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This is the final installment of my three-part series covering this year's Consumer Electronics Show, so this week let's focus on the future. There are only a few companies I see as having the breadth to succeed in the battle for the digital home, among them HP and Sony. HP stands out slightly ahead...

The Blu-ray Disc Association announced that the format specification for this standard is now complete, and it is ready to begin BD-ROM, BD-RE and BD-R licensing. Blu-ray Disc single (25 GB) and dual (50 GB) layer specifications have been approved. The bottom line for consumers is that they can expe...

CONFERENCE REPORT

CES: Showcasing the Battle for Content

As the first of my three-part report on this year's Consumer Electronics Show, I'll focus on the big companies and a number of the cool products that were announced early in the show. Next week, Part Two will loop in the late announcements and contrast what happened at MacWorld the following week. I...

Verizon will soon launch V Cast Music, a new service that will enable wireless customers to download tunes to their mobile phones and PCs, the company said at this week's Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas. The V Cast service, which follows similar offerings from wireless rivals Cingular and Spr...

Sure, it will be great to have another alternative to iTunes. Urge -- Microsoft's answer to Apple's music store behemoth -- looks ready to go head-to-head with more than 2 million tracks for purchase and an all-you-can-download subscription option. The Xbox 360 also promises to entertain gadget junk...

Cable movie channel Starz today announced a video download application and service for broadband. Dubbed Vongo, the service delivers movies and other video content over the Internet for playback on Windows-based PCs, laptops and select portable media devices, as well as TVs. Robert B. Clasen, presid...

The Consumer Electronics Show kicks off this week in Las Vegas and I'll be there with the crowd, hoping it won't rain this year and praying I can get from meeting to meeting in one piece. Given the success of the iPod, there is one vendor that should be but won't be at this show and that is Apple. ...

Adding another page to the growing list of TV shows debuting in new formats, Yahoo announced yesterday that it is teaming up with CBS Television to air free episodes of two of its popular prime-time comedies. Yahoo TV began presenting the network sitcoms, "Two And A Half Men" and "How I Met Your Mo...

Pioneer Electronics yesterday announced one of the industry's first Blu-ray Disc computer drives will begin shipping in the first quarter of 2006. The company expects the drive to revolutionize digital and high-definition media storage. The new Pioneer BDR-101A uses shorter wavelength blue lasers in...

With a spate of headlines that demonstrate the importance of the Internet as a lever for political and social issues, Arnold Schwarzenegger's Austrian birthplace of Graz is making a name for itself in a new way: political critic. It started when Schwarzenegger asked that his name be removed from a s...

Digital cinema projection and distribution moved one step closer to the mainstream this week as three major theater companies announced their collaboration on a digital cinema business plan. National CineMedia founding members AMC Entertainment, Cinemark USA and Regal Entertainment said they would w...

What do you get when you mix information science with Hollywood's film industry? Computer-based predictions of the next blockbuster hit. Professor Ramesh Sharda, an information systems specialist at Oklahoma State University, has developed a computer program to help Hollywood predict the potential s...

Mobile phone giant Sprint Nextel is reportedly set to offer movies for its cell phone subscribers through a subscription service, a strategy analysts said will likely struggle against limited demand for small-screen content. The company's mobile devices will accommodate downloads of full-length feat...

Sony BMG's overzealous moves to insert digital rights management into its music CDs is causing the company more trouble. The Electronic Frontier Foundation, the non-profit Internet rights group, said that software Sony embedded into 27 CD titles on sale in the United States and Canada opens a hole t...

The Grateful Dead found out this week what happens when you give and then take away: consumer uproar. The Dead, a band who has always encouraged tape sharing of its multitude of live shows, a few weeks ago asked the non-profit Internet Archives to remove free downloads of their concerts from its sit...

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