LAS VEGAS -- The fate of HD DVD means very little in the grand scheme of Microsoft’s business, Entertainment and Devices President Robbie Bach told an analysts meeting at CES here late Monday. Bach and Bill Gates had ignored HD DVD and the format battle with Blu-ray a day earlier, during Gates’s last CES keynote as Microsoft chairman (CED Jan 7 Special CES Supplement p2).
Sprint Nextel and T-Mobile Thursday jointly backed a proposal that TV white spaces spectrum be auctioned or otherwise licensed for fixed use, addressing their growing backhaul needs. The support of the two, the largest non-Bell affiliated wireless carriers in the U.S., adds a wrinkle to the debate as the FCC moves forward with a new round of testing of mobile devices designed to use the spectrum to access the Internet. The filing puts the two in direct opposition to Microsoft, Dell and other major high-tech players on the issue.
Happy with the Internet Protocol version 4 now in use and with no money for upgrades, federal agencies were slow to take seriously the Bush administration’s order to redo their networks for IPv6, the government’s IPv6 chief told the IEEE Globecom conference Thursday. But they're increasingly taking heed as vendors caterwaul over yet- unwritten compliance requirements for selling routers and the like to the government, said Peter Tseronis, chairman of the Federal IPv6 Working Group. His day job is network services director for the Education Department.
Happy with the Internet Protocol version 4 now in use and with no money for upgrades, federal agencies were slow to take seriously the Bush administration’s order to redo their networks for IPv6, the government’s IPv6 chief told the IEEE Globecom conference Thursday. But they're increasingly taking heed as vendors caterwaul over yet- unwritten compliance requirements for selling routers and the like to the government, said Peter Tseronis, chairman of the Federal IPv6 Working Group. His day job is network services director for the Education Department.
Blockbuster’s Q1 bottom line took a heavy hit from its investments in Total Access, its hybrid store and Internet rental program -- but as its payoff, Blockbuster has grabbed significant market share from Netflix in online DVD rentals, CEO John Antioco told analysts Wed. in a quarterly earnings call. Investments in Total Access hit Blockbuster’s bottom line, as did the “extremely tough” market in brick & mortar DVD rentals, he said.
Blockbuster’s Q1 bottom line took a heavy hit from its investments in Total Access, but as its payoff, Blockbuster has grabbed significant market share from Netflix in online DVD rentals, CEO John Antioco told analysts Wed. in a quarterly earnings call.
HENDERSON, Nev. -- The main reasons for the lack of 1080i and 1080p support in many of the first PS3 games have nothing to do with cost or time issues at the development level, Phil Harrison, pres.-worldwide studios, Sony Computer Entertainment (SCE), told Consumer Electronics Daily at the Design, Innovate, Communicate, Entertain (D.I.C.E.) Summit here Fri. The question has been baffling since the PS3 launch last year.
Warner’s announcement Thurs. of a dual-format hybrid disc and LG’s vow to introduce the industry’s first dual- format player could well be only tips of the iceberg as to what’s in store at CES to bridge the warring Blu-ray and HD DVD systems, Consumer Electronics Daily has learned. We're told Hewlett-Packard also may introduce a dual-format PC drive at CES sourced from the same Hitachi-LG Data Storage joint venture that’s also supplying key optical components for the LG standalone combo player.
D&M Holdings’ acquisition of Philips Sound Solutions (PSS) (CED Nov 29 p6) will play a major role in the company’s plan to significantly expand its automotive OEM business, D&M executives told pre-CES media briefing Wed. at the company’s Mahwah, N.J., hq. The company also disclosed Denon plans to include the new HDMI Version 1.3 in all its 2007 AV receivers.
Rent-a-Center’s agreement to pay $4.95 million to settle allegations that it violated Cal. wage and hour laws is scheduled for a preliminary approval hearing Thurs. in Cal. Superior Court, L.A., the chain said in a 10-Q filing at the SEC. RAC reached a preliminary settlement in Aug. with former store managers Jeremy Burdusis and Israel French and other employees, agreeing to pay $4.95 million cash, including attorney’s fees, the chain said. The proposed settlement was to be sent to 6,250 former and current employees who have worked for the chain since Aug. 1998. The suit was filed in 2001 against RAC by Burdusis, who alleged that the chain broke Cal. law on overtime, lunch and work breaks. RAC promised but didn’t pay overtime, the suit said. Meanwhile, RAC will file a petition with the U.S. Supreme Court by a Thurs. deadline seeking to overturn a N.J. Supreme Court finding that it falls under the same interest caps as other retailers taking installment payments. The N.J. Supreme Court’s decision reversed a lower court dismissal of Helda Perez’s suit. She claimed in a suit filed in 2003 that RAC violated N.J. Retail Installment Sales & Consumer Fraud Act, which caps at 30% a year the interest on installment deals. The suit sought to include aggrieved customers back to 1999. “No class has been certified by a trial court and no finding of liability or damages has been made against us,” RAC said. “We believe we have valid arguments precluding retroactive application of the court’s decision to members of the punitive class and limiting damages” available to Perez. A hearing on Perez’s renewed motion for class certification is scheduled for Jan. 12 in N.J. Superior Court, RAC said. RAC also will complete construction of a new hq in Plano, Tex., in first quarter 2007, it said. RAC has spent about $10.6 million thus far on the project and expects to incur another $11.9-$16.9 million in costs by late Jan., the chain said. RAC purchased 15 acres in Plano for $5.2 million in Dec. 2005 for the hq and construction started the following month. RAC has $4.9 million remaining in lease obligations for its existing hq and will seek to the sublease the space, it said. Meanwhile, RAC has added another 24 financial services centers, including payday loans, to existing stores in the 4th quarter. It had 101 financial service operation Sept. 30.