Don’t expect the next Rock Band to be a rehashed title with an updated set list. It appears Harmonix is hard at work on reinventing the music game genre.

Dhani Harrison, son of Beatles legend George Harrison and developer on The Beatles: Rock Band, told the Chicago Tribune new details on the still unannounced Rock Band 3 project.

Harrison, who still works with developer Harmonix, said he’s creating new musical controllers that will actually teach players the fundamentals of playing real-life instruments for the next Rock Band title.

“I’m working on ‘Rock Band 3′ and making the controllers more real so people can actually learn how to play music while playing the game,” he said.

Harrison would add, however, gamers might not see the next proper Rock Band installment for quite some time.

“Give me a couple years, it’s going to happen.”

MTV Games general manager Scott Guthrie hinted at big changes for the series in a recent interview, saying the next Rock Band title could even incorporate Project Natal motion technology.

“We aren’t standing still – we will keep moving into new areas and look at new technologies that our platform holder partners are also developing, such as Project Natal from Microsoft,” said Guthrie.

We’re just 5 days away from the launch of Modern Warfare 2 and this is the last trailer we’ll be seeing for it.. cannot wait for this one, I have a feeling Infinity Ward is going to revolutionize gaming again.

GTA4.Net noticed this “ad” in the Episodes from Liberty City instruction manual that, reading between the lines (or around the torn out part, anyway) seems to tease where the series is headed next. And maybe when.

The ad, apparently for a fake movie, declares “Liberty City, It’s Over!” implying, naturally, that we’re all done here. “Next stop,” it says, and that portion appears to be torn out, except for the word “Seagull.” I think it looks like the name of a hotel, but who knows.

To the left of that is “Opens March Everywhere,” and your guess is as good as mine as to what that means. But Rockstar knows what it’s doing here, it’s getting people to talk, and we’ve taken the bait.

Blizzard drops details on the new dungeon and raid system for World of Warcraft, which brings with it cross-sever instancing, daily random dungeons, and special rewards for taking part in a pick-up group.

Pick-up groups, or PUGs, are the bane of many an MMO player’s existence. Rather than grouping with your guild or folks you know, you group up with random strangers who often turn out to be complete and utter tools, and probably think the same thing about you. PUGs are generally avoided whenever possible, but World of Warcraft’s new dungeon and raid system, due out in an upcoming patch, actually rewards players for grouping with random strangers. In fact, the more random additions to your group, the faster you gain rewards, including a Perky Pug non-combat pet.

In order to make PUGs even more attractive, the new system features smarter group matching, which means you should never end up with five shadow priests, which would completely break any instance you entered, along with cross-server instancing, which can pull players from any server in your Battlegroup to go dungeon hopping with you.

Another cool new feature that will seriously cut down on waiting for your PUG members to show up is Instance Teleporting. Much like the PVP battlegrounds in the game, when you join a dungeon using the new system, you will be automatically teleported to the dungeon entrance, where you can then sit AFK for 20 minutes while you get a sandwich.

The new tool will also allow players to select multiple dungeons to take on, or they can take their chances with a random dungeon, with NPC’s giving out quests and rewards to those that complete daily random dungeons, which will be taking the place of the current daily heroic dungeon system.

All of this, plus vote kicking, a looking for raid tool, group disenchanting, and a need before greed update are coming our way in the upcoming WoW content patch. It should go great lengths towards making an already easy game that much easier. Huzzah!

Make some cool quests and single player content and the new expansion may be worth getting into WoW again.

Infinity Ward has defended the length of Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2’s single player campaign, saying that the experience dictates the length and not the demands of players.

One of the few criticisms levelled at the original Modern Warfare was the campaign’s length, which clocks in at around six hours – a figure which is unlikely to be bested by the imminent and hugely anticipated sequel.

“We try and focus on the experience we’re trying to deliver,” Infinity Ward’s Robert Bowling told IGN, “and we really let the story dictate how long the game is.”

“We never go into development saying ‘We’re going to make a 20 hour game because people want a 20 hour game’ – we want to deliver an intense experience where you walk away and go ‘wow, I want to play more,’” Bowling responded when asked if Infinity Ward had taken on board any of the criticisms aimed at the first game.

“It’s okay for you to want to play more of something – that’s a good thing,” he continued, “And then you’ve got all these other modes. You might love the story, it left you wanting more but that’s great but jump into the multiplayer and 14 million people have been playing it for two years straight. That’s a long game, no matter how you look at it.”

Complementing the single player campaign in Modern Warfare 2 is Special Ops, an all-new mode that refits some of the single player levels for multiple players. Find out more by reading our recent hands-on, and check back on IGN.com later today for further impressions and the full interview with Robert Bowling.

Source: IGN.com

Apple today announced updated iMac models carrying LED-based 16:9 displays in 21.5-inch and 27-inch sizes.

Apple today unveiled an all new iMac line featuring brilliant LED-backlit 21.5 and 27-inch widescreen displays in a new edge-to-edge glass design and seamless all aluminum enclosure. The new iMac line, starting at $1,199, is the fastest ever with Intel Core 2 Duo processors starting at 3.06 GHz, and Core i5 and i7 quad-core processors for up to twice the performance. Every new iMac ships with a wireless keyboard and the all new wireless Magic Mouse, the world’s first mouse with Multi-Touch technology pioneered by Apple on the iPhone, iPod touch and Mac notebook trackpad.

The 21.5-inch model, which begins at $1,199 and carries a 1920×1080 display, offers Intel Core 2 Duo processor options running at 3.06 GHz or 3.33 GHz and NVIDIA GeForce 9400M or ATI Radeon 4670 graphics card options.

Pricing on the 27-inch model begins, which carries a 2560×1440 display, begins at $1,699. In addition to the same processor options found on the smaller model, users can also select from a 2.66 GHz quad-core Intel Core i5 or 2.8 GHz quad-core Intel Core i7 processor, although machines carrying those higher-end processors will not ship until November.

All new iMac models feature an SD card slot and ship standard with a wireless keyboard and the new Multi-Touch Magic Mouse also unveiled today.

The next Xbox Live update will deliver Facebook, Twitter and Last.fm, but, wait, there’s more! According to an email from Microsoft, anyway. Get ready for news headlines and dedicated music stores in the Xbox Live dashboard.

Since Microsoft expressly said we’re not forbidden from discussing this, why not? U.S. Xbox Live users in the closed preview will see a “News and More” tab in the “Inside Xbox” channel, and it will deliver “a regularly-updated stream of content from MSNBC.com, MSN Autos, The New Yorker and Dilbert,

For rhythm and music gamers, the update will also set up dedicated music stores for Lips, Guitar Hero and Rock Band.

But wait, there’s more! “Surprise! – Keep an eye out in the weeks after the preview launches…you never know what might pop up,” says the email.

Here’s a project we haven’t heard about for a while — a sequel to mega-bucks sci-fi blockbuster Independence Day. Way back in 2003 director Roland Emmerich and writer Dean Devlin confirmed they were working on s script, but since then we’ve not heard much about the film.

Until now that is, with Latino Review quizzing the helmer whilst he was doing press for his latest movie 2012. Emmerich told them why the sequel has taken so long to get off the ground:

“Dean Devlin and I are still set to make a sequel because we’ve found some sort of idea and we approached [studio 20th Century] Fox and Fox has not quite figured out how to incorporate Dean’s and my deal, and Will’s [Smith] deal. Will wants to do it in some sort of a package they can live with.

“So it’s just been in negotiations now since forever, and naturally Fox says “Why don’t you do it without Will Smith?” I said Will is essential for us, for this movie and actually for the audience too. And, so, it’s in limbo and lately the studios are fighting. Like gross players, and Will is a gross player and is probably the only gross player right now who’s worth his gross. So we’ll see what happens. I would love to do it.”

Emmerich wouldn’t elaborate on the plot, but insisted: “There’s a very really great story, a very cool one.”

According to Pop Crunch (via In Touch Weekly magazine), director Michael Bay wants to kill off female lead Mikaela Banes (played by Megan Fox) in the next installment, which is slated for a summer 2011 release. Bay reportedly wants Fox’s character written “out of the series in a gory death scene in the first few frames of Transformers 3 and (replace) with another gorgeous young actress.”

The magazine’s purported source claims “‘Michael’s pretty much discovered Megan and now he’s very quietly looking for her replacement. … He hasn’t decided if he’s going to kill her off in the next movie, but he just wants to be prepared.’”

According to Digital Spy, however, Fox’s reps have called the report untrue.

Bay and Fox engaged in an infamous war of words this summer during the promotion of Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen, with the actress even comparing her director to Hitler at one point.

Speaking with MTV News, World of Warcraft director Sam Raimi revealed that Saving Private Ryan and The Patriot screenwriter Robert Rodat will be handling the story for the massively multiplayer movie.

Raimi chats with MTV news about being faithful to the source material and presenting characters and settings that will be familiar to World of Warcraft players, while still delivering an original story. That’s where Robert Rodat comes in.

“I think we would try and find touchstones within the game to make it accurate and true and choose one or some of the lands that are portrayed in the game with as much accuracy and authenticity as possible. But we would have our writer, Robert Rodat, really craft an original story within that world that feels like a ‘World of WarCraft’ adventure. Only obviously it’s very different ’cause it’s expanded and translated into the world of a motion picture.”

He makes sense. Rodat is known for creating compelling characters in the midst of wartime situations, and the World of Warcraft certainly has its fair share of both.

It bears noting that Saving Private Ryan is one of many pop culture references included in world of Warcraft, with a Saving Private Imarion quest located in Hellfire Peninsula, the first zone on the other side of the Dark Portal. We’ve gone full circle or something.