Promotion for the new Apple Store in Sydney (Alex Serpo/ZDNet.com.au
Apple has released some advertising promoting a brand new Apple Store coming to Sydney soon, with a giant banner where it will be located, at the CBD.
The store, located at the corner of George Street between King and Market Streets, has been speculated to cost Apple around $23 million to build the site. Rumours have also mentioned that Apple is expected to launch stores in Chadstone soon.
Cinematube.com and ShowStash.net, two sites we haven’t even heard of that index pirated movies on the web, has received US$4 million in fines after a judge found them to be liable for contributing to copyright infringement.
For ShowStash, the MPAA says that the site infringed on copyrights by “actively searching for,
identifying, collecting, organizing, indexing and posting on their websites links to illegal copies of motion pictures and television shows, which had been posted on third-party websites, allowing Internet users to locate and view the content.”
Both sites have been taken down, with ShowStash redirecting to a parked domain page and Cinematube showing a page with a brief message and gives a link to the MPAA website that lists legal options on watching movies and shows online.
BlurbEM! - Another Twitter wannabe? (Screenshot: Terence Huynh/reawaken Media)
BlurbEM! is one of the sites that have submitted itself to a recently announced, non-backed by CNET (or CBS), competition by Molly Wood for a Twitter alternative.
Some short information about the competition: She will use the service for 30 days and will get all of her friends and Buzz Out Loud listeners to try it out. Tom Merritt and Leo Laporte have also said that they will get their friends to the chosen winner.
Anyway, we have decided to review every single entry since we like to be harsh to some sites. Our first victim/reviewee (is that even a word?) is BlurbEM!
Microsoft has now launched a "cashback" service on its Windows Live search service that would see users getting discounts for products they buy using the search engine.
This is the latest attempt to get some market share, being behind Google and Yahoo. Windows Live Search is the successor of MSN Search, which Microsoft spun off with the other MSN services to create online and offline apps to extend the Windows OS.
Those who want the discount will need to sign up for a special cashback account to participate, and the rebates will be issued after 60 days to make sure the products are not returned. The service, however, works only in the US.
It has partnered with some 700 retailers; including some big names like eBay, Barnes & Noble, Sears and Home Depot.
It is also considering a "cashback" scheme for its Live Search Farecast, a service that predicts the airfare.
Complaints from the internet service provider industry over the short time frame of the new Australian national broadband network tender have now seen an extension to the deadline today.
The announcement has said that "parties participating in the National Broadband Network process will have 12 weeks to consider network information from the date all material is made available."
"Telstra has provided some network information however despite its best efforts some information is not yet available. The provision of network information is vital to allow potential proponents to build the network to compete on an equal basis."
Microsoft has announced that it will be adding new formats to its Office 2007 software, starting with the next service pack, Service Pack 2 - due in the first half of 2009.
The new formats includes the Portable Document Format (PDF), XML Paper Specification (XPS) and its OOXML rival Open Document Format (ODF). This is not the first time since Microsoft worked with ODF, releasing a converter for Word users in late 2006. A converter is also in the works for older versions of Office, including 2000, XP and 2003.
As well, the company produced an add-on for users to save documents in PDF and XPS. Both OOXML and ODF formats are both ISO standards.
Apple and the broadcaster CBS have been sued by a company claiming trademark infringement over the word “Mighty Mouse”.
The company, Man & Machines, have said that it produces a waterproof and chemical-resistant mouse called the “Mighty Mouse” before Apple released its “Mighty Mouse”, which was an improvement to the original Mac Mouse.
As well, they have sued CBS as they did not have the rights to license them to Apple, even though they owned a mouse character, also called “Mighty Mouse” - a 1940s character. They claim that they could not license it to Apple because its trademark does not extend to goods.
Electronic Arts has said that it would extend their hostile takeover of rival Take-Two by one month. The $2 billion offer expired on May 16 before the deadline.
EA launched an unsolicited bid for the "Grand Theft Auto IV" publisher on 25 February for a $26-per-share, which represents a 50% premium on it’s closing price on 22 February. The extended deadline will see EA’s offer expire on June 16.
Take-Two rejected the bid, saying it undervalues the company.
Foxtel has announced the pricing plans about their new HD service, Foxtel HD+.
Those who wish to convert to the new service will need to pay a hefty $200 fee, with an additional monthly fee for the new iQ2 set-top box.
Access to the HD channels are only available to those who subscribe to ‘My Sport’, ‘Escape’, ‘Playtime’ or ‘World’ packages; with HD Sport, containing Fox Sports HD and ESPN HD, and HD Explore, containing BBC HD, Discovery HD and National Geographic HD, will both cost $9.95 a month - with HD movies from the Foxtel Box Office costing $6.95.
However, buying both packages will cost $6.95 a month.
A new Platinum option, dubbed the "Platinum HD" package will cost $130.95 a month, including the iQ2 service. No date has been set for the service to commence.
After a few days we reported that CondèNast bought Ars Technica, it has also bought back the defunct developer site Webmonkey and the original online magazine HotWired from Lycos USA, who bought the web components of Wired Magazine and sold Wired.com in 2006.
Webmonkey was closed by the previous owner of Lycos, Terra Networks, in 2004 and has been relaunched as a wiki.
HotWired has nothing publicly disclosed on its future.
The last property that was part of Wired before the breakup and not sold is HotBot, one of the early search engines and is still up.
