Kim Katrell

Hollywood Against Jobs' Movie Pricing Plan

2006-06-19T13:31:00.000-07:00

Hollywood Against Jobs' Movie Pricing Plan

Hollywood insiders tell Variety why/how Hollywood is in stalemate with Jobs over movie downloads on iTunes. Jobs wants a flat $9.99 per film download, studios are refusing, insisting upon tiered pricing. On the other side there's a different, longer, analytical story looking at how H'wood executives are still unsure if Jobs should be considered a friend or foe.

Gates' Replacement says Microsoft Must Simplify

2006-06-19T13:30:00.000-07:00

Gates' Replacement says Microsoft Must Simplify

This article in The Australian newspaper describes the background and the agenda of Ray Ozzie, Bill Gates' replacement as chief architect at Microsoft. The creator of Lotus Notes, he's a high-calibre technologist. From the article: 'Ray's a programmer's programmer .. He's much closer to an uber-engineer, whereas Bill hasn't been a programmer for a number of years.' Ozzie is also driving Microsoft to simplify its software: 'Complexity kills .. It sucks the life out of developers, it makes products difficult to plan, build and test, it introduces security challenges, and it causes end-user and administrator frustration.' He's not the only brilliant programmer in the world, but he does have Microsoft's resources behind him.

Why Apple Backed out from India?

2006-06-19T13:28:00.001-07:00

Why Apple Backed out from India?

BusinessWeek reports an interesting article on why Apple might have backed out from India. The prime reason being, India has grown at a much more rapid rate than expected and is no longer the cheap destination for the companies. It grew at an astonishing rate of 9.3% last quarter.

First Blu-ray Disc Reviews Posted Online

2006-06-19T13:28:00.000-07:00

First Blu-ray Disc Reviews Posted Online

With the first Blu-ray player and discs officially making their market debuts tomorrow, High-Def DVD Digest has posted the first reviews of three of the first Blu-ray discs -- The Fifth Element, 50 First Dates, and xXx. So what's the verdict? So far, in terms of video quality, the results seem to be mixed: standard DVD fave 'Fifth Element' underwhelmed ('just not the best HD I've seen'); likewise, 'xXx,' was a disappointment ('up close just looks like a messed-up bunch of dots'). Somewhat surprisingly, it's '50 First Dates' that ranked highest of the three in video quality ('holds its own with the best high-definition transfers out there'

Evolution installer for Win32 Released

2006-06-19T13:27:00.001-07:00

Evolution installer for Win32 Released
Evolution is an incredibly versatile email/calendar/PIM that took the Linux world by storm a few years ago. It has been called an 'Outlook replacement' by every tech site from ZDNet to InfoWorld. Evolution played a major role in allowing the Linux desktop to move into the enterprise by giving being able to connect to Microsoft Exchange Server and schedule/accept Microsoft Outlook Meetings. Here's a screenshot of how it handles meeting invitations sent by Outlook.

Prototype System Blocks Digital Cameras

2006-06-19T13:27:00.000-07:00

Prototype System Blocks Digital Cameras
Researchers at the Georgia Institute of Technology have completed a prototype device that can block digital cameras. The team in the Interactive and Intelligent Computing division of the Georgia Tech College of Computing used off-the-shelf equipment (camera-mounted sensors, lighting equipment, a projector and a computer) to scan for, find and neutralize digital cameras. The system works by looking for the reflectivity and shape of the image sensors and saturating them with a thin beam of visible white light. The principal applications are expected to be protecting areas such as government buildings and trade shows against clandestine photography, stopping unauthorized amateur photography of, for example, shopping-mall Santas (really!) and defeating video copying in theaters. The countermeasure: film

Overly Sanitized Environments Lead to Poor Health?

2006-06-19T13:26:00.000-07:00

Overly Sanitized Environments Lead to Poor Health?
A recently-released study examined the health implications of living in an overly hygienic environment. According to the 'hygiene hypothesis,' living in such an environment early in life can lead to problems with allergies and autoimmune diseases. The study compared lab rodents with rats and mice living in the wild. Time to stop Lysol-bombing the house?

Kim Katrell Blogger

2006-06-18T07:19:00.000-07:00

Kim Katrell Blogger is now up and running but you can also catch my here http://www.kimkatrell.com