Frontiering Talk

MSNBC have released a NewsWare site, which provides an interesting news spectrum which can also be customised into a widget to embed on your blog, social network profile, or desktop.

The news experience includes this spectrum which is very engaging.

There is also a Newsblaster tool which lets you read the news while you are playing an online game.

To promote this feature, MSNBC setup the world’s first interactive cinema crowd game.

Cinema goers became human joysticks as the collective crowd body movement controls the functions of a game controller.

NBC New’s social education iCue site is also mixing news videos with study guides and educational games in what they hope will satisfy Generation Y’s shorter attention span.

Gaming developers Activision (best known for Guitar Hero, Call of Duty and the Tony Hawk series, as well as Spider-Man, Shrek, James Bond and Transformers) and Blizzard (developers of  World of Warcraft) are merging in a deal worth $18.8 billion to be known as Activision Blizzard. 

According to BBC News, they are promoting the merger as the”world’s most profitable games business”.

The new business will be hoping to benefit from both the rise in availability of gaming consoles as well as the emergence of advertising in games.

Wii’s NiGHTS: Journey of Dreams, will soon include a mini-game called A-list that will utilise Wii’s Weather channel to incorporate real weather into the game’s play.

Perspective: Whilst this is a cool feature for a game, I can see this technology being used by computer controlled houses to alter lighting, update shopping lists, display pictures to remind younger kids of what to wear, etc.

Tags: Frontiering Websites, Gaming