XDepth aims to bring High Dynamic Range to JPG imagery
Although it is apparently not officially sanctioned by the JPEG Group, XDepth is touting its own platform as an extension to the commonly-used picture format.
The technology, developed by Costa Rica-based Trellis, is said to add high-depth and high dynamic range to JPEG. The technology can be used through a plug-in being made available for Adobe Photoshop at no charge.
DirecTV profits and growth feel pinch of slowing economy
The nation's largest satellite television provider saw its net profit shrink by two percent and customer growth remained flat.
Regardless of those results, the company is managing to hold strongly on to customers, posting a 1.42 percent average monthly churn, its lowest turnover rate in eight years.
Play.com to open MP3 store in the UK
Apple debuts Aperture 2, slashes price
On Tuesday, nearly a year and a half after the company first broke into the professional photography market with its editing suite, a new version was released.
Apple says about 100 new features are included in this latest release, as well as performance enhancements and a new image processing engine. Additionally, it has dropped the price by $100 to $199.
Suspected UK pirates could lose Internet access
The British Parliament is considering new legislation that would give ISPs the right to ban users over the downloading of pirated material.
The policy calls for a warning notice to any customer suspected of downloading pirated files for the first offense, a suspension of their account on the second offense, and outright termination for the third.
T-Mobile partners with Yahoo on mobile search
Yahoo will become T-mobile's default mobile search provider across its European markets by the end of next month.
Yahoo's oneSearch product will be provided to T-Mobile customers in place of current offerings. In addition, the company will offer mobile versions of its services including Flickr, Messenger, Mail, weather and finance.
HTC's Shift UMPC set to finally go on sale
Taiwanese phone manufacturer HTC will apparently start selling its Ultra-Mobile PC within a few weeks in Britain, and has apparently also signed a distribution deal with Orange.
HTC first announced the Shift back in March 2007, and had originally targeted a November launch. However, for unknown reasons, the device's debut was delayed until now. The UMPC device will first appear at online retailer Expansys for £885 ($1,720 USD) on February 19.
ARM to demo prototype Google Android phone
The British chipmaker will show off the early version of a phone based on Google's new Android mobile operating system at the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona Monday.
Although neither Google nor ARM are commenting on the report, sources say the annual gathering will be a coming out party of sorts for the Mountain View, Calif. search company's mobile effort.
Mistake leaks specs of upcoming Nokia N96 phone
An apparent oversight on the company's German Web site has disclosed the specifications for the company's upcoming slider phone.
Pictures of the phone first leaked two months ago, but at the time, the list of features was not known. If the leaked information is to be believed, the N96 will satisfy the needs of a lot of loyal Nokia users.
Hackers manage to unlock newest iPhones
February 8, 2007 4:00pm Further tests and research by BetaNews have indicated that users performing the unlock should not upgrade to 1.1.3 from within iTunes. Instead, the 1.1.3 upgrade package from the iPhone Dev Team should be used, say developers.
The unlock survives this upgrade process according to our tests: the upgrade can be done through a variety of methods outside of the iTunes interface. Although it has not been tested by BetaNews, phones that ship with 1.1.3 installed are apparently also able to use this method directly according to web reports.
Bevy of critical Office fixes headline February patches
Microsoft plans to issue twelve patches next Tuesday, five of which deal with issues in its Office productivity suite.
Of those five, four are critical according to the company's advanced notice published on Thursday. All the critical patches deal with remote code execution errors, and all but one do not require a restart.
RIAA president proposes spyware-like solution to piracy
In comments to the State of the Net conference held in Washington, DC this past week, RIAA president Cary Sherman essentially said he'd support filters and spyware-like applications to prevent piracy.
While the panel went on for over an hour, the juiciest tidbits came in Cary's responses to filtering and encryption, which are sure to ignite criticism from the RIAA's detractors over their methods to fight piracy.
Microsoft's Virtual Earth 3D gets boost with Caligari acquisition
Google News to place greater focus on local content
The Mountain View, Calif. search company is debuting new functionality that will allow users to drill down to localized news.
While the inclusion of local news is something that has already existed news sites, the way Google plans to do it is unique. Instead of using actual people to separate the news, the site automates the process.
Modu looks to make cell phones 'modular'
Israeli startup Modu is looking to give consumers more freedom in what their cell phones can do by offering "jackets" that can make each phone unique.
For example, jackets through partner Universal Music Group would feature the label's various artists, including a "skin" for the phone as well as music functionality to turn the device into a music player.
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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