CyberSurge

Windows 7 will have many improvements, some of which are shown off in this video, none of which are all that amazing but good to know none the less.

Features Shown:
Windows Explorer
FTP Locations
Keyboard Shortcuts
Screen & Animation Capture
Disk Usage Analyzer
Task Manager
Virtual Drive
Website, Blog and Portal Designer

Coming Soon (presumably in a later video):
Image Conversion
Document Conversion
PDF Conversion
Password Manager

Exactly, like I said, nothing revolutionary but I do like the idea of a website, blog and portal designer and a unified password manager (like OS X’s Keychain) would be awesome.

The rumors were going around early yesterday but now it is official, HBO content is now available for download through iTunes. What’s strange is that Apple has seemed to give in to the idea of variable pricing with HBO with most of their content being sold for $2.99 per episode (some content is still $1.99 per episode though).

And with this begins the questions of when will we see NBC back in iTunes, the biggest issue was variable pricing, right? Who really knows, I’ll tell you one thing though, if NBC comes back to iTunes and episodes are priced at $2.99 I will not buy them, I understand that HBO and NBC think that their content is worth more than anyone else but $1.99 seems to be that sweet spot where I almost don’t even have to think about the purchase at all, but when it reaches $2.99 I DO think about it, just enough to realize that it is too expensive.

HBO in iTunes

Funai has just began shipping their first generation of Blu-ray disc players that will be branded with various names (Magnavox, Sylvania, Emerson, Insignia, Pye). Some of these players have already began showing up in Wal-Marts for $298, super cheap for a Blu-ray player.

Funai is currently the largest manufacturer of DVD players, accounting for over one half of all DVD players sold in North America. This first step into Blu-ray is going to be big, especially if they are able to lower manufacturing costs and eventually retail prices to $200 or less over the next year or so.

These players are profile 1.1, capable of 480p, 720p, 1080i, and 1080p (1080p/24 and 1080p 60) output. DVD upconversion to 720p, 1080i, 1080p. They do have support for Hd Audio formats, bitstream output though, no internal decoding. HDMI version 1.3, which is quite nice for all of you who care what version of HDMI you use.

This is the second step to making Blu-ray really take off, the first of which was killing off HD-DVD. Getting players down to prices that start to make the average consumer actually consider them is crucial, especially with the ever increasing pressure from the idea of consumers downloading their content.

Blu-ray.com Forums

The new Asus Eee PC 900 is now available and shipping from Amazon.com. This new Eee PC is priced at $549 for the 12GB SSD version and $585 for the 20GB SSD version (at the time of writing this).

The second generation Eee PC features a larger 8.9 inch wide screen with a 1024 by 600 resolution. It will also feature a new FingerGlide touchpad that recognizes two finger gestures for scrolling and zooming.

Specs:
900MHz Celeron M processor
1GB DDR2 RAM
UMA graphics chipset
802.11b/g Wifi

12GB with Windows
20GB with Linux

The Toshiba Portégé R500. This thing is one heck of an ultraportable. The R500 sports a 12-inch display and a full size keyboard and yet still is able to weigh in at only 1.7 pounds.

The last Toshiba Portégé R500 weighed 2.4 pounds, to lose those ever important 0.7 pounds Toshiba removed the optical drive.

The Toshiba Portégé R500 starts at $2,599, and although that is including a 64GB solid state disk I still think it is a little expensive. The MacBook Air, with an 80GB non-SSD is only $1,799. I would rather see the R500 without the SSD, which may be an option but I don’t have that information at this time.

The MacBook Air is nearly twice the R500’s weight but it makes up for it with its larger screen and nicer style.

The R500 is a really good option though for someone who values having the lightest notebook they can find and doesn’t care about spending a lot of money.

PC Magazine

This is a screenshot from iPhone software 2.0 Beta 5 that will show up if you are using an iPhone with 3G (obviously not yet released), it will not show up on an EDGE iPhone. The preference is hidden inside of /Applications/Preferences.app/Network.plist.

The image above seems to reveal that the 3G chipset still may not give the battery life that Apple would like so they are giving 3G iPhone owners (when it is released) the option to fall back to EDGE speeds for increased battery life.

Currently I am expecting an iPhone with 3G to be released sometime between June 15 and July 15.

This information has been confirmed by MacRumors.

The Microsoft Zune is the number two digital music player in the United States, we already know that the Apple iPod is number one but just how far behind is the Zune?

Turns out that the Zune is REALLY far behind, since its launch in November 2006, the Zune has sold 2 million units, by comparison Apple sells about 2.65 million iPods per month.

The Zune is actually selling faster than the iPod did when it was first released, it took the iPod a full 2 years to sell 2 million units, Microsoft has beaten that time by 5 months or so.

Microsoft has already announced that games will be coming to the Zune soon and just recently the Zune Marketplace was updated to offer TV show downloads. although the Zune may eventually takeover Apple’s top spot it still could take many many years. The Zune is one heck of an alternative though and if sales continue to do better and better you may actually be able to squirt songs to others on the bus someday soon (that’s if people actually decide to leave the Wifi on).

VentureBeat

So here is something weird, iPhones are mysteriously “Currently Unavailable” in the US and UK online Apple Store. One would expect to see a new iPhone soon, mostly because generally when supply begins to dry up on specific Apple product that usually is the first sign of a new generation of that product.

But, what is so curious about this is that there has been no announcement by Apple regarding any type of event, Apple usually gives the press one weeks notice on events like this. I don’t think Apple would want their supply of iPhones to be completely gone for one week or more but I also don’t think that Apple would release an updated iPhone without any type of event around it.

Unless of course there is absolutely nothing changed in the hardware except maybe the 3G chipset and possibly a better battery to get the same type of battery life out of the 3G chipset as Apple was able to do with the EDGE chipset.

Of course this isn’t a tell tale sign that a new iPhone is coming out but it is very strange that Apple would let their supply dry up like this.

US Apple Store
UK Apple Store