AFI BLOG: Media and Technology

Venture Beat

Hewlett-Packard’s VoodooPC division will launch a new Voodoo Envy 133 laptop computer for luxury consumers. And the design looks like it will go head to head with Apple’s MacBook Air.
Like the MacBook Air, the new version of the Envy line is razor thin — only 0.7 inches thick and weighs 3.4 pounds. (A MacBook [...]

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Venture Beat
It’s weird for me to go to a Web 2.0 conference to write about hardware. But you have to follow the news. IBM is announcing today that it has created an Internet server that is ideal for Web 2.0 companies.
Big Blue says the iDataPlex has been designed based on the feedback of hundreds of [...]

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Forbes
Late Tuesday, in response to questions from Forbes.com, an Apple spokesman said Apple has agreed to buy a boutique microprocessor design company called PA Semi. The company, which is known for its design of sophisticated, low-power chips, could spell a new future for Apple’s flagship iPhone, and possibly iPod products as well.
The 150-person chip [...]

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The Hollywood Reporter
Apple TV is getting some competition from Blockbuster.
The home video giant is developing a set-top device for streaming films directly to TV sets and is expected to announce the offering sometime this month.
Blockbuster declined comment, but a spokeswoman for the company said: “We’re talking to numerous companies and vendors about products, services, alliances [...]

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BusinessWeek
The Web retailer is offering its vast computing power to corporations—and big names are starting to sign up
Jeff Bezos made a fortune building Amazon.com (AMZN) into one of the top players in online retailing. Now he’s looking for new ways to cash in on the company’s capabilities. One of the most intriguing, he thinks, is [...]

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WSJ
Consumers appear to be turning down the volume on television purchases.
As the largest specialty-electronics retailers get set to report year-end results, recent consumer surveys and comments from a TV supplier and from club stores point to slowing TV demand. The category has been among the few bright spots in big-ticket spending for the home as [...]

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Why ‘08 Isn’t Mobile’s Year — Again…. from Ad Age:Each year since about 2000 — and maybe even before — has been wrongly touted as the year of mobile marketing. And this year won’t be it either, despite the we’re-not-kidding-this-time rhetoric being spouted by mobile-marketing boosters converging for telecom’s big powwow in Las Vegas this [...]

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SAN JOSE, Calif. (AP) — Citing disagreements with the organization, Intel Corp. said Thursday it has abandoned the One Laptop Per Child program, dealing a big blow to the ambitious project seeking to bring millions of low-cost laptops to children in developing countries.
The fallout ends a long-simmering spat that began even before the Santa Clara-based [...]

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Apple Future Headline: New Products Including Super Laptop? - CNBC.com
A very good source of mine with good connections to Apple’s Asian manufacturing partners called me this morning with some news: Seems like Apple will be making headlines in the next few weeks and months with some of its hottest products: the iPod Touch, the iPhone [...]

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HP’s Cultural Revolution — Business Week
To pick up the pace of innovation, the tech giant is betting on startups and injecting their DNA into its operations
At Hewlett-Packard’s (HPQ) Page Mill Road complex in Palo Alto, Calif., in the basement beneath the meticulously preserved offices of founders William Hewlett and David Packard, is a cavernous room [...]

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