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28 May 2008 15:38:00 EST

Desktops, Laptops, Michael Dell's been up on stage here at D for a solid 45 minutes and has yet to say anything particularly interesting (unless you consider rattling off numbers about unit growth, margins, etc. fascinating), but the man got his chance during the audience Q&A. Someone asked if he could take Steve Jobs in a fight, and Dell flatly replied, "Yeah, I could take him." Now there's a fight we'd pay good money to see.

28 May 2008 05:37:31 GMT

There has been a lot of discussion over the last several months about whether consumers even care about the availability of Blu-ray or any other high definition disc format. A significant drop in sales volume following the death of HD DVD would seem to suggest that price is currently a bigger factor than resolution or other quality factors. Apparently that's not true for everyone though. Specialty electronics retailers like Ultimate Electronics and Crutchfield are expecting to be moving more Blu-ray players than standard DVD units before the end of 2008. On one hand these retailers are seeing the benefits of the upcoming transition to all-digital TV signals next year. “I think HD of any kind is experiencing a lift, as people become more cognizant of the DTV transition,” said Matt Duda, Ultimate Electronics merchandising director of video. “People wonder if they need a new TV, and it’s a great time for retail to capitalize on that. Just getting that footstep in the door is a great way to educate consumers about all high-def products.” At the same time the customer base for these retailers was already leaning toward Blu-ray, but hasn't had a lot to buy in the last couple of months. “People have been waiting weeks for Sony players, but it should get better later in the summer,” said Rick Souder, executive VP of merchandise at Crutchfield. “In August, it will be the first time that Blu-ray overtakes [standard DVD] sales for us on a unit basis.” Duda sees a similar future for Ultimate Electronics. “There should be a healthy supply by August and [manufacturers] should be caught up in production,” he said. “You’re getting five to eight new [BD] players in the market, and you’ll see Blu-ray catching up with standard DVD.”

28 May 2008 06:25:27 GMT

New York City residents may soon have a new alternative to their current cable television provider. That's because the city's Franchise and Concession Review Committee has approved a cable franchising agreement with Verizon to provide their FiOS television service as a competitor to the incumbent Time Warner Cable. Assuming the deal is approved by the mayor's office and New York State Public Service Commission, Verizon plans to have complete coverage for the 5 boroughs that make up the city. "When our proposal is fully approved, New York will be the first major city in the nation to break the cable TV monopoly and bring the network of the future to its residents today," Monica Azare, Verizon senior vice president for New York and Connecticut, said in a statement. Currently only about 20% of the city's residents have access to Verizon's fiber optic network, which has so far only been used for high speed internet connections. These people should have the company's television service available nearly immediately after the franchise agreement is approved by the various parties. From that point on the company will have 8 years, until June 30, 2004, to make the service available to the entire populations of Manhattan, Brooklyn, The Bronx, Queens, and Staten Island. “The logistical hurdles are unlike any other city in America,” said Craig Moffett, a telecommunications analyst at brokerage firm Sanford A. Bernstein & Company. “In urban situations, every building is its own engineering problem, so it takes another layer of planning and expense.”

28 May 2008 06:55:02 GMT

Almost since the introduction of CableCARD technology there have been complaints about its lack of support for interactive services like Video On Demand (VOD). Last year the Consumer Electronics Association (CEA), representing electronics manufacturers, and National Cable & Telecommunications Association (NCTA), representing cable television operators in the US, both submitted proposals to the FCC for a new communications standard to be used in the next generation of CableCARD. Unfortunately the two proposals were different and incompatible with each other. On Tuesday Sony became the third major electronics vendor with plans to support the NCTA proposal, called Tru2Way. At the CES expo in Las Vegas this January Panasonic and Comcast announced the development of consumer electronics products which will use Tru2Way technology to give them the full range of features available from a digital cable receiver. Earlier this month Samsung announced a deal of their own to develop devices using the technology. With the addition of Sony to their ranks, any concerns about competing standards should all but disappear. A national plug-and-play agreement "is ideal for today's mobile society," Sony Electronics' senior vice president of TV operations of America, Edgar Tu, said in a statement. In a statement of his own NCTA president and chief executive Kyle McSlarrow said "This is a landmark agreement which will provide a national, open and interactive platform resulting in more choices of services and products for consumers."

28 May 2008 01:28:00 GMT

In the middle of a gritty search war, did Steve Ballmer just commit the mother of all mistakes? I've been wondering about that ever since Microsoft said it would close its Search Books and Live Search Academic projects, thus ceding the field of book ...

28 May 2008 04:39:11 GMT

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Warmer temperatures brought on by climate change could trim output of some US crops like corn in coming decades, but increase yields from other crops like soybeans, government scientists said on Tuesday.

28 May 2008 06:05:18 GMT

By Baker Li HSINCHU, Taiwan (Reuters) - Top contract chip maker Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co Ltd (TSMC) said on Tuesday it may raise prices for its higher-end chips as rising costs threaten to squeeze profits.

28 May 2008 00:13:18 GMT

Apple is not the first to consider this technique for using solar power as Motorola describes a similar approach in a 2001 patent.

28 May 2008 04:58:46 GMT

By JULIE SATOW, Staff Reporter of the Sun Consumers panicking because New York's Apple stores have sold out of iPhones may have reason for hope: A company that investigates US Customs data has discovered that millions of the newest generation of ...

28 May 2008 01:08:54 GMT

BOSTON (Reuters) - Adobe Systems Inc (ADBE.O: Quote, Profile, Research), the maker of Photoshop and Acrobat software, started public trials of its next-generation design software on Tuesday.

28 May 2008 05:34:25 GMT

By CINDY HORSWELL No hobby clubs had requested or been granted clearance to launch high-powered model rockets on Memorial Day when a Continental Airlines pilot reported seeing such an object zoom past his cockpit window, authorities said Tuesday.

28 May 2008 00:53:49 GMT

Google will host this week its most important conference yet for external developers, whose applications and mashups the company considers key to its success.

28 May 2008 02:10:37 GMT

By Traci Watson, USA TODAY The space shuttle Discovery, scheduled for liftoff Saturday, will take to orbit a project nearly 25 years and $1 billion in the making: one of the biggest laboratories ever built for the International Space Station.

28 May 2008 05:18:19 GMT

Intel will delay the introduction of its highly anticipated "Montevina" Centrino 2 mobile chips due to technical and certification problems, the chipmaker said Tuesday.

28 May 2008 05:19:00 GMT

Viacom's suit seeks a better way to remove copyright-violating YouTube uploads. Why don't content creators and Web sites both foot the bill?

28 May 2008 06:06:41 GMT

By Stephanie Innes Canadians often refer to the weather - in addition to hockey, of course - as a national pastime. Now they've taken that preoccupation to Mars.

28 May 2008 06:18:35 GMT

By Eric Auchard CARLSBAD, Calif., May 27 (Reuters) - Microsoft Corp (MSFT.O: Quote, Profile, Research) plans to give users of the next version of its Windows operating system touch screen controls as one option for controlling the software, ...

27 May 2008 15:51:28 GMT

Officials from the United States, European Commission, Japan, and Switzerland are among those secretly working out details for a new anti-piracy treaty to be discussed at this year's G-8 Summit being held in July. A leaked discussion paper for the proposed Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA) suggests the adoption of several new legal measures in participating countries that would radically increase the role of government in copyright, patent, and trademark enforcement. Other countries participating in the on-going discussion of the treaty include Canada, Korea, Australia, New Zealand, and Mexico. Discussion on the ACTA proposal started with an initiative begun last October by US Trade Representative Susan C. Schwab along with 5 members of the Congressional Caucus on Intellectual Property and Piracy Prevention in the US House of Representatives. Although consumer rights groups have been denied access to the text of the proposal, according to IP Justice "select lobbyists in the intellectual property industry" have been given access to the document. The treaty, as outlined in the leaked document, would mandate authority for customs agents to examine portable devices from laptops to iPods for evidence of either P2P file sharing activity or copied content from media including CDs and DVDs that could constitute copyright infringement. They would then have the ability to seize such property without any judicial oversight, and even levy fines to "offenders." Also included in the proposal are requirements for the criminalization of all intellectual property infringement including non-commercial offenses which are currently only subject to civil penalties in most cases. With this new standard for criminal law in place it would also require additional participation by law enforcement, including the seizure and destruction of both infringing goods and any equipment used to produce them. This would presumably include such dangerous items as home computers. Perhaps the most significant measure being discussed is the role of ISPs in the legal process. Intellectual property owners would be allowed to demand identifying information about subscribers accused of infringement, bypassing the very public legal battles the RIAA has faced in their campaign of lawsuits against file sharers. This would be accomplished by reducing ISPs legal liability to their customers, essentially eliminating privacy arguments.

27 May 2008 18:38:17 GMT

The RIAA has declared complete victory over the infamous Russian music download store AllofMP3 which was accused of selling tracks but not giving any of the proceeds to the artists or record labels. At its peak, the site had 6 million users who legally downloaded songs and full albums for cheaper than 1/3 the price of iTunes or Amazon. The RIAA said however that the record labels and the artists were not seeing any of this money and filed complaints to get the WTO to shut the site down. In 2007, the site was shut down and the RIAA praised the decision. However, in October of that year, the site was acquitted of any charges and a district court in Moscow confirmed the innocent verdict after an appeal by the record industry group. Despite being innocent, the site shut down and no longer offers music. It now appears that this week the RIAA dropped its copyright infringement lawsuit against AllofMP3 and claimed victory. “The site is now defunct and out of business, the result of a successful anti-piracy initiative,” Jonathan Lamy, an RIAA spokesman said. That may be true, but following the media AllofMP3 received, almost a dozen similar sites have sprung up and are currently fully operational. Even funnier, the founders of AllofMP3 have started a new site called Mp3Sparks which operates exactly the same as the now "defunct" AllofMP3 did. Talking about the dropping of the lawsuit, John Crossman, representative of the site’s owner, MediaServices LLC says, “They [RIAA] never correctly commenced the proceeding in the first place...Maybe it was a rare triumph of good sense.”

27 May 2008 19:49:29 GMT

The large Swedish-Finnish-based telecom operator TeliaSonera has announced that it has struck a deal with Apple to bring the popular iPhone to Northern European markets. In its press release the company says "later this year" the carrier will begin selling the phone in Sweden, Norway, Denmark, Finland, Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia. When asked for more details, the carrier refused any more comment, and so there are no pricing models available as of yet. Over the past month (see related news below), Apple has been striking deals with various carriers to bring the iPhone worldwide, hitting every continent minus Antarctica. Orange has signed up to sell the phone in at least 12 markets in Europe, Africa, the Middle East and the Caribbean. Vodafone is set to sell the phone in 10 countries including markets in South Africa and Australia. other providers have also inked deals to sell the phone in Singapore, India, the Philippines. Notably however, deals have fallen apart in the giant markets of Japan and China, but many still feel there is a chance they can be signed by the end of 2008.

27 May 2008 20:24:52 GMT

In 2003 Disney began a trial program to sell disposable DVDs that became unplayable 48 hours after the packaging was opened. The discs, dubbed EZ-D by their developer, Flexplay, were an unqualified failure and the trial was cancelled after less than a year. Despite claims to the contrary from Convex Group, who bought Flexplay around the time the Disney trial ended, most people considered it a dead product. However Flexplay's critics were apparently a little premature in writing off the technology. Flexplay DVDs, notably lacking any Disney movies, will be available from office supply retailer Staples. Although lacking the high visibility they enjoyed while the Disney trial program was in place, the EZ-D format has already made a quiet comeback of sorts. In 2005 Flexplay licensed the technology to a Japanese company, and they're currently available from kiosks in some US airports. This time around the discs feature movies from Warner Home Video, New Line Home Entertainment, Paramount Home Entertainment, and DreamWorks. One of the key complaints about the earlier Disney DVDs was the $7 pricetag for the equivalent of a rental. At the time the rationale given was the convenience of not having to return the discs to a store. Unfortunately for Flexplay that amounted to a solution without a problem as Netflix, and later Blockbuster, had already found a way to eliminate due dates without charging $7 for each rental. It also became something of a public relations nightmare as the public became concerned about EZ-D DVDs piling up in landfills. Flexplay has reportedly lowered prices in order to compete with both traditional and newer online DVD rental operations. They've also put some thought into the question of recycling. Retailers will double as collection points for the discs, and you can already request a pre-paid return mailer from the Flexplay website. Of course the question remains, what need do disposable DVDs actually fill? If past performance is any indication the answer isn't promising for Flexplay.

27 May 2008 21:35:36 GMT

Verizon has begun offering subscribers a new video download service from Starz Entertainment. Called Starz Play, it offers unlimited movie downloads, as well as access to live streams from the various Starz and Encore cable channels. The service costs $5.99 per month. In addition to the new service, Starz Entertainment also owns Vongo, a movie download service that offers unlimited downloads for $9.99 a month. Unlike Starz Play, however, Vongo doesn't include content from the company's cable channels. While the deal with Verizon is the first time Starz has sold movie downloads as a wholesaler, it likely won't be the last. The company reportedly sees this sort of arrangement as the future of internet movie distribution. Given the challenges that companies trying to turn a profit in the marketplace face it's anyone's guess whether this is true, but unlike other companies they appear to be establishing some kind of regular revenue stream. That's something their competition would do well to pay attention to.

27 May 2008 22:46:43 GMT

After Nokia N-Gage gamers reported outrage after not being able to transfer purchased games from one Nokia phone to another, Nokia has confirmed that you can indeed transfer the games and it was all just a "miscommunication". Talking to PCWorld, Nokia added, "A miscommunication is blamed for users not being told. Internally there have been some mixed messages in this matter as well. We have been working on a way for this to work since the relaunch, but it is taking some time for everything to fall into place". Nokia did want however,"want to elaborate on the details for when a mechanism for transferring games will be in place, or why it hasn't been released". The unrest began last week when gamers who purchased N-Gage titles were led to believe that they could not transfer the game if they got a new phone. There are about 30 N-Gage titles finally available after over 6 months of delay in the relaunch of the service.