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Amazon Launching Video Streaming Service
Tweet Share on Facebook July 17, 2008 CommentAmazon is reportedly launching a streaming video service that it has been promising for some weeks. The service will join its Unbox downloads. But the only indication today at the site is mention of a beta test that's closed to newcomers. Ian Paul at PCWorld got a look at the service, which is to give instant access to 40,000 movies and TV shows.
He reports the system is better than Netflix's in that videos will also stream to Macs, but is inferior in image quality. He didn't mention testing a feature that also sets the service apart from Apple's iTunes—Amazon will store the videos on its site. That will allow viewing from any computer the renter uses to log in.
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Sony Using Studios to Sell Blu-ray, PS3, and TVs
Tweet Share on Facebook July 16, 2008 Comment (7) -
Apple Sues to Stop Mac Clones
Tweet Share on Facebook July 16, 2008 Comment (3)Maybe it was good reviews that finally killed the Mac clones. Apple has sued to stop a small Florida company from making its own PCs preloaded with the Mac operating system.
After surviving speculation that it was a fraud, Psystar actually shipped the machines. Reviews said their heftier hardware made them a better buy than Apple's like-priced Mac mini.
Some have speculated that Apple couldn't win on legal grounds. But Apple has deep pockets to withstand a long court battle. I suspect Psystar doesn't, and its site is already down.
The attack of the Apple clones appears over.
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CVS to Allow Prescription Histories on Google Health
Tweet Share on Facebook July 3, 2008 Comment (2)It turns out that CVS Caremark has committed to provide prescription records for downloading to Google Health. That's encouraging, suggesting that health providers might ease a new splintering of our medical data, which is already fragmented among many providers, insurers, employers, and governments.
CVS, which owns a large drugstore chain, also will allow prescription data downloads to Microsoft's HealthVault. The agreements link it to the two better-known efforts to give consumers more control over health records. And it's a step better than Walgreens, which so far has committed only to downloads to Google Health.
But the industry has much work ahead to ease data exchange. No word, for example, from either chain about partnerships with Dossia. That new site will store health records for employees at a number of large companies.
And no word from the thousands of other health providers about how data might be shared with the scores of storage sites cropping up. It's a difficult issue, particularly amid sensitive privacy concerns.
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SeeqPod Offers Daily Lists for Discovering Web Audio
Tweet Share on Facebook July 3, 2008 CommentRoaming today's Web for video, music, and podcasts can seem overwhelming. Even narrowing the scope with searches, including through sites such as SeeqPod, can result in a torrent of media.
SeeqPod says it feels our pain. The site now offers suggested play lists for Web audio that it calls "PodLists." At the top today is "Rolling Stone 100 Greatest Rock Songs of All Time." It's the magazine's list of timeless hit songs, and a click on each title starts it playing. Much fun.
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Google, Microsoft Need to Share Health Partners
Tweet Share on Facebook July 2, 2008 Comment (3)Word came the other day that CVS Caremark had inked a deal with HealthVault, the Microsoft site for storing personal health records. Oh, no, I thought. Here we go again, fragmenting the already highly fragmented state of our medical records.
Just a few weeks ago, Walgreens had announced a deal with Google Health. So now we have two big drugstore chains signed up with competitors for storing our health records. For those of us who do business with both chains, we'd be stuck using at least two services to download just our prescription records.
So, will my medical insurer sign on with a site that's different from my dental insurer? My doctor? My hospital? My labs? Is this progress?
The HealthVault product manager assures me it is. The good news is that the large holders of medical records, such as the drugstore chains, are willing to participate in these online efforts to consolidate personal medical data and let us better manage our health, says George Scriban at Microsoft.
"We're not interested in creating further silos of data," Scriban says. He says Google, Microsoft, Intuit, and others fully expect to share many partners. Google and Microsoft, for example, already share as a partner Allscripts, which sells software to doctors and clinics.
Google has even partnered with MinuteClinic, which runs a chain of retail clinics and happens to be owned by CVS Caremark. So it would seem, under Scriban's scenario, that CVS sharing its prescription records with Google Health is not far behind. I hope he's right.
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Read at Work on the Sly
Tweet Share on Facebook July 2, 2008 CommentBored at work but nervous about the boss? Try Read at Work.
It's the text of a few classic books, short stories, and poems splashed cleverly across PowerPoint presentations. Someone looking over your shoulder would be none the wiser. Thanks to the New Zealand Book Council (and Tom Grant at Forrester).
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Spammers Return to Plain Text
Tweet Share on Facebook July 1, 2008 CommentHere's something you may have noticed but didn't really think about: Image spam is disappearing. Junk E-mailers have gone back to good ol' text messages, according to BitDefender, one of many companies that sells PC security software.
A year ago, about 60 percent of spam was hidden in bulky, annoying images. That's dropped to just 3 percent. Text spam has jumped from 20 percent to 70 percent.
Spammers have realized that trying to sneak junk through images just wasn't that efficient. Plain text is winning because of its "simplicity, reduced size, and extreme versatility," said Andra Miloiu, BitDefender spam analyst.
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Oops. Netflix Says It Will Retain Multiple Profiles
Tweet Share on Facebook July 1, 2008 Comment (4)In a turnabout, Netflix says it will retain one of my favorite features—multiple profiles on a single account. The profiles allow different people, or pseudo people, to set up their own queues for DVDs they want to order.
In my house, that means a queue under my name for movies, another for TV shows, and one for the kids. A returned disk triggers a shipment from the appropriate queue. Before I discovered profiles, I had to scramble to keep the right mix of movies coming to the house.
Netflix had said it would drop the feature for the sake of simplicity. Apparently, not many subscribers had set up profiles.
But Netflix hadn't done much to promote the option. I discovered it only when I complained to a Netflix PR person about juggling different demands on my queue, and he pointed out the profiles feature. It made Netflix easier to use.
To add insult, Netflix offered no simple way to combine the profiles it was taking away. We were going to have to print them out and type them into a single queue. Yuck.
The feature wasn't used by many, perhaps, but those who have discovered it love it. The outcry was loud. Netflix reversed course with an apology.
