The ability to record 720p HD video has become a standard feature in the big flagship smartphones this year. The Google Nexus One, Apple iPhone 4, Motorola Droid X, HTC EVO 4G, and Nokia N8, for example, can all capture HD video.

For companies involved in the pocket camcorder business like Cisco, Kodak, and Creative, this convergence poses a threat to sales of their small, ultraportable cameras. But according to a report from Futuresource Consulting today, the consumer camcorder business has not yet begun to feel these effects.

Continue reading →

American consumer electronics company Koss, famous for its stereo headphones, has filed a lawsuit against its former Vice President of Finance, Sujata Sachdeva, and against Grant Thornton, LLP, one of the nation's largest accounting firms, alleging fraud and deceit, professional negligence, and breach of fiduciary duty.

The company says that Sachdeva embezzled funds for at least five years, and that Grant Thornton failed to properly audit the company's financial statements and discover Sachdeva's actions.

Continue reading →

Entertainment hardware company Roku and Web-based TV platform maker Clearleap today announced an interesting partnership which could result in cable companies offering their own video on demand station on Roku's popular streaming set top box.

The two companies will begin offering a solution that lets Internet-based video on demand purchases be routed through a customer's pay TV subscription. Similar to the way the Roku set top box allows Netflix customers to have access to all of the Netflix Instant streaming content on their TV; this new partnership could, for example, bring a "Comcast channel" to the Roku box, where subscribers have access to all the free or pay-per-view content they'd have on a Comcast set top box.

Continue reading →

Copyrighted content uploaded to YouTube has been a problem ever since the site launched in 2005. In fact, "Me at the zoo," the first video ever uploaded to YouTube, is dated April 23, 2005. The first time Viacom took legal action against YouTube was exactly one month later, on May 24, 2005, when it issued a subpeona for information about a user who uploaded copyrighted material to the site.

In late 2006, YouTube and Viacom reached a content syndication agreement, but after Google completed its $1.65 billion acquisition of YouTube, the company retracted its agreement, pulled all of its content from the site, and sued Google for over 63,000 counts of copyright infringement.

Continue reading →

The rumors are true: iPhone 4 signal strength wavers when the device is held in the hand. Isn't that like the typical position for holding a cell phone? I can confirm the behavior with the unit FedEx delivered about 3 hours ago. When the phone is flat down, I see four to five bars. When I hold the device in my left hand, the bars slowly go down until either there is one bar or "searching" appears on the screen.

I want to thank Justin Horn for bringing the problem to my attention. I had complained about "searching" behavior on Twitter. He posted: "Is the new iPhone 4 antenna design causing signal issues?" Gizmodo has crowdsourced the story, getting readers to confirm the declining bars scenario; good for Giz practicing some fine "process journalism."

Continue reading →

In a brief statement to the media this afternoon, Apple announced that the upcoming iPhone 4 in white will be delayed.

"White models of Apple's new iPhone 4 have proven more challenging to manufacture than expected, and as a result they will not be available until the second half of July. The availability of the more popular iPhone 4 black models is not affected."

Continue reading →

Verizon and Motorola weren't the only companies making big announcements at the Droid X debut today. Google's CEO and President Eric Schmidt and Vice President of Engineering Andy Rubin were both present. Following the introduction of the Droid X, Rubin officially announced the open sourcing of Anrdoid 2.2 also known as "Froyo."

Typically, when Google drops the open source version of Android, it means a wave of upgrades to existing handsets will follow soon after.

Continue reading →

The Android community was looking forward to today like it was Christmas, and Verizon and Motorola delivered exactly what the community was expecting: the "sequel" to the popular Motorola Droid, the Droid X.

Droid X features:

Continue reading →

Verizon is considering the deployment of a 10 Gigabit per second passive optical network (XG-PON), and began testing the technology last year. The company's trials with Huawei hardware sought to prove the viability and capabilities of the faster fiber optic networking technology.

Today, Verizon announced that the latest (second) field trial in Taunton utilized Motorola's XG-PON FTTP (fiber to the premesis) hardware to deliver downstream speeds of 10 Gigabits per second and upstream speeds of 2.5Gbps.

Continue reading →

Second quarter is just days from finishing. In the home stretch, could Apple generate enough revenue to top Microsoft? Strong iPhone and, particularly, iPad sales should make the difference. Apple's ascension and Microsoft's descension would mark a turning point in computing eras. Microsoft represents the past -- PCs tied to the Office-Windows-Windows Server applications stack. Apple represents the future: mobile devices and applications connected to the cloud.

I have raised the Apple-overtaking-Microsoft-revenue topic before -- 10 days ago when Apple announced 2 million iPad shipments and on April 23, after both companies announced first-quarter earnings. Yesterday, Apple announced that it had sold -- parlance for shipped -- 3 million units, or another 1 million units in the previous 9 nine days. At that rate, Apple could conceivably add another 500,000 units before quarter's end. I'd say 1 million, but tomorrow's iPhone 4 launch almost certainly will be friction against iPad, if no other reason than how busy Apple retail stores will be.

Continue reading →

In a statement to the press this afternoon, national wireless carrier AT&T outlined the different ways that customers will be able to get the first batch of the new Apple iPhone 4.

Customers who pre-ordered an iPhone on June 15 will begin getting theirs this week. Emails will be sent to customers when each order has shipped. One of our staffers received a note earlier today that estimated an afternoon delivery tomorrow.

Continue reading →

Well, hell, it must be "five reasons" day here at Betanews, and I certainly didn't plan it that way. Earlier I posted "Five reasons why Apple will deliver iPhone 4 preorders early." Now it's Microsoft's "five reasons." I had planned to post this one yesterday but held back because of Apple's iOS 4 release, which gravity well pulled away tech readers' attention (surely the many blog posts or news stories made the update hard to ignore).

I completed the main contents of this post yesterday morning (Hey, I don't have an iPhone on which to test iOS 4) as a follow-up to Friday's "I have lost confidence in Steve Ballmer's leadership." I see that some pundits are taking swings at Microsoft. Yesterday, Henry Blodget asked: "Can Microsoft collapse?" My response: Why ask? This is a $60-billion revenue a year company. RealNetwork's founder Rob Glaser answers thequestion: "Why has Microsoft seemingly stopped innovating?" Considering Real's lack of innovation for most of the Noughties, Glaser is perhaps a good person to answer that question.

Continue reading →

Google Voice, the popular and often controversial VoIP, voicemail, and messaging service from Mountain View search giant Google is now open for anyone in the U.S. to use.

Previously, you could only open a Google Voice account if you received an invitation from a user already participating in the program.

Continue reading →

Adobe began testing Flash Player 10.1 on Android 2.2 in late May, and hit the beta 3 phase last week.

Today, Adobe announced that the final version of Flash Player 10.1 has been sent to mobile platform partners, and that Flash Player 10.1 will be available as a final production release on the following "Froyo" (Android 2.2) devices:

Continue reading →

The notices went out last night: iPhone 4 will arrive a day early for some people -- perhaps even all who successfully preordered on June 15 for a June 24 delivery date. Now why is that? I've got five reasons, but first the obligatory background information.

I placed my order around 7:40 p.m. PT on June 15. Hours earlier, many Apple enthusiast and tech blogs reported that iPhone 4 preorders had sold out and the new arrival date was July 2. I credit these, ah, mistaken reports for the sudden responsiveness of Apple's online iPhone 4 ordering system late on June 15. I finally got through the process with ease, after about a dozen failed attempts throughout the day.

Continue reading →