IT-Code-News: IT News HeadLines (Digital Trends) 11/09/2009

Friday, September 11, 2009

IT News HeadLines (Digital Trends) 11/09/2009

Digital Trends

Tech giants offer ideas on charging readers online

Some of the world's biggest technology companies say they can help publishers successfully charge readers for news online. If only that were the hard part. IBM Corp., Microsoft Corp., Oracle Corp. and even Google Inc. — a company some newspapers blame for helping to dig their financial hole — responded to a request by the Newspaper Association of America for proposals on ways to easily, unobtrusively charge for news on the Web. But while building the infrastructure for charging readers is one part of the equation, the new proposals underscore what may be the more intractable issue: getting publishers to make the leap and stop giving news out for free on the Web. Randy Bennett, the senior vice p

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Sprint Nextel Lowers Mobile-to-Mobile Pricing

Intensifying competition in wireless pricing, Sprint Nextel Corp. will offer unlimited domestic calls to other mobile phones regardless of the recipient's service provider. Sprint's competitors typically limit unlimited calling to other subscribers on a particular network or "calling circles" of specific people. Otherwise, any minutes used will be taken from the plan's free monthly allotment. "We don't think our customers want to have to keep track of or only talk to friends, colleagues or family members who make the same choices they do," Sprint CEO Dan Hesse said in a statement. Sprint, the nation's third-largest wireless provider, is desperate to attract and retain subscribers, millions of w

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Motorola, in need of hit, shows off Android phone

Struggling handset maker Motorola unveiled its first phone using Google's Android system Thursday, banking on it to power features that will attract consumers looking to use their phones to connect with friends, family and colleagues. The Cliq comes with a touch screen and a standard, "QWERTY" keyboard that slides out from its side. Software on it will let users aggregate contact information from various social networks and e-mail accounts. Small application "widgets" will show such information as your friends' Facebook status updates on the home screen. The Cliq, which Motorola unveile

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Facebook to let users tag friends in status posts

Facebook is launching a feature that will let users "tag" their friends in their posts, similar to how they already can with photos. The feature is launching over the next several weeks. Product manager Andrew Huang says the status tags are "all about engagement." He says Facebook wants to let users reference their real-world connections in their status posts. For example, if a status update mentions having lunch with a friend, the user can tag the post with that friend's name. That'll make it easier for someone to pull up all status posts mentioning that particular friend, regardless of who made the posts. It's similar to how someone can now easily pull up photos of a friend, regardles

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Panasonic Reveals to Mobile Americans a New Landline Phone

Sherwood Rolls Out NetBoxx Internet A/V Receiver

Folks who are deep into Internet media often find they have little choice but to hook up a PC to their home audio or home theater rigs to get to the online streaming media they require—and, while all the technological pieces are readily available, media fans usually have to go throuhg seemingly endless contortions to get things working the way they want. Sherwood is looking to solve that with its new NetBoxx Internet A/V Receiver, which combines all the bells and whistles of a high-end A/V receiver—Dolby TruHD, Dolby DTS-HD, HDMI 1.3, 100 watts of 7.1 sound—with the capability to tap into Internet content from Cinemanow, Amazon Video On Demand, Netflix, Rhapsody, Shoutcast, Hu

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Google willing to share digital books with rivals

Google will let other online companies sell its digital copies of out-of-print books if a class-action settlement with U.S. authors and publishers wins court approval. The company announced that concession Thursday after mounting opposition to Google's 10-month-old settlement. Among other things, opponents of the deal argue it would give Google a digital monopoly on millions of books that are no longer being published. Google now says it will give Amazon.com and other rivals to its digital library of out-of-print books. The other merchants would then be allowed to keep most of the revenue from the sales. Google announced the change shortly after the head of the U.S. Copyright Office advised a congressional committ

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Samsung Pushes LCD HDTVs to 65 Inches

At this year's CEDIA expo, South Korean electronics giant Samsung has taken the wraps of its new LN65B650, a massive 65-inch LCD television sporting a 120 Hz refresh rate, 4 ms response time, and extensive connectivity options. Screen sizes over 50-inches have long been the realm of plasma sets, and Samsung is taking a chance by pushing LCD technology to that size—particularly since the LN65B650 relies on fluorescent backlighting rather than the currently-vogue LED backlighting for improved contrast and color reproduction. But Samsung thinks there's a market—and is willing to place a $5,999.99 price tag on the LN65B650 to prove it.

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Toshiba Packs 160 GB into Single-Platter 1.8-inch Hard Drives

If there's one thing digital media consumers are supposed to want, it's more storage capacity in ever-smaller packages—and Toshiba's Storage Device Division is willing to comply, today announcing a new series of 1.8-inch hard drives that manage to cram 160 GB of storage onto a single platter. The 1.8-inch form factor is commonly used in devices like portable media players and camcorders that need a large amount of storage in a compact, power-sipping form factor. Although flash-based storage is becoming de rigueur on mobile phones and many media players—and flash-based SSD drives are becoming more common in notebook computers—small hard disk drives still hold the edge in the cost-and-capatcity argument.

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AT&T Announces Plans to Double Mobile Data Speeds

Apple has certainly had a hit on its hands with the iPhone, but the iPhone's exclusive U.S. carrier AT&T has certainly been taking hits over its network performance: users of iPhones—and other mobile devices—have consistently been complaining about limited bandwidth, poor network performance, and even problems placing and sustaining calls in well-networked areas. Today, AT&T announced plans to bring more data bandwidth to its mobile, announcing it plans to bring 7.2 Mbps HSPA technology to 25 major markets by the end of 2010—and six of those m

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JVC Everio GZ-HM400

JVC Everio GZ-HM400

A bunch of new high-end AVCHD camcorders from Canon, JVC and Sony have arrived—or will soon be here in time to record holiday parties. All cost close to a grand but deliver the best video you’ll see this side of a quality HDTV. JVC’s new Everio GZ-HM400 mirrors many ongoing trends including 1920 x 1080 high bit-rate recording and 32GB of built-in flash memory. It also has a 10.3-megapixel CMOS sensor capable of capturing 9MP stills. As Digitaltrends.com readers know, we’re constantly searching for the perfect two-in-one imaging device. Let’s see if this new Everio takes the prize…

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Copyright office leader balks at Google book deal

The nation's top copyright official has joined the mounting opposition to a class-action settlement that would give Google Inc. the digital rights to millions of out-of-print books. Her objections cast further doubt on whether the agreement will be allowed by a federal court, even as Google offered a concession Thursday aimed at smoothing the way for approval. Parts of the settlement are "fundamentally at odds with the law," Marybeth Peters, head of the copyright office, testified in a House Judiciary Committee hearing Thursday that was webcast. She also expressed concerns that the settlement would undermine Congress' ability to govern copyrights and could have "serious international implications" for

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Sprint Offers Unlimited Mobile Access for $70 a Month

U.S. telecom operator Sprint promised a game-changing announcement that would shake up the industry…and that announcement is apparently the company's new Any Mobile, Anytime calling plan. The new offering is an extension of Sprint's existing Simply Everything plan: for $70 per month, users get unlimited text, MMS, and data service to their mobile phones, as well as unlimited mobile-to-mobile voice service to both Sprint customers and mobile users on any other domestic mobile operator. The plan expands on Simply Everything by adding the unrestricted voice calling feature: previously,

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China could be $1 trillion green tech market

China potentially could be a $500 billion to $1 trillion a year market for environmentally sustainable "green technologies," a group of businesses and experts said in a report Thursday that urges governments to ease the way for such initiatives. The report by the China Greentech Initiative, a group of more than 80 leading technology companies, non-governmental organizations and policy advisers, pinpointed opportunities from 300 potential green technology options for China, spanning energy, water, buildings, transportation and industry. But government support is key, said Richard Gledhill, global leader of Climate Change & Carbon Market Services in London for PricewaterhouseCoopers, a consultancy that helped

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South Korean technology leak suspect dies amid probe

A former employee of a General Motors Corp. unit killed himself amid a South Korean investigation into alleged technology leaks to a Russian automaker and prosecutors have arrested two other workers as part of the probe, officials said Thursday. An official at Seoul Southern District Prosecutors' Office said two former GM Daewoo Auto & Technology Co. employees were arrested last week on charges of leaking key information on the firm's popular "Lacetti" sedan before moving to a Korean branch of Russian automaker TagAZ. The official, who spoke on condition of anonymity citing department policy, didn't provide details. Yonhap news agency reported the leaks helped TagAZ develop its "C100" model sedan.

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LED Behind the LCD: Understanding LED-Backlit HDTVs

You've heard about LCDs. You've heard about plasmas. Maybe even you even understand all the pros and cons between them. But what are all these "LED televisions" we keep hearing about? With the crop of LED-backlit HDTVs announced at this year's Consumer Electronics Show finally starting to hit the streets in force, it's a question we hear a lot from budding home theater shoppers. Blame the acronyms. While yesterday's consumers had to make a simple choice between CRT and rear-projection television sets, today's consumers are confronted with plasma, LCD, DLP, OLED, and laser televisions. And now, the age-old

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Dell's 9.99 MacBook Air Killer Design Concept

Apple’s flagship laptop, the MacBook Air, is a beauty. Very thin, very light, it is a piece of art. There have been three attempts so far to build a product that would outdo the Air: the HP Voodoo Envy, the Lenovo ThinkPad X300, and most recently, the Dell Adamo. Let’s talk about each, and end with the 9.99 design concept, the only product I’ve recently seen that could make us forget the MacBook Air. MacBook Air The target and standard for the class was presented by Steve Jobs personally when he pulled it out of an interoffice envelope and made the first row of th

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Sony Slacks Off with BDP-N460 Blu-ray Player

Online Video Editing made Simple

Online Video Editing made Simple - With all the video footage people are getting on devices like the Flip Minos and iPhone 3G S, it would be nice to have them edited on the fly without learning a new super expensive video editing software. Using animoto.com's cloud-based editing process, you can create professional looking videos instantly.

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