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Some Avatar buyers still cannot play their Blu-rays

Posted by Harshad

Some Avatar buyers still cannot play their Blu-rays


Some Avatar buyers still cannot play their Blu-rays

Posted: 30 Apr 2010 02:07 PM PDT

Some Avatar buyers still cannot play their Blu-raysThanks to a glitch, some Avatar Blu-ray owners can still not play their purchased discs, leading to understandable irritation.

Says one angry customer: "When 3 out of 3 players in my house (Denon, Samsung and PC) won't play it, then 20th Century Fox should be slapped with losses on this one."

The customer's anger is aimed at the wrong place, however. Fox is not the issue but instead it is the Blu-ray players and their respective firmwares. Avatar, requires, in most cases, the latest firmware, but owners of older players without active Internet connections are usually not the most up to date.

For some people, the glitches get weirder. Users have reported chapter pop-up boxes showing up throughout the movie, sometimes without leaving.

It is unclear how Fox will try to help users who cannot play the discs or are receiving the glitches, but likely the number of users is still small, yet vocal.

The world's highest grossing movie of all-time, the blockbuster Avatar, is also the fastest-selling Blu-ray disc of all-time, selling 2.7 million units in its first four days.

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James Cameron and NASA team up for new Mars exploration 3D camera

Posted: 30 Apr 2010 01:21 PM PDT

James Cameron and NASA team up for new Mars exploration 3D cameraNASA is teaming up with blockbuster director James Cameron to help build a new 3D camera that will be mounted on the new Mars rover, Curiosity.

Curiosity will launch next year.

NASA had originally scrapped plans for a 3D camera in 2007 saying the "upcoming flagship mission to Mars was consistently over budget and behind schedule." Comically, most of James Cameron's movies over the past decade have also been "consistently over budget and behind schedule" so it seems like a match made in heaven.

The director lobbied to NASA administrator Charles Bolden, who agreed that the rover would need a cinema quality camera to help the public connect to the mission.

The 3D camera is now being built by Malin Space Science Systems.

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Apple to shut down Lala music service

Posted: 30 Apr 2010 10:37 AM PDT

Apple to shut down Lala music serviceJust 5 months after purchasing the music streaming service, Apple has decided to shut down Lala, likely signalling that it will be integrated into iTunes.com.

All current members have until May 31st to continue using the service, but as of today the site is not accepting any new members.

Lala is a download and streaming music service that gives members a "digital locker" to store their music. What made the company different from iTunes, Amazon MP3, etc, is that Lala would also sell streaming rights to tracks for pennies, allowing for unlimited streaming online of the track, but no download.

Current members will be given a credit for songs they have purchased to use at iTunes.

Apple is now expected to open a Web-based iTunes that will be based on the Lala framework and will do much of the same things, such as a digital locker for "Web-only" versions of the tracks.

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Valve confirms Steam for Mac release date

Posted: 30 Apr 2010 09:58 AM PDT

Valve confirms Steam for Mac release dateValve has finally confirmed the official release date for Steam on the Mac platform, with the streaming service confirmed for a May 12th launch.

The service has been in beta since mid-March.

Doug Lombardi, Valve's VP of developer marketing says the first two games to be ported will be Portal and Team Fortress 2.

Among the features available at launch will be Steam Play, which allows gamers to play a game on the PC, then continue to play on a Mac, right where they left off, as long as the game is available for both platforms.

Additionally, Mac users will play in the same multiplayer "universe" says GI, meaning all platforms can play on the same servers.

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Sony to announce HDTVs with Android, Intel chips

Posted: 30 Apr 2010 09:16 AM PDT

Sony to announce HDTVs with Android, Intel chipsSony, the former #1 TV maker that has seen recent declines in sales, will begin launching new HDTVs with Intel processors and running the Android operating system, say sources cited by Bloomberg.

The electronics giant will unveil the products at an event in San Francisco on May 19th, a conference sponsored by Google, the company behind Android.

The sources say the Intel chip will be a customized Atom chip, and the OS will be a customized Android dubbed "Dragonpoint."

All three companies are also working with Logitech to create a keyboard that will work as a remote and would allow for easier typing when using a browser via the TV.

Sony has recently fallen to third place in the TV market, behind Samsung and LG globally, and behind Samsung and Vizio in the United States.

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Microsoft scraps plan for Courier tablet

Posted: 30 Apr 2010 08:21 AM PDT

Microsoft scraps plan for Courier tabletGizmodo, the site that first uncovered Microsof'ts plans to release a "digital journal" dubbed the Courier, is reporting this week that the company has scrapped those plans.

Execs were told by CEO Steve Ballmer that the tablet would no longer be supported, which seems reasonable given that the Courier was never publicly acknowledged as an upcoming device.

In the videos released by Gizmodo and then Engadget, the Courier seemed to be in its final stages of development, but it appears, at least from an outsider's view, that Ballmer does not want to directly compete with the iPad, and eventually the HP Slate or Dell Streak.

Adds Microsoft Corporate VP of Communications Frank Shaw: "At any given time, we're looking at new ideas, investigating, testing, incubating them. It's in our DNA to develop new form factors and natural user interfaces to foster productivity and creativity. The Courier project is an example of this type of effort. It will be evaluated for use in future offerings, but we have no plans to build such a device at this time."

The device would have been under an inch thick, weigh about 1.3 pounds, and be 5x7 when closed. The device was built on the Tegra 2 chip, and ran on Windows CE 6/Windows Phone 7.

You can check some of the preview videos:


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