Computer Information - myOddPc
Paramount & Dreamworks HD DVD support ends March 4
Filed under: HDTV, Home Entertainment
We don't know if Jeffrey Katzenberg got a text message, fax,
e-mail or smoke signal indicating the format war was over, but
Video Business has confirmed
Paramount and
Dreamworks Animation will (rather abruptly) to stop releasing HD DVDs after next week. If you were looking forward to
Bee Movie on March 11,
Sweeney Todd on April 1 or the just announced
There Will Be Blood, those are cancelled.
Into the Wild and the appropriately-named
Things We Lost in the Fire will be Paramount's last reminders of its
exclusive agreement. Not specifically mentioned was
Star Trek: TOS Season 2, but don't hold your breath. Blu-ray release plans are still up in the air but we wouldn't be surprised to hear something
soon. As far as HD DVD movies still scheduled, that leaves two from Universal (
for now) and twelve from
Warner Bros, who may have been the
first to leave red, but will apparently be the last major studio out the door.
Read - Video Business
Read - High-Def Digest
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Latest financials confirm it: Sprint and Nextel probably shouldn't have merged
Filed under: Cellphones
Well, it looks like the
aggressively priced unlimited action really didn't come a moment too soon. We're no economists here, but it doesn't take rocket science, a Ph.D., collegiate level maths, or even a fancy calculator to crunch the cold, hard numbers coming out of Sprint Nextel's fourth quarter earnings call. For starters, the number three carrier in the US reported a net loss of nearly $29.5 billion, which -- get this -- is more than the combined value of its outstanding stock. Let us reiterate for emphasis and drama value: Sprint lost more money in the fourth quarter of 2007 than the company is
worth. Wow. If it's any consolation, the staggering figure is largely due to a $29.7 billion write-down of Nextel's value, which as the Wall Street Journal lays out, makes the 2005 merger officially a "Deal From Hell." With postpaid subscribers continuing to migrate to other carriers, there's no telling how to stop the
hemorrhaging -- especially if the fresh $99 unlimited plan doesn't end up doing the trick -- but something tells us the
move to Kansas isn't going to magically patch it all up.
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Apple MacBook Pro Penryn tests: a little more speed, a lot less heat
Filed under: Features, Laptops
Sure, more speed is great, but on OS X most bumps don't have an appreciable effect on everyday work (unless all you're doing is video encoding). We were more interested in what Intel's Penryn processors can do for the MBP's heat envelope, so we maxed out both CPU cores in this brand new machine at let 'em crank for a half an hour. Our test machine may or may not compare to a later 3rd-gen MBP in terms of heat efficiency, but here's the quick rundown:
Core Duo (2.16GHz)
- Peak: 195° F, fans over 5000 RPM
- Average: 185° F, fans about 4900 RPM
- Enclosure (bottom): very hot to the touch
- Enclosure (top): fairly hot to the touch
Penryn Core 2 Duo (2.5GHz)
- Peak: 176° F, fans about 3400 RPM
- Average: 173° F, fans about 2500 RPM (much quieter)
- Enclosure (bottom): warm to the touch
- Enclosure (top): warm to fairly hot to the touch
The usual Xbench tests are after the break.
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Corsair bringing 16GB Voyager GT flash drive to CeBIT
Filed under: Storage
Don't worry, you're not losing it -- yet, anyway. Corsair has indeed already launched a
16GB (and
32GB, for that matter) Voyager flash drive, but its forthcoming Voyager GT promises access speeds "up to four times faster" than standard USB 2.0 drives. Furthermore, this one comes housed in a water and shock resistant all-rubber casing, and could be entirely more appealing if that keyring slot were expanded to open bottles. Nevertheless, Corsair's hoping that you'll find enough to love to drop $169.99 after it debuts at CeBIT in just a few days.
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MacBook Air patent is mocking you
Filed under: Laptops
It's no secret where this little bit of patented know-how
ended up. Apple's little port door for the MacBook Air is one of those design elements of legend that could one day go down next to MagSafe and the Click Wheel in the annals of Apple history -- even if it's near impossible to use without picking up the computer. So it's a little ironic that even the dreamer that drew up this patent couldn't imagine a mac without FireWire, Ethernet and a pair of USB ports. Oh Steve, you ask so much of us.
[Via
SlashGear]
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SanDisk does up 8GB Cruzer Fleur USB drive for the ladies
Filed under: Storage
Our feminist theory classes in college left us in the mindset that lady-tailored devices can probably do better than pink, but hey, if you're looking for something retractable with U3 and 8GB of storage, SanDisk just added this new $80 Cruzer Fleur to their lineup.
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NASA to Demonstrate Moon Rover
coondoggie writes "NASA will this week demonstrate its lunar robot rover equipped with a drill designed to find water and oxygen-rich soil on the moon. NASA said the engineering challenge of building such as drilling system was daunting because a robot rover designed for prospecting within lunar craters has to operate in continual darkness at extremely cold temperatures with little power. The moon has one-sixth the gravity of Earth, so a lightweight rover will have a difficult job resisting drilling forces and remaining stable.The project is just one demonstration of the collaboration NASA is utilizing to bring together its next moon shot. For example, Carnegie Mellon was responsible for the robot's design and testing, and the Northern Centre for Advanced Technology built the drilling system. NASA's Glenn Research Center contributed the rover's power management system. NASA's Ames Research Center built a system that navigates the rover in the dark. The Canadian Space Agency funded a Neptec camera that builds three-dimensional images of terrain using laser light, NASA said."
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Microsoft Internal Emails Show Dismay With Vista
bfwebster writes "Microsoft is currently facing a class-action suit over its designation of allegedly under-powered hardware as being 'Vista Capable.' The discovery process of that lawsuit has now compelled Microsoft to produce some internal emails discussing those issues. The Seattle Post-Intelligencer has published extracts of some of those emails, along with a link to a a PDF file containing a more extensive email exchange. The emails reflect a lot of frustration among senior Microsoft personnel about Vista's performance problems and hardware incompatibilities. They also appear to indicate that Microsoft lowered the hardware requirements for 'Vista Capable' in order to include certain lower-end Intel chipsets, apparently as a favor to Intel: 'In the end, we lowered the requirement to help Intel make their quarterly earnings so they could continue to sell motherboards with 915 graphics embedded.' Read the whole PDF; it is informative, interesting, and at times (unintentionally) funny."
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Proposed Bill in Tennessee Penalizes Schools for Allowing Piracy
An anonymous reader brings us an Ars Technica report about a proposed bill in Tennessee which would require state-funded universities to enforce anti-piracy standards. The universities would be forced to "track down and stop infringing activity" or risk losing their funding. The U.S. Congress requested last year that certain universities do this voluntarily. Quoting: "Efforts taken by universities thus far to deter and prevent piracy have had mixed results. The University of Utah, for instance, claims that it has reduced MPAA and RIAA complaints by 90 percent and saved $1.2 million in bandwidth costs by instituting anti-piracy filtering mechanisms. However, the school revealed that their filtering system hasn't been able to stop encrypted P2P traffic and noted that students will find ways to circumvent any system. The end result, some say, will be a costly arms race as students perpetually work to circumvent anti-piracy systems put in place by universities."
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Creditor Objects To SCO's Plans
I Don't Believe in Imaginary Property writes "It seems that SCO is never without a trick up its sleeve. In the new '$100 million' reorganization plan, $5 million of which is cash and $95 million credit, one of the creditors is protesting because SCO is hiding the Definitive Documents until there's no time to object. In their own words, 'The debtors are proposing to file the Disclosure Statement 33 days before the hearing, in compliance with the requirement that it be filed at least 25 days before the hearing (F. R. Bankr. P. 3017). However, it is clear that this Disclosure Statement will be inadequate for evaluating the Plan, because it will not include any of the Definitive Documents. The Debtors are proposing to file the Definitive Documents separately, and to do so a mere five business days before the hearing, which is zero days before objections are due.'"
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