Blu-Ray Triumpuent Over HD-DVD?

In case you haven’t heard, on Friday it was announced that Warner Bro would be releasing content exclusively on Blu-Ray. The next day New Line Cinemas (owned by AOL Time Warner) announced that they too would be going exclusively Blu. This is a major blow to the HD-DVD community.

While it’s bad news for HD-DVD fans and supporters, this could be a good thing for consumers. With two competing high definition disk formats (HD-DVD and Blu-Ray) things were a tad bit confusing for the average consumer. You’ll still be able to pick up WB and NLC movies on both formats until May, which is when WB’s contract ends with HD-DVD.

This pretty much only leaves Paramount and NBC Universal supporting the HD-DVD format.

Opera 8 Is The Default Browser On Sony Ericsson's P990

Just saw this in my in box:

Oslo, Norway – October 11, 2005 – Opera Software today announced that Sony Ericsson’s P990 will ship with Opera 8 as its default browser. Opera is embedded in the Symbian OS-based UIQ 3.0, the user interface platform of Sony Ericsson’s new smartphone which is the successor to the popular P900/P910. It will be the first phone released with the Opera-enhanced UIQ 3.0.With the Opera browser, Sony Ericsson P990 users can surf the full Internet from their devices. This version of Opera includes well-known features such as tabbed browsing, a password manager and URL auto-completion, made popular in Opera’s desktop browser. UIQ has made the Opera browser available for previous platform releases, to complement its usability-focused offering.

“Opera’s popularity on previous Sony Ericsson smartphones made it a natural choice for the P990,” says Ulf Wretling, Director Head of Content Development at Sony Ericsson. “With Opera, we are able to offer P990 users the most advanced mobile browsing experience available, with all the features from Opera’s desktop browser and the ability to render content in both portrait and landscape modes.”

Opera is available for download on Sony Ericsson’s UIQ-based P800, P900 and P910, and was touted by reviewers as the killer application for these phones. Advanced features such as Opera’s Small-Screen Rendering (SSR) technology, plus its speed and ability to access the full Internet, make Opera the ideal solution for browsing on the go.

“Opera 8 on Sony Ericsson’s P990 benefits not only end users with a fast and full-featured Internet experience, but operators as well,” says Jon von Tetzchner, CEO, Opera Software. “The browser is emerging as a major selling point for mobile phones today, and operators are seeing a significant increase in usage as more and more people are surfing the Web on their mobile devices. Browsing with Opera is the ultimate use case for the 3G network, and we are pleased to continue providing the best Internet experience for our key customers among handset manufacturers and operators.”

About Opera Software ASAOpera Software ASA is an industry leader in the development of Web browser technology, targeting the desktop, smartphone, PDA, home media and vertical markets. Partners include companies such as IBM, Nokia, Sony, Motorola, Adobe, Macromedia, Symbian, Sony Ericsson, Kyocera, Sharp, Motorola Metroworks, MontaVista Software, BenQ, Sendo and AMD. The Opera browser has received international recognition from users, industry experts and media for being faster, smaller and more standards-compliant than other browsers.

Opera’s browser technology is cross-platform and modular, and currently available on the following operating systems: Windows, Linux, Mac OS, Symbian OS, Windows Mobile, BREW, QNX, TRON, FreeBSD, Solaris and Mediahighway.

Opera Software ASA is headquartered in Oslo, Norway, with development centers in Linkoping and Gothenburg, Sweden. The company is listed on the Oslo Stock Exchange under the ticker symbol OPERA. Learn more about Opera at www.opera.com.

I really need to get me a phone/PDA with Opera on it. :P

Playstation 3 Details

Information has come out about Sony’s next generation console, the Playstation 3. Looks pretty nice to me, though I’m not crazy about having wireless/bluetooth controllers.

Anyway, there are a number of sites with the information as well as images, so I’ll just link you to Google News. You can pick your on article. :p

XBox 2 Has A Chance At Number 1

Or so says Bill Gates in this C|Net News article.

It’ll be interesting to see what happens with the XBox 2 and PlayStation 3. Personally, I think Sony has a lot more going for it. Microsoft has Halo, and… umm…. Halo. Are there really any other games or characters that stick out as “solely Microsoft”?

We’ll see. I’ll be watching MTV on May 12th (if I can remember it) to see what the XBox 2 is going to have. ;)