Hitachi to Exit Home PC Business, Refocus on Servers
While Japanese consumers have associated the Hitachi name with personal computers since 1978, recently it was more for historical reasons than practical ones. The company barely shipped half a million units worldwide between March 2006 and March 2007, with only 130,000 of them ending up in homes, according to Asahi Shimbun. Today, Hitachi decided to close a chapter of its history, discontinuing production of its Prius PC line apparently effective immediately.
The exit may not make much of a ripple in the consumer PC business, but it could later have an impact in servers. Hitachi assembled its Prius line at its principal Toyokawa factory in Aichi prefecture. That's one of the crown jewels in Hitachi's manufacturing war chest, having been the place where it launched its 1997 entry into the server business, forging a pact with HP, Microsoft, and Intel that extends to this day.
'Transformers' Sets Hi-Def Sales Record
Although the reviews were lackluster, Michael Bay's Transformers has become the fastest selling title on HD DVD. More than 100,000 copies of the movie sold in the first day and over 190,000 in the first week, setting a record that beat every title on both HD DVD and rival format Blu-ray.
The HD DVD Promotions Group says the success of Transformers has shown the importance of standalone players, the area where the format is beating Blu-ray due to lower prices. Still, HD DVD sales paled in comparison to over 4.5 million copies of the movie sold on regular DVD on its first day of release. 8.3 million units on DVD have sold since October 16, over 43 times the number sold on HD DVD.
MySpace Gets Into Casual Gaming
MySpace announced today that through a partnership with Oberon Media, it will add a section of free, multiplayer games to the popular social networking site.
Oberon, a worldwide provider of multi-platform casual games, has previously worked with Microsoft, Comcast, AOL Games, Verizon, France Telecom, and NHN. Such games are turning into a huge industry, with growth expected to double to over $500 million in revenue this year.
Asian Linux Distributor Strikes Patent Covenant with Microsoft
In a deal that could lead to the creation of a unique cross-platform authentication system for heterogenous networks, Tokyo-based Linux distributor Turbolinux announced this morning, Japan time, it has reached an agreement with Microsoft for a cross-licensing of the two companies' patent portfolios.
On the surface, what Turbolinux gets out of this is the interoperability information it needs to develop a single-sign-on service, enabling users to authenticate themselves once and transfer that security authority between operating systems. That's how Microsoft is playing up the deal today, as it announces it will establish a permanent workshop at its Beijing office "to focus on testing and showcasing solutions for customers and partners," as last night's announcement put it.
HD TiVos Can Now Share Content
As expected, TiVo Series3 and HD units are beginning to see support for the DVR's TiVoToGo and Multi-Room Viewing features with the arrival of software update 9.2. The capabilities had been disabled due to concerns about sharing copy-protected HD content.
Multi-Room Viewing also TiVo boxes to share recorded content back and forth. HD content is not available for playback on standard-definition Series2 TiVos, however. TiVoToGo enables subscribers to transfer shows from the DVR to the PC using the TiVo Desktop software or Roxio on the Mac.
Apple Estimates 250,000 Unlocked iPhones
During its quarterly earnings conference call Monday, Apple Chief Operating Officer Timothy Cook estimated that 250,000 iPhones were sold to people with the intention of unlocking them, adding that most of those sales happened after the $200 price drop.
While it's not entirely clear how Cook calculated such a number, it likely relates to the discrepancy between sold phones and those that were actually activated on AT&T's network. 1.4 million iPhones have been sold in total, meaning that a whopping 17% were intended to be unlocked by customers. Hackers have managed to bypass the device's restrictions, but Apple warns that future updates could make an unlocked iPhone inoperable, just as firmware version 1.1.1 did temporarily.
Apple Exceeds Expectations, Mac Sales Soar
Little was surprising about Apple's quarterly numbers surrounding the iPhone, as sales met expectations and forecasts. However, Mac sales surged to record levels and the company posted far better revenue numbers than expected.
The company, known to be conservative in its forecasts, had forecasted $5.7 billion in revenue for its fiscal fourth quarter. On Monday, Apple ended up posting $6.22 billion in revenue, on profits of $904 million, or about $1.01 per share.
SanDisk's FanFare and TakeTV
Recently leaked on Buy.com, SanDisk's new Sansa TakeTV device touts the ability to take PC video content and play it on your TV with a remote control-enabled cradle.
Launched this morning, the TakeTV unit consists of a USB drive with 4 or 8 GB of space, a USB dock with video outs, and a nested remote. Supported formats include DivX, XVID and MPEG-4.
Adobe Issues Patch for PDF-related Vulnerability
It ended up not being Adobe's problem to begin with anyway: a vulnerability that enabled JavaScript code within a specifically crafted URL to run unchecked, and launch any executable code. When Petko D. Petkov of GNUCitizen.org discovered the problem, it appeared to have been directly triggered by Adobe Acrobat or Adobe Reader.
As it turned out, Windows XP and Internet Explorer 7 have a little difficulty with parsing filenames that contain percent signs (%). A maliciously crafted URL that points to a PDF file can have XP launch executable code after it launches the reader for the PDF file. While it wasn't Acrobat or Reader that triggered the launch, a fix from Adobe issued today purports to thwart the launch, keeping the system secure.
AT&T Uverse Customers Hit with Outage
A national outage affected AT&T's Uverse television service on Sunday, completely knocking out service for several hours, the company confirmed. Early Sunday morning, service was cut completely, although the company was able to restore local channels as well as service to some sports and news channels. Full service was not restored until last night.
As of press time, AT&T was still unsure what caused the outage, and was investigating the origin. Additionally, it said it was looking into customer service issues reported by subscribers as complaints began rolling in. The service has about 100,000 subscribers across 33 markets.
WiMax Adopted as Global Mobile Standard
A UN telecommunications agency has approved WiMax as a global standard for mobile devices, which will pave the way for widespread adoption of the platform as a method for next-generation cellular data transfer.
What the decision does is allow WiMax to use the same frequencies that are requisitioned for the standard known as IMT-2000. That framework provides the basis for all third-generation wireless communications.
Qualcomm Scores Win in Nokia Battle
Qualcomm may not need to worry about a new ban on phones with its chips included after a judge recommended that the International Trade Commission conclude its investigation into complaints lodged by competitor Nokia.
The judge sees the investigation as unnecessary due to the fact that the two companies are now in arbitration to settle the dispute. Unless the ITC reviews the judge's decision within the next 30 days, the investigation will terminate.
Dell Signs Retail Deal With Staples
Dell said Monday that it will begin selling its lineup of computer products through business supply retailer Staples beginning November 11.
Initially, the store will offer the Inspiron 1721 and 1521 notebooks and Inspiron 530 desktops through its retail locations and website, with the product line to be expanded later. The deal is Dell's second with a retailer after signing a similar one with Wal-Mart in May of this year.
Intel: Too Soon to Say Whether FTC Dropped Antitrust Investigation
In response to a New York Times story this morning that cites unnamed officials at the Federal Trade Commission as having indicated its chairman has decided not to pursue a formal investigation of Intel's antitrust conduct with regard to AMD, Intel spokesperson Chuck Mulloy called the report "speculation."
"We regularly talk to the USFTC and share documents with the USFTC," Mulloy told BetaNews, "and have done so for years." Refusing to classify this sharing of documents as part of any FTC investigation, formal or informal, he added that the subject matter of documents being transferred between his company and the FTC include documents relevant to foreign antitrust investigations - such as the ongoing case in Korea - and the domestic antitrust case filed against it by AMD in Delaware court.
Next Up to Sue Vonage? AT&T
Battered and bruised from its patent fights with Sprint and Verizon over technologies used in its VoIP service, Vonage disclosed Friday that it has also been sued by AT&T.
The lawsuit was filed October 17 in US District Court for the Western District of Wisconsin. AT&T says Vonage is selling products that infringe on the company's patents surrounding 'packet-based telephony.'
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