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Ubisoft taking serious look at mobile? Ubisoft mobile domain names registered

Assassins Creed : Altair's Chronicles

It looks like Ubisoft could be taking mobile gaming more serious in 2012.

On February 1, the video game publisher registered the domain names Ubisoftmobile.com (Whois) and Ubisoft-mobile.com (Whois).

While domain name registrations are not necessarily concrete indicators of a company’s plans, social and mobile gaming is big business. 

In the past year, Ubisoft has been ramping up its social gaming efforts by growing its Bay Area workforce and releasing new social gaming titles on Facebook.  But according to AppData, Ubisoft barely breaks the Top 100 developer leaderboard with only 3.5 monthly active users on Facebook, led by The Smurfs & Co.

Zynga by comparison, has nearly 240 million monthly active users on Facebook as of today.

As of the time of this story, ubisoftmobile.com and ubisoft-mobile.com are parked pages and do not direct users to an Ubisoft site.

Discussion: GameSpot and Ubergizmo

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News Technology Trademarks

Sony files trademark for “Xperia Sola” smartphone with USPTO [UPDATED]

Sony Xperia Sola

Sony may have revealed what the ‘S’ stands for in its new Xperia S smartphone expected to be released in March.

On January 30, 2012, Sony Ericsson Mobile Communications AB filed a trademark application for “Xperia Sola”. 

‘Sola’ means ‘alone’ or ‘only’ in English.

The goods and services covered in the filing (Serial Number: 85528680) include mobile phones and accessories.

In early January, Sony introduced four new smartphones at CES 2012: the Xperia Ion, the Xperia NX, the Xperia Acro HD, and of course the Xperia S, Sony’s first smartphone in the next generation series.

If the ‘Xperia Sola’ is actually a different device other than the ‘Xperia S’, Sony hasn’t made any official announcement at the time of this story. 

So, I guess we’ll have to wait and see.

[Updated March 14, 2012:. Sony has launched the Xperia Sola with ‘floating touch,’ NFC, 3.7-inch Reality Display, and Android 2.3.]

Discussion: MobileSyrup.com, tweakers.net, GizmodoAndroidAppTests, PhandroidElectronista, MobiFrance, Geeky Gadgets and Xperia Blog

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News

Google quietly launches Women Entrepreneurs on the Web initiative

Women Entrepreneurs on the Web initiative

Google employee Pooja Srinivas appears to be one of the people behind Google’s latest web initiative called “Women Entrepreneurs on the Web” (or WeOW, for short).

Srinivas, a resident of India, registered several domains earlier this month like Womenentrepreneursontheweb.com (Whois), which transferred to Google’s ownership this past week and a website is already up and running.

What is the Women Entrepreneurs on the Web initiative?

Well, according to the site, “Women Entrepreneurs on the Web is an initiative aimed at helping women-owned businesses grow their online presence. This initiative is currently being piloted in India.”

Any women-owned business is eligible for the program, as long as one of the founders is a woman and as part of the program, the people involved will learn to use various web-based technologies in their day to day business.

Google has been launching a number of initiatives online in the past year aimed at getting more people online, like the Google-led program “Get Your Business Online” dedicated to helping local businesses in various U.S. states.

Discussion: @DashBurst

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Disputes National Arbitration Forum News Video Games

Microsoft files complaint over another fake Halo 4 Beta site [UPDATED]

Halo 4 Beta scam

[Update 2 on March 7, 2012:. Microsoft Corporation won the rights to Halo4Beta.net. On March 6, 2012, a single-member panel ordered the domain name transferred from Edward Lee (the respondent) to Microsoft (the complainant).]

[Update 1 on March 5, 2012:. Microsoft is going after another phony Halo 4 Beta site.  A complaint has now been filed (Case Number: 1432610) with the National Arbitration Forum over Halo4Beta.biz (screenshot)  The domain name is owned by a resident of Illinois according to Whois records.  I’ve reached out the owner for more information and will update this post if I hear back.] 

Original story on January 28, 2012:. Nearly two weeks ago, David Ellis of 343 Industries, the company that is developing Halo 4, warned Halo fans through Twitter that if you see a site claiming to allow you to sign up for a Halo 4 beta  it’s a fake.

The site in question was hosted at Halo4beta.net (pictured above), and now Microsoft’s legal team is taking action by going after the domain name.

A complaint (Case No. 1426106) has officially been filed with the National Arbitration Forum.

Apparently wanting to avoid legal troubles after gaming sites went abuzz with David Ellis’ warning, the operator of Halo4beta.net took the website down, but that’s not going to be enough for Microsoft.

Microsoft can fully expect to have the National Arbitration Panel order the name be transferred, in what should be an open-and-shut case.

Stay tuned as I’ll be posting the details of the decision as soon as they’re available, likely no more than a few weeks from now.

Halo 4 has a holiday season 2012 release date.

Last June, Microsoft acquired the domain name Halo4.com for an undisclosed amount of cash, rather than filing a domain dispute.   When I asked the seller about the selling price/negotiations with Microsoft, the seller told me via e-mail, “The only term of the agreement that I can disclose is that I can’t disclose any terms of the agreement.”

Discussion: GameSpot, Kotaku, Joystiq, GameSpotHard OCP, Game Informer, Eurogamer.netVentureBeat, Blue’s News, ITProPortal, Game Rant, VG24/7, Digital Spy, Piki Geek, Strategy Informer, The EscapistNeowin.net, WebProNews and 411mania

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News Video Games

SkylandersPatriots.com domain registration by Activision adds to mystery

Skylanders Patriots

Almost a week after I first reported that Activision had purchased several “Skylanders Giants” domain names like skylandersgiants.com and skylandersgiantsgame.com, it appears the video game company has registered another new Skylanders domain, further adding to the mystery of the company’s future plans for the Skylanders brand.

On January 24, it appears Activision registered the domain name SkylandersPatriots.com (Whois), through the internet brand protection company MarkMonitor, a service that over half the Fortune 100 rely on for online brand protection.

The “Skylanders Giants” story created quite a buzz among gaming and tech sites like Joystiq, Wired.com, and Giant Bomb, but as of today, there has been no official word from Activision.

At the time of this story, skylanderspatriots.com does not resolve to a website.

[Update 1 on January 26, 2012:  Reporting Gamer suggests the registrations may be for a Skylanders sports game pitting the Giants vs Patriots.]

Discussion: Wired UK