iTunes tops online movie market in 2010

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.

Read more at Variety’s Technotainment blog

Casualty of the NBC merger: A sense of humor

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.

Read more at Variety’s Technotainment blog

Verizon sells out of pre-order iPhones

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.

Read more at Variety’s Technotainment blog

Conan O’Brien’s flirtation with the Xbox 360

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.

Read more at Variety’s Technotainment blog

Android unveils Honeycomb: The tablet battle lines are drawn

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.

Read more at Variety’s Technotainment blog

Will Kinect replace your TV’s remote control?

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.

Read more at Variety’s Technotainment blog

Trouble hits Intel’s Sandy Bridge

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.

Read more at Variety’s Technotainment blog

Angry Birds gets a sequel – and a film tie-in

Because there are so many app games on the market, we don’t write about them too often here at Technotainment, but we’re willing to make an exception for “Angry Birds.”

The sequel to the most popular game on the iPhone, iPad and pretty much any other mobile device it’s on has finally been unveiled. And this time, the birds are turning their wrath on… other birds. The game – called “Angry Birds: Rio” – is due out this spring and will have 45 initial levels. But to get you pumped up, creator Rovio and 20th Century Fox have put together one heck of a trailer.

Read more at Variety’s Technotainment blog

Doodle Jump’s different sort of big screen debut

Game titles in the app store have rewritten the rules of video game development – so it makes sense that they would rewrite the rules of tie-ins as well.

“Doodle Jump,” one of the most popular apps on iDevices, has announced a film partnership with Universal Pictures that will work a bit differently than the usual game/movie tie-in.

Read more at Variety’s Technotainment blog

Disney nabs EA Mobile chief

As Disney was busy laying off a substantial portion of its games division this week, it was also doing some hiring.

The Mouse House has lured away Adam Sussman, vice president of Electronic Arts’ mobile division. Sussman will become Senior VP of publishing for Disney Games – further indicating the company’s plan to focus almost entirely on mobile and social titles moving forward.

Read more at Variety’s Technotainment blog