103-inch Plasma TV to Cost $70,000
Panasonic's massive 103-inch plasma television will arrive in time for the holidays in the United States, but it won't come cheap: the TH-103PZ600U carries a retail price of just under $70,000 USD. With a contrast ratio of 4000:1, the display area measures 50.2 inches high and 89.3 inches wide.
The plasma features full high-definition 1080p resolution, and will be available from select high-end retailers starting in December. Professional installation will be required due to the TV's weight and size. "Panasonic's 103-inch display represents the pinnacle of our achievement to date and truly redefines the level of ultimate home entertainment available for the most demanding video connoisseur," remarked Andrew Nelkin, Panasonic's Display Group Vice President.
CinemaNow Offers Download-to-Burn
Movielink may have been first out of the gate announcing plans to enable customers to burn copies of the movies they download, but Microsoft-backed CinemaNow actually rolled out such a feature on Wednesday. It says the technology has been in the works for over a year.
Initially, CinemaNow will provide customers with the ability to burn only 100 older films from its library, a sign that movie studios want to test the waters before diving in. The service has inked deals with Walt Disney, MGM, Sony Pictures, LionsGate and Universal for the DVD burning capability.
AOL Launches Free AIM Pro Client
After one month in testing, AOL on Wednesday dropped the beta moniker from its corporate instant messaging client, officially launching AIM Pro. The new client was jointly designed with WebEx and is targeting business users with collaboration features powered by the company.
AOL hopes to ride the growing wave of instant messaging in the enterprise with AIM Pro. The company cites a recent survey by The Radicati Group that says IM has become a key collaboration tool for 135 million workers, with usage expected to soar to over 477 million by 2009.
Windows Virtualization Opened to Linux
Microsoft late Monday announced a partnership with open source virtualization company XenSource in order to offer interoperability between Xen-enabled Linux installations and the upcoming "hypervisor" technology coming to Windows Server Longhorn.
The agreement means that Microsoft customers will be able to run Linux virtual machines alongside Windows guests. A hypervisor serves as the core software that runs multiple guest operating systems, providing management and control from a central location.
Microsoft Buys Winternals, Sysinternals
Microsoft on Tuesday announced it had acquired Winternals Software and its Sysinternals Web site, appointing founder and Windows kernel expert Mark Russinovich as a Technical Fellow. Winternals has long had a close relationship with Microsoft, even presenting at the company's recent TechEd conference.
Founded by Mark Russinovich and Bryce Cogswell in 1996, Winternals has been a stalwart provider of systems recovery and data protection solutions, while Sysinternals has become known for its free Windows system utilities. Russinovich, a Windows kernel expert, used the site to expose and detail a rootkit discovered in Sony BMG CDs last year.
Report: Apple Preparing Movie Rentals
Rumor site Think Secret is reporting that Apple is preparing to expand iTunes beyond music and television into the realm of movies, with an announcement slated for August 7 at the company's Worldwide Developers Conference.
Unlike its music and TV downloads, which are perpetually owned by the user once purchased, Think Secret says movie downloads will be offered on a rental basis and will expire after a certain period of time or number of viewings. Apple reportedly made this concession after movie studios would not budge to its demands.
AOL PC Protection Suite Enters Beta
AOL on Monday rolled out a beta release of its new PC protection suite dubbed Total Care, which is designed to compete with upcoming offerings from McAfee and Symantec, as well as Windows Live OneCare.
Like other all-in-one solutions, Total Care includes an array of utilities. On the security side, antivirus and anti-spyware protection keeps malware off a system, while a firewall blocks network-borne threats. AOL has tapped McAfee to provide the engine for these capabilities.
Office 2007 Gets Themes, UI Tweaks
Microsoft continues to tweak the user interface for Office 2007, and has added a new silver theme to go along with the current blue and black color schemes. Office UI head Jensen Harris posted a screenshot of the new designs in his Web log Monday.
"Silver isn't infused or saturated with color, so that the design of your document stands out," Harris wrote. In addition, Microsoft has listened to feedback from customers running Office 2007 Beta 2 and has removed the curved upper-left corner, along with making the Quick Access toolbar look more like a separate entity. Harris says changes are still being made to the UI, and expects to finalize the design "in a few weeks."
Microsoft Delivers New Vista Beta Build
Microsoft on Monday released Windows Vista Beta Build 5472 to technical beta testers, TAP customers and MSDN subscribers. The interim update is intended to give testers a more recent build, and encourage application and device driver developers to accelerate deployment on Vista.
Quality and performance enhancements are the primary changes in 5472, along with further tweaks to User Account Control. The new build is the second to follow Beta 2, and will not be released to Customer Preview Program participants. Microsoft expects to deliver the next public release of Windows Vista, Release Candidate 1, later this quarter.
Movielink to Enable DVD Burning
Movie download service Movielink has taken the first step in enabling its customers to copy their flicks onto DVDs by licensing burning technology from Sonic Solutions. However, it's not clear if the feature has the backing of any Hollywood studios, or when it would launch.
The software provided by Sonic will include copyright protections to prevent a customer from making further copies of the DVD. Currently, users can only watch the movies they download on their computers using Windows Media Video technology, and the movie industry has been hesitant to rock a lucrative boat.
Mozilla Celebrates 'World Firefox Day'
The Mozilla Corporation celebrated "World Firefox Day" on July 15, three years after the formation of the Mozilla Foundation. As part of the festivities, the company is encouraging its fans to get one person to switch to the alternate Web browser, in exchange for being immortalized in the Firefox 2.0 source code.
Individuals will have until September 15 to encourage a friend to switch. Names will be displayed on a digital "Firefox Friends Wall" at Mozilla headquarters in Mountain View, Calif. In addition, the names will be accessible from within Firefox 2.0, due to launch in the fall, although the company has yet to decide the specifics.
Meet Microsoft's Ultimate Beta Tester
With tens of thousands of external beta testers examining the latest Microsoft software, little is said about the company's largest guinea pig: itself. Long before a final release, Microsoft has put the beta bits into production -- a process it calls "eating its own dog food."
BetaNews recently sat down with Microsoft Chief Information Officer Ron Markezich, often referred to as "Microsoft's ultimate beta tester," to get an in-depth look at how dog-fooding helps shape the software that hundreds of millions of people use each day.
Microsoft Withdraws Private Folder App
Following a barrage of criticism from security experts and IT administrators, Microsoft has withdrawn its new Private Folder application. The program was introduced last week as a free download for those who verify their operating system as genuine through Microsoft's Windows Genuine Advantage Program.
Private Folder was designed to hide data from the hard drive in addition to protecting it with a password. However, the application quickly drew concern from administrators who feared users would lose their password and not be able to unlock their files. In addition, parents voiced worry that kids could use Private Folder to hide content they download.
Gracenote Inks Deal to Offer Lyrics
Gracenote, which provides an index of album and song information to music services and software makers, has signed an agreement with numerous record companies that gives it the license to distribute lyrics for over 1 million songs in North America.
The deal is the first effort by the music industry to offer lyrics legally; currently, hundreds of Web sites on the Internet provide song lyrics, but do so without authorization. The news comes as record labels are planning a crackdown on such sites, mulling lawsuits over copyright infringement.
34 States Sue Memory Manufacturers
New York Attorney General Eliot Spitzer on Thursday sued the world's top memory chip manufacturers, accusing them of colluding in order to artificially raise prices. California and 33 other states will follow with a separate lawsuit on Friday.
Named in the New York case are Micron, Samsung, Infineon, Elpida, Hynix, Mosel-Vitelic, Nanya Technology and NEC. The lawsuit alleges the companies violated state and federal antitrust laws by making secret deals to fix prices of DRAM between 1998 and 2002.
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