General Gaming Article

General Gaming Article

Netflix Price Hike A Result Of Our Refusal To Give Up Physical Media

Posted: 17 Jul 2011 05:33 PM PDT

NetflixNetflix has been facing has been facing a ton of consumer backlash over its recently announced price hikes, and while the company has been fairly tight lipped when it comes to explaining why it was necessary, the Associated Press claims to have the answer. According to sources close to Netflix, the company simply underestimated how long it would take to convert customers over to a streaming only future, and was stuck with a business model that simply couldn't keep up with their long term goals.

This starts to make sense when you consider that Netflix dropped over $406 million into streaming rights for its online library last year, and these fees are expect to climb to over $1.4 billion next year. With such a massive investment required to continue building up its online catalogue, you can start to appreciate why it might want to split off the two business units when the cost of handling physical media continues to rise as well.

"Netflix is under enormous pressures from the content owners to write bigger and bigger checks," claims Arash Amel, research director for digital media at HIS Screen Digest. "It had to find the money from somewhere." 

Given how reasonable these business realities appear to be, it makes us wonder if people would have been just as upset if Netflix had laid the blame on content rights holders, rather than simply spinning the price hike as a positive. 

Let us know what you think in the comments below. 

Microsoft Registers Microsoft-Sony.com

Posted: 17 Jul 2011 01:02 PM PDT

MS SonyCompanies purchase a ton of domain names defensively each year, but a recent Microsoft acquisition has the rumor mill working overtime. While one might expect the Redmond based software giant to grab hold of something like windowssucks.com (which they did), you probably wouldn't expect them to also buy up microsoft-sony.com and sony-microsoft.com. 

Speculation around the significance of the purchases sparked a follow up by Microsoft's Corporate Vice President of Communications, Frank Shaw, who wanted to put the issue to bed as quickly as possible.

"RE: sony/ms domain names: Sony = great MS partner. No scoop here, this was just a defensive domain hold. Let's move on to weekend, kay? :)"

While we have to assume Frank is giving us the straight goods, the timing of the registrations are somewhat interesting considering that rumors have been circling surrounding a possible partnership between the two companies on the next generation of console hardware. Of course this could also be something as mundane as a Sony Ericsson Windows Phone 7, or as Frank Shaw Claims, nothing at all.

What do you make of it?

Internet Explorer 9’s New Malware Blocking Features Leave Competition in the Dust

Posted: 17 Jul 2011 08:33 AM PDT

IE9If like most Maximum PC readers you're the first person friends and family call when looking for tech advice, you might want to think twice before suggesting they move away from Internet Explorer. According to a recent report from NSS Labs, Internet Explorer 9's dual-pronged approach to blocking malicious URLs wasn't just slightly better than the rest; it's pretty much night and day. 

According to the study Internet Explorer 9 blocked 92 percent of all malware using its URL-based filters, and 100 percent with its application filtering. Internet Explorer 8 took second place by blocking 90 percent, while Chrome, Safari 5, and Firefox 4 all tied for third with a dismal 13 percent success rate.  Google, Apple, and Mozilla's three way tie can be explained by their joint use of Google's Safe Browsing system, while Opera was the only major browser to score lower on the test.

Opera currently uses a URL blocking service maintained by anti-virus maker AVG, and using this list they only managed to block 5 percent of the study's tested sites. Internet Explorer 9's application reputation feature is a great way to help less savvy users spot potentially malicious files, however even it isn't without a few quirks. False positives, even among Microsoft's own add-in's have been known to occur, but better safe than sorry.

It's worth noting that the study doesn't take every malware prevention factor into consideration such as Chrome's sandboxing feature, but it does highlight Microsoft's continued commitment to improving the security of Internet Explorer. With Chrome and Firefox duking it out in the rapid release war for consumers, Microsoft's improved security image among businesses could well cement IE's foothold in the corporate world for decades to come. 

gScreen's Dual-Screen SpaceBook Laptop Finally Up for Pre-Order

Posted: 16 Jul 2011 11:55 PM PDT

While not quite in the Duke Nukem Forever league, gScreen's SpaceBook has truly earned its stripes as "delayware." The product in question is a dual-screen notebook that was first announced in 2009 but never released. It now seems that the dual-screen notebook is finally ready for market action. gScreen, the Alaska-based startup behind the SpaceBook, is now taking pre-orders for its flagship product.

Originally conceived as a 15.4-inch notebook powered by Intel's C2D processors, it now sports two 17.4-inch displays and is powered by last-gen Intel Core i5 and i7 processors. Here are the specs of the two variants currently up for pre-order:

Given its history, it's eerie that gSpace hasn't revealed when it will begin shipping the SpaceBook.  Also, what's with the first-generation Intel Core iX processors?
Posted by Shri Krishna

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