Playboy has decided to stop physical sales of DVDs and instead focus on digital distribution.

In a move expected to save the company an estimated $12 million per year, Reuters reports that the Playboy announced the decision to distribute content online in a recent regulatory filing.

Playboy spokesperson Martha Lindeman said the DVD business was accounted for on the company’s earnings statements under "Other," together with Playboy radio and its Alta Loma production company. In the first half of 2008 Playboy Inc. saw that line item drop by half a million dollars compared to that period in 2007.

Digital distribution is something that’s becoming increasingly popular among musicians; however this is one of the first high profile switches to online distribution we’ve seen in the adult movie business. It’s certainly interesting given the impact experts expected the adult industry’s position on Blu-ray and HD DVD to have on the consumer market.

The adult industry played a huge part in the format war between VHS and Betamax. While longer recording times and affordability for VHS were a sizable factor in higher consumer adoption of the format towards the end of the VCR era, the porn industry initially flooded the marketplace with scores of adult movies on VHS, leading many people to purchase VHS-compatible VCRs.

Playboy said the move to ditch DVDs will mean a reduction in staff amounting to 80 employees and cost the company $2 million in restructuring charges.

Read more on Reuters.

Panasonic announced pricing for its new Lumix G1 camera, which is the world’s first camera to use the Micro Four Thirds system.

Available in mid-November, the suggested retail price of the new Panasonic Lumix G1 will be $799.95, which includes the Lumix G Vario 14-45mm(28-90mm eq.)/F3.5-5.6 ASPH/MEGA O.I.S kit lens. The Lumix G vario 45-200mm/F4.0-5.6/MEGA O.I.S. Micro Four Thirds telephoto lens will also be available in November with a suggested retail price of $349.95.

The Lumix G1 will be available in black, blue and red models, making it not only the world’s first Micro Four Thirds system camera, but also the first interchangeable lens camera to offer consumers a choice of colors. The Lumix G1 is a rather small camera, compared to a typical DSLR camera that is, and it functions similarly to a consumer compact camera. The design and function of the Lumix G1 will likely appeal to those such as soccer moms, as well as enthusiasts who are intimidated by the size and complexity of DSLRs.

The Lumix G1 features a resolution of 12.1-megapixels and it comes equipped with a useful 3.0-inch articulated LCD display. The Lumix G1 also sports a high-resolution electronic viewfinder with 800 x 600 pixel resolution, which has been given good reviews. The camera has an ISO range of 100 to 3200, a shutter range of 60 to 1/4000 and a max aperature of 3.5. The camera uses SDHC/SD memory, a custom LiIon battery and the body weighs just 13.6-ounces.

The Micro Four Thirds standard by Panasonic and Olympus was designed to reduce the size and weight of interchangeable lens cameras by not including a mirror box in the design. This not only allows the camera body to be made smaller, but the lenses can be made smaller too. An adapter ring can be used to allow Standard Four Third lenses to still be used. However, disadvantages of the new system include that there is no way to include a through-the-lens optical viewfinder anymore and that the camera is limited to contrast detection autofocus. The overall result is a smaller and lighter camera that functions more like a consumer compact camera than a traditional DSLR.

Gmail has always had a fair reputation as a mail service, however the last few months have seen a few outages for Gmail users, some of them lasting several days. Unfortunately, this week’s outage in service seems no different.

According to ComputerWorld, at 5 p.m. Wednesday, Google informed users via the Google Apps discussion forum of a problem preventing users from logging into their accounts. The company said that it expected a solution to the problem by 9 p.m. on Thursday.

While Google offered no reason as to why Gmail and Google Apps users were experiencing the problems, users reported that they were seeing a 502 error when trying to log in. Something that Gmail users are all too familiar with from August’s outages.

In that instance the company blogged about the problem once everything was under control and back up and running. However, while the post was very reassuring, it offered very little information on what caused the outages/502 errors in the first place.

“We’ve identified the source of this issue and fixed it. In addition, as with all issues that affect Gmail and our other services, we’re conducting a full review of what went wrong and moving quickly to update our internal systems and procedures accordingly. We don’t usually post about problems like this on our blog, but we wanted to make an exception in this case since so many people were impacted.”

Having moved quickly to update the internal systems and procedures, we’d assume two months down the line any updates would be complete and so, users should not be experiencing the same problems. Google said this morning that problem had been resolved, although that is what it said last time.

With little news about ongoing talks between Google and the U.S. Department of Justice regarding a proposed deal with Yahoo!, it seems the search giant is asking its advertisers to stand up for the deal.

TechCrunch received word from a reader called Darren who works with a company that spends a significant amount of money on AdWords. Darren said that one of Google’s attorneys contacted him about making a positive public statement about the Yahoogle deal.

“I received a voicemail from an attorney representing Google yesterday so of course I called back (voicemail attached). We spend about 100K a month on AdWords so we’d apparently been targeted because of that. He was looking for large advertisers who use both Google and Yahoo (we do) who would be willing to provide public testimonials in support of outsourcing Yahoo’s search ads to Google. I told him I’m a free-market competition kind of guy so he tried to address my concerns for about 15 minutes and then called it quits.”

The Yahoo/Google ad deal was, according to Google’s CEO, designed to meet government regulations. However, the deal has been on the table for months now and all the while the DOJ has been conducting it’s antitrust investigation. While competitors were worried the deal would create a monopoly, Google insisted the partnership would go ahead in October as planned. Now that the deal is no longer in the pipeline (pending talks with the DOJ), the competition is breathing a little easier. However, not all advertisers will be as diplomatic as Darren and if Google can get them to make enough of a racket, it might be enough to sway the DOJ.

For a recording of the voicemail from Google’s attorney, click through to TechCrunch.

(Via TechCrunch)

Apparently, a lawsuit against Microsoft exists in the Sacramento County Superior Court, alleging that an excessive number of Xbox 360 consoles have failed.

According to Dailygamesnews.com, the lawsuit also alleges that Microsoft purposely concealed the excessive failure rate in fear of losing its competitive edge over the imminent launch of both PlayStation 3 and Nintendo Wii consoles. If found guilty, Microsoft will have to publicly launch a refund program in California as well as disgorge all profits attributable to its sale of the Xbox 360.

Unfortunately, there are many factors weighing against the company while it faces a class action lawsuit. The lawsuit cites many recent articles published by websites and magazines that report on Microsoft’s knowledge of the hardware problems facing over 50% of the initial Xbox 360 consoles. Apparently, the company knew about the problem as far back as November 2005.

Although the Xbox 360 console’s financial success rate seems to contradict the company’s technical issues with its hardware, it’s generally believed to be the least reliable gaming console in this decade, perhaps overall. DailyTech spoke with a former EB Games employee during the console’s launch, discovering that 30% of its stock was defective. "The real numbers were between 30 to 33 percent,” said the former EB Games employee, adding that failure rate was even greater for launch consoles. “We had 35 Xbox 360s at launch. I know more than half of them broke within the first six months (red lights or making circles under the game discs). Two of them were dead on arrival.”

In turn, Microsoft extended the console’s warranty to three years instead of the typical one, specifically for cases of the dreaded "Red Ring of Death" (technically called General Hardware Failure). Initially the warranty covered the consoles manufactured in 2005, however that plan has extended to consoles built within the last year. Since the console’s initial release, Microsoft has steadily worked on improving the hardware, most notably implementing a new 2nd heatsink/pipe technology to provide additional cooling for the Xenos GPU.

The recent lawsuit is not the first Microsoft has had to face in regards to the Xbox 360. One consumer filed a class action lawsuit against Microsoft last year in Fort Lauderdale, Florida. Rather than complaining about hardware failure, this lawsuit focused on the damage to game disks caused by the console’s drive, another problem the Xbox 360 has endured since it’s initial launch. The lawsuit claimed that the console was "negligently designed and manufactured in that the Console’s laser disc reading assembly contacts and scratches the video game discs during normal and intended operation and use." Another consumer filed a class action lawsuit in November 2006, claiming that an update patch "bricked" his Xbox 360 console, seeking over $5 million in damages and to force Microsoft to repair all damaged consoles for free.

As of now, the failure rate has dropped significantly thanks to a redesigning of the motherboard and the new falcon 65nm chip. Currently Xbox 360 models -from Arcade to Elite- should feature the redesigned hardware with a failure rate now below 15%. Still, console errors are not uncommon, as many consumers still endure video errors, hard drive failures, or other technical issues associated with one red light flashing. Those outstanding problems may hinder Microsoft’s defense even though the overall statistics show improvement over the 1st generation of consoles.

The thought of a wireless provider having the ability to remotely uninstall software from mobile phones is frightening, and that’s just what Android’s "Kill Switch" enables.

But as The Washington Post reports, that actually may be a good thing. While Google’s first Android phone - the T-Mobile G1 - invites developers to create a plethora of applications for users to download and install, some of those programs may have malicious intent and wreak havoc on mobile phones. The kill switch allows T-Mobile/Google to go in and uninstall the software, as it violates Google’s developer distribution agreement.

"While we encourage that community aspect, we are also very careful with the safety and security of the user," Google spokesperson told the Washington Post. "In limited cases where an application has a malicious intent, we will remove it from the Market and potentially uninstall it from user devices to ensure the safety of the Android Market community."

Google says it retains the right to remove the malicious software from the Android phone at its discretion; unlike Apple, the company hasn’t hidden this fact whatsoever. Google claims that it will even attempt to refund the infected consumer’s money. But many consumers may consider the kill switch as an invasion of privacy. After all, Microsoft doesn’t swoop in and uninstall viruses from infected copies of Windows XP and Vista; why should things be any different on a mobile phone?

That question cannot be answered for now, however Google’s intent is to keep the Android Market safe for consumers to download and install anything and everything safely. But because the Android Market is an open platform, and Google doesn’t inspect and moderate every release in the same restrictive form as Apple’s iPhone App Store, the potential for network-wide damage could be astronomical.

Recently Apple came under fire for its iPhone after a hacker discovered that Apple’s mobile phone features a hidden kill switch (or rather an application blacklist). Upon speaking with the Wall Street Journal, Apple’s Steve Jobs confirmed it to be true: there is such a feature on the iPhone. However, Jobs insisted that the backdoor access existed in case a malicious program tried to steal the user’s personal information and distribute it across the App Store.

"Hopefully we never have to pull that lever, but we would be irresponsible not to have a lever like that to pull," he told the paper.

Both Google and Apple have valid reasons for implementing a kill switch into their phones. But the thought that these secret accesses can be compromised is just as frightening as the implication that Google, T-Mobile and Apple can uninstall software remotely without warning or prior permission. Who’s to say that malevolent individuals employed by either companies won’t decide to take a peek at your personal info. There are no guarantees. Consumers will have to rely on faith alone that said companies have their customers’ best intentions at heart, not their wallets.

Users of Adobe’s Creative Suite 4 will finally get huge performance boost while manipulating video thanks to Nvidia’s new Quadro CX GPU.

The catch is that the Quadro CX costs a whopping $1,999, but the hefty pricetag just might be worth it. The PCIe card comes packed with 1.5GB GDDR3 memory and bandwidth up to 76.8 GBps, NVIDIA ’s CUDA Parallel Computing Processor, a 384-bit memory interface, Shader Model 4.0, support for DirectX 10, and duel DisplayPort connectors. The card’s maximum display resolution at 60Hz is a sharp and crisp 2560x1600.

Does that sound like a lot of horsepower for Photoshop and Premiere Pro? There’s never too much power when manipulating hi-res artwork and video. “A critical element of CS4 was to capture the enormous power of the GPU,” said John Loiacono, senior vice president of Creative Solutions at Adobe. “The difference is astounding. Performance is important to creative professionals and with the NVIDIA GPU, they are assured to be able to interact with images and videos in a much faster, smoother, more engaging way.”

With CS4, the software will natively support the Quadro processor and use its parallel processing capability to speed up visually intensive operations. For Photoshop, the processor will enable real-time image rotation, zooming and panning. NVIDIA also said that Photoshop CS4 will utilize its processing power for 2D and 3D compositing and high-quality antialiasing. After Effects CS4 will feature effects accelerated by the NVIDIA GPU including depth of field, bilateral blur effects, cartoon effects and turbulent noise. Premier Pro CS4 will take advantage of the NVIDIA processor by enabling faster editing of multiple high-definition video streams and more.

The announcement of NVIDIA ’s Quadro CX and Adobe’s native support within the CS4 software comes at the heels of Apple’s recent statement that the company will be using NVIDIA ’s 9400M chipset in the latest Macbook and Macbook Pro. As Apple and Adobe go together like peanut butter and jelly in a sandwich, it comes as no surprise that both would find an equal interest in the GPU giant.

“The GPU being a central ingredient of Adobe Creative Suite 4 is a monumental milestone in the computer industry. Adobe is the recognized leader in revolutionary content tools and this marks the beginning of the GPU accelerated creative revolution,” said Dan Vivoli, executive vice president of marketing for NVIDIA. “We are honored to have been able to work so closely with the talented engineers at Adobe to help them take their world renowned suite to the next level.”

And while the Quadro CX announcement seemed geared towards the graphic arts industry, one must question as to how this card would fair when used in a gaming environment. After all, all work and no play makes Johnny a dull boy... or at least that’s what Jack Nicholson said in The Shinning.

For consumers who can’t shell out an extra two grand from their wallets, Adobe says that CS4 will natively support all NVIDIA GPUs.

Although not officially confirmed, the Dell support pages recently started displaying the Inspiron Mini 12 (1210) – strongly hinting that a 12-inch netbook is on the way from Dell.

The Inspiron 1210 support page contains all the material found on current shipping products. Things such as the User Manual, Setup Guide, Troubleshooting documents, the list goes on. Within the setup guide you can find a list of basic system specifications.

Apparently you get your choice between the Intel Atom Z520 and the Z530 CPU coupled with a stock amount of 1GB of DDR2 RAM, 10/100 ethernet, Bluetooth & WiFi, optional WWAN, three USB 2.0 ports, VGA output, audio in/out, 1.3-megapixel camera, and a 12.1-inch display with a resolution of 1280 x 800. 3- or 6-cell batteries appears to be options as well, which is a real big bonus over other netbook offerings – many of which still ship with a 3-cell.

The unit weight comes in at 2.73-pounds – which is quite impressive based on the fact that it’s a 12.1-inch unit. We assume the posted weight is based on the use of a 3-cell battery, you can expect slightly more weight with a 6-cell, naturally. There also appears to be no indication if the unit will ship with standard mechanical hard drives or solid state drives. Knowing Dell, the option for either will be present if/when the system goes live for order on their site.

It also looks as though Ubuntu may be an optional operating system as well, for those Linux people out there – there is no word on pricing, and no indication that the unit will cost less if available/purchased with Ubuntu.

You can link directly to the findings on the Dell site here. In the event the link goes down, here are some shots of what can be found there currently. Have a look around!

There’s nothing like jumping on the Spore DRM bandwagon... again.

It appears that Will Wright’s latest creation, the widely popular game Spore, can’t stay out of the negative light. Whether it’s a lawsuit filed in courts or Will Wright himself speaking out, the game has certainly made a name for itself despite positive or negative reviews. Surprisingly enough, Spore recently earned a "Breakthrough Reward" from Popular Mechanics, recognized for its achievement in design, creativity, and engineering. Unfortunately the game’s DRM plague and the super-secret software it silently installs on consumer PCs may make its achievements that much less spectacular.

Last night at the Popular Mechanics annual Breakthrough Awards ceremony in New York City, Kotaku’s Jim Reilly approached Will Wright after the event and asked about his involvement with the DRM decision-making process.

"It was something I probably should have tuned into more. It was a corporate decision to go with DRM on Spore. They had a plan and the parameters, but now we’re allowing more authentications and working with players to de-authenticate which makes it more in line like an iTunes," Wright told Reilly. "I think one of the most valid concerns about it was you could only install it so many times. For most players it’s not an issue, it’s a pretty small percentage, but some people do like wiping their hard disk and installing it 20 times or they want to play it 10 years later."

Will Wright couldn’t be more off the mark. While many gamers did complain about the installation limitations, the biggest issue was the installation of SecuRom without notifying the consumer. Thus, the anti-piracy silent infiltrates the system and cannot be removed without wiping the drive entirely. And as for the installation limitations, educated PC gamers wipe their drives on a regular basis, getting rid of junk that collects in the operating system over time. While installation limitations are understandable from a anti-piracy standpoint, in the long run, it only antagonizes the consumer, thus making them less likely to purchase a PC game in the future, but rather a console version of the same title.

So is DRM a permanent fixture in the PC gaming forecast? Will Wright had an answer for that question too. "I think it’s an interim solution to an interim problem," he told Kotaku. "You have games like Battlefield Heroes coming out where the idea is you give away the game and sell upgrades, which works more in the Asian markets where you need to monetize it over the Internet. I think we’re in this uncomfortable spot in going from what’s primarily a brink and motor shrink-wrapped product to what eventually will become more of an online monetization model."

Will going digital help prevent piracy? It’s possible. Many publishers including Electronic Arts and Atari- are already considering going totally digital. Online retail outlets such as Direct2Drive and Valve Software’s Steam have already proven that digital purchases are a lucrative business. But in the meantime, gamers will have to suffer with DRM while the industry tried to find its footing in the fight against piracy.

The unfortunate aspect about the entire DRM controversy is that Will Wright’s current game -while an honest attempt at originality and innovation- is taking the heat, and in the long run, the Spore name may turn the stomachs of legit gamers understandably sour.

You can read Tom’s Games’ review(s) of spore by heading here and here.

Hewlett-Packard is expected to release a consumer-oriented notebook with a touchscreen interface later this year.

Although the Apple iPhone has been rather successful with its touchscreen design, many other manufactures have yet to develop their own strong markets that use touchscreen technology. According to the WSJ, Hewlett-Packard will increase its focus on the touchscreen market this year in hopes of increasing its notebook sales. It is reported that by the end of the year, HP will unveil a new consumer notebook that will feature a touchscreen and special HP software that will support the touchscreen.

Although there are already HP touchscreen notebooks, such as the HP Pavilion tx1000 tablet PC, the new notebooks will be marketed much more strongly than the existing Tablet PCs. It would also seem that HP is developing its own touch interface for these new touchscreen notebooks, attempting to hide the Windows operating system that it will run on. The innovation firm Frog Design has been hired by HP to help with the project and the collaboration has already lead to the development of HP’s TouchSmart desktop.

The TouchSmart desktop has been available for some time in HP desktop PCs that feature touchscreens and a revamped version of it may be what will be included with the new touchscreen notebooks. The multi-touch interface of the TouchSmart desktop allows users to move items around, search through music albums, surf the web, resize photos and do other simple tasks.

With an expected strong marketing campaign and a well designed touchscreen interface, HP may actually do rather well with its new touchscreen devices. Apple has already successfully broken the ice in the ’touch’ market, such as with its multi-touch Macbooks and its touchscreen iPhones, possibly helping HP with its endeavor. Consumers may not be quite so scared to give HP’s upcoming touchscreen devices a try if they already feel familiar with touchscreens. We will likely hear quite a bit more about HP’s touchscreen devices at CES in January.

Also mentioned by the WSJ is the rumor that HP will be releasing a 10-inch netbook later this year. Although the netbook will not have a touchscreen, it will help HP capitalize on the the growing netbook market phenomenon. HP is also planning to release a consumer line of cellphones in the next year, which will feature touchscreens.

Unlike with the original Xbox, Microsoft decided to not ship every Xbox 360 with a hard drive. While this saddened developers, Microsoft’s decision allowed it to offer a low-cost entry into the system.

With the upcoming release of the New Xbox Experience interface for Xbox 360, slated for November, the choice to offer a barebones core system without mass storage has painted those without hard drives into a corner.

The New Xbox Experience update will give the Xbox 360 a completely redone interface that will introduce new media streaming options, avatars, game installs and other features. Such an update will require at least 128 MB of storage, leaving those without hard drives or still-roomy 256 MB or 512 MB memory units out in the cold.

Microsoft’s solution to this arrives with its Xbox 360 Memory Upgrade Program, which gives owners of the neutered consoles a discounted – or even free – storage upgrade.

Gamers may hit Microsoft’s dedicated site here to see if they are eligible for one of the following offers after submission of console ID and serial number:

1. 512 MB Memory Unit for free
2. Refurbished 20 GB Hard Drive for $19.99
3. Refurbished 20 GB Hard Drive and three months of Xbox Live Gold for $29.99

To break it down, Xbox 360 Core units, which shipped with a wired controller and no storage at all, have the choice between the first two options. The Xbox 360 Arcade units, however, are directed to the third option as the SKU already includes a 256 MB Memory Unit.

Clearly, the offer does not extend to the Premium, Pro or Elite SKUs as those packages include hard drives in 20, 60 and 120 GB models.

Taking this upgrade path into consideration, the $199.99 price point for an Xbox 360 appears to be a strong value for the mainstream gamer. Even with the memory upgrade of $30, the total price is still comfortably below that of the Nintendo Wii.

Although nothing with topple the Nintendo juggernaut this holiday season, budget conscious gamers may give Microsoft’s console addition consideration thanks to its price, expanded multimedia media capabilities and perhaps even the friendly avatars.