So Microsoft conducted an experiment where it put 120 regular computer users (but Windows Vista avoiders) in front of a Vista-based computer and told them that it was a hands-on, sneak peak at the next Microsoft operating system, codenamed “Mojave.” As it turns out, 94 percent rated Vista much higher after seeing it. On a scale from 1-10, the participants’ average rating for Vista before was 4.4, and the average rating after seeing Vista (but not knowing it was Vista) was 8.5.
Category: Tech News
Match Made In Heaven: Netflix on the Xbox 360
Back in February, I titled a post “Dear Microsoft: Get Netflix on the Xbox 360 and I’ll Buy One.” True to my word, today I ordered an Xbox 360 following the latest announcement. I’m a huge fan of Netflix and have always had an interest in getting an Xbox 360 (even though I’m more of a PC gamer).
Rhapsody’s New DRM-Free MP3 Store with Full Song Previews
Today’s big announcement comes from Rhapsody, the online music service previously known for its subscription-based streaming music for a monthly fee. Well, turns out people are more interested in owning their music rather than renting. So now we have another major competitor for iTunes and Amazon MP3.
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Sony: Big News & A Recap of Blunders Just in The Past Year
Sony has spent the last three years restructuring the company and today releases its big plans for growth. Apparently, the next big thing is electronics products that connect to each other and the Internet and stuff. You know, downloading movies onto a game console or syncing your music with a music player. Wow, I can’t wait for all that kind of technology to come out.
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Firefox 3: Impressions, Issues, and Verdict
It’s been nearly a week since I installed Firefox 3. And though the end result is largely positive, the process wasn’t free of complications. As I’ve discussed before, sure enough, my major issues revolved around the Firefox catch-22: extensions.
Netflix Eliminating Profiles: Tells Us We Don’t Own Our Data
Last night Netflix sent out an email (full text below) explaining that it will be getting rid of profiles. For those unfamiliar, the profile feature allows one account to have multiple profiles. For example, you could pay $13.99 to get 2 DVDs at a time sent to your addresss but have one DVD come from your queue of chosen movies while the other DVD comes from another queue of movies.
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Reddit Goes Open Source: What Does That Really Mean?
My new favorite crowd voting / social bookmarking site Reddit made the announcement today that it’s “open source.” This means the code for the site has been made publicly available, which could lead to crowd sourced improvements to the site as well as new sites developed using the Reddit “engine.”
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PlayStation 3 Getting In-Game Ads Two Years After Xbox 360
Sony has some big news coming out today: The company will allow “dynamic” ads to be placed in PlayStation 3 games. The Wall Street Journal is calling it “a boost for what could become a significant new revenue source for games companies” while Forbes thinks Sony is “set to ignite the world of advertising in videogames…”
Interesting, since the Xbox 360 has been doing this for nearly two years now. At the time (back in 2006), the gaming industry seemed pretty excited at what looked like a new source of revenue. But not much followed in terms of details of how this was to be a game changer for advertising (lame pun intended).
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