Amazon has been taking quite a number of early orders for Windows 7. The $49 preorder version of Windows 7 Home Premium is now the top seller not just among software products, but among all electronics items at the online retailer. The program, which kicked off on Friday, allows people to order an upgrade version of Windows 7 Home Premium for $49, more than half off its $119 suggested price, or ultimately Windows 7 Professional for $99, half of its suggested price. Also kicking off this past weekend was a separate program in which those who buy certain PCs with Windows Vista can get a free or nearly free copy of Windows 7, once the new operating system is available. Read more…
Here's the beginning of the inevitable online video shakeout: Joost, the once-hyped video service that was supposed to rival Google's YouTube, is restructuring to focus on “white label” services, i.e., a back end for other video players. On Tuesday, the start-up, which will continue to offer free online television shows and movies, announced that it would shift its energies to providing an online video platform that other media companies can use — essentially licensing its technology to broadcasters and other media companies that want to offer video. Advertisers will spend $1.1 billion on online video ads this year, up about 40 percent from last year, and spending will increase another 40 percent next year, according to eMarketer. When Joost was founded in 2006 by Niklas Zennström and Janus Friis, the creators of Skype and Kazaa, the company required people to download software to their computers. Last October, after it became clear that users did not want to do that and would rather watch shows in their browsers using Hulu. Joost reinvented itself as a Flash-based online video site. In May, Joost had only 643,000 unique visitors compared to Hulu’s 8.2 million. Read more…
You have to ask, what took them so long? Flickr now has a built-in feature that lets members tweet their photos. You can upload directly to Flickr and Twitter simultaneously, or tweet a photo already on Flickr, using a special short Flic.kr URL. Read more…
There's a ton of spam on the Internet—we're already aware of that. However, what once required an actual person to send is increasingly being taken over by botnets. A new from Symantec's MessageLabs says that more than 80 percent of all spam sent today comes from botnets, despite several recent shut-downs. Researchers had noted earlier this year that image spam was making a comeback after almost going extinct in 2008, and now MessageLabs says that it accounts for between 8 and 10 percent of all intercepted spam. According to MessageLabs' June report, spam accounted for 90.4 percent of all e-mail sent in the month of June—roughly unchanged since May. Botnets, however, sent about 83.2 percent of that spam. The largest spam-wielding botnet is Cutwail, which is described as "one of the largest and most active botnets" and has doubled its size and output per bot since March of this year. As a result, it is now responsible for 45 percent of all spam, with others like Mega-D, Xarvester, Donbot, Grum, and Rustock making up much of the difference. Read more…
Say you have some bright idea for the "next Wi-Fi" and you just need a tiny little smidgen of open spectrum in which to deploy the invention that will bring cheap, easy, ubiquitous communications nirvana to everyone. Can you get it? Generally, no. The US government squats on huge swaths of spectrum, while paid-up license holders (like cell phone service providers) control much of the rest. There are slivers of spectrum are left open for unlicensed use, and those tiny bands have produced great big social benefits: wireless baby monitors, wireless phones, and Wi-Fi. In fact, the vast majority of frequency bands are not being used in most locations and at most times. Smart radios, comprehensive databases. The solution is smart radios that can operate in many different bands, listening for existing transmissions and going quiet when they are found. The radios might also tap into a vast database that tells them what spectrum to use or avoid in specific locations of the country. A 2004 test showed that even in New York City, most spectrum lies fallow most of the time. The highest occupancy on the prime beachfront spectrum below 3GHz was just 13 percent in New York City, while the average across locations studied was just six percent. Read more…
Desktop PCs have been in decline for a decade, and countless people have said their piece about it. But new evidence suggests the desktop tower is in a death spiral. The PC industry was experiencing lower-than-expected quarterly sales—down about 8% from the same time last year. This included laptops, and made sense, because the whole economy's gone to hell, right? People aren't buying computers. Except that's not quite what's happening. In the same period, laptop shipments—already higher than desktop shipments on the whole—grew 10% over last year. Desktops were entirely to blame, dropping by an astounding 23%. That's not decline—it's free fall. Graphics performance, likewise, hard drives—being that desktops use larger, cheaper 3.5-inch units—are faster and more capacious across the board. Greater amounts of RAM can be had for less in a desktop, the optical drives can be slightly faster. But these tradeoffs aren't nearly as pronounced as they once were, nor are they as consequential. Read more…
Fiber to the home is wicked fast and fires lasers through tiny glass tubes—undeniably cool stuff. But Verizon claims far more than the mantle of "cool;" the company says that its FiOS system is now the leading real estate development amenity. Home shoppers use to scan the prospect for a Jacuzzi or an intercom. Now, not so much. They look for the Verizon Optical Network Terminal and the Verizon broadband home router so they know they'll have the best Internet and TV service over the best home network available today. Fiber to the home users were more satisfied with their broadband speed, the television service offered, and the uptime of their connections than were cable and DSL users. DOCSIS 3.0 means that cable companies can currently offer speeds that compete with fiber, many cable users have yet to gain access to the higher speeds. Read more…
Comcast plans to offer 4 megabits/sec WiMAX services to customers in Portland, Oregon. It's branded as 'Comcast High-Speed 2go' and '4G,' the service will require a $44.99 per month subscription in addition to existing Comcast home service. For $69.99 they will offer a dual-mode card with access to both Comcast WiMAX and Sprint's national 3G wireless network. Future rollouts are planned for Chicago, Philadelphia, and Atlanta. All of this is a daring attempt to bypass entrenched cell phone companies with a direct-to-consumer wireless service. Read more…
Microsoft pulled the plug on Windows XP a year ago today, no longer selling new copies in most venues. Yet according to a report from InfoWorld, various downgrade paths to XP are keeping the operating system very much alive, particularly among businesses. In fact, despite Microsoft trumpeting that Vista as the most successful version of Windows ever sold, more than half of business PCs have subsequently downgraded Vista-based machines to XP. Microsoft recently planned to further limit the ability to downgrade to XP now that Windows 7 is in the pipeline, but backlash against the licensing scheme prompted the company to change course, extending downgrade rights on new PCs from April 2010 to April 2011. Read more…
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That's this episode of SDR News. This is Andy McCaskey. You can check out show links and additional comments on today's news at SDRNews.com. Mobile distribution by Stitcher at Stitcher.com. If you've enjoyed today's program, hit the "Tell a Friend" button in the left hand column. SDRNEWS is also available through Blubrry at Blubrry.com. SDRNews is a proud member of the Tech Podcast Network. Thanks for listening -- see you tomorrow.
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