video

As many of you know, Amazon offers a "Prime" membership option. For $79 a year, this membership would net you free two-day shipping and overnight shipping for only $4. Naturally, order enough from Amazon, and the cost of the membership will be less than the shipping costs saved in addition to the convenience of quick shipping. However, now Amazon has added another perk to being a Prime member: unlimited no-charge video streaming. ...read more

AMD's latest driver suite, Catalyst 11.2, has been posted on AMD's site. Bringing a bevy of bugfixes and optimizations to the table, AMD continues along its monthly release schedule as promised. The majority of the improvements pertain to performance enhancements and added features for the Radeon HD 5000-series cards. ...read more

Take a long look at that ATi logo, because it might be one of the last times you see it on any new content. AMD has announced that they are killing ATi.

Now some of you may be thinking "WHAT?!? But I thought ATi was doing well!" No, silly, AMD's graphics division is not dead, only the ATi branding is. Radeon cards will now be called AMD Radeon graphics. Weird stuff, huh? Apparently AMD know best though, as they claim to have conducted extensive research on the matter and found that AMD was a far more recognizable brand to gamers.

At any rate, you might want to keep your old Radeons around, at least for sentimental reasons. Source

"That Best Buy is ready to launch its entry into the online video on-demand game is not at all a surprise, but we weren't expecting to see such a familiar name. The retail giant purchased the CinemaNow brand away from Sonic Solutions (explaining the latter's sudden switch to RoxioNow) and will start selling movies sans-disk to web connected devices later this month, starting with LG Blu-ray players (where buyers won't see the Best Buy logo at all) and home theater in a box systems, followed by Samsung's internet connected home theater equipment and of course the house Insignia brand. As planned, it will have "first run" movies for sale as soon as they arrive on DVD, with rentals for $2.99 - $3.99 per movie and purchases at $9.99 to $19.99, including HD titles and some available in 1080p." source

"In what's either the saddest or most fantastic news of the week, the YouTube video for Rick Astley's 'Never Gonna Give You Up' has been deemed a copyright violation.

Yes, that means the cheesy '80s pop video with tens of millions of views--the center of the "Rickrolling" Internet phenomenon--is no more.

It's not quite clear when it was removed, but the blog Neowin noticed it early Wednesday. "Never Gonna Give You Up" comes from the Astley album "Whenever You Need Somebody," which was released by RCA Records, currently a division of Sony Music Entertainment." source

"A Milan court convicted three Google Inc executives on Wednesday for violating the privacy of an Italian boy with Down's syndrome by letting a video of him being bullied be posted on the site in 2006.

Google will appeal the six-month suspended jail terms and said the verdict "poses a crucial question for the freedom on which the internet is built," since none of the three employees found guilty had anything to do with the offending video.

"They didn't upload it, they didn't film it, they didn't review it and yet they have been found guilty," said Google's senior communications manager, Bill Echikson, in Milan. " source

"High School students have sued the Lower Merion School District in Philadelphia for spying on them using their laptops' built-in cameras. School administrator used software to activate the webcams and record students' activities at home. Way to go, KGB-wannabe assclowns.

The situation was discovered by the Robbins, when their kid was disciplined for "improper behavior in his home." How could that be possible? The Vice Principal showed a photo as the evidence. A photo taken with the school-provided laptop webcam." source

"It seems only yesterday that NBC was annoying people, especially those on the West Coast, with its coverage of the Beijing Olympics. The peacock network takes pride in being able to censor your ability to watch Olympic events as they happen. It has done it for so many years, crowing that its so-called evening packages, featuring recorded highlights and potted documentaries of athletes, their loved ones, and their heartaches are what viewers really want.

While at Beijing, NBC at least allowed you to enjoy many Silverlight-enhanced events online--live, as they happened. In fact, there were more than 2,200 hours of live action shown online from Beijing.

However, not merely content with biting the hand that ultimately feeds it, NBC has, for the Vancouver Games, decided to take that hand, chop it into 2-inch pieces, slip it between pieces of bread, and eat it as if it were a succession of hot-diggity dogs." source

"Don't start lining up the global dominos just yet but Blockbuster is filing for bankruptcy in Portugal. In the 90s, an era predating internet streaming and digital downloads, Blockbuster was rocking some 100 stores in Portugal. Today that number is around 27, most of which are struggling to survive. Blockbuster blames government's flaccid response to internet piracy for its insolvency. And here we thought short-sighted executives distracted by their brick-n-mortar profits carried some of the blame." source

"Alright, before you jump on your sofa Tom Cruise-style, these rights don't relate to the NBA, NFL or anything else quite so exciting to the Western viewer. Google's master plan for getting into the cutthroat sports broadcasting world is to start with... Indian Premier League cricket. Oh sure, you don't know what that even is yet, but plenty of people in the Eastern hemisphere live and die by the stuff and YouTube's slated to start broadcasting live matches from March of this year. What should be tantalizing for all of us is that Google seems to be taking this as a pilot venture which, if successful, could be the harbinger of plenty more live streaming content to come. Cricket at the vanguard of modern content distribution -- who could've expected that?" source