Atom-based Acer Aspire One makes its American debut
Acer today officially launched US sales for the Aspire One, its stylish, ultra-lightweight notebook with Intel's newest Atom processor built-in, and whose hard drive...is optional.
The US market will see three Aspire One models available, with base prices ranging from $379 to $449. The ultraportables are available in white or blue, with brown and black expected to be available for the holidays.
One million iPhone 3Gs sold? Not yet, says analyst
Apple confidently claimed this week it had already sold one million 3G iPhones. But if that's true, the buyer was AT&T, according to one analyst who predicts it will take another two weeks for end customers to have bought that many.
Apple's been criticized in the past for using sales to channel partners such as AT&T in sales reports. But in light of the activation disasters surrounding the 3G device, maybe it will take longer than usual for Apple's numbers to mesh with reality.
PlayStation Network video store opens
PlayStation 3 users are now able to rent or purchase movie and television content from the PlayStation Store, delivered both in standard and high definition.
Through partnerships with MGM, 20th Century Fox, Lionsgate, Disney, Sony Pictures Entertainment, Warner Bros., Paramount, and Turner Entertainment, PS3 users have access to over 300 movies and 1,200 television episodes.
Toshiba launches giant high-def billboard in Times Square
In a picture window ceremony at the heart of New York City, Toshiba yesterday unveiled its biggest and most resplendent HD display upgrade to date: How about a 73-foot-diagonal, LED-based display hanging over Times Square?
The Toshiba HD LED sign in Times Square is juxtaposed against a close-up shot, to the right, of the same display from Toshiba's HD camera. [Photo credit: Jacqueline Emigh, BetaNews. Click on the photo to see it up-close.]
NEW YORK (BetaNews) -- Behind picture windows in Manhattan's Times Square last night, Toshiba launched a roughly 2,700-square-foot, 1.6 million pixel high definition billboard -- about twice as big as the Toshiba light emitting diode (LED) signage which wowed CES crowds this year -- while also kicking off sales of its massive LEDs in the US market.
ISuppli: Apple only spends $174 to build each iPhone 3G
Apple was able to cut its costs by 23 percent over the first generation iPhone, and also increase its profit margins at the same time while lowering the price for consumers, according to finalized numbers released yesterday by iSuppli.
With an estimated bill of materials of $174 per unit -- taking into account a $50 charge for IP royalties -- Apple's profit margins for its iPhone 3G, according to iSuppli estimates, are in the neighborhood of 55 percent -- far higher than other manufacturers, which typically swallow much of their profits in order to ship more phones.
TiVo begins its 'summer update' rollout
TiVo HD and Series 3 DVR owners are being treated to a slightly ahead-of-schedule software release. The manufacturer expects its rollout of firmware v9.4 to be complete by the end of the month.
Some new features have been added to improve the user experience. The option to "Play Folder" allows saved episodes of a season to be viewed in succession, and the "Delete Folder" option -- logically enough -- deletes the contents of an entire folder.
Apple comes clean on MobileMe problems, marketing
In an e-mail to customers, Apple admitted it had problems with its MobileMe launch last week, and is prepared to compensate them for lost time. Marketing of the service is also set to change.
"We have recently completed the transition from .Mac to MobileMe. Unfortunately, it was a lot rockier than we had hoped," Apple said in an e-mail to customers.
First Firefox 3 patch fixes a security hole linked to Safari
12:35 pm EDT July 16, 2008 - BetaNews has confirmed users' reports of Firefox 3.0.1 download attempts being met with "550 Permission Denied" errors, off and on throughout the day today. We've already downloaded and installed v3.0.1 ourselves previously, and thus far have noted no trouble with it.
In another sign that the good guys are not only becoming more clever but are cooperating more closely with vendors, a potentially serious problem with the newest Firefox was fixed before anyone could sound the alarms of impending doom.
EU parliament to debate copyright term extension this week
To high-ranking European Commissioners, it's a matter of whether a major European industry should be given the same tools for success the US currently has. For academia, it's a debate over whether copyright benefits or hurts artists.
Almost a decade ago, the US Congress passed a copyright term extension act named for the late, popular congressman, and one-time musical superstar, Sonny Bono. It extended the term of copyright in this country to 70 years beyond the life of the author, or 95 years for anonymous works -- essentially, pieces of art copyrighted by a rights management firm or agency rather than a person.
Toshiba launches the first Cell processor-based laptop
Toshiba's new Qosmio G55-Q802 is the first laptop available with the Cell CPU, a technology heretofore known as the PS3 processing technology among consumers, developed jointly by Toshiba, Sony, and IBM.
It's not a PC based on a Cell platform, at least not completely. The Q802 has a Core 2 Duo on board, and is a Windows Vista-based system. The result of this Cell processor architecture, which Toshiba calls its Quad Core HD Processor, is a notebook not designed for gaming, but rather to be a multimedia entertainment unit.
Centrino 2 platform wipes the slate clean for vendors' midrange notebooks
Intel's official go-ahead with its new mobility and connectivity platform means vendors now can overhaul their product lines. But this time they're not starting with the luxury models, instead focusing on practicality and even savings.
The success of Intel's Centrino and Centrino Pro branding has centered around reinforcing the customer's perception of reliability, perhaps more importantly than even performance. So as the Centrino 2 platform kicks off -- albeit a few weeks late -- the changes to manufacturers' product lines, to be seen next month, are being made from the middle down.
Details on Sony's first notebook PC with a Blu-ray drive
While Sony isn't exactly the first PC vendor to integrate a Blu-ray drive within a notebook computer, you knew it had to come around sometime anyway. But does its new top-of-the-line Vaio deserve the "Z" moniker?
NEW YORK (BetaNews) -- Sony's new Vaio Z Series ultra-portable PC, launched at a media event here yesterday, offers options for Blu-ray, solid state drive (SSD), and Sprint Mobile Broadband, along with built-in features ranging from a fingerprint sensor to a "switch-on-the-fly" graphics system.
Sony, HP get behind an open format for digital audio
Hewlett-Packard and Sony announced they will work together to develop a new generation of Digital Audio Tapes, called DAT 320, which will be built on an open standard so that other companies are able to contribute.
Although the two companies are collaborating to create the Digital Data Storage (DDS) standard, they both have plans to offer DAT 320 tape drives and cartridges that will eventually compete against one another. The Sony and HP products will have the same speed and capacity, though it's likely their firmware will be different, even though the drives will be interchangeable.
Sony announces $399 80 GB PlayStation 3
When early reports said Microsoft was dropping its Xbox 360 price, fans of Sony immediately began to speculate on a sympathetic price drop for PS3. While not a price cut per se, Sony today announced something similar.
At the E3 conference in Los Angeles this afternoon, Sony Computer Entertainment America President and CEO Jack Tretton hosted the company's press conference where he announced that in September, an 80 GB Playstation3 Core unit will be made available for $399.
Apple to face off against Psystar in court
After three months of silence following the release of the Mac clone by Psystar in April, the Cupertino company sued the company over copyright infringement.
The suit was filed July 3 in the US District Court for the district of Northern California, San Francisco. Initial filings for the case are due in October, while a case management conference is scheduled for October 22, court documents indicate. Judge James Larson has been assigned to the case.
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