Rumors started last month that Apple was making a hard push to begin offering 
streaming rentals of recent television programming for 99 cents. Now those whispers are beginning to solidify a bit.
Bloomberg reports that the Cupertino-based company is in advanced talks with News Corp. for 99-cent rentals – and CBS and Disney are engaged in similar discussions with Apple.
Hollywood’s relationship with the gamer – especially the 
PC gamer – is a tenuous one. Demographically, they’re right in the sweet spot for most big releases, but the tech savvy of those players always brings about piracy fears.
Now Steam, a popular game digital distribution retailer owned by Valve Software, is taking a look at what’s on gamer’s hard drives – well, at least in terms of installed programs.
“Neverwinter Nights,” one of the most storied
role-playing game franchises, is getting an update. Atari today announced “Neverwinter,” a new title utilizing the Dungeon and Dragons license, will hit shelves late next year.
Last June, Variety was first to break the news that Atari was relaunching the series. Sources, at the time, told us Atari’s Cryptic Studios would revived the game as a massively multiplayer online title, with an eyed 2011 release. Today’s announcement stops short of calling it an MMO, but does refer to the game as a “new online role-playing game”.
Will Wright conquered the video game world with titles such 
as “Sim City” and “The Sims”. Now he’s looking to take on television.
Wright, who left Electronic Arts last year to dedicate his attentions to his Stupid Fun Club, has begun shooting a pilot episode for a new program for Current TV. The details haven’t been released, but there’s ample speculation this could be “The Creation Project,” which relies on user-created stories from episode to episode.
We’ve written previously here at Variety 
about the growing importance of digital SLR cameras to Hollywood. Indie filmmakers use them to shoot on a budget and bigger budget content producers use ’em to help cut costs (like “Saturday Night Live,” which shoots its opening credits with a DSLR).
Now Nikon is adding some new features to better compete with Canon, which has had the lead among film makers for a while.
Verizon has big plans for the tablet marketplace – 
maybe bigger than they’re willing to talk about right now.
The telecom giant held a press conference Wednesday showing off an app that would stream live television and on-demand programming to the iPad for FiOS customers. The application, which also allows customers to see which shows are most popular with viewers in real-time, is expected to be available next year.
When Microsoft announced the Xbox 360 motion sensor 
controller that’s now known as Kinect, the demo that had everyone talking was Peter Molyneux’s “Milo”. Shown in a video (and, later, via a select number of live demonstrations), the onscreen 11-year old boy interacted and chatted with a human player and showed remarkable artificial intelligence.
Milo’s been silent since then, but Molyneux brought him back out recently at the TED conference. A video of his presentation at that event has just been released and it’s worth 10 minutes of your time.
As Microsoft has leaked out details of its upcoming Windows 
Phone 7 series, it has been pretty obviouthat the company planned to borrow heavily from its successful Xbox Live formula. Now it’s sharing more details – and it’s looking a lot more like a semi-complete integration of the service, rather than just a few elements.
The new phones will launch with Xbox Live integration, letting owners stay connected with their gaming friends when they’re away from their consoles. They’ll also be able to access leaderboards, turn-based multiplayer games, Achievements and more.
Panasonic has been one of the biggest (and loudest) 
supporters of the 3D TV market. Now it’s ratcheting things up a bit more.
The company has introduced another pair of 3D sets – the first by Panny to offer 2D to 3D conversion, which substantially increases the library of content. (It also brings the company in parallel with Sony and Samsung, which offer the technology.)
Chris Morris: Journalist 