Jun 7, 2006 | business, video
It’s easy to imagine movies on demand, streamed to your television over the Internet. Unfortunately, there’s also reason to think that it will be many years before that becomes real. Not only are there significant technical barriers, but movie studios make...
May 31, 2006 | audio, business, web_services
Recently I wrote some notes about Sony’s record of failure in developing consumer electronics and music products. Here’s the story behind the collapse of the Sony Connect online music store, a tangled tale of personalities and corporate politics gone...
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...
