Archive for March 2010

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SanDisk introduces 32GB microSDHC cards

Ok, you have that new Android phone and you are installing apps like crazy, taking pictures and videos, and watching movies from your new-fangled device. But you need more space! Sound familiar? Just like regular computers, we seem to always need more room to put stuff! Read more

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Congressional Reform Act of 2010

This has been going around on the web for a little while now, but I thought one more place couldn't hurt!

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Sprint to get Nexus One!

WOOHOO!!!! Finally! I have been waiting on this announcement for months now.  I want to upgrade my phone to the 21st century.....my Motorola Q9c has been a good phone and served me well for the past few years, but let's admit it....it's so, so....last century! No touchscreen, no apps to speak of, just kinda there doing what it does best.....send and receive emails. And it surfs ok, and has a pretty good GPS, and plays music nicely, and gets Sprint TV. But I want more! I want apps to clutter up my screen, I want to be able to get oily fingerprints all over the screen, I want a bigger screen, I want a more powerful phone! Read more

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FCC wants you to have 100 megabit connection!

The FCC is unveiling a sweeping proposal to overhaul the U.S. broadband policy. Their aim is to connect 100 million U.S. households to broadband connections of 100 megabits per second....that's at least 20 times faster than most home connections now! And they want to do it by 2020! Now that sounds great, and you can bet I'll be jumping on as soon as that bus pulls into town, but what is this going to cost me?  That part is the sticking point........where does the FCC get the money? Which corporations are going to help support it? Read more

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Update: Just Great is now: At least it's something!

As I mentioned earlier this week: Just Great, Sprint no longer carries the NFL Network It appears Sprint already had another option in the works.....ESPN Mobile TV. Now while this is great for sports fans, it still sucks for me! But the needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few....or one! According to Businesswire.com between now and the end of April:

ESPN Mobile TV coverage will feature more than 100 live events and over 250 hours of coverage for Sprint customers with this new agreement beginning just in time for fans to watch the Big 12 and Big East Conference Championship basketball games on Sprint mobile devices.

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SSD is tough!

I have two 64GB Kingston SSDNow V drives....one is the boot drive with Win 7 and the other has Steam installed on it. I really like these drives, they are quick, silent and most of all.....they were cheap, I bought them on sale...of course! Seems like Kingston is so sure of the durability of their drives that they took a baseball bat to one! Yep, Batter is at the plate, the pitcher winds up, it's a heater right down the middle. The batter swings......it's outta here, HOME RUN!!! Read more

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Samsung 3-D TV pricing

Update: I found a pricing chart for Samsung's new 3-D TVs: Yowsers!!

Enjoy your CES peek at Samsung's ultrathin 9000 series LED-lit LCD HDTV, with its touchscreen, video displaying remote control (also available as a $350 add-on for the 7000, 8000,and 750 series televisions) and 3D capability? That's good, because bringing the 55-inch UN55C9000 home in April will cost you a cool $6,999 (the thrifty can slum it with the 46-inch version for $5,999.) Still, if you're just looking to jump in on 3D without spending the max money, the cheapest model available at first will be the standard LCD LN46C750 available in May. In between, there's all manner of LED (most of them listed above, both with and without 3D capabilities) or old-school CCFL backlit LCDs plus a healthy lineup of plasmas arriving over the next few months, so with a note that grabbing 3D Blu-ray player and display at the same time will net a couple free pairs of active shutter glasses and a copy of the Monsters vs. Aliens 3D Blu-ray, check Samsung's site for each type to see what your budget can handle. Check out the UN55C8000! sources: Samsung's 2010 3DTVs priced from $1,700 to ridiculous and everywhere in between -- Engadget Samsung 2010 LED LCDs, Samsung 2010 plasmas, Samsung 2010 CCFL LCDs

Related articles by Zemanta

• Samsung Debuts 3D TV Lineup (mashable.com)
• 3D televisions 'the norm' within five years, experts predict (telegraph.co.uk)
• Samsung 9000 series LED LCD TV eyes-on (video) (engadget.com)

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Just great!

Just when I was all gung-ho about my new two year contract renewal with Sprint, this happens:

NFL switches wireless sponsors, Sprint’s out Verizon’s in Verizon is touting its new 4-year wireless mobile deal with the National Football League. The contract ends Sprint’s official NFL sponsorship that ran for five years. A Sprint spokeswoman said cost was a big issue. “We made the decision not to extend the sponsorship after the price-tag reached a point where we questioned the return on our investment,” Melinda Tiemeyer said. She added that the NFL contract does not change Sprint’s affiliation with individual NFL teams such as the Kansas City Chiefs, Indianapolis Colts and others. Sprint still sponsors the NASCAR Sprint Cup Series and the U.S. Ski and Snowboard Association. The NFL deal allows Verizon to offer its mobile customers live viewing of the league’s Sunday night and Thursday night games, game highlights video, live radio broadcasts of games, NFL alerts and ringtones, live coverage of the NFL draft in April and other features. via sprintconnection.kansascity.com

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3-D coming to your living room soon?

Last year TV manufactures said that 3-D TV would be the big thing for 2010.....and they meant it! Samsung alone plans on introducing 15 new 3-D sets in the next two months. While the prices from Samsung, Panasonic and Sony will be rather high for alot of people ($3,000 for a 46" Samsung), expect prices to tumble within a year if this niche TV takes off. With several major studios behind the 3-D push, it should take hold fairly easily. Samsung and Sony are predicting 10% of TVs sold in the next year will be 3-D. Read more

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Cisco introduces new router

Cisco has announced a new router that has 13 times the capacity of its competition. The new CRS-3 is designed to be better able to handle the traffic in today's media-centric web with a total capacity of 322 Tbs. Yep...you read that right!!! That's 3 times more than Cisco's current CRS-1 and enough to handle simultaneous video calls for every person in China! ?The CRS-1 was specualted to only sell around 50 units when it debut, but Cisco has sold around 5000 CRS-1's so far. So while the price tag of $90,000 may seem a bit steep rest assured it will be a successful router for Cisco. Read more

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How much is too much?

Let me start this out with this: I like the Call of Duty games....well....most of them! The ones put out by Infinity Ward are great, the ones by Treyarch.....not so much.

Now that that is out of the way: how many times can you rehash the same game? OK, I know...you can rehash Guitar Hero and Mario to death and people will still by the new ones. But come on, FPS WWI, WWII and modern war games, in my opinion, have reached the saturation point. Take the latest Battlefield: Bad Company 2....the first mission in the single player talks about an OP that supposedly took place during WWII, lasted 20 minutes the all records of it was destroyed. Now I am not saying this didn't/couldn't happen, we all know the government always has secret ops we never know about.

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Is Hulu's days numbered?

My Way News - Charging fees for Hulu comes with its own problems

Hulu's days as a free online video site could be ending soon. Comedy Central's decision to yank two of the most popular shows on Hulu - "The Daily Show" and "The Colbert Report" - in a dispute over splitting ad revenue is the latest blow to the entertainment industry's attempts to make money off ads that run with free video. Yet Hulu's most viable alternative - charging for access to some videos - could turn off viewers and crimp the site's explosive growth. Ultimately, the remedy to Hulu's current troubles could leave the site even worse off, a poor shadow of its former self. Many viewers are drawn to Hulu because of its ease of use, not because they couldn't get much of the same content elsewhere. Hulu's videos simply aren't exclusive enough - compared with, say, Time Warner Inc.'s premium HBO cable channel. If Hulu charges for a TV show or movie, the viewer could simply watch it over the air live, be more consistent about recording it to view later or catch the program for free through a video-on-demand service offered by cable TV and other providers. "There are very few people who would be willing to pay for it," said Bruce Leichtman, president of the Leichtman Research Group Inc. in Durham, N.H. He noted that viewers could simply ask themselves, "Why would I pay for it when I can get it on video on demand?" Chase Carey, chief operating officer of Hulu co-owner News Corp., has said that the site would have to start charging for some video eventually, though he and other officials have been mum about when that would happen and what aspects would remain free. Hulu has had trouble turning a profit because it doesn't pull in enough revenue to pay for operations. Online ads simply don't generate as much revenue as broadcast TV commercials. In the latest blow, Hulu disclosed in a blog this week that Comedy Central would yank its shows from the site beginning next Wednesday. Comedy Central and Hulu couldn't come to terms on how to share ad revenue, according to two people with knowledge of the discussions, speaking on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to comment on private talks. "The Daily Show" and "The Colbert Report" will still be available on sites run by Comedy Central, letting the Viacom Inc. network reap all of the ad revenue. About a half dozen other Comedy Central shows will also leave Hulu. Given that "The Daily Show" is the third most popular show on Hulu, Viacom's exit is a big blow to the experiment by the entertainment companies that own it - News Corp., Walt Disney Co. and General Electric Co.'s NBC Universal - to see whether they can successfully make money off ads and bypass cable and satellite TV companies. Traffic will likely take a hit as Comedy Central fans leave the site, and Comedy Central proves with its departure that it doesn't need Hulu to bring in online traffic and revenue. The next step in the Hulu experiment will be to decide what and how much to charge. But a Leichtman survey, released Tuesday, found that 81 percent "strongly disagree" with the notion of paying $9.95 a month for a service like Hulu, while only 5 percent "strongly agree" to pay. For Hulu to successfully charge fees, whether monthly or on a per-video basis, it would have to offer exclusive or premium content that viewers couldn't easily get elsewhere. Its owners certainly have a wealth of content to unleash - but that would upset the cable TV, satellite and phone companies that offer video. These operators pay Hulu's owners fees to carry their cable channels and increasingly even local, over-the-air TV stations. Content providers have had mixed success charging extra for video. HBO, CBS Corp.'s Showtime and Liberty Media Corp.'s Starz are able to charge a monthly fee on top of what viewers already pay their cable TV, satellite and phone companies. But others, such as the Disney Channel, have to be satisfied with staying on basic cable lineups. If Hulu started charging, growth could slow. In December, less than three years since its launch in March 2007, Hulu delivered more than a billion videos, according to Web traffic measurement firm comScore Inc. Regardless of whether Hulu charges, traffic would likely take a hit as more shows from cable channels become available for free at other Web sites to customers of cable TV and other subscription services. Comcast Corp. began offering content from about two dozen channels online in December. Time Warner Cable Inc., DirecTV Inc. and Verizon Communications Inc. are following suit. Hulu is essentially left without many options. One scenario is for Hulu to merge free and paid content on its site. It could make the premium content available for a monthly subscription fee with options to rent or purchase shows a la carte, said Tony Wible, an analyst at Janney Montgomery Scott. Hulu will probably continue to have ads as well. A fee-based Hulu could come with better content. Currently, Hulu carries TV shows that air for free on the broadcast networks, as well as some cable shows, older movies, clips and movie trailers. But if Hulu starts to charge, newer movies could hit the site. However, the paid-video market is already crowded with rivals such as Apple Inc.'s iTunes, Amazon.com Inc.'s Unbox and Netflix Inc.'s online delivery of movies. Hulu has to be different - and that's not an easy task.

Related articles by Zemanta

• Hulu, the free site, facing some difficult choices (msnbc.msn.com)
• Hulu might have to charge fees, but paid videos come with own problems (taragana.com)
• Hulu Losing 'Daily Show,' 'Colbert Report' (huffingtonpost.com)

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Chatty Cathy

Ok.......I know that phrase probably out dates alot of you, but it is something most of you know alot about.....IM's. How many IM accounts do you have? I have at least 4......plus I have one I can't remember the login for and have no hope of getting it back Now everyone knows what a pain it is to have several Instant Messaging programs running at the same time........they eat memory as if you had 32 GB of the stuff, and the you have 2, 3, 5, maybe even 7 extra icons in your systray for all of them.

Wouldn't it be nice to have just ONE program to use to log into all of your "chatty cathy" programs? Some of you probably use Trillian to solve the issue and thee is nothing wrong with that, but admit it, Trillian has gotten to be bloatware too! I started looking about a year ago for one program to handle all of my IM accounts. I tried Miranda, Pidgin, PowWow and others before finally deciding on digsby!

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