Information States Disney, Hulu.com Resume Talks for Bringing ABC Shows

By: Marco A. Ayllon
Nautilus Technology News
March 30, 2009

According to Friday reports from paidContent. org, citing unnamed sources, with talks between the Walt Disney Co and Hulu. com having resumed, there are chances of ABC shows coming to the popular online video site; along with content from Disney's cable networks, like ESPN and Disney Channel.

Disney, which is the ninth rank-holder among the video sites in the US, has long been trying to negotiate a deal with the fourth ranker Hulu - as well as other web-based content distributors - in an attempt to increase the viewership of the ad-supported ABC shows being offered on ABC. com and its local TV affiliates like AOL. com, and Fancast site by Comcast Corp.

Though there has been no official confirmation about the supposed resumption of talks from either Hulu or Disney, "inside sources" say that Disney is also keen on an equity stake in Hulu, similar to the equal ownership stakes held by NBC Universal and News Corp; both with 45 percent stake apiece. In case the deal comes through, Hulu would have three of the biggest broadcast TV networks, excluding CBS.

However, it is still not clear about which of the ABC shows will be brought over to the Hulu site, there are indications that the shows being considered for the crossover include ABC prime time shows like `Lost,' `Desperate Housewives,' and `Ugly Betty'.

Attention, Bargain Hunters: Circuit City Is Now Closing

Nautilus Science & Technology News
By: Marco Ayllon
March 7, 2009

It’s coming to a close a bit sooner than expected: Circuit City’s going-out-of-business sale will end Sunday, March 8. Great American Group, one of four firms managing the liquidation of the once-great electronics chain, has announced that Circuit City’s $1.7 billion in inventory is just about gone. So if you’re looking for a killer bargain on whatever’s left in stock -- or even store fixtures like display shelves, a ratty office chair, or the manager’s coffee mug -- now’your last chance.

I’ve seen Circuit City ads over the past few days that promote discounts of 90-percent or so, but it’s a pretty safe bet that the 65-inch plasmas and Blu-ray players are all gone. What’s left? When it comes to the final days of a liquidation sale, you can never tell. Maybe there’s a 32-inch HDTV with a cracked bezel, an open 50-pack of DVD-R discs (with a few missing), or a demo laptop that may or may not boot.

Liquidation sales are always a bit sad: Roped-off areas to shrink the retail space; open boxes with manuals, cables, and other flotsam scattered everywhere. Harry McCracken of Technologizer captured the mood beautifully in his The Tragic Last Days of Circuit City pictorial. It’s hard to believe that Circuit City was once the second-largest consumer electronics retailer in the United States.

If we’ve learned anything about going-out-of-business sales over the past few weeks, it’s this: Don’t bother going the first week. That’s when the liquidator, hoping to reel in the suckers, cuts prices a measly 10 percent. You’ll almost always find better deals at competing retailers, particularly if you comparison-shop online. The real deals come deeper into the sale -- say, weeks 4 to 6 -- but by then you run the risk of missing out on the items you want.

If you’re planning to stop by your local Circuit City this weekend, it’s wise to call first. Some of CC’s 567 stores in the U.S. have already closed their doors.

Microsoft Recruiting For Windows 7 Small Biz Blitzkrieg

Nautilus Science & Technolgy News
By: Marco A. Ayllon
March 6, 2009

Microsoft (NSDQ:MSFT) wants small businesses that have avoided Windows Vista like the plague to upgrade to Windows 7, and the software giant is enlisting the aid of its small business-focused solution providers to help make that happen.
Earlier this week, Microsoft quietly unveiled its Windows 7 Small Business Ignite Program, which gives small businesses a chance to test out the Windows 7 Beta with guidance from Microsoft channel partners.

The program, details of which are scarce, appears to be aimed at convincing small businesses that, unlike Vista, Windows 7 won't actually destroy their businesses and ransack their homes. In other words, it's another effort to counteract entrenched negative views of Vista.

But despite the positive early returns on the Windows 7 beta, Microsoft faces enormous challenges in getting small businesses, many of which are perfectly content running their day-to-day operations on Windows XP, to justify spending for the upgrade to Windows 7. And that would be the case even if the economy weren't in a full-fledged meltdown mode.

"Windows XP is a very stable operating system that all of my clients are familiar with, trust, and have no reason to upgrade from. They will not go en masse to Windows 7, regardless of the price," said Jere Terrill, principal at My Computer Mechanic, a Castle Rock, Colo.-based solution provider.

Microsoft's small-business-focused partners were among the last to receive the final release of Windows Vista, and that put a big dent in their confidence in Vista's ability to perform in a production environment, according to Mark Crall, president of Charlotte Tech Care Team, a Charlotte, N.C.-based solution provider.

By getting the Windows 7 Release Candidate in small business partners' hands earlier, Microsoft can help erase those bad memories. However, there is no financial incentive for Microsoft partners to sell new deployments of Windows 7 to small businesses under current licensing arrangements, as their only options are upgrade, OEM or Retail licensing, Crall noted.

"Unless you are a system builder, or selling large quantities, then all you can do is wait for their hardware to die and suggest they call Dell (NSDQ:Dell)," Crall said.

Last November, speculation flared that Microsoft might be planning to offer a "Windows 7 for Small Businesses" edition at some point in the future. This was fueled by the appearance of a Microsoft job posting for a Senior Marketing Manager, whose responsibilities would be to "increase the effectiveness of partner co-marketing direct to Small and Medium Business customers and through partners' extensive indirect channel partners, including distribution and breadth reseller network."

With Vista, small businesses had just two choices -- Windows Vista Business and Windows Vista Enterprise -- neither of which fit their needs and both of which were too expensive for the segment.

If Microsoft does come out with a small-business-focused Windows 7 SKU, with a lighter price tag to match, that could help remove some of the barriers and spur Windows 7 adoption, according to solution providers.

Microsoft tweaks Experience Index for Windows 7

Nautilus Science & Technology News
February 25, 2009
By: Marco Ayllon

New performance tool better measures multi-core CPUs and drives

Microsoft Corp. has changed the PC performance rating tool Windows Experience Index for Windows 7 to better measure faster graphic cards, multi-core processors and drives.

The index's top score will go up from 5.9 to 7.9, and add several new tests to more accurately measure the performance of hard-disk and solid-state drives, says a mid-January post at the Engineering Windows 7 blog.

Windows Experience Index, first introduced with Windows Vista, is intended to help users discover which parts of their system needs to be upgraded for Windows and applications to run well, or if the PC needs to be replaced.


Reviews of the first public beta of Windows 7 indicate that it generally runs faster and more smoothly than Vista, despite the two sharing a very similar codebase.

But critics have alredy begun questioning the revamped index's usefulness and accuracy. One beta tester, going by the handle 'Hurricane Andrew' on Microsoft's MSDN developer Web site, complained that an older hard drive using the slower IDE interface was awarded a much higher rating than his newer, larger hard drive using the faster SATA-II interface.

"I hardly believe that's accurate," he wrote.

Others complained that the new scale, from 1.0 to 7.9, was counterintuitive, or that the criteria for drive performance should not have changed between Vista and Windows 7 for consistency's sake.

Michael Cherry, an analyst with the independent firm Directions on Microsoft, said he "doesn't put much stock" in the index's scores.

A Microsoft representative said in an e-mail that the company was "closely monitoring" input from beta testers aboutWindows 7, including for the new index, but would not say if changes would result from the feedback.

Windows 7 apps may not run faster on quad-cores
The Windows Experience Index, found under the System Icon in Vista or Windows 7's Control Panel, quickly scans hardware befor delivering five results, including for: processor, memory (RAM), graphics for general desktop work, gaming graphics performance, and the primary hard drive's performance. The results are based on the rated specifications of each component, not on their actual performance history in the scanned PC.

Because PC performance is often determined by the speed of the slowest-performing component, the index's "base score" is defined by the lowest of the five scores, rather than an average of all five.

PCs with a base score of between 1.0 and 2.9 can run Office applications and surf the Web, but not play games and videos or use Vista and Windows 7's Aero graphical user interface, Microsoft says.

Computers with a base score in the 3.0-range should be able to run Aero and most of Vista and Windows 7's new features, while those with scores in the 4.0 to 5.0-range should be able to enjoy high-definition (HD) video and 3-D gaming.

For more information visit: Official Microsoft Windows 7 Blog

Marvell’s SheevaPlug is a Plug Computer

Nautilus Science & Technology News
February 25, 2009
By: Marco Ayllon

Marvell Introduces Plug Computing with SheevaPlug

With the economy in nearing 1997 lows we all need a distraction from the pains of the market and today that distraction is the Marvell SheevaPlug (Originally designed by GlobalScale Technologies). Marvell’s SheevaPlug looks like night light, but it is a what they are calling a plug computer — an embedded computer that plugs into the wall socket and is capable of running network-based services that normally require a dedicated personal computer. The enclosure is designed to plug directly into a regular US wall socket and draws less than one tenth of the power of a typical PC being used as a home server, which should lower your monthly electric bill if you run a PC at home 24/7. Even better the SheevaPlug development kit is available right now for $99 through Marvell, so this is a product that you can actually purchase.



The SheevaPlug is just 110mm (L) x 69.5mm (W) x 48.5 mm (H) and features a 1.2GHz Marvell Sheeva CPU with 512MB of flash memory and 512MB of DDR2 memory, the SheevaPlug provides what is said to be enough processing power and resources to run nearly any embedded computing application. As one would guess the PC plug doesn't consume much power and draws on average, less than five watts under normal operation compared to 25-100 Watts for a PC being used as a home server. The Marvell SheevaPlug also has Gigabit Ethernet for network connectivity as well as a USB 2.0 connector.



Today digital home services such as media servers, file sharing and backup software all need to be installed on a PC. A plug computer is a small, powerful computer that connects to an existing network using Gigabit Ethernet and it eliminates the need for an always-on PC in the digital home to access these services. The software for the SheevaPlug includes multiple Linux distributions that follow the opensource model which makes the SheevaPlug an ideal platform on which to develop or port any application. The SheevaPlug development kit contains the SheevaPlug as well as all the software tools needed to develop applications for the platform.



The Plug Computer is an inexpensive computer solution that has the technology and advancements to run a service on its own. This allows a software service to be bundled together with a plug computer and provides a simple deployment model for a consumer or small business. Specialized plug computers can be targeted at different market segments allowing vendors to clearly communicate the value proposition and deliver the optimal installation and use for the consumer. Consumers can use the plug for media sharing or for backup services. The convenient compact form factor of a plug computer promotes an energy efficient design and simplifies installation.



When Legit Reviews spoke to Marvell about the SheevaPlug we were told that it works well with USB 2.0 switches, so hooking up several USB 2.0 hard drives and using this as a file server is very much a possibility. Marvell also said that the Sheeva We also asked Marvell if the 1.2GHz Sheeva CPU would be able to keep up with streaming HD Blu-Ray content from the USB 2.0 input and they said that it had plenty of horse power to playback smooth HD content. If that proves true with the sample we have in route this could cause an issue for NVIDIA with their upcoming Ion Platform. NVIDIA expects the Ion platform to cost between $50 and $100 more than the the cost of a typical Intel Atom powered netbook ($225-$300), which means that the Marvell SheevaPlug will be roughly one third the price. With the way the economy is right now the lower the price the higher the sales and since many of use have USB 2.0 external hard drives or can get them for a low price. The $99 SheevaPlug should be an interesting product for those that run a PC at all times and doesn't need a ton of horse power. If you have a large network you can place the virsus scanner on the SheevaPlug and let it scan and fix issues found on the network without running the local machines. The SheevaPlug is an interesting PC, but we will save our full thoughts on it for when we get our hands on one this week and will bring you a detailed review after we use it!

Questions or Comments? View this thread in Legit forums!

Browsers Battles: Google backs case against Microsoft's Explorer

Browser makers Opera, Mozilla and Google are adding weight to an EU attack on Microsoft's dominance.

Nautilus News Science & Technology
February 24, 2009
By: Marco Ayllon

Google is joining forces with European regulators in an attack on Microsoft's dominance of the web browser market, injecting more bad blood between two of computing's richest and most powerful companies.

The latest assault on Microsoft's Internet Explorer comes as Google is trying to expand the usage of its own web browser, a six-month-old product called Chrome.
A complaint by another Internet Explorer rival, Opera, prompted the European Commission to open an investigation into whether Microsoft's bundling of its web browser with the Windows operating system had stifled competition and innovation. In their preliminary findings, the European regulators concluded that Microsoft had indeed given its web browser an unfair advantage that has been in violation of European law since 1996.

Microsoft has until late March to respond, which could force the Redmond, Washington-based software maker to detach Internet Explorer from Windows.
By becoming a third party in the European proceedings, Google hopes to build a case as to why Microsoft should be required to level the playing field for Chrome and other competing browsers.

"Creating a remedy that helps solve one problem without creating other unintended consequences isn't easy - but the more voices there are in the conversation the greater the chances of success," Sundar Pichai, a Google vice president, wrote in a blog post.

The makers of Firefox, which has risen in popularity in recent years and is the second-most-used browser behind Internet Explorer, already have offered to help the European Commission crack down on Microsoft.

A Microsoft spokesman declined comment on Tuesday, referring instead to a statement that the company issued last month after the European Commission's preliminary findings.

"We are committed to conducting our business in full compliance with European law," Microsoft said at that time.

In a quarterly report to shareholders last month, Microsoft said European regulators might force the company to set up a version of Windows that would bundle several browsers with the operating system, to make it easier for users to pick something other than Internet Explorer.

While Microsoft's has been at odds with other browser makers, its rivalry with Google is the most prickly.

Google has milked its leadership of the lucrative internet search market to undermine Microsoft's influence on how people interact with their computers. Microsoft has unsuccessfully tried to thwart Google's growth by pouring billions of dollars into its own search engine.

The battle between the two foes has occasionally spilled into the regulatory arena. Last year, Microsoft spearheaded a campaign that raised serious antitrust concerns about Google's plans to sell some ads on behalf of Yahoo, which is a distant second in the internet search market.

Google scrapped the Yahoo alliance in November, averting a lawsuit that US Justice Department planned to file to block the partnership.

Report: Free Windows 7 upgrades to run until January 2010

Nautilus Science & Technology News
February 12, 2009
By: Marco A. Ayllon

Latest clue that Windows 7 will ship by Christmas, says analyst

To encourage consumers to keep buying Windows Vista PCs this year despite Windows 7's looming release, Microsoft Corp. will give away free Windows 7 upgrades to people buying PCs with Vista until as late as Jan. 31 of next year, according to a report.

The report, from the Malaysian blog TechARP.com, which has called similar details correctly in the past, is another clue that Microsoft plans to release Windows 7 before year's end, said Matt Rosoff, an analyst at the independent research firm Directions on Microsoft.

Citing purported confidential memos from Microsoft, TechARP.com had earlier reported that the Windows 7 Upgrade Program will begin July 1 of this year.

That would mean that any Vista PCs purchased between then and Jan. 31, 2010, would be eligible for free upgrades to Windows 7.

TechARP reported today that those Windows 7 upgrade DVDs should be delivered by PC makers to customers by April 30 of next year. These dates are "open to change," TechARP reported.

The veracity of the report "seems reasonable to me," said Rosoff. "If they're soliciting OEM feedback now, that points to a possible release in time for holiday 2009."

Microsoft declined to comment on the TechARP report.

"Microsoft often explores options with our partners to determine product offerings," a spokeswoman said in an e-mail. "We are not announcing anything new at this time."

TechARP correctly named the release-to-manufacturing (RTM) dates for several Windows editions last year.

In Microsoft's prior Vista Express upgrade program, Windows XP PCs bought between October 26, 2006, and March 15, 2007, were eligible for free Vista upgrades.

Microsoft launched Vista to consumers officially on Jan. 30, 2007, or 45 days before the program's eligibility ended.

The program was plagued with delays, with consumers waiting weeks or months to get their Vista upgrade DVDs mailed to them.

TechARP has other purported details from the upgrade program, including screenshots and upgrade paths.

"The program sounds very similar to what they did before Vista," Rosoff said. "I think the terms are slightly different, but that's because there were fewer [versions] in XP, so the edition upgrade paths were similar."