Most popular web radio service is being hit hard by a recent federal panel judgment
Pandora, one of the US's most popular web radio service is being hit hard by a recent federal panel judgment doubling the per-song performance royalty that Web radio stations pay to performers and record companies. Founder Tim Westergren quips, "We're approaching a pull-the-plug kind of decision. This is like a last stand for webcasting."
Pertinent to note is that traditional radio stations in the US are not bound by any such laws. Neither is satellite radio, which does pay a substantially lesser amount as license fee. Pandora, according to some estimates, is set to pay almost 70% of its projected revenue about $25 million in royalty fees. This is about Pandora. Other online services too are hit bad and are on the verge of pulling the plug.
Microsoft has kicked off a research project to create software that will take over when it retires Windows.
Called Midori ( Midori ( "It is the Japanese word for the color "green" ") is the code name for a microkernel-based operating system written as managed code, being developed at Microsoft, mooted as a possible successor to Microsoft Windows by some members of the IT press. It is closely related to Microsoft's Singularity ) , the cut-down operating system is radically different to Microsoft's older programs.
It is centred on the internet and does away with the dependencies that tie Windows to a single PC.
It is seen as Microsoft's answer to rivals' use of "virtualisation" as a way to solve many of the problems of modern-day computing.
Virtual machines
Midori is widely seen as an ambitious attempt by Microsoft to catch up on the work on virtualisation being undertaken in the wider computer industry.
Darren Brown, data centre lead at consulting firm Avanade, said virtualisation had first established itself in data centres among companies with huge numbers of servers to manage.
Putting applications, such as an e-mail engine or a database, on one machine brought up all kinds of problems when those machines had to undergo maintenance, needed updating or required a security patch to be applied.
By putting virtual servers on one physical box, companies had been able to shrink the numbers of machines they managed and get more out of them, he said.
"The real savings are around physical management of the devices and associated licensing," he said. "Physically, there is less tin to manage."
The iPhone 3G isn't the only thing being released this week. Microsoft planned to release its automatic update for Windows XP service pack 3 (SP3) at 10 A.M. Pacific time today.
Said a Microsoft spokesman, "As with all service pack releases, Microsoft will carefully monitor the release to ensure that all customers have a good experience."
The update will not have to be reinstalled, Microsoft said.
Microsoft released XP SP3 on May 7 after a compatibility issue delayed its original April 29 release date.
The iPhone 3G makes its international debut Friday in an eagerly-awaited launch expected to boost Apple's fortunes along with its share of the booming "smart phone" market.
Online orders for iPhone 3G handsets at British telecom carrier O2 reportedly topped 13,000 per second on Monday, overwhelming the website and causing it to crash.
Support for display of multiple languages and characters simultaneously
Audio
Frequency response: 20Hz to 20,000Hz
Audio formats supported: AAC, Protected AAC, MP3, MP3 VBR, Audible (formats 1, 2, and 3), Apple Lossless, AIFF, and WAV
User-configurable maximum volume limit
Color
8GB model: Black
16GB model: Black or white
Capacity
8GB or 16GB flash drive
Cellular and wireless
UMTS/HSDPA (850, 1900, 2100 MHz)
GSM/EDGE (850, 900, 1800, 1900 MHz)
Wi-Fi (802.11b/g)
Bluetooth 2.0 + EDR
GPS
Assisted GPS
Headphones
Stereo earphones with built-in microphone
Frequency response: 20Hz to 20,000Hz
Impedance: 32 ohms
Video
Video formats supported: H.264 video, up to 1.5 Mbps, 640 by 480 pixels, 30 frames per second, Low-Complexity version of the H.264 Baseline Profile with AAC-LC audio up to 160 Kbps, 48kHz, stereo audio in .m4v, .mp4, and .mov file formats; H.264 video, up to 2.5 Mbps, 640 by 480 pixels, 30 frames per second, Baseline Profile up to Level 3.0 with AAC-LC audio up to 160 Kbps, 48kHz, stereo audio in .m4v, .mp4, and .mov file formats; MPEG-4 video, up to 2.5 Mbps, 640 by 480 pixels, 30 frames per second, Simple Profile with AAC-LC audio up to 160 Kbps, 48kHz, stereo audio in .m4v, .mp4, and .mov file formats
Camera and photos
2.0 megapixels
Photo geotagging
iPhone and third-party application integration
Language support
Language support for English, French, German, Japanese, Dutch, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese, Danish, Finnish, Norwegian, Swedish, Korean, Simplified Chinese, Traditional Chinese, Russian, and Polish
International keyboard and dictionary support for English (U.S.), English (UK), French (France), French (Canada), German, Japanese, Dutch, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese (Portugal), Portuguese (Brazil), Danish, Finnish, Norwegian, Swedish, Korean (no dictionary), Simplified Chinese, Traditional Chinese, Russian, and Polish
Sensors
Accelerometer
Proximity sensor
Ambient light sensor
Power and battery
Built-in rechargeable lithium-ion battery
Charging via USB to computer system or power adapter
Talk time:
Up to 5 hours on 3G
Up to 10 hours on 2G
Standby time: Up to 300 hours
Internet use:
Up to 5 hours on 3G
Up to 6 hours on Wi-Fi
Video playback: Up to 7 hours
Audio playback: Up to 24 hours
Mac system requirements
Mac computer with USB 2.0 port
Mac OS X v10.4.10 or later
iTunes 7.7 or later
Windows system requirements
PC with USB 2.0 port
Windows Vista; or Windows XP Home or Professional with Service Pack 2 or later
iTunes 7.7 or later
Environmental requirements
Operating temperature: 32° to 95° F (0° to 35° C)
Nonoperating temperature: -4° to 113° F (-20° to 45° C)
Relative humidity: 5% to 95% noncondensing
Maximum operating altitude: 10,000 feet (3000 m)
Where To Buy
Apple Retail Store
Only Apple Retail Stores offer Personal Setup for your new iPhone 3G. Let a Specialist help you choose your iPhone, check the network coverage where you live, select a rate plan, review the contract terms, and — best of all — activate your new iPhone in just a few minutes.
Google Lively ready to change the format of a regular chat (i.e google talk ), it allows people to embody a cartoonish online avatar and have text-based conversations with friends and other Internet users in virtual chat rooms. The rooms can be added to any blog or Web site.Google's Lively is a Web-based project similar to Second Life.
Lively tries to make that conversation three-dimensional, more interactive and more fun. As if they were playing a game, users choose from a selection of unrealistically handsome or Disneyesque avatars.
Due to the High Demand for the coming iPhone 3G , O2 Web site down in early Monday (July 7) and when the site returned to operation, the mobile operator said "unprecedented" demand had exhausted its available inventory.
Within an hour, however, the O2 online site became sluggish and then unavailable, according to reports posted by British newspapers, including the Times and the Telegraph. By the time the site came back up, O2 had stopped taking pre-orders.
Previously, O2 had said more than 200,000 people had expressed interest in the new iPhone by registering their e-mail addresses with the company.
Phone Arenahas revealed that the latest in the Chocolate series from LG will be out in the US on the 14th of this month. Unlike previous versions, which were slider phones, this iteration will sport a clamshell form factor. Initially available in black and blue for Verizon customers, it comes with a 1.76-inch 176x220 pixel external display with navigation wheel, 2.2-inch internal QVGA display, 2MP camera, 1GB of internal memory, microSDHC support up to 8GB, 3.5mm headset jack, stereo speakers, an integrated FM transmitter allowing you to stream your music to any nearby FM receiver, and Bluetooth ver 2.1.
The 2008.0 final release is out! Code-named "It's got what plants crave," this release contains numerous new features including an updated installer, improved hardware support, a complete rework of profiles, and a move to Xfce instead of GNOME on the LiveCD. LiveDVDs are not available for x86 or amd64, although they may become available in the future. The 2008.0 release also includes updated versions of many packages already available in your ebuild tree.
Updated installer: The installer now only performs networkless installations using the packages and ebuild tree on the LiveCD. It also contains numerous fixes for extended and logical partitions.
Improved hardware support: Moving to the 2.6.24 kernel added many new drivers for hardware released since the 2007.0 release.
Complete rework of profiles: Restructuring profiles allowed significant cleanup of redundancies, reducing developer maintenance and confusion. The difference for you is that profiles now appear in /usr/portage/profiles/ under default/linux/ instead of default-linux/. See the upgrading guide for more details.
Xfce instead of GNOME on the LiveCD: To save space, the LiveCDs switched to the smaller Xfce environment. This means that a binary installation using the LiveCD will install Xfce, but you're still free to build GNOME or KDE from source.
No LiveDVDs on x86 or amd64: In the interest of getting the release out, the release engineering team decided to postpone LiveDVDs because of problems in their generation. They may show up later—if so, we'll let you know.
Updated packages: Highlights of the 2008.0 release include Portage 2.1.4.4, a 2.6.24 kernel, Xfce 4.4.2, gcc 4.1.2 and glibc 2.6.1.
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