The Samsung Galaxy is out, the economy of Ireland is down for the count, and plenty of gaming news! Let's get to the must-know geek news!
In Passing: Dino DeLaurentiis passes away. HIt's amazing how many films he's been involved in.
Career:
Seth Godin notes that it's easier to build a tribe to make your goals happen than hope to get picked for something.
Economics/Geekonomics:
Ireland's attempts to recapitalize has failed. Bailout possible, and even more bitterness in the Eurozone will result. I don't think there's the same level of negative feelings towards Ireland as Greece, but people aren't going to be happy.
This Friday's Rolling Stone has is going have Matt Taibbi's look at the high-speed 'Rocket Dockets' used for foreclosure in Florida, and an excerpt is here. Taibbi gets a lot of attention for his work, so I expect the Fraudclosure issue to get more attention. Florida also looks to be ground zero of lots of Fraudclosure tomfoolery, so what's found there will hopefully get attention paid elsewhere – if only right now Florida looks so damn bad.
Publishing:
Next Issue Media wants to be Hulu for magazines. They're starting on Android though – though this might pressure Apple into changing some policies turning publishers off (like keeping data and that 30% cut). Let's see what the company can do – I see this model having some legitimate potential – and let's note that people now use Hulu for COMPARISONS . . .
Technology:
MUST READ/VIEW: The decline of Yahoo in handy timeline infographic form. It actually helps me realize Yahoo's situation is far worse than it seems. Also it looks like there's going to be some cuts coming to their product division, about 10%. So how long until the AOL buyout?
Reviews are coming in on the Samsung Galaxy, and I find them a bit mixed. A more positive one is here, a more negative one here. My take from what I'm hearing is positive, but I think right now having two tablets on the market to compare makes comparisons a bit iffy.
Teleivision:
Ron Moore apparently wants to do a reboot of 'Wild, Wild West'. Well it's got steampunk potential I'll give it that, but not sure if that's what audiences are clamoring for. I myself am clamoring for people to stop remaking so many things . . . but he has geek cred which may power the project through.
Video:
Boxee is shipping it's set-top boxes and is partnering with Netflix and Hulu. Interesting as is, but more interesting is the fact that Boxee seems to be viewing Google as more a partner – or at least not a comptetitor. Not much else for me to say here – at this point the video tech market is so chaotic I'm not sure what to say. A quick teardown is here, revealing one big heat sink.
Video Games:
Activision makes $360 million on Call of Duty. Already.
Viacom wants to sell Harmonix for the sake of focus. It actually sounds like an awfully honest assessment of the situation, so I'm buying that a need for focus is actually part of the reason. I'm also guessing the crazy game market doesn't help focus either.
Meanwhile the focus of Warner Brothers Montreal is download games
EA knows what it wants: They're taking over all the publishing duties for the next Star Wars MMO. Smart move.
QUESTION OF THE DAY: Yahoo – when did it become essentially doomed?