Hasta La Gadget!

According to the New York Times, Fox is about to try another tactic to enhance sales of its movies, by offering downloadable UltraViolet (Update: and many other formats, see below.) copies for sale a full three weeks ahead of their release on Blu-ray / DVD or for video on-demand rental. The first movie to get the treatment will be Ridley Scott’s Prometheus later this month, and Fox is pricing the copies at about $15, down from the $20 of previous releases. Other flicks on deck for the early digital sale treatment are Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter, The Watch and Ice Age: Continental Drift. Fox is apparently calling the setup Digital HD, or DHD, as it rolls out in 50 different countries all at once, and opted to offer the flicks in high definition instead of issuing cheaper standard def versions to “put its best foot forward”. Last year’s $30 premium VOD rental pilot was another attempt to experiment with release windows that Fox participated in, but DHD’s more reasonable pricing makes it an interesting option. Of course, the main trick will be getting customers to opt for an UltraViolet format which is still not supported by Apple and Amazon’s movie stores, but dangling early access to mainstream movies could be just the bait required.

Update: We talked to Fox and confirmed that the DHD initiative is not limited to only Ultraviolet. According to the studio when this kicks off September 18th, it will make more than 600 films available across stores including Amazon, CinemaNow, iTunes, PlayStation, VUDU and Xbox. Prometheus is also Fox’s first UV title and its first new release under the DHD program, but if you prefer your digital movies in another format, it looks like you’ll be able to get them.

Continue reading Fox to sell Digital HD movies three weeks ahead of discs or VOD, Prometheus is first (Update: via Amazon, iTunes, Xbox, Vudu etc.)

Filed under: Home Entertainment, HD

Fox to sell Digital HD movies three weeks ahead of discs or VOD, Prometheus is first (Update: via Amazon, iTunes, Xbox, Vudu etc.) originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 07 Sep 2012 03:03:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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It’s hard to believe at times that the Voyager 1 probe is older than many of us reading this article, but it’s true. The official first part of NASA’s Voyager program launched just over 35 years ago on September 5th, 1977, carrying not just cameras and sensors to capture the trip but the famous Golden Record documenting humanity for any curious aliens. To mark the occasion, Wired has gathered together one heck of a photo album that covers both Voyager 1’s trip as well as that of Voyager 2, which technically launched earlier (August 20th the same year) but took a more roundabout route through the solar system. The gallery reminds us of the amazing scenery beyond Mars and puts our tiny blue ball of a planet in perspective; Earth was just a speck at best when photographed late into Voyager 2’s journey. Perhaps the best news surrounding the milestone is simply that both Voyager probes are still running. At 11 billion miles from the Sun, Voyager 1 may be on the cusp of interstellar space and easily represents the most distant human object ever made, not to mention a record-setter for signal transmissions. There’s even a chance we’ll still be hearing back from the probe for its 50th anniversary — its power could keep it chatting up to roughly 2025.

Filed under: Science, Alt

NASA’s Voyager 1 marks 35th anniversary of its launch, gets photo retrospective in tribute originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 07 Sep 2012 02:29:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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The Gizmodo family is a tight-knit bunch. We work together, we drink together, and then we like to post the pictures of our antics on Facebook and “like” them all at once. But certainly not all work cultures are like ours, and not all bosses and coworkers as, well…fun. Do your coworkers send you friend requests? Do you accept? More »

A man from Arizona has been handed a prison sentence that amounts to 30 months after infecting up to an estimated 72,000 computers, and this is a byproduct of using botnets and selling access to them to a willing buyer. Joshua Schichtel is said to be connected to a ring of hackers known as DDOS Mafia who relied on denial-of-service (DOS) attacks that targeted businesses on behalf of a business owner. Charges were filed in 2004 in California, but those failed to stick because the prosecutors there failed to file an indictment by the required deadline.

Still, the long arm of the law has finally caught up to Joshua’s antics, where he pleaded guilty on August 17th last year in Washington, D.C., to one count of attempting to cause damage to multiple computers without prior authorization via the transmission of programs, codes or commands, which is classified as a violation of the U.S. Computer Fraud and Abuse Act. He was paid $1,500 for his criminal act, making that average out to around $50 amounting to one month in prison as “payment” for his crime.

By Ubergizmo. Related articles: FBI denies Apple Device ID leak, Apple UDID Leak: Why Does It Matter?,

If there’s been a race in the Pico-ITX realm to catch up to full-size PCs, VIA just leapt ahead by a few bounds with the EPIA-P910. The tiny PC mates one of VIA’s 1GHz QuadCore E-Series processors with a VX11H media core to handle the kinds of tasks that would break just about any other system its size: stereoscopic 3D displays and DirectX 11 3D graphics are entirely within the realm of possibility. Likewise, there’s a surprising amount of expansion headroom compared to many of the P910’s similarly small counterparts, such as the 8GB RAM ceiling and support for both HDMI 1.4a and USB 3.0. You’ll need to get in touch with VIA if you want to find out how much it costs to work the new EPIA into an embedded PC, and it’s more likely to be headed to corporate buyers than to homebrew projects. We’re still looking forward to the shot of visual adrenaline, whether it’s in a mini PC or a store display.

Continue reading VIA EPIA-P910 stuffs 3D display support, quad-core into a Pico-ITX size

Filed under: Desktops, Misc

VIA EPIA-P910 stuffs 3D display support, quad-core into a Pico-ITX size originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 07 Sep 2012 01:44:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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