Technology notebook: Game publisher creates drawing tablet for Wii

Video game publisher THQ Inc. hopes to draw in artistically inclined fans when its uDraw GameTablet is available for the Wii this year.

The $70 add-on accessory to Nintendo Co.’s popular game console is aimed mainly at 6- to 12-year-olds. Players will be able to make drawings and sketches, or play games such as “Pictionary.”

Wedbush Morgan analyst Michael Pachter said he’s surprised Nintendo didn’t come out with one on its own. With no marketing, he believes THQ will be able to sell at least 1 million tablets. But if the company can convince customers — starting with the kids, then their parents — that they need the tablet, this number could be much higher.

The GameTablet is 9 inches wide and 7 inches long. To use it, you pop in the Wii’s controller, which also powers the gadget, and use an attached stylus pen to create pictures or play games.

The tablet will come packaged with an art-based game, “uDraw Studio,” when it goes on sale ahead of the holidays. “Pictionary” and another game, “Dood’s Big Adventure,” will be sold separately for $30 each.

Wayne Cline, project manager of uDraw, said inspiration for the game came from THQ’s doodle game “Drawn to Life: The Next Chapter,” as well as from the Wacom tablets that professional artists and designers use to create computer images.

iPad turns into a TV with Verizon app

Think you need another TV in the home? Maybe the iPad, Apple Inc.’s tablet computer, will do the job instead.

In the latest example of the slim device attracting the attention of the TV industry, Verizon Communications Inc. on Wednesday demonstrated an application that turns the iPad into another screen for its cable-TV service.

If the application sees the light of day next year as planned, subscribers of Verizon’s FiOS TV service could walk around the home with their iPads and watch live TV. They would be able to channel-surf right on the touch screen, with no need for a remote.

Verizon is not alone in looking at sending cable-TV signals to non-TV devices. Cablevision Systems Corp., which competes with Verizon in the New York City area, has talked about a similar iPad app, but hasn’t said when it would be available.

Hulu.com, which aggregates shows from ABC, Fox and NBC, is already available as an iPad application. But it doesn’t show live TV, so there’s no sports or news. Comcast Corp. offers TV shows online for viewing on computers. That service is only for cable subscribers, unlike Hulu. Verizon’s and Cablevision’s services would be available only to subscribers as well.

AOL Patch network to expand this year

AOL intends to grow its Patch network of community news sites to include more than 500 neighborhoods by the end of December — a move the struggling Internet company hopes will strengthen its online advertising business.

AOL Inc. announced the expansion plan Tuesday for Patch, which it bought last June for $7 million in cash as part of its yearslong effort to reinvent itself as a content provider reliant on online ads as its legacy dial-up Internet access business fades. AOL, which split from Time Warner Inc. in late 2009, said in a March regulatory filing that it expects to invest as much as $50 million in Patch this year alone.

AOL CEO Tim Armstrong came up with the idea for Patch in 2007, while he was still an executive at Google Inc., and was an early stakeholder in the company through his private investment company, Polar Capital. When AOL bought Patch, Armstrong said that he wouldn’t take a profit from the deal and instead his initial investment would be repaid in AOL stock once AOL became independent of Time Warner.

Patch launched its first three websites in early 2009. Since then, the company has been rolling out more sites at a rapid clip: AOL also said Tuesday that it launched Morristown Patch, which focuses on Morristown, N.J., bringing its current stable of Patch sites to 100.

Patch sites now serve communities in eight states, including Skokie, Ill. and Mill Valley, Calif; by the end of the year, AOL plans to have Patch sites in 20 states.

The Associated Press