FCC commissioner: Deregulation promotes big media breakups
As the FCC considers a plan being devised by its chairman to offer channels 'a la carte' in an effort to promote diversity, opponents in and outside the Commission are arguing it should leave big media alone.
The opposition is growing to US Federal Communications Commission Chairman Kevin Martin's proposal to invoke a clause in the Cable Communications Act of 1984 to open up cable TV channels to consumer choice. Chairman Martin's aim would be to ensure a more diverse programming lineup is available to customers, rather than the usual slate of basic channels that CATV services typically select for them.
Yahoo fights a losing battle with newspapers
Though it has announced more members joining its newspaper advertising group, the future of Yahoo's consortium is not looking strong.
The Associated Press reported today that Yahoo has added 17 more participants to its newspaper consortium, bringing the total to about 415 daily publications, and 140 weekly.
Macrovision to acquire Blu-ray's BD+ for $45 million
Already the provider of a key element of the copy protection schemes in Blu-ray and HD DVD, the content protection software company will acquire the embattled BD+ from its creator.
Cryptography Research, Inc., the R&D firm that developed a virtual machine environment protected by a layer of encryption -- the tool whose viability was one of the catalysts for the split between the HD DVD and Blu-ray camps -- has agreed in principle to sell BD+ to Macrovision for $45 million in cash, plus stock warrants.
Surveys: Identity theft more critical than incursion, data loss
Consumers and businesses alike are plenty worried about identity theft, and for very good reasons, as indicated by two separate reports on the subject released today.
With the December holidays quickly nearing, vendors and industry organizations are using the month of November to unleash a pre-winter blizzard of survey results around identity theft and tips for coping with the problem, whether you plan to do your shopping online or in brick-and-mortar stores.
T-Mobile suspends Sidekick Slide sales
T-Mobile confirmed Monday that it had temporarily suspended sales of the Sidekick Slide until it can discover why the phone is turning off when the device is opened and closed. The issue is localized to the Slide models, produced by Motorola. The Sharp-produced Sidekick LX and iD are not affected, T-Mobile said. The Slide first disappeared from the carrier's online store late on Friday.
Customers will have three different options to address the issue, T-Mobile said. First, they could opt to keep their devices until both the carrier and Motorola have more information about the issue. If they do not wish to keep the Slide, they may trade it in for an LX, or apply the purchase price to another phone model. It is not immediately known how widespread the power problem is.
Facebook may enter China through acquisition
Instead of expanding into foreign markets on its own like MySpace, Facebook appears to be taking the acquisition route instead.
The Times of London reported over the weekend that the second largest social networking site had been in talks with Chinese site Zhanzuo.com, which counts about seven million users.
Visual Studio 2008 released today, .NET 3.5 now available
With a few years of noticeably hard development work now complete and with the next Visual Studio now being downloaded by MSDN subscribers, work can finally begin on the next edition.
Today, the curtains rise on the final release editions of Visual Studio 2008, and MSDN subscribers are looking forward to being able to use the new features they've actually been testing for about 18 months...and have an official reason to complain if this time they have problems. Once again, Express editions of VS 2008 that concentrate on individual development languages are available for free download.
Windows XP SP3 moves closer to completion
Beta testers have received access to a release candidate of Windows XP Service Pack 3, but general consumers still have a long wait until they'll see SP3 available for download. Microsoft has scheduled the last major update to its six-year-old OS for the first half of 2008 - likely after Windows Vista SP1.
Around 15,000 testers now have access to XP SP3, and Microsoft says it plans one last public beta release before releasing the final bits next year. The same individuals are testing Vista SP1 RC Preview, although Microsoft has also promised a public SP1 build. Although XP SP3 is more of a roll-up of existing hotfixes and should be completed before Vista's first upgrade, Microsoft will likely delay its release and use SP1 to encourage holdout XP users to upgrade to Vista.
Digital music downloads won't replace CDs, says report
Downloads of digital music are up, while CD sales are down. But CDs are here to stay - with adults, anyway, if not with teens, according to JupiterMedia analysts.
"Sales of music CDs are continuing to decline annually at double-digit rates. At the same time, we see indications that downloads of digital music are increasing," noted Mark Best, an analyst at JupiterResearch. "That said, digital music downloads are not replacing music CDs."
Apple tracks iPhone and Leopard users
A discovery buried deep within the code of some iPhone applications may be cause for concern for those who like to know who's seeing their data.
Some code-savvy users of the iPhone discovered the lines in a hidden string in at least two applications on the device, Stocks.app and Weather.app. The information is sent to a website on Apple's servers, according to the users.
SyncTV beta to offer more TV reruns, Showtime online
Pioneer-funded SyncTV claims an a la carte selection of DVD quality cable programming, but looks like another Vongo.
As the potential for a la carte cable programming is speculated upon, SyncTV has opened in private beta, adding more cable content to the online market.
Sony slashes price of PS3 SDK to fix game problem
While some may view it as a sign of desperation, Sony on Monday said that it will cut licensing fees for the PS3 SDK in half to spur additional game development.
The package now costs $10,250 in the US, 950,000 yen in Japan, and 7,500 euros in Europe. With lower prices now both for the consumer in the form of a system price cut, and for the developer in the SDK, it hopefully will mean higher sales and profits for the PS3.
Microsoft misjudges demand for new Zunes
The Redmond company has apparently overestimated the demand for some of its players, leaving high stocks of one model on shelves while others are difficult -- if not impossible -- to find.
Microsoft launched both new flash-based players in 4 and 8GB versions, as well as an 80GB hard-drive based model. A quick check of retailers showed ample stocks of the smaller players, but the 80GB was out of stock.
AMD and ATI head for uncharted territory with 'Spider'
In an effort to make its investment in ATI pay off, AMD is rolling out its first comprehensive PC platform today, aimed carefully at the lower half of the high-dollar enthusiast market.
The Spider platform aims to accomplish for the enthusiast market what Intel's Centrino accomplished for the mobile connectivity market: to specify components that are certain to work together without fuss. In this case, it's a three-way combo consisting of its long-awaited RV670 chipset family, now called its "7-series;" its ATI Radeon 3800 series graphics cards, unveiled just last Friday; and its Phenom series quad-core (not tri-core) processors, announced last May.
Amazon pushes Kindle book reader, but will anyone buy it?
As expected, Amazon debuted its $399 Kindle book reader at a Monday press event in New York. But will it be enough to finally help electronic books take off?
The retailer is ready to make a big deal out of the product as well: a letter from CEO Jeff Bezos greeted users visiting the Amazon.com front page beginning Monday morning. He says that Kindle was born of his interest in electronic books, and how they could be improved.
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