Paramount Pictures has teamed with 
browser-based game developer Funtactix to create an online game based upon its upcoming animated feature “Rango.”
The game, dubbed “Rango: The World” will bow alongside the film on March 4 and allow fans to create an avatar and explore the movie’s world with friends and strangers. Players will interact with characters from the film – minus Johnny Depp’s titular chameleon – and complete quests and play minigames.
The fat lady has sung in Activision’s 
“Guitar Hero” franchise.
The publisher today announced that it was discontinuing development on future games in the series – as well as related titles such as “DJ Hero” and “Band Hero”. Also cancelled was “True Crime: Hong Kong”.
Battlestar Galactica was one of the more popular 
television programs to ever hit the airwaves with the video game culture. The show’s intelligent balance of sci-fi action with a deep storyline struck a chord with players, who discussed it endlessly in message boards and chat rooms.
So it might make sense that a massively multiplayer game based on the show would be a natural hit. But as Bigpoint’s new game goes live today, there’s a distinct lack of chatter amongst the inhabitants of the gaming boards.
The competition is getting fiercer, but 
when it comes to online video sales, Apple is still king of the hill.
New data from IHS Screen Digest shows that iTunes was the leader in movie electronic sell through and internet video on demand last year, besting pushes from Amazon, Wal-Mart and others with a commanding 2/3 market share.
There’s a fun clip that has been running around 
the Internet this week – a time capsule of sorts, back to a more innocent time when the online world was a mystery to people.
Included among those who didn’t quite understand it were Bryant Gumbel and Katie Couric, who discussed it during an airing of the Today show. It was a funny clip that had a lot of people laughing with – not at – the anchors. Today, word came that the person who had leaked the clip had lost their job at NBC.
That didn’t take long.
Verizon has halted pre-orders of the iPhone after less than a day, saying that they have sold out of their pre-sale units. Your only chance to get one now – short of waiting for the restocking, of course – is to wait until Feb. 9 at 3:01am and try to grab one online or show up at your local Verizon store at 7am on Feb. 10.
When Conan O’Brien and NBC parted ways in early 2010,
the talk show host had a lot of suitors. Most were the usual suspects – Fox, Comedy Central, HBO… but when word leaked out that Microsoft was interested, it caught a few people off guard.
Reports at the time said the company was considering launching its own programming channel for the Xbox 360 – and was interested in lassoing O’Brien as the tentpole. Neither party ever talked about the discussions publicly – or even confirmed them – but last month at CES, Jeff Ross, executive producer of “Conan” finally gave some details during the “Hollywood Creative Masters” Super Session.
While the media has had a field day trying to 
convince people that the table market is being fought on a hardware front, it’s not. Ultimately, it’s the end user experience that makes the difference on whether someone enjoys the product.
Apple, to date, has had a vastly superior interface that – along with its headstart in the market – has allowed it to own a commanding share of the space. Android tablets, meanwhile, have all been built upon an interface that was never meant for devices other than phones. Today, Google changed that.
As Microsoft gets people used to the idea of controlling 
their Xbox 360 with Kinect, its hot selling motion sensor peripheral, the company behind that technology is aiming at a bigger market.
PrimeSense Ltd, which built the technology behind Kinect, says it expects at least one U.S. cable company to release a product this year allowing subscribers to change channels, access video on demand and more through hand gestures.
Intel’s Sandy Bridge chip was perhaps 
the most impressive thing at this year’s Consumer Electronics Show, but the rollout of the next generations processors has hit a stumbling block.
Intel today announced it had discovered a flaw in a support chip that works with next generation – or so-called Sandy Bridge – processors, and has suspended shipments and will be replacing those that have already shipped with the affected support chip.
Chris Morris: Journalist 