Stocks end a down month on an up note (AP)
AP - That screeching sound you heard in May? That was the stock market.
Summary Box: Hopes for Greek debt deal lift stocks (AP)
AP - GREECE DEAL: Greece may be nearing a deal to get another package of financial aid from its neighbors in Europe. Germany may back off its push for an early restructuring of Greece's debt, a shift that would help Greece get more aid.
How the major stock indexes fared Tuesday (AP)
AP - New hopes for a deal to prevent Greece from defaulting on its debts led the stock market to end a down month on an up note Tuesday. An unexpected drop in consumers' confidence in the U.S. economy kept the gains in check. The stock market finished broadly higher. All 10 industries that make up the Standard and Poor's 500 index rose.
Activision Will Launch a Call of Duty Social Network
In a kind of Facebook for military buffs and action-game enthusiasts, Activision will launch a social network to connect players of its hit Call of Duty franchise this fall. A limited beta version will be open to select users this summer.
Activision says Call of Duty: Elite -- allowing two-way communication, organized tournaments for virtual prizes, matching of players with similar skill levels, and tutorials -- will eventually link more than 30 million players of the first-person shooter game worldwide.
It will be built into the next version of the game, Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3, to be released on Nov. 8.
"The average Call of Duty player spends 58 minutes per day playing multiplayer," said Eric Hirshberg, CEO of Activision Publishing. "That is more than the average Facebook user spends per day on Facebook. And yet, right now, there are very few tools to unite and supercharge that social community."
"Whether it's allowing you to connect with your friends, or people of a similar skill level, people who live in your city, people who share your favorite passions, join competitive clans or social groups, or upload, view and comment on the incredible mass of player-generated content, or watch and comment on exclusive created content, Call of Duty: Elite will give people more ways to connect with fellow players than ever before," Hirshberg said.
A premium membership in the free service will be available for an as-yet-undisclosed price, with Activision promising "a wide range of state-of-the-art services, exclusive entertainment programming, and all-inclusive game content for less than the cost of any comparable online entertainment service currently in the market."
First released in 2003, Call of Duty has sold more than 55 million copies and is available for Nintendo's Game Cube, DS and Wii; Microsoft's Xbox and Xbox 360; Sony's PlayStation...
$69.99 AT&T Offering Could Boost Smartphone Adoptions
AT&T said Tuesday it will launch a new Android-based smartphone on June 5 that will be priced at $69.95 when buyers sign up for a two-year service contract and a minimum monthly data plan. The new Pantech Crossover's surprisingly low price suggests the U.S. mobile market may be on the verge of a major sea change.
According to Gartner, global smartphone shipments accounted for 23.6 percent of mobile handset sales overall in the first quarter -- an increase of 85 percent year on year. The U.S. market, however, may already be approaching the tipping point at which smartphones become the majority device segment, just like laptops eventually did with desktop PCs.
"In the U.S., I expect that [either] 2011 or 2012 will be the year that smartphones outsell feature phones," said Lisa Pierce, an independent analyst at the Strategic Networks Group. "As for the installed base, [it] will take until 2013-2014 for smartphones to [become] the majority of phones used."
The Crossover sports a slide-out keyboard, a 3.1-inch touchscreen, a 600-MHz processor, and a three-megapixel camera with camcorder. Based on the Android 2.2 platform, the smartphone has access to the latest social-networking apps, games and other software from the Android Market, and also ships with the AllSport GPS app as well as mobile hot-spot support.
Subscribers who sign up for an AT&T tethering plan will be able to connect as many as five Wi-Fi-enabled devices to the new smartphone. What's more, Crossover users with qualifying data plans will gain unlimited access to AT&T's Wi-Fi hot-spot network, the company said.
AT&T is clearly pitching the Crossover at price-conscious first-time buyers who have been waiting for smartphone offerings to become more affordable. For this marketing tactic to work, however, carriers still need to encourage families to share data plans as they currently...
