marvel

To coincide with its blockbuster movie opening, Marvel Entertainment released two Captain America-related apps for Android this past weekend. First is the Captain America Live Wallpaper, which adorns your Android home screen with the Cap's shimmery shield over an appropriately dramatic sepia backdrop. A quick tap on your screen sprays a few bullets and demonstrates that the shield's Vibranium resilience is in full effect. It's available for free in the Android Market.

And for the gamers, there's Captain America: Sentinel of Liberty, an action-adventure game that puts you in the Cap's fittingly patriotic shoes. With … Read more

Semiconductor company Marvell today is set to introduce a chip geared at improving the light from LED bulbs and connecting them to a network.

The 8801 chip is small--about the size of a penny--and will be about the same price as existing LED lighting electronics. If Marvell signs on light manufacturer customers, it could bring the very good light quality of some commercial LEDs to more affordable consumer products, said Kishore Manghnani, vice president of Marvell's Communications and Consumer business. He said the chip, which integrates multiple functions on this single controller chip, is being tested by commercial or consumer light fixture makers now and it takes them about six months to introduce products with new chips.

Light quality for consumer LED bulbs has improved over the past few years but the color rending index (CRI), a measure of quality, is still not as high as incandescent bulbs. With the chip, Manghnani said a CRI of 95, higher than most of the consumer LED bulbs available now, is possible.

The chip can control the current and temperature of two types of LED light sources. So a fixture or bulb maker could use the chip and driver to use LEDs with two different colors, such as white and red, to improve color rendering. Until now, the electronics to control different colored LEDs would be too large or expensive for consumer products, Manghnani said.

The Marvell component will also make LED dimming more precise and allow a lighting company to embed a wireless chip in the bulb. With a wireless ZigBee or Wi-Fi radio, lights can be controlled from a central point or set on a schedule. Last week, Google demonstrated a networked LED bulb controlled by its Android@Home software due for release by the end of the year.

Marvell's main business is designing electronic components for consumer electronics but it is pushing into energy efficiency with LEDs and connected appliances, such as smart thermostats or smart outlets. One product already available is the Radio Thermostat which connects to a home Wi-Fi network and can be controlled from a smartphone. … Read more

Pairing sexy cars a with summer movie blockbusters has been a long-standing tradition--like last year's "Iron Man 2," which featured the 2011 R8 Spyder 5.2 Quattro supercar. This summer, "Thor", will team up with Acura for a major cross-promotion featuring the 2012 Acura TL.

In the movie "Thor," S.H.I.E.L.D. agents, worldwide peace-keeping organization of the Marvel Comics universe, drive various Acura vehicles, including the MDX, ZDX, RL and TL models. The TL will be the only model featured in ad spots, which include a 30-second TV on … Read more

It's certainly been a long time coming, but Capcom is finally ready to release Marvel vs. Capcom 3: Fate of Two Worlds on PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360. There's no doubt fans of the series will instantly identify with the update, but is there enough new elements to keep their attention as well as newcomers to the franchise?

Jeff: There's no doubt fans of the Marvel vs. Capcom series are going to be thrilled to have a gorgeous new title in the franchise to continually play until their thumbs bleed. It's a blast to casually jump right in and painstakingly difficult to master, but its over-the-top fighting action is worth the price of admission alone.

Sure, the die-hard fans here are well serviced, but we really enjoyed the addition of the "simple" mode that makes it a lot easier for novices to perform combos and special attacks. Though this certainly makes for a much more accessible game on paper, there's no denying the attractive button-mashing techniques that most players will adopt from the get-go. The training section of the game will teach players a thing or two about basic strategy, so we can't advise against checking it out.

That said, with 30 characters available right away (and more to come with DLC) all with their own fight styles and special moves, Marvel vs. Capcom 3 offers an unbelievable amount of replay value. It's the ultimate party game that can turn any living room into a smoky arcade from the early 1990s.

Finally, we'd be hard-pressed not to touch on the game's tongue-in-cheek sense of comedy. While this sort of aesthetic might fly over the heads of younger gamers, those who grew up playing Capcom games or reading Marvel comics will appreciate the loyalty each brand is able to convey in-game, from the various satisfying sound effects and canned text to the amazing level backdrops and little character quips muttered at the end of a fight.

Forgive us, but we're instantly transported to a more innocent time when we're greeted by Deadpool's calling out of Capcom to be on the cover of the next Street Fighter game, or the way Haggar's pipe spins wildly just like it did in the original Final Fight beat-em-up game.… Read more

On today's preGame it's a pair of two high-profile game demos. Join us as we play Killzone 3 and Marvel vs. Capcom 3 live in the studio!

But first, we'll take a quick look at this past weekend's announcements regarding the PSP phone, or the Sony Ericsson Xperia Play as it's officially been named. It's not exactly the PSP phone we've been clamoring for, but it does offer some impressive features.

We're also very excited to announce a new contest for preGame viewers. By commenting on today's post, you'll be automatically entered for a chance to win one of three Nintendo DSi XL bundles that include Mario vs. Donkey Kong Mini-Land Mayhem! See below for the official rules and regulations.

NO PURCHASE NECESSARY TO ENTER OR WIN. MUST BE LEGAL RESIDENT OF ONE OF THE 50 UNITED STATES OR D.C., 18 YEARS OLD AND AGE OF MAJORITY IN YOUR STATE OF RESIDENCE OR OLDER AT DATE OF ENTRY INTO SWEEPSTAKES. VOID IN PUERTO RICO, ALL U.S. TERRITORIES AND POSSESSIONS AND WHERE PROHIBITED BY LAW. SWEEPSTAKES ENDS AT 12 PM EST ON 2/22/11. SEE OFFICIAL RULES FOR DETAILS.

Want to be a part of our live taping? Make sure you head to http://cnet.com/live/pregame every Tuesday at 4 p.m. EDT.

Got an idea for preGame? E-mail us! pregame [at] cnet [dot] com.

Be sure to subscribe to the show: RSS (video) | iTunes (video)… Read more

LAS VEGAS--Marvell announced its new storage controller this week that combines a regular hard-disk drive (HDD) and a solid-state drive (SSD) to create a hybrid storage solution designed to offer SSD-like performance while retaining the capacity benefits of traditional hard drives.

Intrigued by the idea, I visited the company's demonstration today and found it indeed intriguing and at the same time practical.

At the demo, Marvel used a controller card, powered by its HyperDuo chip, that has two SATA 6Gbps ports. This card is similar to any PCIe SATA controller cards you find on the market. The difference is, … Read more

LAS VEGAS--You should by now have heard of Seagate's Momentus XT (if not, check out our review). It is the first mass-produced hybrid hard drive that offers some benefits of a solid-state drive (SSD) at a much lower cost and without the sacrifice of storage space.

The Momentus XT is called "hybrid" because it consists of a traditional platter-based hard drive and 4GB of flash memory, within one physical chassis. Now what if you want to create a hybrid package by combining an SSD and a traditional hard-disk drive (HDD)?

The answer is what Marvell announced today, … Read more

Today, for the first time on preGame, we're demoing a Nintendo DS game! Super Scribblenauts is the sequel to last year's breakout hit and we're taking a first look at the game by running through a few of the early levels.

Next, we'll jump into Castlevania: Lords of Shadow, a title that takes the franchise in a radical new direction. Loyal fans will notice the game does pay homage to classic Castlevania titles, but Lords of Shadow is a completely new endeavor.

Before the demos, Mark and Jeff recap last week's exciting first hands-on with … Read more

So, who makes the processor humming under the new BlackBerry PlayBook's hood? That important question was not answered yesterday when RIM announced the 7-inch tablet.

Yesterday, when Research In Motion co-CEO Michael Lazaridis unveiled the BlackBerry PlayBook during the opening keynote event at the DevCon developer conference, the dual-core processor was touted by Lazaridis as a marquee feature. But little else was revealed about what is probably the single most important piece of internal hardware.

Here's what we know about the tablet, due early next year in the U.S.: The PlayBook uses "1 gigahertz dual-core processors that take advantage of built-in symmetric multiprocessing," according to Lazaridis during the keynote speech. In symmetric multiprocessing (SMP), the operating system handles all allocation of threads, or tasks, to the processors. Most current high-level operating systems have built-in support for this mode of operation, according to a description of SMP on ARM's Web site.

That open-ended statement by Lazaridis presents a few possibilities that could fit the bill. Nvidia is shipping a dual-core Tegra processor and Texas Instruments has a dual-core OMAP processor due soon. Both chips--technically referred to as application processors--are based on the ARM Cortex A9 design and support symmetric multiprocessing. And Qualcomm will offer a chipset with a dual-core processor running at up to 1.5GHz next year.

Linely Gwennap, principal analyst, the Linley Group, said the only dual-core 1GHz ARM processor that is in production today is Nvidia's Tegra 2. He also cited TI's OMAP 4, which is due to enter production in Q4 this year as a candidate.

But RIM is a longtime user of application processors from Santa Clara, Calif.-based Marvell Semiconductor.… Read more