Hasta La Gadget!

This article was written on January 16, 2007 by CyberNet.

Netflix is diving into an online movie feature that will be offered to subscribers at no additional charge.  Currently, there will be 1,000 movies and TV shows available to view.  This “Instant Viewing” feature was designed and aimed for the under-30 crowd, the same crowd that has made YouTube popular.  A lot of people are excited about this, but with anything, there are still a few aspects to take into consideration before you go running after Netflix to set up an account.

Netflix Chief Executive Reed Hastings says, “For consumers under 30, they are doing so much with online video this is a natural extension of their usage paradigm on a laptop.” This comes two months after Blockbuster announced their “Total Access” program that allows subscribers to swap movies in-store.  The move by Blockbuster caused a bit of a stir with Netflix customers, some which switched services for the enticing offer.

This new virtual delivery process has been a work in progress for quite some time.  Netflix has a goal of signing up 20 million subscribers by 2012.  That’s a pretty hefty goal, and might take more than a virtual delivery process to meet it.  Subscribers will be required to install software so that they will be able to stream movie from the Internet. One good thing is that it’s designed to adjust the resolution based upon the user’s bandwidth to prevent the movie from freezing.

A few things to consider and think about…. How often do you really like to watch a movie on your PC? If you had the choice, wouldn’t you rather sit down in front of the TV to watch a movie?  I wouldn’t exactly consider this a quality viewing experience.  This service will be available only for XP and Vista operating systems, Mac users will be neglected for now. And finally, there are still people that haven’t taken the plunge and switched from a dial-up service to broadband Internet.  They definitely wouldn’t be able to take advantage of this.

Now that I’ve said it wouldn’t exactly be a quality viewing experience, that alone may be to the advantage of Netflix.  Some people don’t care about quality.  They care that they can get what they want, when they want it, and fast.  And of course, there’s always the option to connect your PC to a TV to get a better experience.

The cost for this was 40 million with some of the money allotted to licensing deals with companies like NBC Universal, Sony Pictures, 20th Century Fox, and the list goes on… Because Netflix isn’t charging anything additional, they are definitely taking a risk with this service and betting on more subscribers to increase revenue. 

It will take several months for the service to be available to everyone. The amount of time allotted to each subscriber to watch streamed content varies upon their plan with Netflix.  Plans range from 6 hours of viewing time to 18 hours of online viewing time per month. And, to make sure that their servers can handle the demand, Netflix will be rolling this new service out slowly over the next six months.

News Source: Yahoo

Thanks for the tip CoryC!

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This article was written on December 21, 2010 by CyberNet.

I’ve been using Google Latitude with some friends and family ever since it was released last week for the iPhone. I noticed that it used very little battery on my phone, which made me wonder how frequently it actually sends updates. To get this information I went ahead and enabled the history functionality that keeps a log of all the coordinates that your device has sent.

I found that if I was relatively stationary for a period of time, such as being at home, that no updates would be sent to Google. In that respect it is pretty smart. That got me curious as to the logic that Latitude uses on my iPhone to determine when to send updates. After a little searching around I came across this article that explains the update interval for the different platforms. Interestingly enough Latitude takes into account how fast your moving, how much battery life is left, and whether you’re switching between cell towers. Here’s a breakdown of how it works on your device:

Android, BlackBerry, Windows Mobile, and Symbian:

The background location update frequency isn’t a fixed amount of time. The update frequency is determined by several factors, such as how much battery life your phone has, if you are moving, or how fast you are moving. Background updating will only use cell ID or WiFi location detection depending on your device. GPS will not be used in the background to preserve battery life.

iOS-only (iPhone, iPod Touch, and iPad):

Your location will only update in the background when you’re moving (exceptions: when you switch the app from foreground to background mode, or go from a “moving” to a “stationary” state, the app will continue to update your location for a few minutes).

The background location update frequency isn’t a fixed amount of time. The update frequency is determined by several factors, such as how much battery life your phone has, if you are moving, or how fast you are moving. Background updating will only use cell ID or WiFi location detection depending on your device. GPS will not be used in the background to preserve battery life.

Copyright © 2013 CyberNetNews.com

This article was written on October 06, 2009 by CyberNet.

A few weeks ago a lot of sites were writing about a web developer program from Microsoft that provided web-related software at no upfront cost. When you end your membership you will, however, have to pay a $100 fee. If you look at the overall value of the software you’ll see that it’s still worthwhile.

There’s another program that Microsoft offers which is an even better deal if you qualify… BizSpark. It’s targeted for small businesses that have been around for less than 3 years, make under $1 million a year, and are privately held. Once you get in you’ll have access to pretty much all the software Microsoft makes including all versions of Office 2007 (Ultimate, Professional, Enterprise, etc…), all versions of Windows 7 (Ultimate, Professional, Home Premium, etc…), all versions of Vista, and so on. You’ll basically get a full retail MSDN subscription.

Here’s a more detailed list of the requirements:

• An eligible startup must have the following characteristics at the time of joining:
  • Actively engaged in development of a software-based product or service that will form a core piece of its current or intended business
  • Privately held
  • In business for less than 3 years
  • Less than US $1 million in annual revenue
• To be eligible to use the software for production and deployment of hosted solutions, startups must also be developing a new “software-plus-services” solution (on any platform) to be delivered over the Internet. To meet this requirement your software must:
  • Add significant and primary functionality to the integrated Microsoft software
  • Be owned, not licensed, by you

After you apply it should take about one business day to get accepted (they’ll send a confirmation email to you). Once you’re in you’ll be able to enjoy 3-years of Microsoft software, and similar to the web developer program you’ll have to pay a $100 fee when you exit the program. That’s a heck of a deal for all of the software you get access to.

BizSpark Homepage
Thanks Chris for the details!

Copyright © 2013 CyberNetNews.com

This article was written on January 27, 2007 by CyberNet.

Weekend Warrior

Recently, I stumbled across Wayfaring, a visual map creation service that uses Google Maps. There are four main things that you can do with with Wayfaring. You’re able to create maps of your own, share those maps with friends and family, explore maps that others have made, and collaborate with others to build new maps. There’s an endless list of reasons you’d use it, such as places you’ve traveled to, favorite restaurants, favorite golf courses, mapping out clients, etc.  I decided to create a map of my own, so I’ll take you through the process.

Pictured above is the map that I created. One of the first things you should know is that you can embed your map into blogs or other websites.  Clicking on the map will take you to Wayfaring where you can get more details about each point.  The first thing that you’ll do when creating a map is to select the general area on the map that you’ll be starting with.  I was starting in Miami, Florida, so I selected that area. Next, you’re going to name your map which you can always change later. I titled mine Honeymoon Cruise’, and then it was time to start adding “waypoints,” or locations on my map.

I went on a cruise for my honeymoon, so I created Waypoints for each of the stops the ship made.  With each waypoint, you’re also able to add notes, and tags to give more details.  Another nice feature is that you’re able to add extra elements like photos and videos to give it a more personalized feel. After you’ve added all of your points, you can create a route and connect each point together to get the total mileage.

Once you’re done, you have the option of sharing the map with friends, or family by email, or of course as mentioned, by embedding it on your website. Maps can be set to private or public, and you can also set it so that others can edit them (this would be the collaboration portion).

The last thing that you might want to do with Wayfaring is to explore and find maps that others have created. They have the “Best of Wayfaring” where you can view some of the best maps that users have created. Another option is to search by specific key words, or view the most recent maps created.

One of the best maps I came across was a road trip that started on the East Coast and went all across the US to California with lots of stops in-between. They included pictures for some of the places that they came across.  If you switch to the satellite option on the Google map, you could get a nice tour of some of the US landmarks.

That’s all that there’s really to it.  Wayfaring a very simple, easy way to create maps for any reason you could think of!

Copyright © 2013 CyberNetNews.com

This article was written on October 17, 2006 by CyberNet.

CNET has added a new element to their network, CNET TV.  It’s purpose is of course to broadcast news and product reviews.  With the way the popularity of internet videos is going, CNET has probably taken a step in the right direction – particularly because CNET’s chairman and chief executive has resigned and their outlook a bit unsure. With all of the hype and popularity over YouTube recently, it’s no wonder they wanted to get themselves involved in web TV.

I tried it out for a minutes at www.cnettv.com, and the streaming was great. I tuned in for Summer’s Top 5 Worst Technology which was actually worth watching. At number 5 was iTunes 7. I’m sure you could think of a few others that deserve to be on the list! Along with this announcement, they have also announced a partnership with Verizon.  CNET’s video’s will be distrubuted by Verizon with on-demand TV.It also has the capability for users to subscribe to particular channels through iTunes.

Copyright © 2013 CyberNetNews.com