Tim Conneally

Utilizing the 700MHz spectrum block it acquired in March and the Sprint network, Cox Communications today announced plans to launch its own wireless service.

The company plans to enter the market in 2009 on Sprint's network, and then roll out its own 3G network, which it is currently building. Cox's plans also involve testing LTE for 4G connectivity.

As perhaps the most abundant example to date of the platform's HD streaming capability, Netflix announced today that its "instant view" streams will be made available to non-Windows users through Microsoft Silverlight.

With Netflix placing increased emphasis on its streaming and instantly viewable library, a large swath of users has still largely been neglected. Though queues could be assembled in any browser and then viewed with one of the connected set-top devices, those without Windows Media Player 11 could not stream Netflix content directly to their computers.

On Election Day, November 4, Research In Motion is slated to finally release the BlackBerry Bold, the more traditionally designed of RIM's newest BlackBerrys. Market analysis firm iSuppli today has released a teardown of the device.

According to iSuppli's teardown, the costliest aspect of the Bold is Marvell's processor, at $34.34, or roughly 22% of the device's total cost. Recently, UK carrier Orange halted the Bold's sales, citing dubious software problems. Many wondered if the problems were really related to Marvell's PXA chipset, which is based on the Intel XScale microarchitecture. Almost all processing takes place on the chip, including applications processing, and digital/analog baseband.

The US Department of Justice has completed its review the RFID Consortium's joint patent-licensing arrangement that covers essential technologies in UHF RFID, and have deemed it pro-competitive.

The RFID consortium and VIA Licensing issued a call over two years ago to pool all the foundational patents for Ultra High Frequency RFID that were either necessarily infringed, or necessary to make, use, or sell a product in compliance with the applicable UHF RFID standards.

The EU anti-piracy directive that would let intellectual property holders get information about file sharers has been implemented in a Swedish bill, which this week received approval to be presented to Parliament.

Sweden's English-language news site The Local reports this week that the Lagrådet Legislative Council has green-lighted a bill that would make file sharers' IP addresses available to copyright holders.

Intel execs at this week's Developer's Forum made derisive remarks about the ARM chips used in most smartphones -- including the iPhone -- saying they made devices "not very smart." Another executive then issued a retraction of sorts.

Shane Wall, VP and director of strategic planning, platform architecture and software for Intel's Ultra Mobility Group; and Pankaj Kedia, director of ecosystems of the Ultra Mobility group, engaged in a discussion after Wall's keynote at IDF on Tuesday. There, the execs blamed the deficiencies of both the Apple iPhone, and smartphones as a whole, on ARM chips.

Yesterday, Dish Network announced that 21 new markets will be transmitting content in MPEG-4, bringing the total US Markets using the standard to 52. In six of these added markets, local HD channels were added to content rosters.

The 21 new markets are: Abilene-Sweetwater, Sherman, and Waco-Temple-Bryan TX; Atlanta; Birmingham (Anniston and Tuscaloosa), and Huntsville-Decatur (Florence) AL; Chattanooga and Memphis, TN; Columbia-Jefferson City, Joplin-Pittsburg, and St. Louis MO; Des Moines-Ames, IA; Florence-Myrtle-Beach, SC; Ft. Myers-Naples, and Mobile-Pensacola (Ft. Walton Beach), FL; Jackson, MS; Lincoln, Omaha, and Hastings-Kearney, NE; Quincy-Hannibal-Keokuk, IL; Ada, OK; South Bend-Elkhart, IN; and Topeka, KS. Of these markets, Nebraska, Illinois, and Iowa as well as Columbia-Jefferson City, MO; and Waco-Temple-Bryan, Texas will receive high definition local channels.

Opera Software has been touring the world this week to support the release of the latest Opera Mobile browser beta version 9.51b2, which was released on Monday.

In mid-summer, the first beta, exclusive to touchscreen Windows Pocket PCs with WM5 and WM6, was rolled out with about two-thirds of the expected features. That version has been upgraded, and support for UIQ has been added. The UIQ touch platform is supported on a number of Sony Ericsson handsets, such as the W950 and 960 Walkman phones, and the Motorola MOTORIZR Z8 and MOTO Z10.

Reckless usage of any 3G device, including T-Mobile's G1, can kill a fully charged battery in a matter of hours. With the benefit of history and some key Android apps, G1 owners can take precautions to extend their battery lives.

In June, PC World ranked the relative battery life of a dozen 3G smartphones. All of them tested in the "fair" range, except for the Palm Treo 750 which ranked as "poor." The issue of interest at the time was the battery life of the iPhone 3G, which has been called everything from "Questionably Adequate" to "Garbage."

Samsung today has announced two of its existing Blu-ray players, the BD-2500 and BD-2550, can receive a feature upgrade to support the popular Netflix streaming on demand service today.

These are the fourth and fifth devices this year to be granted access to the Netflix streaming library, and follow LG's BD300 as the latest dedicated Blu-ray players to receive the functionality. Both of Samsung's players are currently available for $399.99, roughly the same price as LG's player.

Broadband-connected TiVo owners today get a boost to their on-demand content catalogs as CinemaNow and Jaman make their libraries available for rent.

TiVo's partnership with CinemaNow was

With the iPhone, thousands stood in line, some for days, some in tents, waiting anxiously for the first boxes to be trucked in. How would the wait for the T-Mobile G1 phone be any different? Tim Conneally found out right away.

BALTIMORE (BetaNews, 11:05 am EDT) - I was greeted by a white UPS envelope leaning against my front door as I came home from walking my dog last night. It was nearly 9:00 pm, and when I had left the house no more than an hour before, no deliveries had arrived. How did I manage to get this package after e-mailing and calling the company with no response? How had I received my long-awaited Android G1 with absolutely no word from T-Mobile?

BioWare and LucasArts today officially announced the long-rumored story-based MMORPG for PC called Star Wars: The Old Republic. It was not long before an EA exec began talk of creating a console version.

MMORPG blog today called it "the worst-kept secret in the video game industry," because the project has been known since last year, but has not been officially announced until now.

After two years of diminished excitement from both the publishers and players of video games about E3, the gaming convention's strict invitation only rules will be slackened a bit for 2009.

This change is no doubt a result of E3 2008, which many bloggers (here's one example, and here's another) considered the "worst E3 ever." However, it's not hard to find commentary calling each of the last five E3 events the "worst ever." The real problem for 2008 was the disinterest from major software companies.

Part of Microsoft's "New Xbox Experience" initiative is a massively multiplayer pseudo game show with a live host and real prizes called "Xbox Live Primetime." Now, the launch of this genre-bending feature has been delayed.

The New Xbox Experience is scheduled to begin on November 19 with the rollout of a large number of upgrades designed with the casual gamer firmly in mind. One such upgrade Microsoft showed off at this year's E3 was an Xbox Live version of the TV game show "1 vs. 100" where a huge panel of players compete for real life prizes, with a real life host.