Just hours after Dell announced its revised offer to acquire memory company 3PAR for .6 billion, HP announced a new counter-offer for .8 billion.
HP’s last counter-offer caused Dell to raise its bid by a little under 34%, the most recent offer raises it by another 11%.
Network hardware company Netgear has taken the wraps off of a new set-top media player called the NeoTV 550 Ultimate HD, which will go on sale in North America this October for 0.
Betanews first started paying attention to Netgear’s set-top boxes in 2009, when it first unveiled a BitTorrent-enabled box called Digital Entertainer Live EVA2000. That device, while useful for connecting devices within the home network to the user’s television, was only capable of 720p output, and had only moderate support for streaming video services. It received pretty mediocre reviews, and didn’t stand out tremendously from the crowd of similar products from Netgear’s competitors.
Popular social link-sharing and bookmarking site Digg on Wednesday made its new, redesigned site available to all users after testing in an invitation-only mode for roughly four months.
In an age where just about anything is shared on Facebook, employers have turned to it and other social networking sites to ensure its employee’s behavior is on the up and up. In Germany, that practice may become illegal.
German news outlets are reporting that Interior Minister Thomas de Maizière is working on new privacy legislation that would outlaw corporate snooping on social networking profiles. It would restrict the amount of information that current as well as prospective employers could gather and use.
Apple is in ‘advanced’ talks with News Corp, parent company of the Fox broadcasting network, over letting consumers rent its TV shows for 99 cents, Bloomberg has reported. CBS, NBC Universal, and Walt Disney, which owns ABC, are also said to be participating in those talks.
While the focus is expected to be how the new shows add entertainment options to Apple’s preexisting line of products, the company is also likely to introduce the second generation of its AppleTV product. That would likely come with a smaller hard drive and a price point, sources told the news service.
TiVo today has finally launched the full QWERTY TiVo Slide Remote control. The remote was extensively demonstrated at the TiVO Premiere launch in March.
“This is the first ever DVR remote with a full QWERTY keyboard, and we are certain that users will be excited to get their thumbs on it. The slick design has the same fun look of the classic TiVo remote, but makes it even easier to get more from your TV experience,” Jim Denney, vice president and general manager of product marketing for TiVo said today.
Halo: Reach, a prequel to Microsoft’s billion-dollar Halo first person shooter series was scheduled to launch on September 14 worldwide, but a pre-release version of the game leaked early and has found its way across the Web.
The title, however, wasn’t kept under tight lock and key.
PocketGear, the cross-platform mobile application retailer which acquired mobile app store Handango earlier this year, has closed a round of series B funding, which earned the company fifteen million dollars.
The round of funding was led by Trident Capital, and included investments from BlackBerry Partners Fund, and Google CEO Eric Schmidt’s TomorrowVentures LLC.
While much of the focus has been on Google and Verizon when it comes to net neutrality as of late, the Wall Street Journal has reported that lobbyists began a new set of talks among a much wider group on Wednesday.
The Information Technology Industry Council is a lobbying firm which represents dozens of companies, including Apple, AOL, Cisco, HP, Microsoft, Nokia, and RIM among others. Reports indicate Microsoft is in attendance as is Cisco. AT&T and Verizon are also involved in the negotiations, but Google is not.
By Joe Wilcox, Betanews
The answer to the question depends on how iPad is classified and how the shipments add up combined with Macs. Is iPad a PC, like Windows tablets or low-powered netbooks? The definition is sure to generate controversy because of what’s at stake — which manufacturer is market share leader in the United States.
