NPD: Apple dominates the high-end PC market
Office Live Workspace beta enters its international phase
As international languages are added to Microsoft's ongoing Office Live Workspace beta for users of Office 2007 for Windows, the seams are starting to get ironed out between the online and physical worlds -- most of them, anyway.
Following up on last March's general release of the first beta edition of Office Live Workspace to the general public, Microsoft is making available French, German, and Spanish language editions available for free testers. OLW -- and let's hope the name stays the same for awhile -- is the company's extension of Office 2007, adding the capability for users anywhere to save Office documents directly from their Office applications to an online storage location on Microsoft's servers.
Symantec disses Vista, says corporations 'not comfortable'
Microsoft seems to be fighting a losing public relations battle for Vista, as companies continue to criticize the latest Windows operating system.
In an interview with InformationWeek, Symantec's chief operating officer Enrique Salem said his customers in the enterprise sector are sticking with the older operating system.
Google looks to organize health records
Search giant Google has launched in beta a site that allows users to organize their health records online.
The service is much like similar offerings from providers such as Revolution Health. Users can gather their health records from doctors, hospitals, and pharmacies, as well as use the site to track the latest information on health issues.
Sign-ups begin for beta of EA's Battlefield: Heroes
EA DICE announced early this year that it would be releasing a free, ad-subsidized version of its Battlefield franchise by summer. Sign-ups for the beta of this upcoming game have opened.
Battlefield: Heroes has drawn a lot of comparison to Team Fortress, taking what would otherwise be a serious game, and turning up the cartoon factor. The result is like if Pixar did a version of "The Longest Day." The story is ridiculous, and the characters are over-the-top.
Napster challenges iTunes by opening its own MP3 store
With six million tracks accrued in its library, Napster's new online retail venture boasts the largest selection of MP3s of any retailer to date, taking a bold step by marketing itself to iPod and iPhone users.
Songs will be made available at 99 cents, with albums generally retailing for $9.95. Encoding is promised to be at a bitrate of 256 kbps, which should be music to many listeners' ears already. While Napster To Go subscriptions would be still encapsulated in DRM, all download sales will be in DRM-free MP3.
Beta 2 of Windows for supercomputers arrives
One month ahead of the next round of Top 500 supercomputer rankings, Microsoft has released online its Beta 2 for its high-performance data center version of Windows. But is Windows accelerating fast enough to keep up with Linux clusters?
Windows has historically not been considered the fastest operating system among supercomputers, but there is no doubt it's working to climb the ladder. Microsoft's best performing trial supercomputer to date has been given the nickname "Rainier." It's a cluster of Dell PowerEdge 1855 blades, which are currently running Microsoft's latest test builds of HPC Server 2008 -- its successor to Compute Cluster Server 2003.
Netflix grows VoD wings with new set top box
Today, standing up as one of the three mystery partners Netflix mentioned at the end of the first quarter, Roku has released the first Netflix set top box.
At the beginning of this year, Netflix showed that it had a firm grasp on the future of home video market, giving DVD (hard copy media) until about 2013 before it becomes irrelevant, and emphasizing the company's future in streaming on-demand video.
To push sales, AMD unveils new branding for gaming PCs
AMD has launched a labeling campaign that differentiates PCs capable of supporting the latest in high-end gaming and media from the rest.
The labels AMD Game! and AMD Game Ultra will act as easy identifiers for systems that can handle the more demanding games.
Comcast invests in P2P provider GridNetworks, despite torrent delaying
Comcast, an ISP already suspected by many of either blocking or throttling BitTorrent's P2P technology, today announced it has made an investment of an unspecified amount in GridNetworks, another P2P provider.
In a statement released today, Tony Werner, Comcast's CTO, said the company plans to work with GridNetworks to "improve the efficiency of P2P on ISP networks."
Clear Channel to add 800+ station streams to Reciva device
To expand its already large base of listeners, Clear Channel announced it will make content from more than 800 stations available nationwide to users who own Internet radio receivers made by a producer of parts for XM and Sirius.
Clear Channel has historically enabled many of its stations to be listened to through the PC, on-demand services in hotels, or through select mobile phones. Today's deal with Reciva means Clear Channel will now be working with the largest Internet-radio module manufacturer in the world, and will compete with XM and Sirius.
2008: The year of the bent display
This week's Society for Information Display conference is under way, and the latest advances in display surfaces are being shown off. Perhaps one of the more intriguing examples looks a little bent...literally.
Early this year, the public was treated to its first peek into the latest developments in the field of panoramic monitors, such as Alienware's "Ultimate Gaming Display", a 2,880 x 900 pixel DLP curved monitor, and NEC's prototype 42-inch CRVD-LMD with the same specs. Shortly after, Polymer Vision announced production had begun on its Readius 3G "e-book phone" with a foldable 254 ppi monochrome screen that has been in development for almost four years.
Samsung shows off LCDs with 2x HDTV resolution, 240 Hz
At a major display technology symposium this week, Samsung showed off a future HDTV with four times the resolution of a current 1080p screen, plus the first of its "Blue Phase" high-refresh displays.
During the Society for Information Display 2008 International Symposium currently taking place in Los Angeles, Samsung introduced several new products aimed more at grabbing headlines than striking bargains. First was its new 82-inch LCD TV panel that offers an impressive 3840 x 2160 pixel resolution and a 120 Hz refresh rate, though whose price and launch date are still unknown.
TiVo to support 'as needed' HDTV through new adapters
In an effort to give CATV providers more flexibility in using their network capacity for HDTV, broadband, and digital phone, TiVo-branded DVRs will be outfitted with new adapter technology.
In a deal announced today, several makers of external switched digital technology (SDT) tuning adapters -- including Motorola and Cisco -- are submitting their products for testing at CableLabs. Essentially, SDT lets cable providers send individual channels to customers on an "as needed" basis, rather than broadcasting all channels to all subscribers all of the time.
AOL debuts new version of Web-based IM client
Download AIM Express 2.0 Beta from BetaNews FileForum now.
The company's newest release will employ an all new Flash-based front end and tabbed IMs, though for now, AOL wants to know whether the no-frills direction it's taking with design will be acceptable to users.
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