For $500 is can be yours. As was expected, Sony announced pricing on the PS3 yesterday. For $500 you get the console with a 20GB hard drive. For $600 you can get it with a 60GB hard drive. Interesting, isn’t it, that this is suspiciously close to the price of an HD DVD player that doesn’t have a hard drive or, you know, play games. They’re also claiming an early November release. The release also says that it won’t be the silver that they’ve been showing for (forever?) months, but in black. I’m sure I’ll see it at the show tomorrow, so I’ll snap a pic. Speaking of that, check back all week, as a bunch of us are going to E3, and I’ll be posting daily updates.
I hadn't watched Ron Howard's <I>Apollo 13</I> in years- probably since the first DTS DVD release in the late 90s. It's extraordinary that this movie remains so riveting- nerve wracking even- so long after seeing it for the first time, and having gone into that first viewing knowing how the story ends! The filmmaking, the performances, the effects, the attention to every technical detail, everything is top notch and about as good as it gets from big-time Hollywood filmmaking. A great, compelling movie, and capsule in time of one of America's most riveting real-life dramas. This is what used to be "reality TV" back in the day!
Warner Bros. will distribute movies and TV shows through BitTorrent, essentially adapting a technology developed for file sharing to legal use. BitTorrent's "file swarming" technique does not download entire files from a central server. Instead it assembles a piece of content using bits from several other computers in an ad hoc network. The company's first step toward respectability came last year, when it removed illegal movie content and links from its site at the, uh, ah, request of the Motion Picture Association of America. Soon you'll be able to file-swarm new movie titles on the same date as the DVD release (price not announced) or TV shows for a buck. The download may either sit on your hard drive temporarily, for a single use, or be backed up to a DVD, though it would still play only on the PC that recorded it. Whether the rules will evolve is uncertain, and no one's given a start date, but the concept seems promising. The studios are already dipping their toes in other forms of digital home distribution.
In June, FILMFEST HD, one of the VOOM HD Networks, will begin a month-long Bond-fest showing high-definition world premieres of 17 classic James Bond flicks. While the very thought of seeing so many Bond movies in High Definition ought to send orgasmic shivers of delight through the remote controls of any James Bond devotee, the news gets even better. The movies will be uncut and commercial-free. David Hasselhoff will serve as the on-air host.
Contrary to an earlier report, it looks as though France won't become the first nation to demand interoperability in music downloads and portable devices. A laudable copyright law revision has been not only watered down but totally negated. Among the key changes, the words translatable as "open standard" have been changed to "protected copy." If you're an attorney fluent in French, take a look at the proposed amendments from the Commission des Affaires culturelles. The committee's handiwork is already being cited as a victory for Apple, which had bitterly condemned the bill's original wording as "state-sponsored piracy" and a mortal threat to iTunes. The resistance is still resisting—see eucd.info and stopdrm.info—but the prospects for consumer-friendly legislation have deteriorated. The French senate is expected to vote by mid-month.
Samsung's HL-S5679W HDTV ($4,199), coming in August, is the first rear-projection set to use LED (light-emitting diode) light sources instead of a conventional lamp. Among the reasons you should care: a 20,000-hour lamp life (more than double typical lamps), a shorter turn-on time (7 seconds), and being able to rattle off one more abbreviation when blabbing about your rig.
To borrow a line from your days on Saturday Night Live, how much ya bench, buddy? [exhales] Not much these days. Not my weight, that's for sure. My arms are too long; I've convinced myself that's why. If I was some short guy with sharp, muscle-y arms, I could just toss around 225.
