Japanese gamer mag Famitsu today published Japan's weekly game console sales tallies, and Microsoft's Xbox 360 has secured the top position, thanks to compelling software releases and the console's refreshed pricing.
The Japanese market was initially lukewarm toward Microsoft's game console. Even after price reductions, the console's uptake only saw a brief surge over Sony's PlayStation 3.
11:00 am EST September 17, 2008 - At a meeting with analysts on Monday, HP officials said that a total of 1,500 employees have been working on a strategy to cut 24,600 jobs and produce other cost efficiencies in integrating HP with its newly acquired EDS.
About 500 staffers are working on this task full-time, while 1,000 are doing so on a part-time basis, said Shane Robison, HP's executive VP and chief strategy and technology officer.
Following recent discussions between the two companies that caused speculation regarding a merger, Samsung has made a public cash bid for SanDisk shares.
On September 4, shares in storage company SanDisk quadrupled in value after a Samsung spokesman noted that there were yet unresolved talks between the two companies. Spokesman James Chung said, "We are considering various opportunities regarding SanDisk, but nothing has been decided."
The Internet Movie Database, known in the vernacular as imdb, has launched a beta update of its site featuring full-length movies and television episodes, in a move that may draw attention to its Withoutabox video monetization service.
Amazon's IMDb, the premier resource for information on actors' movie and television appearances, is now making full-length movies and television episodes available on its Videos site.
Cray debuted its smallest and most consumer-oriented "supercomputer" today, the CX1, which will sport Intel Xeon chips and Windows HPC Server 2008. Available immediately, this low end unit embodies the changing state of power computing.
The CX1 chassis has enough room for eight blades of single- or dual-socket Intel Xeon processors. In today's presentation, Cray said the current peak configuration for the chassis is 64 cores with 3.4 GHz bus working at 786 gigaflops. Each chassis can be connected to up to 4 TB of storage.
The European Commission yesterday gave permission for Sony to buy full ownership of Sony BMG, turning the former joint venture with German media conglomerate Bertelsmann AG into a Sony property.
In August, joint partner Bertelsmann agreed to sell its stake in Sony BMG, turning the rights to all but about 200 of its artists to the re-named Sony Music Entertainment Inc. (SMEI). This gave Sony 100 percent control of the label. Bertlesmann is said to be earning $1.2 billion in its divestiture.
Yesterday, the upper house of the European parliament proposed an update to the now 12-year old Information Technology Agreement (ITA) that eliminates customs duties and tariffs on the export of tech hardware.
The proposal to update the agreement comes just over three months after Japan, the United States, and Taiwan (Republic of China) filed complaints with the World Trade Organization that the ITA is no longer current, claiming that duties continue to be levied on products whose definitions are not included in the document which should otherwise render them exempt from tariffs.
As Wall Street wades through what former Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan on Sunday called the worst events he's seen in his career by far, new sites dedicated to financial and business communications have launched.
It appears that online media is a chief beneficiary of the current financial crisis. As the market struggles, online services pertaining to finance are booming.
Video game company Electronic Arts' bid to acquire Grand Theft Auto maker Take-Two Interactive has met its timely end, with increasing focus coming to EA for the widespread piracy of its long-awaited Will Wright title Spore.
Last night, Electronic Arts announced that it was terminating discussions with Take-Two that began more than half a year ago. After a series of bids and refusals, EA allowed its takeover bid to expire so Take-Two could present its case for needing a better offer. Considering the materials Take-Two presented, EA backed down.
A missive from the office of Joe Lieberman on Thursday credits the Connecticut Senator as the direct reason Google changed its Community Guidelines to disqualify terrorist training videos from being displayed.
In announcing the update earlier this week, the YouTube Blog says "We've updated the Community Guidelines to address some of the most common questions users ask us about inappropriate content. Included in the update are a few new things to steer clear of, like not directly inciting violence or encouraging other users to violate the Terms of Use. "
In a unanimous decision, Virginia's Supreme Court has agreed with arguments made by lawyers of convicted spammer Jeremy Jaynes that Virginia's anti-spam law violates the Constitution's First Amendment free speech protections.
Jaynes was famously sentenced to 9 years in prison in what was believed to be the first case of felony spamming. He was found to have propagated 10 million unsolicited e-mails a day through an AOL server housed in Loudon County, Virginia.
MP3 creators Fraunhofer IIS, in association with Dolby Labs, LSI Corp., and Phillips Applied Technologies have announced the licensing terms for MPEG Surround, which promises to bring surround sound to audio streams without much overhead.
Fraunhofer has been pushing hard In an attempt to encourage the adoption and growth of MPEG Surround, what is internationally known as MPEG-D. Last week at the IFA consumer electronics show in Munich, Germany, Fraunhofer IIS showed off its partnership with Rockantenne digital radio station, which now streams in 5.1 surround using the technology.
Microsoft has released its latest installment of the much-discussed advertisements featuring former CEO Bill Gates with comedian Jerry Seinfeld, revealing a tiny bit more of what the company is aiming to achieve with its abstruse ad campaign.
Last week, I recorded my immediate reactions to Microsoft's $300 million ad campaign with a mix of confusion and reproach. One week later, Microsoft has released the second installment in its ad series. While its intent remains on the vague side, Microsoft's serial ad campaign has engaged viewers with its esotericism.
After acquiring Helio only three weeks ago, Virgin Mobile USA has launched its first device from its new subsidiary: an EV-DO handset by Personal Communication Devices, LLC -- a spinoff of UTStarcom -- called the Shuttle.
Mobile virtual network operator (MVNO) Helio has passed hands several times in the last year. Earthlink and SK Telecom were joint founders of the service, but Earthlink later backed away from the project, placing the financial burden on SKT. Earlier this year, Virgin Mobile, a similarly youth-oriented MVNO that leases bandwidth from Sprint PCS, expressed interest in acquiring the brand.
After a brief delay, AOL and Nullsoft's Internet radio service Shoutcast has launched its overhauled and upgraded site, in addition to receiving a number of goodies.
Shoutcast has received an official team blog, site skinning, and an embeddable widget, as well as an upgrade to its popular Winamp portal.