also announced a similar deal where they will let Chinese consumers ...More choose to search using the country’s market leading Baidu Inc. ~ Motorola said the partnership with Microsoft means that a Bing bookmark and search widget will be loaded on cell phones, starting in the coming weeks with phones in China. ~ Motorola handsets roll out Bing integration in the first quarter of 2010, coming with a Bing bookmark pre-loaded inside the mobile browser and a widget that allows users to search from their homescreen. ~ Currently the deal only extends to China but the partnership is said to be global, so we could see Bing coming to handsets in other countries soon. ~ [Source - ZDNet ] ...Less

The Next Web — As relations between Google and the China become even more strained, Microsoft have reached a deal with Motorola that will see Bing search and mapping tools featured on phones that run the Android mobile operating system. ~ Motorola are set to launch a new range of Android powered handsets aimed at reversing their fortunes in China and will seek to reduce their reliance on Google by offering handset owners search alternatives. ~ With this in mind, Motorola have also announced a similar deal where they will let Chinese consumers ...More choose to search using the country’s market leading Baidu Inc. ~ Motorola said the partnership with Microsoft means that a Bing bookmark and search widget will be loaded on cell phones, starting in the coming weeks with phones in China. ~ Motorola handsets roll out Bing integration in the first quarter of 2010, coming with a Bing bookmark pre-loaded inside the mobile browser and a widget that allows users to search from their homescreen. ~ Currently the deal only extends to China but the partnership is said to be global, so we could see Bing coming to handsets in other countries soon. ~ [Source - ZDNet ] ...Less

Mashable! — If you’re a gamer, you might have heard about yesterday’s news about the PlayStation Move , Sony’s answer to the Wii Remote and Microsoft’s upcoming Project Natal motion controller. In a demonstration yesterday, the company showed off the device, which utilizes remote-like controllers and the PlayStation Eye camera to capture your movements and turn them into actions on the screen. ~ We’ve seen plenty of screenshots and heard a lot about the controller’s capabilities, but we wanted to find ...More out for ourselves whether it really could make the PlayStation more competitive with its counterparts. That’s why I decided to take the system for a test drive here at the Game Developer’s Conference (GDC) in San Francisco, California. ~ Did it live up to expectations? Could it challenge Nintendo and Microsoft in gaming? I’ve got some thoughts on the matter: ~ PlayStation Move: Sony Played It SafeFirst, a little bit about the PlayStation Move: it is a two-part control system. First are the handheld controllers, which act essentially as Wiimotes. The main controller comes with a lighted color ball on the top though — this is an essential component for the second part of the Move: the PlayStation Eye camera, which tracks your movements on screen. Combined, you get a controller system. ~ When I held the remote-like device in my hands and actually got to play with it, I immediately became aware of two things: its accuracy and its augmented reality features. It feels just a little more precise than a Wiimote with the MotionPlus controller. Because it uses the camera rather than the senor bar that the Wii utilizes, it can more accurately catch your motions. It also translates them onto the screen with your face on the TV. ~ I was impressed with the augmented reality aspect of the PlayStation Move more, though. The lighted ball on my controller turned first into a paintbrush, and then a fly swatter. It didn’t have the lag that a lot of other systems deal with, which made the experience enjoyab... ...Less

CNET News — A Verizon Wireless exec told the Wall Street Journal that it will have a 4G wireless handset on the market within three to six months of launching its 4G LTE network.

Technologizer — Now that OnLive has finally revealed some pricing details, the cloud gaming service is looking more than ever like a dubious proposition. ~ OnLive will cost $15 per month when it launches on June 17, but that price won’t let you play any full games. You’ll still have to rent or purchase games to stream to your computer in addition to the monthly charge, at prices that are still undisclosed. Even if it costs less to rent or play a game — and it probably will, given that OnLive promises lower distribution costs ...More compared to retail — OnLive will have a tough time competing with actual hardware for all but the most dedicated gamers. ~ Let’s say you spend $300 on a new console every five years. That’s $5 per month, already less than a subscription to OnLive. Now, let’s say you buy one new game every two months, at $60 each (a very generous estimate given that average game ownership per console hovered around six games after 24 months in this generation ), your’e basically spending $65 every month. That means publishers have to charge $50 or less for a game through OnLive to make the proposition worthwhile. ~ Even if publishers are willing to go that low, the consumer is making concessions. Yes, you get instant gratification and the ability to play anywhere, but you lose the ability to buy, trade or sell used games, and there’s no guarantee you’ll be able to play what you bought 10 years from now. If OnLive goes belly up, so does your entire game library. And I wonder, if you decide to stop playing games for a year or two (say, you’re raising a baby), can you recover your library when you’re ready to start playing again? ~ The prospect of game rentals raises more questions. How much will an OnLive rental cost and how long will it last? In other words, how long do you have to rent a game before it becomes more feasible to “buy” it? Will the amount you spent on the rental be credited towards the purchase price? ~ I’m still willing to give OnLive the benefit of the doubt that its te... ...Less

ReadWriteWeb — Location based social networks - are you over it already? It feels like location is all we ever hear about anymore, especially this week leading up to SXSW . ~ We're excited about location too; see our enthusiastic write-ups What Twitter's Geolocation API Makes Possible and The Era of Location as Platform Has Arrived . But it's getting a little ridiculous. We offer below 10 thoughts to consider about all this location madness. ~ Sponsor ~ That Phrase: "Location, Location, Location"You're going to hear journalists use ...More it far too much. Want to know where it came from? Language sleuth William Safire investigated for the NYT last year and concluded that the phrase was probably first used in a 1926 real estate classified ad in the Chicago Tribune: "Attention salesmen, sales managers: location, location, location, close to Rogers Park." Don't you feel more savvy now? Too Many Startups? ~ We're under embargo on almost all of them, but we can tell you there are at least 25 companies making location-related announcements at SXSW this week. Probably more. The Dunbar number of startups in a particular market, if you will, is something like 5. More than that and most people stop taking new entrants seriously. It's one thing to offer different technologies along the value chain of location, but sharing your location and aggregating messages by things like hashtag are two very crowded niches right now. One of my favorites is SitBy.Us , an app that lets you see where your Twitter friends are sitting in a conference session. That's pretty cool. ~ You've got to wonder if and when Location will Jump the Shark and what consumer exhaustion for it might mean for the long-term prospects of the market. Everyone wants to be "the Twitter of SXSW 2010" but the fact is that SXSW represented a statistically insignificant increase in Twitter usage , historically speaking. Location Startups "Not Playing Nice" ~ There are loads of ways to post your location but it's very hard to get a feel for who exactl... ...Less

TechCrunch — It’s getting tough to keep up with all of the location-related developments leading up to this year’s SXSW, and they just keep coming. Tonight, on the eve of the event, Plancast has just had its iPhone application approved. The service, which we’ve previously described as a ‘Foursquare for the future’, allows you to tell your friends where you’re planning to be as opposed to where you currently are (in other words, it lets you and your friends plan ahead). You can grab the new iPhone app here ...More . ~ The application itself looks solid, and includes the core functionality you’ll find on the Plancast website. The main view allows you to scroll through a list of your friends’ upcoming events, and tapping on an event will show you where it is on a map and who else is going. At SXSW, where there are always many panels and parties going on, this can come in handy — sometimes it’s more practical to plan ahead than it is to walk across town when you notice a few of your friends are checking in somewhere.  One feature I’d like to see is a way to get push notifications when a bunch of friends are planning to attend the same event (e.g. “Hey, your friends are all going to Salt Lick in a few hours!”); hopefully we’ll get something like that in the next release. There’s also a mobile version of the site available for users on other mobile platforms. ~ Plancast was founded by TC alum Mark Hendrickson, and recently closed an $800,000 seed funding round that included a bevy of well known angels like SoftTech VC, Dave McClure, and Joshua Schachter. ~ For other SXSW-related location news, see Loopt’s new iPhone app , Gowalla’s new app , and Vicarious.ly , a new app from SimpleGeo that brings all of this location data together. ~ ~ CrunchBase Information Plancast Information provided by CrunchBase ...Less

Engadget — When you think about HP, do you think about printers or maybe IT outsourcing? How about HP smartphones, ever think of them? You do know that HP still sells iPAQs right? That's ok, we have to remind ourselves too, occasionally, and therein lies the problem: most consumers don't have any idea what HP's 300,000 employees are up to... or even care (ever encountered a rabid HP fanboy before?). While the enthusiast community is certainly anticipating the release of HP's Slate or next Voodoo device , you'd be hard pressed to find any ...More "normal people" who have even heard of them. So what's HP to do? ~ Starting this weekend, HP will be blitzing the airwaves with its first advertising campaign in more than five years. The $40 million, eight-week "Lets Do Amazing" campaign features a number of celebs like "zany" comedian Rhys Darby and photographer Annie Leibovitz in pitches meant to give the very serious company a lighthearted makeover. Hell, even HP fave Dr. Dre was convinced to shill, though knowing HP they'll probably use his given name of Andre Romelle Young.HP ropes in Dr. Dre for 'Lets Do Amazing' personality makeover originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 11 Mar 2010 06:51:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds . ~ Permalink    |  Wall Street Journal  |  Email this  |  Comments ...Less

Engadget — Mobile manufacturer and platform market share stats for the US are in for the month of January thanks to comScore, and as usual, they tell a fascinating (and somewhat unpredictable) story of what's actually going on at the cash registers. Motorola -- which has long since fallen off its high horse on the global stage -- still maintains a commanding presence in the American market by representing some 22.9 percent of all subscribers, though that's down 1.2 percent from October 2009; that's particularly interesting in light of the ...More Droid's success, and a possible sign that smartphones still aren't on the cusp of dominating the phone market overall. Samsung recently touted the fact that it had held onto the States' overall market share crown, though Sammy was undoubtedly referring to sales, not subscribers -- in other words, there are still a ton of legacy RAZRs out there inflating Moto's stats. ~ Turning our attention to smartphone platforms, BlackBerry OS, iPhone, and Android all saw gains, while Windows Mobile and Palm both saw significant downturns. You might use Palm's loss of 2.1 percent of overall market share in a single quarter as a big nail in webOS' coffin, but we're inclined to believe this includes legacy devices -- and considering the huge installed base of Palm OS -based handsets ( Centros , for instance) that are coming off contract these days, it's neither surprising nor alarming to see that kind of drop. Android's gain, meanwhile, likely comes in large part from WinMo's whopping four percent loss -- it's no secret that WinMo 6.x is well past its expiration date with customers leaving in droves (even before Windows Phone 7 Series announcement), and our informal observations lead us to believe that many of those folks are heading for Android. After all, it's kind of convenient that Android gained 4.3 percent and WinMo lost about the same, isn't it? BlackBerrys still dominate the American smartphone landscape, and the iPhone market looks like it might be ... ...Less