E3 2011: Halo 4 Announced

The Electronic Entertainment Expo (E3) began yesterday with its pre-show press conference. The big announcement of the day was made by Microsoft, when they announced the next entry in their popular franchise of first-person shooters, Halo 4!

Microsoft made the announcement via a cinematic trailer at the end of its 2011 E3 press conference. Halo 4 marks the first proper Halo title created outside of original creator Bungie, who signed off the series with 2010′s Halo: Reach. With Bungie no longer leading development, Halo 4 will mark the first major release from 343 Industries, Microsoft’s internal Halo studio.

To add to the already big announcement, Microsoft also announced that they are making a remastered version of Halo: Combat Evolved, the first game in the series. The remake will be titled Halo: Anniversary, and feature single-player and multiplayer portions of the original game. Microsoft has said that the single-player campaign will feature online co-op, a multiplayer mode that’s fully integrated into Halo Reach’s community, brand new graphics, and the ability to switch back to the original game’s graphics. Halo: Anniversary will be released on 11/15/2011 exclusively for Xbox 360.

Microsoft closed their conference with the promise of a new trilogy. After showing the CG teaser trailer for Halo 4, Halo 5 and 6 were both effectively announced as future titles. The teaser that was shown features the Master Chief and Cortana, after the events of Halo 3′s Legendary ending. Further details about the game’s storyline weren’t given outside of the short CG trailer. Halo 4 is set to be released holiday season 2012 for the Xbox 360.

Apple iOS 5 New Feature Overview

It’s June again, and that means it’s time for Apple to make headlines. During Apple’s WWDC keynote today, the long-anticipated iOS 5 was unveiled. While the majority of features have been previewed to the public, iOS 5 isn’t set to officially launch until this fall.

The announcement of iOS 5 includes more than 200 new features for the iPad, iPhone, and iPod touch. This latest version of Apple’s mobile operating system has a few features that stand above the rest; including doing away with the need for a computer, an updated notification menu, a new instant messaging app, and a physical shutter button for the camera on an iPhone.

Notifications

In iOS 5, all notifications — from every installed app — are centrally stored in a Notification Center, which can be swiped down from the top of your home screen. The Notification Center also includes live updating information from the weather and stocks app. You can swipe to clear all notifications, and if your phone is locked, you can swipe to go from the notification straight to the app that sent it.

Camera

The iPhone’s camera is now accessible via a lock-screen shortcut for quick and easy photo shoots. Just tap the shortcut and it takes you right into the camera app, primed and ready to take a photo. You can also now use the hardware volume up button on the side of your device to take a photo. That’s a big step for Apple to take, considering it once banned an app for offering the same functionality.

With iOS 5, users can turn on grid lines to help them compose photos. Other new and improved photo-taking features include auto-focus and auto-exposure lock, and the ability to do enhancements like red-eye reduction, crop, and rotation on-device.

PC Free

Apple made good on its talk about a post-PC world by making their iOS devices independent of home computers. Many customers want their iPad or iPhones to be their only computing devices, so Apple is obliging. Software updates are now over-the-air, at a time of the user’s choosing, and you can set up and activate your device from the device itself. The updates are now incremental, so they’re much smaller and only download what’s changed since the last one, instead of the whole OS over again.

Game Center

Game Center for iOS has become very popular over the past year, mostly thanks to the millions of iOS users who are playing and downloading new games on a daily basis. With iOS 5, Apple is introducing photo sharing to Game Center, as well as Achievement points and recommendations for friends, and the ability to see friends of friends. This should help with game discovery by providing more automatically generated suggestions, and you can buy those games direct from Game Center.

iMessage

This may be the biggest announcement regarding iOS today. It’s a new messaging service that automatically connects all iOS 5 users. It supports iPhone, iPad and iPod touch, and it does text, video, photo, contact, and group messaging. iMessage also boasts delivery receipts and optional read receipts, so you know exactly when a message has been received, and when it’s been read, if that’s enabled. There’s also secure encryption, and it gets pushed out to all your devices. Messages arrive via the new messaging system at the top of the screen, and you can see when someone you’re having a conversation with is actively responding. This will work over Wi-Fi and 3G too, so there’s no limitations to its use.

Those are just a few of the features highlighted by Apple at the keynote, but they are good ones. It may look like lots of little tweaks but combined they do make a difference. The biggest mobile game-changer here is probably iMessage, but the fact that syncing can now be done wirelessly, and that iOS apps can operate PC-free are the biggest stories in terms of the future of computing in general. What are your first impressions of Apple’s iOS 5?

TV Show Cancellations for 2011

Last week was quite an active week for those in the television business. Most of the activity dealt with network executives dishing out bad news to those trying to make it big on television. If you were involved with a show in 2011, the news you most likely heard was: “your show has been cancelled.”

Since so many shows were axed, I’ll recap a few of the notable ones, but first I’ll just list out most of the shows that were cancelled in the 2010-2011 season. A fair amount of these shows probably deserved it and expected cancellations, but there were a few surprises.

Cancelled Shows (by Network):

ABC
Brothers & Sisters
Detroit 1-8-7
Mr. Sunshine
No Ordinary Family
Off the Map
V

CBS
Criminal Minds: Suspect Behavior
The Defenders
Mad Love
Medium
$#*! My Dad Says

FOX
Breaking In
The Chicago Code
Human Target
Lie to Me
Lone Star
Running Wilde

NBC
The Cape
Chase
The Event
Friday Night Lights
Law & Order: LA
Outsourced
Perfect Couples

So there it is. Some of the not-so-shocking shows on this list are NBC’s Law & Order: LA along with Chase, and Fox’s Breaking In. Also ABC’s No Ordinary Family was cancelled, despite a growing vocal audience. When I made a post previewing this TV season (2010 Fall TV Show Preview), I thought both Chase and No Ordinary Family weren’t going to make it, and both ended up being cancelled.

I didn’t have a chance to catch some of these shows this season, but I will definitely miss a few of them. My favorite show out of this year’s cancellations was NBC’s Outsourced. The show was based in a call center in India, where a lone American manages the call center for an outsourced American novelties company. He often must explain American popular culture to his employees as he tries to understand Indian culture. I thought this was a very good opposing show to The Office, which is also on NBC. It featured a well built and comical cast, while showing off many of the differences between American and Indian culture.

Two of the more surprising cancels to me were FOX’s Human Target and ABC’s V. Both of these shows had made it past their first seasons, and had a respectable following. The Show “V” had a very sci-fi heavy cast to support its theme; Morena Baccarin, Elizabeth Mitchell, and Alan Tudyk, just to mention a few. These decisions probably came down to high budget costs and not reaching audience count expectations. Another show I thought would do well was NBC’s The Event. This show had a lot of promise out of the gate, with high action scenes and cliff-hangers. However the show lost a definitive direction, and along with that, viewers.

After all is said and done, this is still business and not entirely up to the fans. A show still has to fit the network’s budget and plans for the next season, however a large audience does indeed help. Was your favorite show cancelled?

Microsoft Buys Skype for $8.5 Billion

Just days after reports that Google and Facebook were interested in partnering with (and possibly buying) VoIP company Skype, Microsoft has made its own announcement which will keep Skype all to itself. Microsoft has confirmed the purchase of Skype for $8.5 billion in cash.

Microsoft has stated that it sees Skype’s technology and services being applied across the board to both its consumer and business customers. This means enterprise customers will receive a new way to communicate over voice and video, but also customers who own products such as the Xbox 360 (with the Kinect) and Windows Phone 7 will be seeing the benefits from its introduction.

This is actually the second time Skype has been bought out. After Skype started in 2003, it was purchased by eBay in 2005 for $3.1 billion. In 2009, eBay sold the majority of its stake to a private investment group for $1.2 billion less than it originally paid. Now that Skype is going to be fully owned by Microsoft, there may be worries that the service could disappear from non-Microsoft platforms. In lieu of this, Microsoft has been quick to state that Skype will continue to be supported across all devices going forward.

Many people have questioned why this acquisition took place due to the fact that Microsoft’s own software already has considerable overlap with Skype. Windows Live Messenger offers free instant messaging, along with voice and video chat. Live Messenger currently boasts around 330 million active users each month. Skype, on the other hand, only has around a third the number of active users, 124 million each month.

Although Skype’s instant messaging and voice/video call features are broadly similar to those found in Windows Live Messenger, they are arguably more refined and well-liked. There is one key difference worth mentioning though: about 8 million Skype users pay for the service. Skype also has points of presence across the globe, making it easy to buy phone numbers in foreign markets to cheaply establish an international telephone presence.

With this large acquisition now official, what everyone is wondering is what Microsoft intends to do with Skype beyond integrating it into existing services and platforms. Microsoft is shelling out a lot of cash with the $8.5 billion price tag, and you have to wonder how much of that is a premium to ensure Google or Facebook weren’t chosen partners instead.

Whether or not Skype stays in the number one spot for VoIP communications while under Microsoft ownership remains to be seen. Facebook and Google can be expected to further develop and break into the the voice and video market, so Skype will have to keep innovating and producing features in order to keep its competitive edge.

Futurama Renewed for Two More Years!

Good news, everyone!

Everybody’s favorite canceled animated show has been extended for another season. Comedy Central’s Futurama has been renewed for two more years, in which 26 episodes of futuristic goodness will air.

For anyone who is blissfully unaware, Futurama initially was aired on Fox in 1999, and was cancelled in 2003. Comedy Central revived the show in 2008, and much rejoicing was had. The show follows the life of a late 20th-century New York City pizza delivery boy, Fry. After accidentally being cryogenically frozen for one thousand years, Fry finds employment at Planet Express, an interplanetary delivery company in the 31st century.

This recent announcement by Comedy Central calls for two cycles of 13 episodes — which doesn’t include the upcoming batch that launches this June — so that keeps Futurama on the air through 2013. This show’s renewal will put Futurama into its 7th season. The first 13 episodes of the season will air in the summer of 2012, with the last 13 airing in the summer of 2013. The last season averaged 2.5 million viewers per week, and the show isn’t showing any signs of letting up.