CEO of Seagate Technology Bill Watkins believes that the war is not between HD-DVD and Blu-ray, but instead, he believes that "the war is over physical distribution versus electrical and Blu-ray and HD lost that." He answered my questions in my previous article about the format wars, and Bill is absolutely correct in his evaluation.

Bill Watkins gave quite the speech during a breakfast meeting this week. He stated that the big winner in the format wars is neither HD-DVD or Blu-ray. It is electronic distribution, and the companies that are able to take advantage of it.

It all makes sense. With services like Hulu popping up everywhere, it seems the perfect way to go. Video being delivered on-demand is a hit. Makers of IPTV services (video that is delivered to your home on-demand) are likely to get a huge boost in the coming years.

(Image Credit: Thomas Hawk)
Watkins continued on by saying that Hollywood will need to get into the delivery of content to people's homes. "They [the people] will watch lousy content if it is easy to do," he said. After all, who goes to a video store anymore? My videos are delivered via Netflix, and when there are no great movies on television, I resort to watching shows like American Gladiators.

He also explained how all this data--which will be delivered on-demand--is great for hard drive makers. People download data. They need someplace to store those gigabytes of data.  Those terabyte hard drives that you have been reading about, which you have yet to purchase, are going to come in use to the everyday computer user, one day.

He also made reference to many other topics of interest:

• Excuses about the lack of an SD drive from Seagate, but it will be coming out soon.
• He believes flash memory will never completely take over the hard drive market.
• Talks about the U.S. economy
• Talks about U.S. immigration policy.

"We used to say that what is good for GM is good for America. Now, what is good for the stockholders is not necessarily good for America. That drives me crazy."

How right he is.

It's that time of year again. Time to stay in the know with this year's 2008 CES. Technology analysts, reporters, and innovators will be in Las Vegas exploring the wealth of tech gadgetry coming out this year. Storage media, GPS technology, and more are only a few of the products that will be featured. Essentially, it is the stuff dreams are made of for the hardcore technology enthusiasts.

GPS

GPS technology has really taken off. I recently purchased a GPS system for a family member, and I could not help but be fascinated with how far GPS technology has grown these past few years.

Announcements from several GPS device manufacturers are sure to stir up the competition. Hand-held, car navigation systems, wrist watches, and other types of devices that utilize GPS technology will spring up at the 2008 CES.

An all-in-one solution is more likely to be the show stoppers. The systems that allow you to use GPS, have Wi-Fi connectivity, find the nearest Chinese restaurant, and perform other tasks are going to likely drop in price, while improving in functionality.

Storage

Probably some of the biggest announcements are going to revolve around the way you store your data in the future. SanDisk, Samsung, Sony, PNY Technologies, and others will be doing their best to pimp new offerings in the line of solid-state drives (SSD).

It is quite fascinating to know that in less than five years, most new computers will no longer be running platter-based disk drives. With the rate things are going now, it might be less than two years.

Laptops

Laptops just keep getting smaller, and smaller, and still smaller. It is a continuing trend. Expect that this year's CES will continue that trend and bring us even smaller computer notebooks that will be just as capable as their bigger counterparts.

Those of us with larger hands (myself included), we just continue the suffering. Make no mistake about it though, we once thought ultra-portable was something big, so what do we call the 7" laptops? Micro portable?
[Image Credit: Roland | CC]

HDTVs

High definition televisions will be quite the interesting topic of discussion at CES. If I had money to burn, a 150-inch plasma television by Panasonic might fit the bill. Where I would put it is another article in itself. By the way, the picture is only of a 102", can you imagine a 150"? Just wait until you hear the price for one of these things.

Wrapping It Up

The next week will be full of announcements that will inspire the the growth of the tech industry. The show will ultimately result for two things: announcements about new products on the way, and prices being lowered for currently available technology. In the end, it really is a win-win situation for all.

Subscribe to Tech In Demand's RSS Feed if you are a technology enthusiast. I will be posting my reactions to major 2008 CES announcements as they happen next week.

The news that Apple has filed a patent for a DRM-like system should bring questions to those who currently use the Mac OS. Windows Genuine Advantage (WGA) has stirred up so much negative publicity towards Windows, right? So why on Earth would Apple, which is becoming more popular by the day, do such an absurd thing like add DRM systems to their operating system?

This patent, if accepted, could possibly promote Apple to adding "features" like WGA to the Mac OS. Seeing as how unpopular WGA is with the Windows crowd (not to mention the numerous faults with the system), I would be shocked to see something so drastic put into place. However, there are still many other potential uses for this DRM patent, but it is making me sick to even consider the possibilities.

TechNewsWorld reported the method described in the patent of this DRM:
The method described in the application is one that allows for the injection of code into an application's run-time instruction stream that checks to see if the application is being run on a "specific hardware platform," and then repeats that check to see if it is still being run on that authorized platform.
This might be a potential way to temporarily circumvent software piracy (which will happen anyhow) of the Mac OS system and its designed software; however, is it worth the cost to piss off both loyal and legitimate customers? The thousands of dollars spent on Apple hardware should easily make up for any software piracy currently taking place.

While Apple has a right to protect their business, it would be unwise for them to put policies in effect that make operating systems like Windows XP and Vista so hated in the alternative OS community. It would also be disappointing to see Apple screw up the golden opportunities given by Microsoft's recent failures.

[Image Credit: enews.org]

Beyond CompUSA, there are only a handful of alternative walk-in retail technology chains. Best Buy, Fry's Electronics, and Circuit City are some of the most popular, but CompUSA had a special prominent impact in the past. Unfortunately, the end is now near for the company. These are my thoughts on the closure of what was once the most promising retail technology chains in America.

CompUSA, which was named Soft Warehouse at the time, opened its doors to the public in 1985. Quickly experiencing rapid growth, the company opened its first superstore only three years later. The idea was solid and growth continued on. In 1991, the company officially changed their name to the CompUSA name by which we know today. CompUSA was the largest chain of computer superstores during this time period.

(Image Credit: Tyler Durden | CC)
Things went downhill since the name change, and while there were a few glimmers of hope in the early 1990s, it just has not worked in the company's favor. Here today we are faced with the reality that CompUSA is closing up shop with news that all 103 remaining stores are being liquidated for the new year.

Was it bad management, poor customer service, better competition, or a combination of all these things which lead to the end of this once powerful franchise? This news is a disappointment to many, but the company was on a degrading path to which is eventually the dead end.

My Thoughts

Any time that I have made my way to CompUSA in the past (I have gone there since I was around the age of six), I have never received a bad vibe from the stores. I never had an issue with tech support or employees; however, I rarely needed the assistance. I believe that my first computer was purchased from CompUSA. I also purchased several game systems and computer hardware from their stores. Again, there was never any problems.

I actually enjoyed going there more than a place like Best Buy; particularly because I did not have to deal with people asking me if I required assistance every minute (just back off Best Buy employees!). I do realize that others appreciate that kind of "service," but for the people that knew what they want, it was nice to go into CompUSA without being constantly annoyed.

Competition from stores like Fry's and Best Buy (which has been making great strides in profit gains) have really slammed the hammer down on CompUSA. Also take into consideration the online retail sites like Newegg.com, which are able to offer the goods for less cost, and it becomes apparent that this all has put a hurting on the tech retail chain. It was a slow and painful death, and I am disappointed to see the company go.

If you are fortunate enough to have a CompUSA that is still open near your location, be sure to take advantage of the store's closing by checking out the great liquidation sales going on. Pay your last respects to a company with a troubled history; get some amazing tech gadgets while you are at it.

What does this mean for me? Well, I just have to deal with those highly abrasive Best Buy employees more often now. Hopefully this will not be too difficult of a task.

If you dislike Best Buy employees as much as I do, be sure to subscribe to Tech In Demand's RSS Feed!

What better way to end a year than setting a record. Apple Inc. (NASDAQ: AAPL) has done exactly that when the price of their stock price hit a record high price of $200 following Christmas day. Although the stock has not yet closed above $200, it managed to linger above the mark for several hours.

The market evaluation of Apple's stock has been strong. The success is now being further acknowledged with the market bumping up the stock's price to never before reached levels. These results come as the iPod, iPhone, and Mac computers perform well in 2007.

(Image Credit: Yahoo! Finance)
The next few days of trading will also be important in determining if the price will continue the upwards trend. Today's trading revealed more strength in the stock as the price remained above the $200 mark for the majority of the trading day. Unfortunately, the price has once again closed below, but another strong day in the market should provide enough staying power.

For more than three years the Apple stock has been trending upwards drastically. The 2008 year is sure to bring new innovations from Apple, and the continued success of the company will turn more heads in the consumer electronics market. Apple is no longer stuck behind Microsoft's shadow.

However, even with all the apparent success, there is a catch. With the iPhone being locked in an exclusive agreement with AT&T for the next five years in the U.S., it has opened up the playing field for competition to step up with similar and better offerings on other networks. This single decision could prove very costly in the future, but for now, let the good times roll on.

[Source: New York Times]

Microsoft might become a victim of the company's own success, how ironic. Service Pack 3 for Windows XP is rumored to not only be a significant improvement to XP, but also makes XP at least twice more powerful than Windows Vista. Now in the past I have written about how useless the upgrade to Vista really is, but Microsoft is forcing me to work here.

The results of benchmark testing on a Windows XP system running Service Pack 3 beta and Windows Vista with Service Pack 1 beta by Devil Mountain Software of Florida were published on TechNewsWorld. The tests reveal that Windows XP had twice the advantage over Vista in performance. Both systems were tweaked to gain maximum performance. Vista fell short of its older brother.

Craig Barth, who is the chief technology officer at Devil Mountain Software, discussed the results with TechNewsWorld:
Craig Barth, chief technology officer at Devil Mountain Software, was surprised by the test results, particularly because he believed SP1 for Vista was going to dramatically improve the new OS's performance.

"We were as shocked as everybody is," Barth told TechNewsWorld. "They [Microsoft] talked up the whole thing [the complaints about Vista] saying, 'If you're not happy with Vista, don't make any comments until SP1 comes out.'"
Now with Service Pack 1 of Vista, it simply appears that Vista is becoming the Windows ME of competing technology. All this with the exception being that you can revert back to Windows XP. There is some irony hidden in all of this. It all seems like a big joke, but the catch is that this is real.

Now "obsolete" might be a harsh word to describe Vista, but all the unpleasing performance benchmarks, bad press, and failures in the public relations department leads me to question if Microsoft Vista is exactly that. Eye candy can only stand for so long before people realize what they have gotten into. Driver compatibility and performance would have been a better thing to focus on, but Microsoft just can not get this right.

Some might say that it is the fault of software and hardware developers; however, Linux is making more strives in recent times than Vista in regard to compatibility. Microsoft has no excuse, and the company can not place the blame on developers who feel that software for Vista is unreliable and unworthy of being ported to the new OS. It is Microsoft's job to provide a better experience for their users.

Things become even more dramatic when you throw in the fact that Vista is going to be replaced by Windows 7 in a few short years. Fueling the fire of the media to question if Vista is a worthy upgrade has unfortunately been something that Microsoft has done well. Windows 7 can not come soon enough to end this nightmare that is Vista, and I only hope that it is not as bad.

Leo Laporte, television personality for the long gone TechTV network, owner of the TWiT Netcast Network, and radio host for The Tech Guy, has been a big fan of Apple in past years. Unfortunately for Apple, they upset Leo Laporte and many others who own an iPhone with a recent update to the firmware.

To get you up to speed, people who have been reverse engineering the iPhone have enabled a great amount of hacks to be performed. Software that allows you to have custom ring tones and much more are only the beginning. Available hacks could even allow you to completely unlock your iPhone, making it useable on any network that would support it.

Apple did not want this to happen, and the reasons being are unknown considering that in the past, Apple has been much more friendly to hackers.
Image Credit: iPhoneHacks.com
Leo Laporte has probably also been hacking around with his iPhone, and who could blame him? It is his device, and he should be able to do what he wants with it, right? On his blog, LOL: The Life of Leo, he wrote a very critical analogy of this situation:
...When I paid for the cow [reference to iPhone] it became my property, to do with as I please. If you [reference to Apple] don’t like how I’m using it you may choose not to do any further business with me but you don’t get to kill my cow.

And, by the way, warning me you’d kill my cow if I keep making cheese doesn’t make it all right.

The lawyers will point out that contractually I agreed to your terms. True. But I don’t think the contract said anything about killing the cow did it?

Apple’s sole redress is to halt all support of my phone. If we let Apple destroy our property for not following the rules we’re telling the music industry it’s ok to destroy a hard drive containing illegal songs, the cable company to fry our TVs for stealing cable. That is vigilante justice and a direct threat to the rule of law.
It is clear that Apple's decision to render the iPhone unusable with a recent update was not in the best interest of either the customers or the company. Upsetting a voice like Leo Laporte just made everything much more difficult for Apple.

Ironically enough, the iPhone Dev Team (a community of iPhone hackers) have pulled off an achievement by allowing you to bring an iPhone back to life by downgrading the firmware, and while it seems like a somewhat complicated process, it is likely the only choice for now by the people who have bricked iPhones.

This is an ongoing battle between the hackers and Apple, and there is likely to be more news about the situation in the future, and more heartbreaks by Apple. Let us just hope that any hacks for the iPods do not render them unusable as well.

There is an update at the bottom of this page.
It appears from a report on TorrentFreak, that Demonoid has been shut down by the Canadian Recording Industry Association (CRIA). The torrent sharing site, Demonoid, is a site of heavy peer-to-peer (p2p) activity that involves the sharing and distribution of torrent files. The problem is that there is confusion as to if this story is even true.

Why this could be true:

According to TorrentFreak, the founder (known as "Deimos") has been reported to not be answering phone calls, and it is likely that the site is going to be down for quite awhile. If any of this is true, then it is doubtful in my mind that the site will make a quick comeback. There is confusion as to what is really going on. TorrentFreak wrote this on their blog a few hours earlier:
TorrentFreak contacted some of the Demonoid administrators, but they are not sure what happened either. It is certainly possible that Demonoid’s Canadian ISP pulled the plug after being pressured by the CRIA. The Demonoid server is still pinging, but the ISP could have firewalled the everything after they received some serious legal threats. Deimos, the founder and the head admin of the site is unreachable and has not responded yet.
Why this could be false:

According to this site TorrentFreak is lying and spreading rumors:
Ok folks, here it is. Demonoid is down. It has been for aroun 18 hours. The reason is down is unkown. It hasnt been RAIDed, shutdown, terminated, deleted, burned, mamed, or thrown under a bridge. There have been speculation as demonoid.com whereabouts. Well the rurmors are false. A no name site in Netherlands has a blog about Demonoid.com being down. As I don't speak douche, I can not translate. However TorrentFreak Decided upon there own free will to further spread this and rumors. Torrent freak has known to be a sleazy site they post false rumors and hope they turn out true. They do this in order for money and popularity. Quite sad isn't it.
I am not sure what to believe as it would be no shock to me if Demonoid does go down. It also would be no surprise if the TorrentFreak story is completely false. If this is a false story by TorrentFreak, it would certainly seem like a reputation killer for that site.

The facts:

Demonoid is a site designed for BitTorrent p2p activity, and has been for a number of years. The site has been closed to the public, with the exception of a day or more during the month when the site allows new users at random. Invitation are also another method of joining the site.

The Demonoid site has been down for at least 24 hours. The site has also shut down for a short period of time as well in the past. A serious problem is that torrents are being traded that have copyrighted music, software, and more. This is primarily the reason why some countries are not too fond of Demonoid.

I will reserve judgement about the whole situation until after more information becomes available. This story is sure to progress further, and Tech In Demand will bring you the latest.

Update 1: 9-26-2007 @ 6:57 PM EST.

There is still no new information about the status of Demonoid. I'm still on the search for some answers. If you have any information, please email me at James.Mowery@TechInDemand.com.

Update 2: 10-1-2007 @ 4:18 PM EST.

There is a major update to this story, written here on Tech In Demand.

Wakoopa, a product that allows you to track which software that you run on your computer and share that information with friends and groups online, has just released more efficient trackers for both Windows and Mac operating systems.

These trackers allow your computer to send information to the Wakoopa site about which software you are running. One gripe I had about Wakoopa in the past was the fact that the trackers seemed to take up too many resources, for what little it did. These problems seem to be fixed now though.

From the Wakoopa blog:
For the Windows tracker, the major improvement is that the application now uses way less memory. It now averages around 1.5 megabytes after initializing, which is a big improvement over the earlier version. Another big addition is proxy-support, which has been requested by a lot of our users.
For the OS X tracker, the biggest improvement is a fixed bug that sometimes caused the tracker to crash
Wakoopa was made available to the public on May 2nd, 2007. The site is ranked 53,457 on Alexa, and Wakoopa was recently reviewed by PC Magazine.