The James Logan Courier

By Troy Wolverton
San Jose Mercury News (MCT)

SAN JOSE, Calif. — Sezmi, a Silicon Valley startup that's pioneering a new type of TV service, is opening up a public test of its system Monday in California.

Consumers in the San Francisco area and Los Angeles who are accepted into the program will be able to test out Sezmi's service for free for about three months.

In Los Angeles, Sezmi's service will offer cable TV channels such as the Comedy Channel, TNT and CNN; Internet video from such sites as YouTube; 6,000 on-demand movies and television shows, as well as local broadcast channels. In the Bay Area, Sezmi won't be offering cable programming — at least not initially — but will include everything else.

By Billy O'Keefe
McClatchy-Tribune (MCT)

If you're one of those poor souls who enjoys the trappings of a good role-playing, real-time strategy and/or tower defense game, then boy, does "Half-Minute Hero" have a wholly unique and brilliantly original deal for you.

"Hero" arrives divided into three (and, after a little unlocking, six) pieces, with each piece representing an era in the game's storytelling legend. Additionally, four of them represent a separate popular (and, in three cases, traditionally complex) gaming genre. The "Hero 30" chapter is "Hero's" answer to role-playing games, while "Evil Lord 30," "Princess 30" and "Knight 30" respectively take on tactical strategy, overhead 2D arcade shooting and tower defense.
"Hero's" willingness to cover all four of these bases is potentially remarkable in its own respect, but it's how the game does it — and where it gets the "Half-Minute" part of its name — that elevates it to a world all its own.