According to The Hollywood Reporter, Legendary Pictures has bought the rights to create a Mass Effect movie, based on the popular EA-Bioware video game on the Xbox 360.

In talks to write the movie is Mark Protosevich, the man behind the blockbuster I Am Legend, and the movie will be produced by Avi and Ari Arad, or Thomas Tull and Jon Jashni of Legendary.

Mass Effect was released in 2008, and its sequel was just released in 2010. The science fiction game follows a human soldier and his starship in the future, and features many different alien species on a variety of foreign planets.

Avi Arad is the former chairman of Marvel Studios, and is currently developing a film based on the video game "Drake's Fortune."

Says Tull of the game, and subsequent movie: "[Mass Effect] has depth, compelling characters and an engaging back story."

Warner Bros. will distribute the film, which appears to have a 2012 release date.

Permalink | Comments

---

Harmonix has released the demo for the upcoming Rock Band sequel, Green Day: Rock Band and included is a teaser image that seems to imply that the upcoming game will have keyboard support, an all-new instrument for the popular music game series.

Users can download the two-track demo from the XBL Marketplace and play the songs "Boulevard of Broken Dreams" and "Welcome to Paradise."

The image shows off the four standard icons, (mic, guitar, bass, drums) with the keyboard fifth.

The original game of the series sold over 5 million tracks, and led to a revolution in DLC (downloadable content), selling over 40 million tracks.

Rock Band 2 continued strong sales for the franchise, although reviews were not as great.

Pic via JoyStiq:

Permalink | Comments

---

The Amazon Kindle, the most popular e-reader by market share will eventually have a color version, says CEO Jeff Bezos, but that day is not soon.

Speaking at the e-tailer's shareholder meeting this week, Bezos says that while not impossible, adding color to the Kindle's e-ink display is "a difficult technical challenge" and that the device is "still a long way out."

Bezos adds that he has seen some prototypes "in the lab" but none of them are "ready for prime-time production."

The e-reader market continues to get more and more crowded, especially with Apple's introduction of the iPad tablet in April. The iPad has e-reading capabilities on a full color screen and a connection to the growing Apple iBookStore.

While Bezos refuses to disclose the amount of Kindle devices sold since launch, DisplaySearch reported last month that the number is somewhere in the 3.3 million unit range.

Permalink | Comments

---

After 11 months of ongoing development, Google Chrome for Macs and Linux is finally stable, moving out of the beta stage.

The company even admitted that for the first few months the popular browser was extremely buggy and should only be used by more advanced users. Today, that is no longer an issue.

Along with the "stable" tag, Chrome for Macs and Linux now include advanced syncing for bookmarks and settings, geolocation APIs, app cache and other HTML5 tools.

Perhaps more notably to the casual end user, the browsers now have access to all 4500 Chrome extensions.

Not included in the new release is built-in Flash, as you will need to manually download it. By Flash 10.1, Google promises a stable version.

Get the Windows version here: Chrome at AfterDawn
Get the now stable Mac and Linux versions here: http://www.google.com/chrome

Permalink | Comments

---

Microsoft and Netflix have announced today that the video rental service has chosen PlayReady as its DRM of choice for upcoming Netflix-ready streaming devices and apps.

The decision, says Netflix, will allow for subscribers to watch the over 12,000 movies and TV episodes available via "Watch Instantly," the company's popular streaming catalog, on Blu-ray players, Internet-enabled TVs and other devices.

PlayReady is already used for instant streaming on the PC and Macs, and the companies say the first PlayReady devices should hit shelves "as early as this summer."

Says Bill Holmes, vice president of business development at Netflix: "Netflix ready devices are a popular way for our members to instantly watch the huge library of TV episodes and movies available from Netflix that can be watched instantly on their TVs. Netflix is expanding our investment in PlayReady and making PlayReady our primary DRM technology because it best meets the requirements of our content suppliers and device partners while allowing us to benefit from efficiencies in our content delivery infrastructure."

Adds Andreas Mueller-Schubert, general manager of the Media Platforms Business at Microsoft: "Microsoft and Netflix have worked closely on the technologies enabling Netflix members to instantly watch movies — including PlayReady and Silverlight — since the initial planning of instant streaming from Netflix. By working with Netflix on this broader support for Microsoft PlayReady and PIFF, more people — using more devices — will enjoy the immediacy and choice that the pioneering service of Netflix delivers."

PlayReady supports a plethora of formats, adds Microsoft, including AAC, AAC+, Enhanced AAC+, H.264, Windows Media Audio (WMA) and Windows Media Video (WMV).

Permalink | Comments

---