Linksys, D-Link Unveil Media Players
Linksys and D-Link both announced ahead of Tuesday's start of CES 2005 new wireless media players that will allow consumers to play and stream multimedia through their home entertainment systems. However, D-Link's offering will be the first player to support Windows Connect Now, a proprietary version of DTCP-IP.
D-Link's media player will have the capability to play DVD and CD-Rs, as well as be able to read flash cards through included drives on the unit. Linksys' device, on the other hand, can only be used for media that is stored on the host computer.
DivX Brings Format to DVD Recorders
DivX is most known for its codec that allows for the creation of much smaller video files for easier transmission over the Internet. But this will soon change as the DivX format will be supported on the next generation of DVD recorders, thanks to an agreement with DVD chipmaker LSI Technologies. DVDs recorded in the DivX format will be able to hold up to 12 hours of video.
"Consumers will benefit from the increased recording capacity enabled by DivX Certified encoding solutions," Bill Holmes of DivX Networks said. DivX recorded material, however, will only be able to be played back on computers with the codec installed, or devices that are certified by the company. DivX Networks and LSI will demonstrate the new technology at CES 2005 in Las Vegas later this week.
TiVo Moves Out of the Living Room
Some TiVo customers woke up Monday to find a new option available on their digital video recorders, or DVRs. Called TiVoToGo, the feature enables subscribers to transfer television programming and digital media between their Series 2 TiVos and computers or laptops.
The announcement comes at a time when the competitive landscape has become increasingly pitted and rocky for TiVo, with cable providers and competitors such as Microsoft incorporating DVR into products as a generic function.
Passport Contracts to be Phased Out
Two days after eBay's decision to drop support for two key .NET applications, Microsoft continues to stand behind its single sign-on Passport service in comments to the media. But BetaNews has learned Microsoft has no plans to renew contracts for Passport with third-party sites.
Microsoft's initial comments Wednesday evening to BetaNews were quite vague as to the company's true position on the future of Passport.
eBay to Drop Passport, .NET Support
Auction site eBay announced to members on its Web site Wednesday afternoon that it will drop support for Microsoft's Passport and .NET Alerts by late January. Users were told that "once this takes place, the Microsoft Passport button that is currently displayed on Sign In pages will be replaced with links to a page with more information."
The announcement came with practically no warning, however in recent months, it had become much more difficult to sign up for alerts through Microsoft's .NET services as the pages to do so were buried on eBay's site.
Phishing Scams, Vioxx Top Spam List
For the second year in a row, America Online has released a "Top 10" list of most common junk e-mail subject lines. Topping the list: prescription medication offers for Vioxx and "phishing," or identity theft scams. Falling out of favor this year were Viagra, teens and Oprah.
"AOL members and all online consumers should make one of their New Year's resolutions a cleaner, less cluttered e-mail inbox," Charles Stiles of AOL's Antispam Operations group said.
T-Mobile Looks to Business, Land Lines
Deutsche Telekom says it expects T-Mobile USA to surpass 20 million customers next year and is mulling a business-only mobile phone brand in the United States, a European newspaper reported on Tuesday. Even further, according to DT CEO Kai-Uwe Ricke, the American arm of the company is actively pursuing partnerships with cable operators for fixed line and wireless phone services.
In an interview with Financial Times Deutschland, Ricke told the paper that Deutsche Telekom sees no slowdown in subscriber growth, even with the rash of mergers in the American wireless industry. "We will have over 17 million clients by the end of this year," Ricke said. "Next year it will be about 20 million users, and by 2010, we are aiming for 30 to 35 million."
MSN: Spend New Year's Online With Us
New Year's revelers will have one more way to watch the ball drop this New Year's Eve thanks to MSN. The online service has struck an exclusive deal with New York City to become the "official" online provider for the event.
Although it was announced Tuesday morning, MSN had already begun to advertise the countdown to 2005 through its video service during commercial breaks this past holiday weekend.
AOL Claims Success in Spam Fight
America Online announced Monday that for the first time in five years, it has noted a sustainable drop in the amount of spam arriving in its customer's inboxes.
Last November, the largest online service averaged some 11 million spam reports a day from its members. However, a year later that number had dropped to 2.5 million per day, which equates to a 75 percent decrease.
Britney Spears, Paris Hilton Most Googled
Pop star Britney Spears and actress and hotel fortune heiress Paris Hilton were the two most popular queries in 2004, according to Google's Zeitgeist which was released Thursday. The term "zeitgeist" is German in origin, and means "the general intellectual, moral, and cultural climate of an era" according to Webster's Dictionary.
Google took a broad range of topics in its survey, ranging from technology to types of clothing. Some notable popular queries:
Toshiba Forms Group to Push HD-DVD
Electronics maker Toshiba formally announced the creation of the HD-DVD Promotion Group in Tokyo yesterday. The move will pool the efforts of four companies to better compete with next-generation DVD rival Blu-ray as the fight for a standardized format gets underway.
As reported by BetaNews, the battle for high-definition DVD has heated up in recent weeks as companies move closer to an anticipated release by the middle of next year. While Sony's Blu-ray is more focused on video and television, the HD-DVD format hopes to succeed in data where the original DVD format did not.
Retailers Report Holiday iPod Shortages
Last-minute shoppers looking for an Apple iPod may have a hard time finding one, according to retailers. iPods have been sold out or in very short supply at brick-and-mortar stores such as Circuit City and Best Buy, and online at Amazon.com.
However, those who can deal with an HP iPod will be able to find it at most locations such RadioShack, which decided to jump on the iPod bandwagon earlier this year.
Yahoo! Denies E-Mail Access to Family of Dead Marine
Yahoo! continued Wednesday to refuse e-mail access to a Michigan father of a Marine killed in Iraq early last month.
The family of Justin Ellsworth, 20, is trying to gain access to the e-mail before the Yahoo! account is erased at the end of next month due to the comapny's policy of deactivating unused accounts after 90 days.
Netgear Unveils Home Media Player
Computer network hardware manufacturer Netgear has joined the race to dominate the living room, unveiling a new product that will let users access pictures, music and video from anywhere in their wireless home network.
Released Wednesday, the Netgear Wireless Digital Media Player does not require a computer for playback. Instead, users can listen and view multimedia through their television set and home entertainment system.
MSN Sells Slate to Washington Post
The Washington Post will acquire the online opinion magazine Slate, officials at the paper announced Tuesday. This confirms industry speculation for the past year that MSN was attempting to divest itself from the content business. Slate would be one of three online media entities owned by the Post, the others being newsweek.com and the online version of the paper.
In comments to the media, it appeared as if the deal was no surprise to Slate editor Jacob Weisberg. "Microsoft has been a wonderful home for us since 1996. It's clear, though, that The Washington Post Company is the best place for Slate to continue to grow and develop," Weisberg said. Also announced in the statement was a deal to continue linking to Slate from the MSN home page.
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.
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