Samsung launches a beta of its movie download service
In Germany and the UK today, consumer electronics company Samsung launched the Samsung Movies beta on its mobile portal. The dedicated movie download shop lets users rent or download Hollywood movies and TV shows on their PCs and Windows Media Player-equipped Samsung handset. The only device that supports the beta service is the S8300 Tocco Ultra.
Windows Media Player version 11 is required to watch downloaded content on the PC and sync with the mobile device. An active Internet connection is also required to receive the license key that makes the content viewable. Rentals can sit unopened indefinitely, but once the key is retrieved, the file is only usable for 24 hours.
Performance test: IE8 easily doubles IE7 speed
Download Internet Explorer 8.0 for Windows Vista from Fileforum now.
During his keynote address today at MIX 09, Internet Explorer 8 product manager Dean Hachamovitch repeatedly used the phrase "real-world" in talking about endowing his team's Web browser with performance that the "everyday" user can see and feel. (That sounds almost like it came from AMD's playbook.) Hachamovitch showed some videos demonstrating IE8's performance gains in loading and rendering, particularly versus Firefox 3.0.5 and the "latest" Google Chrome (no version number, so presumably version 1 and not the beta of version 2). And he conceded that some of these gains can't be seen without a good stopwatch, so they'll only make sense to the end user if they can be felt by him.
Analysts' roundup: What in the world would IBM want with Sun?
While IBM would pick up more technology, products, users, and revenues, integrating the two companies might not be any picnic, and some Sun customers certainly wouldn't be happy campers, analysts told Betanews this week.
Industry observers have been pondering the possible ramifications ever since a Wall Street Journal report yesterday stating that the two OEM giants are in acquisition talks.
Psystar releases yet another 'Mac clone'
Psystar has hung on for nearly a year, continuing to offer "Mac clone" desktop systems equipped with OS X, despite the nonstop litigation they bring the company.
The Florida-based company has released its fourth OS X package, the Open(3) with Mac OS X. In its base configuration, the Open(3) is equipped with a 2.8 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo E7400, 2 GB DDR2 800 MHz RAM, a 500 GB 7200 RPM SATA hard drive, and an Nvidia GeForce 8400GS 256 MB graphics card. It includes a SATA DVD R/W drive, gigabit Ethernet, 8 USB ports, LPT and RS-232 ports, as well as two PS/2 ports, despite the fact that MAC OS doesn't support them.
From MIX '09: Internet Explorer 8, at last
Download Internet Explorer 8.0 for Windows Vista from Fileforum now.
For too long, Web site developers have found themselves having to "code to IE6" -- a process meaning, making sure their sites' appearances don't look altogether funky in Internet Explorer 6.0, still one of the world's most used Web browsers. Even Microsoft would like to kick the legacy of IE6 out the back door along with MS-DOS 5.0 and Bob, and now IE8's product manager will make the case to developers about how they can help way too many Web users help Microsoft do just that.
Cisco to acquire Flip Video maker Pure Digital Technologies
This morning, Cisco announced that it is acquiring Pure Digital Technologies, better known as the company responsible for Flip Video cameras, the pocket-sized digital camcorders.
Today's announcement confirms earlier speculation that the company was interested in acquiring Pure Digital. Cisco's plans for the next five years revolve around developing three major areas: the connected home, the media-enabled home, and visual networking. Pure Digital's products fit into the second of these three categories, and will flesh out the company's growing catalog of consumer products.
Microsoft: The real Silverlight premiere is now
Since the very beginning of Microsoft's venture into distributed video platforms, it's intended to make a system for enabling developers more conventional languages like C++, C#, and Visual Basic to produce truly distributed applications. The code word for this is "n-tier logic," and it refers to the ability for a core application to assume its input/output is being handled by a set of graphical resources, while enabling any number of intermediate layers to connect the core with the graphics. That way, the only technical differences between a local app, a network app, and an Internet app take place in the middle of the chart -- for example, is there IIS or isn't there?
When Microsoft started testing what it had called Silverlight 1.1, it was with the idea to introduce .NET app languages to the mix, and to go beyond JavaScript. Sometimes you still hear a hint of the arbitrary dividing line at Microsoft, between C# "developers, developers, developers" and JavaScript "designers." During the learning process, the company evolved the 1.1 project into Silverlight 2.0, whose stated goal was to provide fluid graphical functionality for rich Internet applications (RIAs) using any .NET language.
Sony takes a swing at Kindle with free books
Sony today announced that its eBook store now carries over 500,000 free public domain titles, thanks to a partnership with Google.
The company's eBook Library desktop software is designed like a stripped down version of iTunes, organizing the user's content library, and serving as a portal to the eBook Store from Sony. Today, the software features a link called Unearth a Classic which goes to Google's Book Search database of public domain content optimized for the Sony Reader.
Sun: Open source frees CIOs (and others) from 'slavery'
Vendors can build revenues from services and subscriptions, while CIOs, CEOs and the businesses they lead are freed from the "slavery" of traditional software procurement processes, said Sun's Simon Phipps, speaking at a Sun developers conference in New York City.
In the midst of industry speculation that IBM might buy Sun for some $6.5 billion, Sun also used the event this week to announce the Sun Open Cloud Platform, a.k.a., "Sun Cloud," along with the first two services from Sun to be based on the new private and public cloud environment.
New Internet Explorer 8 secures, slices, smokes
Download Internet Explorer 8.0 for Windows Vista from Fileforum now.
As suspected, Microsoft used this week's MIX09 conference to unleash Internet Explorer 8, downloadable as of noon today (EDT). Our initial tests on the final release indicate that Microsoft's promises of better performance and security are realized, and that the team goal of creating "a better way to waste time on the Internet" has been realized too -- in the good sense.
Nokia won't be caught in a MOSH
When Nokia announced last month that it will be opening The Ovi Store for mobile apps, the company noted that the content in the store would be of the same nature as the content previously available on Download, WidSets, and MOSH.
Previously is the operative word in that statement, according to a report from Reuters today. According to the report, MOSH will be closing down.
Oracle brings in Q3 results, delivers first-ever cash dividend
As the company did last quarter, Oracle during their Q3 earnings call on Wednesday blamed currency exchange rates for hamstringing their earnings. As it was, the company reported revenues precisely meeting expectations for the third quarter, and announced its first-ever cash dividend of five cents per share.
GAAP earnings per share were 26 cents, up 3% year-over-year and up one penny since last quarter, which is exactly what the company predicted last quarter -- though that number was ironically predicated on a weaker dollar. Had exchange rates remained as they were in Q3 '08, the company says, earnings would have been up 18% to 31 cents per share. (Non-GAAP earnings per share were up 16% to 35 cents; with last year's exchange rates in effect, that would have been 40¢/share.)
Sun sees its new cloud as both 'infrastructure' and 'platform'
In a session this evening at the developers conference where the cloud initiative was unveiled, Sun's CTO for cloud computing said that Sun is likely to offer the Sun Open Cloud Platform as both an "infrastructure" and a "platform."
Known for short as "Sun Cloud," the new offering "is a way for us to give every developer on the planet their own virtual data center in the cloud," said the cloud executive, Lew Tucker, during a panel presentation at the CommunityOne East Developers Conference in New York City.
Lenovo Pocket Yoga: a new form factor in the making
After a photo leaked that appeared to show an unspecified Lenovo netbook last week, Lenovo gladly came forward to discuss just what the photograph depicted.
Johnson Li, director of Lenovo's Beijing Innovation Center, said the leather-bound, dual-folding netbook was an experiment that is now "finished." It is a 2007 concept that Lenovo created, called the "Pocket Yoga" notebook. The device's shape is based around a 360 degree hinge conceived by one of the company's New Zealand-based designers.
Inside EPIC's privacy claim against Google: What's the evidence?
By now, the matter of Google's multiple small disasters with its early round of cloud-based applications -- troubles which led to the unauthorized sharing ability of some files -- is one of public record, and certainly the company has made plenty of public apologies. But was it criminally deceptive in promising to users a safe system, only to then be hit with safety issues? The Electronic Privacy Information Center advocacy group says yes, and it has taken its case to the US Federal Trade Commission.
In a formal complaint issued this morning (PDF available here), EPIC uses citations from Google's online marketing promotions for its cloud-based applications, along with links to news articles about the company's recent headaches, to build the case that the company makes promises to users that it can't keep.
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