Sony Merges HDTV With Blu-ray PC
Sony debuted its first combination HDTV/PC including Blu-ray technology on Monday, although the price tag still remains rather high.
The Vaio LT HD PC/TV is a 22-inch widescreen "all-in-one" display. The system supports CableCARD technology that allows the user to view digital cable channels without the need for a separate cable box.
WGA Outage Over, No Word On Cause
Microsoft said over the weekend that an issue with its Windows Genuine Advantage validation systems -- which were causing verified systems to fail and lose access to features -- had been fixed.
"I'd encourage anyone who received a validation failure since Friday evening to visit this site now; after successfully revalidating, any affected system should be rebooted to ensure that genuine-only features are restored," Windows Vista product manager Nick White said.
New Yahoo Mail Leaves Beta, Adds SMS
Yahoo on Monday dropped the beta tag from its revamped webmail service, just a few months after Microsoft began rolling out its new Windows Live Hotmail. Like Hotmail, Yahoo Mail's upgrade offers a new desktop application-like interface using AJAX, but customers can choose to keep the "Classic" look.
Along with unlimited storage, new features in Yahoo Mail include an integrated RSS reader and instant messaging, along with built-in SMS text messaging support. Yahoo is targeting this feature at parents, who can quickly type a message on their computer and send it to their child's cell phone. Another addition in the final release is shortcut links, which appear in an e-mail to link to useful information like maps and calendars. The new Yahoo Mail is available to users in the United States, Canada, India and the Philippines.
Acer + Gateway + Packard Bell to Create Global PC Powerhouse
As officials from all three major companies involved confirmed to the press during the overnight hours in North America, global #3 PC manufacturer Acer has reached an agreement to acquire Gateway, America's #3 manufacturer, for $710 million.
And in a possibly contingent move, Gateway will use some of that immediate cash infusion to exercise its right to preclude Lenovo from acquiring Packard Bell from California investor Lap Shun Hui, who purchased it from NEC just last year.
Matsushita Will Cover Cost of Nokia Battery Recall
Nokia said Friday that it had reached an agreement with Matsushita Battery to cover costs related to its August 14 recall of BL-5C batteries manufactured by the company for about four dozen Nokia phone models between December 2005 and November 2006. About 100 incidents of overheating have been reported, which is due to a short circuit occurring during charging. No serious injuries or property damage have yet been made public.
"The safety of our customers and the reliability and quality of our products are our top priorities," said Robert Andersson, head of Nokia Customer and Market Operations in a statement. "We are pleased with the good cooperation between Nokia and Matsushita. Together we aim to serve consumers in the best possible manner and minimize the inconvenience this issue could cause them."
US INCITS Votes to Approve OOXML With Comments
The executive board of the INCITS standards body voted yesterday to approve the recommendation of Microsoft's Office Open XML standard to the International Standards Organization as Draft International Standard 29500, once concerns voiced by some of its members have been attached and adequately addressed by Microsoft. The vote was 12 yea, 3 nay, and one abstention - again by the IEEE.
Voting in the negative were Oracle; standards consulting body Farance, Inc.; and IBM, which had earlier indicated it would change its vote to "Yes, with comments" if others would do the same.
Manhunt 2 Back On for October 31 Release
After postponing the release of Manhunt 2 for the PS2, PSP and Wii back in June, Rockstar Games said Friday that it would release the game on October 31. The move follows an announcement by the Entertainment Software Rating Board (ESRB) that it would rate the game "M" for Mature. It previously had been marked with an "AO" rating, for Adults Only.
With such a rating, the distribution of the game would have been severely limited. Both interest groups and review boards took issue with the extreme violence in the initial version of the game, which puts players in the shoes of a deranged man who kills his enemies in search of answers regarding what happened to his family. While the rating change only affects the North American release, no announcement was made about the British rating, which also was an "AO."
Seagate: Solid-State Disks Will Never Replace Magnetic Storage
A statement to BetaNews today by one of Seagate Technology's top managers indicates that some of the content of yesterday's Wall Street Journal story -- whose original online headline was "Seagate to Enter Flash Memory Market," prior to having been edited -- may have been inaccurate.
Josh Tinker, market development manager for Seagate's Personal Compute division (not a typo), told BetaNews this afternoon that his company does indeed plan to enter the solid-state disk drive market, but has no plans to shift production -- as reports yesterday indicated -- away from traditional hard disk drives any time soon.
Software Developers Successfully Unlock iPhone
Those waiting for a solution to use the iPhone on a network other than AT&T may have found it: a six-man team of researchers has claimed to crack the SIM lock. This means the iPhone will work on T-Mobile and other GSM carriers overseas.
The crack was produced by iPhoneSIMfree.com, which has invited press organizations to allow the group to unlock their phones for them. Tech Web log Engadget was one of them, and it wrote a post Friday describing the process.
Microsoft Endorses Product That Turns Off Vista UAC Nags
The latest version of a well-reviewed third-party security policy enhancement system for Windows Vista claims to solve what its manufacturer characterizes as "not a secure solution" to a critical problem Windows historically had with administrator privileges on programs. But in the announcement of the upgrade earlier this week, a key Microsoft product manager is quoted as having acknowledged Vista's own take on the solution was not quite enough, effectively reversing his company's stand on User Account Control.
The product is BeyondTrust Privilege Manager 3.5, and its key new feature is the ability to run Vista's UAC transparently without prompting the user for privilege elevation. In Monday's press release, Microsoft director of client security product management Austin Wilson is quoted as not only endorsing the product, but appearing to agree with BeyondTrust's key contention: that the UAC prompts were not only a nag but an insecure solution in itself.
Sony Develops Environmentally Friendly Battery
Sony said Friday that it had developed a bio-conscious battery that is encased in vegetable-based plastic and runs on sugars. The sugars are poured into the battery, and are then broken down by enzymes in order to create electricity. It outputs about 50 milliwatts, and has enough power to run a music player and a set of speakers. The battery measures 1.5 inches on each side.
Sugar is a naturally occurring energy source, the company says. "It is therefore regenerative, and can be found in most areas of the earth, underlining the potential for sugar-based batteries as an ecologically-friendly energy device of the future." Sony hopes to eventually produce them for commercial use, although no date was given.
Microsoft: Xbox Racing Wheel Overheating
Microsoft said Thursday that it would be recalling the Xbox 360 steering wheel over concerns that it was overheating and smoking, according to a statement.
About 50 incidents have been reported so far related to the $130 accessory, of which Microsoft has sold approximately 230,000 units worldwide. The steering wheel's AC/DC adapter was the issue, and was overheating when it was plugged in.
PS3 Sales Improve, But Still Last Place
NPD Group's July numbers for game console sales have arrived, and the news is good for Sony and Nintendo. The struggling PlayStation 3 saw a 60 percent sales boost thanks to a $100 price cut on the 60GB model that is being phased out. But Nintendo still held the sales lead with its Wii.
Although the PS3 is still in last place among the next-generation consoles, Sony did gain some ground against Microsoft. The company sold 159,000 units, far surpassing June's sales of 98,500. But it was still unable to top Microsoft's Xbox 360, which sold 170,000 units - slightly lower than June's 198,400 thanks to last month's extra week in NPD's counting.
Skype: Client Updates May Have Played a Role in Service Outage
The Skype representative who first invoked the phrase "perfect storm" to describe the confluence of events that led to 48-hour service outage on August 16, told BetaNews today that circumstances such as those we experienced in our own tests yesterday could indeed have contributed to triggering that storm, if only in a minor way.
Villu Arak, who works in Skype's global public relations department, told BetaNews this morning that the incident we experienced, and which we described to Skype at length, was the first he'd heard about unusual client-side update behavior. "Still, while what you described could have played a small role in the disruption," he wrote us, "the series of events that led to the outage was triggered by unattended automatic reboots."
Microsoft's 'Get The Facts' Linux Site Replaced
Microsoft has decided to axe its "Get The Facts" site, instead replacing it with a less corrosive "Compare" page that compares Windows and Linux in a less confrontational way.
The former site was quite controversial, as it included parts of a study conducted in 2002 that was later revealed to have been influenced by Microsoft to look at Windows more favorably. Even in light of the controversy, Microsoft kept the site up, using it in the company's increasingly hostile battle with open source.
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