Archive for: September 2009

Research in Motion will release the Mac version of its BlackBerry software on Friday, October 2 at 1 P.M. Eastern time. It will be available then via www.blackberry.com/mac.

RIM announced plans for BlackBerry Desktop Software for the Mac OS last week, but did not provide an actual release date.

RIM has added a number of new features to the software, including the ability to sync BlackBerry smartphones with multiple computers.

Microsoft formally introduced its Windows 7 Logo program on Wednesday, although the software giant has been working behind the scenes with many of its partners to apply the logo to products that will be compatible with Windows 7.

Over 6,000 products have received the logo; a list of them can be found at Ready7.com, Microsoft said. The logo will appear on product packaging and on the retailer's Web sites.

The Windows 7 compatibility logo means that the products have been tested against Windows 7; Microsoft has held similar logo compatibility programs with its previous operating systems. The difference here is that the partners were granted access for testing and compatibility purposes much earlier than with Vista, which suffered from a lack of third-party compatibility.

Other changes include intensive testing for the 64-bit versions of Windows 7, as well as all of the other Windows 7 versions. "This is an important change since 64 bit systems are becoming more mainstream," said Mark Relph, a senior director with the Windows Product Strategy Group, in a blog post.  


Relph promised that:

"Devices that carry the logo will work seamlessly," Relph wrote. "For example, a digital camera will automatically transfer photos or a wireless router will easily be set up in minutes and you can add a wireless device to Windows 7 that has received the logo in seconds.

"Software will install without worry," Relph added. "Applications and drivers are signed so that you know the file has not been tampered with and can trust there is no malware or spyware."

Let's hope so.

...

Looking for the future of advertising? Look no further than the UK, where advertising on the Internet recently surpassed television advertising. £1.75 billion was spent on Internet-based advertising during the first six months of this year in the UK alone--a record for the country.

Based on the new numbers, Internet advertising now comprises 23.5-percent of all ad spending in the country, just edging out TV at 21.9-percent. According to The Guardian, the Internet Advertising Bureau expected this shift to occur toward the end of the year, but the global recession sped up the process.

Microsoft today won a victory in a six year old patent battle, which had the company paying out $388 million in damages. A judge in Rhode Island overturned a ruling in favor of security software company Uniloc.

"We are pleased that the court has vacated the jury verdict and entered judgment in favor of Microsoft," a spokesperson for the software giant told The Seattle Post-Intelligencer yesterday.

The latest ruling in part of an on-going back and forth battle between the two companies over the patent for a software activation key. In late 2007, the court ruled in Microsoft's favor. In April 2009, it ruled in favor of Uniloc, awarding that record $388 million in damages.

It's pretty limited, but it's a start: mSpot has launched Mobile Movies, a third-party streaming service that displays 300 full-length movies across all four U.S. carriers and 30 handsets.

The service works on iPhones, BlackBerrys, Windows Mobile, and Android devices, plus several unspecified high-end feature phone models. An unlimited data plan is required; only the iPhone version works over Wi-Fi. Viewers can buy individual movies for $4.99, or subscribe to a credit-based monthly Movie Club membership at $9.99, $12.99, or $15.99 per month. That lets viewers watch up to four, six, or eight movies per month, respectively.

Members access movies via the phone's Web browser, so there's no downloading or syncing. But that means it's also completely dependent on available signal, like other streamed services, and therefore won't work on a plane or in a building with poor coverage.

mSpot said that it has signed deals with The Weinstein Company and Paramount, and is currently working on a deal with Universal. There's not much in the way of new releases for now. For more information, check out the company's FAQ.

Zipcar has released a free iPhone app that lets members find and reserve Zipcars around the world. The app displays available cars on a map centered on the user's current location, and takes reservations 24/7. In addition, it sorts cars by type, model, and time availability.

This being Zipcar, the company wasn't content with a basic scheduling app--so you can also do things like lock and unlock the doors, and honk the horn so you can find the damn thing in a parking lot, all from the app.

The 6.9MB app is available now in Apple's App Store. It requires iPhone OS 3.0, and works on both iPhone and iPod touch devices.

Research in Motion has unveiled TiVo for BlackBerry, a free app that lets users view the TiVo program guide and remotely schedule recordings from their smartphones.

The app browses categories and displays the most popular shows and daily picks, in what appears to be a miniature version of the TiVo's on-screen UI. The app also shows programming details such as title, description, runtime, and airdate. In addition, users can add shows to their BlackBerry calendar in order to receive reminders.

TiVo for BlackBerry is now available in BlackBerry App World as well as online. It works on just about any recent BlackBerry smartphone, including the Curve, Pearl, 8800, 8900, Storm, and Tour series.

For more TiVo tips, read our advanced how-to guide, "TiVo: 10 Things You Didn't Know You Could Do," on PCMag.com.

Disney has already jumped into the netbook space with the Asus EeePC, and the company is now ready to tackle the digital book space. On Tuesday Disney unveiled Disney Digital Books, an online repository of over 500 digitized books for children of all ages.

The content is all Disney-branded, so there will be no Google Books-level copyright issues. Children can read classic stories such as Pinocchio and Cinderella, as well as more current Disney offerings including Hannah Montana and High School Musical.

Parents who register on the site can take it for a spin for free, but access will then be limited to those who opt for a $79.95 yearly subscription or $8.95 monthly fee. One subscription covers access for up to three children.

Once logged in, children can choose their reading level: Level One, for beginning readers who might still be reading with parents; Level Two, for kids who are ready to read more independently; and Level Three, for those who can handle chapter books.

Level Two, for example, included a 32-page book called Tinker Bell and the Lost Treasure and a "Cars"-related book, called Tales from the Track. Level Three, meanwhile, had "junior novel" versions of movies like "High School Musical", "Bolt", and "Up".

If a reader is having trouble with a book, they can click on a word, and the "Magic Pen" feature will pronounce the word. The "Look and Listen" option, meanwhile, will read the entire book aloud for some selections. And a dictionary feature offers definitions from the Oxford University Press. Lest you fear your child might be looking up naughty words with this feature, Disney has tailored it to allow definitions for appropriate content ...

Back in July, Google announced that it would begin testing its newest service, Wave, on 100,000 users beginning on September 30th. That was a big increase over the limited beta the e-mail/IM app has been in since launch. Today, just a day before launch, the company shed some light on its process for choosing testers.

The first lucky folks to begin wider resting on the app include developers who have been part of the developer preview, users who signed up early at wave.google.com, and a few Google Apps customers. Those users will also be able to "nominate" others for invitations to the service.

According to Google, the service "isn't quite ready for prime time." The company added in a blog post today,

[...]Google Wave isn't quite ready for prime time. Not yet, anyway. Since first unveiling the project back in May, we've focused almost exclusively on scalability, stability, speed and usability. Yet, you will still experience the occasional downtime, a crash every now and then, part of the system being a bit sluggish and some of the user interface being, well, quirky.

Warner Music Group locked up a distribution deal with YouTube today, which was probably a good move given that online video is more popular than ever.

More than 161 million U.S. Internet users watched more than 25 billion online videos in August, the largest audience ever recorded, according to Monday data from comScore. Those numbers account for 81.6 percent of the total U.S. Internet audience.

Back in January, comScore reported that Web users watched 14.8 billion videos, so over the course of a few months, the average number of videos viewed on a monthly basis has jumped by 10.2 billion.

Google properties accounted for more than 10 billion of videos viewed in August, or 40 percent and 99 percent of those hits came from YouTube. Microsoft came in second with 547 million views, or 2.2 percent, followed by Viacom Digital with 539 million or 2.1 percent, and Hulu with 488 million views, or 1.9 percent.

In terms of visitors, Google was also number one with 121 million visitors. Google was followed by Microsoft with 54 million, Yahoo with 51.5 million, and Fox Interactive with 48.9 million. Hulu came in sixth with 38.5 million visitors.

On YouTube, people watched an average of 82.6 videos over the course of a month; MySpace viewers watched an average of 7.6 videos. On Hulu, the average viewer watched 12.7 videos, or an hour and 17 minutes of videos per viewer.

Overall, the average viewer watched 582 minutes of video, or 9.7 hours, with the average Internet video running 3.7 minutes.

...

Almost a year after Warner Music Group (WMG) ordered that all of its videos be pulled from YouTube, the two companies have reached a licensing agreement that will return the music label's content to the Google-owned video site.

"Under this new, multi-year global agreement, you will be able to discover, watch and share Warner music on the site," YouTube wrote in a blog post. "The partnership covers the full Warner catalog and includes user-generated content containing WMG acts."

In December 2008, WMG pulled all of its videos from YouTube after the two sites failed to come to an agreement over licensing. "We simply cannot accept terms that fail to appropriately and fairly compensate recording artists, songwriters, labels and publishers for the value they provide," WMG said at the time.

YouTube said Warner's videos will start appearing on the site "in the near future."

The deal includes a revenue-sharing agreement between YouTube and WMG.

"Warner will also be able to sell their own ad inventory and will use our Content ID technology to claim and monetize user-generated videos uploaded to YouTube by Warner Music fans," YouTube said. "The partnership is based on a revenue share generated from the ads on the videos, and this makes good business sense for everyone involved: artists and labels can make money from their videos and the YouTube community gets to enjoy them."

YouTube now has content from all four major music labels, as well as hundreds of indie labels and publishers.

In April, YouTube and Universal Music Group re-upped their licensing deal and announced plans for a new music service. The service, known as Vevo, will be a "premium ...

Had enough of vampires yet? Verizon Wireless and MTV are launching "Valemont," a new short-form mobile series premiering September 29th on television, online, and mobile devices via the carrier's V CAST Mobile TV service, according to MediaPost.

The first dozen episodes will be two and a half minutes long each, and air as longish commercials on MTV. The next 23 episodes will appear on MTV.com and on V CAST. Verizon phones will play each episode, which will begin with a video clip or text message that offers clues to the characters in the show as well as to viewers.

The report said that to date, most mobile video is watched via the Web rather than by paying for special carrier packages, according to the latest Nielsen Mobile data. For more information, you can check out "Valemont University" at Verizon's Web site.