Sony's New Blu-ray Players Still Pricey
After making announcements in Europe regarding its Blu-ray disc player lineup late last month, Sony used the backdrop of CEDIA 2007 to announce its two newest players for the North American market.
However here in the states, Sony's Blu-ray players are none the cheaper. The new BDP-S500 will cost approximately $700 USD, while the top-of-the-line BDP-S2000ES will set the consumer back about $1,300 USD. Both are expected to begin shipping this fall.
Microsoft Releases Suite of Windows Live Software
As expected, Microsoft on Wednesday released its Windows Live software suite, including the global betas of several of its desktop products.
Among the applications included are Windows Live Photo Gallery, Mail, Messenger, Writer, OneCare Family Safety, and Toolbar. The unified installer for the product also acts as a central location to download updates to any program once it is installed.
iPod Classic, Meet iPod Touch
With typical Steve Jobs flair, Apple introduced on Wednesday an entirely new player called the iPod Touch, while relegating its current high-end iPod to "Classic" status.
The Classic model is much like today's iPod, except with more hard drive space. It's thinner than today's 5.5-generation iPod, but comes in sizes of 80GB and 160GB. Pricing for the two models will stay the same as they are currently, at $249 and $349 USD respectively.
iPod Shuffle Goes (RED), New Nano Appears
At an event for press and analysts on Wednesday, Apple CEO Steve Jobs announced that the Shuffle would be joining the Product (RED) movement, while introducing a completely new iPod nano.
The Shuffle will now include a Product (RED) model, as well as silver, light blue, teal, and green models. However the bigger changes came to the iPod nano, and will mark the biggest advancement for the line since its debut in September 2005.
NBC to Sell Shows via Amazon Unbox
It didn't take very long for NBC Universal to find a new outlet for its programming following its break with Apple. The channel's shows will now be available through Amazon for the same price they were on iTunes.
The programs will be sold through Amazon's Unbox service for $1.99 USD per episode. Like iTunes, episodes will be available the day after they air on the network, however Amazon has agreed to let the company bundle programming together.
Microsoft Drops Zune Price, Talks Zune Phone
Microsoft has decided to drop the price of the Zune in an effort to spur sales, while indicating it hadn't completely ruled out a Zune phone.
Effective Wednesday, the price of Microsoft's competitor to the iPod is now $199 USD. The company said the price cut was something it had been planning to do for months, and was part of the normal product cycle.
Corel to Integrate Office With Word Perfect Lightning
Corel said Tuesday that it had created a new module for its WordPerfect Lightning product that would allow users to import the information they have collected into Microsoft Office, and vice versa.
Lightning was first introduced in February as a free compact version of its regular word processing product and is only 16MB in total size.
P2P Remains Alive and Well, BitTorrent Surging
Preliminary results of a study on peer-to-peer file sharing show that on the average, the technology still makes up anywhere between 50 and 90 percent of Internet traffic, with BitTorrent surging in popularity.
The full results of the study will be released at the Emerging Technologies Conference to be held September 25-27 at MIT. Even though P2P dominates much of the bandwidth on the Internet, other technologies have begun to make their mark.
Was China Behind Pentagon Cyber Attack?
In a move more reminiscent of the Cold War era, the US government believes the Chinese government hacked into Pentagon computers, a charge China denies.
Although publicly the Pentagon is not saying who it believed was behind the attack, officials told the Financial TImes Monday that the People's Liberation Army is most likely responsible.
Philips Ready to Enter DVR Market
Philips is preparing a digital video recording system called Personal TV Channel, which could be seen as a competitor to TiVo.
While the device works much like a standard DVR, Philips hopes the way the product determines your preferences will attract consumers. Whereas TiVo Suggestion requires a good deal of input before it works correctly, setup in Philips' DVR is much easier.
iPhone Leading US Smartphone in July
Apple's iPhone led all other phones in its class during the month of July, a report from iSuppli indicates.
1.8 percent of all phones sold in the United States during the month were Apple's, which is the highest of any smartphone and equal to the sales of the LG Chocolate, the leading feature phone. iSuppli categorizes the iPhone as a "crossover" phone, because it has aspects of both categories.
Google News Strikes Deals with News Wires
Google News has signed a deal which it says is aimed at cutting down on multiple copies of the same story, and will give the original authors credit over those who redistribute it.
The deals are with the Press Association of Britain, Agence France-Presse, Canadian Press, and the Associated Press. Google News will host the stories on its own server and co-brand the pages that the stories appear on.
NBC Universal Pulls Out of iTunes
UPDATE - 3:00pm ET, August 31, 2007: After staying silent most of the day, Apple fired back against NBC Universal by deciding to pull the company's content at the beginning of the new television season. Additionally, it disclosed that Universal was attempting to get Apple to pay more than double the wholesale price for content. If Apple would have agreed, pricing of videos would have jumped to $4.99.
The Cupertino company also said that more than 50 networks had already agreed to sell their programs at $1.99 for the upcoming season, meaning NBC was essentially the lone holdout.
YouTube Signs Music Royalty Deal for UK
YouTube said Thursday that it had agreed with the MCPS-PRS Alliance, the UK organization that distributes royalties to the record industry, on a system to compensate artists for music using on the UK version of the site.
About 10 million pieces of music would be licensed for an undisclosed sum, which analysts say is likely in the tens of millions of pounds. The deal would also shelter the social video site from any possible legal actions as a result of music used on its site.
TiVo Loses 145,000 Subscribers
TiVo is still struggling to add customers, and miscalculations over the popularity of its HDTV products also hurt the company's bottom line for the quarter ending in July.
The Alviso, Calif. DVR maker's continued struggles highlight the need for the company to get its cable partners moving. More than two years after Comcast announced it would put TiVo on some of its set top boxes, there has yet to be a single commercial rollout.
Ed's Bio
Ed Oswald is a freelance journalist from the Reading, PA area. Although he has written across a variety of subjects, Ed’s passion and focus has been on technology and gadgets. His work regularly appears on tech news sites BetaNews, PCWorld, and Technologizer, and has been syndicated to eWeek, Time’s Techland blog, VentureBeat and the New York Times.
Ethics Statement© 1998-2024 BetaNews, Inc. All Rights Reserved. Privacy Policy - Cookie Policy.