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When TiVo discontinued its high-end cable-ready high-def DVR, the TiVo Series3, it was really just making room for a new product in the line: the TiVo HD XL. The new TiVo is a near twin of the existing TiVo HD, but for three changes: it’s got a much larger 1 terabyte hard drive (enough capacity for 150 hours of HD programming); it’s THX-certified; and it includes the premium TiVo backlit remote. The package costs $600–about the price that the TiVo Series3 was going for, and twice that of the “standard” TiVo HD. As with any TiVo, of course, you’ll also need to budget money for a subscription fee: $13 a month, $129 a year, or $399 for the lifetime of the box. True, you can do a DIY upgrade on the standard TiVo HD by adding the improved remote ($50) and a 500GB expansion hard drive ($150), but that will cost nearly as much and still leave you with less recording capacity–and a lot of extra wires.

The bigger question is whether you want a TiVo at all, when you can get a “free” high-def DVR from your cable company. And the answer comes down to whether you find TiVo’s superior design and laundry list of extras worth the additional cash–and whether you can live with some of the compromises. Among the TiVo features that go beyond recording TV shows: YouTube videos, renting and buying Amazon Unbox videos, Rhapsody music, online scheduling, copying recorded programs to PCs or portable devices (TiVo To Go), access to video and audio podcasts…the list goes on and on. Whether or not those features–and the TiVo’s corresponding dearth of access to your cable system’s video-on-demand functions–are worth the price of TiVo’s hardware and subscription is a question that only you can answer.

Source: Cnet

Hot on the heels of Microsoft slashing Xbox 360 prices in Japan, the long rumored price cuts for the Xbox 360 in the U.S. look to be a reality. And yes, the Xbox 360 Arcade model will now be cheaper than the Nintendo Wii. Based on Radio Shack and Walmart advertising pamphlets, as well as Best Buy and GameStop employee reports, Newsarama is reporting that the most substantial cut is being reserved for the “starter” Xbox 360 Arcade, which only ships with a 256 megabyte memory card.

The Xbox 360 Arcade will drop from $279 to $199 starting September 7, pricing it below the current going rate for the Nintendo Wii. And Microsoft isn’t leaving the Pro or Elite models out of the party. The Pro and its new 60 gigabyte harddrive will drop from $349 to $299, while the 120 gb Elite model will drop from $449 to $399. No cuts have been announced for the 20 gb Pro models, and Microsoft has yet to confirm the other price drops. Of course, the evidence has been out there for quite a while now.

Source: 1up

Mozilla CEO John Lily shared his thoughts on Google’s new browser project, Chrome, and what that means for Mozilla.

“It should come as no real surprise that Google has done something here — their business is the web, and they’ve got clear opinions on how things should be, and smart people thinking about how to make things better. Chrome will be a browser optimized for the things that they see as important, and it’ll be interesting to see how it evolves.” Mozilla’s Europe president, Tristan Nitot also chimed in during an interview with PCPro, stating that they don’t view this as a direct attack on Firefox, even if it did catch them by surprise. “I’ll take another example: just before Microsoft launched Vista, it invited us [to work with it] so that Firefox works better on Windows Vista. Because for it, Firefox being a top-tier application that was very successful - we now have 200 million users around the world - it could not afford to have Firefox run slowly on Vista. Therefore, it helped us improve Firefox for Vista. That’s just the same for Google. It wants Firefox to perform well with its applications, that’s for sure. Indeed, it even wants IE to perform well with Gmail and the rest. It’s just that it has very limited control over this. That’s why Google’s been frustrated and it is launching this Chrome browser.”

Source: Slashdot

Begin your odyssey at the dawn of life as a simple microbe just trying to survive, then evolve the creature from its microscopic origins into an intelligent, tool-using race, becoming a global civilization and choose whether to hunt or forage, attack or trade. From today on, fans who pre-ordered the game from the EA StoreOnce pre-ordered, you will see Spore in your EA Download Manager. can pre-load the game, and be ready for launch.

You will then be able to download 99 percent of the game to your computer with the remaining part of the game to be downloaded upon the date of the game’s release. It will only take 30-60 minutes for the install to complete before you can begin conquering galaxies in Spore before anyone else! Please note that you will be charged for the game on the 28th of August and your statements will reflect this. Spore Galactic Edition will be available as a boxed product-exclusive at retailers. Spore will be available on PC Sept. 5 in Europe and Sept. 7 in North America and Asia Pacific. The NDS version will also be available on Sept. 7, 2008.

Source: Worthplaying

In a bid to deter people from using pirate versions of Windows XP, Microsoft is now updating its Windows Genuine Advantage (WGA) tool to introduce a few uncomfortable niggles for users of pirated versions of Windows. These include replacing the desktop wallpaper with a black screen every 60 minutes, although you can still replace it with your wallpaper of choice in the intervening period. As well as this, copies of Windows deemed to not be genuine will also have a translucent watermark above the system tray, which Microsoft calls a ‘persistent desktop notification.’”

According to the blog, the scheme will be ‘focusing on the product edition that is most often stolen,’ which is apparently Windows XP Pro. Users of this OS, according to Microsoft, have ‘the highest likelihood of having a non-genuine copy.’ While it’s fair to say that any hardened pirate could happily survive this anti-piracy wrist-slap without giving in and buying Windows, the persistent watermark could become an embarrassment for businesses using pirate copies of Windows.

Source: Slashdot

A Chinese factory worker has become an Internet sensation after a picture of her smiling and flashing a peace sign to a co-worker testing an Apple iPhone stayed on the phone that was sold to a man in Britain. Photos of the unidentified, smiling woman were posted on the Apple discussion website MacRumours.com by a customer identified as “markm49uk” from Kingston-upon-Hull and quickly posted around other sites. “Not sure if this is or is not the ‘norm’ but I just received my brand new iPhone here in the UK and once it had been activated on iTunes I found that the home screen (the screen you can personalize with a photo) already had a photo set against it!!!!” he wrote.

“It would appear that someone on the production line was having a bit of fun - has anyone else found this?” Some people voiced concern that the woman could now lose her job while others joked on the website that they were considering returning their phones because they did not come loaded with a photo. “I think its a kind of personal touch. It’s nice. Maybe every phone that gets a full quality test should have its tester’s picture taken and left on there. And the working conditions look pretty good,” wrote one. Taiwanese company Foxconn assembles the iPhones for Apple in Shenzhen in southern China but calls to the company by Reuters went unanswered.

Source: Reuters

Microsoft Corp. took the wraps off the latest test version of its Internet Explorer browser on Wednesday, unveiling new privacy and security features as the company battles the upstart Firefox browser. Internet Explorer 8 offers users greater control over whether to save or erase their browsing history, “cookies” and other data. It also includes a browsing tool called an accelerator, which allows users to highlight text on a Web site and then choose from a variety of functions, including different search engines, language translation or map displays.

Microsoft released a version of the new browser for Web developers to test earlier this year. The version released Wednesday is available for all consumers to download. Microsoft commands 73% of the browser market, while Firefox has 19% market share, according to research firm Net Applications. Microsoft’s lead has fallen in recent years. Just four years ago, Microsoft’s market share was more than 91%. In addition to Firefox, Apple Inc. is becoming more of a competitor as strong sales of Macintosh computers have boosted use of its Safari browser, which has about 6% of the market. Use of Firefox shot up in June when a new version was released. More than eight million people downloaded the application in the first 24 hours after it went public.

Source: WSJ

When TiVo discontinued its high-end cable-ready high-def DVR, the TiVo Series3, it was really just making room for a new product in the line: the TiVo HD XL. The new TiVo is a near twin of the existing TiVo HD, but for three changes: it’s got a much larger 1 terabyte hard drive (enough capacity for 150 hours of HD programming); it’s THX-certified; and it includes the premium TiVo backlit remote. The package costs $600–about the price that the TiVo Series3 was going for, and twice that of the “standard” TiVo HD. As with any TiVo, of course, you’ll also need to budget money for a subscription fee: $13 a month, $129 a year, or $399 for the lifetime of the box. True, you can do a DIY upgrade on the standard TiVo HD by adding the improved remote ($50) and a 500GB expansion hard drive ($150), but that will cost nearly as much and still leave you with less recording capacity–and a lot of extra wires.

The bigger question is whether you want a TiVo at all, when you can get a “free” high-def DVR from your cable company. And the answer comes down to whether you find TiVo’s superior design and laundry list of extras worth the additional cash–and whether you can live with some of the compromises. Among the TiVo features that go beyond recording TV shows: YouTube videos, renting and buying Amazon Unbox videos, Rhapsody music, online scheduling, copying recorded programs to PCs or portable devices (TiVo To Go), access to video and audio podcasts…the list goes on and on. Whether or not those features–and the TiVo’s corresponding dearth of access to your cable system’s video-on-demand functions–are worth the price of TiVo’s hardware and subscription is a question that only you can answer.

Source: Cnet

Hot on the heels of Microsoft slashing Xbox 360 prices in Japan, the long rumored price cuts for the Xbox 360 in the U.S. look to be a reality. And yes, the Xbox 360 Arcade model will now be cheaper than the Nintendo Wii. Based on Radio Shack and Walmart advertising pamphlets, as well as Best Buy and GameStop employee reports, Newsarama is reporting that the most substantial cut is being reserved for the “starter” Xbox 360 Arcade, which only ships with a 256 megabyte memory card.

The Xbox 360 Arcade will drop from $279 to $199 starting September 7, pricing it below the current going rate for the Nintendo Wii. And Microsoft isn’t leaving the Pro or Elite models out of the party. The Pro and its new 60 gigabyte harddrive will drop from $349 to $299, while the 120 gb Elite model will drop from $449 to $399. No cuts have been announced for the 20 gb Pro models, and Microsoft has yet to confirm the other price drops. Of course, the evidence has been out there for quite a while now.

Source: 1up