It's been announced that cloud gaming service OnLive will be rolled out to consumers during this year's E3 event, with a target date commencing on June 17. An initial monthly service fee of $14.95 is subject to change, but it will be the price charged to any new adopters. To entice some people to try out the service at launch, an early pre-registration sign up has begun for the first 25,000 individuals willing to sign up and qualify. If selected, your first three month's service fee will be waived which amounts to a $45 savings.

"This marks a huge milestone for both OnLive and the interactive entertainment landscape as a whole, changing the way that video games are developed, marketed, accessed and played," said Steve Perlman, Founder and CEO of OnLive. "We are opening the door to incredible experiences for gamers and enormous opportunities for developers and publishers."

The OnLive service is said to include some now industry standards such as gamer tags, user profiles, friend's lists, and chat. Some new offerings by this service will be Brag Clips, which are pretty self explanatory, and the ability to pause your game at anytime and resume anywhere else, even on a different platform.

Pricing is my immediate concern with this service. I'm not too sure how the industry will gravitate towards spending $180 per year for the benefits OnLive is offering. Couple that fee with the yet unannounced rental fees and digital purchase fees, and you may be better off just getting an existing console to satisfy your needs.

The initial game lineup will be revealed at E3 2010, but these are the confirmed games so far: Mass Effect 2™, Dragon Age Origins™, Assassin's Creed® II, Prince of Persia The Forgotten Sands™, Borderlands™ and Metro 2033™.  More info will come along once E3 2010 is upon us, so stay tuned.

According to The Wall Street Journal, Sony is currently developing a new “lineup of handheld products”, including a smartphone capable of “playing PlayStation games” and a tablet. The article does not present too many details but the tablet is described as a mix between a netbook, PSP and an e-reader to compete with Apple’s latest iPad. No details were given on the PSP smartphone but, as we all know, this device has been rumored for a really long time now so take it with a grain of salt if you will. Both devices will also use the Playstation Store for downloadable content, much like the XBL integration with the Windows 7 Series phones.

Sony Readies Gadgets to Rival Apple [Wall Street Journal]

Almost one year after the console version of the game Street Fighter IV was released, an unexpected surprise was announced by Capcom, claiming that the game would soon be released on the Apple App-Store. With great reviews, and a large community supporting it, SF4 has gained a great reputation as a fighting game. You can expect to purchase this in March at a price yet to be determined.

The visuals and graphical effects were quite stunning, which brings up the question, how will it run it? The iPhone version will run a scaled down version with a decreased amount of colors and detail. It however, retains all of the combos, moves and everything else you enjoyed or disliked about the original. The fighting controls are claimed to be completely customizable and flexible to suite your iPhone gaming needs.

The best part is hands down the Bluetooth multiplayer. To battle a friend (or foe) without the need for wireless internet is an amazing thought. More details will emerge closer to the release date. Stay tuned for more details!

Street Fighter IV for iPhone Revealed [IGN]

Earlier today, Microsoft's CEO Steve Ballmer introduced the world to the latest iteration of Windows Phones, dubbed Windows Phone 7. From the onset of the description of this new phone series, it is very clear that Microsoft went back to the drawing board and tried to come up with a user interface that is somewhat brand new. What it looks like they ended up with is a significant improvement over the Zune HD user interface.

In addition to the fully revamped OS, Microsoft is also touting several different levels of integration with popular social networking sites, as well as full integration with it's LIVE gaming network and Zune marketplace.  As always, you will still be able to fully use Microsoft's Office line of applications to stay fully connected to email and business documents as needed when on the go.

To elaborate more on the LIVE integration, a few bullet points were supplied to highlight the "tops of the trees" functionality that will be available to users:

• Collect Achievements and build your Gamerscore
• View Xbox LIVE leaderboards
• See your Xbox LIVE Avatar
• Access Spotlight feeds, including the latest tips and tricks, game news, updates and more
• Add Xbox LIVE friends to your friends list while out on the go
• Turn-based (asynchronous) multiplayer gaming

Thanks goes to site Contributor, Dan, for the heads up about the announcement.  Consumers will be able to get their hands on Windows Phone 7 enabled hardware by the holiday 2010 season.   If you would like to view the full video of the press event, follow the break.

If you were with us since the beginning of this site you might remember an article I wrote well over a year ago about the Open Source Pandora Handheld. At that time they were about ready to take pre-orders and anticipated shipping the handheld in a few months; a year later the project is finally seeing the finish line.

After many delays the Pandora handheld is finally finished. Those that have pre-ordered should be receiving their Pandora systems later on this month or early next month. All the parts are finalized, now mass production just needs to start. Some respected developers in the scene have already received their system and all give positive remarks.

The Pandora is the spiritual successor to the GP32x and was built by the community, for the community. The ARM Cortex A8-powered device will run a full Linux distro and has the capability of emulating PSX games. With dual analogs, a full qwerty keyboard and several face buttons, the Pandora is the perfect gaming console. Also with over 10 hours of battery life and expandable SD storage (x2!) the possibilities are endless.

I’m eager to get my hands on this device to see if it truly delivers. You can read more about it on the OpenPandora website and more developments on the community blog.

Zodttd [GP32x Forums] & Pandora Blog [OpenPandora]

In a few days Microsoft will be pushing out a new update for “Windows Activation Technologies (WAT)”. The update to WAT will be able to detect more than 70 known activation cracks for Windows 7 and, if detected on your computer, will flag your copy of Windows 7 as an illegal copy. Your desktop will return to a plain desktop and Windows will issue periodic notifications informing you of your illegal copy.

However what comes as a shock to many is that this update is not only voluntary (you can choose not to in stall it) it also does not reduce any functionality within Windows, meaning you won’t be locked out of your account and no services will be disabled.

Windows Activation Technologies Update [Windows Blog]

Steve Jobs has always had the reputation for speaking his mind, and he's done it yet again. In a recent 'Town Hall' meeting at Apple after the announcement of the iPad, Jobs expressed some candid views on the wonderful world of tech, specifically about Google, Adobe, Apple's answer to competition, and Blu-Ray. Find out more after the break.

The official iPhone SDK has always been exclusive to Mac osx operating systems with very few exceptions. Options for Windows users include programming Actionscript applications with Adobe CS5, and developement with web applications for Safari. Both of which are very limited and can't be submitted to Apple.

DragonFireSDK is a new solution which enables developers to code applications using Windows Visual C++. This application lets you code in C or C++ as opposed to in Objective-C on the official development kit. Once completed, your project will automatically be converted to Objective-C, then submitted to the App-Store through the DragonFire Distribution Portal, or through your own developer account.

"UnStacker" is a free application created with the DragonFireSDK which is currently on the App-Store, if you would like to check out its capabilities. This development kit will cost $49.95 when released. However, if you intend to buy the software, beta copies are given away for free by requesting one from support@dragonfiresdk.com. Make sure you provide a good reason why you should have a copy though.

Official Website: DragonFireSDK

After years of speculation on Apple's new touch device, it has finally been revealed at their event in San Fransisco, earlier today. Steve Jobs announced it by walking all over the disadvantages of Netbooks. "We think we've got something that is better. And we call it the iPad" said Steve Jobs as a picture of what looked like a giant iPod Touch appeared on the screen.

Weighing in at 1.5 pounds, the iPad is half an inch thick with a 9.7 inch capacitive touchscreen IPS LCD display running a custom 1GHz Apple "A4" chip developed by the P.A. Semi team. This device can run on battery for ten hours and be in standby for one month. Other features include a 30pin Dock connector, a speaker, a microphone, Bluetooth, 802.11n WiFi, an accelerometer and a compass.

The iPad has an operating system based on the iPhone and can run all the applications on the App-Store, rather pixel for pixel, or doubled for full screen display. Developers can also make specific applications for it with the updated iPhone OS SDK, which is out later today. With all the possibilities of VOIP, this could very well replace your phone.

The iPad comes in three different models, along with the option to give it 3G capabilities. Pricing starts at $499 for the 16GB, $599 for 32GB, and $699 for 64GB along with the 3G upgrade being $130 extra. Every iPad is unlocked and includes a GSM micro-SIM, so you can use it abroad. At the moment, international users will have to wait until Summer for new announcements regarding their plans.

You can expect the WiFi only model to ship in 60 days, while the 3G models will arrive in 90.

Source:Engadget