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Digital Playground, a mega-porn studio, will be releasing 8 blu-ray porn movies in February all because of porn-addicted people begging the studio to release some blu-ray discs because they had just bought the PS3. The reason why the porn industry decided to switch was because early on it was nearly impossible to put porn onto blu-ray, but ever since Warner Bros. switched the possibilities are opening and due to the pendulum swinging to blu-rays side, it only made sense for them. As you may know I am an HD DVD supporter and it's hard for me to admit defeat but as a good writer I am reporting for both sides. If Paramount is switching I know just hope they can announce it sooner rather than later.

While this is not much of an update to most of you, I just found out today that Toshiba is offering 5 Free HD DVD movies with the purchase of one of their players including the XBOX 360 HD DVD add-on. This is all on top of the two included HD DVD movies, 300 and Bourne Identity. For $10 to cover S&H you will get 5 HD DVD movies of your choice delivered right to your door. There is a restriction though. Basically there are 5 categories with 3 movies in each. You are only allowed to pick one HD DVD movie from each category. My favourite movies from each were Babel, TMNT, Pitch Black, Firewall, and Syriana. The offer is valid only for players bought from October 15 2007-February 28 2008 and needs to be postmarked by March 31 2008. This is an extremely good offer and should help HD DVD gain some more market share. I'm just surprised they haven't promoted it as much. I only found out about this by stumbling upon it. For Canadian residents visit Toshiba Canada (exact link for the form). For American residents visit here. The only difference in movies is you can get Troy, Swordfish, and The Italian Job.

The other update is mostly for US residents. HD DVD players have been dramatically slashed in price. For a 1080p HD DVD player (HD-A30) you only need to shell out approx. $180 to Amazon.com, Costco, Sams Club, or possibly Wal-Mart. For a 1080i version, the HD-A3, it will be around $140. Paramount has yet to decide whether or not to switch and Microsoft is backing up its support by doing the same for customers who purchase a HD DVD add-on for their XBOX 360 if they've done so from last month to the end of this month. They have also promised to build-in an HD DVD drive into the new XBOX 360. HD DVD hasn't had its last breath yet, so look for more movies to be out on HD DVD soon.

In a surprise move made by Time Warner Bros today, Friday January 4, 2008, they announced they would exclusively sell the high-definition format offered by Sony. Blu-Ray has made huge strides and has somewhat knocked Toshiba and HD DVD off there feet but, it seems, they have taken their blows and grown better from it.

Toshiba has gone out and found other partners to help fuel the growth of its brand by agreeing to terms with Dreamworks and Paramount Pictures to exclusively sell their format. Those are huge allies in the fight against the powerhouse Sony. What this could remind you is the Big Three and the Asian companies. The same thing could happen here and Sony could loose major ground in the coming years. Sony though is rightfully the powerhouse as they are outselling HD DVDs 2:1 in the US. Look at other stats and you'll see HD DVD systems in Canada are outselling Blu-Ray systems (standalone) by around 500 000:340 000. Take into account the 3.4million PS3's and the 320 000 HD DVD add-on to the XBOX 360 and it looks even. Keep in mind that barely anybody know is buying the PS3 for the Blu-Ray player. I on the other hand have.

If you read my last article, you would have seen I know own a Toshiba HD DVD system, a PS3, and a 50inch, 1080p Panasonic Plasma HDTV. My dad did a whole lot of research when purchasing our new entertainment complex, about 3 months of sitting on the computer and going to electronic retailers. He probably made data sheets, graphs, to-do lists, and what-not. In the end, he found the PS3 was one of the better Blu-Ray players and surprised our family with it. I watched the included disc, Spiderman-3 on Blu-Ray and then I watched The Bourne Idendity on HD DVD. Evidently, Spiderman-3 was suberb on action but was lacking on still scenes. My 23-year old brother who does know his stuff, concurred with me. The Bourne Idendity was great on action and still. I never noticed anything bad about it. That begs the question, why would Sony include a bad disc or a bad movie and if not a bad movie, why is Blu-Ray the fan favourite? My only answer is the name.

"Ironically, Sony was also the backer of the Betamax format. In a repeat of history, Sony is pushing Blu-ray, a technically superior medium, but is seeming to repeat some of its mistakes with Betamax."

Warner will continue to release HD DVD movies until May. Warner Bros. believes further confusion with the consumer will destroy the industry. I was loving Warner Bros. today until I found out this and now I will only buy HD DVD and support all of Toshiba's allies. Warners announcement will only fuel the war that was started long ago and further confuse the consumer.

My conclusion though for all you readers is, buy a player from both sides, rent a HD DVD and Blu-Ray movie of your choice and see which is the best for you.

This Christmas was a wild one for our family. We purchased a 50-inch Plasma HDTV from Panasonic, upgraded our home theatre system to 1000-watt Pioneer speakers, got a new TV stand, purchased a Toshiba HD DVD, bought a Xbox 360 and Playstation 3, and finally a Harmony 880 Remote. We had so many new electronic devices it would be so overwhelming to control them all with 7 or 8 remotes so we picked up an all-in-one for half the original price on Boxing Day. At Costco though, you can buy it for $170 CDN, regular price.
Utility
The look and feel of the remote is great, but the button placement could use some work. For example, the Play button is not in between the fast forward and rewind, rather, it's one up and to the right of the fast forward button. My misfortunes usually happen when I'm rewinding and then I choose to play without looking down and hit the fast forward button accidently. The volume and channel buttons are placed perfectly and make for easy channel surfing and quick boost to the volume. At first, when I saw the number placement for entering channel numbers, I thought it would be a pain in the neck to move my hand all the way down there and I would loose the grip on the remote. Gladly that's not the case, and entering numbers was a breeze because of the curve at the bottom making the length seem dwarf. Lastly, the LCD screen is amazing and makes changing media a walk in the park.
Ease of Use
At the very top of the remote you have the Power button (which gets used seldomly), and the Activities and Help button. The Activities button controls all the things you can do with the remote. To set it up, you need to connect the remote to the computer and install the software. This is all very easy to do. The hard part comes where you have to configure the actual TV with the settings such as what TV/Video setting is used for the PS3, the HD DVD, and so on. You'll have to know as well, what setting your Home Theatre is on if you use one. Once that is done, you'll see all the Activities on the remote once you pick it up. The great thing about this remote is it lights up once you pick it up, a nice touch to a sleek remote.
Once you've got everything ready to go, click the Activity you'd wish to start and it'll be up and running within 5 seconds. Then it will go to that Activity menu and it will replace the specific remotes associated with that activity. For example, with an Xbox 360, you get their remote in that one, with all the options displayed on the LCD screen. When watching TV, the remote will control the volume, switching channels, and if you are a Rogers subscriber, you'll have the "A" "B" "C" buttons on it, as well as many others. One problem I found with the remote and which made it harder to use is this. Say the remote does not start the Activity properly, like not switching on a device; you can press Devices, and switch it on manually, but then you don't have access to all those buttons that you normally do with the Activity. You can keep on switching back and forth from devices but that is quite annoying. Luckily, the remote doesn't do it often and won't do it all if you do one thing. Point the remote dead on towards the devices throughout the time the remote starts the Activity.
Look and Feel
The remote comes with a charger, thus making it rechargeable and a fast one at that. It takes approximately 3 hours to fully charge the remote from dead. The remote feels good in the hands with curves at the right places. The aesthetics of it are perfect except the LCD screen could use some work as it isn't clear.
Conclusion
Would I recommend it to someone? Yes I would. If you have more than 4 remotes then it would be a great time saver and leaves more stress behind. Setting it up is a breeze if you have a general understanding, and using it is just as easy. If you do need help though, there is a guided step by step, interactive help button located at the top of the remote. For $170CDN, I'd pick one up now before it's too late. Note to PS3 users, the Harmony 880 remote is not compatible with it due to bluetooth issues.

A little earlier I mentioned Alaska Airlines was going to be offering Internet Access on some of it's flights by 2008 but now another American airline will be offering it even sooner. JetBlue is working with Waterloo-based Research in Motion and Yahoo to provide internet access on one of its' planes today, Tuesday December 11. 2007 on one of its Airbus A320 planes. While it's only a trial, and a free one at that, the email and instant messaging service they are offering is definitely a step up from nothing. The only catch is, you have to be a Blackberry user or have a Yahoo account and it is not full internet access; they will only offer email and instant messaging obviously with only Yahoo and Blackberry services. In 2008, JetBlue says they will offer full WiFi internet access that will be built by LiveTV, a JetBlue owned subsidiary that coincidently won rights to 1MHz of the 800MHz spectrum last year. A quick note to Blackberry users getting on that lucky flight today, you have to connect through WiFi as the FCC doesn't allow mobile calls on planes.

Three other airlines including Alaska Airlines are planning to come out with Internet Access on all of their flights by 2008. A recap of Alaska Airlines plans are: an antenna will be placed on top of the aircraft which will connect to a satellite which will be used by the in-flight system. 802.11b/g WiFi will be offered for use on laptops, phones and PDAs that will be allowed to access the internet as well as email, VPNs and stored in flight entertainment. Unlike JetBlue, Alaska Airlines wants all of their 144 planes up and running with WiFi by Spring 2008 but that still depends on how well Row 44, an airline telecom provider, can keep up with that demand. They claim they can offer downlink speeds of 81Mbps and uplink speeds of 1.6Mbps and is not limited by international borders as they use a satellite to dish out there services. They also plan to roll out in-flight entertainment services including more than 100 channels of live TV. Alaska Airlines definitely seems to be ahead of the game.

Virgin America's plans are not as elaborate as other airlines as they will offer air-to-ground internet connection for 802.11a/b/g WiFi enabled devices and they will allow "customers" to use a variety of instant messaging services including MSN Messenger, Google Talk, Yahoo Messenger, Skype, and AIM. AirCell is building the network and hopefully they can work on American Airlines as well.

American Airlines passengers will have nationwide internent access using devices that support 802.11a/b/g. Their goal is to to offer internet access at the start of 2008 but there is no mention how many airplanes will be equipped. They have already begun testing on its fleet of Boeing 727-200 aircraft in August. AirCell is building their network as well as Virgins. They own 3MHz of the 800MHz spectrum and they've already demonstrated in-flight WLAN capabilities which took place in 2005. Virgin America first announced its in-flight broadband service plan in
September, and the company hopes to have its all of its planes
connected "sometime in 2008."

By the end of 2008, Internet access will be close to a standard on commercial airlines except for the low-cost airlines like JetsGo and Air Transat. The next airline to move onto the scene should be Air Canada and possibly WestJet. Definitely, this has revolutionized the airline industry and should provide a boost to the sagging industry.

Silverthorne is Intel's first crack at making a brand new processor aimed at ultramobile PCs except for those small cell phones like the iPhone. Intel is not only working on this processor, but an update to it's upcoming Penryn family using a 45nm notebook processor, plus Montevina, a sub-notebook processor with 40% smaller components. Intel will make its integrated Wi-Fi/WiMax chip set available as an option with Montevina-based notebooks. As always, Intel is looking to shake up the industry and as usual, it will go off with a bang.

Around June 2008, Intel will release a new platform, Menlow, that will use Silverthorne and another chip set, Poulsbo. Using their new technology of a 45nm chip, which is being drooled at by other chip makers such as ATI/AMD, they will hopefully drill a new market wide open between the cell phone and notebook industries.

Currently there are more than 15 designs in Intel's arsenal with 2 in production by Christmas and 4 by the second half of 2008. The image above is the HTC Shift which will use Intel's Ultra Mobile PC chip (UMP) also in development and should be released later next year.