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Netflix Abandons HD DVD in Favor of Blu-ray
Tweet Share on Facebook February 12, 2008 Comment (4)For me, the death knell has sounded. Netflix is abandoning HD DVD. That's the high-definition competitor to Blu-ray, which gained the upper hand last month with overwhelming support from Hollywood studios.
But I took comfort that I'd still have movies to watch on my HD DVD drive. I recently bought the drive even though I knew it would most likely be an eventual dead-end. But at only $100, it seemed worth it. That's partly because I could still watch HD DVD movies while they lasted, particularly as I didn't have to buy them. I could just get them from Netflix.
Now that won't last too long, either. Here's what Netflix said today in a note to HD DVD users: "While we will continue to make our current selection of HD DVD titles available to you for the next several months, we will not be adding additional HD DVD titles or reordering replacements."
Oh well. The investment isn't a complete loss. The player does a good job at upconverting standard-def disks to look good on an HDTV. And it will play high-def disks that I make myself in a standard DVD burner—something a Blu-ray player can't. But stick a fork in: HD DVD is cooked, and even sooner than I'd hoped.
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Robots of the Future
Tweet Share on Facebook February 11, 2008 Comment (2)The Japanese have always had a special fascination with robots (Remember Astro Boy?). Japanese auto companies are out front in developing androids that could serve as human helpers. Why carmakers? They already use industrial robots in their plants, and they say robots are just another mobility product. They see a big market in Japan's aging population. Robots would help in nursing homes, in hospitals, and around the house.
I recently saw impressive demos in Washington, D.C., of prototypes. The robots can walk, dance, and even play a trumpet. They're still early in development, though. Each came with a team of headset-wearing engineers to make sure their babies would perform as designed. But their developers say the robots could be sold in Japan in a decade or so and soon after here.
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Nikon Camera Warns If Someone Blinks
Tweet Share on Facebook February 7, 2008 Comment (2)Here's another "smart shutter" gimmick: A new Nikon camera warns you if someone blinked. If someone's eyes close when you click the shutter, the Coolpix S550 will throw up a warning and give you a chance to quickly retake the photo.
It's just one of a number of features that camera makers are adding to digital models, which they fear are saturating the market. The new tricks move beyond ever-rising megapixel counts as incentives to upgrade. The blink feature joins smile mode, which doesn't take a picture until everyone's smiling, and something we'll call "still-camera still mode"—shutters that will wait until everyone quits moving before snapping a frame.
The 10-megapixel camera should go on sale this month at a suggested price of $230.
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Nearly 25% of Wireless Calls Suffer Bad Sound
Tweet Share on Facebook February 7, 2008 Comment (7)So maybe we trash our cellphones out of simple frustration. Comes a study that says nearly a quarter of U.S. and European wireless calls have bad sound quality. Granted, the audit was conducted by a company with a vested interest—Ditech Networks sells "voice-quality products" to the communications business—but we all know the frequent frustration of shoddy sound on cellphones.
It could be worse. In faster-growing markets like India and South America, about 60 percent of calls suffer from bad sound, Ditech says.
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Americans Junk Millions of Used Cellphones
Tweet Share on Facebook February 6, 2008 Comment (6)Only about 40 percent of Americans recycle or repurpose their old cellphones, according to a new survey. That might be discouraging news to anyone who wants to keep our growing pile of electronics junk out of landfills. How can we hope to get other gadgets recycled that are heavier and more difficult to handle than cellphones, perhaps the easiest of electronics to keep out of the trash?
Most wireless carriers will take old handsets. Charities will pay for shipping to get the phones. Recycling bins for used cellphones are often available at libraries, schools, and malls.
Nonetheless, 10 percent of us chuck millions of handsets and their toxic waste into the trash, according to the survey from market tracker iSuppli. More than 35 percent shove them into a drawer, where they're no good to anyone. "All too often, those handsets end up in the trash when spring cleaning comes," says iSuppli's Greg Sheppard.
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Retrevo Helps With Tech Shopping
Tweet Share on Facebook February 5, 2008 CommentI retrieved an old friend the other day and found that Retrevo has added an impressive new feature. The search site now helps tech shoppers, as well as tech users.
Retrevo is one of a number of search sites that try to beat Google at its game. Since its launch a year or two ago, Retrevo has been great for tracking down user manuals, forum chats, and other help in decoding today's gadgets. Type in a make and model, and Retrevo pulls up a list of sites that is better organized than anything from Google or Yahoo!, and more thorough.
But I hadn't needed Retrevo's help in several months, or so I thought. In that time, the site added a shopping service that can cut through the clutter of the massive tech market. It quickly narrows product searches and pulls up data on pricing and popularity.
It isn't perfect. In looking at camcorders, for example, I can't find a way to quickly ID which can capture HD-quality video. But the shopping service is smart, data-packed, and easy to use. Retrevo is a friend I'll visit more often.
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Yahoo! Music Subscribers Sent to Rhapsody
Tweet Share on Facebook February 4, 2008 Comment (2)Another music subscription service has bitten the dust. Yahoo! is giving up its Music Unlimited service, in which users paid a flat monthly fee to listen to all the tunes they wanted.
Yahoo!'s decision underscores fears that the music can just go away.
Yahoo! subscribers can keep their music through another service, Rhapsody from RealNetworks. But now they'll have to pay $13 a month instead of the $9 they were paying at Yahoo! Many won't make the switch.
That has always been a key hurdle for the subscription services. They offer a convenient "jukebox in the sky," as RealNetworks CEO Rob Glaser calls it. You can access the music from Web-connected PCs and a sprinkling of other devices, such as TiVo. But quit paying, and the music dies.
A second hurdle is getting the music to play on portable devices. Neither Yahoo! nor Rhapsody music can play on iPods.
That said, I've been trying Rhapsody in recent months, and I like the service. It offers a great selection of music for a reasonable price. But I hesitate to put too much time into picking tunes and organizing playlists. There's that lingering fear that, in the long run, it'll go "poof" and be gone.
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Autonet to Offer Internet for Cars
Tweet Share on Facebook February 1, 2008 Comment (1)A race car driver doesn't like to wait. And Sterling Pratz found it baffling that he couldn't get his E-mail while driving, even off the track. So the former race driver is now launching an Internet service aimed at, er, the passenger's seat. Drivers, keep your eyes on the road.
Pratz's Autonet delivers broadband-speed Internet to moving cars through a box—a router designed to allow everyone in the car to share the connection. Passengers with laptops or game consoles can tap cellular networks for access, and the secret sauce is in the router. Autonet had to find how to keep an Internet connection alive as the car moves through cell dead zones. "It was painfully difficult," Pratz says.
So far, he's announced a few dealers in northern California who will offer Autonet as an option. But he said pacts with dealers nationwide are coming soon. Avis also offers Autonet at some locations for an $11 daily fee.
The box will cost less than $1,000, he says. And monthly subscription fees will cost less than the plans now offered by wireless carriers. Autonet can charge less because its system manages data flows better than do the carriers, Pratz says. It will also work anywhere there's a cell signal. But Autonet will offer faster access in city markets built for high-speed access—the straightaways of wireless data.
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Microsoft Has Confused Its Online Users
Tweet Share on Facebook February 1, 2008 CommentAs a fan of Yahoo! I'm bracing for more online confusion if Microsoft succeeds in buying the company.
In its latest Web floundering, Microsoft seems to be throwing the "Live" brand around willy-nilly. As described by Preston Galla at the ComputerWorld blog: "There are too many 'Live' products to count—Windows Live (which has nothing to do with Windows) and Microsoft Office Live Small Business (which has nothing to do with Microsoft Office) among them."
It has left me bewildered. The switch, for example, from MSN Search to "Live Search" only seemed to sap whatever strength Microsoft had built in the MSN portal. The "Live" approach hasn't succeeded and is another reason to think a Microsoft-Yahoo! merger won't bring down Google.
Now, in their defense, Microsoft executives suggest they'll keep Yahoo! safe. "We love the Yahoo! brand," one said this morning. But Microsoft is not a hands-off company. It will muck with Yahoo!'s properties, and we'll struggle to understand it all.
Just imagine: "Yahoo! Live!"
