Activision on Tuesday announced Call of Duty Elite, a new social network-style experience that will allow Call of Duty players to interact with one another in an entirely different way. The social network has three pillars: connect, compete, and improve. “Connect” will allow users to compete against friends, join groups, find players with similar interests, and enter tournaments. Activision will provide both web and mobile interfaces for managing your Call of Duty information from multiple devices. “Compete” will allow players to enter events and competitions with other players that have similar abilities, and Activision promises real world and in-game prizes. “Improve,” will provide users with a strategy guide to help them bump their gaming skills by following their performance and ongoing statistics. “The average Call of Duty player spends 58 minutes per day playing multiplayer,” Activision Publishing CEO, Eric Hirshberg, said. “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 super charge 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.” Most features will be free, although a premium package will also be available. The service will enter public beta with Call of Duty: Black Ops this summer and will launch on November 8th with Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3. Hit the jump for the full release and a demo video.

Call of Duty® Elite Will Unite and Ignite Gaming’s Largest Online Community

Activision’s New Service Will Offer 30 Million Call of Duty Players Innovative Ways to Connect, Compete and ImproveWill Launch With This Year’s Most Anticipated Release Call of Duty®: Modern Warfare® 3 on November 8, 2011

SANTA MONICA, Calif., May 31, 2011 /PRNewswire/ — The world’s most passionate online gaming community can now connect, compete and improve their Call of Duty® multiplayer experience through Activision’s (Nasdaq: ATVI) innovative new online service, Call of Duty Elite.

Developed from the ground up by Activision’s new Beachhead studio, Call of Duty Elite offers cutting-edge features that significantly enhance the franchises’ multiplayer experience and deliver a new level of social engagement that will unite more than 30 million players worldwide.  Additionally, the service will offer exclusive, high-production value, original entertainment programming designed exclusively for the Call of Duty community.

“The average Call of Duty player spends 58 minutes per day playing multiplayer. 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 super charge that social community,” said Eric Hirshberg, CEO of Activision Publishing. “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. Elite will also allow players of every level to improve their game with an intuitive suite of tools, and compete in tournaments for both real and virtual prizes.”

Call of Duty Elite will include several industry-first innovations, and is designed to reset the bar for what players can expect from a multiplayer experience for this year’s most anticipated game, Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3.  Elite will offer two-way communication between the service and the game, so that the choices and decisions that players make in Elite through the mobile and web interfaces will affect their in-game experience.  The service will be fully integrated into Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 and will launch alongside the game on November 8, 2011.

Call of Duty Elite’s features and services engage the community in three key ways:

• Connect: Call of Duty Elite gives players unprecedented control over their multiplayer experience, transforming it into a true social network. Players can compete against friends, players of similar skill levels and players with similar interests, join groups, join clans, and play in organized tournaments. They can also track the performance, progress and activity of their entire network, both in the game itself, as well as through mobile and web interfaces.  Elite will be an “always on” way for players to connect with the Call of Duty community.
• Compete: Call of Duty Elite establishes the most exciting, competitive environment in a multiplayer game.  Players will have available a constant stream of events and competitions, tiered to group them with those with similar abilities. Both in-game and real-world prizes will be rewarded to all skill levels.
• Improve: Call of Duty Elite is like having a personal online coach. It provides players with a dynamic strategy guide that tracks their statistics and performances down to the most minute details.  It can show gamers how they stack up against their friends or others in the community. Tools and information are provided so players can learn and up their game.

Carrying forward to future Call of Duty games, Elite will chronicle a player’s gameplay history in a cohesive career record, keeping track of every kill, every game and progress.

“Call of Duty Elite has been tailored for Call of Duty’s diverse base of players — hardcore gamers, casual weekend warriors and even beginners — and additional features will be revealed when we premiere Modern Warfare 3 multiplayer later this summer,” added Hirshberg.  ”Over 7 million gamers play Call of Duty online each day logging hundreds of hours of multiplayer per player per year.  Of course, the out of the box Call of Duty multiplayer experience that gamers have come to love and expect will continue as is.  However, for those players looking for more, Call of Duty Elite will supercharge their experience.”

Many key features of Call of Duty Elite will be available to Call of Duty players free of charge.  Additionally, for players who want to up their game, Call of Duty Elite will offer a premium membership with 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.

The service will be accessible on a number of platforms — via web browsers, mobile devices, through game consoles and within the game interface itself — so that players can connect with Call of Duty Elite whenever and wherever they want.

Call of Duty Elite will launch this fall with Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3. However, to test the scale of the service, Activision will hold a public beta this summer for Elite with Call of Duty®: Black Ops.  For more information, go to www.callofduty.com.

Research In Motion’s BlackBerry PlayBook launched in U.S. and Canadian markets earlier today, and that is good news for RIM enthusiasts… that is unless you have AT&T. As many of you know, the PlayBook uses a small piece of software called BlackBerry Bridge to acquire cellular connectivity and provide messaging and other crucial PIM functionality — by transferring calendar, email, and contact data between a BlackBerry smartphone and the new tablet. So what’s the problem? It’s not officially supported by AT&T. On RIM’s official BlackBerry App World page, BlackBerry Bridge is listed with the following support status:

“Supported Carriers — All carriers except: AT&T”

Determined users have found unofficial ways to load the Bridge application onto AT&T BlackBerry smartphones, but the fact that RIM’s highly anticipated tablet offering is not yet officially supported by a major U.S. carrier is very disappointing. An AT&T spokesperson provided the following comment: “AT&T is working with RIM to make the BlackBerry Bridge app available for AT&T customers. We have just received the app for testing and before it’s made available to AT&T customers we want to ensure it delivers a quality experience for our customers.”

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According to a report filed by CNET, social networking giant Facebook is “planning to launch a third-party commenting system in a matter of weeks.” The article cites “multiple sources familiar with the matter” and offers the recent hiring of both Nick Grudin and Andy Mitchell as additional evidence. While Facebook is already heavily integrated into the commenting systems of most major blogs, via Facebook Connect, it is not directly responsible for most commenting systems. ”[The] Facebook commenting product may also permit users to log in with Google, Yahoo, or Twitter IDs if a publisher chooses to incorporate them,” writes a CNET source. The move does, in our opinion, make sense for the social networking site. Aside from padding its user base with those who sign-up just to comment, it would also allow it to build a more in-depth profile of its users by tracking what they are reading and inclined to comment on while online. What do you think of a Facebook driven commenting system? Yay or nay?Read

At the Le Web conference in Paris France, Facebook’s platform chief, Ethan Beard, told technology blog TechCrunch that his company’s Facebook Connect service now has 250 million users making monthly connections via third-party sites. Mr. Beard went on to note that 100 million of those users began using the Connect service within the past year and that Facebook is adding nearly 10,000 sites per day.

Do any of you utilize Facebook connect to authenticate to sites other than FB? Login with your Facebook account below to drop us a comment.

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One of our Verizon Wireless sources has done a little digging for us, and we have turned up some awesome information. We exclusively reported that Verizon Wireless is gearing up to launch a barrage of Android handsets and devices, and we are now able to further clarify that report.

The Motorola DROID Pro, the handset with a 4″ display, 1.3GHz CPU, and global roaming capability gets the model number A957, and is set for a November launch. Motorola is also apparently working on a more business-focused version of the DROID 2 with a World Edition global roaming feature, and it looks like that device will launch relatively soon with the model number A956. If that’s not enough, it also appears that the phone will come in two color choices, black and white.

Moving on to the Motorola Android slab device — it’s listed and we’ve found the model designation — MZ600. We aren’t able to definitively confirm at this time whether this is the Motorola tablet (unlikely just yet) or just the slab form factor device we reported on (much more likely). If it’s the slab touch screen Android phone, it should launch with Android 2.2 and also be a World Edition handset. It looks like there are over 170,000 of those devices on order from what we can see.

As always, we’re working on following up on the rest of the leaked Verizon Wireless roadmap — Samsung and Motorola tablets, anyone? Couple more images after the break!

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One of our trusty Apple sources wrote us in to give us a breakdown on day one of Apple iPhone reservations. The information we have is from Apple stores only, this doesn’t include AT&T stores or Apple’s website, Best Buy or Radio Shack. We have also independently confirmed the information below.

• A “large” New York Apple store had over 2,200 iPhone reservations
• A “medium” sized Boston Apple store had over 800 reservations
• One store in California had over 1,000 reservations, and another in California had over 1,400
• A “small” Texas Apple store had over 900.

Note that these don’t include preorders, walk-in sales on launch day, or any white iPhones. So, it’s in addition to Apple’s 600,000 number. Can’t you tell how excited Apple is?

UPDATE: It’s actually not a device we’re told, but a new “system” for Sprint.

According to a highly placed source of ours, Verizon Wireless is currently testing Apple iPad devices on their network. We have been told that the model they are testing is a CDMA-compatible device, and while our source mentioned LTE in some capacity (possibly another model), we haven’t been able to independently confirm that part of it. It would appear like the gates of heaven have opened, as we’re probably going to see not only an iPhone but also iPad on Verizon very soon, huh?

While today marks the first day the Apple iPad went on sale, it also gives us a glimpse into the upcoming stuff from Cupertino. One of our connects has been digging around the iPad filesystem and found references to the following:

• iPhone3,2
• iPhone3,3
• iPod4,1
• iProd2,1

The first two, iPhones, the second is an iPod touch, and the last? A major revision to the Apple iPad. As if things couldn’t get more exciting…

Like you thought we wouldn’t get our hands on it first… We’ve just scored some awesome unboxing photos of the AT&T Palm Pre Plus, and well, it’s a Palm Pre Plus on AT&T. Our connect says it’s identical to the Verizon Wireless unit as far as they can tell, and they like the fact that AT&T’s Address Book backup service is built in to Synergy. But we’re guessing not too many people use that or consider it a big selling point. We’re still waiting on a release date, but in the meantime, you know where to find those photos.

UPDATE: Our source just said this phone has rebooted on them twice in the first hour of use. Awesomeness.

Click on over to our AT&T Palm Pre Plus unboxing gallery!