Polaroid Focuses Lens on New Tech
Coming soon to a shopping center, drug store, or mall near you - Polaroid. Rebounding off the success of its popular I-Zone instant pocket camera and digital cameras, the financially troubled company is betting that convenience, once a factor in its demise, will jumpstart sales. New digital printing technologies coded-named 'Opal' and 'Onyx', are the basis for a dramatic shift in Polaroid's business strategy.
Opel and Onyx are key parts of Polaroid's strategy to shift from analog to digital technologies. According a press release, Polaroid's Opal technology is, "a two-sheet, thermal print medium that combines the best of traditional thermal transfer and inkjet technologies to generate photographic-quality color prints. Opal's high image quality and stability, combined with fast print speed, make it an optimal technology for dedicated home photo printers or the retail photo finishing environment."
IE6 Privacy Features Cause Advertising Headache
Online privacy advocates will be ecstatic when they take a look at the first implementation of P3P, the Platform for Privacy Preferences, in Microsoft's Internet Explorer 6. P3P technology will allow users to set their privacy preferences in the browser and then
let the browser take care of managing whether sites with questionable policies have access to set cookies and the like. But the new restrictions may prove to be more trouble than expected, as P3P can block third-party cookies and result in broken ad banners.
P3P is a new industry standard that enables companies to express their privacy practices in specially formatted tags embedded in their Web sites. P3P is officially an initiative of the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C), an industry group that approves standards like HTML. Ideally, sites will encode their privacy policies in P3P and the browser will alert the user to practices that conflict from what the user has specified.
Linux Beats XP to the Itanium
Following Intel's release of its new family of Itamium processors yesterday, a number of Linux distributions today made available their various flavors of Linux for the new 64-bit processor. Among them Red Hat, SuSE and Turbolinux, all beating Microsoft by over four months if the 64-bit XP rolls out as expected on October 25. By years end Intel will have a number of major UNIX and Linux distributions, as well as a special version of Windows XP for the Itamium platform.
Intel expects approximately 25 computer manufacturers to offer more than 35 Itanium-powered models this year, providing support for Hewlett Packard's HP-UX 11i v1.5 and IBM's AIX-5L, along with Linux and Windows.
Toshiba to Debut Next Generation LCD
Folks who attend Society for Information Display (SID) 2001 at San Jose, California will glimpse a taste of the future. Toshiba is set to reveal its full-color polymer organic light emitting display (OLED) technology, which functions much like an LCD with improved power consumption, response time, and wider viewing angles. These advantages appeal to OEMS such as Apple who recently announced a switch to LCD displays for the majority of its systems. OLED will offer a more suitable platform for viewing media than existing LCDs, and leaves the door open for thinner screens.
Unlike LCDs which are backlit, OLED displays will present output, "via an organic light-emitting diode in the pixels formed on a TFT array." Toshiba touts a prototype that features a 2.85-inch display supporting 260,000 colors and a 64-level (6-bit) gray scale. "The breakthrough display was achieved by development of technology for forming a light-emitting polymer film on a low temperature polysilicon thin film transistor (TFT) array," according to the company. Polysilicon was pioneered by Toshiba, and is a key element of OLED technology achieving active-matrix display.
AOL to Announce Joint Venture, Expansion into China
America Online is poised to announce the creation of a joint venture company with Legend Holdings Limited, the leading PC manufacturer in China. The move marks the first important milestone toward delivery of AOL services to the Chinese mainland. Each company will reportedly contribute $100 million USD to the joint venture, initially providing support services for Legend customers through its FM365.com Web portal. Upon China's accession to the World Trade Organization, the joint venture plans to take an equity stake in Legend's ISP business, establishing the operation of AOL Internet service in China.
With over 22 million people online in China and the Chinese language quickly approaching a majority on the Internet, Legend makes a powerful partner for AOL. Legend is the top distributor of new PCs in the Asia Pacific region, paving the way for wide adoption of joint services via inclusion of AOL software. FM365.com also provides significant reach for AOL, peaking at 25 million daily page views.
AOL, MS to Finalize Deal for XP Real Estate
In a significant turn of events, corporate behemoths AOL and Microsoft have decided to play nice and finalize a deal to bundle AOL client software with Windows XP. BetaNews has learned AOL representatives were invited up to Redmond for a three-week integration session at the end of this month, a step the company internally feels "is a big win to aid our bundling efforts." AOL hopes to include Steppenwolf, the XP compatible version of AOL 6.0, in the October 25 release.
The original agreement to bundle AOL with Windows ended January 1 of this year and both parites failed to reach a compromise on renewal. Fears within AOL about the future of their client surfaced last month, as the company began to investigate alternatives to working with Microsoft.
Beta Test a Next Generation ADSL IAD
3Com Beta Test Services is looking for qualified ADSL participants to a test a next generation ADSL IAD with VoDSL capabilities (this is not the PSTN splitter that is included in some ADSL systems). 3Com asks all applicants to "include in the comments section, that you want to test this product, your service provider's name and address, which DSLAM they are using to supply your
service, and which VoDSL Gateway your service provider supports. If you do not know this information, please find out from your service provider, or you will not be considered."
Qualified applicants should be able to meet the following criteria:
MSDN Subscribers Peep New Office
With a retail launch date set for May 31, MSDN subscribers have been given an early look at Office XP. Microsoft this week posted Office XP Professional and Developer editions for download. MSDN Subscriptions is a service that delivers essential programming information and the latest Microsoft software and tools, for a price. Non-subscribers may register to attend the Office XP launch event and view an interactive demo for a taste of what's to come. To download or find more information on the program, visit MSDN Subscriptions.
Microsoft: Upgrade Your Media Player
In the company's seventh security bulletin this month, Microsoft has announced two vulnerabilities affecting Windows Media Player 6.4 and 7.0. Users of Windows Media Player 6.4 can download one patch with fixes for both exploits, however a heftier download is needed in order to patch version 7.0. Microsoft recommends that Windows Media Player 7.0 users upgrade to the newest release, 7.1.
In both cases, information must be known about the user's system in order for an attacker to successfully exploit these flaws. Privacy is enhanced when users of Windows Media Player uncheck the option: "Allow Internet sites to uniquely identify your player."
Microsoft Details 64-Bit Windows Plans
Microsoft today announced plans regarding the upcoming release of Windows for Intel's 64-bit Itanium processors. Windows XP 64-Bit Edition will debut with 32-bit versions on October 25, but will be first available through an 'Early Deployment Program' for developers. The 64-bit Windows Advanced Server Limited Edition will become available upon general availablity of Itanium systems. Microsoft toyed with the idea of releasing a 64-bit version of Windows 2000, but held off due to delays surrounding the Itanium.
"The 64-bit Windows platform is the best choice for customers who want to combine powerful, 64-bit computing with great price/performance and manageability, unmatched scalability, and broad hardware and software support," said senior vice president of the Windows Division, Brian Valentine, in today's press release.
NVidia Dominating Markets, Taking Names Later
NVidia Corporation continues to blaze the path of innovation and market penetration as the leading graphics chip developer, reporting an estimated 62 percent increase in revenue from the previous year. NVidia announced revenue for the initial quarter of 2001 at $240.9 million, quite a respectable gain from the previous year's respectable mark of $148.5 million in revenue.
With the close of this previous quarter, NVidia has finalized consuming the hearty meal that was previously known as 3dfx Interactive, assimilating key graphics assets from the company
into the heart of the new NVidia graphics chip empire.
Aimster Struggles On
Aimster founder, Johnny Deep has promised to fight on and will not give up his rights to the company's domain. Deep told BetaNews, "What a travesty the whole domain name procedure has become. Two arbitrators, in an apparent effort to advertise their own services to big corporations, decided to usurp powers that federal courts would not have exercised. See the opinion of the third dissenting arbitrator to realize what was really going on. Yes we'll appeal it and we'll surely win."
Late last week, the Capital Business District Review has reported on a decision that requires Aimster to relinquish its domain name. A ruling by the National Arbitration Forum found that "AIM" in Aimster violated America Online's trademark for its instant messaging software. The case, "American Online, Inc. v. John Deep." was greatly influenced by the conclusions of the NAF.
MS Unveils Wireless Windows Media Player
Microsoft has unveiled yet another key product in their future plans for world media domination, with the announcement of Windows Media Player 7.1 for Pocket PC. Packing in features to enable
the "wireless delivery of streamed audio and video," Microsoft has positioned Windows Media Player for Pocket PC to potentially enable true wireless media delivery in the near future, something which many consumers have desired for quite sometime.
The new WMP 7.1 for Pocket PC adds support for the newly developed Windows Media Audio and Video 8 codec technology, along
with the development of landscape video playback.
XP Release Schedule Updated
EXCLUSIVE BetaNews has received an updated release schedule for Windows XP, placing RTM between August 8 and August 28. Microsoft has not set a firm date for a release to manufacturing according to an internal schedule sent to partners last week, however the company plans to launch Release Candidate 1 (RC1) on June 20 and follow with RC2 on July 18. While still in limbo, RTM is now expected to occur around mid-August, one month later than previous reports had stated.
This latest schedule coincides with last week's announcement by Microsoft CEO, Steve Ballmer, that XP will ship on October 25.
The Truth About Windows Activation
The interview has been updated to reflect a slight miscommunication. The corrections are highlighted in red.
Much animosity has surfaced recently over a new product activation feature set to debut with Windows XP. In an effort to dissuade piracy, activation acts like a secondary product key, registering each system with a central Microsoft clearinghouse. But privacy groups and many Windows users are concerned about the implications surrounding such a feature. BetaNews
recently sat down with Allen Nieman, Product Manager of Activation at Microsoft, to clear up confusion and sort fact from fiction.
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