XplanaZine

Here’s our take on news that matters for Friday, April 7. Today’s theme is it’s better than you think, and here are a some links to headlines about technology that is changing the way we live and learn.

• Gaming — Microsoft continues to strengthen its gaming portfolio. Yesterday, it announced the acquisition of innovative game company Lionhead Studios, makers of the popular game Fable. Also, two recent studies provide new forecasts for the online gaming market.
• Blogging, mediacasting, and online creations — Forrester has released survey results on podcasting and the long and short of it is that the existing market isn’t that big but the potential remains strong. This may explain why VC funding is cool on the technology for now
• Handhelds — It looks like now that it has its patent struggles mostly in the rearview mirror, RIM is moving forward aggressively. It announced this week that it will be adding Yahoo! Web services to the BlackBerry. As Om Malik points out, this could be a significant bit of news that portends the shift from Blackberry as a corporate device to Blackberry as a phone for the rest of us. And, , in another indication that cell phones are the ultimate convergent devices online photo service company Getty sees cell phones as next powerful picture platform. Also, Adobe has signed its first Flash deal for mobile phones. The deal will see it build Flash animation software into Verizon mobile phones. Disney has announced its new phone service that allows parents to monitor how their kids use their mobile phones. Finally, take note that Mobile PayPal has launched.
• Social Networks – BusinessWeek has a good slideshow that gives the lowdown on some niche social network players. There are interesting trends here and some good ideas about how social networks can become increasingly important in education. I’ve mentioned the new video remixing site eyespot.com recently, and we can now add to that some other video remix wannabes. Check out jumcut.com, Dabble, and MotionBox as well.
• Technology Talks — Ross Rubin has an insightful article about Adobe’s place in the e-book market. As he says, it is a nascent, immature market that has plenty of room for someone with a full solution. Adobe owns much of the traditional education e-book market but look for that to change iof the software giant doesn’t move quickly. Also, you might be interested in taking a look at tweakheadz laband their overview of home studio recording. This is a great reference site!