Just when mobile device maker Palm could really use a lift, Elevation Partners -- a VC firm that includes U2 singer Bono -- is coming through with a $100 million investment.
With the launch of a new mobile platform and smartphone slated for next month's CES show, financially beleaguered Palm, Inc. has nailed down a highly needed $100 million equity investment from Elevation Partners, a venture capital firm that includes Bono, lead singer for the rock band U2.
After a two-year relationship, major label Warner Music Group has moved to temporarily terminate its partnership with video sharing site YouTube.
A statement from the record company said, "We simply cannot accept terms that fail to appropriately and fairly compensate recording artists, songwriters, labels and publishers for the value they provide."
Let's make a list of the features we really need in a 2010-generation notebook. We'll start with solid-state storage at 500 GB. From there...You know, we might be satisfied with just that.
It's one more indication that PC manufacturers could very well be ready to implement a breakthrough that changes the nature and profile of typical laptop computers: Over the weekend, a giveaway promotion on Sony's New Zealand Web site clearly states the company plans to unveil new, and probably vastly improved, Vaio notebook computers during CES week next month.
At CES next month, a new organization formed to promote interoperability across media devices will get off the ground -- and by that, they mean a way to get podcasts and streaming content to work on multiple device platforms.
CES 2009 will provide the setting for the first meeting of the Internet Media Device Alliance (IMDA), a new association established to improve device interoperability across music, podcasts, on-demand content and other applications used in Internet radio and other media services.
Seeking the means to shrink a nasty budget deficit, legislators in Albany have floated the idea of slapping a 4% tax on entertainment services delivered via the net, including streaming movies, e-books, and music downloads.
The move, though perhaps among the least disruptive of the suggested changes to the state's $121 billion budget, could prove painful for legitimate services and provide additional motivation for those who lean toward getting their music and movies off the file-sharing services.
This just in, the format war is over. The 18-month honeymoon analysts had given Blu-ray has prematurely ended, and while sales have risen from nothing to something barely eclipsing okay, its successor may already be over the horizon.
In paleontology, there is a concept known as the Alvarez Hypothesis. This hypothesis originally suggested that a giant asteroid impacting the Earth's surface triggered the subsequent extinction of the dinosaurs.
Gee, what do you suppose Dell's super-secret new Adamo brand, due to premiere at the next CES, could be? We could ask a slew of analysts for their best advance speculation...Or we could just Google it.
About one hundred percent of the media speculation today over the identity of a curious new Dell brand device called Adamo centered around the possibility that it is an ultralight computer, probably an offshoot of its existing XPS series, designed to compete with Apple's super-thin MacBook Air.
Pending updates to the Android mobile operating system were made public this week as a part of the Google's "Cupcake" roadmap, revealing new functionality that will endow future Android devices with abilities beyond those in the G1 now.
According to the roadmap, development taking place privately will soon be made available to the public source code via a single large development branch update. It will be followed by a series of smaller, incremental updates as time passes. Among the numerous bug fixes listed on the roadmap are some serious functionality upgrades that promise to add some highly desirable features previously absent from Android 1.0.
Internet and voice traffic to much of the Middle East and south Asia has been disrupted by the overnight loss of three major cables spanning the Mediterranean.
According to a notice from France Telecom, the three provisioning cables linking Sicily to Egypt were lost within about 40 minutes of one another Friday morning (local time). A France Telecom-owned maintenance ship will be dispatched to inspect the site within a few hours. Until then, it's not known what might have caused the cuts.
Brazilian PC maker Positivo has confirmed in a regulatory filing that it has rejected a buyout offer from Lenovo, estimated in the Brazilian press as worth up to $800 million.
In a regulatory filing now posted on its Web site, Positivo Informatica has corroborated an earlier statement by Lenovo that the Brazilian PC manufacturer turned back an acquisition bid earlier this week.
The makers of one of the Internet's first and most respected anti-adware products are on schedule to release their 2009 edition next month, though they need some help from registered testers to make it happen.
A Lavasoft representative asked BetaNews today to spread the word about Beta 3 of its 2009 edition of Ad-Aware, which was released last December 8 along with the company's latest adware signatures.
Google's popular video site YouTube yesterday unveiled a dedicated HD section for US users to watch videos in 720p high definition.
When a video's source upload supports higher resolution, YouTube will have a "watch it in HD" button below the player's lower right hand corner in the space where some videos had the "watch it in high quality" button. Clicking this button expands the standard viewing window to 16 x 9 with a 1280 x 720 resolution.
Second quarter 2009 looked much like second quarter 2008 for Oracle's per-share earnings, announced Thursday in its quarterly call. It would have been better if the dollar hadn't muscled up.
GAAP earnings for the Redwood Shores, Calif-based IT giant were 25 cents / per in the just-released Q2 earnings report (PDF available here), in line with last year's numbers. Had the dollar not strengthened during the quarter that ended November 30, the return would be been 29 cents / share. Overall, the company held the line, but the flat earnings are the first profitability decline for the firm in 12 quarters.
Rather than pursue suspected file-sharers in court, the recording industry will take a more technological approach to finding, penalizing, and then potentially suing individuals when it has more evidence against them, BetaNews has learned.
A spokesperson for the Recording Industry Association of America confirmed to BetaNews this morning that, in an agreement with New York Attorney General Andrew Cuomo, the Association's members will discontinue their strategy of seeking widespread litigation against large numbers of individuals suspected in trafficking in unauthorized recordings. Instead, they will adopt a strategy of coordinating with Internet service providers to notify individual customers of suspected violations via e-mail.
Download OpenSUSE 11.1 Release Edition from FileForum now.
The newest edition of the Novell-sponsored OpenSUSE Project's Linux OS, contains a number of new enhancements built both internally and through the open source community.