Warner Bros is offering HD-DVD buyers the chance to replace their movies with Blu-ray copies for $4.95. But the deal is plagued by restrictions which will likely mean it does little more than irritate buyers who backed the wrong horse. The basics of the deal sound fine: you simply mail in the cover art from […]
Apple has pulled an iPhone application which simulated shaking a baby until it fell asleep. But the firm hasn’t given a clear explanation as to how it was approved in the first place. The application was produced by third-party firm Sikalosoft and approved for sale through the App store section of the iTunes store. Costing […]
The next version of Bluetooth technology should mean lower power consumption, higher transfer speeds and wireless syncing of music and video libraries between computers and portable devices. The changes are part of Bluetooth 3.0, which effectively became official today when the industry’s Bluetooth Special Interest Group (SIG) agreed to adopt the standard. It’s the last […]
Many naughty children have been ordered to hand over video game controllers and disks to their rightful owners. Now Activision, makers of Guitar Hero, have suffered the same fate. It’s the result of a legal case involving Activision and Genius Products, both of whom are working on DJ-related games. Genius is working on a game […]
A Japanese cellphone provider plans to sell a waterproof, solar-powered handset later this year. The firm says it will be exclusive to Japan, but the technology appears to be particularly useful for some developing nations. Manufactured by Sharp, the device is set up so that solar power can recharge the battery to 80% of capacity. […]
By Casey Lynn Contributing Writer, [GAS] Seeing Oprah start “tweeting” made me realize a few things: Celebrities who are not comedians or geeks twittering is just a bad, bad idea. I realize that this probably just makes me a snob, but Oprah’s credibility goes down once I learn that she can’t use apostrophes correctly. My […]
The good news for lovers of webcasting is that a federal appeals court has ruled that the medium is a form of broadcasting with equal status to that of television. The bad news is that that ruling was made to ban webcams from covering a music filesharing case. The defendant, Boston University student Joel Tennenbaum, […]
The energy wasted by spam e-mails could power 2.4 million homes a year according to security firm McAfee. But its report offers little advice as to how to avoid this problem. The firm’s report, produced with the help of environmental consultants ICF International, concludes that spam is responsible for the waste of 33 billion kilowatt […]
Microsoft has agreed to extended the warranty on the Xbox 360 to cover the ‘E74’ error. This bug is different to the much-publicized ‘red ring of death’. It’s indicated by one quadrant of the power indicator glowing, and an on-screen message displaying the error code E74 and informing users to contact Xbox customer support. Once […]
A study by Ohio State University claims Facebook users spend less time studying and get lower grades than classmates who don’t use the site. But there are some serious flaws in the study’s logic. A survey of 219 students found that 85% of undergraduates use Facebook. Those who do have grade-point averages between 3.0 and […]