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I want my Vevo: Will video site be next-gen MTV?

On August 1, 1981, a cultural and entertainment juggernaut flickered onto TV screens and rocketed out of obscurity with these six words: "Ladies and gentlemen, rock and roll."

With that, the iconic cable network, MTV, was launched and a popular entertainment category--music videos--was born. Now, 28 years later, MTV has largely abandoned the genre and the record industry is preparing for the debut of a possible successor.

On Tuesday, video start-up Vevo is scheduled to launch. Supported by three of the top four largest record companies (sources say EMI has agreed to provide content to the site) and … Read more

AMD upgraded as 'Fusion,' 16-core chip future looms

Advanced Micro Devices stock was upgraded Thursday by Broadpoint AmTech analyst Doug Freedman, citing a solid product road map and debt restructuring efforts.

AMD was trading above $7 midday on Thursday, high above the $3.50 (approximate) lows seen back in July of this year.

Freedman said in a research note Thursday that he is upgrading AMD to "buy" from "neutral" and raising the price target to $10 from $5.80.

"Positive events...lead us to believe that AMD's risk/reward is now compelling," he said. One of the biggest positives was AMD'… Read more

Digital City Podcast 55: PS3's Netflix play; Sony's Vaio X; and Halloween horrors

This week on the Digital City, we consider the PlayStation 3's awkward Netflix implementation; marvel over the super-thin Sony Vaio X laptop; debate the fate of FireWire in new MacBooks; and review some gamer-friendly Halloween costume ideas.

We also plug the first round of Windows 7 laptop and desktop reviews; mourn the death of Geocities; and find out why Julie and Dan have swapped seats for a week.

Plus -- take an early sneak peek at Dan's Halloween costume -- but it only makes sense if you're over, say, 30 and kind of a geek.

Related links: &… Read more

Intel: Moblin opens the way for Atom

For Intel, the driving force behind its Moblin software efforts is its main role in life: a chipmaker.

At the Intel Developer Forum in San Francisco last month, the company showed off the latest version of its Linux-based Moblin operating system, designed for smartphones, Netbooks, and Nettops. In most if not all of those cases, the idea is that the device is built around Intel's Atom processor.

Moblin has been slowly catching on in the Netbook arena. Dell, for instance, recently began selling its $299 Mini 10v Notebook with an option for Ubuntu Moblin Remix, and PC makers such … Read more

The 404 431: Where we can eat a peach for days

Like most social-networking sites, Twitter isn't immune to lurkers, fakes, and creeps. The 404 Twitter account received over 600 followers in the last 24 hours, which leads us to believe that we're either becoming wildly popular or more likely, the new adds are demonized accounts; in other words, people that had their accounts taken over by a spam bot. This has to stop, Biz--stop teasing our egos!

In other ridiculous news, the CBS video print ad we picked apart in Episode 411 is fetching up to $400 on eBay--what the what? If we'd known that prices would skyrocket on the black market, we would have ganked a few more copies from our parent company, CBS! This is a great example of how you can buy practically anything online, including an 800 thread count Egyptian Cotton duvet cover or a set of custom-made Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle drapes from your humble host's childhood...don't ask, just watch the show.

After the break, we get to a few Calls From the Public, including one from a caller all the way in the Caribbean! We also run down the 20 best cartoons from the 1990s, but they forgot about the X-Men cartoon! And where is "Teenage Mutant Ninja Frickin Turtles?!" Take a look at the list and let us know your favorites!

EPISODE 431 Subscribe in iTunes audio | Suscribe to iTunes (video) | Subscribe in RSS Audio | Subscribe in RSS Video… Read more

The 404 370: Where we're still up at Alison o'clock

Our favorite comedian Alison Rosen joins us on today's show to talk about her new daily video show, TheDailyAlison.com. Also, be sure to listen in to hear why Wilson Tang left the premiere of "Transformers 2" scowling and cursing the name of Michael Bay.

Every show with Alison Rosen is knee-slappingly hilarious, but today's is so crazy that Alison has to wear The 404 army helmet to protect herself...from Wilson. Alison is on today's show to pimp out her brand new daily Web show, The Daily Alison. The show features Alison just being her own funny self, but she also brings on big name guests for quick 10 minute interviews, folks like Will Forte, Doug Benson, and Mr. Rosen himself. Like our own Sweet Lou and Baby Bakalar, Alison's humor is derivative and influenced heavily by her father, which all leads to a conversation about the horrifyingly embarrassing things our parents did when we were younger. We also discover that Alison hasn't yet been swept off her feet by that perfect gentleman, so we swear a solemn oath to be the Goose to her Maverick and find her a nice waiter at TGI Fridays to feed her coconut chicken shrimp skewers and Volcano shots.

The first half of the show, though, is mostly Wilson complaining about the new "Transformers 2" movie. I'll let you all know right now that he doesn't spoil anything about the movie, other than the fact that Shia Lebeauf turns out to be a ghost at the end. In reality, though, Wilson tells us there are two characters named "Skids" and "Mudflaps" that make Jar Jar Binks look like Martin Luther King. The back story is that those two robots picked up the English language by watching American television, but did they really have to have gold teeth!? I think that was the part that set Wilson over the edge. I haven't heard the guy rant in awhile, but this one is definitely worth checking out.

This won't be the last time you see Alison Rosen on our show. She'll be back, but in the meantime you can catch her every day on The Daily Alison, the Alison Rosen blog, and, of course, Twitter. See you next time!

EPISODE 370 Download today's podcast… Read more

Photos: The mouse that roared 40 years ago

A correction was made to this story. Read below for details.

Forty years ago this week, Doug Engelbart and fellow researchers at the Stanford Research Institute (SRI) gave a demonstration in San Francisco that turned out to be a prescient vision of the future: it included a computer mouse; hypertext linking; real-time, on-screen text editing; shared-screen teleconferencing; and other revolutionary ideas.

Tuesday, a large crowd gathered at Stanford to watch a video of the historic demo and hear original team members recount their groundbreaking work. Click here to see photos from the presentation.

Correction: This story initially misspelled the primary … Read more

40th Anniversary of "Mother of all demos"

Today is the 40th anniversary of what came to be known as "The Mother of All Demos", Doug Engelbart's presentation to the Fall Joint Computer Conference in San Francisco. In this one 90 minute presentation he showed, in working form, for the very first time all of the following technologies:

The mouse Graphical user interface with point and click and menus Intermingling of text and graphics within a document, styling of text in a document Hypertext and linking between documents Remote collaboration plus videoconferencing

That's a pretty astonishing list. It basically described the landscape of computing … Read more

Analyst: 'big 'bang' to hit PC and handset industry

A clash is brewing as PC and cell phone chip suppliers vie for new designs that fall outside traditional product categories, an analyst said in a research note Wednesday.

Doug Freedman, a chip analyst at AmTech Research, said the "line between cell phones and PCs is clearly blurring" and that consequently "PC and cell phone food chains will battle for market share in these new classes of devices." He calls this the "big bang between PCs and handsets."

This will happen as more tweener products emerge. "New product categories such as Netbooks, MIDs (… Read more