For those of us who were victims of the issues that plagued Xbox Live several weeks ago it appears that we may be on the way to feeling justified. In concurrence with the apology letter sent out by Xbox Live general manager Marc Whitten it was announced today that Microsoft will allow all subscribers to download the XBLA game Undertow for free starting next Wednesday and ending the following Sunday. Those who already own the game are asked to call 1-800-4My-Xbox, at which they will most likely refund your purchasing price for the game.
Not bad a deal. In all honesty though I’d rather download Rez HD though…
Cyberguru Steve Jobs made an announcement at Macworld Expo Tuesday morning for what Apple states is the “world’s thinnest notebook.” The MacBook Air. Weighing in at three pounds with a thickness of 0.16-0.76 inches, a width of 12.8 inches, and a depth of 8.95 inches.
With the standard silver finish of the MacBook Pro, now recyclable aluminum, the Air has a 13.3-inch LED-backlit widescreen mercury-free display with arsenic-free glass supporting a 1280 x 800 pixel resolution. A new feature of the backlit display is an “instant on” response that activates the moment you power on the computer. It also comes with the standard webcam, backlit keyboard (black), and ambient light sensor. The trackpad this time around has multi-touch capabilities, with gesture recognition similar to the iPhone and iPod Touch.
The hardware: 1.8 inch 80GB hard disk drive, option of 64GB solid-state disk; Parallel ATA at 4200 RPM. 2GB of 667MH DDR2 SDRAM standard. 1.6GHz Intel Core 2 Duo upgradable to 1.8GHz, which was custom manufactured by Intel to be 60% smaller according to Apple’s specs. The chip also has 4MB on-chip shared L2 cache at full processor speed with an 800MHz frontside bus. The MacBook Air also features a trimmed MagSafe power connector and 45 watt power adapter. USB 2.0, Micro-DVI, headphone jack, 802.11n wireless, and Bluetooth 2.1 + EDR. Apple estimates a full five hours of battery life with wireless networking on. The Air lacks an included internal optical drive, but will offer new software called Remote Disk, which allows borrowing of remote optical drives of other computers on the same network. Otherwise an additional USB SuperDrive will be available for $99.
The MacBook Air will retail for $1,799 and will be available within two weeks.
It looks like Netflix is taking the first steps in upgrading their digital movie delivery service into an on-demand home movie network that will send selected films directly to an LG manufactured set-top box in your home, similar to a digital cable or DVR service. Set to hit the market later this year (summer/fall), the service will allow subscribers to download movies directly to their TV and avoid disc rentals, availability queues, and delivery time waits. It seems, though, the set-top box will require both a TV and a computer, the latter of which would communicate with the Netflix service and manage the titles that are delivered to the set-top box. According to Netflix’s CEO, Reed Hastings, the company has invested over $40 million in research and development, and there are plans to advance beyond DVD use entirely, as well as include video games in a future digital service.
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