While Apple users were out enoying the summer sun in their four- and five-star hotels that they may or may not have booked through Orbitz, Zynga unveiled that its expanding its gameplay and allowing users to play with each other across different platforms. The San Franciso-based game company may or may not be planning world domination. Meanwhile, there's talk in the bushes about a new Kindle Fire hitting Amazon's virtual store shelves soon, while Brightcove works on a sweet toolkit that might turn your Apple TV into a mini living room game console. Look out, Xbox 360!
Zynga today unveiled a new unified platform to connect players across different platforms. Browser-based, Android, iOS, Facebook, and Google+ players will now be able to interact with each other, expanding the Zynga world even further and bringing more social engagement across the board.
Zynga With Friends will allow users to keep a friends list and follow their activity on a live feed, as well as display a list of gaming suggestions based on the games that users and their friends are playing. The new network will also enable players to play with and against each other using the new real-time multiplayer feature, which will work cross-platform.
Zynga With Friends is not yet active, but will roll out soon.
Brightcove, a company that has built its business providing backend support for video content producers (including Mac|Life!), has announced that it is creating a toolkit to help developers create dual-screen applications for the iPad. The feature will enable apps to utilize the iPad as a remote control while simultaneously streaming HD video to television sets via an Apple TV. Could this be Apple's entrance into "console" gaming?
This week's Google I/O has fueled plenty of speculation on the next big Android release, including whether or not Amazon will follow up its popular Android tablet with a second-generation Kindle Fire this summer. CNET certainly hopes so, as its reporting a tentative July 31 launch date based on mutterings from DigiTimes, which reported that Amazon was "considering launching" a new sub-$200 7-inch tablet with a higher resolution display at the beginning of the third quarter of this year.
