In a direct challenge to Apple’s dominant iTunes store as well as Amazon’s steady growing MP3 download service, Napster has opted to switch to DRM-free MP3s for their entire six million song library. Napster claims its store is 50% larger than any other MP3 store and touts the largest major label catalog in the industry, as well as the largest library of independent music available anywhere.
Keeping with the industry standard, individual songs cost 99 cents apiece, while most full albums go for $9.95. Songs are encoded at a high-quality 256 kbps bit rate, and include high-resolution album art. It’s interesting to see how more and more stores are making their push into DRM-free sales, though it is going to take much more than that and an ample catalog to challenge Apple’s dominance, which stems from the fact that its store is tightly integrated with the most popular portable media player on the market.
Intel is planning a “technical refresh” of their desktop CPUs this year, with certain cuts planned for the third quarter. In particular, some of the earlier Core 2 Quad CPUs will be phased out, such as the Core 2 Quad 9450. It will be succeeded by the Core 2 Quad 9400. They also are planning to phase out the Q9300 and Q6700, in an effort to move away from the 65nm process as 45nm CPUs are introduced. The 9400 will sit at a very affordable price of $266 after the change.
As older CPUs are removed, newer CPUs will replace them. The Core 2 Quad 9650 will be a pricier and faster CPU at 3GHz and $530. Intel is also planning various cuts in their Core 2 Duo lineup as well. The CPU refreshes are expected year after year, though this is one of the first years we see a refresh that makes no mention of single-core processors as Intel moves away from them altogether.
Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer gets egged by protester @ TS Blog Coders Tell Why They're Avoiding Vista @ PCWorld 7 cool Bluetooth gadgets @ CNNMoney.com GreenPix Zero Energy Media Wall Lights up Beijing @ Inhabitat See more articles and reviews.
Though all indicators over the past few weeks have pointed to a launch at Apple’s Worldwide Developers Conference, Gizmodo now claims to have received confirmation from inside sources that the 3G version of the iPhone will indeed launch on June 9.
No additional specs besides 3G data speeds have been revealed, though Gizmodo seems to have the scoop on the device’s availability. According to them, the second-gen iPhone will be available worldwide right after launch – not at year's end as previously thought – with June 18 as the specific launch day for Spain and similar launch schedules for other European countries with iPhone availability.
Interestingly, Gizmodo also ‘confirms’ more traditional sales policies to go into effect in select countries, such as subsidized pricing for signing up to long-term contracts, and upgrade discounts for current customers.
AU Optronics Corp. is looking to catch the attention of the audience during this year’s SID Display Week, which will be held in Los Angeles, with some interesting new products. The jewel of the crown for the company is a TFT-LCD display with a curved radius of 100mm on glass substrate, which they hope will be used in dashboards and watches sometime in the not so distant future.
They also showcased a 0.63mm thick 1.9” TFT-LCD screen for mobile devices which just weighs 2.1 grams. The size and weight of the product offer great flexibility for phone designers who want to create light, slim, and sunlight readable units. Another interesting tool they will be demonstrating is their Grease Free and Touch Mura Free technology which coasts the AF layer of screens for a fingerprint and smudge free surface ideal for touch screens.
You can expect to see a much more competitive stance among companies who cater the small and medium display market in the future. You probably heard that before, but this time around it’s not just about creating the thinnest display, it’s about delivering a high quality image without having to make sacrifices during product design.
Even though Mininova currently is the most popular BitTorrent site with over 30 million unique monthly visitors, they somehow have managed to elude legal action while all the pressure has focused on sites such as The Pirate Bay and TorrentSpy instead. That’s about to change, however, with the site soon to be the target of a lawsuit at the hands of Dutch anti-piracy organization BREIN.
The lawsuit will focus on the question whether Mininova has to filter copyrighted media from their search results or not. According to BREIN, because over 90% of files tracked on Mininova are illegal they should start filtering search results, or face legal action. Mininova, for its part, maintains they have a notice and take down-policy just like YouTube and if a copyright holder asks the site to remove a file, they will simply comply. It’ll be interesting to see what the outcome of the case will be and just what implications it could have on the future of other BitTorrent sites.
by Justin Mann on May 19, 2008, 6:30 PM | (5 comments)
Macs are still the “minority” player in the personal computer market, with Windows-based PCs enjoying a behemoth monopoly that we've all seen for years. OS X changed a lot for Apple, and since its release they have seen a small but steady market share gain year after year. These days, it seems that Apple is making more headway with more expensive equipment than otherwise, with them apparently taking 66% of the market for PC sales over $1,000.
The fact that Mac hardware tends to be more expensive than PC hardware may have some effect on this, but given how many PC vendors try hard to get complete desktop systems into that $999 or less bracket, Apple has certainly capitalized well. According to the report, two-thirds of PCs sell for under $1,000 whereas Apple has only a single Mac in that same category. The numbers might make you think that someone who is willing to spend a lot of money on a PC is more likely to buy a Mac – an interesting thing to think about. The report doesn't include PCs aimed at businesses that make up a huge portion of the market, which is somewhere Apple still has difficulty getting their foot in the door.
Electronic Arts today extended the deadline on its $2 billion offer for smaller rival Take-Two Interactive for a third time, though it did not raise the price as many had expected. Unsurprisingly, Take-Two is once again urging shareholders against tendering their shares, labeling the offer as unsuitable and one that undervalues the company.
Take-Two, however, did not completely rule out a sale. In fact, the company touted the lucrative GTA IV launch and the recently announced movie deal for its critically acclaimed "BioShock" game as proof that the company is worth more money than what EA is offering. Take-Two may have the upper hand here, and is putting pressure on the world’s largest video game maker to up the ante.
by Jose Vilches on May 19, 2008, 3:15 PM | (2 comments)
Mozilla is inching even closer to finalizing the next version of its Firefox web browser, with the company today unveiling to the public its first release candidate of Firefox 3. They are pitching the update to early adopters, web developers and members of its community for testing and feedback purposes.
Firefox 3 is based on the Gecko 1.9 Web rendering platform, which according to the Mozilla team has received more than 14,000 updates, including better performance, stability, rendering correctness, memory usage, code simplification and sustainability.
Perhaps equally important is the fact that RC1 will more accurately serve as a reference point for developers of Firefox add-ons – which are undoubtedly a huge part of the browser’s appeal – so that they can check their extensions work with the new version of the browser before the final version gets released presumably next month. As usual, Firefox 3 release candidate 1 is available for download here.
The fight against all sorts of scammers on the Internet may be one that overwhelmingly is leaning unfavorably against the good guys, but at least from time to time it seems small victories are had. Recently, the Justice Department in the U.S. Announced that two raids were conducted against a Romanian-based phishing operation, resulting in a reported 38 people being arrested. They are accused of primarily identity theft related crimes like stealing credit card numbers and other information from people on the Internet.
The phishing ring was linked to sending fake emails to redirect people to fake sites, such as we've all become more than accustomed to. In reality, you could arrest 1000 people and still not put a dent in the amount of scams running worldwide. At least someone is trying, though.
With hopes of finding a way to exploit the power of peer-to-peer rather than just hindering it, Comcast has invested an undisclosed sum in P2P video content delivery start-up GridNetworks. The investment was part of GridNetworks’ first-round financing of $9.5 million, which was led by Panorama Capital and included participating from Cisco Systems.
With the funding, GridNetworks is supposedly in talks about potential collaboration to use their technology in Comcast and other ISPs’ networks for delivering HD and other video content – though no specific agreement has been reached as of yet. Comcast has become very interested in peer-to-peer technology after the company was accused last year of blocking or slowing down peer-to-peer traffic. This marks yet another move in that direction, following collaboration with Pando and BitTorrent as part of its “protocol-agnostic” means of managing bandwidth.
AMD announced today the introduction of a new program designed to help people shop for hardware that caters to gamers. The idea is to help the PC gaming market out in light of consoles quickly becoming the be all and end all for gamers. The GAME! Tag, similar to tags like “Centrino” and “Vista Capable”, is intended to be placed onto a machine so that someone looking to buy a computer could simply recognize the GAME! logo and instantly know that AMD has certified it to be a suitable machine for play.
One of the biggest hurdles PCs face for people looking to game on them is the uncertainty in how well the machine will perform under stress. For enthusiasts like us, that's not a big deal – we know what the hardware does and we know what to expect. For many people looking to buy pre-built systems, they might plunk down $1200 on a new machine to discover it grinds to a halt when playing a new title.
As expected, the tag will only appear on systems featuring certain AMD components such as the Phenom, Athlon and Turion Ultra CPUs, a particular Radeon series GPU and, of course, AMD chipsets. But are those the best gaming choices nowadays? We won't complain about the Phenom or the mid-range Radeons, but as much as we like AMD, the budget Radeon HD 3650 they recommend on their base "Game" system is a ridiculous choice.
Interestingly, they cite some of their retailers as companies like Alienware. Rigs with the GAME! tag are set to begin appearing sometime later this year.
Last week, Vista had been put to the test against other versions of Windows to see how it stacked up in the security department. The results were unfavorable, with the OS coming about neck and neck with Windows 2000. Microsoft denied that claim, but now they will have an even bigger claim to deny with more information regarding Vista's security. Now it seems that Vista is not terribly robust in protecting the user from malware, with around 27% of the sample machines falling victim to an attack.
The report does not mention specifically what malware the machines ended up getting infected with, only that 58,000 of around 190,000 total Vista machines were vulnerable. It isn't mentioned if the machines were also not fully updated, though with Automatic Updates being a stock addition to Windows for quite some time it seems unlikely that scores of unpatched Vista machines are wandering the net. It seems more likely that the cause of compromise was due to an out of date anti-virus or Internet security suite, though that is just speculation. If these figures hold any grain of truth, then Microsoft's claims of Vista being any more secure than XP or 2000 aren't holding any water.
Chipsets to see price increase due to Sichuan quak @ DigiTimes 38 charged in international phishing scheme @ AP Help! We're Running Out Of Internet! @ Forbes.com Why Virtualization Is Becoming Strategic @ eWeek See more articles and reviews.
Earlier this month Microsoft withdrew its takeover offer for Yahoo, as the latter was demanding too high a price. Despite the software giant claiming it had no plans to pursue another deal and had opted for an independent strategy instead, it seems that the Microsoft/Yahoo saga is nowhere near over.
Apparently, Yahoo is back in negotiations with Microsoft prompted by some heavy lobbying by investor Carl Icahn. But while both companies seem willing to re-approach the table, the new deal does not involve buying all of Yahoo. Instead, the two companies are supposedly working out a deal where Microsoft picks up Yahoo’s search advertising business only. Interestingly, this might be a way for Microsoft to spoil talks between Yahoo and Google for a similar partnership.
