CBS to move 'March Madness' to Silverlight
If Microsoft's Silverlight is indeed fizzling, someone didn't get the message out to the NCAA. For its annual endeavor in covering all the NCAA basketball playoff games online, CBS has opted to triple the NCAA's bandwidth over last year by switching from a Flash-based player -- which already received rave reviews -- to a Silverlight player produced in conjunction with Microsoft.
Like last year, the NCAA March Madness player will deliver every game in the NCAA Championship series to individuals who sign up for free. Online telecasts will be ad-supported, in the wake of poor reception to a subscription-based model in 2007 and earlier years, produced at the time in conjunction with YouTube. The 2008 move to an ad-supported player, the network says, led to 4.8 million total unique visitors downloading the player throughout the Championship series -- a 164% annual jump -- watching a total of 81% more hours of video.
Court dismisses claim Google Street View invades folks' privacy
A privacy invasion case against Google that was given extra attention after the company asserted in court that getting your picture taken is just part of life in the 21st century, was dismissed yesterday by a judge who apparently agrees.
Last April, the Borings of Allegheny, Pennsylvania argued that their private space was interfered with by the roving camera of Google's Street View. In filing their lawsuit against the search giant, they may have brought more attention to themselves than Google's cameras might have merited. But the fact that few others among the millions who have had their front porches snapshot by Google's panoramic camera, convinced a district court judge in Pennsylvania yesterday to toss the Borings' case.
Could Intel stop Nvidia from producing chips for Nehalem?
Last July, Nvidia announced it would make its chipsets and SLI multi-GPU technology interoperable with Intel's latest generation of CPUs, with their highly-advanced Nehalem architecture. Monday, Intel said no to that in court.
In a court filing Monday in Delaware which remains under seal, CPU maker Intel asked for a declaratory judgment against GPU and chipset producer Nvidia, stating that the terms of the companies' existing x86 technology license do not extend to the Nehalem generation. This according to Intel spokesperson Chuck Mulloy, who confirmed the filing with Betanews this morning.
Some analog TV stations have already thrown the switch
It was supposed to be a day of reduced confusion, but in many places around the US today, some major affiliate stations have gone dark on their old analog frequencies...while others go on.
Back in 1953, a family whose name would come to be synonymous in Oklahoma with two things -- broadcasting and waffle syrup -- launched a cottage television institution in what was surprisingly one of the most competitive markets in the country. For most of the time from then until now, it has been the standard-bearer for weather alerts, even to the point where its over-the-top advertising was parodied by The Daily Show's Jon Stewart. Still owned by the Griffin family today, KWTV in my old hometown of Oklahoma City has already said goodbye to Channel 9 -- what we Okies might call, "the lady that brung you."
A fighting chance for EchoStar against TiVo
Today marks the resumption of what has become a remarkable showdown between satellite TV provider EchoStar and its one-time subsidiary Dish Network, and store-and-forward TV pioneer TiVo. Last October, in what appeared to be the final chapter of a long story, the US Supreme Court declined to hear EchoStar's appeal of a judgment declaring it and Dish in violation of TiVo's patents regarding its "Time Warp" functionality. The $105 million settlement fee has already been accounted for by TiVo.
A hearing scheduled for today in US District Court in Texarkana was originally supposed to feature EchoStar's presentation of a software-based "workaround" that would enable its and Dish's set-top boxes to implement a live recording feature similar to Time Warp, but without using TiVo's methodology. But last month, the US Patent and Trademark Office decided it would re-examine the validity of TiVo's patent -- a decision which doesn't necessarily call into question the validity unto itself.
Agreement: Some radio broadcasters will pay some performers' royalties
With terrestrial radio stations now facing the possibility of Congress lifting their historic exception from paying royalties to performers for over-the-air broadcasts, they could use a break. Yesterday, they got one in the form of an agreement with the National Association of Broadcasters for lower performers' royalties when a station operates a simulcast or separate streaming outlet over the Internet.
The rate originally established for stations during 2009 and 2010 will be reduced by 16%, to $0.0015 per recording streamed, gradually increasing to $0.0025 (one quarter of one cent) per streamed recording by 2015. Though this may lessen the burden for terrestrial stations some, it may also be perceived as a concession by broadcasters that performers do deserve something from airplay. If subsidiary airplay deserves compensation, then why not the primary channel as well.
Liberty Media deal may keep Sirius XM solvent
When XM and Sirius Satellite Radio merged last year, the acquirer took on financing debt from XM that it didn't expect. Now a white knight may have emerged to help the merged entity meet obligations due now.
Very few analysts doubt the ability of the satellite radio market to grow and flourish; the problem facing Sirius XM is not that its own market is declining. According to an October 2008 prospectus from Morgan Stanley (PDF available here), some $400 million in convertible senior notes at 1.75% interest are due this year, carried over from XM along with nearly $600 million in various other debts, including "revolving credit." And some $300 million in 2 1/2% convertible notes from the Sirius end are due...well, now.
Moonlight 1.0 means more Silverlight apps run smoothly on Linux
Microsoft had always promised interoperability as one of its key goals for Silverlight. The way it's accomplishing this on the Linux side of the scale is by empowering Miguel de Icaza to take the project and run with it.
This week marked an important milestone in a genuine effort to take a pretty good graphical Web applications platform and make it workable for Linux. The Mono Project, a team backed by Novell and Microsoft whose goal is to make the .NET Framework workable on other platforms, including Linux (and even, if you can believe it, Windows) has released its first non-beta version of the Moonlight 1.0 plug-in.
FCC tells 25% of requesting TV stations they can't switch on 2/17
Claiming that certain areas of the country are less ready than others for the switch to digital broadcast television, the FCC denied 123 termination notices from a list of 491.
"We have now reviewed the 491 termination notices filed by the stations intending to end analog service on February 17, 2009," reads a Federal Communications Commission public notice published yesterday (PDF available here). "We find that 368 of these stations may proceed with their intended termination of analog service on February 17th."
Mozilla: We're not joining the EC's Microsoft complaint
Though it took several days for it to decide upon the proper language, Mozilla today posted its final explanation about its status with respect to the European Commission's latest Microsoft complaint: an "interested party."
Today's admission from the makers of Firefox incorporates language the organization had been pondering as a response to questions from Betanews and others Tuesday, following uncorroborated blog reports that Mozilla was either suing Microsoft or that it was adding its name to legal action from the EC. Neither is the case, especially since the EC's action is not a lawsuit; and today, Mozilla explained that as carefully as possible.
Microsoft: No free Win7 yet, but the option is left open
In a statement to Betanews this afternoon, a Microsoft spokesperson refrained from explicitly denying that it would offer Windows 7 as a free upgrade to some Vista owners.
"Microsoft often explores options with our partners to determine product offerings," the Microsoft spokesperson told Betanews. "We are not announcing anything new at this time."
Analyst: Global economy hits US broadband uptake hardest
It's widely known that the US is playing catch-up with the rest of the world, especially Western Europe and Southeast Asia, in the field of broadband adoption. But a report released by iSuppli yesterday suggests that the rate of US broadband uptake acceleration dropped in 2008 for the first time.
While 6.5 million new broadband subscribers were added in the US during 2007, according to iSuppli principal analyst Steve Rago, only 3.5 million were added in 2008. The entry of telcos, such as Verizon (FiOS) and AT&T (U-verse) to the mix of broadband and TV service providers for many US customers, helped keep that number from falling even further, the firm estimates, but only because customers were investing in the TV service first, and broadband as a piggy-back.
Sprint: Palm Pre to get real MMS, Exchange support
The addition of technical specifications to Sprint's Web site for its upcoming Palm Pre confirms a few features we didn't even see demonstrated at CES last month. One very important feature is support for Microsoft Exchange direct push e-mail, enabling businesses with Exchange Server 2003 or XS 2007 to make their investments in Pre right away.
The other -- which will delight many and maybe even wrinkle some iPhone fans' noses -- is native support for Multimedia Messaging Service (MMS). Sure, iPhone users have told us, you can send and receive MMS messages...through an almost Clintonian definition of "can." Almost every time you see a headline proclaiming the iPhone now has MMS, the story boils down to "Kind of..." which assumes you download someone else's app, that your recipient downloads the same app, and that Apple doesn't make you jump through hoops to do it. No hoops from Palm or Sprint, apparently, if these technical specifications just published are accurate.
Ballmer writes Congress in support of stimulus package
The public printing of the latest version of H.R. 1, the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 (commonly known as the "stimulus bill"), breaks down a $7 billion allotment for investment in the US' broadband infrastructure:
For an amount for `Broadband Technology Opportunities Program', $7,000,000,000, to remain available until September 30, 2010: Provided, That of the funds provided under this heading, $6,650,000,000 shall be expended pursuant to section 201 of this Act, of which: not less than $200,000,000 shall be available for competitive grants for expanding public computer center capacity, including at community colleges and public libraries; not less than $250,000,000 shall be available for competitive grants for innovative programs to encourage sustainable adoption of broadband service; and $10,000,000 shall be transferred to `Department of Commerce, Office of Inspector General' for the purposes of audits and oversight of funds provided under this heading and such funds shall remain available until expended.
Sirius XM is in play, at least in the press
In the absence of hard information on a big business topic, it isn't exactly true to say the press always resorts to speculation. In many cases, parties that are incidentallly related to the topic -- and who may wish to be not so incidental in the near future -- often plays into the press' need to have some substance with which to fuel the story, in exchange for a little spotlight.
In the case of Sirius XM Satellite Radio, nothing is being said officially by either the broadcaster or by the company said to be in talks with it to help it through a trio of huge, pending debt obligations, satellite TV provider (also Sling Media parent, and one-time parent of Dish Network) EchoStar. But just like during last year's Microsoft + Yahoo takeover bonanza (the result of which, you'll recall, was less than nothing), folks who want to be involved -- and who may have an interest in appearing to show up legendary Sirius XM CEO Mel Karmazin -- are making it least appear as though the radio company is in play.
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