News Archive for 09/07/02
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Jammie Thomas-Rasset plans to appeal the recent court decision ordering her to pay $1.92 million in a case involving the RIAA. The legal battle has followed several twists, with the initial filing only leading to damages totaling $222,000 before the decision was thrown out. The federal jury present for the retrial, however, tacked on another $1.7 million.
MCS Music America has filed a lawsuit against Real Networks, Yahoo and Microsoft over alleged music copyright infringements earlier this week. The copyright administration company claims the defendants breached copyright on several pieces of music and their artists. MCS represents a large number of other plaintiffs and says streaming music services such as Rhapsody, Zune and Yahoo Music allow users to retain the copyrighted tracks for an extended period of time, saying the defendants are required to obtain the rights for such a form of distribution.
Digital Vision on Thursday announced the upcoming launch of its GiGo Digital TV Recorder, which allows users to record Freeview digital transmissions straight onto a USB thumb drive in MPEG2 format. There is no built-in hard drive, as with other DVR products, and the GiGo is meant to appeal to users who miss their VCR rather than avid home theater enthusiasts.
First spotted just over a month ago, the Nokia 6790 Surge got a one-month delay in its launch date at wireless provider AT&T. While an exact date is not announced, sources believe the phone, which used to go by the codename Mako, will appear sometime in mid-July. Some preliminary specs of the sliding QWERTY handset include a 2.4-inch, 240x320 display, and quad-band GSM and dual-band HSDPA support. The Surge is also one of a handful of mid-range Nokia phones equipped with the smartphone-grade Symbian S60 operating system.
Packard Bell has recently updated its imedia series of desktops with a 60 percent smaller footprint and a matte chassis and soft curves along with a glowing blue power button. Buyers can pick from a range of processors, including Intel Core 2 Quad or AMD Phenom II X4 quad-core chips, and option up to 8GB of RAM. Storage space can be as large as 1TB, and there is an optional Blu-ray drive.
While it was reported just yesterday that Toshiba's first full touchscreen smartphone, the TG01, will be officially unveiled at a launch event in London on July 9th, it is now known the handset will make its debut in the UK at provider Orange on the same date. The wireless provider already has a product page up for the device; pricing is unknown but may be unveiled at the July 9th launch event.
Chinese electronics maker Inkia has recently launched a pair of nameless Mobile Internet Devices (MIDs) powered by 1.6GHz Intel Atom CPUs, with both 7-inch and 5-inch versions. Each is equipped with an 800x480 resolution touchscreen, 1GB of RAM and solid state drive storage up to 32GB. The preloaded operating system is either Linux or Windows XP. Other features common to either system include 3G support, Wi-Fi, Bluetooth and GPS.
Sony's PlayStation product planning head Naoya Matsui today told Japanese publication GameBusiness that the company had always planned a version of the PSP without the UMD drive. He claims that the company had wanted downloadable games from the handheld's launch in 2004 but that it wasn't feasible until the PSP Go due to infrastructure. It was necessary to have not just simple download to the system itself but a means of getting games from a PS3 to the PSP as well as an easier sync process for loading games, movies and music.
Sprint this week staked its ground and claimed it would be the first US carrier to have a 3G femtocell. The company was already the first American firm to have any kind of femtocell in the Samsung Airave but now says to Unstrung that it should beat AT&T to having a device that can share 3G data with the home, improving reception for some smartphones and other devices that don't have their own Wi-Fi. Most current femtocells only boost voice service by creating a miniature cellular signal that pipes all data through a home Internet link.
An investigation of Microsoft's licensing for Windows 7 has revealed today that the company plans to introduce a Family Pack bundle for the new OS when it ships in October. Kristan Kenney has found installation rights for "qualified" Family Pack owners that give owners of that special copy the option of installing it on two extra PCs without encountering activation problems. The Family Pack only appears for the Home Premium edition's license and not for Professional or Ultimate.
A number of prospective buyers are upset at the absence of a cheaper upgrade to Windows 7 Ultimate, accounts suggest. While those moving to Windows 7 Home Premium or Professional may be eligible for Microsoft's discount program, a copy of Ultimate is currently only available at the full $220 price, even if a person already owns Vista Ultimate. "Vista Ultimate owners have already been ripped off once in paying for basically worthless 'Extras,'" says corporate IT worker Lindsey Mundy. "Now to rub salt in the wound, MS is leaving them out...for some reason best only known to them, when offering a reasonable upgrade price for Windows 7."
With the introduction of its latest A4-sized electronic paper display, Bridgestone recently announced it will begin supplying e-book makers with the product. At the same time, Bridgestone will offer a development kit to help developers create prototypes of new devices using the Bridgestone e-paper technology. The latest e-paper display from Bridgestone is ten times faster than the company's previous effort, with a 0.8-second rewrite speed for the 8.3 by 11.7-inch display.
T-Mobile's version of the HTC Touch Pro2 may ship later than originally expected if sources are truthful. Initially assumed to ship on the 22nd, the phone may now not show until August 12th based on TmoNews' information. Why the delay exists isn't known, but the date would follow a week after the expected August 5th ship date for the myTouch 3G and may be tailored to keep the Pro2 from undermining the Android phone's bigger launch.
In some good news for local cell phone manufacturers, the European Union's plan to introduce new taxes for handsets sold throughout Europe has been scrapped, says a Wednesday report. The new taxes would have raised prices customers pay for new phones and most likely lowered the sales numbers of an already falling market. The decision came from Sweden, which hosts the rotating presidency of the EU, and will mean the Customs Code Committee will continue to treat cell phones as duty-free items.
HTC's Hero is likely bound for AT&T if an FCC filing is indicative of plans. The test entries show the phone using both the 850MHz and 1,900MHz bands that would be necessary for HSPA-based 3G on AT&T's network and which aren't present in the current version, which only recognizes Asia- and Europe-friendly 900MHz and 2,100MHz frequencies.
Sales of the Palm Pre have cooled off to where supply is keeping up with demand, JPMorgan analyst Paul Coster said in an investment note today. He believes that about 270,000 Pres will have shipped in the first month of sales but that waiting lists have largely been reduced, revealing a near-ideal balance in what Palm ships each day. About 40,000 of the smartphones are estimated to now ship each week through Sprint directly, while more should also arrive through Best Buy and Radio Shack.
LG is developing a new designer phone that would specifically target the iPhone, the company's wireless chief Ahn Seung-kwon told Korea's Yonhap today. Only providing a teaser, he says the future device would ship in the fall and come within Black Label series that has so far been reserved for LG's best non-smartphones, such as the Arena and Viewty.
Archos on Thursday confirmed that it would port its Archos 9 PCtablet to the US. The ultra-mobile PC is due to arrive Stateside in the fall and is one of the first systems known to ship with Windows 7. Adding the OS both gives it reasonable performance with its 1.2GHz Atom chip as well as fuller support for the touchscreen features essential to the design.
AMD is developing an integrated graphics chipset for budget PCs that could take the performance crown in the category, a leaked roadmap shows. Codenamed RS880 but likely to be badged Radeon HD 4200 when it ships, the design will have a new graphics core that should run about 15 percent faster than "anything comparable" on the market, implying that NVIDIA's GeForce 9400 or 9400M may be the primary targets. The Inquirer adds that it should support AMD's Stream general-purpose computing technology and, by extension, would eventually support OpenCL.
Samsung on Thursday announced the release of the SCH-W760, the first handset in the industry equipped with an infrared camera that allows users to hold video conference calls in low-light environments. The slider also has a traditional, rear-facing 3-megapixel camera and otherwise features a 2.8-inch AMOLED display with 240x400 resolution. There is also 8GB of internal memory and a microSD memory card slot for adding even more storage space.
Many of the Windows PC makers building ultraportable notebooks based on Intel's low-cost CULV platform are learning first-hand that their cheaper case designs aren't enough to sustain the systems, a research note from AmTech analyst Doug Freedman says. Many of the companies design the systems with plastic shells to keep their prices down but are discovering that the cases are cracking, often forcing major replacements. Which companies are affected aren't mentioned, but Lenovo and MSI are some of the first making systems in the category with the IdeaPad U350 and X-Slim line respectively.
MSI today rounded out the hardware specs for the last of the current wave of X-Slim ultraportables. The 14-inch X400 will be the more colorful model of the group with "personalized" color bezels around the lip of the frame and its trackpad. It's also billed as one of the thinnest, lightest systems at its screen size at under an inch thick and 3.3 pounds.
Sonos is poised to update its veteran home audio controller with its first touchscreen model as a leak has shown this morning. Where the existing controller depends on button controls and a small screen to steer the wireless audio system, the CR200 spotted by Automated Home would have a much smaller overall profile but a larger touchscreen as its near-exclusive interface. All the multi-room audio selection and track queuing of the current model appear to carry over, as would a charging cradle for power.
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