All Posts by Paul

Hulu Set to Launch on Monday

Paul

After gearing up all summer, Hulu (the NBC-Fox joint venture that is going up against YouTube) was supposed to launch in private beta yesterday, says a source. That is why NBC pulled its videos from YouTube last week. (This, after NBC abandoned iTunes for Amazon, and already started offering free downloads of its shows on the Web).

But launching a video Website can be hard—even if it is just a private beta. Now, says our source, Hulu is gunning for a private beta launch next Monday, so that it can still meet CEO Jason Kilar’s self-imposed October deadline. That date could slip until the following Wednesday and technically be considered on-time, of course, but Kilar probably wants to avoid the trick-or-treat jokes. We’re still waiting for our invites.

I thought it would launch soon. I’ve been getting hints that they started dropping other services. I figure Techcrunch is right!!

Xbox 360 Arcade is Official

Paul

Microsoft’s long rumored Xbox 360 Arcade is now official. It’s everything we knew before: $279, wireless controller, HDMI, and five arcade games (Pac-Man Championship Edition, Uno, Luxor 2, Boom Boom Rocket and Feeding Frenzy). No hard drive, but there’s an included a flash memory storage unit to save your arcade games on. It’s a logical system that we predicted was true since almost a third of Xbox 360 owners don’t know about the Arcade portion of Live. With this new SKU, even if people don’t buy it, they’ll at least know what the Xbox Live Arcade is.

REDMOND, Wash. — Oct. 22, 2007 — Just in time for holiday, Microsoft Corp. today released a new Xbox 360® console that delivers games and content to everyone in the family for an incredible value of $279.99 (U.S. estimated retail price)*. Available in stores beginning today, Xbox 360 Arcade console is the first Xbox 360 console to include five family-friendly games, a wireless controller, a high-definition multimedia interface (HDMI) connection to enable high-definition output if desired and 256 MB of memory useful for storing games and entertainment content. At $279.99, the Xbox 360 Arcade console will include five best-selling games: “PAC-MAN Championship Edition” (NAMCO BANDAI Games America Inc.), “Uno” (Carbonated Games), “Luxor 2” (MumboJumbo), “Boom Boom Rocket” (Electronic Arts Inc.) and “Feeding Frenzy” (Sprout Games).
“As families gather together this holiday, it’s the perfect time to launch a new low-priced, high-value Xbox 360 that plays games, TV shows and music for everyone to enjoy,” said Jeff Bell, corporate vice president of global marketing, Interactive Entertainment Business at Microsoft. “In addition to offering an incredible all-in-one package for families to get right into the fun, the Xbox 360 Arcade system features the industry-leading Family Settings, which allow parents to control what their kids are watching and playing — and we know how important that control is to families around the world.”
Karen Dodge, senior vice president and chief merchandising officer at Toys “R” Us, added, “We are excited to offer this new gaming experience to our customers — children and families — who can now enjoy the fun of Xbox 360 together. Many of this holiday season’s hottest items provide Internet connectivity, and with the online entertainment options available through Xbox LIVE®, Xbox 360 Arcade offers families a great mix of online content and traditional gaming in one console.”
The news of Xbox 360 Arcade comes as part of a broader initiative by Microsoft to bring the Xbox 360 experience to families everywhere. Microsoft also announced today that it is significantly expanding its catalog of high- and standard-definition family fun content that is available on demand direct to the consumer’s living room. This includes the addition of everyone’s favorite characters such as “Bugs Bunny” and “Daffy Duck” from Warner Bros., which will be delivering the first ever “Looney Tunes” cartoons for download on Xbox 360, starting today. In addition, Nickelodeon is adding three new shows to its already large library of more than 300 episodes of TV shows on Xbox LIVE, Microsoft’s premier online gaming and entertainment service, with the inclusion of “Blue’s Clues,” “The Backyardigans” and “iCarly.” “SpongeBob SquarePants Underpants Slam™” (THQ Inc.) and “SHREK-N-ROLL™” (Activision) games will also be available exclusively on Xbox LIVE Arcade, the place to download games for Xbox 360 over Xbox LIVE, adding more fun for everyone in the family.

279$ isn’t bad for a system like that. I would get one now!! 🙂 I will wait to see if anyone offers any price cuts first for the Holidays, I’m sure it will be on sale somewhere!!

Samsung reveals first 30-nm 64Gb NAND chip — and a bit of skin

Paul

We’re not sure what’s more impressive here: the fact that Samsung has produced the world’s first 30nm-class 64Gb (bit, not byte!) NAND chip or that they’re now roping defenseless product waifs into hawking their silicon wafers. Nevertheless, we’re looking at a serious jump in density in just 10 months. A maximum of 16 of the new chips can be combined for cost-effective 128GB (byte, not bit!) MLC NAND-based flash cards used primarily for data storage. Sammy’s faster SLC based flash cards will still be the preferred choice when speed is of the utmost priority and cost isn’t an issue. As such, Samsung also announced a 32Gb SLC NAND chip based on the same SaDPT (Self-aligned double patterning technology) manufacturing process. Sadly, we’ll have to wait until 2009 for production to begin. Still, he looks happy dontchathink?

We will have to wait until 2009 but I bet we will start seeing these installed laptops!! I wonder if you could daisy chain them to make a big hard drive?

Dell Products Headed For Staples Retail Stores

Paul

In a break from Dell’s traditional mail order biz, an agreement reached today with the Staples retail chain will bring Dell brand notebooks, desktops, monitors, printers, and ink to over 1400 Staples stores across the U.S. Initially Staples will carry Inspiron 1721 and 1521 notebooks, Inspiron 530 desktops, 948 and 926 All-in-one printers, the 1320c laser printer, the Dell SE198WFP 19-inch LCD, E228WFP 22-inch LCD, and most types of Dell brand ink and toner with more products to be added over time. A similar agreement was signed with Wal-Mart earlier this year, making this the second time Dell has partnered with a major US retailer and the first time it has scored a 3-way.[Staples via i4u]

I guess now I can go to Staples and buy a Dell if I wanted to!! I wonder if they are also going to be a support center for Dell?

Comcast traffic blocking: even more apps, groupware clients affected

Paul

Last week, we reported on mounting evidence that Comcast is targeting and disrupting BitTorrent traffic on its network. Further digging by interested parties has turned up more indication that BitTorrent isn’t the only popular P2P protocol being tampered with by the United States’ largest ISP.

The Electronic Frontier Foundation noticed the same sort of packet forging that the AP did (and that Broadband Reports readers did some time ago), and continued its testing to see if other applications are affected. The answer is a disturbing “yes.” The results of additional testing done by the EFF indicate Comcast is sending forged reset packets with some Gnutella traffic. When the EFF ran a Gnutella node on a Comcast connection, the forged reset packets disrupted communication between the nodes.

What’s particularly insidious about Comcast’s packet forging is that it’s transparent to both its customers and those on the opposite ends of the connection. Applications such as BitTorrent and Gnutella retain some of their functionality, but they’ll also appear to malfunction for no apparent reason.

Even if you accept the argument that all P2P traffic is inherently evil, and that Comcast has the right to disrupt it in order to put a stop to copyright infringement, Comcast’s traffic-shaping efforts have apparently extended beyond the realm of P2P and into good old enterprise groupware. Kevin Kanarski, who works as a Lotus Notes messaging engineer, noticed some strange behavior with Lotus Notes when hooked up to a Comcast connection last month.

Sooner later someone is going to tell Comcast they cost some one there business and have to pay for it. I don’t expect this to keep up much longer