Successful mobile WiMAX trial reported in Thailand
Motorola is teaming up with one of Thailand's leading fiberoptic service providers, UIH, to test a mobile WiMAX trial system in the cities of Bangkok and Phuket. Thailand hopes to begin offering commercial WiMAX sometime in 2009.
The demonstration marked exactly one year since that nation's National Telecommunications Commission said it would begin issuing licenses for WiMAX operators. Motorola and UIH made the announcement this morning at the WiMAX World Asia Expo in Bangkok.
Adobe to bring Flash to iPhone despite Steve Jobs
Despite a heated exchange with Apple, Adobe seems to be pressing forward with plans to bring Flash to the iPhone.
Apple CEO Steve Jobs started the battle in the media with comments to investors at a shareholders' meeting earlier this month. Essentially, his position was that the current version of Flash for mobile phones is not good enough for the device, and the standard version runs too slowly.
New Facebook privacy features invite abuse
Tuesday night Facebook rolled out enhanced privacy features that allow users to customize the permissions of individual aspects of a profile. Almost immediately, BetaNews received a report of "life-threatening" abuse of this feature.
Popular social networking site Facebook is a repository of personal information for many, but until Tuesday, it lacked the ability to grant differing levels of access to different users. Previously, the only way to block other users from viewing specific content was to deny that user access to the profile outright, or to limit the profile's viewability to everyone. Now, users can choose which content each individual is allowed to view.
The Toshiba write-down for HD DVD: $1.1 billion
The company's exit from HD DVD is putting a significant drag on its bottom line, it admitted on Wednesday.
Altogether, the company will have to pay ¥45 billion ($453 million USD) in costs to exit the business. In addition, it will report a ¥65 billion ($654.2 million USD) loss in that sector, for a total cost to the company of over $1.1 billion this year alone.
Legit version of Opera Mini now available for Helio Ocean
After having listened to consumers' demands for nearly a year, Opera and Helio have finally released an official version of the Opera Mini mobile browser for the Helio Ocean smartphone.
Helio users wanting to use Opera Mini on their Ocean smartphones were forced to use a hacked version of the browser that became available in August. After directions were published on Heliocity, a Web site where users discuss how to hack their phones, Opera Mini soon became the most popular piece of software for the Ocean.
NPD: PS3, Xbox 360 sales still lag behind PS2
Market research group NPD released video game console sales figures for the month of February, and the units with the fastest processors look to be selling the slowest.
Video game console sales in February 2008, according to research group NPD, showed a 19% increase in units sold year-over-year, with Microsoft's Xbox 360 selling the fewest among what is still, more than two years after its introduction, called the "next gen" console market.
Apple close to offering subscription music service?
Fresh off of a deal with the movie studios that effectively reversed the company's position on rented content, it now appears Apple may also be about to embrace a subscription-like model for music.
According to a report in the Financial Times late Tuesday, the company is currently in discussions with the major labels over licensing their content on a subscription basis. So far, it appears the biggest roadblock is price.
Best Buy offers $50 gift card, trade-in for HD DVD buyers
Now that the format war is over and Blu-ray is the only choice for next-generation DVDs, retailer Best Buy is attempting to make amends with customers who bought HD DVD players before Toshiba pulled the plug.
All Best Buy customers who purchased an HD DVD player or HD DVD add-on for the Xbox 360 earlier than February 23, 2008 are eligible to receive a $50 gift card. The retailer says it will be distributing $10 million in cards, which means 200,000 individuals bought into the losing format from Best Buy alone.
The 700 MHz auction ends, with the D-block unsold
By one measure, the 700 Mhz spectrum sale was the most successful government auction in history. But a dark cloud remains over at least one part of it, where the FCC finds itself stuck right where it was before the opening gavel was struck.
After weeks of competitive and secret bidding, the US Federal Communications Commission's auction of some of the most valuable spectrum ever offered to the private wireless industry -- still part of the upper UHF TV band until February next year -- finally closed yesterday. According to the Commission's revised tally this afternoon, the auction could raise almost $19.6 billion, 92% above last year's congressional estimates.
Updated: Windows Vista SP1 downloadable now, ships tomorrow
11:50 am March 19, 2008 - Despite Amazon's messages on Tuesday that it would be shipping commercial packages with Windows Vista SP1 starting today, those messages this morning were found to be replaced with new notices that the new boxes aren't in stock yet.
Currently, items for sale are marked with the curious message, "In stock on March 20, 2008."
Blu-ray looks to spice up discs with Profile 2.0
The newest players coming out this fall will put interactivity at the forefront, putting the format on par with what HD DVD users had been enjoying for a long time.
Sony will be shipping two players that will be compatible with Profile 2.0: the BDP-S350, to be available in the summer for $399, and the BDP-S550 in the fall for $499. While the former would require a firmware update when Profile 2.0 ships, the latter would come with it preinstalled.
DRM is added to Flash with new rights management server
With today's rollout of the Adobe Flash Media Rights Management Server, Adobe is unabashedly targeting a product specifically at movie studios, big corporations, and content providers anxious to protect their IP.
But Adobe first adopted digital rights management not too long ago, with the addition of new technologies in Flash Media Server 3 and the Flash 9 player. So how will Media Rights Management Server be any different?
Hyper-V release candidate due for availability today
When Microsoft really is on track with something, it likes to march to a very loud drumbeat. This time, it appears the Hyper-V virtualization platform project is going well, and with the latest milestone, the company's trumpets are blaring.
Holding true to its schedule of final release within six months of the launch of Windows Server 2008, Microsoft this morning advanced the first genuine release candidate of Hyper-V, the built-in virtualization hypervisor for the OS that utilizes the new, underlying virtualization platforms in both AMD and Intel server CPUs.
Limewire music store now open in beta
Limewire, formerly a popular Gnutella-based P2P file-sharing service, has opened the beta of its DRM-free download store.
Though the store was announced in August of last year, Limewire's DRM-free download shop has only now opened in public beta, offering tracks on an a-la-carte or subscription basis.
iAnywhere to bring Lotus Notes push e-mail to iPhone
iAnywhere has developed a way to allow users of Lotus Notes to check their email without having to wait for the iPhone SDK.
While the company did receive some guidance from Apple to ensure that its development was going in the right direction, iAnywhere's system uses the device's mail client. Contacts are accessible through the web browser.
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