Early hi-def DVD buyers like what they see

By Thomas K. Arnold Thu Apr 27, 12:56 AM ET

LOS ANGELES (Hollywood Reporter)- Early adopters who bought one of the first two Toshiba high-definition DVD players had mixed comments about the official start of packaged media's high-definition era.

Most gave the players high marks -- for quality and value -- but faulted the format's supporters for having just three movies in stores when the machines arrived April 18.

James Stevenson, a 22-year-old freelance journalist in Lincoln, Neb., said he bought the cheaper of the two Toshiba players -- Toshiba's Web site prices them at $799.99 and $499.99 -- "because I wanted to get a head start on the next-generation DVDs and give my HD-starved TV more content."

While Stevenson was dismayed at the meager selection of software, he said the player made his standard DVDs look significantly better. "I'm thrilled with that result," he said.

Lars Peterson, 29, of Cape Girardeau, Mo., agrees. He bought two of the three launch titles, "Serenity" and "The Last Samurai," and found the picture quality "breathtaking." (The other launch title was "The Phantom of the Opera.")

But the real treat was watching standard DVDs on his new player. "I have owned at least 10 DVD players over the last eight years," he said, "and I can honestly say the Toshiba player is the best. This is a huge plus, considering the lack of HD movies to currently choose from."

Most early adopters interviewed say they also will buy Blu-ray players when they become available in June, though some balked at the higher prices -- despite conventional wisdom that for early adopters price is generally not a factor.

"Honestly, I am turned off by the higher price tags," said Bryan Ferriera, 33, of Peabody, Mass. "Now that HD-DVD is out, why would anyone want to pay at least double the price of the (cheaper Toshiba) HD-A1 to get the same quality?"

"I actually believe Blu-ray is a better technology, but not at twice the price," said Daniel Rainey, 31, of Tuscaloosa, Ala. "I will buy Blu-ray if they win the war, but that Betamax war lasted eight years before VHS started winning. I ain't waiting that long."

Reuters/VNU

Rapper Ludacris likes combo of video games, music

By Lisa Baertlein Thu Apr 27, 5:20 AM ET

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - Chris "Ludacris" Bridges said video games are ideal for connecting aspiring musicians with their core fan base -- and he should know -- six years ago he was the first rapper to have his music featured on a game soundtrack.

"It's just a great way to market music," Ludacris said in an interview with Reuters in Los Angeles on Wednesday.

"People are very surprised how old the (video game) demographic is because you have grown-ups who love video games as much as children," he said.

By showing up in games, "artists are trying to be where their audience is," Yankee Group analyst Michael Goodman said.

Video game soundtracks are now a launching pad for new music and a revenue stream for record labels, which prefer to sign acts with a proven fan following, he said. Game publishers also benefit when celebrity tie-ins boost sales.

"They all need each other," Goodman said.

For his latest act, Ludacris appears in voice and likeness in Midway Games Inc.'s "NBA Ballers: Phenom," which mashes up the sports and lifestyle genres, something he said may attract more women to the game.

The title allows players to choose paths that will either shape them into a basketball star with help from Detroit Pistons guard Chauncey Billups or build them into an entertainment mogul a la Ludacris.

Like its predecessor "NBA Ballers," the new title features a soundtrack of original music specifically created for the game and from a healthy mix of underground and established artists, said Midway senior designer John Vignocchi, who assembled both soundtracks.

Since debuting the song "Get Off Me," in Electronic Arts Inc.'s popular football game "Madden NFL 2000," Ludacris has also appeared in other video games, including EA's 2003 title, "Def Jam Vendetta," which was promoted as "hip-hop" meets "Fight Club" and starred other top rap acts from Def Jam Records.

Meanwhile, the rapper, whose film credits include roles in "Crash" and "Hustle & Flow," dismissed speculation that he has his own game in the works.

But even if it's true, it's not uncharted territory: Rapper 50 Cent recently teamed up with Vivendi Universal Games (VIV.PA) and Genuine Games on a game titled "50 Cent: Bulletproof."

Nokia sells over 5 million N-series multimedia phones

By Lucas van Grinsven Tue Apr 25, 6:37 AM ET

BERLIN (Reuters) - The world's largest handset maker,
Nokia, said it had sold more than 5 million N-series multimedia phones since last year and launched three new models on Tuesday to boost its presence in a growing market.

Anssi Vanjoki, the head of Nokia's multimedia unit, said the Finnish company expects the multimedia phone market to grow to 100 million units in 2006 and exceed 250 million in 2008.

"It is not a small market," he said at the launch of the new phones.

Research firm Canalys says about 50 million multimedia phones were sold in 2005, Vanjoki added.

The new N93 video camera model, with optical zoom, and the new N73 camera phone, which has a 3 megapixel Carl Zeiss lens, are both expected to hit the shelves in July, while the new N72 music phone is expected to be available in June.

The unsubsidized retail prices will range between 320 euros (US$396) for the N72 to 550 euros for the most expensive, the N93, Vanjoki said.

"I think the N72 and N73 will be successful phones that will sell well, but the N93 will be a niche product," said analyst Carolina Milanesi at market research group Gartner.

She said the new N-series devices were bulkier than those of rivals, but through design improvements they had become small and thin enough to be acceptable.

Nokia reported stronger-than-expected first-quarter sales and earnings last week, and singled out the success of its N70 model as its biggest revenue-generating handset in the quarter.

Nokia said the N70 camera phone was the biggest-selling third-generation (3G) mobile in the world in the first three months of the year, making up about 10 percent of the 3G market on its own.

Research firm Strategy Analytics has estimated that 10 percent of the 3G market would be fewer than 2 million phones in the quarter.

"Nokia has proven that there is a sizeable market of consumers in Europe, North America and Japan who are looking to replace their phones with a more powerful device that can do instant messaging, photography, music," Gartner's Milanesi said.

Nokia also said it had agreed on cooperation with Yahoo's popular photo-sharing site Flickr.

EU draft law to recommend jail for pirating goods

Tue Apr 25, 12:42 PM ET

BRUSSELS (Reuters) - The
European Commission is set to recommend on Wednesday common European sanctions against counterfeiting and piracy of goods, including at least four years in prison and a 300,000 euro (US$372,700) fine.

The seizure of counterfeited goods at the borders of the
European Union increased by 1,000 percent between 1998 and 2004, with 103 million counterfeited and pirated items seized in 2004, Commission figures show.

Different penalties in the 25 EU countries make it difficult to combat counterfeiting and piracy effectively, says the EU executive in the draft legislation, obtained by Reuters.

The draft legislation deals only with sanctions for infringements of intellectual property rights on a commercial scale, and not downloading of music via the Internet for private use.

The EU executive recommends that offences should be punishable by at least 4 years' jail and a fine of at least 100,000 to 300,000 euros. The fine should be higher when there is a health or safety risk.

Other possible measures are the confiscation or destruction of the objects, and a permanent or temporary ban on offenders from engaging in commercial activities.

The draft legislation is a revised version of a text tabled last year by the EU executive, with a tougher legal base with which EU countries could be brought to court if they fail to implement the common sanctions, an EU official said.

The EU and the United States are exerting growing pressure on China, considered as one of the main sources of counterfeiting. U.S. industry groups estimate 90 percent of DVDs, music CDs and software sold in China are pirated.

The United States warned on Tuesday that they did not rule out complaining to the
World Trade Organization against China.

The draft legislation is to be adopted jointly by EU governments and the European Parliament.

Nokia to unveil new multimedia phones Tues -sources

By Tarmo Virki and Lucas van Grinsven Fri Apr 21, 12:57 PM ET

HELSINKI/AMSTERDAM (Reuters) - The world's largest cellphone maker
Nokia will unveil new multimedia phone models, including an N73 camera phone, at an event in Berlin next week, sources close to the company told Reuters.

With its new N-series phones Nokia will take a step toward more stylish and lighter models, but it is still a long way from rival Samsung's and Motorola's thin models, sources said.

"With the current N-series models, we've done some back-to-back tests with models from competing vendors. Nokia's size, weight, bulk is significantly bigger, while the key features such as the camera match up," said one source at a large telecoms operators who declined to be named.

"The models they will announce on April 25th won't be there either. Toward the end of the year, the N-series will become more realistic in their form factor. They're heading in the right direction, but the competition will move too," she added.

Nokia reported January-March earnings and sales above all expectations earlier this week. The firm, which sells more than one in three of all mobiles, increased its share of the market, but arch rival Motorola (MOT.N) reported even faster sales growth.

Nokia singled out the success of its N70 model, being its biggest revenue-generating handset in the quarter, but analysts say N70 sales are dwarfed by Motorola's slim RAZR phone.

Nokia said the N70 camera phone was the biggest-selling third-generation (3G) mobile in the world in the first quarter, accounting for about 10 percent of the third-generation market on its own.

Research firm Strategy Analytics estimates that 10 percent would total fewer than 2 million phones in the quarter. In the same period Motorola sold 18 million RAZRs, a second-generation phone that sells for roughly half the price of the N70.

MISSED THE NEW COOL

Created by a team of 40 industrial designers and mechanical engineers led by former Sony Corp. (6758.T) executive Jim Wicks, the RAZR surprised consumers with its ultra-thin looks, becoming an instant design icon when introduced at the end of 2004.

"Nokia missed the slim phones trend just as they missed clamshells a few years ago. But this is not that kind of a mega trend as clamshells were," said Nordea analyst Karri Rinta.

Samsung Electronics (005930.KS) and LG Electronics (066570.KS) rushed their own slim models to the market while Nokia was preparing its new N-Series phones.

"Just as they went to N-Series with lots of features and functionality, the market moved to thin and small and light. They went against the market," the operator source said.

"I would be shot by my bosses if I would try to bring out such bulky designs," said the head of a unit at one smaller Nokia rival.

Nokia nevertheless grew unit shipments in line with, or faster than all its top five rivals except Motorola.

And its handset profitability as a result of its massive scale based on entry-level handsets is unmatched at 17 percent, compared with 11 percent for Motorola and 10 percent for Samsung in the first quarter.

Nokia has revamped its product portfolio, adding more clamshells since 2004, when it lost market share to rivals with folding designs.

It has acknowledged consumer interest in thinner phone models, but so far has not come out with an ultra-thin design.

One of its most promising models, the new 6131 it launched in February at the 3GSM mobile trade show in Barcelona, is 20 millimeters thick, compared with RAZR's 14 millimeters.

Nokia built its brand in the 1990s on easy-to-use, small phones with long battery life, and in later years its designs included unorthodox and expressionist models its rivals have not dared to copy.

The N-Series phones, however, take a different route, stretching the technical limits of the traditional handset. The chief of the multimedia division, Anssi Vanjoki, won't call them mobile phones, preferring the phrase "small computers."

Some analysts think that is a mistake.

"It takes away the sexiness. If you make them computers, that makes them boring," said Gartner analyst Carolina Milanesi.

"Nokia is closer to the computer, but they need to make them more appealing from the design point of view."

Source: Reuters/Yahoo!

BlackBerry off-roading with "RV"

By Chris Marlowe Fri Apr 21, 1:18 AM ET

LOS ANGELES (Hollywood Reporter) - The BlackBerry is not just for business anymore. Columbia Pictures is offering a free game playable on Research in Motion's iconic device as part of the promotion for "RV," the Robin Williams vehicle pulling into theaters April 28.
ADVERTISEMENT
click here

The idea for "RV Pile-Up" came out of discussions about Williams' character, Bob Munro, who obsesses about staying connected to work even while he has persuaded his family to give up their Hawaiian vacation in favor of motoring cross-country. As events unfold, he discovers the greater importance of staying connected with his loved ones.

Digital devices are an important part of the family's lives, ranging from the hand-held GPS they use for navigation to music players to the BlackBerry the patriarch secretly uses to pursue his career while supposedly taking a break.

"We looked at what this movie was about, what the themes in the movie were, at the audience we were targeting and at the available digital devices," said Dwight Caines, executive VP worldwide digital marketing at Columbia TriStar Marketing Group. "We wanted to carry those concepts through our digital marketing campaign, so we thought of a BlackBerry game -- and then we looked at how to make it happen."

The idea fit well in other ways as well, he added. The approximately 5 million BlackBerry users are mostly in the right age group to be parents. The gender gap is narrower than for many digital devices, so the game likely was to reach women -- the predominant players of casual games. Additionally, the "RV" icon remains visible on the device where it can be seen every time users check their e-mail, adding to its promotional value even when people aren't playing the game or showing it to their friends.

"RV Pile-Up" was developed by Regard Solutions Corp. and requires players to guide their RV through various levels, avoiding obstacles and collecting traffic signs. It is available on RV-PileUp.com or via the movie's official Web site for BlackBerry 7200 Series, 7500 Series, 7700 Series, 7100 Series and 8700 Series in six languages: English, Spanish, French, Italian, German and Portuguese.

Reuters/Hollywood Reporter

Source: Reuters/Yahoo!

Apple iPod Prices to Decline: CFO

Thu Apr 20, 5:05 AM ET

SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - Apple Computer Inc. expects the average selling price of its iPod digital music players to decline in the current quarter from the prior period, the company's CFO said on Wednesday.

"We expect them to be down a little bit in the June quarter," Apple's Chief Financial Officer Peter Oppenheimer said.

He also told Reuters that the gross margins on iPods in the just-completed March quarter were "above 20 percent," consistent with his past comments about iPod gross margins.

Source: Reuters/Yahoo!

HP recalls 15,700 notebook computer batteries

HP is recalling about 15,700 units of HP and Compaq notebook batteries worldwide. The reason for the product recall is fire and burn hazards. the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission said on Thursday.

HP has received 20 reports of batteries overheating, including two in the United States, with one report of a minor burn injury, the agency said.

HP has received 20 reports of batteries overheating, including two in the United States, with one report of a minor burn injury, the agency said.

The recall is for lithium ion rechargeable batteries manufactured in early January 2005 and used with various HP and Compaq notebook computers. The affected batteries have a bar code label starting with L3, the agency said.

About 4,100 of the recalled batteries covered were in the United States.

The batteries were manufactured in China, and the computers were sold in the United States at retail and online stores from January 2005 through December 2005 for between $1,000 and $3,000, the CPSC said. Battery packs were also sold separately for between $100 and $300.

The computers that may contain a recalled battery include the model series: dv1xxx and ze2xxx in the HP Pavilion Family, nx48xx in the HP Compaq Family, and V2xxx and M2xxx in the Compaq Presario Family, according to the CPSC.

The agency said consumers with an "L3" coded battery should stop using it immediately and contact HP to determine if the battery is being recalled and for a free replacement battery if it is included in the recall.

Consumers can get additional information by calling HP at 888-202-4320, or visiting the HP Battery Replacement Program Web site at www.hp.com/support/BatteryReplacement.

Source: Reuters/Yahoo!

HD-DVD Hit's the Shelfs

The first HD-DVD has been launched and it hits shelfs in the U.S. on Tuesday.

With the launch of Toshiba's HD-DVD player, a few titles had already been released in HD-DVD. Titles includes:

• The Last Samurai
• The Phantom of the Opera
• and Million Dollar Baby

Other titles will be released soon. Upcoming titles includes "U-571", "DOOM", and much much more.

Source: Reuters/Yahoo!

PC Fair Day 3

Day 3 was not as flooded as I'd expected. But there is still a lot of people grabbing PC hardwares and gadgets. No matter about that.

Price cuts were not much visible as the RM100 for 500 Grade A CD-Rs was not in the fair this year. I heard that prices for plastic went up.

What I managed to grab?

Some stuffs for my schoolmate and myself of course.

Spent about RM1100 during PC Fair. Not much big of a deal.

Highlight of the Fair in Kuala Lumpur Convention Center:

• Major Participant from PC makers such as Dell, HP, Epson, Acer, NEC, Lenovo (IBM), FTec and much more
• Prices for hardware did not change much from the prices for us dealers.

The next PC Fair will be held in Ipoh, Stadium Indera Mulia.

For more information go to: http://www.pikom.org.my/

PC Fair Day 2

Not much difference though for the second day.

Spent more then 6 hours walking about with a pair of speakers that I've just newly bought. Quite the deal! RM218, I redeemed PIKOM's free gift (5 DVD+Rs)and a free gift from Ban Leong Technology Sdn. Bhd. (AHP121 headphones). Retail price for Altec Lansing VS4121 is currently at RM220.

Price cuts for the day. Not much but it will be expected tomorrow.

Samsung's notebook line had a booth in KLCC's Ballroom hall. A few sets of notebooks were on display and was turned on for about 3 hours before I dropped by to see what is Samsung promoting for the ICT industry. Part of the brilliant idea that Samsung had and one of their strong points for their notebook line now is their heat decipation technology. I could say that the ambient temperature is about 26 to about 32 degree celcius plus. Can't say an exact value for is as I don't have a thermometer in that particular point. After feeling that particular notebook, the temperature for that particular demo set is about 40 to 45 degree celcius. Imagine desktop heat decipation ported onto the notebooks.

As for now, we will be adding ASUS into our line of products. We might also be adding Corsair RAM module into the inventory as well.

Will be back for day 3.

DELL's New 30" LCD Display

I found that out when I finished reading HWM a few moments ago.

The price for that junkie is about RM7,999 a unit. Sounds like it's too expensive for a 30" LCD display. Usual market price for a LCD display, sized from 30" to 32" starts from RM5,999 (SAMSUNG) to RM6,999 (SONY)

So what is the standout point from Michael Dell's new hardware?

This LCD display sports a 2560 x 1600 pixels display. It's known that the highest HD display is 1080i and 1080p. So, who's the competition to DELL's LCD display? Take a look back to Apple's CINEMA HD display (30") that is capable of displaying such high resolution as well.

Price for DELL's 30" LCD display starts from RM7,999.
Price for Apple's 30" LCD display stars from RM10,571.

PC Fair DAY 1

Great, got into KL at about 12 in the noon.

Deals that I'm looking for is not there yet. Hope that it will drop to the price that I'm looking for.

Current deal that I've managed to find.

RM55 for a unit of 512MB flash memory
RM220 for Altec Lansing's VS4121

These are the two stuffs that I managed to find for now. Hardwares that I could find that is really cheap, LG's DVD Writer. RM160 for one unit.

Booths from large companies such as Sony, SAMSUNG, LG, DELL, and even FTec is on display. SONY currently is pushing hard on their LCD displays. As I've said in the previous post, I've stated that Sony and SAMSUNG is soon to mearge in order to expand their market share for LCD Displays.

There not much to report for the first day. But I can tell you that the next 2 days will be quite exciting.

Sony to cut prices for PlayStation 2

Sony is expected to cut their prices for thier leading gaming console, PlayStation 2.

Price cut is expected before the end of this month from $149 to $129. Previous attempts had resulted success that happened with the PlayStation 2 and the PlayStation. Sony is trying out the strategy again to try promoting the new PlayStation 3 that is due to release in November 2006.

Sony's rival Microsoft's XBox might do the same thing as well just to be competetive.

Source: Reuters/Yahoo!

TM Net 2mpbs rumor dispelled

I posted a rumor that would create a buzz for TM Net Streamyx users. In my own words and screenshots, I proved that I had a 2mpbs line and that the 1mbps line is never that perfect.

I had made a complaint about my international connection. No matter about that. It's up to them to fix it.

I got to speak with the supervisor and ask about the rumor. It is only meant for Corporate users. Not home users. So those who put up hope for 2mbps lines, sorry to burst the bubble.

Sony and Samsung to build new LCD line

Korean electronics company, Samsung and Japanese electronics giant, Sony had agreed on a $2 billion deal to expand their LCD plant. Part of the reason is to seek a greater share of the booming flat-screen TV sales, according to Reuters.

This expansion allows Samsung, the world's second-biggest maker of large-sized LCD TV to use Sony's brand power to expand and push the sales of their LCD product line-up.

Source: Reuters, Yahoo!