XBox Live to offer TV & movie downloads - the fight for the digital living room begins!

Microsoft's XBox Live service will offer movie and TV downloads as of November 22, competing with iTunes, Sony Connect, Amazon Unbox and Google's YouTube. Ooh, exciting.

The battle for the digital living room is shaping nicely with Microsoft, Sony and Apple all set to go. They can now use games consoles in Microsoft and Sony's case or the iTV in Apple's to connect Internet download services to TV's and portable devices.

Each now offer a complete range of computers, gaming devices, MP3 players and TV download hook-ups.

So, choose your horse. Microsoft as always will throw the most money at it and make the most noise, Sony will make get ahead when it comes to content and consumer sex appeal and Apple's solution will work the best.

I think I'll go with Apple for now!

Nokia launches TV cellphones

Take a sneak peek at Nokia's new TV cellphones. They look good!

They'll hit Vietnam and Indonesia in the next couple of weeks as the two countries roll out mobile TV networks.

Look out Apple and where in God's name is your iPhone!

Tyra Banks hottest gadgets!

Check out Tyra Banks hottest gadgets at Yahoo Tech today.

Easy tiger...

You see I told the iPod Red wins!! (More dosh to Bono.)

NTP sues Palm!

Just when we all thought it was safe to read the tech media again, NTP has returned, this time going after Palm.

The shark of copyright protection has decided that, like the BlackBerry, Palm's products, services, systems and processes have improperly used NTP's wireless e-mail technology.

I guess that'll mean that Palm's share price will slump and then they'll huff and puff until they end up paying NTP off. Can they afford the $600 odd million that BlackBerry's owner RIM coughed up?

Ooh, Palm could become a takeover target. Any bidders?

PeopleSoft founder launches Web 2.0 ERP start-up!

Dave Duffield, the founder of PeopleSoft, does it again! This time he has launched a Web 2.0 start-up (who isn't) called Workday! Nice brand.

And least surprising of all, his new outfit provides an on-demand ERP system a la Salesforce.com.

First up an HR module (no shocker there) with Workday Financial Management, Workday Resource Management and Workday Revenue Management scheduled to debut next year.

What a mouth full.

And if you're not bored enough by now, there's more 'cos Workday is aimed at small and medium sized companies and is work(day)ing with Microsoft to integrate with Outlook etc.

Zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz....

Advertise in daily newspapers with Google!

In a twist of fate/knife, Google have announced that they will start a 3 month trial with over 50 daily US newspapers to prove that it is worth using their technology for print ads rather than going direct or through media buyers.

And unless they are a few sniffs short of a cold, they should at least attract small and medium size businesses onto print in larger droves.

Google need this to work so that their advertising technology can offer a complete media solution, including online, print, TV and radio to AdWords customers. Where do I sign on?

Murdoch launching MySpace Japan!

It looks like Murdoch is planning his latest wheeze - a Japanese version of MySpace. Ha-so!

And least surprisingly of all his local partner will be Softbank, which is a right kick in the you know where for Yahoo! as Softbank bank rolled the leading Web portal way back when it needed cash.

How the times they are a changing - the new Web hottie tottie is MySpace and the Web dinosaurs are looking un peu tired and a little under Web 2.0'd!!

Oh and expect MySpace Japan to feature gaming and 'mobile' in a big way.

Microsoft get into bed with Novell!

Microsoft have had enough of watching consumers shift to Apple computers now that they can run both the Mac OS and Microsoft Windows, so in return they are going to allow users to run Windows/Vista and Novell's Suse Linux on the same PC.

Microsoft will of course control the virtualization technology that allows multiple OS's to run on a single computer, and in return they will support and sell Novell's offerings.

This is probably good for both companies - Microsoft gets to control open source and Novell gets a share price boost. And who knows Microsoft may even buy Novell one day, assuming the deal works.

Is the legal tide turning against YouTube?

Google execs led by the Blog negative Schmidt are apparently running around like blue arsed flies trying to secure copyright deals with the major media groups before the YouTube purchase looks about as sensible as when Bertlesmann bought Napster (i.e. collecting copyright lawsuits like flies on sh**!).

And we all know what happened to the German media outfits CEO after that one! So Google's Schmidt is now covering his you-know-what like a mad man on coke.

If they get the deals in place with the key media partners then YouTube could well become the Comcast of the Internet. The question is - will the media companies let them?

If not, Schmidt could one day be looking for a new job and investors the next Google!

Amazon.com dives into Web Services

Amazon has decided that they have spent so much money on technology in the last few years that they are now going to rent some of it out to Web developers.

After all they have built one of the Web's most scalable platform, so why not share it. For a price of course.

Amazon call their new venture Web Utility and have a couple of data service offerings to make the outsourcing companies shudder.

Way to go Amazon - that should hoist up your share price!

Can Cingular rival Apple's iTunes?

Cingular has just announced that they are to offer their own mobile music service alongside partners Napster, Yahoo Music, XM Satellite Radio and eMusic.

They are now the third US mobile operator to offer their own music service to rival Apple's iTunes. But are they really a threat?

Not likely. Sprint, which a year ago became the first, claims that more than 8 million songs have been downloaded since launching their service. And Verizon, which launched its service in February, claims to be selling more than 1 million downloads per month.

Which both pale into almighty insignificance compared to iTunes which has had over a billion tunes downloaded.

The problem is that downloading music to a mobile phone is still clunky and 'not what a consumer really wants to do with their phone!'

People see MP3 music players as the device for carrying music around and the mobile phone as, well, a phone.

I think in the near term Apple may have a better chance persuading iPod users to make calls on an iPhone than mobile operators will have persuading their users to play music on their phones.

That just leaves Microsoft stuck somewhere in the middle with the 'Zune' - stuck between two stools. Ooh, that even rhymes!

Dell complete shift to AMD computers with new laptop!

Dell has quietly and sneakily started selling AMD laptops at their web site (so as not to offend long time partner Intel).

It looks like Dell have now nearly completed their switch to AMD based computers (PC's and servers have already moved over).

And it coincides with Apple just having completed their switch to all Intel!

I wonder who's gonna win. My money's on Apple for now.

Yahoo Food takes on Chow.com. Yum!

Yahoo has decided to take on AOL Food, Allrecipes.com and the aptly named Chow.com from CNET, by launching Yahoo Food!

Martha Stewart dominates (funny that) and celebrities like Morgan Freeman join the melting pot of culinary chaos alongside celebrity chefs (which means they have even bigger ego's/tempers than normal chefs!).

Yahoo Food kicks off with load of tips on Thanksgiving dinner. First up go buy your fresh turkey now. Yahoo Foods is supported by advertising - which means the US Turkey Farmers Association are clearly behind this one?!

I'll stick with take-out for now - thanks Yahoo!

AOL not for sale after all?

Dick Parsons, Chairman of Time Warner, has stated that he wants to hang onto AOL after all, which is not very surprising given recent performance.

He also seems to want to hang onto Time Warner Cable which I thought they were planning to spin off??

Mind you this could all just be corporate mumbo jumbo for "you can have AOL really, you'll just have to pay more for it now."

That probably means closer to $20bn - which may rule Yahoo out! That just leaves Microsoft or Google - who have more wedge/market cap!

Internet reaches key milestone - 100 million Web sites!

The Web has just hit a huge milestone - 100 million web sites!

There were just 18,000 Web sites when Netcraft, based in Bath, England, began keeping track in August of 1995. It took until May of 2004 to reach the 50 million milestone; then only 30 more months to hit 100 million, late in the month of October 2006.

Bloggers, small businesses, and simplicity have combined to create the dramatic growth of sites, much of it just in the past two years.

Thanks Blogger.com, MSN Spaces and Apple's iWeb!

And on to 200 million sites by 2010!