Call of Duty $3 Billion And Climbing

SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) – Activision Blizzard Inc said on Friday its "Call of Duty" video game franchise pushed past the $3 billion mark in global retail sales. Overall, the "Call of Duty" series has sold more than 55 million units since its launch in 2003, Activision said, citing data compiled by NPD Group, Charttrack, GfK and internal company estimates. The company released the sixth title in the series, "Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2," earlier this month to record-breaking results. The first-person shooter game recorded an estimated $550 million in sales in its first five days on the market. It sold 4.7 million copies on the first day in the United States and United Kingdom alone. "If you consider the number of hours our audiences are engaged in playing Call of Duty games, it is likely to be one of the most viewed of all entertainment experiences in modern history," Activision Chief Executive Bobby Kotick said in a company release. Activision shares rose more than 1 percent in late morning trade on the Nasdaq, even as shares of competitors Electronic Arts Inc and Take Two Interactive Software Inc fell more than 2 percent. Shares of Santa Monica, California-based Activision rose 13 cents to $11.69. Good times for Activision. But watch out Obama might want a bail out.

300 mph Ford

Joe Wilkins knew there was only one way to give his supercharged, alcohol-injected Hemi-engined hot rod more power: Put a jet engine in the trunk. "It started as a hobby and turned into a monster," said Joe Wilkins, the motor madman behind what might be the wildest 1939 Ford ever built. He's an inventor and defense department contractor, and the idea of goosing the Ford's ability to turn heads and shred tires came when he bought a used gas turbine engine. "I got hooked on the simplicity and power that this thing produced, and I decided one day I want to put it in a car." Luckily for us, he did. The Hemi Jet -- Wilkins has copyrighted the name -- fires up this weekend at the Houston AutoRama, and Wilkins plans to attempt a land speed record in the near future. In the meantime, he's tooling around Navasota, Texas, in what he says is the ultimate sleeper when the jet engine's tucked away in the trunk. Most people say "Nice car" and assume he's got the obligatory small-block Chevrolet engine under the hood. Little do they know. "I can drive it up to the store and get a gallon of milk if I want to," he told Autopia. The car is an amalgamation of the Big Three, with a Chrysler engine, Chevrolet drivetrain and Ford body. Wilkins says the jet engine was probably used as an APU and weighs 110 pounds. He claims the car is street legal so long as the jet stays stowed. He fires it up from time to time to show off, and he plans to run it flat-out at the Bonneville Salt Flats. "We want to be the fastest street legal car in the world," he said. He's got some intense competition. The Bugatti Veyron tops out at 253 mph and the Shelby Supercars Ultimate Aero TT does 255. And then there's Red Vector One, that crazy Vauxhall that does zero to 60 in under a second. Record, schmecord -- we just want to see the video. "I'm more than certain the car will go over 300," Wilkins said. "We've still got a ways to go [before Bonneville], but not a long way. We'll have to experiment in some wind tunnels and end up with a spoiler on the back to keep the front end on the ground." Sadly, Wilkins won't be behind the wheel during the car's test run. "I turned 61 last Sunday. I just don't think I'm going to be able to handle it [without] the reflexes I had 20 or 30 years ago," he said. "I know several people who would be more than interested."

Xbox LIVE Gold Free

Microsoft wants you on Xbox LIVE for the weekend with, of course, a view toward forever, and it's prepared to temporarily waive the cover fee to grab your attention. Xbox LIVE Gold-tier membership usually costs $50 a year and provides access to features like online multiplayer, Facebook, Twitter, Last.FM, and Netflix for starters. Xbox LIVE Silver members who pay nothing save the time it takes to register a free account are by contrast left to nibble on skeletal features like online gamer profiles and friends lists, but otherwise have to stand at the window looking in. That changes this weekend for US Xbox 360 gamers with a Silver membership (again, totally free) and the ability to bring their Xbox 360s online with an Ethernet cable or Wi-Fi adapter. As noted this Tuesday by Microsoft's Larry "Major Nelson" Hryb, all Xbox LIVE regions except Europe will have free access to Gold services from November 20th at 12:00PM ET / 9:00AM PT until November 23rd at the same time. Europe's getting it too, of course, just a couple days later, and for a slightly longer time period--from November 25th to November 30th. Visualize Master Chief (from Halo) with an olive-colored plasteel finger extended and a stern look on his...well, as stern-looking as a gold-tinged visor can be. Microsoft runs these free weekends periodically, the last one occurring at the end of August and sponsored by T-Mobile. Paying members occasionally grumble about lack of reciprocity (compensation, other promotional items), and a few complain the free weekends briefly open the doors to younger, disruptive gamers, but on balance reactions tend to be positive.

Developers Worried About Android's Growth

A year after its release, Google's open source Android operating system has become a sensation. After a slow start, it is now available on at least 12 phones, with more devices waiting in the wings. Good news for Android fans, right? Not really, say some developers. A slew of problems have made managing Android apps a "nightmare," they say, including three versions of the OS (Android 1.5, 1.6 and 2.0), custom firmware on many phones, and hardware differences between different models. For users, it means apps in the store could be buggy, might not work well depending on their handsets, and could deliver a frustrating experience. Unaware of the increasing back-end complexity, they would then be more likely to leave bad reviews for those apps -- a potentially lethal blow for small businesses, say developers. In the past two months, Motorola released two new Android-based handsets, the Cliq and Droid. And in a bid to differentiate themselves, handset makers are creating custom user interfaces like the HTC Sense, the Motorola Blur and the Rachael UI from Sony Ericsson. Android phones vary significantly in the hardware, too phones with and without camera flash, some have physical keyboards, others don't. "You may build an app that works perfectly with all three firmwares, but then when you run it on carriers' ROMs it completely blows up," says Fagan. "So we find ourselves having to create apps that are compatible with multiple firmwares, multiple ROMs and multiple devices with different hardware." Apple has tightly controlled the introduction of new iPhones and updates to its operating system. It has just three iPhone models available since it first introduced the phone in 2007. And all iPhone users are prompted to update their phones to be on the same version of the operating system. While Apple pioneered the app store idea with the iPhone, Android, too, offers Market, a store for distribution of third-party programs. Unlike with the Apple app store, Android developers do not have to go through an approval process to get their apps on the Android Market.Currently, the Android market has about 10,000 apps compared to the 100,000 in Apple's app store.For developers, Apple's autocratic ways may be frustrating, but they can pay off. Founded about the same time as the first Android phone hit the market, Froogloid today has more than 100,000 users across its three apps: a2b, Key Ring and CowPotato. But with Android's growth, managing these apps is becoming quite a challenge, says Fagan.The diversity of devices running Android OS has led to some unexpected results, says Fagan.

Star Trek Goes Online

The developers at Cryptic Studios were focusing on recreating the sci-fi franchise's universe for "Star Trek Online," the upcoming massively multiplayer online game that boldly casts players as captains of their own starship. Yet they were leaving out a crucial location: the bridge. Despite their initial hesitation, the game's masterminds decided to make it so. "We didn't want to have interiors at launch," said "Star Trek Online" executive producer Craig Zinkievich. "We thought it was just a little bit too much. We really wanted to make sure we delivered a really deep experience, but your bridge not being in the game, it really felt like a hole in the game, and it was just something that we had to put in." When players design their virtual vessels, they can choose from about 20 different bridges — like one resembling the command centers aboard the famed Enterprises or the brawny Defiant from "Star Trek: Deep Space Nine." Zinkievich said the bridges will mostly function as social hubs where gamers can hangout with their bridge officers and other captains online. The game is set 22 years after the supernova that destroyed the Romulan homeworld and transported an elder Spock and the villainous Nero into director J.J. Abrams' reimagined "Star Trek." Peace between the Federation and Klingons has since evaporated, meaning space combat will play a vital role in the game, though there are still strange new worlds to explore. "It's familiar, but it's new," said Zinkievich. "We've changed a few things and added a few things to the universe. I think that's what keeps us from stepping on the hardcore Trekkies' toes. The team is made up of 'Star Trek' fans and avid MMO fans, so if we can make a game that doesn't churn our stomach, then I think we can definitely satisfy the fans." "Star Trek Online" is scheduled for release Feb. 2.

Smart Phone From Dell

Dell Inc. is officially jumping into the "smart" phone market this month in a deal with China's biggest wireless carrier, China Mobile Ltd. The Dell Mini 3, a keyboardless touch-screen phone that runs Google Inc.'s Android operating system, will also be available in Brazil later this year. The computer maker, based in Round Rock, Texas, would not say when the phone would reach the U.S. Friday's announcement ends more than two years of speculation that Dell, now the world's third-largest PC company by unit shipments, would expand into the phone business. The economic downturn abruptly halted growth in the computer industry this year as consumers and businesses held off buying new technology. Hewlett-Packard Co., the No. 1 computer maker worldwide, fared better than Dell because its business is more diverse. Acer Inc., a Taiwan-based company, pushed past Dell to the No. 2 spot in the most recent quarter on the popularity of its tiny, inexpensive netbook computers, a category Dell was slow to enter. Dell, however, was one of the first computer makers to pair up with wireless carriers to sell subsidized netbooks with cellular data plans. One such deal with China Mobile helped lay the groundwork for the Mini 3 launch, which the two companies foreshadowed in August when they showed off a prototype of the Mini 3 at an event in Beijing. Michael Tatelman, vice president of sales and marketing for Dell's global consumer business, said Dell wants carriers to have some control over the way the phone works. It chose the open-source Android system because it gives Dell many ways to customize the software — but didn't rule out making phones that run Microsoft Corp.'s Windows Mobile.

Web Forgery On Twitter

The other night I started to receive a tsunami of @ replies on my Twitter account. Apparently I was direct messaging a stack of people I don’t know with a link to something that starts http://videos.twitter… except it wasn’t me. The image above is what you see when the link is clicked (and no, I’m not going to give the link.) This is NOT fun. Fortunately, Robert Scoble had picked up on what was gong on and sent the message: @Scobleizer: Don’t click links sent to u in DM @dahowlett & many others are being hit ESP ones that start http://video
At the time I wasn’t near my laptop so couldn’t realistically review the problem. There are limitations to Tweetie on the iPhone. In time honored fashion I didn’t get a reply from anyone at Twitter. Given the nature of the service I didn’t expect to. I’m not the only one. If your Twitter account has been hacked remove apps here: http://twitter.com/account/... This seems how bad guys are getting in. Fortunately there are various suggestions as to how the problem might be solved. The easiest seemed to be a password change. I’ve no idea how the hack occurred, especially given I used a 10 character alpha-numeric password that Twitter graded as ‘good’ but it is yet another example how this popular service can nail you. One very helpful suggestion is to ensure the password you use for Twitter is unique to that service. That’s something you should do anyway.

Windows 7 Early Sales

Microsoft has reported that Windows 7 sales are 234 percent higher than Windows Vista for the initial week after its release. That figure however is tempered with the statistic that Windows 7 has not prompted the same surge in PC sales that accompanied the release of Windows Vista. Does that mean that Windows 7 isn't incentive enough for users to purchase new computers? Not really. First of all, when Windows Vista was released the Windows XP operating system had been the flagship desktop operating system for more than 5 years. Users who had jumped on the Windows XP bandwagon early would have been more than ready to make a hardware upgrade when moving to the new operating system. For users that have held on to Windows XP through the dark years (the timeframe between the release of Windows Vista and the release of Windows 7), that same fact may still hold true. However, many Windows XP users have upgraded the PC hardware since 2001, but have bought new Windows XP systems or re-installed their Windows XP operating system on the new hardware. While Windows Vista faced a variety of issues both real and perceived, there are still millions of users that have embraced the operating system. Windows Vista makes up nearly 19 percent of the desktop operating system market. Whether those users like Windows Vista or hate Windows Vista, the hardware they are using should be sufficient when upgrading to Windows 7. Timing also has a huge impact on the PC hardware sales figures. Windows Vista was released in January--after the holiday season. With Windows 7 being released in October, users who just want the operating system software may jump on board, but customers that are interested in purchasing a new system with Windows 7 installed are likely holding out for holiday bargains and Black Friday deals. Talk to me again in January about PC hardware sales related to Windows 7. Another factor in the sale of new PC hardware is corporate adoption of the new operating system. Many enterprises held on to Windows XP and are now planning to upgrade to Windows 7, but massive hardware and operating system upgrades take careful planning and time to implement. Many large companies also operate on funky fiscal year calendars which can affect the timing of the Windows 7 upgrade.