It’s official: Mad Men returns to AMC from its (insanely long) hiatus on March 25. More good news: the season 5 opener will be the series’ first two-hour premiere. Take in the minimalist and grand new artwork above; it features a free-falling, silhouetted Don Draper displaced from the show’s famous title sequence. Now whip out your calendar and mark the 25th of March in red and black, you know you want to.
Kid Cudi simply could not live up to his promise of delivering his next album (tentatively titled WZRD) on his birthday, January 30. His collaborator and producer Dot Da Genius broke the unfortunate news of delay on Twitter. “We are in the final stages of mastering but we really had to take time and pay attention to the sonics as this is new territory for us,” explained Dot. He continued, “I know it’s late notice, we were trying to keep the date but got wrapped up making this album perfect for y’all.” He dropped the date February 28 as a “rough” estimated time of release. To make up for the delay, Dot did share some good news: full, mastered versions of “Brake” and “Teleport 2 Me” will show up in iTunes on the 30th of this month, along with a track Cudi fans have been waiting to hear for a long time now called “Dose of Dopeness.”
Cudi then took to his Tumblr to share the full tracklisting for the upcoming album. There is only a single featured artist on the renamed track “Teleport 2 Me, Jamie.” See below:
1. The Arrival
2. High Off Life
3. The Dream Time Machine
4. Love Hard
5. Live & Learn
6. Brake
7. Teleport 2 Me, Jamie (Feat. Desire)
8. Where Did You Sleep Last Night
9. Efflictim
10. The Upper Room
When the singles hit iTunes, you’ll know it.
With each update, Nintendo’s 3DS handheld system gets better. The latest enhancement for the 3D-capable portable gaming machine is an update to the eShop. As of January 19, the virtual store is offering up free downloadable game demos, giving 3DS owners a way to test out games before buying them. A free demo version of Resident Evil Revelations is begging to be tried out today. Mario & Sonic at the London 2012 Olympic Games will be the next game given the demo treatment later this month on January 26. Ninty promises that the eShop “will be periodically updated with new game demos,” so be vigilant gamers. Look out for demos of Rayman Origins and Metal Gear Solid Snake Eater 3D coming soon. PR sits after the break.
[Via Nintendo] Continue reading Nintendo eShop is now host to downloadable game demos
On January 19 Apple announced new versions of its iBooks and iTunes U platforms, ushering in a new way for students to get their education on. Apple has partnered with McGraw-Hill, Pearson, and Houghton Mifflin Harcourt to launch iBooks textbooks, “an entirely new kind of textbook that’s dynamic, engaging and truly interactive.” More specifically, they are fullscreen textbooks that feature interactive animations, diagrams, photos, videos, and slick navigation. When you’re holding your iPad horizontally, an iBooks textbook offers up all kinds of interactive media embedded next to text; when orientation is turned vertically, text is front and center. In addition to the interactive elements and content, this next generation of textbook also allows students to learn and study in a more efficient manner. For example, other features include easy highlighting and note-taking, searching and definitions, and lesson reviews and study cards.
Says Apple’s Phil Schiller: “Education is deep in Apple’s DNA and iPad may be our most exciting education product yet. With 1.5 million iPads already in use in education institutions, including over 1,000 one-to-one deployments, iPad is rapidly being adopted by schools across the US and around the world. Now with iBooks 2 for iPad, students have a more dynamic, engaging and truly interactive way to read and learn, using the device they already love.”
The iBooks 2 app is now available to download in the App Store for free. iBooks textbooks are also up for grabs today, and they range in price from free to $14.99. And Apple isn’t keeping educators in the dark when it comes to the creation of these virtual textbooks. In addition to McGraw-Hill, Pearson, and other big textbook makers, Apple is letting anyone create iBooks textbooks and publish them to the iBookstore for free. The creation tool is called iBooks Author and it comes with Apple-designed templates that feature a wide variety of page layouts for educators to customize. You can add your own text and images by simply dragging and dropping them into the templates, and multitouch widgets allow you to easily add interactive photo galleries, movies, Keynote presentations, and 3D objects. If you do decide to publish your own material into the iBookstore, there are two things to be aware of: (1) Apple has set in place the classic 70/30 revenue split (creators get the larger chunk, of course) and (2) your work must be exclusive to the iBooks. Have you always been itching to publish a book and educate the masses? Now’s your chance. Download iBooks Author in the Mac App Store today for free (Lion only).
Last, Apple let loose a dedicated app for iTunes U. In short, it “lets teachers create and manage courses including essential components such as lectures, assignments, books, quizzes and syllabuses and offer them to millions of iOS users around the world.” According to Apple, it gives iOS users access to the world’s largest catalog of free educational content from top universities, and now any K-12 school district can offer full courses through the app. Here’s a real-world example. A university teacher can set up a virtual portal through which his or her students can access course materials such as syllabuses and assignments. Students can use the iTunes U app to keep up with homework and check off projects once they are complete. Teachers can push new assignments to students at anytime, and students will receive the updates as notifications. iTunes U and iBooks are integrated; if a teacher pushes out a homework assignment to reach an additional chapter from a Biology textbook, the student can receive the notification, tap the assignment, and immediately be brought to the interactive Biology iBooks textbook without ever leaving the iTunes U app. Wild, huh?
Says Apple’s Eddy Cue: “The all-new iTunes U app enables students anywhere to tap into entire courses from the world’s most prestigious universities. Never before have educators been able to offer their full courses in such an innovative way, allowing anyone who’s interested in a particular topic to learn from anywhere in the world, not just the classroom.”
The iTunes U app can also be downloaded from the App Store today.
Apple’s education-centric announcement is very exciting to say the least. With iBooks and iTunes U, students will have the ability to carry around enhanced versions of traditional textbooks, ones that are highly interactive and constantly keeping up to date with the latest information. iBooks Author and iTunes U give educators the opportunity to publish, share, and keep in touch with students during the school year and help them maintain healthy study habits. This really is a whole lot to digest right now; Apple might just be on the verge of pushing US education into a bold new direction. And you want to know what the best part is? Future students won’t have to lug around giant backpacks stuffed with thick textbooks. With the introduction of iBooks and iTunes U on lightweight, small iOS devices, those days will soon be a thing of the past.
Video demonstration awaits after the break.
[Via Apple 1, 2] Continue reading Apple aims to reinvent the textbook with iBooks 2, iBooks Author & iTunes U
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The Golden Globes came and went last Sunday, so let’s take a quick look at the big winners. On the TV side of things, premium cable channels dominated the field. Showtime’s Homeland won Best TV Series Drama and Claire Danes took home the Best Actress (Drama) award for her role in that show. Kelsey Grammer won the Best Actor (Drama) award for his role in the Starz series Boss and the great Peter Dinklage was crowned Best Supporting Actor (TV Series, Miniseries, or TV Movie) for his portrayal as Tyrion Lannister in the HBO fantasy series Game of Thrones. Matt LeBlanc won the Best Actor (Comedy or Musical) award for his lead role in another Showtime series Episodes. Enlightened‘s Laura Dern took home the Best Actress (Comedy or Musical) award for her work in the new HBO dark comedy. The PBS Masterpiece series Downton Abbey won Best Miniseries or TV Movie. Also of note, Jessica Lange (American Horror Story) rightfully accepted the award for Best Supporting Actress. And then there was Modern Family, the only show from the big networks (read: CBS, NBC, FOX, ABC) to win a Globe. Modern Family beat out FOX’s Glee and New Girl and Episodes and Enlightened for Best TV Series (Comedy).
In the movie categories, The Descendants and The Artist were named Best Picture in the Drama and Comedy or Musical sections, respectively. George Clooney (The Descendants) and Jean Dujardin (The Artist) won Best Actor Globes, and The Artist‘s Ludovic Bource was also recognized for his original score. Other notable wins include… Meryl Streep won Best Actress for her turn as Margret Thatcher in The Iron Lady, Octavia Spencer (The Help) nabbed Best Supporting Actress, Michelle Williams (My Week With Marilyn) won Best Supporting Actress, Christopher Plummer won Best Supporting Actor (Beginners), Woody Allen’s Midnight in Paris won Best Screenplay, Martin Scorsese won Best Director for Hugo, and The Adventures of Tintin was named Best Animated Film.
Click here for the full list of winners.
MONDAY
Alcatraz — FOX — 8PM
Another show from mastermind J.J. Abrams is about to premiere on network TV and that show is Alcatraz. Though chunks of the story take place on an island and one of the show’s leads is Jorge Garcia, Alcatraz and the intrigue that oozes from the promotional lead up to tomorrow night’s premiere is far different than what fans know from Lost. First, a quick mention of the plot: The show tells a story where Alcatraz inmates disappear from their cells in 1963 and mysteriously reappear in modern day society. A secret task force led by Sam Neill (of Twin Peaks fame) and Parminder Nagra (ER) manage to round up Sarah Jones who plays a homicide detective and Garcia who’s an Alcatraz expert and together they investigate the reappearances and ultimately try to unravel the mystery behind it all. In a tw0-part interview conducted by FOX, Abrams admits that when Lost was on, people were either invested in the show and watched every week or they likely didn’t watch at all. With Alcatraz he thinks that it plays more like a procedural (think inmate reappearance of the week) and because of this people will have an easier time jumping into the show even if they had missed previous installments. And for avid viewers who get hooked with the pilot, there will certainly be nuggets planted that tie episodes together for a more serialized feel. Having watched the pilot twice at Comic Con, I can say that the two-hour pilot will definitely hook Lost fans and at the same time it should help distance it from Abrams’ ABC hit. In this way Alcatraz will make room for newcomers to the procedural/serial hybrid and to the genre fare outputted under Abrams’ Bad Robot banner.
If you’re looking for a new show with mystery and intrigue and smarts, tune into the Alcatraz premiere Monday night at 8PM on FOX. Next week it falls into its regular 9PM timeslot airing after House. Check out stylized cast photos below and hop after the break to watch the two-part Abrams interview.
This is an “evolving post.” This means that I will be coming back to it throughout the fall TV season and updating it accordingly when news breaks concerning the fate of new programming. Get it? Got it? Good.
*Bolded shows denote the latest updates
CBS
Pickups: 2 Broke Girls, Unforgettable, Person of Interest
Cancellations: How to Be a Gentleman
Other: A Gifted Man (received 3 additional scripts on 11/15, season will contain 16 episodes total)
NBC
Pickups: Up All Night (episode count increase to 24 on 11/21), Whitney, Grimm
Cancellations: The Playboy Club, Free Agents, Prime Suspect
Still waiting on: (received additional 6 scripts on 10/12)
Sophomore status: Harry’s Law (received full season order on 11/15)
FOX
Pickups: New Girl, Terra Nova (before the season started FOX committed to do 13 episodes), The X Factor
Cancellations: Allen Gregory
Still waiting on: Napoleon Dynamite, Alcatraz
ABC
Pickups: Suburgatory, Revenge, Last Man Standing, Once Upon a Time
Cancellations: Charlie’s Angels, Work It
Still waiting on: Pan Am* (received 5 additional scripts on 11/3, 1 additional script on 11/29), Man Up! (pulled from schedule on 12/8, 8 of 13 episodes produced have aired)
*ABC released this statement: “Pan Am will wrap production on its first season in early January after completion of its 14th episode. A decision about about a second season will be made in May.”
*At the 2012 TCA winter press tour ABC said regarding Pan Am: “We have new and original shows right through February.”
Sophomore status: Happy Endings received full season order on 11/3, season will contain 22 episodes total; Body of Proof received full season order on 11/18, season will contain 20 episodes total
The CW
Pickups: Ringer, The Secret Circle, Hart Of Dixie
Cancellations: H8R
Jason Mraz is–at long last–ramping up anticipation to his long awaited fourth studio album title still TBA. The followup to September’s “The World As I See It” is a lullaby with the theme of love called “I Won’t Give Up.” According to Atlantic Records this song is the lead single off Mraz’s upcoming album so it should give fans a hint as what’s to come when all the tracks release May 8. The mellow love song is acoustic in nature and does not feature Mraz’s signature horns that were so prominent on his last effort We Sing. We Dance. We Steal Things. The chorus goes like this: “I won’t give up on us, even if the skies get rough. I’m giving you all my love. I’m still looking up.” His voice remains angelesque.
In an interview with Billboard, he shared some insight into the making of the new album and how it will differ from his previous ones. “This new album has less horns, it’s got more piano and guitar textures. A lot more vocal landscapes,” he says. “That, to me, has always been my favorite part of making music; the singing and what voices can do and the voices singing in harmony. It’s not a departure in the sound of the genre in any way, it’s just different tones, different textures. Musically, I think people are going to like it. It’s personal. It’s melodic. And it’s mellow. There’s a couple of up-tempo tunes, but mostly the rhythm of the heartbeat kind of takes precedence on this record. Medium-tempo tunes; which I love. It feels more like the pace of life. At least, based on my life and what I’ve been doing.”
He also has plans to change up the way he performs when he’s on tour. “I’m actually hoping in the future to try to pull off the record with a smaller band, but with more singers. The real basics: drums, keys, guitar, bass. But have everyone be a singer. I think our audiences, our listeners, have been mostly attracted to that throughout the years. They come and they sing. Most of our audience sings along.”
Watch the lyric video for “I Won’t Give Up” that’s embedded above and download the song at iTunes. You can expect a traditional music video for the track to release next month, around the same time the song hits the radio. Also, according to various sources Mraz is fine tuning an “electric” full-band version of “I Won’t Give Up” and it may land a spot on the album (perhaps as a bonus track). To reiterate, May 8 is the day it comes out, so mark your calendar!
Microsoft is heating up the competition by introducing two new 4G LTE enhanced phones for its Windows Phone collection. The HTC Titan II and the Nokia Lumia 900 are in fact the first 4G LTE smartphones to run Microsoft’s latest Windows Phone iteration “Mango.” Let’s start with the Titan II. Besides packing the 4G chip, the new Titan features a giant 4.7-inch super LCD capacitive touchscreen and an impressive 16 megapixel camera with a wide-angle lens, autofocus, and dual LED flash. The rear camera also supports 720p HD video recording, and a 1.3 megapixel front-facing one allows for video chat. Inside you’ll also find a single-core 1.5GHz Snapdragon processor and a 1,730mAh battery.
Nokia’s Lumia 900 is the bigger brother to the Lumia 710, the latter of which is the first smartphone to come out of Microsoft’s strategic alliance with the Finnish handset maker. (The Lumia 710 is now available to buy on T-Mobile for $50 on contract.) The 900 sports a larger 4.3-inch (800 x 480) AMOLED ClearBlack display, a 1.4GHz single-core processor, 512MB of RAM, Carl Zeiss-branded eight megapixel camera with large aperture (F2.2) and wide angle focal length (28mm) and LED flash that supports 720p HD video capture. Around the front you’ll find a camera also boasting a large aperture (F2.4) and a wide angle lens. Inside the polycarbonate body lies a sealed 1,830mAh battery. When it becomes available, the 900 will come in two flavors: cyan and matte black.
Microsoft’s first 4G LTE Mango phones are coming exclusively to AT&T later this year. Images below, PR and video after the break.
[Via Engadget 1, 2] Continue reading 4G LTE comes to Windows Phone Mango in HTC Titan II and Nokia Lumia 900
At this year’s Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, Motorola announced two new Droid-branded smartphones: the Droid 4 (see above) and a newcomer to the RAZR line called the Droid RAZR MAXX (see in the gallery below). Let’s start by looking at the former’s specs. The Droid 4 packs a 4-inch qHD display with scratch and scrape resistant glass, a dual-core 1.2GHz processor and 1GB of RAM, an eight megapixel shooter with 1080p HD video capture and Mirror Mode to display images and video on an HDTV, 16GB of onboard memory, and it also features the Droid’s signature five-row QWERTY keyboard. All of this and it’s only it’s only half an inch thick. It will come preloaded with Android 2.3.5 Gingerbread and Moto says it will be upgradable to 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich in time. The Droid 4 will take advantage 4G LTE speeds when it releases on Verizon Wireless “in the coming weeks.” No price announcement just yet.
The Droid RAZR MAXX, the successor to the reboot RAZR, doesn’t deviate too much from its relative. The big difference between the two is battery life. The “MAXX” refers to the smartphone’s giant 3,300 mAh battery pack which Moto promises can deliver a whopping 21 hours of battery life on a single charge. The larger battery makes the new RAZR slightly thicker measuring at 8.99 mm. Another upgrade: the MAXX comes with more internal storage, 32GB to be exact. Like the Droid 4, the MAXX will be 4G LTE super-charged on VZW’s network and pricing and availability is TBA. PR and a Droid 4 promo clip sit after the break.
[Via Engadget 1, 2] Continue reading Motorola outs two new handsets, Droid 4 & Droid RAZR MAXX
When Kinect for Xbox 360 launched in November 2010, it changed the way gamers interacted with their Xbox consoles and games just like Nintendo did with the Wii. Since its release, Kinect owners have taken the power into their own hands by hacking the motion-sensing peripheral to make it function in all kinds of ways. Microsoft quickly took notice and announced in the fall that they would release an SDK to allow for more innovation with Kinect. Microsoft shares its plan in a blog post:
With Kinect for Windows, we are investing in creating a platform that is optimized for scenarios beyond the living room, and delivering new software features on an ongoing basis… In addition to support for Windows 7 and the Windows 8 developer preview (desktop apps only), Kinect for Windows will also support gesture and voice on Windows Embedded-based devices and will enhance how data is captured and accessed within intelligent systems across manufacturing, retail and many more industries. We are building the Kinect for Windows platform in a way that will allow other companies to integrate Kinect into their offerings and we have invested in an approach that allows them to develop in ways that are dependable and scalable.
Kinect for Windows hardware will be made available on February 1 in twelve countries (United States, Australia, Canada, France, Germany, Ireland, Italy, Japan, Mexico, New Zealand, Spain, and the UK )and will sell for $249.99 in “limited quantities at first.” The accompanying SDK and developer tools will be free. Preorder today at Amazon and let your imagination run wild.
[Via Microsoft]
MGM and 20th Century Fox Home Entertainment have announced Bond 50, a collection of all 22 Bond films bundled together on Blu-ray–from Dr. No (1962) to Quantum of Solace (2008). In addition to all the movies, the collectible box-set also comes with over 130 hours of bonus features and “some new and exclusive content.” It releases this fall, but you can preorder it right now at Amazon for a cool $199.99. Video announcement and a press release hang after the break.
[Via Engadget] Continue reading 50 years of Bond culminates in box set featuring all 22 films and hours of bonus features