entertainment

Rawr! 'Jurassic Park 3D' due next year

As Samuel L. Jackson's "Jurassic Park" character Ray Arnold says, "Hold on to your butts." Universal Pictures has announced that "Jurassic Park 3D" hits theaters on July 19, 2013.

When "Jurassic Park" arrived nearly 20 years ago, it served as one of the definitive visual spectacles of my generation (like "Star Wars" in the '70s).

The movie features many of the necessary ingredients in the ultimate-blockbuster recipe: Spielberg directing, solid acting, great script, and majestic orchestra pieces by John Williams. One could even say the animation and graphics hold ground to this day. … Read more

Diablo III raging May 15

The wait for Diablo III is nearly over. Blizzard Entertainment today attached a May 15 release date to the long-awaited action role-playing game. Gamers can prepurchase the title today on Battle.net.

Beginning on May 15, gamers can purchase Diablo III at brick-and-mortar retailers throughout the United States, Canada, Europe, South Korea, Southeast Asia, Australia, New Zealand, Taiwan, Hong Kong, and Macau. Additionally, players in those regions--as well as in Mexico, Argentina, Chile, and Brazil--will be able to purchase a digital copy of Diablo III via Battle.net.

Read more "Diablo III raging May 15" at GameSpot.

Sony's Music Unlimited service lands on Vita

Color me unsurprised that Sony's PlayStation Vita just got its own app for the company's cloud-based Music Unlimited subscription service, since a similar offering for the PSP already exists.

Nonetheless, the first version of the app for Vita features excellent aesthetics with the complement of intuitive and thorough controls (see if you agree with me after watching the demo video below). Album art and channel listings clearly pop on the large OLED screen. I found it easy to scroll around, explore music, and save tracks "from the cloud" to a storage card.

Overall, the experience seems very mature for a service often left out of the music service conversation.

Speaking of saving tunes, the Vita Music Unlimited app supports offline playback through playlist/channel caching. Users of the Android version of the music service can now listen to music offline through Music Unlimited as well. … Read more

Meet a retired World of Warcraft server

A game like World of Warcraft requires several thousand servers to operate the hundreds of online realms within its ecosystem. Earlier this year, Blizzard Entertainment auctioned off several of those server blades "used during World of Warcraft's early days."

A Reddit post brought up the subject again recently, and contains a few pictures of a server blade used for the European server Sunstrider from February 27, 2005 to August 24, 2010. There's little doubt that countless gamers spent thousands, if not millions, of hours playing during that time frame. A special clear enclosure reveals the innards of the server, which contains 6 gigabytes of RAM (DDR-400MHz). It did not come with the original hard drives. … Read more

Tablets finding work as electronic babysitters

Looking for a new way to keep your unruly kids occupied? Apple, Samsung, and a bunch of other companies may have just what you need.

Polling a host of families with kids under 12, the people at Nielsen found that tablets are a great way to to keep those kids quiet. A full 55 percent said they serve their children tablets as entertainment while stuck in the car, while 41 percent do the same in restaurants.

So which activities will keep your kids busy so mommy and daddy can get some peace?

Among the parents polled, 73 percent said their … Read more

Insiders skeptical of Sony's 'mistake' on Houston music prices

Sony Music Entertainment says the price hike in the United Kingdom on Whitney Houston albums following the singer's death was a "mistake," but some industry insiders are skeptical.

On Sunday, a day after Houston was found dead in a Beverly Hills hotel, prices for two of her albums: "The Ultimate Collection" and "Greatest Hits" jumped in price in the U.K. iTunes store. In dollars, the prices rose from $7.80 to $12.50.

Right away, Sony and Apple came under fire from consumers who believed one or both of the companies were … Read more

Dispense with the pretense: Google's gunning for Apple

C'mon, Google, admit it: You're getting into hardware, and you're gunning for Apple.

With more signs pointing to a Google entertainment device of some sort somewhere over the horizon, the company's recent FCC filing offers the latest hint of what's become an inescapable conclusion. The document echoes what Google has hinted, announcing in black and white that the company iis developing a prototype "entertainment device" of some sort.

As to the details:

Testing will include functional testing of all subsystems, including WiFi and Bluetooth radio. Users will connect their device to home WiFi … Read more

PlayStation Network accounts renamed

PlayStation Network accounts will soon be no more.

In a move toward unifying its online services, PlayStation Network accounts are changing to Sony Entertainment Network accounts. "This helps us get closer to our goal of establishing a global comprehensive network platform of services across games, movies, music and more, all accessible from one convenient account," the company said in a statement.

The change is in name only, and users of the service will not have to worry about changing their username or password. A software update for PlayStation 3 and PlayStation Vita will arrive tomorrow to usher in the rebranding, but oddly, this change is not occurring for the PlayStation Portable (PSP). … Read more

Deleted Facebook photos still viewable

Windows 8 may kill the Start menu button, the Super Bowl spawned tons o' tweets, and Facebook admits that deleted photos can still be accessed.

Links from Monday's episode of Loaded:

What's a PS Vita game cost? Ask again tomorrow

Several PlayStation Vita games are seeing preorder price cuts (and one disappointing price increase) before the launch of the next-generation handheld gaming device planned of February 22.

Little Deviants, Wipeout 2048, Modnation Racers: Road Trip, Reality Fighters, and Hot Shots Golf: World Invitation, which cost $39.99 previously, are currently available for $29.99 (via Amazon, GameStop and others).

Sadly, it seems that the highly anticipated Uncharted: Golden Abyss for Vita rose in price from $39.99 to $49.99. There's little doubt that the next game in the Nathan Drake saga will be stunning and sell moderately well, but I feel a $50 retail price will turn off many gamers.

There is a certain sweet spot at $29 that Sony will have difficulty ignoring as time passes. I cannot envision a sustainable business model selling $50 triple-A portable games, regardless of the visuals or experience. … Read more