Microsoft has announced that it has cut the price of its Xbox 360 HD DVD addon by $50 USD. The price cut follows recent decisions by Toshiba to drop prices on their HD DVD players.
The new price cut brings the price of the add-on in the US, Canada, Australia and New Zealand to $129.99 USD. A few months ago Microsoft dropped the price of its add-on and promptly saw a surge in sales.
Earlier today, the huge e-tailer Amazon began selling the add-on for $79.99 USD and sold out within hours.
It is also important to note that every purchase of the add-on includes a free copy of “King Kong” on HD DVD in the box as well as an offer to get five free discs in the mail.
Result for: new zealand
TeleGeography, a research firm, has reported that New Zealand will be expanding its cellular networks and that iPhones could be on the way.
Telecom New Zealand’s director of mobile operations, Martin Butler added that it is a “good inference that the company will bring over the iPhone.” The communications company is currently building a brand new $300 million NZD GSM/EDGE network which should be able to support the 850MHz Frequency of the iPhone. The new expansion of the network is expected by November and will reach 97 percent of New Zealand’s residents.
Butler also noted however that the network will support 3G broadband, but for the first few months or so it will only cover NZ’s three largest cities, Auckland, Wellington and Christchurch. “To achieve anything above EDGE — a “2.5G” technology — many users will need to fall back to the company’s CDMA network, which supports EVDO Revision A,” he added.
Result for: new zealand
New Zealand has become the first country to adopt a ‘3-strikes’ law for Internet pirates after signing the Copyright Amendment Act 2008 this year. The bill will go into effect on March 1st 2009.
The three strikes law, as previously discussed in France and the UK, would give pirates two warnings before kicking them off the Internet for good on a “third strike.” The EU recently struck down a bill calling for the three strikes rule and it appears that opposition is growing in New Zealand as well despite the fact the bill has already been signed.
The section of the act signed into law, 92A reads as follows:
Internet service provider must have policy for terminating accounts of repeat infringers
(1) An Internet service provider must adopt and reasonably implement a policy that provides for termination, in appropriate circumstances, of the account with that Internet service provider of a repeat infringer.
(2) In subsection (1), repeat infringer means a person who repeatedly infringes the copyright in a work by using 1 or more of the Internet services of the Internet service provider to do a restricted act without the consent of the copyright owner.
Six industry bodies have already voiced opposition to the law however and it appears that the law may be moving towards a rewording. The law would not be repealed however.
