MICROSOFT VIDEO SCREENSAVER

There have been screensavers for a long time that would display a slide show of your photos. Now video is coming into its own, as evidenced by the Microsoft Video Screensaver. It comes with canned movie footage from countries around the world, but it can be configured...

VICTORY FOR THE LITTLE GUY

WalMart is getting out of the rental DVD business and turning its customers over to Netflix.WalMart only made a half-hearted effort to compete over the last two years, developing a hundred thousand customers who drew from a comparatively small selection and got slow...

HP DIGITAL ENTERTAINMENT CENTER z545

HP has introduced a device for the living room that comes closer to a vision of the future than anything else on the market. The HP Digital Entertainment Center z545 ($1,999) is a computer at its heart, but that’s almost incidental. It’s a 480-line...

MULTIMEDIA

Aging baby boomers will soon be unable to recognize anything handling media in the home of an affluent 25-year-old. The convergence between the computer world and the audio/video world is happening faster than anyone can follow. There are dozens of devices hitting the...

DIGITAL ENTERTAINMENT AND THE LONG TAIL

This article from Wired Magazine is essential reading. We are watching the creation of an entirely new economic model for the media and entertainment industries, with far-reaching consequences for our world. Amazon, Netflix, and online music services are discovering...

ADOBE PREMIERE ELEMENTS

Not everyone would have predicted it a few years ago, but digital cameras have become a matter-of-fact item in many homes. Normal, non-tech people have learned to unload pictures from a memory card, view them on the computer, and print them on a color inkjet....