PC Magazine Stops Print Issues


Ziff Davis Media announced last week that it was ending the print publication of its 27-year-old flagship, PC Magazine, and would continue the title as an online only publication.
As costs rise and readers are increasingly finding their information on the web, PC Magazine is the latest of several magazines that have ceased print versions and gone online only. The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists and The Christian Science Monitor are two publications that have recently done so.
As time goes on, we will undoubtedly see more of this, as print publications are becoming more and more redundant as the web has become the primary source of information for the majority of people.
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New Full Star Trek Trailer


Young teen Kirk is some kind of hooligan? The Enterprise is being built on the ground? Apple designed the bridge? Seeing Romulans this early in Trek history?
My thoughts are this will be a completely new starting point for Star Trek. (Trek 2.0?)
There is an entire new generation out there that has never seen Trek before and I essentially think this is more for them than established, older fans.
I think I would compare this to Smallville. It appeals both to younger fans that never really followed the Superman story particularly and an older audience already well versed in it. Smallville is simply it's own continuity, generally following the main points of the previously established story. From this trailer, that looks like where this film is headed.

Crappy Quality Star Trek Trailer


So unless you have been under a rock this week you already know you can see this trailer in theaters this weekend in front of Quantum of Solace.
I will have the higher quality version online tomorrow when it's officially released.

Cool, Xpensive Sony Ericsson Xperia X1


Pretty expensive at $800, since it doesn't yet have a mobile carrier. This is undoubtedly the first of many phones that will seem to blur the line between smartphone and UMPC.

Hubble Observes Planet Orbiting Star

NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope managed to capture images of a planet that orbits a star. Pictures of the planet orbiting the southern star called Fomalhaut were presented in the November 14 issue of Science magazine.

According to NASA, the planet holds less than three times Jupiter’s mass and the star belongs to the Piscis Australis constellation, which is also known as the Southern Fish.

An infrared photo of a planet orbiting a star 25 light-years away was among them. The astronomers believe the planted is the coolest and also the lowest-mass object outside our Solar System.

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Netflix To Stop Selling Used DVDs

In a blog post and email that went out this week, Netflix announced that they will no longer sell off previously rented DVDs to it's customers after November 30th.
Evidently Netflix will sell off excess inventory only to DVD resellers and other retailers.
Oh. Apparently this gentleman on Sixth Avenue already got in on this deal.

The VCR Is Dead, Jim

In interesting gadget news, JVC ceases production of stand-alone VCRs, truly putting the final nail in the coffin of VHS.
It was two years ago that Variety posted the obituary for VHS as a packaged media format, when the last major studio stopped producing movies on VHS.
Now JVC will no longer produce the VCRs except in DVD/VCR combo units. VHS will now be relegated to an obsolete niche format used only by those who watch their old VHS collections, those who still record using VHS, and those who have simply refused to upgrade to DVD.

From Wired's Gadget Lab:
Thanks to a new rule imposed by the European Union, wineries can't use the word "port" on their wine labels unless their stuff was made in Portugal. Peltier Station Winery wasn't the type to accept defeat: The winemakers thought of a clever loophole, branding their dessert wine "USB" as a substitute for the word "port." In its online store, Peltier Station even boldly lists the $25 wine as "USB Port."
The BBC is reporting about a trojan that has been quietly collecting online banking information for nearly three years. This particular virus is interesting because you didn't need to click on a pop-up or spam email link to get it. Using the 'drive-by download' method, simply visiting a website is enough to be infected.
The details of about 500,000 online bank accounts and credit and debit cards have been stolen by a virus described as "one of the most advanced pieces of crimeware ever created".
The Sinowal trojan has been tracked by RSA, which helps to secure networks in Fortune 500 companies.
RSA said the trojan virus has infected computers all over the planet. "The effect has been really global with over 2000 domains compromised," said Sean Brady of RSA's security division.
The RSA's Fraud Action Research Lab said it first detected the Windows Sinowal trojan in Feb 2006.
Since then, Mr Brady said, more than 270,000 banking accounts and 240,000 credit and debit cards have been compromised from financial institutions in countries including the US, UK, Australia and Poland.
"One of the key points of interest about this particular trojan is that it has existed for two and a half years quietly collecting information," he said.

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