Microsoft has announced today that they will be releasing a special edition updated Xbox 360 controller, with a “transforming D-Pad.”
The updated D-pad design will transform for different uses. Larry “Major Nelson” Hryb explains and shows off the controller in the video below.
When gamers twist the D-pad, it pops up, revealing a raised plus sign.
Says Microsoft: “Select the traditional plus for distinct cardinal direction movement in games like “Halo: Reach” to change weapons and perform complicated combinations and deadly finishing moves in “Street Fighter” games, or rotate the D-pad to the disc format for sweeping motions in games such as “Pro Evolution Soccer 2011.” Choose your favorite controller set-up and experience unrivaled precision for all Xbox 360 games.”
The control comes bundled with a Play and Charge Kit and will sell for $65 when it hits on November 9th.
Result for: Favorite
Earlier this week a company called Lookout showed how several Android wallpaper apps were accessing user information, including phone number, subscriber identification, voicemail password, browsing history, text messages & the phone’s SIM card number.
The claims were made during a presentation at this week’s Black Hat security conference in Las Vegas.
In a number of interviews since then the developer, Jackeey Wu, has released a statement denying most of these claims and Lookout has since agreed that only the phone number, subscriber identification & voicemail password (when stored on the phone) were accessed and sent to Wu’s server in China.
Wu stated, “I collected the screen size to return more suitable wallpaper for the phone. More and More users emailed me telling that they love my wallpaper apps so much, because that even “Background” can’t well suited the phone’s screen. I also collected device id,phone number and subscriber id, it has no relationship with user data. There are few apps in Android market has the favorites feature. Many users suggest that I should provide the feature so I use the these to identify the device, so they can favorite the wallpapers more conveniently, and resume his favorites after system resetting or changing the phone.”
He also included a screenshot from installing one of the apps, showing the permissions used. You can read the entire statement below.
Lookout’s clarification on their website says, “While the data this app is accessing is certainly suspicious coming from a wallpaper app, we want to be clear that there is no evidence of malicious behavior. There have been cases in the past where applications are simply a little overzealous in their data gathering practices, but not because of any ill intent.”
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Think back a few months to a fight that took place between Redbox and the major Hollywood studios. Hollywood execs were all hot and bothered about how Redbox kiosk’s cheap $1 movie rentals were cannibalizing new DVD and Blu-ray sales, and decided to order their wholesale distributors not to sell to Redbox for a month or more after the initial release.
Redbox launched some legal action in response and decided to buy directly from retailers to stock kiosks as a workaround. However, that came crashing down for Redbox when Wal-Mart and other retailers imposed limits on the number of units of the same film a single customer can buy from them. Long story short, Redbox ended signing deals with Fox, Universal and Warner Bros. that required a 28-day window before Redbox kiosks could offer new titles for rental.
Paramount however decided to actually test whether or not the availability of new titles from rent from Redbox kiosks affects the sales of new DVD or Blu-ray releases. It signed a deal with Redbox in August 2009 which would allow it to stock new releases on the same day as the title comes out on Blu-ray and DVD. Redbox agreed at the time to share rental data with Paramount so that it could evaluate the potential benefits of a longer-term contract.
Following the 10-month analysis of DVD sell-through and renal performance, Paramount and Redbox announced on Tuesday that Paramount had extended its revenue sharing license agreement, providing Redbox access to Paramount DVD and Blu-ray titles to rent on the same day they are released in the sell-through market.
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