RSSTechnology News Headlines and Software
September 1, 2010, 3:13 PM
New iPods: Apple pulls buttons off the Nano and gives them back to the Shuffle
At Apple's annual iPod refresh event today, Apple CEO Steve Jobs revealed the "biggest change in the iPod lineup ever," which included dramatic changes to both the Nano and Shuffle which seem to reverse advancements made to the models last year.
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Dell and HP quarry 3PAR now valued at $2.4 Billion
By Tim Conneally on September 2, 2010, 10:07 AM
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The bidding war between HP and Dell over virtualized storage company 3PAR is in its third week, and as of Thursday morning, HP has the high bid, and 3PAR's favor. The Palo Alto IT giant turned the tables on Dell with a $2 billion bid last Friday that caused 3PAR to announce it was terminating the merger agreement it had reached with Dell in mid-August.
When Dell received 3PAR's notice of termination, it raised its acquisition offer once again, from $27 per share to $32, and modified the terms of its proposal to include an increased termination fee of $92 million.
Roku and Boxee weigh in on today's AppleTV update
By Tim Conneally on September 1, 2010, 6:30 PM
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While the over-the-top (OTT) streaming entertainment category has not made a big dent in the mainstream home TV viewing market yet, it's a hot business, and service providers, software makers, and hardware manufacturers are all jockeying for the biggest piece of the pie.
When AppleTV debuted alongside the iPhone at Macworld in 2007, it was more or less a stripped-down home theater PC so users could enjoy their iTunes media on their televisions. Relatively little had changed on the platform until today, when Apple CEO Steve Jobs announced the box would lose its storage capacity and become rental-only, gain Netflix streaming and drop in price to $99. Jobs said these changes were based upon feedback provided by AppleTV users.
Steve Jobs: 'Ping is for social music discovery'
By Joe Wilcox on September 1, 2010, 5:13 PM
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Apple's September 1 music event ended on a sour note. Coldplay's Chris Martin gave a tepid and pitchy performance that would have sent him packing from an American Idol audition. Michael Stanclift aptly tweeted: "This guy could have practiced before this gig." Martin, whose daughter is named Apple, seemed like the right performer for what was otherwise an outstanding event. While Martin muffed, Apple -- the company, not his child -- hit every key. Not since the first iPod nano launched five years ago has Apple delivered such spectacular new music products.
For the past week, pundits and rumormongers spewed forth the most ridiculous and seemingly sensible conjecture about what Apple would announce today. Nearly every rumor was wrong. There was a new Apple TV, but with no storage, no apps and no gaming capabilities. It's a Roku with a nicer design and streaming support for Apple services and devices, Netflix and YouTube. Yes, there are 99-cent TV rentals as rumored, but only from ABC and Fox -- and they're all HD. Otherwise, the rumors missed all the significant stuff, even the most important details about the new multitouch iPod nano. Who guess right about iTunes 10? There was no iLife `11 as rumored, among the other bits of mistaken reporting (and blogging).
Windows Phone 7 is released to manufacturing
By Tim Conneally on September 1, 2010, 4:53 PM
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Microsoft announced that the highly anticipated Windows Phone 7 mobile operating system has been released to manufacturing on Wednesday, a major milestone for the project.
Following the release of its developer toolkit, Microsoft released Windows Phone 7 technical preview to its developer, carrier and manufacturing partners in July. Since that time, the mobile OS has been updated in a number of ways, such as including intelligent Facebook contact filtering (only real friends show up,) and the ability to "like" Facebook posts from within the People Hub.
Microsoft makes second push to upgrade households to Windows 7
By Ed Oswald on September 1, 2010, 4:43 PM
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In a sign that Windows 7 sales may be beginning to falter somewhat, Microsoft on Wednesday announced that it would be bringing back its Windows 7 Family Pack discount program. The offer gives multi-computer households the opportunity to upgrade three PCs to Windows 7 Home Premium.
The deal is available beginning October 3 at a price of $149.99. This is a considerable savings over individual upgrades: a single copy of Home Premium alone retails for $129.99. It is unclear when the promotion would end, although Microsoft began pulling last year's offer in December.
Redesigned AppleTV now $99, rentals and streaming now the focus
By Ed Oswald on September 1, 2010, 4:29 PM
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Apple's hobby got a little more serious on Wednesday as the Cupertino company debuted a much smaller and cheaper version of its AppleTV set-top box. The device also heralds the introduction of rentable TV shows, a move that had been widely expected.
The new AppleTV device is less than a quarter of the size of its predecessor, and has no storage space. Instead users would stream content from Apple's servers, and content available to the box would be rent-only.
Nokia to shut down Ovi Files 'digital locker' service on October 1
By Tim Conneally on September 1, 2010, 4:15 PM
4 Comments
Nokia's cloud-based "digital locker" service Ovi Files will be shut down on October first, Nokia is warning users. The service was used for making files remotely accessible through a mobile device's browser.
Nokia added Files to the suite of Ovi services in 2008 after it acquired digital locker startup Avevenu. When we tested the service back in 2008, Nokia said it planned to make Files a premium service, but it was ultimately made free in 2009. Files was significant because it was the first service in Nokia's Ovi suite that utilized the Nokia account ID.
A look at new portable media players for Fall 2010 that aren't iPods
By Tim Conneally on September 1, 2010, 1:52 PM
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Apple's annual iPod refresh has taken place in the first week of September for the last five years, and the event coincides with back-to-school Mac and iPod promotions. Since the iPod has held a dominant share of the United States' portable media player (PMP) market, this is often the time of year when other consumer electronics companies debut new PMPs for the back-to-school season too.
This year, in the days surrounding Apple's September 1 event, Sandisk, Phillips, Archos, and Samsung have all revealed new media players that will compete against the newly-refreshed 2010-2011 iPod line.
Microsoft's flexible Arc Touch Mouse goes up for pre-order
By Tim Conneally on September 1, 2010, 11:59 AM
17 Comments
Microsoft Wednesday announced the availability of its Arc Touch mouse, a brilliantly designed mouse that can be flattened to fit into a laptop bag. The peripheral uses a capacitive touch panel in place of a scroll wheel, and provides haptic feedback that simulates the gentle ratcheting action of a traditional scroll wheel.
In light of the recent popularity of touchscreens and trackpads, Microsoft wanted to make it clear today that the mouse is far from dead.
Borders offers cheapest, most diverse e-reader selection among booksellers
By Tim Conneally on August 31, 2010, 3:40 PM
11 Comments
Contrary to popular opinion, the competition between e-reader hardware manufacturers is nothing compared to the competition between e-book retailers. Tuesday, second place book retailer Borders revised its aggressive strategy for e-reader sales, slashing the price of its two e-ink readers before the arrival of its Android-based tablet readers from Velocity Micro.
In June, Borders unveiled its $149.99 Kobo e-reader, which was met with considerable consumer interest due in large part to its low retail price. After Kobo's launch, both Barnes and Noble and Amazon reduced the prices of their respective e-readers from $259.00 down to $149.99.
Google introduces Gmail Priority Inbox beta for intelligent message filtering
By Tim Conneally on August 31, 2010, 12:21 PM
15 Comments
Google continued its reinvention of the Gmail inbox Tuesday with the introduction of Priority Inbox Beta, a new mail filtering system that prioritizes emails based upon the user's viewing and responding habits.
The feature will be rolled out incrementally to Gmail users over the next week, and will break up inboxes into three categories: Important and Unread emails, Starred conversations, and "everything else." Incoming messages will automatically be routed into one of these three categories, which Gmail determines by user trends. For example, if a particular contact is someone frequently exchanging emails with the user, their incoming messages will be ranked as more important than someone else's. Similarly, messages that users actually opened instead of skipped, deleted or "marked as read" from certain senders will be considered higher priority.
'Boxee Killer' Plex/Nine media center released, adds iOS app
By Tim Conneally on August 31, 2010, 11:31 AM
25 Comments
Early Tuesday morning, a new version of Mac OS X-based media center software Plex was released, called Plex/Nine, and with it came a new app for iOS.
Plex is a fork of open source media center software XBMC, which has recently risen to prominence for being the software that powers Boxee and the forthcoming D-Link Boxee Box. It organizes multimedia content on a local media server, adds online content from more than 150 video and entertainment sites, and makes it available on client devices in the home network.
Jobs Lied: Apple not fixing iPhone 4 proximity sensor bug in iOS 4.1
By Tim Conneally on August 30, 2010, 4:49 PM
83 Comments
Poor reception and easily disrupted wireless signals are not the only problem with Apple's iPhone 4, users have also complained of a bug in the smartphone's proximity sensor that caused the screen to flicker and accidentally registered screen touches.
"I am holding my phone in the exact same way I always did with my 3G, and it is right up against my face, but it continuously switches the screen on and off. I was just on a 10 minute call where mute was turned on 3 times and speaker once, all by my ear. " one user wrote in Apple's support forums in July. The Topic, "Issue with Proximity Sensor during calls." had nearly 1,700 replies.
Xbox Live Gold subscription price to rise for the first time
By Tim Conneally on August 30, 2010, 1:24 PM
27 Comments
On November first, Xbox Live will get more expensive than it's ever been.
Since launching in 2002, Microsoft's Xbox Live subscription gaming service has retained the same price in the U.S.: $7.99 per month, $19.99 per 3 months, and $49.99 per year. Monday, Director of Programming for Xbox Live Larry "Major Nelson" Hryb announced a price increase coming to the service on November 1, 2010 which will raise it to $9.99 per month, $24.99 per 3 months, and $59.99 per year.
DRM company acquires technology from music search engine killed by copyright suits
By Tim Conneally on August 30, 2010, 12:47 PM
17 Comments
Monday, Intertrust Technologies Corporation, a company with more than a hundred patents for various Digital Rights Management (DRM) technologies, announced it has acquired all of SeeqPod's software and patents. The company went bankrupt after being sued by Warner Music Group in 2008.
SeeqPod was a music search engine that found, and let users listen to, songs in their entirety. The engine's algorithm set and technology reportedly were developed by biologists working at the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory to discover hidden relationships in genomic data. The technology identifies patterns in data that are distributed across the Internet. This included indexing and finding playable search results for audio, video, podcasts and text.
Intel acquires Infineon's wireless group for $1.4B, picks up 2G, 3G, LTE tech
By Tim Conneally on August 30, 2010, 10:56 AM
12 Comments
The world's largest chipmaker, Intel Corp. announced Monday morning that it will be acquiring the Wireless Solutions (WLS) business from German semiconductor company Infineon Technologies AG for approximately $1.4 billion. Last year, the division held about 11% of the global cellular baseband market.
"The global demand for wireless solutions continues to grow at an extraordinary rate," Paul Otellini, Intel president and CEO said in a statement today. "The acquisition of Infineon's WLS business strengthens the second pillar of our computing strategy - Internet connectivity - and enables us to offer a portfolio of products that covers the full range of wireless options from WiFi and 3G to WiMAX and LTE."
Mobile phones in class: the next back to school accessory
By Tim Conneally on August 28, 2010, 2:57 PM
30 Comments
As school districts across the country open their doors for the 2010-2011 school year, a remarkable shift in thought is taking place: cell phones, once regarded as distractions or liabilities are coming to be viewed as viable learning tools.
This fall, Wisconsin's Milwaukee Public School district will let students use their mobile phones in classrooms as long as it's for an approved educational purpose.
HP's $2 billion bid leads 3PAR to terminate agreement with Dell
By Tim Conneally on August 28, 2010, 3:03 AM
15 Comments
Two weeks ago, Dell announced it would be acquiring virtualized storage company 3PAR for $1.5 billion. Dell's announcement, however, represented only a preliminary agreement between the companies, and HP wanted to acquire 3PAR as well.
Friday morning, just a matter of hours after 3PAR announced it had signed the second amendment to its merger agreement with Dell, competitor HP made its third bid for 3PAR, which upped the total value of the company to $2 billion.
Paul Allen sues Apple, Google, nine others over patent infringement
By Ed Oswald on August 27, 2010, 5:15 PM
39 Comments
Microsoft co-founder and former executive Paul Allen filed a suit against 11 tech companies on Friday, accusing them of infringement over patents he acquired from the now defunct Internal Research. While Allen had invested in the company, he never participated in the development of the patented technologies.
When Internal Research closed its doors in 2000, the rights to the patents were transferred to Interval Licensing, a company Allen owns. The technologies cover four patents -- the most notable being the 6,263,507 and 6,757,682 patents -- relating to various web technologies. The companies named in the lawsuit are AOL, Apple, eBay, Facebook, Google, Netflix, Office Depot, OfficeMax, Staples, Yahoo and Google's YouTube.
Windows Live Sync to become Windows Live Mesh after beta
By Tim Conneally on August 27, 2010, 4:18 PM
16 Comments
Microsoft's two sync offerings --Windows Live Sync and Windows Live Mesh-- were combined into a single program called Windows Live Sync beta for the beta of Windows Live Essentials. Today, Microsoft announced it's reversing that decision, and the combined program will be called Windows Live Mesh after the beta expires.
The decision to change the name was made because Microsoft felt that since the new program will do more than just sync files, it should have a name that reflects what it does.
Looking for the full list of software downloads you used to find here? That same listing is now over at Fileforum!
Win7DSFilterTweaker 3.5
September 1 - 2:29 PM ET
Scarab Darkroom 1.0 Beta Build 45
September 1 - 1:53 PM ET
Google SketchUp for Windows 8.0
September 1 - 1:32 PM ET
Microsoft Silverlight for Windows 4.0.50826.0 Final
September 1 - 1:11 PM ET
StaxRip 1.1.6.9 Beta
September 1 - 12:50 PM ET
Core Temp 0.99.7.10
September 1 - 12:29 PM ET
µTorrent (v2.2) 2.2 Build 21668 Beta
September 1 - 12:08 PM ET
BitComet 1.23
September 1 - 11:47 AM ET
AOL Instant Messenger for Windows 7.4.2.24 Beta 1 Refresh
September 1 - 11:26 AM ET
CCleaner 2.35.1223
September 1 - 11:05 AM ET
Vuze for Windows 4.5.0.4
September 1 - 10:54 AM ET
SpywareBlaster 4.4
September 1 - 10:43 AM ET
BurnAware Free 3.0.4
September 1 - 10:32 AM ET
SecureCRT 6.6 Beta 3
August 31 - 5:07 PM ET
SecureFX 6.6 Beta 3
August 31 - 4:46 PM ET
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