Latest Technology News

Blu-ray player sales for the full year 2010 will total 24 million, well over double the total sales of 2009, Futuresource Consulting said in its annual Blu-ray and DVD Hardware Performance report today, and the growth is only expected to continue.

These figures suggest that Blu-ray still has a solid footing, despite the growing chorus of dissenters who think that Blu-ray has no future. In an interview last week, Microsoft UK executive Stephen McGill said, "Blu-ray is going to be passed by as a format. People have moved through from DVDs to digital downloads and digital streaming, so we offer full HD 1080p Blu-ray quality streaming instantly, no download, no delay. So, who needs Blu-ray?"

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That was my first question after reading a press release about NPD's new report "iPad Owner Study." This is why analysts aren't reporters: The report title has about as much reader appeal as a cardboard box (Maybe Bing or Google search will scoop it up). But, hey, people paying for the report want the data, not flashy titles. As to my question, Stephen Baker, NPD's vice president of industry analysis, succinctly told me: The iPad "is cannibalizing nothing in the PC business."

Oh yeah, then why does NPD's press release, issued today, state that "13 percent of iPad owners surveyed bought an iPad instead of a PC." Baker had a good answer for that: "13 percent is a bite, not a cannibal, and just because sales are slowing when iPad is showing up doesn't mean the two are related; and just because everyone sees all these people using iPads doesn't mean they didn't buy a PC now. It may mean that in the future but the numbers argue that Windows 7, tough comparables, flat pricing, weak economy are much more to blame."

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After a nearly two month search, HP said Thursday that it had selected Leo Apotheker to succeed ousted CEO Mark Hurd. Apotheker had resigned from business software firm SAP in February of this year after serving for nearly two years as the company's chief executive, and a total of nearly two decades within the company.

The company has also named Ray Lane as its new chairman. Hurd had served as both HP's chairman and CEO. In naming Apotheker, HP passed over several potential candidates from within, including printer business chief Vyomesh Joshi, PC head Todd Bradley, storage and server unit chief Dave Donatelli, and enterprise division chief Ann Livermore.

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Data from research firm ChangeWave shows continuing momentum for the Google's mobile platform, with consumers now desiring a new phone based on Android vis a vis the iPhone. 37 percent of respondents who plan to purchase a phone in the next 90 days say they'd like an Android phone, versus 38 percent for the iPhone.

The iPhone 4 only briefly stopped consumers from flocking to Android when it launched in June of this year. As the hype has simmered down, consumer's desire for Android phones has heated up, however. In just one year, interest in the platform has increased six-fold, the firm found.

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On-demand streaming video will eventually replace disc-based media and linear broadcast media. As high-tech consumers, we've been hearing about it for years, and there are literally hundreds of set-top boxes and TVs available today that are equipped with broadband connections to prove it.

But getting movies and television into our living rooms is only one use for streaming video, and Hollywood veterans Anatoly Fradis and John Vulich have debuted a new product called Aurora CineStreem that is the first streaming set top box we've seen that is designed to be used by professional filmmakers.

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Amazon is rumored to be working on its own app store for Android that would compete with Google's Android Market. Though Amazon has not announced it or made any statements confirming the rumor, SlashGear today got its hands on the store's terms and conditions for developers, and they seem to sync with the rumors from earlier this week.

Included in these terms are the royalties for developers, which would be 70% of an app's purchase price or 20% of its list price; and conditions for listing applications in other app stores, (apps must be released in the Amazon store at the exact same time as in other app stores, or earlier.)

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Windows Live Spaces' shutdown may not be a big win for WordPress.com, after all. According to internal e-mail messages obtained by Betanews, Microsoft expects only about 1 percent of Windows Live Spaces bloggers to move to WordPress.com. If not there then where? In the e-mail exchange, one Microsoft executive asserts about the 30 million active Windows Live Spaces blogs: "Most are dead."

The e-mail exchange took place on Sept. 28, the day after Automattic and Microsoft revealed that Windows Live Spaces would shut down in about six months and that bloggers could migrate their sites to WordPress.com. The announcement asserts there are 30 million "active" Windows Live Spaces blogs. But the e-mail exchange suggests otherwise.

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One of the signature features of Google's Gmail e-mail service is about to become optional. The company said Wednesday that over the next few days it would allow its users to turn off "conversation view," which organizes e-mail threads onto a single page for easier viewing.

Technical lead Wiltse Carpenter said the move was aimed at drawing in users who may be passing up Gmail because of their dislike for the way it formats your inbox. "The way Gmail organizes mail into conversations is like cilantro," he quipped. "You either love it ... or you hate it."

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Video game company Nintendo today announced launch plans and pricing for its forthcoming 3D handheld gaming unit, the 3DS.

The 3DS will hit retail in Japan on February 26, 2011, just before the end of Japan's fiscal year. It will cost ¥25,000 (approximately $300 USD) and will be launched in North America, Europe, and Australia in March. At a press conference in Chiba, Japan today, Nintendo president and CEO Satoru Iwata said further details will be announced by Nintendo's regional subsidiaries as the date approaches.

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Just over one week ago, the first commercial LTE network in the United States launched in Las Vegas under regional carrier MetroPCS. Today, the carrier's second LTE deployment has launched in the Dallas/Fort Worth metropolitan area.

Like its Las Vegas LTE network, MetroPCS has monthly plans for $55 and $60, and its only LTE-compatible handset is the $299 Samsung Craft.

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Confirming recent rumors, streaming media hardware company Roku announced it has partnered with major Web-based content service Hulu to bring the premium Hulu Plus service to Roku set top boxes later this fall. A surprise announcement came from TiVO, however, which said TiVo Premiere users will have access to the service as well.

Last week, Roku unveiled its new line of set top boxes which really put the heat on competitors AppleTV, Boxee, and even GoogleTV. Roku effectively defined how an over-the-top streaming set top box should work with its first generation of Netflix streamers, which combined an extremely simple interface and an agreeable pricetag with an ever-growing library of content. With these new devices and content partnerships, it continues to lead the pack.

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Microsoft has a long history of rewarding loyal partners.

"Partners?" you say. Yes, partners. Automattic, the company behind WordPress.com, uses Microsoft Azure services. Both companies revealed the partnership during Microsoft's November 2009 developer conference. Now I would never suggest any kind of quid pro quo arrangement, whereby Automattic agreed to use Azure (and take the PDC 2009 stage promoting the relationship), with the promise of getting Windows Live Spaces bloggers when the service later shut done. Others' tongues may wag, but not mine. I see a simple partnership, but a surprising one nevertheless. After all, WordPress' core software is open source.

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AOL announced Tuesday that it will be acquiring popular blog TechCrunch and all of its subsidiary sites, which includes MobileCruch, CrunchGear, TechCrunchIT, GreenTech, TechCrunchTV, and Crunchbase. The sites will be incorporated into AOL's Technology Network of publications.

AOL's Technology Network already includes the blogs Engadget, Switched, The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW,) and DownloadSquad. The inclusion of TechCrunch and its related sites will make AOL the owner of two of the most popular tech blogs according to news aggregator Techmeme.

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Sony Ericsson today announced a unique new accessory for Android, a Bluetooth-connected 1.3" screen called LiveView which can be used to control and interact with applications on your phone remotely.

Similar to the new iPod Nano, LiveView is a small square screen with a clip on the back. Unlike the Nano, however, the tiny 1.3" OLED display is not touch-enabled. Instead, the border of the screen acts as the touch pane, and the chassis has action buttons on it. It is not a standalone device, and must be paired with an Android 2.0+ smartphone (not necessarily just with the X10 series.) Once paired, it can then access dozens of applications.

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At Research in Motion's BlackBerry Developer Conference Devcon 2010, CEO Mike Lazardis unveiled the rumored BlackBerry tablet, which is going by the name PlayBook.

PlayBook has a 7-inch screen, 1GHz dual-core Cortex A9 processor, 1GB of RAM, Front (3 MP) and rear (5 MP) cameras, HMTL5 and Flash 10.1 with hardware acceleration, BES and BBM support, e-reader software, 1080p HD video; H.264, MPEG4, WMV with HDMI video output, as well as a totally revamped browser.

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