Hasta La Gadget!

This afternoon the folks responsible for promoting the Ender’s Game movie at Summit Entertainment have worked out a controlled leak of a collection of graphics that will be used in the film. This leak puts the first real official graphic face to the in-story “army” groups the characters are a part of, with Rat Army, Salamander Army, Dragon Army, and Asp Army coming up fresh and clean! Have a peek at the whole lot!

The Ender’s Game movie will be released on November 1st, 2013, and all the way up until then we’re expecting tips and leaks like these to be spread across the internet like a fine fan-friendly butter. This is a great way to go about promoting the film especially since it’s the first time fans of the science fiction text will have ever seen an “official” set of graphics for their beloved story – not counting the comics, in this case. Each of these logos is officially licensed by the film studios and production companies involved.

The logos you’re seeing here play important bits of storyline in the book and what we expect the final storyline in the movie to show as well. With Ender starting with an extremely short stint in Rat Army, we’re seeing that and the army he eventually takes control of as well as another he was a part of – Dragon and Salamander! Asp – on the other hand – is included in “the Authorized Ender Companion” by Jake Black – a text you may own.

Have a peek at each of the logos above and below, clicking each of the images in the gallery below to see them full-size. Let us know if you’re pumped up about Ender’s Game and if you’re going to see the film when it’s out later this year – you know good and well that we’ll be covering this movie right through opening weekend!

Note also that the logos were distributed to Ender’s Game fansites as follows: Ender’s Ansible with Rat, Ender’s Game Fan Site with Asp, Ender News with Dragon, and EnderWiggin.net with Salamander. Gotta catch em all! You’ll be able to follow SlashGear’s coverage of Ender’s Game through the future inside our Summit Entertainment tag portal as well as our Entertainment tag portal – be there!

Thanks for the tip, Darian!

Ender’s Game movie controlled leak brings army logos to life is written by Chris Burns & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.

Analytics group, Simply Measured, states that 59% of Top Brands are now using Instagram, which is an increase from 54% back in November, and a 9% increase quarter over quarter. Instagram’s brand adoption rate over the last quarter is one of the highest adoption rates amongst the social media platforms, but it’s still behind Pinterest, whose brand adoption rate grew 10% last quarter.

Simply Measured’s CEO, Adam Schoenfield, says that with 90 million users actively using Instagram, Instagram is “proving to be a powerful channel for top brands to engage consumers through photo-sharing”. Top Brands have added 1.6 million followers to their accounts in the past 3 months alone, increasing its number of followers by 41%, and increasing brand engagement by up to 35%.

Adidas and Ralph Lauren has now joined the ranks of brands who have over 100,000 followers. Alongside them, there is also MTV, Starbucks, and Nike. Their brand engagement grew over 19%. Gucci and Tiffany & Co’s number of followers grew 65% to 75% in the last quarter, and their brand’s engagement has nearly doubled. 26% of brands now have over 10,000 followers, which is a 20% increase quarter over quarter.

41% of brands now post at least one photo per week to increase its followers’ engagement. That’s 34% more brands compared to last quarter. 98% of the photos that brands post on Instagram are now also linked to their Facebook pages. This results in at least 274 engagements per photo posted, or a 30% increase quarter-over-quarter. However, despite all of these brands adopting Instagram, brands still only stick to one filter, and that’s the ‘Lo-Fi’ filter. If you want to analyze any Instagram profile to see the statistics yourself, you can use the Simply Measured Instagram tool.

[via Business Wire]

59% of top brands now use Instagram is written by Brian Sin & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.

On Tuesday, Apple announced that hackers had recently infected some Macintosh computers of Apple employees.  There was no evidence of any data theft and it was reported that Apple is working on a software tool, to identify and repair infected Macintosh computers, which is due to release later today.The infected systems within Apple have been identified and separated from the internal network. (more…)

By Ubergizmo. Related articles: Apple MacBook Air Equipped with Retina Display [Rumor], MacBook Pro With Retina Display Prices Updated,

The folks at Qualcomm have released a video showing a rather odd bus stop. This bus stop was embedded with a set of posters that asked users waiting for a ride to head to a webpage, from there asking them if they’re bored, in a hurry, or otherwise in need of some general entertainment. What happened was no less than magical – if not completely off topic and wonderful – off topic if you count the HTC One release today as Qualcomm’s biggest release, that is.

The point Qualcomm is trying to make here is that with mobile data – provided by their chipsets and modems, of course – the world is a much more fabulous place. Each time a smartphone is used to access the site shown to the user via the billboard, an odd event happened thusly. With each of these events, joy was brought – and brought hard!

Above you’ll see a full highlight reel. Below you’ll find a horse-drawn carriage coming to pick up a couple that’s in love. Isn’t it so kind of Qualcomm to provide them with a service like this for free?

Next you’ll find a lovely yellow pick-up vehicle followed by a bright shiny silver ride – Lamborghini to the rescue! Without a smartphone and a web connection at the bus stop, these rather random people would never have been given a free ride – Qualcomm’s point is made rather clear.

Next you’ll see a “SEEN IT ALL?” campaign bringing up a wheel-connected sled-dog ride coming up on the bus stop with free rides for those that call it. After that there’s a bit of a puppy surprise as well – Qualcomm brings the cute!

We’ll be seeing Qualcomm at Mobile World Congress this year – starting in a little less than a week! You’ll want to jump in on all the action through our Mobile World Congress 2013 portal and see the Qualcomm action from start to finish!

Qualcomm asks: sled dogs or the bus today, ma’am? is written by Chris Burns & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.

In what we can only assume is a replay from yesterday, Jeep’s Twitter account was hacked and much of the branding was changed over to Cadillac logos and images, mentioning that Cadillac has acquired Jeep, although that couldn’t be further from the truth. We’re guessing it’s the same hackers behind yesterday’s Burger King/McDonald’s Twitter hack.

Many of the tweets are also similar to what we saw yesterday, mainly dealing with the superiority of Cadillac over Jeep, mixed in with some incoherent language and hashtags. The background was also changed to a McDonald’s-laden blinged-out car, pretty much confirming that it’s the same hacking group that we saw yesterday, due to the McDonald’s reference.

If it is the same group, then the Defonic Team Screen Name Club are the ones behind today’s Twitter hack. The group is best known for hacking into Paris Hilton’s phone a while back. Of course, Jeep is gaining hundreds of new followers by the minute, similar to how Burger King’s following grew by 30,000 users in about an hour’s time.

Jeep’s Twitter account hasn’t been suspended, unlike Burger King’s account, and it seems things are back to normal. Jeep’s head of brand communications Todd Goyer says that the company is “aware of the issue and are working to resolve it as quickly as possible.” Most of the branding is back to normal and all of the irrelevant tweets have been deleted.

Jeep Twitter account hacked, taken over by Cadillac fanboys is written by Craig Lloyd & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.