Mobile games are starting to rake in big revenues in the States as perambulating punters warm to the idea of downloading games for their phones.
According to research firm Telephia, earnings from the category of games known as “on-portal” took a hefty 61 percent leap skywards in the fourth quarter of 2006 in the US.
Telephia say that over 17 million Americans downloaded a mobile game during the last three months of 2006, representing a beefy 45 percent jump from the 12 million recorded during the same time of 2005.
The US now makes up nearly a third of the worldwide mobile gaming market, which shaped up at around 38 million downloads per month in 2005, according to stats firm iSuppli.
Their figures predict that the number will hit around 134 million game downloads every month by the year 2010.
Although you might imagine that mobile gaming would be the near-exclusive preserve of socially challenged males aged 25 to 36, Telephia says that it’s the ladies who are the hottest to trot, with 65 percent of U.S. mobile game buyers being of the female persuasion.
With the U.S. mobile game revenue registering a till-straining $566 million revenue in 2006, there’s clearly big profits on the horizon.
iSuppli are predicting that the worldwide mobile gaming market will be worth $6.1 billion by 2010, up mightily from 2005’s total of $1.8 billion.
The market seems to be consolidating around the big name manufacturers, with other vendors now only accounting for 14% of worldwide mobile phone sales in 2006 – down 5% from 2005.
Motorola’s total sales for 2006 hit 209 million units, which translates into a 21.1 percent market share.
As ever, the camera sports a beast of a 7.1x optical wide zoom lens (28–200 mm in 35 mm camera format) in a slim body measuring a pocketable 20.6 mm at its thinnest point.
The camera comes with high-resolution, high viewing angle 2.7-inch LCD (up slightly on the R5 LCD), with Ricoh claiming a long 330 shot battery life.
Olympus has announced details of two additions to their dSLR range in the run up to the Photo Marketing Association (PMA) trade show in Las Vegas which starts on the 7th March.
Olympus have also increased the camera’s high sensitivity performance thaks to a new TruePic III processor, backed by improved buffering of continuous frames offering shooting at 3fps with up to seven images in RAW buffer
Olympus E-510
Although not quite as small as it’s younger brother, the camera still measures up at a pleasingly bijou 5.4″ x 3.6″ x 2.7″, making it a great choice for travellers.
Like hungry puppies with sharp teeth, Mozilla’s Firefox and Apple’s Safari Web browsers continue to chew and gnaw away at the juicy legs of Microsoft’s Internet Explorer (IE).
“After a minor hiccup in January, Firefox seems to be back on the offensive in February,” said the fabulously named Vincent Vizzaccaro, Net Applications’ executive vice president of marketing and strategic relationships.
Sony’s new DSC-H7 and DSC-H9 cameras come with an immense 15x optical Carl Zeiss Vario-Tessar zoom, which translates into a whopping 31-465mm range (35mm equiv) – perfect for wannabe paparazzi and lurking stalkers.
Both cameras sport face detection technology, HDTV output, red-eye reduction and an action-freezing shutter speed up to 1/4000 of a second, backed by a slew of auto, manual and scene modes.
There’s no RAW image capture either, an omission that will surely push keen photographers further in the direction of cut price dSLRs like Nikon’s fine D40
Looking like it’s teleported straight off the film set of 2001:A Space Odyssey is this new futuristic radio from Olympus sporting a colossal 37GB of disk space and a 3.9″ screen.
We can’t see any mention of a DAB radio on the radio which suggests it’s not for the UK market, but naturally there are presets galore for AM/FM bands.
The publicity shots show the radio in what looks like a docking bay, although with no pics of the thing untethered perhaps the radio doesn’t pop out after all. Which would be a bit rubbish.
Having a ton of the latest technological gadgets bulging in your pants may give you a Noughties swagger, but you’ll be looking like a prize chump if the batteries go flat, so Solar Technology’s new Freeloader charger might help you keep your cool.
As the name suggests, this Strat-shaped guitar comes with a USB port, allowing aspiring six string warriors to plug into their laptops and access a host of cool effects.
There’s also a multi-track recording/editing function for laying down dual-guitar sonic attacks, delicately layered tracks or a Ronnie Spector wall of noise.
Research firm Hitwise reported that online traffic to YouTube soared past rival US TV websites, with the site recording more visits than all the television network Web sites combined during the week of Feb. 3rd.
Hitwise researcher LeAnn Prescott, commented, “This is a landmark event in the changing face of web traffic and entertainment consumption, now that entertainment seekers are now more likely to go to YouTube than any other television network or gaming website.”