Apple drops price on Shuffle and shows off new model
Apple has announced that they have dropped the price of their popular iPod Shuffle model after growth drastically slowed for the last quarter.
The 1GB 2nd Generation Shuffle will now cost a reasonable $49 USD. The company also introduced a 2GB version that will cost $69 USD.
A company statement showed that the player saw slowed growth to 5 percent last quarter, compared to 15 percent for the year and a half preceding it.
“This makes the Shuffle more competitive in terms of a price-capacity ratio,” NPD Group’s Ross Rubin said in an interview from New York. “While Apple had a good holiday season, the market has been slowing down somewhat.”
To date Apple has sold over 140 million iPods, including Shuffles, “classic” iPods, and the new Touch model.
Demonoid tracker is finally back
Three months ago the immensely popular torrent tracker Demonoid was taken offline but it seems that many hopeful have something to cheer about as the tracker is responding for the first time since the take down.
Curiously, the the new tracker is hosted in Malaysia while the actual frontend of Demonoid and its subforums are still hosted in the US.
There has been no official word from the Demonoid admin team so for now this could purely be coincedence, but there is the possibility that the site has found a new Malaysian host and is preparing a comeback.
A few months back, Deimos, the lead admin for the site said there was a possibility for return but hope has been fading as the months past. “Money is an issue, but the real problem at the moment is finding a suitable place to host the website. There has been no luck there. And there’s some personal stuff I need to take care of that takes most of my time at the moment, and that does not help,” Deimos said at the time.
We will keep you updated.
Mininova hits 4 billionth download
Just 4 months after reaching 3 billion downloads the popular torrent site Mininova has announced that they have hit another milestone; 4 billion torrent downloads by its users.
Niek van der Maas, the founder of MiniNova had this to say about the latest milestone. “When we launched back in January 2005, we were the first BitTorrent site to offer a sophisticated search engine, sorting of search results, categorization, etc..We try to keep our lead by innovating and extending our website with new features. Many things changed in the past years, but one thing will always be the same: we try to offer the #1 P2P directory and search engine.”
The milestones just keep racking up for Mininova, and at an exponential rate as well. In May 2006 the site reached 400 million torrent downloads, and only 8 months later they hit the 1 billion plateau. By November of 2007 it was 3 billion.
“This is very good news, it means our site is growing exponential: the amount of total torrent downloads roughly doubles every half year,” Niek added. “And more downloads means more exposure, so more content available on our website.”
Xbox 360 sees price drop in Canada
Microsoft Canada has announced price drops across the line for all of its Xbox 360 models and it seems Canadian buyers will finally see prices more equivalent to their southern neighbors in the US.
The Xbox 360 Pro pack will drop to $349 CAD and the Elite Pack will drop to $449 CAD. The base-level Arcade model will see the smallest cut, from $299 CAD to $279 CAD.
Its US counterparts reached their current pricing model in late August 2007, and so far Canadian gamers have been forced to pay a large premium for the consoles, higher than even the discrepancy in the US and Canadian dollar which is now less than a couple cents per dollar.
Sony BMG inks new mobile media deal
Sony BMG has announced that it had signed a deal with Thumplay that will add another 7000 pieces of content to the growing mobile media service.
Currently the service offers 80000 ringtones, games, music videos, and wallpapers among its other content. The new content will be from artists and will be in many of the before mentioned categories.
“This deal reinforces Thumbplay’s position as the leading U.S. provider of mobile content to consumers who are looking to discover and manage their personalized mobile entertainment experience,” CEOI Are Traasdahl said in a statement.
Thumbplay is distributed through sites such as Qloud, MSN Mobile, and AOL and there are about 2000 different devices compatible with the service.
The service already has deals with EMI, Universal Pictures, Sony Pictures, Walt Disney, and Universal Music Group accounting for most of its 80000 pieces of content.
Sony paid Warner Bros. $400 million USD to go Blu-ray exclusive
A new article by the GlobeandMail is saying that Sony paid Warner Bros. in excess of $400 million USD to drop HD DVD and move exclusively to Blu-ray.
Warner’s decision, a week before this year’s CES started a downhill trend for HD DVD until finally the format died this week, with Toshiba confirming they will be dropping production of HD DVD players.
If the article proves to be true, then Sony may have paid a hefty price to win the format war, but being the proprietor of the format, the company could stand to make billions in the next decade; that is however if Blu-ray and physical media are even the medium of choice in the next few years.
Paramount becomes final studio to move to Blu-ray
Paramount has announced that it has become the final major studio to move to Blu-ray, after it had been HD DVD exclusive since last August.
“We are pleased that the industry is moving to a single high-definition format, as we believe it is in the best interest of the consumer,” the studio said in a statement.
“As we look to (begin) releasing our titles on Blu-ray, we will monitor consumer adoption and determine our release plans accordingly.”
There was no other details issued as to when the transition would begin nor was there word on what titles would be first released on Blu-ray. There was also no word on whether Dreamworks would be moving with its parent company but that announcement is expected soon.
LG staying format neutral for the time being
Contrary to other decisions by major companies, the manufacturer LG has announced it will not be dropping HD DVD and will instead remain format neutral.
“LG believes that at this present moment in time, it is necessary to provide a player which supports both formats and therefore create simplicity and convenience for the existing HD DVD consumer,” read a press statement.
LG is one of only two companies to offer a dual-format player, the somewhat popular LG BH100.
Daniel Aziz, marketing manager for LG Electronics added, “With the recent announcement from Toshiba, Blu-ray will now be the format that will pave the way for High Definition movies, however this does not rule out HD DVD immediately as there are still a number of consumers who have chosen HD DVD and begun to build a HD DVD collection.”
“The previous confusion in the high definition market [HD DVD vs. Blu-ray] is now clearer and LG welcomes this as it will provide confidence for the end user, to the retailers and overall the home entertainment market.”
“Overall LG is still excited about the future of this market, LG has always set out to lead high definition players and will continue to do so with more technology evolutions and hybrids which will launch in due course.”
For those that have HD DVD films but want to move onto Blu-ray, LG is the company for you.
Microsoft talks about Xbox 360 sales and Blu-ray drive
Microsoft’s GDC keynote speaker, John Schappert has announced that the Xbox 360 has reached another milestone, over 18 million units sold worldwide.
“I think that we’ve sold 18 million, the last time I’ve checked. 18 million hardware units worldwide,” said Schappert. He would not however, project sales for the rest of 2008.
The speaker also went on to say that the company would probably not even bother with an external Blu-ray drive for the console simply because the HD DVD add-on sold poorly.
“We have no plans to announce anything like that right now. But I’d also urge you to look at the attach rate for the HD-DVD drive,” he noted. “It was a 3 percent attach rate…you also have to take into account how did the other accessory do when you look at the future.”
Onkyo drops support of HD DVD as well
The high-end electronics maker Onkyo has also announced that it will be ending support for HD DVD and stopping all production of HD DVD players.
Although a couple of companies have recently decided to continue their support for HD DVD players Onkyo clearly felt differently following Toshiba’s recent decision to end support for HD DVD. “As Onkyo manufactures HD DVD players with core parts supplied by Toshiba,” Onkyo’s statement read, “it will be difficult for Onkyo to continue its further development and production of HD DVD players.”
Any future HD products will be made for Blu-ray, says the company, but it will offer full support for all its HD DVD products including after-sales service.
