Rumors
Rumors in Technology, Current Events, Business and Local Events
RIP: HD-DVD and Spore for Mac will rock your universe
Yet another final nail has been driven into the HD-DVD casket and frankly, I could care less. BluRay is emerging as the clear winner in this pointless format war reminiscent of the old VHS vs. Betamax wars. Just in time for well-done electronic distribution to kick the snot out of it. Well done, Sony!
From the article:
The nation’s largest retailer said Friday it has decided to sell only Blu-ray DVDs and hardware in its 4,000 U.S. stores and no longer carry rival HD DVD offerings.
The announcement comes five days after Netflix Inc. said it will stop carrying rentals in Toshiba Corp.’s HD DVD format and instead go exclusively with the rival Sony Corp. technology favored by five major movie studios.
In Mac related gaming news, the fine folks over at MacLife have sit down with Spore creator, Will Wright. I am looking forward to this release and hope it won’t suck the hours away from my life like some other games.
Sphere: Related ContentNews Corp joins the fight for Yahoo
The Financial Times is reporting that Rupert Murdoch of News Corp. may be going after Yahoo.
From the article
News Corp has been in talks about merging its MySpace social network and other online sites with Yahoo in exchange for a substantial stake in the web portal, according to a person familiar with the matter.
My take is that you never bet against Microsoft. However, how much value is truly left in Yahoo? The combination of MySpace and Yahoo makes sense in some ways. However, make no mistake, if this would occur..it would relegate Yahoo to the bottom of the Internet social heap. Who really even uses MySpace anymore?
Wired claims it is Yahoo who is courting News Corp to fend off Microsoft.
Sphere: Related ContentNew slim Lenovo X300 to compete with Apple Air
The march of technology never ceases and the competition for small, ultra-portable laptops just got hotter. IBM Lenovo will release a direct competitor to the Apple Air that is based on a 13″ screen and full-sized keyboard.
From the article:
Sporting the traditional ThinkPad black slab design, the X300 isn’t as skinny or sexy as the Apple, but it’s still very slender and attractive, at under an inch thick. Also, unlike the Apple, most of the ThinkPad’s configurations are a bit heavier than the 3-pound weight that traditionally denotes a subnotebook.
Unfortunately, this laptop will not boot OS X natively. 
Yahoo rejects Microsoft’s offer
The Wall Street Journal is reporting that Yahoo has rejected Microsoft’s offer of $31 per share ($44.6 Billion US Dollars).
The article also says that Yahoo has taken preventative “poison pill” measures to fend off more hostile takeover attempts.
The decision to reject the offer signals that Yahoo’s board is digging in its heels for what could be a long takeover battle. The company is unlikely to consider any offer below $40 per share, the person said.
Looks like this won’t be decided anytime soon. The Yahoo as we have known will probably change as they do everything they can to build value and justify this decision to shareholders.. Who else will come calling at over $56 billion dollars? What are they holding out for… Facebook money?
Google is offering to help Yahoo thwart Microsoft’s advances.
Sphere: Related ContentInformation Architecture Summit - Miami, April 10-14, 2008
This is something that I would like to attend. As always, my work schedule will probably not allow it.
Information Architecture Summit
Wii Sports leads Bafta games list
Nintendo’s Wii Sports leads the nominations for the 2007 British Academy Video Games Awards
Quickies
Greetings! I’ve begin microblogging with Jaiku. If you want to see what it is all about, feel free to add me as a friend. I keep all of my del.icio.us, Flickr and Digg feeds there, so it’s a great way to find some tidbits that I found interesting.
Here are some quickies:
- Do Farmers Markets offer the best deals?
- James McAvoy has been cast as Scotty in the Star Trek prequel.
- They are remaking the 1976 classic Logan’s Run!
- New BitTorrent search engine has just been released.
- Collection of AppleTV Resources. I love my AppleTV!
- And 10 Things that your IT department doesn’t want users to know.
Hope everyone is having a great summer!
Technorati Tags: apple, bittorrent, food, movies
Sphere: Related ContentFrucall
For those of you living in the Indianapolis area, what a great weekend. The weather simply doesn’t get much better than what we experienced this past weekend, and ends any doubt that summer has finally arrived. Hooray!
I had a blast going to the track on friday, and hanging out at the Patron suite and tent. Thanks to Patron for showing us such a great time! I will post some pictures of the event soon.
For those of us who enjoy price shopping on the internet before going out to make a purchase, here comes Frucall. Frucall allows you to get real-time comparison pricing from the internet by texting or calling in with the UPC code from the product. I have tested the service a couple of times, and it was spot on.
So, before plopping down big bucks at Best Buy or Frye’s for the latest electronics, be sure to give Frucall a shot to find a better deal.
Frucall - Online Comparison Shopping Web site for Mobile Shoppers:
Technorati Tags: deals, gadgets, mobile, indianapolis
Sphere: Related ContentWISH-8 Interview: Advertised internet download speeds and net neutrality
Yesterday, I sit down with Steve Bray of WISH-8 TV and discussed DSL and cable modem download speeds. Naturally, the discussion wandered into net neutrality and Ted Stevens “Tube” territory.
This is an issue that has been around since the old dial-up access days in the early 1990’s. Some ISP’s would over subscribe their solo T1 and/or dial-in lines by a factor of 20 or sometimes much more. This would lead to extremely slow access speeds or even the dreaded busy signal.
Today’s broadband connections offer the convenience of “always-on”, but sometimes fall far short of their advertised download speeds. Contacting the provider can sometimes resolve the issue, by improving the physical build or bumping you into another tier of service. However, are the providers initial advertised speeds misleading?
Here are some interesting links that I used for research on this story.
Speed test
- speedtest.net (Multiple sites and my personal favorite)
Cable company practices
Net Neutrality
- pbs.org/cringely/pulpit
- nixguy.com
- blogs.zdnet.com
- savetheinternet.org
- theregister.co.uk
- it.slashdot.org(Interesting user comments below…. SlashDot is good for this)
Ted Stevens and his tubes
Be sure to watch WISH-8 TV in Indianapolis, Thursday May 10 @ 11pm to see the interview. The interview and footage was shot in one of the data centers that my company uses. Be sure to set your Tivo’s!
Technorati Tags: internet, netneutrality, TV, video
Sphere: Related ContentWhy Microsoft is evil 101
Microsoft is one of the companies that people either love, or love to hate. Choices between Apple, Microsoft and Linux border on religious in tone and are voraciously defended by all sides.
What is lost among all of this religious discourse is WHY some hate Microsoft so much. Well, here is are few dozen exhibits from a court case describing the evil business practices of Microsoft. Great reading for any corporate ethics (oxymoron?) student.
Some of these are textbook examples of anti-trust behaviors. Tell me again why the DOJ let Microsoft off the hook?
Read more: Groklaw - Comes v. MS Exhibits
Technorati Tags: legal, microsoft, business, antitrust
Sphere: Related ContentSocial Engineering and your corporate smoking area
By forcing all of those employees to stand outside a constantly revolving, and usually insecure door, is your company leaving the backdoor open for hackers?
One could simply “hang around” these spots to learn names, politics and view samples of badges and other security devices a company may use. When I worked at a downtown high-rise, one could see the badges and learn the names of important people within large financial institutions. This information could easily be assimilated, organized and used to gain physical access to these companies.
How sure are you the person enjoying a cigarette next to you is REALLY an employee from the IT department of your company?
Workplace smoke ban a ‘gift’ for hackers
Technorati Tags: business, hacked, security, social
Sphere: Related ContentSemantic Web (Web 3.0) and Beyond!
Excellent article from ZDNet regarding the future of the Web.
From semantic Web (3.0) to the WebOS (4.0) by ZDNet’s Dan Farber — Nova Spivack of Radar Networks maps out his view of the evolution of the Web over the next 25 years. Nova said he isn’t sure about exact dates or technologies on the top end of the map, but his view of ten-year blocks to fully evolve each phase is realistic. Nor should we get hung [...]
Technorati Tags: semantic, social, web20
Sphere: Related ContentAuthor of Open Source Asterisk PBX
Mark Spencer Presents AsteriskNOW
Original author of Asterisk talks about his product.
Latest MWSF Roundup
Like any good, rabid Apple mac fanboy, I am eagerly anticipating tomorrow’s MacWorld from Moscone Center in San Francisco.
Think Secret has a good wrap of various possible announcements. I hope the iTV concept becomes reality, as I think that is a revolutionary concept and certainly is a disruptive technology for current content distribution models.
Think Secret - Eve of Expo: MWSF Rumor recap
Technorati Tags: apple, video, mac, media
Sphere: Related ContentSocial iTunes
With the MacWorld 2007 Keynote upon us tomorrow, it will be interesting to see if they will add social tagging and functionality to iTunes. I first mentioned this here in June, 2007 and Steve O’Hear from ZDNet brings it up in his blog:
Will Apple bring social networking to iTunes? by ZDNet’s Steve O’Hear — Steve Jobs will be delivering his latest keynote speech at Macworld tomorrow, and as is usual in these matters, the rumors and pundit-driven predictions are coming thick and fast. Will Apple embrace software software?
Technorati Tags: apple, music, social
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