Latest rumors:
- Revamp of entire iPod line.
- Small cosmetic changes to Touch, Nano to see significant redesign (see pic).
- iPods to see fairly large price drops to distance itself from the $199 iPhone.
- iPod touch 2.1 software, iPhone to get update very soon after.
- iTunes 8.0 (”it’s a big update w/new features”).
- All of this coming in the next 2-3 weeks.
Worldwide online video revenue is expected to top US$4.5 billion by 2012, up from $1.2 billion in 2008, predicts research firm In-Stat.
Much of that revenue is expected to come from online video rentals, with ad-supported online video making up a major part, too.
Apple CEO Steve Jobs has confirmed that the iPhone 3G has a kill switch that can remotely remove software from the devices.
Jobs told The Wall Street Journal that Apple needs the capability in case it inadvertently allows a malicious program such as an application that steals user’s personal data to be distributed to iPhones through its App Store.
“Hopefully we never have to pull that lever, but we would be irresponsible not to have a lever like that to pull,” Jobs said.
Google’s YouTube troubles just got kicked up a notch.
Italian media company Mediaset is suing YouTube and its owner, Google, for at least 500 million euros ($779 million).
Mediaset claims that Google and YouTube carried out the “illegal distribution and commercial use of audio and video files,” according to a Bloomberg report.
According to a sample analysis run by Mediaset on June 10, at least 4,643 videos belonging to the company were found on YouTube. That equals more than 325 hours of broadcasting without corresponding rights, the company said.
Mediaset claims that, based on the number of its clips available on YouTube and the hits generated, the broadcaster lost the equivalent of 315,672 broadcasting days.
The claim of 500 million euros corresponds to “immediate damages,” Mediaset said in the statement.
An exciting new home theater experience is coming to living rooms this holiday season. At the E3 Media and Business Summit, Microsoft Corp. and Netflix, Inc. the world’s largest online movie rental service, today unveiled an exclusive partnership to offer consumers the ability to instantly stream movies and TV episodes from Netflix to the television via the Xbox 360 video game and entertainment system. Xbox 360 will be the only game system that lets users instantly watch movies and TV episodes streamed from Netflix. This movie watching innovation will be available to Xbox LIVE Gold members who are also Netflix subscribers and will let those users enjoy streaming movies from Netflix on Xbox LIVE at no additional cost.
A growing library of more than 10,000 movies and TV episodes will be available from Netflix when it launches on Xbox LIVE in late fall, with more choices added over time.
Apple CEO Steve Jobs revealed Wednesday that the iPhone will feature more than 160 games when the company launches its App Store service this week.
The games will join more than 500 iPhone applications expected to hit App Store. According to the New York Times, 25% of those applicaitons will be free, and 90% will be sold for $9.99 or less. There was no word on what the average cost of a game would be, although Super Monkey Ball, one of the featured games at the Aple WWDC keynote, was listed at $9.99.
During the call with the NYT, Jobs also said Apple will give developers a generous 70% cut of app sales.
Verizon Wireless is in talks to buy Alltel Communications LLC, the country’s fifth-largest wireless carrier by subscribers, for $27 billion, according to business news channel CNBC.
The report by David Faber cited unnamed sources. Representatives of Verizon Communications Inc. and Alltel had no comment.
Verizon shares dipped after the report, trading down 76 cents, or 2 percent, to $36.60 in the afternoon.
If consummated, an acquisition would be the biggest telecom deal since AT&T Inc. bought BellSouth Corp. at the end of 2006.
Little Rock, Ark.-based Alltel was a public company until it was bought out by TPG Capital and GS Capital Partners in November for $24.7 billion. It has a wide-ranging network covering parts of 35 states concentrated in the middle of the country, and has more than 13 million customers.
Verizon Wireless, the No. 2 wireless carrier, uses the same network technology as Alltel. That makes Verizon Wireless a more likely acquirer than AT&T Inc., which uses an incompatible technology. Regulatory scrutiny of an AT&T deal would also be tougher, since AT&T is the largest carrier.
Verizon Wireless is a joint venture of Verizon Communications and Vodafone Group PLC of Britain.
AMD has set sail to three new quad-core Opteron processors for one-socket servers and workstations. The new 1352, 1354, and 1356 clock in at 2.1GHz, 2.2GHz, and 2.3GHz, respectively, and meet the same socket and thermal requirements as previous AMD Opteron 1000 Series processors. They also utilize AMD’s Enhanced PowerNow! tech and Rapid Virtualization Indexing. Pricing is currently set at $209, $255, and $377.
GameStop will no longer sell Microsoft’s Zune digital media players in its stores once it runs out of its current inventory, the company said.
The game retailer, which started selling Zune when the player was released in November 2006, found Zune was not “working with our product mix,” said GameStop Vice President of Corporate Communications Chris Olivera.