Technology360

Mark Schubin's Monday Memo on DTV for 8/7/2006

Mark Schubin's latest "Monday Memo" for digital television is available on the OpenDTV list is available at FreeLists.  --Dennis

Mark Schubin's memo on digital TV for 7/26/2006

Mark Schubin's frequent memo on digital television developments for July 26, 2006 has been posted to the OpenDTV list.  Link: FreeLists.  His lead story this week is TiVo starting a research division.  The story quotes the New York Times, and I'll make a separate post on it.  --Dennis

Coming Soon to a TV Near You?

Ronald Grover writes:

It's the Holy Grail of the movie download business. Movies straight from the Internet to your TV, none of that watching the flick in your straight-back chair while peering at your computer monitor. Now, for those who want to watch movies the way they should be enjoyed—that is, while curled up on your couch—comes the first downloadable movie that can be burned onto a DVD. On July 19, CinemaNow, a movie download site backed by independent film studio Lionsgate Entertainment, Microsoft, Blockbuster, and others, announced it will be the first to provide that service. ...

Link:  BusinessWeek.

Mark Schubin's memo on digital TV for 7/17/2006

Mark Schubin's latest "Monday Memo" on digital television -- this one actually published on a Monday! -- is available on the OpenDTV list.  --Dennis

Apple to announce iTunes movie rentals

Ryan Katz writes:

... Think Secret has learned exclusively that CEO Steve Jobs will use his keynote address to announce the debut of movie rentals through the iTunes Music Store. While the announcement will undoubtedly be billed as a further extension of iTunes' dominance in digital media downloads, it represents a coup for the movie industry, which will have succeeded in standing its ground against Apple's pressures to offer consumers the option of owning movie downloads. ...

Link:  Think Secret.

Umair Haque thinks it's a mistake.  See Jobs Effect.  Link:  Bubblegeneration.  --Dennis

Next-generation DVDs tested

Jonathan Fildes has a comparison of Blu-ray and HD-DVDs at BBC News.  --Dennis

50 TB organic discs on the horizon, maybe

Anders Bylund writes:

Are we on the brink of a data storage revolution? Professor Venkatesan Renugopalakrishnan would like to think so, because he has developed a medium that should allow 50 TB of data stored on a DVD-sized disc. His research team, in cooperation with Japanese electronics giant NEC, has developed a prototype disc covered in a modified form of bacteriorhodopsin proteins.

Link:  Ars Technica.  So, in other words, if this pans out you'll be able to watch "Creature from the Black Lagoon" using something resembling the pond scum through which he crawled.  Seriously, I'm convinced that storage technology is the place to watch for the next big disruption.  Also see a related post from Monday.  --Dennis

A terabyte of storage on a DVD disc?

Michael Kanellos writes:

Matteris doesn't think optical discs, even Blu-ray ones, hold enough storage.  ¶  The company, which spins out of Israel's technical university Technion, has devised a coating for 5.25 optical discs that can hold up to a terabyte of storage, according to Zohan Gendler, who runs the incubator at Technion. ...

Link:  Future Tech at CNET News.com.

Which New DVD Format? Neither Just Yet

David Pogue wrote a comparison of the early Blu-ray and HD-DVD players for the New York Times.  --Dennis

Early experiences with Blu-ray disappointing

Nate Anderson writes:

Reviews are starting to trickle in from those early adopters lucky (?) enough to get their grubby mitts on the first Blu-ray player, the Samsung BD-P1000, ahead of its official launch on June 25. The question on everyone's mind is: now that I've just dropped US$1,000 on a movie player, have I at last scaled the heights of cinematic bliss? The answer is a conclusive "maybe." ...

Link:  Ars Technica.