Comcast Buys NBC!

Nick Mahar Dec 1, 2009 Follow Me Follow Me Follow Me Follow Me Follow Me Follow Me Follow Me Follow Us How to, Industry News, Movies, Music, News, Pictures, Videos, Websites, breaking

Well it looks like it has finally happen, Comcast now owns good old NBC. Personally I liked what GE was doing with them but I guess we shall see about Comcast. For people that do have Comcast Cable in the U.S., you are used to the funny commercials so hopefully they will bring this to NBC and it's shows. CNBC is reporting the deal is already done but won't be officially announced until Thursday morning for some reason. Comcast apparently now owns 51% of NBC while GE owns 49%. NBC's assets will now fall into Comcast's hands which means the new NBC will rival Disney in size. That's a huge piece of the pie and should be a very big show down. Of course, all this still has to go through the FCC and FTC, and we wouldn't expect anything to be approved and finalized for a year. If it does get passed, it will be a huge deal of it's kind. We will know for fact in a few days but it looks like the deal is imminent. 


-NM

Windows New Black Screen of Death!

Nick Mahar Dec 1, 2009 Follow Me Follow Me Follow Me Follow Me Follow Me Follow Me Follow Me Follow Us Applications, Design, Gadgets, Hacks, Hardware, How to, Humor, Microsoft, breaking

It's not as bad as it sounds but is much like the old "Blue Screen of Death".  Over the last week it is reported that many Windows users(not just Windows users) have been hit with a plain black screen that appears upon login which locks up the system. That's it though, no other problems besides that so i guess just do the normal thing and press and hold the power button to re-boot. According to a Microsoft email that's making the rounds, the company is "investigating reports that its latest release of security updates is resulting in system issues for some customers." According to Prevx, a UK developer of anti-malware software, a recent Windows patch changed Access Control List entries that prevents some programs to run properly thus causing the "Black Screen of Death". Thanks to Engadget.com we have a nice picture showing us how bad ass the problem is. According to Prevx, they have put together a fix but, they are very unknown and we ourselves can't promise and success or security. Hopefully Microsoft fixes the problem soon.

[Via Engadget]

-NM

Screenshots - New Facebook Redesign Coming Soon

Facebook has been known for taking something perfect, and then wrecking it for some people, like in their last redesigns. Just over a month ago, Facebook released a new site redesign and now its starting to look like they aren't completely satisfied with the results, as they are now testing, yet another homepage redesign. More after the break [...]

Digg hijacks Google Exec for their Own

Ricardo Trejo Dec 1, 2009 Follow Me Follow Me Follow Me Follow Me Follow Me Follow Me Follow Me Follow Us Google, Internet

Digg is getting a face lift. No real hard evidence can say when the exact date will be, but from what we've heard from Digg founder, Kevin Rose, we can expect to see the changes come about within the next 6 months. But then again he said that back in May... so, I'm not sure when we'll see any new developments. Maybe they're hard at work at right now? Could be, since big pieces are moving around. So much so that they've even snagged themselves one of Google's bigger fish; Keval Desai, ex-Director of Product Management at Google, who will now be acting Vice President of Product at Digg.com.

Keeping the core ideas of Digg are important since it's a vital link in user collaboration right now in finding the latest and greatest stuff out there. But what Rose would be wise to do is make sure the "heart" is still there, but change the "body" around it - making it faster and engaging more user participation - and with the addition of Desai I already feel like that's what they're aiming for. 

I use Digg on a daily basis, multiple times even, and I'm looking forward to seeing things clean up a bit and getting more streamlined.

[TechCrunch]

the End of CrunchPad - TechCrunch kicked off the project

Today is a very very upsetting day for the guys over at TechCrunch, and geeks everywhere. They were so excited, pumped and ready to release the CrunchPad, to the public, after 1.5 years. They were going to release it -- a week ago. The device was stable enough for a demo. It went hours without crashing. They could even let people play with the device themselves.

Month after month of collaboration, sweat and hard work, the entire project destroyed itself because of nothing more than greed, jealousy and backstabbing -- On November 17 the CEO of TechCrunch's partner on the project, Chandra Rathakrishnan, sent Arrington an email with the subject “no good news.” And it only gets worse from here.

Ubisoft announces Prince of Persia "The Forgotten Sands"

Alex Tretrop Nov 30, 2009 Follow Me Follow Me Follow Me Follow Me Follow Me Follow Me Follow Me Follow Us Gaming

Earlier today Ubisoft announced a new upcoming title, Prince of Persia: The Forgotten Sands. We have hardly any info from them but what we do know is that it will be a "return to the storyline in The Sands of Time trilogy" and "will feature many favoured elements from that series as well as new gameplay innovations". We can expect this to be on store shelves in May 2010 to coincide with the Prince of Persia movie. They are developing this game for "consoles and handhelds", so we really have no idea which specific systems it'll be for. They also plan to play a trailer at the Spike TV Video Game Awards on December 12 so tune in for that if your interested.

Considering I loved the earlier versions of Prince of Persia, I'm pretty happy to go back to rewinding time with the prince. How about you?

[Giant Bomb]

Browsera - View a Site in 4 Browsers at Once

Ricardo Trejo Nov 30, 2009 Follow Me Follow Me Follow Me Follow Me Follow Me Follow Me Follow Me Follow Us Design, Internet

When you're designing a site it take a bit of know how when it comes to how certain browsers will react to it. Browsera makes it easier on your windows and your time by giving you a tool to 'detect cross-browser layout problems and scripting errors'.

The features differ on which type of plan you select; from straight out free and 25 page views, to unlimited page views in the Enterprise package for $500 bucks a month.  It could be right thing for the right person, as I know I'm not one to really use this sorta stuff, but hey, you might!

[Browsera via Lifehacker]