The absolutely free app provides access to 7digital’s 6 million track-strong library of DRM-free music. Users can download low-quality tracks when on the move. Such downloads are automatically replaced with high bit-rate tracks (usually 320kbps) when the device is connected to a Wi-Fi network. The majority of tracks and albums are priced at $.77 and $7.77, respectively. Smartphones supported at launch are the BlackBerry Bold, BlackBerry Curve 8900, BlackBerry Tour, BlackBerry Curve 8520 and BlackBerry Storm.
To transfer the Digital Copy file from the Blu-ray disc to a PSP, it is necessary that you also own a PS3. Godzilla and The Ugly Truth have been announced as the first Blu-ray titles to have this feature. In related news, the PSP GO is just hours from its tepidly-to-much-awaited launch.
If the idea of watching your favorite movie on a mobile phone titillates you, mSpot’s new streaming movie rental service is right up your alley. The Palo Alto-based mobile entertainment company will begin providing streaming rentals of a particular flick a few weeks after its DVD release. The service can be accessed from 30 different phone models, including the iPhone, Palm Pre, Blackberry Tour and Storm. mSpot plans to charge $5 for every movie rental.
Each title will remain available for viewing for anywhere between 24 hours and 5 days after it is rented. Film buffs can also opt for one of the monthly subscription plans. “With so many people watching TV episodes and movies on their iPhones, mobile phones are now viewed as an entertainment device,” said Daren Tsui, mSpot’s CEO. Its film catalogue currently features 350 titles from Paramount Studios, Universal Pictures and the Weinstein Company.
Earlier this year, we unstintingly dedicated some precious screen space to a preview of OnLive’s cloud-based gaming service, which many believe can usher in a new era in video games. That belief has found another taker in the form of AT&T, which is OnLive’s latest financial backer. OnLive announced yesterday that it has raised a third round of funding from AT&T, Lauder Partners, and its original investors.
The server-based gaming service promises to deliver the latest video games to any broadband-enabled PC or TV set without requiring any fancy gaming hardware.
The company is not willing to divulge the exact volume of funding. According to GamesBeat, one venture capital source speculates that funding in the third round may have topped $500 million.
“But we’re limited on what we can disclose. The valuation was quite high for a pre-revenue company. It is probably among the highest for a pre-revenue company getting funding this year. But the scope of the opportunity is high,” said Steve Perlman, OnLive’s founder and CEO.
Although a few other similar ventures are vying for what they all believe is an assured place in video game history, OnLive’s huge wealth of intellectual property – more than 100 patents and counting, coupled with the financial muscle of its backers gives it an obvious advantage. It is currently being put through its paces by beta testers.
You can now curse your ISP with even more conviction. A task force set up by the U.S. Federal Communications Commission (FCC) has revealed that actual broadband speeds are slower than promised speeds by as much as 50% to 80%.
Although the task force didn’t name any decent ways to express dissent, it is suggested that indignant consumers learn the art of protesting from the true masters of the art: the Palestinians, who have pioneered some of the most effective and economical techniques, including stone pelting and the fabled catch-and-hurl-back-teargas-grenade technique.
Coming back to the subject of broadband access, the task force is busy preparing a report on ways to enhance broadband penetration in rural and urban areas. The panel will submit its final report to Congress in February. It said in an interim report that anywhere between $20 and $350 billion might be needed for installing necessary wireless and landline infrastructure. Its estimate depends on the internet speed.
“This speaks to consumer empowerment. And if you are advertising one speed but delivering another, that takes power away. Consumers can't make accurate decisions based on quality of service from one provider off another,” Joel Kelsey, an analyst at Consumers Union, told the Washington Post.
The panel said in its report that while nearly 2/3 of Americans are wallowing in broadband bliss and 1/3 have access but haven’t subscribed, 4% have no access whatsoever. The panel also expects smartphones to march ahead of blander phones by 2011.
A journal, once it is published online, can be downloaded in three different formats - a Courier file, Powerpoint or PDF, making it possible for even non-Courier users to access it. The “infinite journal” can seamlessly shift between being an insipid digital notepad to an artist’s canvas. It also features a library that catalogues subscriptions, notebooks and apps.
Two videos of the device have now been leaked but there is not even a single frame grab of Courier’s media capabilities. ZDNet’s Mary Jo Foley claims to have learnt from one of her sources that the Courier is based on Windows 7, although it is not possible to install Windows 7 apps. This is because Microsoft only wants it to run applications that are “tailored to a tablet form factor.”
Google’s “Hot Trends” feature will have far greater exposure than it has had hitherto. From today onward, Google search results will feature a Hot Trends box whenever a person queries for one of the 100 fastest-rising search terms on the internet. Hot Trends is a list of the 100 most popular search terms on the internet, and is updated every hour.
“This new feature is available in the U.S. and Japan. We hope it will help you keep up with everything there's to know about the latest trends online. No more being out of the loop at your office watercooler,” Google wrote on its blog. It also announced that the number of search terms listed on the Hot Trends homepage has been cut down to 40 from 100.
AMD and Nvidia will go full throttle in the fourth and final quarter of 2009. Both the GPU makers will trot out a number of GPUs across various price points in the fourth quarter. Nvidia will have the GeForce GT210, GT220 and GT240 on the market before it inaugurates the GT300 series in December, according to Digitimes.
Sources at graphics card makers expect AMD to unveil the ATI Radeon HD 5770 and 5750 in October, and Radeon HD 5870 X2 and Radeon HD 5850 X2 a month later. The report adds that AMD will launch the single-GPU Radeon HD 5890 when the market seems to plead for it. That apparently is Digitimes’ way of saying that its sources have no idea when the Radeon HD 5890 will be released.
After the USB Implementers Forum reprimanded Palm for using Apple’s USB Vendor ID to re-enable iTunes sync on the Pre – Apple had blocked Palm’s Vendor ID, Palm was left with little choice but to abandon the practice. With the release of webOS 1.2 for the Pre, Palm has grudgingly abandoned its fixation with iTunes and opted for Amazon in its stead. Users can now download their favorite tracks from the Amazon MP3 store using either WiFi or WAN. But iTunes aficionados, who own a Pre for some reason, can use third-party alternatives like double Twist and iTunes Agent to enable iTunes sync on their own.
In July, the European Commission and Microsoft finally reached some common ground in their protracted dispute over the bundling of Internet Explorer with Windows, when Microsoft finally assented to the Commission’s favorite solution: a browser ballot. But the European Commission wants to make sure that the proposed browser ballot doesn’t eventually turn out be a well thought out artifice.
Soon after receiving Microsoft’s assent, the Commission secretly sent out a questionnaire about the proposed ballot screen to browser developers and PC makers. The Wall Street Journal has managed to get its hand on the results of that questionnaire.
The European Committee for Interoperable Systems, a non-profit association, which includes Norwegian browser maker Opera among its ranks, isn’t quite convinced by the idea of a ballot screen and the manner in which Microsoft has proposed to implement it. ECIS believes that the entire process of choosing a different browser contains “threatening and confusing warnings and questions.”
"Microsoft has cunningly found a way to accept the commission's suggestion of a ballot screen, but to do so in a way that will be entirely ineffective," ECIS's lawyer, Thomas Vinje, told the WSJ. Ironically, Microsoft plans to offer the ballot screen from within Internet Explorer. Though not opposed to the idea, Mozilla wants it to be modified.
Microsoft had originally planned to release Windows Mobile 7 in 2009. But it then pushed the release to 2010. The cutthroat nature of the smartphone market offers very little leeway for such delays. Besides, WinMo 7 is supposed to be a product that will bring Windows phones up to speed with other contemporary smartphones.
The delay left Microsoft with no choice but to plug Windows 6.5, an interim release, in a manner only accorded to a major release. It is clearly a gambit to prevent WinMo loyalists from abandoning the terribly long road to WinMo 7.
Just days before the much hyped global launch of Windows Mobile 6.5, Steve Ballmer could be heard criticizing the company's mobile platform at the Microsoft Venture Capitalist Summit last week. No journalists had been invited to the event.
"Ballmer said they screwed up with Windows Mobile. Wishes they had already launched WM7. They completely revamped the team," tweeted Paul Jozefak, a venture capitalist, from the event floor.
New devices will ship with their sound levels capped at 80 decibels. But the consumer will be free to tinker with the factory settings. "If consumers chose to over-ride the default settings they can, but there will be clear warnings so they know the risks they are taking," said Meglena Kuneva, the head of European Commission’s consumer protection unit.
Buoyed by its strong performance last year, when it raked in $2.1 billion in revenue, online electronics retailer NewEgg is planning a public offering. The company hopes to raise $175 million through its planned initial public offering (IPO), currently awaiting necessary regulatory approval.
Although it has remained profitable ever since its inception in 2001, it is confessedly bracing for stiffer competition from other e-commerce sites, the company said in a filing with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. The IPO is being underwritten by JP Morgan, Bank of America Merrill Lynch and Citi. It hopes to shore up its presence in the Chinese and the Canadian markets using funds from the IPO.
The social web can be harsh on the socially feckless. It is essential that those with a sizable internet audience - even if an unintended, uninvited one - possess a reasonable amount of savoir-faire. The Washington Post will not be assessing its editorial staff’s innate social skills, though.
It has come up with a new set of guidelines that are aimed at curbing its employees’ cyber capers and harangues. The Post hopes that its new internal guideline for using social networks will prevent the Tweets and Facebook Wall Posts of its staff from having a bearing on its content. The Milton Coleman, a senior editor at the paper, is said to have prepared the guidelines.
“When using these networks, nothing we do must call into question the impartiality of our news judgment. We never abandon the guidelines that govern the separation of news from opinion, the importance of fact and objectivity, the appropriate use of language and tone, and other hallmarks of our brand of journalism,” Post executive editor Marcus Brauchli wrote in a staff note.
The paper has advised journalists against “tweeting or posting anything – including photographs or video – that could be perceived as reflecting political racial, sexist, religious or other bias or favoritism that could be used to tarnish our journalistic credibility.”
The API follows days after Google announced a romantically named initiative, called Data Liberation Front, aimed at offering greater data portability to those that use its services (Che Guevara could not head the initiative due to his premature demise). With the new Sites API, businesses can update Google Sites from third-party applications, easily move data to and from Sites, and edit their Sites pages offline.
If your business does not possess the right men to build apps based on the API, or if they are too indolent to engage in anything other than social networking, you can always use apps built by other companies.
PC makers are banking on Windows 7 to provide a much-needed boost to PC demand. However, they may have to wait till the second half of 2010 for the substantial spike in demand they are eyeing. According to Digitimes, sources at notebook makers share the view that Windows 7 will not lead to an immediate increase in PC replacements.
The logic is plain and simple: PC replacement demand depends more on enterprise and government orders rather than the consumer market. As European and North American enterprises are most likely to finalize their annual purchasing budgets in March and April of 2010, Digitimes’ sources expect actual orders to materialize in the second half of 2010.
The motherboard’s onboard discrete graphics processor and the VIA MSP’s integrated graphics IGP work in concert, making it an ideal fit for a wide array of digital media applications. According to VIA, the motherboard supports “up to four, individually configurable displays at resolutions up to and beyond 1080p.”
The VB8003 features two HDMI ports, a DVI port, dual Gigabit Ethernet RJ-45 ports, 4 USB 2.0 ports, serial and PS2 ports. According to Slashgear, the VB8003 will cost $340 in the US. However, there is no word on when it might hit American shores.
It appears in the form of a window on the left side of the browser. Spam and indecorum are two of the biggest problems afflicting website administrators and readers. The search engine giant firmly believes there is an algorithm for every problem tormenting humanity, including the above-named issues.
“I’m sure some publishers will have some objections to something like this but (at the same time) many traditional publishers also objected to blogs,” Aseem Sood, product manager at Google, told PaidContent.org. He believes Sidewiki will lead to an increase in return visitors to a particular site and so website administrators have nothing to fear from it. He also added that his company has no plans to taint its new comments system with ads. “Right now, our goal honestly is to increase the engagement of users on the web.”
Abuse of online ad delivery platforms is becoming more rampant just as the online ads industry continues to assume more lucrative proportions. A few days ago the New York Times website was making headlines for an embarrassing reason: a malvertiser – author of a malicious advertisement – had succeeded in buying ad space on the site to drive traffic to a malicious website.
But it shouldn’t take long for the New York Times to get over the embarrassment of serving a malvertisement on its website, especially now that the most consummate player of the online ad game, Google, has repeated the paper’s ignominious feat.
It is now clear that all malvertisements need not exploit third-party ad networks. Malvertisers are fully capable of exploiting loopholes in search ad networks like Google AdWords. Yesterday, TechCrunch was shocked when Google returned a malicious advertisement just above the search results when queried about the search term “Firefox.”
Although the ad appeared to be linking interested users to the official Firefox site, it was actually redirecting them to an entirely different domain, firefox.mozilla-now.com, which doesn’t even belong to Mozilla. The landing page then tried to cozen prospective Firefox downloaders into paying $2.50 per month for “24/7 Expert Customer Support.” The ad was subsequently removed by Google.
"Google's advertising policy requires that the Web site address displayed in the ad must match the domain of the landing page for that ad in order to ensure that users clearly understand the destination Web site being advertised," a Google spokesman told InformationWeek. However, the spokesman did not comment on the Firefox ad. "We use a combination of manual and automated processes to detect and enforce these policies."
Microsoft had announced last week that Sprint, AT&T and Verizon have all committed themselves to the October 6 launch of Windows Mobile 6.5, now Digitimes’ trusted unnamed sources – the finest in Taiwan - have revealed that Microsoft has secured the backing of many other telecom carriers around the world, including NTT DoCoMO, T-Mobile, Orange, Softbank Mobile, SKT, Telstra and Telus.
According to Benjamin Tan, senior director of Microsoft's GCR Mobile Team Unit in China, there will be more than 30 smartphones running WinMo 6.5 by the end of this year. He told a congregation of reporters in China that the first batch of WinMo 6.5 phones will be supplied by 15 different handset vendors.
Digitimes added that HTC, Acer, Samsung Electronics, LG Electronics, Sony Ericsson, Toshiba, and Hewlett-Packard are among the handset vendors backing the new mobile OS.
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