Heavy Rain is a pivotal game. On its face, because it appears to be exactly the type of game we’ve been asking for: an emotional, character and story driven piece. In many ways, this is the flagship that shows what games could be. It is a major undertaking for Sony, who backed French developer Quantic Dream during the 4 years of development, calling it their “most important release.” Heavy Rain is the studio’s third game. Both previous games, The Nomad Soul and Fahrenheit, have been praised for their efforts in movie-like presentation and immersion, but were criticized for their lack of “game” aspects. According to the game’s Director, David Cage, the game is "a very dark film noir thriller with mature themes.” It te

As reported on Friday I was reporting a huge announcement from Cisco that was dubbed "The Internet will change forever" hype. If you want to track the live blogging of the announcement go here from Scott Raynovich. It was the general opinion of all journalists that this made Cisco look bad for overhyping this announcement.  TelecomTV was very critical of this overhype. I reported five major elements that Cisco was going to announce an end-to-end network play which would either will be announced individually or collectively as one big “grand” vision. Here is what I heard and posted last Friday Here is what appears to be breaking next week: 1) An “AppleTV” style cable set top or edge consumer box based on their Scientific

This is astounding: ClickZ in the UK reports: U.K. to Regulate Social Network Marketing - ClickZ Marketers and brands using social networks will soon find their activities in those spaces regulated by the U.K.'s Advertising Standards Authority, following recommendations submitted by the Advertising Association this week. The proposed amendment to the Committee of Advertising Practice (CAP) Code - expected to be in force by September - will extend the regulatory framework currently in place for paid online ads to all other online marketing communications. As a result, claims from marketers on their own Web sites and third-party sites like social networks will now be subject to ASA scrutiny, as they are in TV, print, and other forms

When asked the biggest challenges in online video advertising this year, top executives at media agencies like Starcom and MediaVest say they're most eager to target audiences better and to access more sophisticated data around viewership. At last week's 4A's conference in San Francisco that drew top brass at ad agencies and brands, Daisy Whitney caught up with MediaVest's President Donna Speciale, Starcom USA CEO Lisa Donohue and 4A's Managing Director Harold Geller. Here's what they had to say about hurdles in Web video in 2010 in this week's New Media Minute.

By 2014, annual global mobile data traffic will reach 3.6 exabytes per month. Globally, businesses and consumers will be transferring the equivalent of billions of DVDs each month. What’s driving that incredible growth? What does it mean to service providers? Are users worldwide becoming mobile data megalomaniacs? Read on to find out. Before I get into details, I’d just like to point out that a lot of this data comes from the Cisco Visual Networking Index (VNI) Global Mobile Data Forecast. A great summary of Cisco VNI research is here, along with a helpful mobile data forecast whitepaper, can be found here. Video is, well, huge, and getting ginormous So, what’s going on? Let’s take a look at a key driver of the pending data delu

Old Media is dying. Grab your popcorn, you can now watch. Looking to strike while the iron's hot, the current king of aggregation Gabe Rivera has now launched a wider media site called mediagazer.com. It's still finding it's legs so I'm not sure if it's just for social media or whatever the printed is pushing. I do think this is the perfect time for this. With old media biting their nails, someone from the blogosphere should stand up and assure the ancient giants how much we still care about them. This is a destination site that’s ripe for a syndication model. I can't imagine Gabe not doing this as a business model, so maybe some dinosaur media publisher will give him an offer down the line.

Are you working on a new community with big time bells and whistles that caters to a niche that you just know has been waiting for a place to call home? If so, I encourage you to push ahead full steam. But, let me caution you first. Your new community, no matter how great will not change habits. What I mean by this is you will not be able to stop potential members from posting on Facebook or twitter or their favorite Ning community.  If you are assuming that your new community will become the new gathering place for those belonging to the niche, I think you will be disappointed. Can you make it a great destination with robust content and interesting discussions? Absolutely. I know from experience what that kind of commitment can do

I have been using Pandora's online stream music service off and on for several years. What got me more interested lately was it being one of the many services on my Roku video streaming box, which my wife and I use mostly for watching movies from Netflix's "watch instantly" queue. As I investigated the service more, I came to understand exactly the challenge of what it takes to be truly multi-platform in the current era. It isn't just about having both Web and mobile phone versions of your service, but how you have to go deep into a lot of different devices to appeal to your customers. The cool thing about Pandora isn't that you can create your own custom radio station that will try to find music based on a particular artist or

{Editors Note:  I am pleased to have @Stu post some of his opinoins and observations here on SiliconAngle. Although Stu works for EMC these thoughts are his own cross posted from his personal blog. -- Please give Stu a big welcome to SiliconAngle. - Cheers John @Furrier} I had the pleasure of attending the Ethernet Technology Summit last week in San Jose.  In addition to presenting as part of the FCoE track, I was able to spend a day getting updated on 40Gb and 100Gb Ethernet from the people and vendors involved in creating the standards which are both expected to be ratified in June 2010.  While most enterprise customers are only now starting to deploy 10Gb Ethernet, the completion of the higher speeds are very important developments

First of all, yes, it is a slow news day. Typically, I don’t take my news queues from Techcrunch, particularly when it has to do with pop-culture reporting. Still, a post there regarding an odd choice by new-Twitterer Conan O’Brien is worthy of note. Conan O’Brien, as you know, was forced out of late night television some time back. We talked here a bit about the prospect of him taking his act online, but we were thinking in terms of an online video show. As it turns out, he’s decided to simply take his act to Twitter. Since then, he hasn’t followed anyone back, despite having amassed well north of half a million followers in a few short days … that is until today. About two hours ago, Conan said: “I've decided to follow so