New Netflix player uses Silverlight to reach Mac, Linux
As perhaps the most abundant example to date of the platform's HD streaming capability, Netflix announced today that its "instant view" streams will be made available to non-Windows users through Microsoft Silverlight.
With Netflix placing increased emphasis on its streaming and instantly viewable library, a large swath of users has still largely been neglected. Though queues could be assembled in any browser and then viewed with one of the connected set-top devices, those without Windows Media Player 11 could not stream Netflix content directly to their computers.
Airport technology showing people's 'private parts' to get scrutiny
Airport full-body scanners which show people's private parts are a lot like a strip search, imposing "a serious impact on the fundamental rights of citizens," according to a resolution passed by European lawmakers late last week.
Although already in use at some airports in the US, the UK, and Netherlands, full-body scanning -- a security technology quite capable of showing people's unmentionables -- might now fade away as a specter facing Americans and other travelers in European airports, due to a lawmakers' vote.
Yahoo to build $100M data center and add new jobs, despite financial woes
Yahoo on Friday forged ahead with a deal to build both a customer care center and a data center in Nebraska, even after reporting a 64 percent drop in third-quarter profits on Monday of the same week.
Regardless of 10 percent layoff plans and a huge fall in profits announced earlier that same week, eternally optimistic Yahoo said on Friday that it will open a new data center in Nebraska in 2009 at a price tag of $100 million, which may not include new salaries.
BlackBerry Bold gets torn down, costs just over $169
On Election Day, November 4, Research In Motion is slated to finally release the BlackBerry Bold, the more traditionally designed of RIM's newest BlackBerrys. Market analysis firm iSuppli today has released a teardown of the device.
According to iSuppli's teardown, the costliest aspect of the Bold is Marvell's processor, at $34.34, or roughly 22% of the device's total cost. Recently, UK carrier Orange halted the Bold's sales, citing dubious software problems. Many wondered if the problems were really related to Marvell's PXA chipset, which is based on the Intel XScale microarchitecture. Almost all processing takes place on the chip, including applications processing, and digital/analog baseband.
PDC 2008: 'Windows Azure' is Microsoft's cloud-based hosting service
A few weeks ago, Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer gave clear hints of a Windows-branded product that will be deployed in the cloud. At 8:55 am PDT Monday, Ozzie christened this service Windows Azure.
As expected, Microsoft Chief Software Architect Ray Ozzie began his first day keynote speech at PDC 2008 (he'll be back for Day 2) by staking his company's new claim to software as services. "The Web has become a key demand generation mechanism," he said in his characteristic high-flying style, "becoming Web services' front door."
PDC 2008: Live blog of Ray Ozzie's online services keynote
Microsoft Chief Software Architect Ray Ozzie is set to open the company's Professional Developers Conference in Los Angeles with his morning keynote address that is expected to cover Microsoft's efforts in the cloud with new online services.
Ozzie will be joined by Amitabh Srivastava (Internet services platform), Bob Muglia (Server and Tools) and David Thompson (business software). We will be live-blogging the keynote as it takes place. Refresh this page for updates.
How to become a happy iPhone developer
Although some Apple developers are airing a lot of frustration lately, mDialog's Greg Philpott wants it known that he's basically happy about creating software for Apple platforms.
While iPhone software applications like Podster and Murderdrome have gotten nixed by Apple's App Store, thousands of others are indeed up there for download. A "social video" application from mDialog, available since the App Store's launch on July 10, is driving considerable new business for mDialog, said Greg Philpott, the company's founder and CEO. In an interview with BetaNews, Philpott also shared some tips for other developers interested in getting their software into the App Store.
PDC 2008 Preview: Change we can count on?
Get ready for the first concrete news on the next version of Microsoft Windows, the next edition of Visual Studio, and what could very well be the first Windows product to serve applications "in the cloud." PDC is all this week.
LOS ANGELES (BetaNews) - It's apparent even from before the get-go that the theme of this year's Microsoft Professional Developers' Conference is winning back the marketing momentum, and bringing back developers' enthusiasm in Windows as a brand. Certainly many of them are already enthusiastic about the technologies they work with -- ASP.NET AJAX, Silverlight, C#, LINQ, the new dynamic languages like F#. But in the last round, that enthusiasm didn't translate into Vista, the consumer brand.
'10+2' customs rule could bode ill for tech costs
A new rule proposed by the Department of Homeland Security would, according to some industry groups, kneecap the tech-manufacturing industry's "just-in-time" cost-management strategies.
The SAFE (Security and Accountability For Every) Port Act of 2006 is best known to many tech folk as the bill that hamstrung most online-gambling sites. However, US hardware manufacturers may soon feel the hurt, as new efforts to address potential attacks via the nation's ports and borders lead to claims that the changes the US Dept. of Homeland Security wants will add costs without raising safety.
Happy hours and hype on the social-networking sites
Where did everybody go? Recent Nielsen Online statistics reveal that the social-networking congregating online may not be hanging out where you think they are.
Nielsen's September numbers for thirteen sites with a significant social-networking aspect provide stirring testimony to the ability of many of us to do anything but work on our computers -- and, obliquely, a look at how the hype still outstrips reality in many cases.
Online gamer arrested for 'virtual murder' in Japan
She isn't accused of homicide, exactly, but a woman in Japan could spend five years in jail on charges related to "murdering" her virtual husband in revenge for a virtual divorce.
Police in Japan suspect that a 43-year-old woman grew enraged after her online husband "divorced" her in the interactive Maple Story game -- so much so that she virtually eliminated him.
US Department of Justice approves RFID licensing
The US Department of Justice has completed its review the RFID Consortium's joint patent-licensing arrangement that covers essential technologies in UHF RFID, and have deemed it pro-competitive.
The RFID consortium and VIA Licensing issued a call over two years ago to pool all the foundational patents for Ultra High Frequency RFID that were either necessarily infringed, or necessary to make, use, or sell a product in compliance with the applicable UHF RFID standards.
Tab Mix Plus for Firefox 3 stacks up a new version
For those of us who not only need to keep dozens of Firefox tabs open at once but need to see them to remember they exist, Tab Mix Plus' upgrade to Firefox 3 compatibility is some of the week's best news.
Tabs are a great way of managing the multiple threads one follows in the course of a day, but if you operate on an "out of sight, out of mind" basis, Firefox's current horizontal scroll tends to lead to confusion (and, often, resource-wasting tab duplications).
SP2 for Vista, WS2K8 to enter beta Wednesday, will support Blu-ray
With Microsoft picking up the pace in both the development and marketing of Windows 7, it's also finding itself moving ahead with the next amendment package for Vista not too long after the release of SP1.
In an early piece of news that we had expected to hear on Monday, Microsoft will release the first beta editions of Service Pack 2 for Windows Vista to private testers on Wednesday, October 29. Those testers will be among the first, according to a blog post from Windows 7 corporate VP Mike Nash this afternoon, to test burning data directly to Blu-ray Discs using only the Vista OS.
Swedish anti-piracy legislation moves ahead
The EU anti-piracy directive that would let intellectual property holders get information about file sharers has been implemented in a Swedish bill, which this week received approval to be presented to Parliament.
Sweden's English-language news site The Local reports this week that the Lagrådet Legislative Council has green-lighted a bill that would make file sharers' IP addresses available to copyright holders.
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