PlayPhone is formally launching its smartphone mobile social gaming network today after signing up more than 3 million users worldwide. I guess you could say it?s a little behind in making that announcement, as it has so many users already.
The San Jose, Calif.-based company hopes to challenge rivals such as Gree/OpenFeint and DeNA/Ngmoco in the battle to create a huge social network of gamers on smartphones and tablets. PlayPhone?s entry into the competition is going to make the market a lot more interesting for developers and consumers, as the company hopes to differentiate itself through cross-platform game play, payments, and social functionality.
PlayPhone has created a free-to-play app that runs on the Apple iOS, Android, Flash, Windows Phone 7, and HTML5 platforms. The app lets players socialize with each other and play in the same online multiplayer game across different smartphone and tablet platforms.
?We think that is something that nobody else will be able to do,? said Ron Czerny (pictured), chief executive of PlayPhone, in an interview. ?You?re not limited to playing with friends who have the same operating system as you.?
While Gree/OpenFeint and DeNA/Ngmoco have strong bases in Japan, PlayPhone was founded much later and has a smaller number of users. But PlayPhone began building its mobile social network in 2010. That?s why it has more than 3 million smartphone users now.
Czerny believes that gave his company a head start on its rivals in smartphones and tablets. Right now there are 15 games from 10 developers using the PlayPhone social gaming network. By January, PlayPhone and its partners will be adding about a game a day.
?This is extremely complicated and we started early,? Czerny said.
PlayPhone is already live and operating globally, and it has been operating a mobile game network for five years on feature phones, where it has 35 million users. But it is only now launching on smartphones and tablets. The PlayPhone app runs in native mode on all of the major formats.
When a user logs into a game such as PlayPhone Poker, the mobile social network connects automatically. You can see that it does so with a PlayPhone icon in the corner of your mobile phone screen. You can activate it by tapping on the icon. When you get to the game?s first screen, you can see pictures of your friends who might be able to play the game with you.
The software development kit has been downloaded by more than 1,500 parties.
Czerny showed me how a player with an Android phone could play in the same PlayPhone Poker card table as someone with an Apple iPhone. The players could send messages to each other and chat back and forth. You can sign on once via Facebook and quickly access all games. You can buy poker chips via the Apple App Store through in-app purchases. But you can also buy poker chips via PlayPhone?s other payment options.
While you?re sitting at a poker table, you can invite a friend to play. The platform synchronizes the players, even if they are from a different platform. The mobile social network uses HTML5 as its interface. You can chat with friends in real-time and play the game as well.
PlayPhone has its own virtual currency (Playcredits) and you can access various carrier billing and payment options, even on a closed platform such as Apple?s iOS. You don?t have to exit a game to pay for a virtual good. Czerny said the company has relations with more than 100 global carriers. PlayPhone is a preferred direct-billing partner with both AT&T and Verizon in the U.S. The company has a presence in 25 countries.
PlayPhone has raised an undisclosed amount of funding from Menlo Ventures, Cardinal Venture Capital, Coral Group, and Scale Venture Partners. PlayPhone has 90 employees, including 35 in San Jose. Czerny said the company is likely to raise money so it can better compete with Gree and DeNA.
Next Story: Up close and personal video of Resistance Burning Skies?(video) Previous Story: TwitVid relaunches as a social video network, adds support for?channels
Tags: exclusive, mobile social gaming network, PlayPhone Poker
Companies: DeNA, Gree, Ngmoco, OpenFeint, PlayPhone
NEW HAVEN (Reuters) ? A Connecticut jury ended on Tuesday its second day of deliberating whether a man convicted of killing a mother and her two daughters in a gruesome home invasion should be executed for his crimes.
The same 12-person panel convicted Joshua Komisarjevsky, 31, in October of the 2007 murders of Jennifer Hawke-Petit, 48, and her two daughters Hayley Petit, 17, and Michaela Petit, 11. The girls' father was the sole survivor of the attack.
Komisarjevsky's accomplice, Steven Hayes, was convicted separately of similar charges and has been sentenced to death.
The jury in New Haven Superior Court began deliberations on Monday and has deliberated seven-and-a-half hours over two days. It was due to resume at 10 a.m. on Wednesday.
The jury that sentenced Hayes to death deliberated for 17 hours over four days before reaching its unanimous decision.
Komisarjevsky and Hayes were convicted of an attack that began after Komisarjevsky spotted Jennifer Hawke-Petit and her younger daughter in a supermarket and followed them to their home in Cheshire, Connecticut.
For several hours, the pair held the family captive, although at one point Hawke-Petit was forced to drive to a bank and withdraw $15,000.
After she returned, she was raped and strangled. The girls, tied to their beds, died of smoke inhalation as the home was set on fire. The younger girl was sexually assaulted.
The sole survivor of the attack, Dr. William Petit, was badly beaten and tied up in the basement but managed to escape as the house went up in flames.
Petit has attended the trials of both men.
Connecticut has only executed one person, in 2005, since the death penalty was reinstated in the United States in 1976, according to the Death Penalty Information Center.
Ten men, including Hayes, are on the state's death row, according to the Center.
The jury can sentence Komisarjevsky, who was convicted of 17 charges including murder, kidnapping, arson and sexual assault, to life in prison without the possibility of parole or to die by lethal injection.
During six weeks of the sentencing phase of the case, the defense said Komisarjevsky was molested as a child and that his extremely religious parents relied on prayer and failed to get him clinical help for his troubled behavior.
The defense presented a list of more than 40 mitigating factors arguing against a death sentence, which the jury must weigh against aggravating factors cited by prosecutors.
The defense attorneys also argued that Komisarjevsky's role in the home invasion was smaller than that of Hayes.
While Android's dessert-derived code-names like Cupcake and Ice Cream Sandwich are publicly pitched by Google and used by media, Apple's iOS code-names don't get anywhere nearly as much attention. Developer Steve Troughton-Smith, however, gave them some Twitter love this morning.
BEIJING ? Two giant pandas are flying from China to Scotland, where they will become the first pandas to live in Britain in nearly two decades.
The pandas named Tian Tian and Yang Guang ? or Sweetie and Sunshine ? munched on bamboo at Chengdu airport ahead of their trip Sunday.
The pandas are to stay for 10 years at Edinburgh Zoo, where officials hope they will breed during their stay.
The Royal Zoological Society of Scotland will pay more than 600,000 pounds ($935,000) a year to China for the loan of Sweetie and Sunshine, not including the expense of imported bamboo.
Britain's last giant panda lived in London Zoo until 1994, when it was returned to China.
Timeline shows key events in the European Financial Crisis
Timeline shows key events in the European Financial Crisis
BRUSSELS (AP) ? More than ever before, the European Central Bank seems willing to consider bolder action to address the continent's financial crisis.
A month ago, at his first news conference as ECB President, Mario Draghi said it was "pointless" for European governments to expect the bank to rescue them through massive bond purchases. That had been the same stance as his predecessor, Jean-Claude Trichet. But on Thursday, Draghi hinted that such expectations might not be futile after all.
Draghi opened the door to further ECB intervention ever so slightly in a speech to the European Parliament. He said the bank is prepared to play a bigger, yet limited role in the resolution of Europe's debt crisis ? but only after the 17 countries that use the euro tether their economies more tightly.
Confirmation that such a plan is afoot came later Thursday in a speech by French President Nicolas Sarkozy. He said he and German Chancellor Angela Merkel will met Monday in Paris and unveil their proposals for European treaty changes aimed at preventing a catastrophic breakup of Europe's 17-nation currency union.
Speculation is mounting that EU leaders will align their spending policies more closely to bring government debt levels under control in the future. This must happen, Draghi said Thursday, before the ECB or other institutions could take more aggressive steps to help prevent the continent's current debt overload from ripping apart the euro and the global financial system.
"Other elements might follow, but the sequencing matters," Draghi said. "And it is first and foremost important to get a commonly shared fiscal compact right."
Draghi gave the speech after delivering the bank's 2010 annual report to the European Parliament, a body of elected representatives to which the ECB is accountable.
Analysts' decoding Draghi's message ? which was delivered in typically vague central bank speak ? sensed an opening they hadn't heard before.
"Draghi seems to suggest that if a fiscal compact does get approval and looks credible, then the ECB can shift gears and become more interventionist," said Neil MacKinnon, global macro strategist at VTB Capital.
Laura Veldkamp, an economics professor at New York University, said: "I would say this is a big change. Traditionally, the ECB has seen its only objective as maintaining a stable, low rate of inflation. The very idea that he's (considering) doing something to stabilize bond markets ... is a big change."
Still, Draghi's comments were laced with enough caveats to temper the euphoria that swept across financial markets Wednesday, when the ECB, the Federal Reserve and four other central banks took decisive action to make it cheaper for commercial banks to borrow dollars.
The ECB cannot lend directly to governments, including by buying their national bonds. It can, however, buy national bonds on the secondary market, lowering borrowing costs for governments. The ECB has committed just over euro200 billion ($268 billion) to such purchases, but it has resisted going further because it believes that would take the pressure off politicians to cut spending.
Draghi said such interventions "can only be limited" and said it is up to governments to first put their finances in order to convince bond markets that they are creditworthy borrowers.
"Governments must ? individually and collectively ? restore their credibility vis-a-vis financial markets," said Draghi, who only replaced Jean-Claude Trichet as ECB head a month ago.
Three relatively-small countries ? Greece, Ireland and Portugal ? had to be bailed out because of unsustainable debt levels, and Italy, the eurozone's third-largest economy, is facing intense strains as its borrowing costs surge. The big worry in the markets now is that Italy, with its debt mountain of euro1.9 trillion ($2.55 trillion) is just too big to bail out under current rules.
A summit of EU leaders on Dec. 9 is expected to focus on how to make the eurozone more unified. Analysts say the eurozone has little choice but to back proposals for much closer coordination of their spending and budget policies.
Sarkozy and Merkel will lay out their proposals for reforming the Maastricht Treaty governing Europe's common currency on Monday. In a speech to his conservative party's sympathizers in the southern port city of Toulon, Sarkozy said treaty change is necessary to protect the eurozone from splitting apart.
"France will push with Germany for a new European treaty refounding and rethinking the organization of Europe," Sarkozy said. But such changes would have to be approved by all 27 EU members, 10 of whom don't use the euro currency, and Sarkozy acknowledged that process "will be long and difficult."
The hope is that a closer alignment of budget policies will convince markets that countries as disparate as Greece, Germany, Spain and Finland, can coexist in the same currency zone.
Speeches over the coming couple of days from Sarkozy and Merkel will be closely monitored to see how their thinking is developing in the run-up to next week's make-or-break summit.
Since the euro was established in 1999, the rules governing the eurozone have been fairly lax. A commitment for countries to keep their budget deficits in check was violated on numerous occasions, including by Germany, Europe's biggest economy.
Draghi said the joint intervention by the six major central banks was only a temporary measure. Still, the move was wildly cheered in the markets on Wednesday, with the Dow Jones industrial average rising nearly 500 points.
On Thursday, the Stoxx 50 index of leading European shares closed 0.5 percent lower though there were encouraging signals in the bond markets, where the borrowing rates of France, Italy and Spain all fell amid hopes of an imminent resolution.
France and Spain survived a test of investor sentiment Thursday, selling all the bonds they offered at rates lower than feared.
Still, the eurozone economy shows all the signs of returning to recession.
A survey of the eurozone's manufacturing sector by the financial information company Markit showed that output fell in November for the fourth month in a row, and at a deeper pace. Also on Thursday, credit rating agency Standard & Poor's warned that a mild recession has a 60 percent probability while a more severe one has a 40 percent likelihood.
"Europe's approaching recession first took hold in Spain, Portugal, and Greece, and the economic woes are now spilling over into the eurozone's core of France and Germany," Standard & Poor's chief Europe economist Jean-Michel Six said.
Wednesday's coordinated action by central banks will reduce borrowing costs for banks, but it does little to solve the underlying problem of mountains of government debt in Europe, leaving markets still waiting for a permanent fix.
In theory, the ECB has unlimited financial firepower through its ability to print money. However, Germany's leaders find the idea of the ECB intervening in this way unappealing, arguing that it lets the more profligate countries off the hook for their bad practices. In addition, it conjures up bad memories of hyperinflation in Germany in the 1920s.
Veldkamp, the NYU economist, said the preconditions Draghi laid out to any further ECB action allowed him to address two audiences: bond traders worried about a financial meltdown; and Germans and other Europeans who worry that overly aggressive ECB policy will trigger inflation.
One option that appears to be gaining traction would be to have the ECB provide the International Monetary Fund with more resources so it can then lend that money to countries that need financial help.
"Draghi didn't rule out the ECB providing funds to the IMF to provide to Italy, but he's equally making it very clear that the ultimate solution lies with the governments," said Simon Derrick, a senior analyst at the Bank of New York Mellon.
____
Pylas contributed from London and AP Business Writer Greg Keller contributed from Paris.
'Just chill?' Relaxing can make you fatterPublic release date: 1-Dec-2011 [ | E-mail | Share ]
Contact: George Hunka ghunka@aftau.org 212-742-9070 American Friends of Tel Aviv University
50 percent more fat can be produced by sustained stretching, Tel Aviv University researchers say
Conventional wisdom says that exercise is a key to weight loss a no-brainer. But now, Tel Aviv University researchers are revealing that life as a couch potato, stretched out in front of the TV, can actually be "active inactivity" and cause you to pack on the pounds.
Such inactivity actually encourages the body to create new fat in fat cells, says Prof. Amit Gefen of TAU's Department of Biomedical Engineering. Along with his Ph.D. student Naama Shoham, Prof. Gefen has shown that preadipocyte cells the precursors to fat cells turn into fat cells faster and produce even more fat when subject to prolonged periods of "mechanical stretching loads" the kind of weight we put on our body tissues when we sit or lie down.
The research, which has been published in the American Journal of Physiology Cell Physiology, demonstrates another damaging effect of a modern, sedentary lifestyle, Prof. Gefen notes. "Obesity is more than just an imbalance of calories. Cells themselves are also responsive to their mechanical environment. Fat cells produce more triglycerides, and at a faster rate, when exposed to static stretching."
Stretching the fat
Prof. Gefen, who investigates chronic wounds that plague bed-ridden or wheelchair-bound patients, notes that muscle atrophy is a common side effect of prolonged inactivity. Studying MRI images of the muscle tissue of patients paralyzed by spinal cord injuries, he noticed that, over time, lines of fat cells were invading major muscles in the body. This spurred an investigation into how mechanical load the amount of force placed on a particular area occupied by cells could be encouraging fat tissue to expand.
In the lab, Prof. Gefen and his fellow researchers stimulated preadipocytes with glucose or insulin to differentiate them into fat cells. Then they placed individual cells in a cell-stretching device, attaching them to a flexible, elastic substrate. The test group of cells were stretched consistently for long periods of time, representing extended periods of sitting or lying down, while a control group of cells was not.
Tracking the cultures over time, the researchers noted the development of lipid droplets in both the test and control groups of cells. However, after just two weeks of consistent stretching, the test group developed significantly more and larger lipid droplets. By the time the cells reached maturity, the cultures that received mechanical stretching had developed fifty percent more fat than the control culture.
They were, in effect, half-again fatter.
According to Prof. Gefen, this is the first study that looks at fat cells as they develop, taking into account the impact of sustained mechanical loading on cell differentiation. "There are various ways that cells can sense mechanical loading," he explains, which helps them to measure their environment and triggers various chemical processes. "It appears that long periods of static mechanical loading and stretching, due to the weight of the body when sitting or lying, has an impact on increasing lipid production."
Counting more than calories
These findings indicate that we need to take our cells' mechanical environment into account as well as pay attention to calories consumed and burned, believes Prof. Gefen. Although there are extreme cases, such as people confined to wheelchairs or beds due to medical conditions, many of us live a too sedentary lifestyle, spending most of the day behind a desk. Even somebody with healthy diet and exercise habits will be negatively impacted by long periods of inactivity.
Next, Prof. Gefen and his fellow researchers will be investigating how long a period of time a person can sit or lie down without the mechanical load becoming a factor in fat production. But in the meantime, it certainly can't hurt to get up and take an occasional stroll, he suggests.
###
This research was done in collaboration with TAU's Ruth Gottlieb, Dr. Uri Zaretsky, and Dr. Orna Shaharabani-Yosef from the Department of Biomedical Engineering and Prof. Dafna Benayahu from the Department of Cell and Developmental Biology.
American Friends of Tel Aviv University (www.aftau.org) supports Israel's leading, most comprehensive and most sought-after center of higher learning. Independently ranked 94th among the world's top universities for the impact of its research, TAU's innovations and discoveries are cited more often by the global scientific community than all but 10 other universities.
Internationally recognized for the scope and groundbreaking nature of its research and scholarship, Tel Aviv University consistently produces work with profound implications for the future.
[ | E-mail | Share ]
?
AAAS and EurekAlert! are not responsible for the accuracy of news releases posted to EurekAlert! by contributing institutions or for the use of any information through the EurekAlert! system.
'Just chill?' Relaxing can make you fatterPublic release date: 1-Dec-2011 [ | E-mail | Share ]
Contact: George Hunka ghunka@aftau.org 212-742-9070 American Friends of Tel Aviv University
50 percent more fat can be produced by sustained stretching, Tel Aviv University researchers say
Conventional wisdom says that exercise is a key to weight loss a no-brainer. But now, Tel Aviv University researchers are revealing that life as a couch potato, stretched out in front of the TV, can actually be "active inactivity" and cause you to pack on the pounds.
Such inactivity actually encourages the body to create new fat in fat cells, says Prof. Amit Gefen of TAU's Department of Biomedical Engineering. Along with his Ph.D. student Naama Shoham, Prof. Gefen has shown that preadipocyte cells the precursors to fat cells turn into fat cells faster and produce even more fat when subject to prolonged periods of "mechanical stretching loads" the kind of weight we put on our body tissues when we sit or lie down.
The research, which has been published in the American Journal of Physiology Cell Physiology, demonstrates another damaging effect of a modern, sedentary lifestyle, Prof. Gefen notes. "Obesity is more than just an imbalance of calories. Cells themselves are also responsive to their mechanical environment. Fat cells produce more triglycerides, and at a faster rate, when exposed to static stretching."
Stretching the fat
Prof. Gefen, who investigates chronic wounds that plague bed-ridden or wheelchair-bound patients, notes that muscle atrophy is a common side effect of prolonged inactivity. Studying MRI images of the muscle tissue of patients paralyzed by spinal cord injuries, he noticed that, over time, lines of fat cells were invading major muscles in the body. This spurred an investigation into how mechanical load the amount of force placed on a particular area occupied by cells could be encouraging fat tissue to expand.
In the lab, Prof. Gefen and his fellow researchers stimulated preadipocytes with glucose or insulin to differentiate them into fat cells. Then they placed individual cells in a cell-stretching device, attaching them to a flexible, elastic substrate. The test group of cells were stretched consistently for long periods of time, representing extended periods of sitting or lying down, while a control group of cells was not.
Tracking the cultures over time, the researchers noted the development of lipid droplets in both the test and control groups of cells. However, after just two weeks of consistent stretching, the test group developed significantly more and larger lipid droplets. By the time the cells reached maturity, the cultures that received mechanical stretching had developed fifty percent more fat than the control culture.
They were, in effect, half-again fatter.
According to Prof. Gefen, this is the first study that looks at fat cells as they develop, taking into account the impact of sustained mechanical loading on cell differentiation. "There are various ways that cells can sense mechanical loading," he explains, which helps them to measure their environment and triggers various chemical processes. "It appears that long periods of static mechanical loading and stretching, due to the weight of the body when sitting or lying, has an impact on increasing lipid production."
Counting more than calories
These findings indicate that we need to take our cells' mechanical environment into account as well as pay attention to calories consumed and burned, believes Prof. Gefen. Although there are extreme cases, such as people confined to wheelchairs or beds due to medical conditions, many of us live a too sedentary lifestyle, spending most of the day behind a desk. Even somebody with healthy diet and exercise habits will be negatively impacted by long periods of inactivity.
Next, Prof. Gefen and his fellow researchers will be investigating how long a period of time a person can sit or lie down without the mechanical load becoming a factor in fat production. But in the meantime, it certainly can't hurt to get up and take an occasional stroll, he suggests.
###
This research was done in collaboration with TAU's Ruth Gottlieb, Dr. Uri Zaretsky, and Dr. Orna Shaharabani-Yosef from the Department of Biomedical Engineering and Prof. Dafna Benayahu from the Department of Cell and Developmental Biology.
American Friends of Tel Aviv University (www.aftau.org) supports Israel's leading, most comprehensive and most sought-after center of higher learning. Independently ranked 94th among the world's top universities for the impact of its research, TAU's innovations and discoveries are cited more often by the global scientific community than all but 10 other universities.
Internationally recognized for the scope and groundbreaking nature of its research and scholarship, Tel Aviv University consistently produces work with profound implications for the future.
[ | E-mail | Share ]
?
AAAS and EurekAlert! are not responsible for the accuracy of news releases posted to EurekAlert! by contributing institutions or for the use of any information through the EurekAlert! system.
![[ Back to EurekAlert! ]](https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/blogger_img_proxy/AEn0k_sBNSmFA2rIu0i8ZaUV_YxDuKdHCVlpk4f_Q68W_95p2PvJByca5fkq59fZZ0zr9Sh-GHusps70n3O9BMMd8Xg2kuXScymFm3xC8sZ_uR8=s0-d){kind=small}
Public release date: 1-Dec-2011
Share ]