Week in review: TV's fuzzy future

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But while most people won't be able to get their hands on Vista until next year, consumers will be able to get some of the media enhancements sooner. Microsoft is on track to release a Windows XP version of Windows Media Player 11 before the end of June.

With the new media player, consumers will be able to "reverse sync," meaning they can send content from a digital device to a PC. That will allow users to transfer pictures taken with their camera phone, or music purchased on a wireless device. Other options include synching a player to multiple PCs and filling a device with random tracks--a la Shuffle in iTunes--according to a Windows Vista product guide that was briefly made available on the Internet last week.

This spring looks like a good time to get a deal on a PC--if you're willing to invest in technology that will look pedestrian in eight months. This year, there are some particularly interesting carrots dangling off in the future.

New products from both Microsoft and Intel are within sight, with the Vista operating system scheduled--as of now--for early 2007, and chips based on Intel's new Core architecture expected to arrive soon. Apple Computer is also in the midst of a transition, with plans to shift its iBook and Power Mac products to new Intel chips before the end of the year, following the MacBook Pro, iMac and Mac Mini.

But in the months before these products are ready, loads of PCs with Windows XP and Pentium D processors, as well as some PowerPC-based Macs, have to go to make room for the new stuff. A surplus of inventory at Intel and other component manufacturers should lead to great deals on PCs in the coming weeks and months, according to PC analysts.

On the open-source front, efforts to bring glitzy new graphics to Linux are fueling an old conflict: Does proprietary software belong in open-source Linux? The issue involves software modules called drivers, which plug into the kernel at the heart of the open-source operating system. Drivers let software communicate with hardware such as network adapters, hard drives and video cards.

The use of such drivers is common with Linux, but it is all but necessary for the recent push to bring eye-catching graphics to the operating-system user interface. To deliver 3D effects and similar visuals for the desktop, the software taps into a computer's graphics chip. And although the Linux kernel is open-source software, drivers from dominant graphics chipmakers Nvidia and ATI Technologies are not.

Courting Apple
Apple Computer went to court this week to try to gain access to electronic records of Mac enthusiast sites that published leaked details of an unreleased product. Although a lower court ruled last year that Apple should be able to gain access to electronic records of the enthusiast sites, a three-judge appeals panel peppered Apple's lawyer with questions.

The judges wanted to know whether the information at issue represented a genuine trade secret, as well as whether journalists' right to protect their sources outweigh Apple's right to protect its trade secrets.

"You don't really claim this is a new technology?" the presiding judge, Conrad Rushing, asked Apple's lawyer. "This is plugging a guitar into a computer."

George Riley, the outside attorney representing Apple, said the company maintained that the details and diagrams of a product code-named "Asteroid," a music breakout box, which is used to plug a guitar into a computer, represented "a very serious theft."

The case could eventually answer an unsettled legal question: Should online journalists receive the same rights as traditional reporters?

Apple claims that they should not. Its lawyers say in court documents that Web scribes are not "legitimate members of the press" when they reveal details about forthcoming products that the company would prefer to keep confidential.

That argument has drawn stiff opposition from bloggers and traditional journalists. But it did seem to be sufficient to convince Santa Clara County Superior Court Judge James Kleinberg, who ruled in March 2005 that Apple's attempt to subpoena the electronic records of an Apple news site could proceed.

Meanwhile, the Mac maker was on the receiving end of a lawsuit, with Burst.com filing a countersuit against Apple, claiming that the iTunes software, the iPod and the QuickTime streaming software all infringe on patents held by Burst. The company is asking for royalties as well as an injunction, it said in a press release.

Burst has developed software that helps companies speed up the delivery of audio and video files over a network. The company was involved in a similar patent infringement dispute with Microsoft last year that ended with a $60 million settlement and a Microsoft license to the Burst technology.

CNET special report: Seismic science
On the centennial of the massive quake that shook San Francisco on April 18, 1906, many people are asking how a repeat rupture might affect the Bay Area today. A CNET News.com special report focuses on the technologies that help scientists predict quakes and determine potential damage--both central topics this week at a seismology conference in San Francisco.

Also of note
PC shipments increased by 13.1 percent in the first quarter, thanks in part to sales in emerging markets and to consumers...An appeals court upheld a ruling that Microsoft can't be sued for antitrust violations under federal law by consumers and businesses who did not buy their software directly from the company...Cascade Investment Group, a venture and investment firm funded by Microsoft Chairman Bill Gates, has finalized an $84 million investment in Pacific Ethanol as the momentum for clean technology grows.

[LorinT]

What's inside the HD-A1

A friend and I dismantled the new HD-A1 player in order to find out what made it tick, and were intrigued to learn that inside the HD-DVD drive is a standard IDE unit. Also inside is a USB flash drive on a daughter card:

<a class="jive-link-external" href="http://geekswithblogs.net/lorint/archive/2006/04/21/75795.aspx" target="_newWindow">http://geekswithblogs.net/lorint/archive/2006/04/21/75795.aspx</a>

where's the journalistic integrity

Phillips applied for a PATENT! There is no specific invention. It's only a concept. It's nowhere near being a product being released yet. Why does CNET have to bash a company and twist the facts just to make an exciting-sounding headline?

Oh...I guess I just answered my own question :-)

[Jahntassa]

I said something similar..

Y'know, I commented on the original article saying something similar. I'm a little annoyed that CNET is practically blasting Philips over this. Philips is a good company, and they make a lot of cool stuff.

I believe there was another comment on the original story that had presented the idea that Philips patented the technology just so they could withhold it from ever being built!

[amigabill]

shennanigans

The HDCP "feature" for HDDVD and Blueray may make them unappealing to consumers. A large number of early HD tv sets do not have HDCP support, and thus may not be capable of showing the HD media in HD quality. That's kindof dumb. If my HDTV cannot display HD media, then I don't see any reason to buy it instead of "standard defintion" DVDs.

As for the whole forcing me to watch commercials thing, they still can't force us to actually watch them. Even if they do this, I can still go tothe restroom or gab something from the kitchen, or read a magazine, or check my email or whatever instead of paying any atention to the ad that my TV is told must absolutely be shown and cannot possible be interrupted on the TV set with my channel surfing habit. Heck, if I can't quickly skim through channels to see what's on, I may end up watching less TV and thus less commercials, as if it takes 30 seconds to change the channel it'll take forever to skim through the 50 or 60 channels I get, and I'll get bored and do something else instead.

And DVDs have had this "feature" for a while now. I've got a few that do not let me skip past the "coming soon" previews I've alrady seen and decided to watch or buy or whatever or not. Di actually watch these again and again? Of course not, now I start the microwave popcorn AFTER I start the movie, use the restroom, etc. and things are done about when I'm finally allowed to watch what I want. Anyoen that sits through that bull crap every single time is crazy, even f they're "forced to do it".

[markdoiron]

GoVideo Players Let You Control DVD

GoVideo players let the viewer skip that stuff at the front of a DVD. We should all be sending a signal to the DVD player mfg's that we like that by buying GoVideo (or any other mfg that does this). Maybe they'll all then tell the movie industry what they can do with their promo's. It's not just the time--some of DVDs don't offer access to the main menu unless you remove and reinsert the DVD (poor design, but that's the way it is). Anyway, the only way to access the main menu is to remove and reinsert the DVD and . . you got it: Sit through the promo's again!

mark d.

[jltnol]

This is funny..

"Braunstein's report, which was commissioned and paid for by
AT&#38;T, is one of the first studies to quantify how much
consumers could save if phone companies competed directly
against cable operators in the video market.'



DUH! I'd be more than willing to bet that if the cable companies
comissioned Braunstein to conduct the study... the results would
have been exactly the reverse....

Give me a break! Does anyone really believe this crap?

[fakespam]

Huh?

The author was too bouncy for me to understand, but I think the
gist of the first part of the article was about how dumb Philips
was.

I pose a question to Philips and their lame device:

If I were to not be enjoying the show in question while viewing,
am I forbidden to change the channel of said show during the
commerical to find a better show?

Okay, then Philips, I'll just TAPE the show and press fast forward
on the TAPE! Stop me, please.

And yes, I found a way to tape HDTV content downconverted.
Hey, it's fine by me if I get some more freedom over being
fascistly forced to watch annoying commericals (I'm immune to
most form of ads, and don't pay any attention to those noisy
things).

[dargon19888]

Reading is fundamental...

This is a tad insane.

First Philips applied for the patent meaning that the technology to lock a device during the duration of the commercial is viable. Note that they even admit that the business model does not make sense, and that this patent is part of a group of patents that have a common technology element.

So whomever is ******** about the patent, well... lets just say that just because you can patent it, doesn't mean that you'll want to implement it.

CNET did get it right... for once....

[Blito]

Lock-In love affair

What's this continued love affair a fear of DVD? Isnt flash RAM good enough.

[kix are for trids]

Go ahead and make me watch

I guarantee that any media device that forces me to watch a commercial against my will is just begging me to boycott that product. Any device that doesn't play another company's product isn't worth having on my shelf. Sony has shot itself in the foot time and time again by trying to make an exclusive format that nobody else has. If it chooses not to learn after so many disastors, it deserves whatever market share it loses. Any distributer that refuses to release a movie on the winning format simply puts itself out of business and whoever is still in business will buy up the catolog and release it in the five dollar bin. That's a win win situation for the consumer. Holographic memory is going to put the whole high defition DVD business on the curb in less than five years anyway.

the real issue is how often consumers like me will purchase Quiggly Down Under and A Boy And His Dog in the next big format to come along. I'm still watching laser disks and listening to 78's. I finally got rid of the 8-tracks (a real success story in the field of planned obsolescence) but the 33RPMs are holding up just fine. A friend of mine asked me when I was gonna get rid of them. I pulled out my Horald Griffiths album and told him "Just as soon as I see this album on audio DVD!" (I wouldn't buy it on cd. Cheap son of a sea serpeants put in a 16 bit processor instead of a 32 when it would have cost them little money to do it right in the first place. I guess the audio industry has all the vision of Bill Gates. (nobody is ever going to need more than 640K of memory?)

This falls under the third law of survival - Never forget that your equipment is made by the lowest possible bidder. Trust yourself, not your equipment. With that law in mind, I am now going to go to my room and practice all the Horald Griffiths Songs I know, just in case the record player dies and I can't get another one.

On a side note. If I can buy a movie for less money than I can buy a CD, who is going to tell me that the RIAA is being less than reasonable about this whole distribution thing. The artists aren't making any money on these records. They have to go out on tour to make a living. Most of the song writers that aren't singing their own songs have to take a day gig to get by. that leaves who making all of the money on these fifteen to twenty dollar CDs? Follow the money. That's what they say anyway. They wanted fifteen dollars for the Los Lonely Boys CD and less than ten for the live concert in Austin. Heck, I don't mind watching the boys when they're playing, especially if it's five dollars cheaper than just listening to them!

Oh, and if it costs ninety nine cents to download an MP3 of an album that has more than eight songs on it, and you aren't getting the liner notes - you are still getting ripped off. Go buy a CD from a local band. They put them out all by themselves and it helps support the music you actually listen to on Friday nights after a long week at work. If you still want the latest Brittany Spears or Madonna, pick it up used from E-bay or your local used CD shop. Better yet, buy the concert on DVD. It's probably cheaper anyway.