Thursday, November 30, 2006

Zune Grabs the Second Place in The MP3 Player Market

Microsoft’s iPod killer, Zune, achieved after its first week of sale 9 percent of the U.S. digital music player market and outdid SanDisk Corp.'s Sansa, according to the market researcher NPD Group.


With these 9 percent, Microsoft’s Zune is placed on the second position, behind Apple’s iPod, which remained the market leader with 63 percent.


"Microsoft attracted early adopters in a successful launch week for Zune, eking out Sandisk as the No. 2 digital audio player vendor," said Ross Rubin, NPD's director of industry analysis. "This was especially impressive given the Zune's single capacity configuration and relatively high price point."


The Zune represents the software giant's most ambitious attempt to date to challenge Apple's iPod. Microsoft is hoping to catch Apple with features not currently available on the iPod, including a slightly larger screen, an FM radio tuner and new technology that allows the device to locate other nearby Zunes and wirelessly exchange music and pictures with a few touches of the button.

source

Tags: player | Percent | iPod | zune | U.S. | SanDisk | Microsoft | MP | grabs

Zune Grabs the Second Place in The MP3 Player Market

Microsoft’s iPod killer, Zune, achieved after its first week of sale 9 percent of the U.S. digital music player market and outdid SanDisk Corp.'s Sansa, according to the market researcher NPD Group.


With these 9 percent, Microsoft’s Zune is placed on the second position, behind Apple’s iPod, which remained the market leader with 63 percent.


"Microsoft attracted early adopters in a successful launch week for Zune, eking out Sandisk as the No. 2 digital audio player vendor," said Ross Rubin, NPD's director of industry analysis. "This was especially impressive given the Zune's single capacity configuration and relatively high price point."


The Zune represents the software giant's most ambitious attempt to date to challenge Apple's iPod. Microsoft is hoping to catch Apple with features not currently available on the iPod, including a slightly larger screen, an FM radio tuner and new technology that allows the device to locate other nearby Zunes and wirelessly exchange music and pictures with a few touches of the button.

source

Tags: player | Percent | iPod | zune | U.S. | SanDisk | Microsoft | MP | grabs

Test 2

Po-210 easy to produce, can be found in food - ex-nuclear minister, MOSCOW, November 30, (RIA Novosti)

[q url="http://en.rian.ru/russia/20061130/56244741.html"]MOSCOW, November 30 (RIA Novosti) - Polonium-210, a highly toxic radioactive isotope widely believed to have been used to poison former FSB officer Alexander Litvinenko, can be manufactured even by a layman, a Russian former nuclear minister said Thursday.


Litvinenko, a Russian intelligence defector and a close associate of fugitive Russian oligarch Boris Berezovsky, died last Thursday in a London hospital. British health officials said Friday a large dose of Po-210 had been found in his body.


"Polonium is not actively used anywhere," Yevgeny Adamov said. "However, it is not difficult to manufacture. It can be done even by a layman without a chemical background."

source

Tags: layman | poison | ISOTOPE | Intelligence | Health | Moscow | London

Tuesday, November 28, 2006

S. Koreat confirms 2nd highly pathogenic bird flu outbreak

[q url="http://english.people.com.cn/200611/28/eng20061128_326032.html"]The South Korean government said Tuesday that another outbreak of the highly pathogenic strain of avian influenza (AI) was proved on a poultry farm in the Iksan city, 230 km south of Seoul.


The new outbreak of the bird flu is only 3 km away from the previous one, where the government had culled and buried all animals within a 500-m radius of a poultry farm since the H5N1 strain of bird flu virus was confirmed last Saturday.


The Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry said test results showed the newly reported cases was caused by highly pathogenic strain of bird flu virus.

source

Tags: S. Korea | virus | POULTRY | pathogenic | Outbreak | Government | flu | confirms | Seoul

Anti-Aging Conference Offers New Ideas for Not Getting Old

[q url="http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,232011,00.html"]The Baby Boomer generation has been influencing American culture since they first began growing their hair and ripping their jeans.


Now, as these trend setters are approaching their 60s, they are reshaping the way America looks at aging.


In her article "What do boomers want in 2006?,"Joanna L. Krotz notes that every seven seconds for the next 18 years, someone in this country will turn 60. More than one million Americans are expected to be 100 or older by 2050.

source

Tags: Anti-Aging | generation | Culture | article | offers | medicine | Las Vegas | Ideas | getting | conference | boomer | America | Aging

Thursday, November 23, 2006

'Everyone hated Kevin Federline'

Kevin Federline has been slammed by outspoken stars - Courtney Love and Jackass star Steve-O, for being an uncaring and irresponsible husband.


The actors claim that the wannabe rapper, whose estranged wife Britney Spears filed for divorce this month, is "hated by everyone" as he has been very insensitive to her needs. They also blame K-Fed for failing to support the pop star after she gave birth to second son Jayden James.


"Everybody hated him. I mean everyone! I feel bad for him. But he was bad for business," Hollywood Rag quoted Courtney, as telling In Touch Weekly magazine.

source

Tags: Steve-O | rapper | estranged | DIVORCE | Kevin Federline | K-Fed | hollywood | Courtney Love | Britney Spears

In the Wii-PS3 Playoff, Nintendo Upsets Sony on the Fun Factor

[q url="http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/11/22/AR2006112201857.html"]There was a showdown between the Nintendo Wii and the Sony PlayStation 3 at The Post's game testing lab last weekend.


Here's how it went down: I invited a bunch of my friends, five guys and three gals, over to check out the new systems. Few of them play or care about video games, but they were all curious to see the PlayStation 3, the cutting-edge game console that sparked real-world mayhem on its release Friday.

source

[q url="http://www.playfuls.com/news_05291_Nintendo_Wii_the_Surprise_Winner_of_the_Console_War.html"]Do you know what the first condition of a perfect console launch is? Releasing enough units so that everyone can get one! Well, if not everyone, at least as many as possible.


Of the three competitors on the console market, Nintendo seems to be the only one to have understood this necessity. Sony would have certainly liked to have millions of consoles available for sale, but problems determined by the incorporation of the BluRay unit didn’t allow the Japanese company such a luxurious release of its product.


Microsoft released Xbox 360 a year ago, however, as it didn’t respect this condition, the unit was sold out shortly after its launch. Lucky for the Redmond company that they had a whole year at their disposal in order to solve this problem – now they can be proud of having sold 7 million consoles. Microsoft hopes to celebrate having delivered 10 million units to consumers by March 2007.source

Tags: Wii-PS | Upsets | weekend | video | testing | sony | Playoff | Playstation | Nintendo | factor

Quote Source testing

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Friday, November 17, 2006

Soldier gets 90 years in Iraq rape-killing

A U.S. soldier who confessed to the rape of a 14-year-old girl and the slayings of her and her family has been sentenced to 90 years in prison.


U.S. Army Spc. James Barker, who indicated that he will testify against other soldiers implicated in the case, struck a plea deal with prosecutors that kept the death penalty off the table and made him eligible for parole in 20 years, The Washington Post reported Friday.


The court-martial was conducted at Fort Campbell, Ky.


Baker, the 16th member of the U.S. military to receive prison time for the deaths of Iraqi civilians, was given the longest sentence thus far, more than three times the next-longest sentence of 25 years for an unrelated case.

source

Tags: rape-killing | Ky. | Fort Campbell | rape | Prison | PENALTY | PAROLE | U.S. | Iraq | Army

Apparently we can all get along

Microsoft, Yahoo!, and Google have aligned on a new, standardized sitemap protocol that allows webmasters to give all three companies' search engine spiders a complete listing of their site's pages. The Live Search Blog (Microsoft), the Yahoo! Search Blog, and the Webmaster Central Blog (Google) have color-coordinated announcements and the companies have put up a site to explain it all. The protocol has been released under the Creative Commons license (Attribution - Share Alike) to promote use by other search engines.

source

Tags: Central Blog | sitemap | protocol | Yahoo | webmaster | Microsoft | Google | apparently

PS3 launched in US

AFTER THE pandemonium of the PS3 launch in Japan, similar fanfare, fights and tantrums were recorded across the US last night, as America braced for the impact of the Playstation 3.


Gizmodo have pics of a tractor trailer delivering PS3s accompanied by sirens, a police escort, and a jumbotron, to 4th street San Francisco - where lucky customers were the first to be able to purchase their consoles in the US.


This is accompanied by the sight of happy campers, who had been waiting in queues for the chance of purchasing a PS3 for sometime.


The lucky guy who came first in the queue, was then forced into about 50 interviews with the press, giving him little time to play with his new $599 console.

source

Tags: Gizmodo | tractor | queue | police | pandemonium | launched | fanfare | ESCORT | US | San Francisco | Playstation | ps | Japan | America

Wednesday, November 15, 2006

Sony, Microsoft, Nintendo get ready to rumble

The $30 billion video game industry's own war of the titans reboots this week with the U.S. launch of Sony Corp.'s PlayStation 3 on Friday and the debut of Nintendo Co. Ltd.'s Wii on Sunday.

A limited supply, delayed debut and drop in the number of games built exclusively for the new PS3 could choke market leader Sony's quest for mainstream hearts and dollars until after the crucial holiday season, a far different scenario from the last console battle when Sony beat key rivals to market.

"It's a significantly more competitive market this time," said Yankee Group video game analyst Michael Goodman, adding that many parents are not brand loyal and will not let Christmas pass without a console for the gamer on their list.
Initial supplies of the PS3 are expected to quickly evaporate and Goodman and others expect Microsoft Corp. (MSFT.O) and its one-year-old Xbox 360 to be the main beneficiary of the resulting spill-over in demand.
source
100_1250 PS3 Xbox 360 Pro Package

Tags: video | rumble | debut | U.S. | sony | Nintendo | Microsoft | Los Angeles

The Stupid, Idiotic and Annoying Things about the Zune-brick

I first started writing this article with a positive attitude concerning Microsoft’s MP3 player. I ended up thinking Zune is a crap. So I changed the title.


First of all, as a Zune reviewer, you have to sign something that’s called “reviewers kit agreement”, probably one of the most stupid things ever to emanate from Redmond. As John C Dvorak said, they should really be ashamed of themselves for sending this piece of paper to intelligent people


According to the contract, you cannot take Zune it apart, you have no permission whatsoever to disassemble it (can you remove the battery?!) and you have to write in your review only terms imposed by the contract. We all know that it is of common sense for enthusiast sites to review a product by disassembling it and posting pictures of how it looks inside, just to give the potential customers the chance of knowing more about what they’ll buy.


One reason for Microsoft’s secrecy (or stupidity, but that is just so common for Redmond…) is the fact that customers could actually find out before they buy what Zune is actually like: almost twice bigger than any regular iPod (and probably even bigger than iPod’s manual…). So I say to my self: ok, it has these dimensions because it gives you a lot of new features and you can’t pack those into something smaller. But then again: maybe they’ve included some big, old flash memory or some components from the ’90 and they wouldn’t want you to realize that before…

source

Tags: reviewer | Zune-brick | Idiotic | title | player | zune | things | stupid | Redmond | Microsoft | annoying

Monday, November 13, 2006

Microsoft Counting on a Twist to Make Zune Shine in Shadow of iPod

The hoopla was still swelling around last November’s debut of the Xbox 360, Microsoft’s latest entry in the game-console wars, when some on its development team began turning their attention to conceiving a new product.

Their discussions led to the rough outline of a device that might do
for portable music what the new Internet-enabled Xbox was poised to
deliver to gaming: connected entertainment.

Tomorrow, after committing hundreds of millions of dollars, Microsoft is scheduled to release that device, Zune.

It
was, its makers say, an idea brought to fruition by a 230-member team
in a creatively fervid overcrowded office space near the software
giant’s sprawling campus in Redmond, Wash.

source

Tags: game-console | conceiving | WARS | turning | their | team | SWELLING | still | some | latest | last | iPod | hoopla | game | entry | device | Development | debut | began | Attention | around | zune | XBOX | twist | shine | Shadow | Redmond | Microsoft | Make | COUNTING | bryan

Thursday, November 09, 2006

Microsoft says open to more Linux-type deals:report

Microsoft Corp. (MSFT.O) is open to more deals like one it just agreed with Novell for open-source Linux software, but believes customers will continue to pay for software, its chief executive told an Indian newspaper.


"We will love to put that kind of agreement in place with anyone who distributes Linux software, Red Hat, whoever else," Steve Ballmer told India's Economic Times in an interview published on Thursday.

Last week, Microsoft and Novell (NOVL.O) entered a broad
set of business and technological agreements to make their
products work together to serve corporate customers using both
Linux and Windows computer servers.

source

Tags: Linux-type | software | agreement | novell | Microsoft | mumbai | Linux | India