Buffalo introduces dual format HD drive
Buffalo Technology has introduced its first ever external optical disc drive, a dual format HD drive dubbed the BRHC-6316U2.
The drive can read and write single or dual layer Blu-ray discs at an impressive 6x speed and can read HD DVD at 3x. As is standard, the drive can read and write DVDs at 16x.
Buffalo adds that the drive is very simple to use and connects via USB to any PC using a plug and play connection. Included with the drive is Buffalo’s own TurboUSB with Secure Lock Ware for drive encryption and the popular burning suite Nero 8 .
The company says the drive will be available for sale on Amazon, Dabs.com, Misco and Play.com for about £284 plus VAT.
Apple orders 10 million 3G iPhones?
Although not confirmed by Apple, Gartner analyst Ken Dulaney, the research firm’s iPhone expert, has said that Apple has “already placed orders for 10 million 3G iPhones” meaning the launch could be sooner rather than later.
Last year it was confirmed that a 3G version of the popular iPhone was coming, but Apple has not given an exact date as to when it is arriving. Analysts have suggested that June 2008 is the expected date, but there has been no confirmation.
In a phone interview, Dulaney also speculated that the upcoming 3G version would sport a OLED screen. Talks of an OLED screen have not been thrown around in the past but it would make sense considering the amount of energy the new phone should drain.
Apple orders 10 million 3G iPhones?
Although not confirmed by Apple, Gartner analyst Ken Dulaney, the research firm’s iPhone expert, has said that Apple has “already placed orders for 10 million 3G iPhones” meaning the launch could be sooner rather than later.
Last year it was confirmed that a 3G version of the popular iPhone was coming, but Apple has not given an exact date as to when it is arriving. Analysts have suggested that June 2008 is the expected date, but there has been no confirmation.
In a phone interview, Dulaney also speculated that the upcoming 3G version would sport a OLED screen. Talks of an OLED screen have not been thrown around in the past but it would make sense considering the amount of energy the new phone should drain.
WiiWare finally launched in Japan
Nintendo’s WiiWare service has finally launched in Japan and the company says there will be nine titles available on launch day.
Following the Japanese launch is the North American launch on May 12th and finally the European launch (to be known as Wii Software not WiiWare) sometime later this year. Each title will cost between 500 and 1500 Wii points and the list, courtesy of GI.biz is:
Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles: My Life as a King
Plonpos
Okiraku Ping Pong
Kotoba no Puzzle Mojipittan
Dr. Mario
Saku Saku Animal Panic
Star Solider R
Tenshi Solitaire
Pokémon Ranch
At the same time, Sega has announced that it will be bringing Master System classics Wonder Boy and Fantasy Zone to Nintendo’s Virtual Console with more titles promised soon.
Shakespeares’ works go digital
The Bodleian Library in Oxford and Folger Shakespeare Library in Washington DC have announced plans to reproduce all 75 editions of William Shakespeare’s plays printed before 1641, online.
“There are no surviving manuscripts of Shakespeare’s plays in his handwriting so the quartos are the closest we can get to what Shakespeare really wanted,” said Bodleian spokeswoman Oana Romocea.
“Some quartos do, however, have his annotations around the printed text.”
Many of the quartos are currently only available to scholars and the project is aimed to make the prints more accessible to the general public. The libraries say the downloading of the quartos will begin in April and take about a year to complete.
“We (at the Bodleian) have about 55 copies, although some of them are duplicates,” said Romocea.
“Each quarto is different, so it’s very interesting from a research perspective to compare the quartos.
“For example, some of the famous lines in ‘Hamlet’ exist in one quarto and in another they don’t, or they are very different.”
Netflix will credit users affected by outage
Netflix has announced that it will be giving all customers affected by Monday’s outage a 5 percent credit on their monthly bill.
Netflix spokesman Steve Swasey would not give the total amount of customers affected or how much would be refunded but did mention that the credit will have no “material impact on the company’s financial operations.”
“The key thing here is: This was completely proactive on Netflix’s part. There’s no requirement for Netflix to do this, no obligation. There was no request for it. We thought it was the right thing to do,” Swasey said.
Swasey added that many of Netflix’s 7.5 million members return DVDs on Mondays after watching them over the weekend and the outage delayed those hoping to receive their movies by Tuesday. The ratings system is still down but all ordering and shipping is back online.
Bell Canada was throttling P2P traffic
After being accused of shaping and throttling P2P traffic, Bell Canada has admitted to doing so, claiming that it is within its rights to do so.
The company admitted that it implemented “load balancing to manage Bandwidth demand,” and did so without telling customers or even the ISPs involved. The accusations thrown at Bell first occurred when Canadian ISP Teksavvy, an ISP popular among P2P users because traffic is guaranteed to not be throttled, noticed the “load balancing” and contacted Bell.
Last October Bell Canada’s own ISP, Sympatico, admitted to throttling P2P traffic on BitTorrent, Gnutella, Limewire, Kazaa, eDonkey, eMule, and WinMX which they claimed “use a large portion of bandwidth during peak hours.” The measures were supposedly only used during “peak hours” however.
What is more infuriating to customers is the fact that now traffic is affected for not only Sympatico users but customers of other ISPs that have connections through Bell. In response to what many customers have called “anti-competitive measures” being used by Bell a letter campaign is being formed with the Canadian Competition Bureau.
The group letter reads, “Bell Canada has overstepped its authority and are flexing their muscle (infrastructure control) to impose their will on independent competitors. I am a customer of an independent ISP who has purchased bandwidth and my provider is at the mercy of this underhanded tactic being employed by Bell Canada.”
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Chinese movie site sues MPA
The popular Chinese movie download site Jeboo has filed a lawsuit against the MPA for libel . The statement in question implies that Jeboo admitted to piracy as part of a past legal settlement. Jeboo claims it did no such admission.
MPA officials refused comment on the suit, which was filed in a Beijing court last week.
Back in September, Walt Disney Pictures, 20th Century Fox, Columbia Pictures, Universal Pictures and Paramount
Five studios sued Jeboo in Shanghai for “supplying Internet cafes with computer software that allowed users to download and watch illegal copies of 20 Hollywood movies, including “Hitch” and “Pirates of the Caribbean 2: Dead Man’s Chest.””
Earlier this month the MPA announced that Jeboo had settled with the studios and that the defendants “confirmed the cessation of infringing activities,”, apologized to the studios and also paid monetary compensation.
Company official Xie Jiangping says the settlement is confidential but that Jeboo never admitted to piracy. “We cannot tolerate statements that don’t reflect the truth,” he added.
YouTubes removes video to appease Turkey
The giant video sharing site YouTube has removed a few video clips that had prompted Turkish authorities to Block access to the site in January. The company hopes the move will lead the Turkish authorities to open access to the site in a timely fashion.
In a statement the site says, “we reviewed the videos that led to the most recent ban on access and removed them because of their content, which violate YouTube’s content policy.”
The clips, which Turkish authorities alleged were disrespectful to Mustafa Kemal Ataturk, the founder of modern Turkey, are now removed but the site remains blocked. Under Turkish law, it is a federal crime to even insult Ataturk.
The Pirate Bay hits new milestone
The infamous torrent tracker The Pirate Bay has hit a new milestone, reaching 20 million unique peers. It has been estimated that the site tracks over 50 percent of all BitTorrent users that are on at any point.
In 2006 the site tracked 3 million peers which moved up to 6 million peers by November 2007. In April of this year, TPB admin and founder Brokep noted that they had hit 12 million peers. The growth has been exponential and does not seem to be slowing down anytime soon.
Admin Peter Sunde added that there was previously limits on how many peers the site could track but those have been lifted thanks to new changes. “I wish we had lots and lots of money so we could just buy like 10 servers and another gigabit,” he jokingly added.
Sunde says he hopes to hit 24 million peers by Christmas Eve, and it seems they will get it.
