- Author: admin
- Filed under: General
- Date: Jan 20,2011
Amazon has just announced it has agreed terms to buy up all the remaining shares of Lovefilm it didn’t already own.
The British outfit operates a subscription-based movie rental and streaming service in its home market along with Germany, Denmark, Sweden and Norway, and should give Amazon a very solid base from which to build its presumably Netflix-besting ambitions.
Lovefilm has been just about the closest thing Europe has had to the ridiculously successful North American movie distributor and Amazon is arguably getting in just in time, given Netflix’s overtures toward expanding into the UK.
Customary closing conditions will need to be met before the final stamp of approval is applied, but the acquisition is expected to complete by the end of Q1 of this year. Amazon’s wading into yet more content distribution, who’d have thunk it? Read the rest of this entry »
- Author: admin
- Filed under: General
- Date: Jan 20,2011
Google’s Q4 financial results press release contains a bombshell: as of April 4, co-founder Larry Page (on the far right, above) will replace Eric Schmidt as CEO and assume responsibility for day-to-day operations and product development and strategy.
That doesn’t mean Schmidt is leaving — he’ll carry on as Executive Chairman and serve as an advisor to Page and co-founder Sergey Brin, focused on external things like “deals, partnerships, customers and broader business relationships, government outreach and technology thought leadership.”
As for Sergey, he’ll now “devote his energy to strategic projects, in particular working on new products,” with the simple title of Co-Founder.
Schmidt’s clarified and explained the change in a blog post, saying that the idea is to make leading Google as efficient as possible, and that “Larry, in my clear opinion, is ready to lead.” Read the rest of this entry »
Making the rounds, are we Google? Just over 24 hours after we saw an AT&T-friendly Nexus One go on sale, along come Sprint yelling “me too!” at the top of its lungs.
Today marks the day that Google’s first-ever smartphone now has at least a holding place on all four of the major US carriers, with T-Mobile nabbing it first and Verizon users still waiting for that vague “spring release.”
Unfortunately, Sprint’s making us wait when it comes to finding out an exact price and release date, but at least we’re assured that both are coming “soon.”
Microsoft just dropped its first press release of MIX 10 on us, and in addition to detailing the Sliverlight and XNA-based Windows Phone 7 Series development situation, we’ve also got a list of launch software partners and some screenshots of apps in action.
There’s some heavy hitters here, and everything from games to enterprise apps are represented — notables include the Associated Press, Citrix, EA Mobile, Foursquare, Namco, Pangeonce, Pandora, Seesmic, Shazam, and Sling. We’re slated to see some demos of these in action, we’ll let you know how things look. Full list after the break. Read the rest of this entry »
Bad news, HTC HD2 owners: Microsoft has finally come right out and confirmed our suspicions that the mighty HTC HD2 won’t be upgraded to Windows Phone 7 Series.
Joe Belfiore just told us that the HD2 is “not compliant with the Windows Phone 7 Series hardware specifications,” which should end any of the lingering doubt that’s clouded this issue since MWC.
That certainly puts a damper on the HD2′s upcoming launch on T-Mobile, but hey — every Microsoft employee here at MIX is carrying one, so it’s clearly the WinMo handset to get until it’s eclipsed by 7 late in the year.
Pour one out for the king, friends.
We knew Android 2.1 was coming for the Droid, but we’ll confess – we didn’t expect it to come this soon.
Motorola is now reporting via its official Facebook page that it’s “happy to relay the 2.1 upgrade to Droid will start to roll out this week,” going on to tease that it “will have more information to share on other device upgrades later.”
There’s no detail on what the Droid update will entail or whether it’ll roll out to every user this week (we doubt it), but by all indications, this is a promising sign that Moto’s keeping the pedal to the metal, we’d say. Read the rest of this entry »
You know, sometimes if you just study hard, keep your nose clean, and stay away from the pirate cable TV business, fate will do you a solid.
For instance, check this post by PreCentral forum member go4craig. Today, the hapless youngster innocently applied webOS Doctor in a bid to reset his phone back to factory and wouldn’t ya know it? When all was said and done, the phone’s operating system was upgraded to webOS 1.2. And what’s more, the maneuver has been repeated successfully by a handful of other forum members.
What can the accidental early adopter expect for their trouble? How about account information for the App Catalog (a sign of paid apps to come), a Select All option in the browser’s edit menu, and some changes in GPS location services. In addition to all this inadvertent newness, the update is said to have “much improved (zoom animation)” and a number of “little tweaks throughout.” Read the rest of this entry »
- Author: admin
- Filed under: Gaming
- Date: Feb 26,2008
It’s no surprise that Sony has had some sort of new PS3 SKU in the works, but the company has now finally gotten official with it, and thrown in another surprise to boot.
On that former front, Sony’s announced the Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots PS3 Bundle, which includes said game, an 80GB PS3 and a DualShock 3 wireless controller (also available separately), all for the usual $500 price tag. Look for it to coincide with the launch of MGS4 in the second quarter of this year.
As if that wasn’t enough, Sony’s also taken the wraps off its new God of War PSP Entertainment Pack, which includes a spiffy red Kratos-approved PSP, the God of War: Chains of Olympus game, Superbad on UMD, and a voucher to download Syphon Filter: Combat Ops for free. $200 and it’s yours this June. Read the rest of this entry »
DSC-H50, a new 9.1-megapixel shooter that should have camera fans perking up their ears.
The new model — a successor to the Sony is no stranger to digital cameras, as the company has professed in its press release detailing the Cyber-ShotDSC-H9 “super zoom” camera — sports a Carl Zeiss 15x optical zoom lens, a 3-inch tilting LCD display, ISO to 3200, and a long-distance flash (capable of lighting subjects from 55 feet away).
The DSC-H50 also has an “advanced sports” shooting mode which allows it to utilize ultra-high shutter speeds (like 1/4000 of a second). The camera is expected to go on sale in May, and will only slightly break the bank at $400. Read the rest of this entry »
Tired of taking candid shots with your point-and-shoot that can barely stretch over the state of Nevada? Sony’s got those megapixels in spades with its new DSC-W300, the new top-end shooter in its W lineup.
In addition to the 13.6 megapixel sensor, the camera sports a 2.7-inch LCD, 3x optical zoom, optical image stabilization and up to ISO 6400 shots in “extra high sensitivity” mode.
The camera also brings along Sony’s Smile Shutter tech, and other fancy processor capabilities, including a limited burst mode. The DSC-W300 will be available in May for about $350. Read the rest of this entry »
