DISQUS

I don't know, I think McCain has an outside chance, but it would seem this year Obama has it in the bag (unless something drastic happens). I guess we'll find out tomorrow.

Good compilations and reviews. Personally, I've been using Wordtracker for years, and give it a hearty thumbs up.

tech consumers last blog post..Microsoft Finally Lands One

I found it interesting that they did admit to having a blacklist of sites that is matched with the upcoming queue in an automated process. But then, don't worry, there's no "auto-bury." Well, I guess it's how you define auto-bury. To me, that sounds an awful lot like what I would consider to be "auto-bury."

But then, all they had to say is "fighting spam" and all is well. The crowd is appeased even if plenty of legitimate sites are auto-buried / blacklisted in the process.

Plus there was a quick nod to the "our hands are tied" excuse toward the end in reference to the fact that sometimes the digg crowd gets together and decides it hates certain sites/blogs. Too bad for those sites; they're not welcome by however many of the tens of millions of uniques it takes for the sites to be blacklisted/auto-buried (I'm guessing probably somewhere around .00001% of the community can decide what is permanently not wanted by everyone).

To recap, legitimate sites can be (and have been, just not Engadget or Ars Technica, of course) blacklisted / banned / auto-buried (pick your term) because they're a) mistaken as spam or b) rejected a couple times by an extremely small percentage of the community.

like picture." But then again, your use of "totally" as part of "totally false" was about as inaccurate. After all, it's not "totally false" that DVD players are competition for Blu-ray... Careful when you make a semantic argument; it can come back on you.

If you look at the reasoning, you can tell Yahoo is grasping at straws with contradicting logic:

http://www.techconsumer.com/2008/02/09/yahoo-bo...

Yeah, Arse, but again, that's kind of the point:

If eBay only works for "specialty, oddball, collector stuff" and is for "smart and careful" people only... Well then, that means eBay is screwing a lot of people by default due to its sheer size and the majority of what it offers.

I like retailers were the default position isn't getting screwed. And Amazon fits that description better than any other online retailer I know.

If anyone's curious, it's likely the first countries to get this will be Canada, the United Kingdom, Germany, Austria, France, China, and Japan. See here for details:

http://www.techconsumer.com/2008/01/27/amazon-m...

This news is more interesting when combined with what Yahoo Music’s VP of Product Development Ian Rogers hinted at a couple weeks ago:

http://www.techconsumer.com/2008/01/23/yahoo-wo...

So basically, masterblaster, your thoughts are similar to mine:

Apple having bonus "cool" features doesn't compare to one less box you have to setup on your TV. If Netflix gets into gaming (literally)... sounds like we're both sold.

Also, at least HD DVD eased the pain for its buyers/users:

http://www.techconsumer.com/2008/01/08/irony-al...

Wow. How come I've never heard of "Have meaningful conversations through email signature quotes" or "You smell"?

Those should be instant classics!

And I should mention that HD DVD also allows for combo discs where the movie can work on HD DVD or DVD players (many of the HD DVD movies come in this dual format). Blu-ray movies don't have that option; they will only work on Blu-ray players.

Interesting, Logan. I certainly can understand your hesitance, but I wonder if you could provide more specifics on your intel that puts Blu-ray as slightly better technology.

Here's what I know: Both formats use pretty much the same codec, which is the number one determinant of picture quality. Blu-ray players usually come standard as 1080p whereas HD-DVD has the cheaper and "less quality" option of 1080i. But that could be argued as positive for HD-DVD, giving consumers more control (after all, there are plenty of HDTV buyers whose TVs don't support 1080p, so why pay for it if you won't use it?).

Another area where Blu-ray is arguably "better" is that its discs can hold 50gigs whereas HD-DVD discs can hold only 30gigs. But the way movies work, those maxes aren't even close to being hit.

And one area where HD DVD actually is "better" technology than Blu-ray:

All HD DVD players are required to come with network connectivity, which allows for more advanced features (which I mentioned in an earlier article) and easier updates. Blu-ray players, on the other hand, may or may not come with network connectivity. And so far, they've needed more updates, which would be a huge pain if not automatic through online connectivity.

Also, remember that HD DVDs work anywhere in the world whereas Blu-ray are region specific.

Anyway, let me know if you know something I'm missing... But I think it's hard to say one is better (even slightly) at this point. But if I were to pick which is "better" technology, you probably could guess my opinion based on the above info...

It will be interesting to see what happens if/when Macs hit that critical mass. While it's not the best comparison (for other reasons), a few years back Dell was the talk of the town, that is, until it got too popular. Now it's on its way back up but only after learning from some serious mistakes.

But Apple inevitably knows its weaknesses and will likely address them eventually (hopefully sooner rather than later). Scoble is only the beginning of Apple hell stories, provided the company continues into the more mainstream with its computers (that's what we all want, right? Or maybe not...).

Here’s a review with screenshots.
The most interesting thing is the window that pops up after you’ve submitted. It shows one column of the recently popular stories from the WSJ.com on Digg and another column of upcoming WSJ stories on Digg.

Tom, any of those $99 HD-DVD players still left?

"Uh….ever considered that maybe you’re NOT supposed to speculate on the fate of the music industry???"

@Ewen: Wow, sorry to disappoint, but I was being sarcastic. Even so, unauthorized speculation seems to be a pretty serious deal, in your mind. I'll make sure to get your permission next time.

Kevin, some good points... And if the download is available totally free, well, I suspect plenty of people will jump for it at that "price."

A major catch-22 with their otherwise clever idea is that it's difficult to pick a price for something before you know your opinion of it. A convoluted solution would be to give away DRM-ed versions of the songs only later to offer DRM-free versions for a made-up price.

Of course, I hate DRM and that suggestion is only given to provide context for others to think of better ideas!

I suppose we don't get to listen to entire albums before buying as it is right now, but the difference is that here picking the price is the point.

I have to admit that I'd be inclined to pick a higher price if it was after I had a listen (of course, that runs the risk of the price getting lower if the album sucks for me).

Wow, Danielle, I wonder how many pre-sales centers are run in a similar fashion... That's crazy.

One of the sources for this story has moved, here’s the updated location:

http://www.techconsumer.com/2007/04/20/social-n...