Technology Industry Archive

A group in the digital entertainment industry is creating yet another standards body to develop digital rights management that won’t repel consumers. Many have pointed to Apple’s visible absence, but the missing, and problems, go far deeper. The consortium is called the Digital Entertainment Content Ecosystem (DECE). Its members have been working since May to create rules that will...

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Talkbiznow.com’s CEO Martin Warnerhas been making the tech start-up rounds: raising money, talking to the press, raising money, working to attract customers, raising money. The company is trying to position itself as a new approach to using social networks in business, adding such software services as blogging, webinar facilities, calendars, free user advertisements, and online stores to...

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According to Engadget, Microsoft has doubled sales on all Xbox 360 models between last weekend and the weekend before. I tried calling Microsoft’s PR agency but didn’t receive an answer, so I’m in speculation mode here, but I wonder if the report is entirely accurate, or whether there is significant spin with questions to be answered. For example, Xbox has been in the number...

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One of the annoying parts of trying to find video and audio on the Internet is that you are completely dependent on descriptions attached to files. Miss the right keywords and you’ve probably missed the chance of finding what you’re seeking. Even when you’ve found a clip, you sit through the whole thing looking for the moment you wanted. That’s why EveryZing, Inc. is so...

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Starting tomorrow, TigerDirect and CompUSA (both owned by Systemax Inc.) expect to start offering a guaranteed price trade-in program for PC and television buyers. A customer can purchase a buy-back plan from financial services company TechForward, Inc. The buyer will be able to send the original unit in for a guaranteed percentage of the original price. The idea sounded like something...

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This weekend, a reader emailed and upbraided me for missing that Microsoft had signed new parts deals and moved to a smaller GPU die, all of which should theoretically saved money and reduced the costs of the Xbox 360. We went back and forth a bit, only agreeing that Microsoft seemed desperate. In the process, I dug out the most recent 10K available, went though some explanations — and...

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This is the day of the big discount: all of Microsoft’s Xbox 360 units have officially dropped price by $50, giving the company the cheapest entry point for the would-be gamer. But this smacks of desperation in a whole lot of ways, for example, like this being the second price drop Microsoft has tried this year alone. When you consider the number of units they sell normally and how...

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MythBusters, the television story that experimentally examines urban myths, old wives’ tales, and other popular wisdom, apparently backed down from examining RFID security when pressed by legal representatives from Texas Instruments and leading credit card organizations. That may have silenced some uncomfortable examination in the short run, but the companies have worked against their...

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Major Internet companies say that they inform their customers about privacy issues through specially written policies. What they don’t say is that more often than not consumers would need college undergraduate educations or higher to easily wade through the verbiage.  When the House sent letters to 31 major Internet-related companies asking them about their privacy practices, included...

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Chrome, was guaranteed to become a hot topic in the business and tech circuits: Not only was it from Google, the current tech darling, but offered room to speculate whether the new browser would “kill” Internet Explorer or be the “operating system” for cloud computing. But who really cares? We left the world of the single operating system years ago, because that’s...

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