Archive for the ‘News’ Category

Death Bell Tolls for RegisterFly

Tuesday, March 20th, 2007

Ah… Now this is amusing, wonderful, and great all at the same time. :)

ICANN Blog » Blog Archive » Termination of RegisterFly Registrar Accreditation Agreement

ICANN has issued a letter to RegisterFly indicating that it will cease operating as an ICANN-Accredited Registrar on March 31, 2007. Under the terms of the Registrar Accreditation Agreement (RAA), ICANN must provide 15 days written notice to RegisterFly of its intention to terminate.

RegisterFly Revisited

Thursday, March 15th, 2007

This is good to see. I would like to hope that they have their accredation removed but, frankly, this seems like it is more and more a monetary thing where that result is unlikely. “One more last chance…” Either way, we are moved away and this is a good thing.

A few domains moved away, this seems to be enough to pacify but I could be wrong. Let’s hope that ICANN is in a position where they can do the right thing. It isn’t that they won’t do the right thing, it is that they can’t do the right thing. There are contracts and they don’t have the capacity to be the internet police.

ICANN Blog » Blog Archive » RegisterFly update: March 13, 2007

ICANN has received many complaints about RegisterFly accepting payments via credit card and funds being deducted, the account credited, but no registration taking place. ICANN made it clear that this was to stop. RegisterFly agreed to cease this activity.

From AMD’s News Room

Wednesday, March 14th, 2007

WTH? I haven’t SEEN anything, I will keep an ear to the ground though. If you have anything… Share, please?

News Room

HANNOVER, Germany — March 13, 2007 –In partnership with entertainment technology leaders, AMD (NYSE: AMD) today announced the AMD LIVE!™ Ready program, an ecosystem branding initiative designed to provide consumers with greater choice and simplicity for seamless enjoyment of their personal photos, videos and music, as well as popular videos from the Internet. The new AMD LIVE! Ready program is designed to easily identify various devices and software that best complete the AMD LIVE! digital entertainment and media experience.

“As more and more consumers embrace the AMD LIVE! solution, we continue to reduce complexity and move technology out of the way for a more delightful consumer experience,” said Joe Menard, corporate vice president of AMD’s Consumer Business. “We are excited to leverage our open-platform approach and collaborate with industry leaders to help simplify hardware and software choices for consumers’ digital entertainment.”

With the AMD LIVE! Ready logo, consumers now have a quick and easy way to select components that work best with their AMD LIVE! desktop and notebook PCs, AMD LIVE! Home Cinema and AMD LIVE! Home Media Server, helping them build a robust digital media ecosystem. Products that will carry the logo include portable media players, network devices, software, TV tuners, storage solutions, web cameras, set top boxes and digital media adapters.

“The AMD LIVE! solution provides consumers with an easy way to interact, control and enjoy their digital entertainment experiences,” said Dale Pistilli, director of business development for Logitech’s Control Device Business Unit. “As a leading provider of personal peripherals for the digital home, Logitech is looking forward to participating in the AMD LIVE! Ready program and helping to revolutionize the way people enjoy their digital content both inside their homes and remotely.”

“As a leading manufacturer of network-enabled set-top boxes, Worldsat applauds AMD for providing consumers with access to their digital content anytime and anywhere,” said Laurent Festor, deputy director of Worldsat. “Over the years, Worldsat has made a concerted effort to work closely with partners like AMD to ensure a seamless and simple digital media experience in and around the home, and we are pleased to partner in the AMD LIVE! Ready effort to truly transform the television experience with Active TV solutions.”

AMD is working with leading technology partners to support new and innovative models for delivering the best digital experience to consumers through the AMD LIVE! Ready program. As part of this open ecosystem initiative, AMD is taking a leadership role to provide consumers with more interactivity and choice in their TV viewing experience.

Active TV Solutions
Consumers are watching billions of video streams on their PCs every month. Leveraging the power and performance of the AMD LIVE! PC, AMD is working with various industry suppliers to help consumers display and share those same video streams on the TV with a portfolio of Active TV solutions that extend the PC to the TV.

Active TV solutions allow consumers to stream broadcast and broadband entertainment content from the PC to the TV, offering an enjoyable “living room” viewing experience with the convenience of a remote control. To deliver this capability, AMD is establishing partnerships in an open ecosystem of set-top box and game console manufacturers, middleware providers and content aggregators to deliver Active TV-enabled hardware and software solutions as part of the AMD LIVE! Ready program.

AMD and an ecosystem of suppliers will make various Active TV solutions available to purchasers of new AMD LIVE! PCs and AMD LIVE! Ready branded set-top boxes, TVs and other devices. AMD and collaborators such as Kjaerulff, Dream Multimedia, WorldSat and BroadQ also intend to make the Active TV capability available to existing PC owners under the AMD LIVE! Ready brand.

In addition to streaming videos from the PC to the TV, the Active TV capability enabled by a powerful media center PC, allows consumers to create customized “TV-web channels” and distribute them to televisions around the home, aggregating video favorites from popular media sharing web sites such as YouTube, ROO, Veoh and VMIX.

“Honda’s aim is to excite and intrigue potential customers in order to gain interest and encourage them to engage with our brand. Increasingly we are looking beyond traditional spot advertising to create this effect,” said Ian Armstrong, communications manager, Honda UK. “Having successfully launched our TV channel, we want to further extend our coverage giving potential viewers the opportunity to watch our channel on TV as well as the web. We are delighted that Active TV solutions help us reach more viewers.”

While Active TV solutions are open to any PC platform, they are best experienced on a PC based on multi-core technology, such as an AMD LIVE! PC. By leveraging the additional processor core, consumers are better able to format and deliver Internet content to the television.

Availability
Active TV-enabled set-top boxes and related software are currently available in Europe from Kjaerulff1 and Dream Multimedia. Other leading manufacturers are expected to introduce AMD LIVE! Ready devices and Active TV solutions in Europe and North America by the second half 2007.

Some AMD LIVE! Ready solutions that support Active TV features are being demonstrating at CeBIT this week in AMD’s booth in Hall 2, Booth #D35.

Viacom sues Google

Wednesday, March 14th, 2007

Viacom sues Google, YouTube for $1 billion - U.S. Business - MSNBC.com

NEW YORK - MTV owner Viacom Inc. sued the popular video-sharing site YouTube and its corporate parent, Google Inc., Tuesday, seeking more than $1 billion in damages on claims of widespread copyright infringement.

Viacom claims that YouTube has displayed nearly 160,000 unauthorized video clips from its cable networks, which also include Comedy Central, VH1 and Nickelodeon.

This is amusing. One has to wonder how long Google can go on infringing on copyrights before their house of cards comes crashing in. I have to also wonder how many people buy into the “do no evil” bit. Google has uses, some of them good, but ethical choices don’t appear to be one of their valued assets.