May 28, 2006 | audio, business, DRM, web_services
The Urge music service, an iTunes competitor jointly sponsored by Microsoft and MTV, is supposed to be one of the major selling points of the new Windows Media Player 11. When I clicked on it the first time, the service asked permission to download some software. I...
May 3, 2006 | business, video
The hot tech topic of the day is “viral videos,” a term invented to describe the links circulated by e-mail to short online movies. Out of nowhere, Chris Bliss’ juggling routine was viewed by 50 million people within 45 days – after languishing...
May 2, 2006 | broadband, business
“Net neutrality” is a hot topic in Washington. The Internet was developed with a guiding philosophy that Internet service providers would treat all traffic equally. The cable companies and telcos see a chance to generate huge additional revenue if they can...
Apr 25, 2006 | business, hardware, WinXP
Many people are buying new computers with Windows XP Media Center Edition – it’s the version pre-installed on most consumer PCs these days. Its most visible feature is essentially a program named “Media Center” that takes over the screen to...
Apr 3, 2006 | audio, business, DRM, security, video
Sony is gearing up its marketing department behind Blu-Ray DVDs, its next-generation disc for high definition movies. Toshiba and its partners are lined up behind HD DVD, a different, incompatible format. Sony hopes that you’ll buy its Blu-Ray players and movies...
Feb 12, 2006 | business, web_services
Zillow.com launched its beta web site a few days ago, offering free access to real estate information that has been hard to come by until now. (It’s been added to the bruceb favorites page under Home-Family / Realty).Zillow displays estimates of the market value...
