Watch a tour of the soon-to-be released Xbox One
Even if you’re not a gamer, you might want to check this out. Sure, the Xbox One will play video games, but some are saying it really just wants to take over your living room. After watching the video, I’ve got to agree. The new Xbox gives you an unreal level of control and customization over everything that connects to your TV. I don’t play video games, and I want one just so I can name it “Jarvis” :-).
Get $200 towards a new iPad at Target…until tomorrow
Target announced an in-store promotion this week for iPad trade-ins—you’ll get a gift card worth at least $200 for any iPad (as long as it powers on and doesn’t have scratches on the display). This could be a great chance to upgrade to an iPad Air (or so I keep telling my husband, who isn’t really agreeing with me).
If Apple doesn’t float your boat, how about an 8-inch Lumia?
Nokia is working on their next Windows Lumina tablet. Rumor has it that it will be released early next year…along with possibly a 6-inch Lumia. As The Verge notes, Microsoft is also expected to launch their own 7.5-inch Surface “mini” in 2014, so no one knows how widely available the Lumias will be. Still, there are clearly lots of Windows devices on the horizon.
Blockbuster closing remaining U.S. stores
It’s the end of a technology era—Blockbuster will be closing all 300 remaining company-owned stores by early 2014 (and their distribution centers). Blockbuster-by-mail is also being shuttered. This is quite a shift from Blockbuster’s heyday when there were 9,000 stores all over the United States. Franchised stores will still be around, but Blockbuster will now pretty much be an Internet-only entity. I’m suddenly feeling a tad nostalgic (okay, it’s passed—bring on the on demand content!).
Neflix teaming up with Marvel for new shows
Netflix announced this week a multi-year content partnership with Marvel. They plan on creating 4 new shows based on Marvel heroes that live in New York. The shows will focus on Daredevil, Jessica Jones, Iron Fist, and Luke Cage. These superheroes are, according to Tech Crunch, “often portrayed as neighborhood watch type heroes, or blue collar superhumans who fight more street crime than laser-toting aliens.” The shows will each have a minimum of 13 episodes before the characters are brought together in a mini-series called The Defenders. The shows are expected to be released in 2015 so don’t get too excited yet.
How Minecraft was born
There’s a new book out called, Minecraft: The Unlikely Tale of Markus “Notch” Persson and the Game that Changed Everything. There’s an excerpt on Wired this week and it’s really interesting. The peek into intellectual property vs. inspiration and how and why he chose his pricing model which was quite revolutionary in 2009, sucked me in. Now, if only the book had instructions for getting my son’s Pixelmon mod to work consistently well, we’d be all set ;-).
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