Three Billion Songs Downloaded From ITunes
July 31, 2007
Delhi (dBTechno) - Apple Inc today announced that more than three billion songs have been downloaded from the iTunes store since 2003.
iTunes is the world’s largest “legal” online catalogue of music, movies and TV shows.
iTunes recently surpassed Amazon and Target to become the third largest music retailer in the U.S.
“We’d like to thank all of our customers who have contributed to this incredible milestone,” said Eddy Cue, Apple’s vice president of iTunes.
Apple ignited the personal computer revolution in the 1970s with the Apple II and reinvented the personal computer in the 1980s with the Macintosh. Many industry analysts believe that the “iPod” revolution has done the same thing to the music industry.
Naughty Movies Make Their Way To Blu-Ray
July 31, 2007
Los Angeles (dBTechno) - Sony appears to be giving into demand asking for pornograpny content to be released on blu-ray.
Previously, the company has said that no porn will be released on the new discs.
The Adult Treasure Expo 2007 in Chiba, Japan drew a substantial audience — most of whom who were looking for high-definition porn which in the past was only been available on the HD-DVD format.
“In Japan, there are some problems. Companies cannot press Blu-ray discs because they cannot touch adult-related contracts,” Kiyotaka Konno, director of administration at Assist, a Japanese company that authors and replicates DVDs for the adult industry in Japan, told IDG News.
“So we asked some makers in Taiwan to do the work, and then we import the discs back to Japan. The Taiwanese company was able to obtain a pressing machine from Sony and will start mass production in August.”
However, some industry insiders believe that the move is too late.
Blu-ray has already lost the market for the pornography industry in the United States, with most producers standardising on the HD DVD format, as it is cheaper to use.
Many still believe that porn was the deciding factor in the past war between Betamax and VHS.
Rockstar Developing “Secret” PS3 Game
July 31, 2007
Boston (dBTechno) - Video game developer Rockstar Games is working on an exclusive franchise for the Sony Playstation 3 console, according to Sony America’s director of third party relations Michael Shorrock.
The new project was revealed on Sony’s official US blog this past weekend.
“Everyone knows to have success in this business you need to look ahead, identifying the talent and titles that are going to give consumers new kinds of gaming experiences that help set the bar for the rest of the industr,” said Michael Shorrock. “Rockstar has a heritage for doing just that. We have had incredible success with the GTA franchise and are happy to continue to offer those titles on our platforms, and even more excited about what’s to come from the current and future relationship between our companies.”
“Rockstar really wanted to make a game that you can truly only do on PS3, harnessing the power of CELL and Blu-ray disc and this deal lets them do just that,” Shorrock added.
For now, Sony has not offered many details of the new game but promised to “share more info as soon as we can.”
Wikia Inc. Buys Grub
July 31, 2007
London (dBTechno) - Wikia Inc, is one step closer to offering a competitive search engine to Google and Yahoo.
Jimmy Wales, the founder of the hugely popular online encyclopaedia Wikipedia, has outlined his plans for his new start up company and the new search engine.
Wikia Inc has bought Grub, a distributed Web crawler, from LookSmart Ltd for an undisclosed amount and released it under an open-source license.
Based on the Wikipedia online encyclopedia, the Search Wikia project aims to develop a search mechanism based on open-source and human input.
“When I opened Wikipedia with only three articles in it, it was a pretty bad encyclopedia,” Wales told the Washington Post. “That’s where we’re going to be in December with the search engine. We’ll tell people upfront: ‘It’s not very good yet.’ But we’ll open it up to get feedback and community involvement to help us make it better.”
Wikipedia is written and maintained by thousands of volunteer contributors from all over the world.
According to IDG News Service, Wales says the new search product will provide an improved search experience over those offered by commercial, proprietary search engines like Yahoo and Google.
Smaller less-known search projects are encouraged to join the new Wikia project, Mr Wales said. “A lot of second-tier players understand that competing with Google directly as independent proprietary projects, they’ll never catch up,” he said. “By banding together using open-source software, they can effectively compete with Google and improve their services.”
Verizon Reports Increase In Q2 Profits
July 30, 2007
New York (dBTechno) - Verizon Communications Inc, the second largest US telecoms firm behind AT&T Inc, reported a 4.5-per-cent rise in second quarter profits on Monday, while its wireless unit announced the acquisition of Rural Cellular Corp.
Net income climbed to 1.68 billion dollars from 1.61 billion dollars in the second quarter of 2006, thanks to strong sales from its wireless, internet and television divisions. Revenue was up 6.3 per cent to 23.3 billion dollars, the New York-based company said.
Verizon Wireless - co-owned with Britain’s Vodafone Group Plc - said it would buy Rural Cellular for 757 million dollars, adding 716,000 extra subscribers and bolstering its presence in less- populated areas of the United States.
Google To Add Copyright Technology To YouTube
July 30, 2007
London (dBTechno) - Google has announced plans to implement a digital video fingerprint screening technology to prevent pirated clips being posted on YouTube, according to a company spokesperson Monday.
Copyright status will reportedly be determined in minutes, reported TechShout.Com.
“We hope to have the testing completed and technology available by sometime in the Fall. But this is one of the most technologically complicated tasks that we have ever undertaken… it’s difficult to forecast specific launch dates,” a spokesman said.
Louis Solomon, one of several attorneys pursuing huge lawsuits against Google for past infringement, said the implementation would be too late to affect the lawsuit but encouraged the company to “treat all content providers fairly.”
iTWire’s Stan Beer notes, “Last year, YouTube was supposed to implement a copyright filtering system by the end of the year. Then early this year a rumour surfaced that YouTube would license content filtering technology from Audible Magic. Then in April, Google CEO Eric Schmidt said YouTube would soon release a copyright filtering system soon.”
In response to previous lawsuits YouTube said that it goes beyond what is required under the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, which gives Web hosts protection from copyright lawsuits so long as they comply with requests to remove unauthorized material.
Bill Gates Sets Exit Strategy
July 30, 2007
Seattle (dBTechno) - Microsoft is facing competition from all sides and will soon have another problem as its leader Bill Gates works on his exit plan to leave the company next year as planned, according to a company spokesperson.
32 years ago, Gates founded the now multi-billion dollar Microsoft corporation.
The 51-year-old chairman has not slowed down one bit despite reports are that he still plans to step down next year.
Gates will be leaving Microsoft to devote all of his energy to the $33 billion Bill And Melinda Gate s Foundation which is dedicated to bringing innovations in health and learning to the global community.
“I am in a lucky situation of having way more things that seem interesting to do and very exciting and important, and working with smart people, and highlyimpactful, way more than a 24-hour day will fit,” said Gates.
Giuliani and Romney To Skip CNN YouTube Debate
July 30, 2007
Boston (dBTechno) - Rudy Giuliani and Mitt Romney have both announced that they will not be taking part in the CNN YouTube debate for the Republian presidential hopefuls which is set for September 17th in St. Petersburg.
Romney formally dropped out of the debate while Giuliani stated that he is “unlikely to participate due to scheduling conflicts.”
The two Republians which have confirmed that they will take part in the unique debate are Senator John McCain and Rep. Ron Paul.
Many are speculating now that since these two big guns in the Republican race have dropped out, the debate may not even take place. It could be rescheduled or scrapped completely if some sort of resolution cannot be made.
“We’re working with the campaigns to resolve any scheduling issues,” said CNN’s Washington bureau chief David Bohrman.
Lightroom 1.1 with expanded RAW support
July 29, 2007
Munich (dBTechno) - Adobe is now offering an upgrade for its Photoshop Lightroom software.
Lightroom 1.1 is ready for use with Windows Vista, the manufacturer reports.
It also supports the import and processing of RAW data from 13 additional digital cameras from manufacturers like Canon, Nikon or Olympus.
Anyone who already has a license for Lightroom can upgrade free of charge over the internet. Otherwise Lightroom 1.1 costs 249 dollars in stores. — Surround sound through headphones
Could FaceBook Be Shut Down?
July 29, 2007
Boston (dBTechno) - The owner of Facebook Mark Zuckerberg is being accused of stealing the idea for his $1 billion website.
US District Judge Douglas Woodlock told Cameron Winklevoss, Tyler Winklevoss and Divya Narendra they must produce evidence that they hired Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg to work on Harvard Connection.
Three former classmates have come out and accused him of stealing the idea, software, and business plan for Facebook.
The three former Harvard students said that Zuckerberg stole the idea while working as a programmer in their own social-networking site ConnectU.
“Dorm room chitchat does not make a contract, so I want to see it,” Judge Woodlock said in court as the case began yesterday.
The legal suit was originally filed in September 2004, but was dismissed on a technicality and the trio had to refile.
Zuckerberg filed a separate lawsuit in a Californian court in 2005 alleging that ConnectU hired hackers to steal thousands of email addresses from Facebook.
