SK brushes off Sprint investment rumors
While SK Telecom has officially denied it would take a controlling stake in any US mobile carrier, it is still looking at business opportunities here.
The Korean telecommunications firm made the comments in a filing with the Korean stock exchange on Thursday. Reports had earlier suggested that it was considering buying out Sprint Nextel.
Latest TiVo update brings YouTube with it
As a part of the v9.4 update to TiVo HD and Series 3 set-top boxes, support was added for YouTube H.264 videos -- a feature TiVo was announced in the spring.
The "summer update" that TiVo announced yesterday will be rolling out over the course of the next few weeks, and will grant native H.264 decoding to S3 and HD DVRs. It has been added under TiVo Central "Find Programs and Downloads" under the "Download TV, Movies & Web Video" icon. While the only option is currently to "Watch YouTube Videos," the result is a YouTube experience unique to TiVo.
Sony readies two new HDTVs for the holiday season
It's only July, but consumer electronics companies are already finalizing their HDTV sales plans for the holiday season. This week, Sony already began showing off the high-def components it anticipates consumers will want come December.
NEW YORK CITY (BetaNews) - Sony this week talked up its two newest entries in the HDTV field -- the Bravia KDL-55XBR8 and KDL-40XBR7 -- both targeted at release this fall, at a press event here Wednesday evening.
EU set to take action against mobile phone service scams
With an ever-increasing number of sites on the web offering ringtones, wallpapers, and games, there is also an increasing number scamming consumers. The European Commission is attempting to address that.
The government has launched a bloc-wide "sweep," where the member states simultaneously check Web pages for breaches of consumer law. The mobile services sweep took place between June 2 and 6.
EC renews its anti-competition objections against Intel
This afternoon, the European Commission sent what it's calling a Supplementary Statement of Objections to Intel, reiterating its three-count claim of anti-competitive conduct in the European market against rival AMD.
The latest Statement from the EC, according to the Commission, adds supplemental material to its charges almost exactly one year ago, that Intel violated three counts of Article 82 of the EC Treaty. That law states that no entity that holds a dominant market position may use its influence to alter market conditions in such a way as to negatively impact trade among member states.
Sony plans $500 'Blu-ray player for audiophiles' for fall
At a press event in New York this week, Sony presented a prototype of a new "Blu-ray player for audiophiles" -- the BDP-S550 -- slated for release next fall.
NEW YORK (BetaNews) -- "The S550 will provide features like some additional decoding of high definition audio streams," said Christopher Fawcett, Sony's VP of home video product management, in a meeting with BetaNews at a Sony press event here on Wednesday.
Lionsgate to partner with YouTube
Soon, Lionsgate will be joining the ranks of major content providers to partner with YouTube in advertisement and hosting.
YouTube has already partnered with CBS and the BBC, as well as Universal Music Group, Sony BMG, and Warner Music Group. The now three-year old video service's system for monetization and content identification appears to be mature enough to sustain major studios, and the inclusion of Lionsgate could foretoken many more.
YouTorrent relaunches with focus on legal downloads
One of the fastest-growing new BitTorrent sites said late Wednesday that it had relaunched its search engine, indexing nearly six terabytes of legal content.
In April, the site made the decision to go legal and stop indexing sites such as The Pirate Bay and isoHunt, which do not prune their databases of pirated content. YouTube has only been online since January, but the company said at the switch it averaged over 10 million unique users a month.
Opera opens its Mobile 9.5 beta for PocketPC
The first beta of Opera Mobile 9.5, initially only available for touchscreen Windows Pocket PCs running Windows Mobile 5 or WM6, is still missing about a third of Opera Mobile 9.5's expected features.
Though it's still in the early stages of its lifespan, this first beta of Opera Mobile 9.5 maintains Opera's traditional focus on providing a fast browsing experience, while making it more similar to the popular Opera Mini.
Sony ships S350 Blu-ray player for $400, firmware awaited
Sony's latest entry-level Blu-ray player might be sleeker than its predecessor, but pricing hasn't come down any. The new BDP-S350 is shipping, but a firmware upgrade will be needed to make it the first non-PlayStation to work with BD-Live.
NEW YORK (BetaNews) - On Wednesday evening, Sony unveiled the BDP-S350, a smaller and lighter external Blu-ray disc player which adds new navigation and set-up features, along with planned upgradability to BD-Live, an online interactive site still currently available only for PlayStation 3.
Latest Winamp adds access to CBS Radio stations
Who still uses Winamp? There's at least one guy at BetaNews whose desktop clutter contains the venerable music player, and today there's actually a new reason for it to stay right where it is.
Amazon opens beta of its video-on-demand service
The latest project from the leading online retailer allows movies to be streamed directly to PCs. Built upon Amazon's library of Unbox titles, beta testers get a $5 rental credit to check out the streams.
In May, Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos mentioned that an a la carte, pay-per-view streaming video service would be coming to the Site, but did not mention if it would be entirely new, or simply a feature upgrade to Unbox.
Google tweaks its use of contacts in Gmail's address book
Responding to user complaints over clutter in its address books, Google said it would partition the contacts it automatically adds to its users lists, into a separate area.
The feature in Google's Gmail Web pages that allows users to quickly enter e-mail addresses by only typing in the first few characters, is perceived to be helpful by some. However, typically when a user adds the address to enable auto-completion, it also adds a entry to the main address book.
Apple computer sales seen surging in US, Acer also strong
While the company has yet to make a mark among worldwide computer shipments in either major survey of the PC industry, it continued to show impressive strength stateside. But Acer is #3 or #4, depending on whom you ask.
In the Gartner survey, the company gained two percentage points of market share year-over-year to end the second quarter of 2008 with 8.5 percent of the market and a little under 1.4 million units shipped, good enough for third.
Yahoo's latest plea to shareholders has a familiar political tone
It would appear one or more former managers of defeated presidential campaigns may have joined Yahoo, as it latest spin on financier Carl Icahn's plan to couple Microsoft with Yahoo's search business uses a number of familiar phrases.
"Mr. Icahn can't make up his mind about what he thinks will work for Yahoo," reads the company's latest plea to shareholders this morning, signed by Chairman Roy Bostock and CEO Jerry Yang. They tell a story of Icahn initially suggesting that Yahoo sell itself outright to Microsoft for $34.75 per share -- a price we haven't heard quoted before. But Icahn didn't really do due diligence, the statement alleges, otherwise he would have known that Microsoft had already walked away from any kind of a full takeover deal.
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