iPhone Updated, UBS Estimates 800,000 Sold This Quarter
Apple on Tuesday released its second software update for the popular iPhone, which has seen sales continue to soar even a month after its debut. Unfortunately, the company is providing few details of what's new in the update, citing only "Bug fixes," but we don't doubt users will rush to upgrade.
Meanwhile, the research arm of UBS said in a note Tuesday that it expects Apple to top its estimated sales of 730,000 iPhones this quarter. UBS says that it expects upwards of 800,000 iPhones to be sold in Apple's fiscal fourth quarter. Still, those numbers should be taken with a grain of salt, as some analysts predicted 500,000 iPhone sales in the first weekend when the numbers ended up around 270,000.
Toshiba Builds Largest Laptop Drive
Toshiba on Tuesday announced a lineup of nine new 2.5-inch laptop hard drives, including the world's largest to date with a capacity of 320GB. The drives incorporate Serial ATA interfaces and speeds of either 5,400 RPM or 7,200 RPM. Toshiba expects to begin mass production in November.
The 320GB monster includes 2 disk platters and 4 heads, while offering seek times of 12ms and 8MB of buffer. The faster 7,200 RPM drives reach 200GB in size and offer buffer memory of 16MB. Toshiba says the new 200GB drive increases the maximum transfer rate by approximately 46% and the average random access time by approximately 8%.
Atari Set to Bring Classic Games to PSP
Atari said Tuesday that it was in the process of developing a package of classic games playable on Sony’s PlayStation Portable game system, as well as taking those games and ‘evolving’ them into more up-to-date versions which would include up-to-date graphics. The games include Asteroids, Asteroids Deluxe, Battlezone, Centipede, Lunar Lander, Millipede, Missile Command, Super Breakout, Tempest, Warlords and Pong.
"We are looking forward to providing gamers with the experience of the iconic Atari catalog on a handheld platform," said Matt Rush, Producer, Atari, Inc. "Offering these Atari classics in both their elemental and contemporary forms should excite both old-school and next-generation gamers alike." The company also says it is planning to make more than 60 games from the 2600 platform available on the PSP as well, which will include online leaderboards and peer-to-peer wireless compatibility.
Google to Video Customers: We Screwed Up
Google on Tuesday apologized for the way it handled a decision to exit the video sales business, telling customers it has listened to their feedback and wants to remedy the situation. Instead of purchased videos expiring last week, Google will keep them playable for six months.
In addition, the company said it was sorry for offering Google Checkout credits to customers instead of providing them with full refunds. Google took this step because of the hassles in making sure it had customers' latest credit card information, but now says it will refund credit cards for all purchased videos in addition to the Checkout credit. "Our bad," the company acknowledged in a blog post on the matter.
Michael Bay: No Blu-ray? No Transformers 2!
Apparently miffed at Paramount's announcement yesterday that it would only offer movies in HD DVD format and not Blu-ray after testing both formats for a year, director Michael Bay says he will not make a second "Transformers" movie - which may or may not be a bad thing depending on your tastes.
"I want people to see my movies in the best formats possible. For them to deny people who have Blu-ray sucks! They were progressive by having two formats. No Transformers 2 for me!" Bay wrote in a forum posting on his "Shoot for the Edit" Web site. The response highlights the frustration that both directors and consumers are experiencing with competing high-definition formats.
Xbox 360 Price Drops in Europe
Microsoft moved to lower the price of its Xbox 360 console in Europe on Monday, about two weeks after it made a similar move in the United States and Canada. In EU countries, the price of the high-end console drops by 50 euros to 349.99 euros ($470 USD), while the Core model drops 20 euros to 279.99 euros ($378 USD). In addition, the Xbox 360 Elite will premiere at a price of 449.99 euros on August 24.
The price cuts are intended to fend off stronger than anticipated competition from Nintendo and its Wii, which have been selling at a torrid pace since its release last November. Additionally, Microsoft is hoping a cheaper price will help it to expand its core fan base, which primarily consists of younger men. Analysts say that much of the Wii's success can be explained by its appeal to a much wider consumer base.
Record Industry Will Appeal AllofMP3 Ruling
Stinging from its loss in the Russian courts, prosecutors and the recording industry pledged to appeal the dismissal of a case against former Allofmp3 and Mediaservices head Denis Kvasov. According to a spokesperson for the International Federation of the Phonographic Industry (IFPI), the plaintiffs have one week to file their appeal.
A Russian District Court judge found that the prosecution did not have sufficient evidence to back up their charges and threw the case out earlier this week. The IFPI has not elaborated on what their basis for an appeal would be, however it continued to stress that AllofMP3 operated "in clear violation of copyright law."
Microsoft Releases Live ID SDK 1.0
Microsoft on Friday said it had released the final version of its Windows Live ID authentication system, which would allow third-party developers wishing to build applications around Windows Live services to implement the authentication scheme on their sites. The service directs requests to Microsoft to sign in, then directs them back with a unique identifier used to access various Live services.
The release provides samples of code used to integrate Windows Live in various languages including ASP.NET, Ruby, Java, Perl, Python, and PHP. Microsoft has also provided improved documentation over what was provided with the Alpha version of the release provided at Mix 07. The SDK is now available for download from the Microsoft website.
Microsoft Updates Expression Blend 2
Microsoft on Thursday released an updated preview of Expression Blend 2, the next version of its interface design tool that integrates into Silverlight, Microsoft's new Web-based platform for rich media that is competing with Flash. Most notably, the August update supports Visual Studio 2008, which is also in beta.
Expression Studio 1.0 was officially launched at MIX 07 at the end of April, and Microsoft had already prepared Blend 2 specifically for Silverlight. The company hopes to entice developers to build rich Web interfaces using the tool, and then deploying them with Silverlight, which requires a browser plug-in much like Flash. Other updates in the August Blend 2 preview include reusing control content like animations, XAML editing improvements, a Storyboard Picker, and object manipulation. Download Blend 2 from FileForum.
100 Million DivX Certified Devices Ship
DivX announced this week that it has certified over 100 million devices to use its video format since 2003, which it began the program with consumer electronics makers. The company estimates that fully 32% of all standalone DVD players sold worldwide now support DivX. This number reaches 90% in Russia, Spain, France and Korea.
But its major success on the hardware side has yet to translate into actual use. DivX has struggled to gain traction among consumers, and a number of its efforts to deliver DivX-encoded video to consumers have floundered. In fact, it could be argued that most of its use on DVD players has been playing back illicitly downloaded movies. The company is now reportedly testing a set-top box to offering streaming video over the Web, but few concrete details are known.
Skype Outage Enters Day 2, Client Updated
Internet calling service Skype remained offline for most users Friday morning, as a major outage related to account sign-ins continued into its second day. Skype owner eBay's stock took a hit Thursday from the news, but Skype employees said the service was "on the road to recovery." Interestingly, Skype released a new version of its software Friday, despite the outage.
It's still not clear what exactly happened to cause the downtime, but more details will likely surface the problem is fully resolved. Skype did say that planned maintenance was not the cause, nor was an attack. "An encouraging number of users can now use Skype once again. We know we’re not out of the woods yet, but we are in better shape now than we were yesterday," said Skype's Villu Arak.
Five Schools Sign onto Google Apps Program
Google said Thursday that it had signed on another five universities to its Google Apps Education Edition. The free service for schools offers students of the universities e-mail, calendaring, documents and spreadsheet applications. It was already in use in several schools, including Arizona State and Northwestern, as well as several international colleges.
The schools added Thursday include the University of North Carolina Greensboro, Clemson, University of Texas San Antonio, Kennesaw State University, and Arkansas State.
Netflix Silently Lowers Monthly Fees
Netflix silently dropped its monthly fee for its three disc out plan on Thursday, sending a e-mail to subscribers. The price will drop by a $1 to $15.99 monthly, a dollar cheaper than a similar plan from Blockbuster. The lower price will take effect with the first statement after today.
The last price decrease by the company was in July, when it lowered it by a dollar to $16.99. This matched a move by Blockbuster the month before. Both sides are locked in a bitter battle for online retail customers, which Blockbuster has showed strength in recent months, adding more customers than its rival.
Office 2007 SP1 Now in Limited Beta
Microsoft has released to a select group of testers the first beta release of Office 2007 Service Pack 1. Dubbed a "Technical Preview," those in Microsoft's TAP program will have 30 days to provide feedback to the Redmond company.
Few details are known about the service pack, such as what new features or fixes it includes, and Microsoft is remaining mum on its release plans for both Office 2007 SP1 and Vista SP1. Typically, Office service packs are simply a collection of fixes and rarely bring major changes to Microsoft's flagship productivity suite.
Skype Hit by Major Outage, Downloads Disabled
Skype suffered a major outage early Thursday morning in what is being characterized as a "software issue" related to users logging into the service. Engineers say it will take them 12 to 24 hours to fix the problem, and in the meantime have disabled all downloads of the Skype client.
The company, owned by eBay, has not specified what exactly caused the outage, but Skype has a strong history of reliability. It's possible there was some database corruption related to user logins, which could explain the lengthy time needed to repair the issue.
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