Sony Confirms Imminent BD-Live FW Upgrade for PS3

By Michael Santo
Editor-in-Chief, RealTechNews
BD-Live (AKA Blu-ray Disc Profile 2.0) titles were released earlier this year, despite the fact that there were no players yet capable of supporting BD-Live.
Once again, the PS3 shows why it should be the Blu-ray player of choice for even non-gamers, as Firmware v2.20, which Sony says is “coming up in the [...]

P4P Aims to Speed Peer-to-Peer File Transfers, Reduce Traffic

By Michael Santo
Editor-in-Chief, RealTechNews
I’m guessing I’m not the only one who’s never heard of P4P. That’s because it’s still being developed. The Distributed Computing Industry Association and its “P4P Working Group” is working on a new peer-to-peer protocol, called Proactive network Provider Participation for P2P or P4P. It’s described as a “carrier-grade [...]

YouTube: Broadcast Yourself, Anywhere

By Michael Santo
Editor-in-Chief, RealTechNews
Rumors flew yesterday about today’s YouTube announcement. Some thought it would be high-definition videos (long desired); others thought it would be a deal with Hulu (which would have been cool). The real announcement was an opening up of YouTube, turning it into a service that could power your own application, [...]

Ultimate Travel Gadget: Belkin Mini Power Strip

By Alice Hill
RealTechNews
Anyone who travels a lot will simply look at this device and sigh with relief. Why? Hotels are awful about providing enough power outlets near the desk - and with more and more gadgets hitting the road, it means a room strewn with charging cell phones and laptops and headsets, etc. One room [...]

Circuit City Extends Return Time for HD-DVD Players

By Michael Santo
Editor-in-Chief, RealTechNews
Some retailers have been offering credits or trade-ins for returns of HD-DVD players, but you always need to buy a new Blu-ray player in exchange. Circuit City is going them one better, extending its 30-day return policy to 90 days for HD-DVD players.
Of course, since the avalanche of bad HD-DVD news [...]

Denver Airport Censors Its Free Wi-Fi Network

By Michael Santo
Editor-in-Chief, RealTechNews
I suppose you could say that since it’s their wi-fi network, and since it’s free, they can do whatever they want with it. But some of the sites that Denver International Airport is choosing to block are not what I would consider racy.
It should be noted that Denver International Airport is the [...]

Microsoft Opens “Office Live Workspace” to the Public

By Michael Santo
Editor-in-Chief, RealTechNews
I first wrote about Office Live Workspace when pre-registration opened in early October. At the time it was a very limited beta open to select few registered participants, but as of late Monday it was opened up to the general public.
Go to the Office Live Workspace site to sign up.
Still in [...]

Nine Inch Nails Uploads New Album to BitTorrent Sites

By Michael Santo
Editor-in-Chief, RealTechNews
Nine Inch Nails has released its new album, Ghosts I-IV, online and in a somewhat Radiohead-eque way. You’ll recall Radiohead released its In Rainbows album with “you” naming the price. Nine Inch Nails doesn’t go quite that far, but it’s still the sort of experimentation more bands should be trying [...]

JotSpot Returns as “Google Sites”

By Michael Santo
Editor-in-Chief, RealTechNews
JotSpot was acquired by Google in October 2006, and since then it’s basically disappeared. Last night, however, Google added a new service to Google Apps: Google Sites, incorporating the JotSpot tech, though it looks nothing like the original product.
The original JotSpot site described their product as:
JotSpot’s wiki allows you to create [...]

Toshiba Confirms Withdrawal from HD-DVD

By Michael Santo
Executive Editor, RealTechNews
With the announcement yesterday that Wal-Mart was dropping HD-DVD, this announcement was inevitable. When the world’s largest retailer drops your product, it’s time to cut your losses and get out.
It had already been rumored a few days ago that Toshiba was planning to get out, but it seems that now [...]

Netflix Streaming to PS3, Xbox 360 Teased?

By Michael Santo
Executive Editor, RealTechNews
Generally when presented with an opportunity to take a survey, I decline. This one might just have caught my attention.
It’s certainly not a done deal; it’s just a survey asking customers how they would feel, but Netflix, according to reports, is testing the waters to determine if customers would be [...]

Trees, Shade and Solar Panels = a Possible Crime

By Michael Santo
Executive Editor, RealTechNews
Considering solar panels? How is your relationship with your neighbors? You might want to look around you and see if any neighbors have trees which may in the future shade your planned panel locations. Technically, if they eventually do, it will be a crime.
Richard Treanor and neighbor Mark [...]

modu’s Modular Cell Phone: Some Assembly Required

By Michael Santo
Executive Editor, RealTechNews
How would you like a cell phone that has a business-like QWERTY keyboard when you want it to, or a 12-key at other times, or can even be slipped into some future Kindle-type device as its cellular guts? That’s the basic premise behind Israeli startup modu’s new modular cell [...]

Microsoft, Google, Verisign, Yahoo! and IBM Join OpenID’s Board

By Michael Santo
Executive Editor, RealTechNews
Now we’re talking about serious respectability. The OpenID Foundation now has some major new backers, with Microsoft, Google, Verisign, Yahoo! and IBM all joining the Foundation as its first corporate board members.
As more and more sites and companies sign up to support OpenID, the addition of corporate members shouldn’t come [...]

Google’s Blogger Joins the OpenID Parade

By Michael Santo
Executive Editor, RealTechNews
Not to be outdone by Yahoo!, Google has announced the ability to use your Blogger URLs as an OpenID URL at any site that allows OpenID 1.1 authentication.
Yahoo announced on Thursday the ability (at the end of January) to use Yahoo! user IDs for OpenID logins, so this doesn’t go quite [...]

Happy Seventh Birthday, Wikipedia!

By Michael Santo
Executive Editor, RealTechNews
Too bad it’s today, January 15th. Today being the day of Steve Jobs’ keynote at Macworld, this is going to get missed by many. But not by me: Happy Seventh Birthday Wikipedia (all right, I’ll admit it: they emailed me about it).
Yep, Wikipedia was founded on January 15, 2001.
In [...]

Amazon.com Quietly Opens Software Download Service

By Michael Santo
Executive Editor, RealTechNews
Amazon.com has launched a software download section in their software store. While the product selection is small - meaning, limited to TurboTax products - the fact that they built a software downloader application means that this is not the end of the story.
Install the downloader (in the sidebar on [...]

Fallout Begins Over Warner Bros. Blu-ray Decision; Is the Party Over (Literally)?

By Michael Santo
Executive Editor, RealTechNews
Friday Warner Bros., the last “on the fence” studio, announced its decision to drop HD-DVD at the of end of May and focus on Blu-ray only. Fallout, as well as some crowing, and even some veiled threats, has begun.
First the HD-DVD Group issued a short, terse press release in response [...]

Intel Pulls Out of the OLPC Program

By Michael Santo
Executive Editor, RealTechNews
Less than six months after Intel and the One Laptop Per Child (OLPC) Foundation buried the hatchet, with Intel joining the OLPC board as its 11th member, the partnership is over. The reason was apparently continued friction over the Classmate PC, which was a source of friction between the two groups [...]

Celio is Like the Foleo, Only Worse

By Alice Hill
RealTechNews
Anyone remember the Foleo? We do - it was Palm’s ill-fated attempt to marry an underpowered UMPC with a cell phone, and it died a very, very swift death. See our coverage “5 Reasons Why Palm’s New Foleo Device Will Fail”
Today we fond out that the Foleo concept is rising from the [...]