Stewtopia
Kodak updates their consumer friendly line of cameras.
Ah…. just recovering from the cornucopia of electronics announcements at CES and Macworld, it appears PMA is upon us. PMA (Photo Marketers Association) is held once a year in Orlando, FL and is the photo nerd’s paradise. The show doesn’t start until next week, but that doesn’t stop the early announcements (and rumors).
We’ll be rounding up the the new digital cameras announced prior to the big camera show, so stay tuned.
A number of stories this morning regarding the relaunch of Disney’s Moviebeam service in 29 markets this year. In a nutshell, Moviebeam is a hard drive based set top box that receives movies over unused television spectrum. The box ships with a 100 movies on the hard drive and about 10 movies are swapped out each week for new ones. Movies then can be rented for $1.99 to $3.99 (catalog versus new releases) with HD movies costing $1 more.
While the service is interesting, the biggest problem that I see is that the set top box is $250 before rebates, which is a huge barrier to entry for many folks. Not to mention it is another piece of hardware to hook up to a television. I have a sense that if this service were being a promoted by someone like Apple it could be hugely successful, but with backers such as Cisco and Disney, the future of Moviebeam is fuzzy at best.
(Via Zatz Not Funny)
Jonesing for your Swimsuit Edition in you pocket? Tomorrow morning, Apple is there to help you view SI‘s bathing beauties while on that commuter flight to Des Moines. $16 gets you all the videos for your iPod so you can look less creepy in coach oogling scantily clad young girls in your spare time.
(Via TUAW)
I thought when I launched this blog that I would have coverage of all things gadget, but I realized over time that there are certain product areas that I could care less about. Mobile phones actually tracks pretty high on that list. This isn’t to say I’ll never cover mobiles on the site, but they must be leaps, not steps above the rest.
It seems like mobile phone carriers launch a new middle of the road phone every other week and keeping up in the market is pretty difficult. That said, I do like to point my faithful reader(s) in the right direction. Engadget Mobile launched this morning and promises to cover the mobile phone world like nobody’s business.
XM announced this morning that they’ve signed a 3 year, $55 million with Oprah Winfrey to launch the “Oprah and Friends” channel for the satellite radio provider. The channel will:
daily programming on a variety of topics including nutrition, fitness, health, self improvement,
home, and current events from popular “Oprah” personalities, including Bob Greene, Dr. Mehmet Oz, Dr. Robin Smith, Marianne Williamson, Nate Berkus, and Gayle King.
The station will launch September of 2006.
(Via Orbitcast.)
What would a day be without a little news about the iTMS? To celebrate the billionth track sold on iTMS, Apple is giving away a Nano and and a $100 gift certificate for every 100,000 songs sold (about 500) until they reach 1 billion songs. For the billionth track, the grand prize is an iMac, 10 iPods and a $10,000 gift certificate to iTMS.
If you want to try to game the system, try downloading iTunes Music Store Estimator to give you an idea where the numbers stand. Good luck.
If you’ve been shopping for an HDTV, you might want to check out Ars Technica’s CableCard guide. CableCard is the technology that allows televisions and other devices access cable tv without a cable box. The guide goes through the long history of CableCard and details out the questionable future that the technology has.
The long and short of is:
CableCard 1.0
CableCard 2.0
DCAS
The bottom line is if you can wait to buy that HDTV and can stand looking at your ugly cable box, you possibly, may be slightly better off. Sounds like a way to continue squeezing people for a cable box rental.
(Via eHomeUpgrade.)
Not that I’m excited about the new format war (HD-DVD vs BD) and given the craptastic line up of movies announced, I’m not even sure why I’m reporting on this, but my adoring fan would be upset if I didn’t.
Sony announced today wholesale prices for new BDs at $23.95 and catalog (read:old) titles at $17.95, both commanding a slight premium over DVD. Now, remember folks, those prices are wholesale and vendors usually charge something a little extra so they don’t go out of business.
No release dates, but I’m sure they’ll come out around they same time the players arrive.
(Via Engadget)
The long rumored 1 GB nano was announced today for $149 just in time for Valentine’s Day. The rumor that the demise of the Shuffle was coming seems a little premature as they have both dropped in price to $99 and $69 for the 1GB and 512mb respectively.
It’s Tuesday morning, so what’s new for our pals at the iTunes Video Store? Looks like they bagged a big one – Showtime. It seems that premium cable didn’t want to be left out of the iTMS fun.
This morning, Weeds, Fat Actress, and Sleeper Cell launched on iTMS with their first seasons available to download. Nice thing here, they may be premium cable, but they are not premium prices. Same as before, $1.99.
So, with Showtime down, should we expect other premium cable shows to show up? There’s a certain mobster show that is due to start up in a few weeks that I’m sure would sell faster than fresh cannoli. Also, what about corporate parent, CBS? Maybe Survivor will make iTMS soon…
CBS going it alone will be selling new episodes of Survivor on CBS.com. Episodes will be $1.99 just like someone else we know, but they will expire after 24 hours after you download it. They’re using Windows Media 9.0, but not the version that is Mac compatible.
While this is interesting, I do wonder how well CBS will fare on its own. Given that iTMS is an end to end solution and it isn’t a rental, folks may be a little less inclined to pony up that 1.99.
(Via eHomeUpgrade.)
It’s funny. I was just talking to a friend the other day about how I’d like to shy away from reporting on rumors on the site. No particular reason other than a. not liking to be wrong and b. trying to not look like too big a gadget fanboy. I suppose both are true.
Some guy from the boards over at TreoCentral is reporting the Treo 800p is due out on March 15. The new phone will feature a slimmer form factor, a sharper 320×320 screen, 128mb of RAM, a Wi-Fi option, Bluetooth 2 and 3.2 megapixel camera.
Sounds great, but something seemed kind of fishy when the poster mentioned that the guy from Palm demoed the new screen by showing the text of “Julius Caesar.” Considering the release date, this makes the whole thing seem a little fake.
Judge for yourself.
(Via Engadget.)
Looks like Sony is planning an online service to launch with the new Playstation 3 to compete with Xbox 360 and Xbox Live. The folks over at Joystiq have been trolling the Playstation message boards and came up with a scan a user had uploaded from March’s Playstation magazine.
No real details other than Sony plans on matching Xbox Live “feature for feature and then some.”
Game geeks rejoice.
(Via Joystiq)
I don’t normally talk about stock prices on the blog, but this one is of particular interest. Google missed their numbers by about 15% and their stock is trading at about 15% off of their closing price today. Tomorrow is going to be ugly for a lot of internet companies.
You know, I’m usually on top of new tech, first in line, etc. But I gotta be honest with you, I haven’t had much interest in the Sling Box. I understand it’s coolness factor – place shifting television is very cool. I know that if I traveled more, I might actually care more.
Anyhow, I think I started to get it a little more today. There’s nothing like a big cash infusion from Dish Network to realize that this is a pretty cool technology. With Microsoft threatening to enter this business with the update of Windows MCE, Sling will need all the money they can get there hands on.
(Via Zatz Not Funny. . ..)