rsax writes “Bell Canada recently announced that it is launching a downloadable video store just as it is caught up in a government inquiry into its traffic-shaping practices. Some think about this a conflict of interest since several content providers were in the process of distributing Television shows using P2P technology before the Bell throttling issue started getting media coverage. Bell’s FAQ says that it isn’t available for Mac users right now (and not Linux either of course) because they’re using Windows Media DRM. They do, however, invite feedback on their site.”

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

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New10k writes “The US District Court in Seattle has rejected Autodesk’s myriad arguments regarding its software licenses and found in favor of eBay seller Timothy S. Vernor. The ruling started by ruling that Vernor was within his rights to resell copies of AutoCAD Release 14 he got in an auction. Once the court settled the legitimacy of reselling, it used that ruling as a lens to dismiss all of Autodesk’s various claims. More than once the court described Autodesk’s arguments as ’specious’ and ‘conflicted.’” Autodesk managed to have Vernor’s eBay account pulled, after he listed for sale duplicates of AutoCad 14. He sued Autodesk in response.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

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OrochimaruVoldemort writes “It seems as though LifeLock isn’t as secure as Todd Davis makes it out. According to a LifeLock spokesman, his identity has been stolen. For two years, Davis has been daring hackers to steal his ID. Looks like he got what he wanted. CNN reports: ‘Now, LifeLock customers in Maryland, New Jersey and West Virginia are suing Davis, claiming his service didn’t work as promised and he knew it wouldn’t, because the service had failed even him.’”

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

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Filed under: Windows, Macintosh, Linux, Office, Productivity, Web services, Commercial, Freeware

Fans of 37signal’s on the web task management and information gathering tool Backpack will be excited to hear about the tool’s latest addition, a Journal page.

Backpack recently underwent a major update that moved the tool from a single-user focus to a tool intended to grant teams that are working together to keep information organized. The new Journal function continues the tool’s move to more of a team focus, which is both exciting and a little frustrating. While none of the functionality that makes Backpack a good tool for individuals has been lost, it’s disappointing to see 37signals lose their focus with respect to Backpack. Considering they already have three team-focused products (Basecamp, Highrise, and Campfire) it would have been nice for Backpack to have remained focused on individual productivity.

Thought aside, the new Journal functionality grants teams to keep tabs on what each other are up to. There are two main elements. The first is the current status field, which can be thought of much like a private Twitter or Facebook status update. You use this field to tell everyone what you’re currently doing. The second field allows you to enter what you’ve just completed, and these items are logged. This grants you to see what your team members are currently busy with, and what they’ve recently accomplished.

It seems to us that this might seem a little too much like huge brother looking over your shoulder, but on the other hand nearly all jobs require some sort of record-keeping for your time. Is this a feature you could see yourself using? Why or why not?

If you’re still not quite sure what to make of this, a video demonstration of the new Journal page is available.

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Filed under: Internet, Web services, Social Software, web 2.0

Iterasi, a bookmarking toolbar and web service we first mentioned in January, is now expanding its private beta. If you visit the site to sign up for an account this day, there’s a good chance you’ll be let in nearly immediately. At least that was our experience. Your results may vary.

So what’s iterasi? It would be simple to dismiss the service as yet another bookmarking tool. You add a toolbar to your browser and you can tag and save pages to your account, which you can then access from any browser. But unlike similar services like del.icio.us, iterasi saves dynamic content. In other words, you can “notarize” a page like Download Squad, and the service will take a snapshot of the page as it looked the day you saved it. You can also use the service to save a copy of a custom Google Map, or take a snapshot of today’s cover of the New York Times.

And since iterasi saves a snapshot of a page and not just a link, you can actually share the page as you saw it with other users thanks to some embed code.

Iterasi currently only supports Firefox 2 and Internet Explorer 7. Firefox 3 support is coming soon.

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Filed under: World wide web, Productivity, Web services, Social Software, web 2.0

How many of you subscribe to an RSS feed because you liked one post you read? Raise your hands please. No, seriously, raise your hands please. Now how many of you stay subscribed to that feed because you’re either too lazy to unsubscribe, don’t know how to unsubscribe, or don’t want to hurt the bloggers’ feelings by unsubscribing? Us too.

NewsGator is coming to our rescue!

Starting today, NewsGator, NetNewsWire, and FeedDemon will start recommending stories and feeds for you to read and subscribe to.

Using some Harry Potter magic sauce from a company called SenseArray, NewsGator will begin showing showing you recommendations based on things that other people think are interesting. Hooray!

What’s the catch? Well, to make this technology smarter, you’ll have to interact with your feeds a little. That’s OK. We know that the earth isn’t run by Terminators machines…yet. Right now, SenseArray’s technology uses forward and share numbers, as well as tags and comment data to compute what might interest you. You’ll be able to thumbs up and thumbs down stories to customize the experience though, so no worries. Rage against the machine, y’all!

Soon, NewsGator hopes to accurately predict your tastes, even before you know what your tastes are.

It looks like the company is also hoping to help us deal with our severe information overload (the 3% of us junkies) by letting us unsubscribe to those dormant feeds that we don’t like anymore and keep us up to date with the Right Stuff. The stuff we’ll actually, you know…read?

Oh, and no worries, it’s not just for the geeks. Their new recommendation service will cover Top News, Entertainment, Sports, Fun Stuff, Science and Technology. While we’re not sure what “Fun Stuff” actually is, we’ll wait for T2 to recommend something.

Oh and please feel free to subscribe to the Downloadsquad feed. We’re humans.

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Filed under: Internet, Web services, Social Software, web 2.0

Not everyone can expect companies like Comcast to reach out and touch them every time they complain about poor service over Twitter. But thanks to Get Satisfaction’s new Overheard service, there’s a superior chance that you will receive a response next time you begin bitching on Twitter about companies like eBay, Seesmic, or even Twitter itself.

Here’s how it works. Get Satisfaction is a community site that connects companies to customers in need of support. You could already login to Get Satisfaction and leave comments or complaints. And representatives from the companies you were speaking about can respond.

Now Get Satisfaction has launched a service called Overheard that uses Twitter search engine Summize to find out when people are talking about companies on Twitter. Those Twitter messages are posted to Get Satisfaction, an when a company employee, another customer, or anyone else responds, Get Satisfaction will send a tweet letting you know about the response.

So there’s no guarantee that someone will turn your cable Television service back on if it gets shut off inadvertently just because you start complaining on Twitter. But now you know someone might be listening. Or you could just pick up the phone and call the customer service number. But seriously, who does that anymore?

[via VentureBeat]

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Filed under: Products and services, Competitive strategy, Microsoft (MSFT), Viacom (VIA), Sony Corp ADR (SNE), Electronic Arts (ERTS), Activision Inc (ATVI)

Activision Inc. (NASDAQ: ATVI) doesn’t want to let Rock Band have all the fun. According to Reuters, Activision wants to turn its Guitar Hero platform into a truly direct competitor to its colleague. Come the fall, the publisher will release Guitar Hero World Tour, a package that’ll include a guitar, a microphone, and a drum set. There will be on the internet capability; players will also be able to create their own tunes via a suite of digital-music tools. And all the major platforms from Sony Corporation (ADR) (NYSE: SNE), Microsoft Corporation (NASDAQ: MSFT), and Nintendo Co., Ltd. (OTC: NTDOY) will be getting this game.

Rock Band, which is developed by Viacom, Inc. (NYSE: VIA)’s Harmonix and sold by Electronic Arts (NASDAQ: ERTS), is no longer one-of-a-kind now that Activision has expanded the depth of its famous brand. Indeed, Guitar Hero still thrived even in the face of Viacom’s music game, but it looks like Activision is taking no chances; the publisher obviously realizes that, as time goes on and upgrades to Rock Band come along, the Guitar Hero franchise might see eventual erosion of its fan base as the fad matures. Evolution would certainly be justified at this point.

Yet, I am of two minds about this move. On the one side, I can comprehend why this had to be done. And I can see why it should work out; after all, Activision’s brand equity when it comes to this Guitar Hero game is incredible. Seriously, if you don’t know, a lot of players out there, both hardcore and casual, love this platform. However, there’s another side to me that wonders if traditionalists won’t necessarily enjoy the aspect of the additional instruments. Do they add value, or do they now make the brand seem clunky and complicated? On a gut level, I always theorized that those who chose Guitar Hero over Rock Band relished the fact that it was just one guitar. Then again, going back to the brand-equity thing, maybe current players will now want to try out a more complex musical-gaming experience since the Guitar Hero name is attached.

There’s another thing that bothers me, too, and this is strictly an anecdotal, of-the-gut worry that’ll probably have no bearing at all on the potential for success of this new Guitar Hero initiative (but I’ll mention it anyway). In my area, there definitely is still way more buzz for Guitar Hero than there’s for Rock Band. Stores around me see some of the latter collecting dust outside of the holiday-selling season, unless there’s a sale going on to push the package. Will this happen to Guitar Hero World Tour? It will certainly sport a higher price, so, when Christmas is over, will demand go down? If so, will this hurt the appeal of the traditional game?

Again, that’s my own biased observation, and it is not to be taken scientifically. Obviously, I realize that Rock Band is a big game and has been a major driver for Viacom. What would be great, however, is if Activision played this really smart and concentrated on the expanded Guitar Hero during the Christmas season and gave it a rest during other times of the year, focusing at those periods on its traditional Guitar Hero brand.

No matter what, though, I do find this exciting as an Activision shareholder. So long as it doesn’t do anything to dilute the brand, I’m all for it (remember, folks, Guitar Hero is a major reason for the success of Activision’s stock, and any changes to this flagship product should not be taken lightly). Owners of PlayStation 2 and 3, Xbox 360, and Nintendo Wii, look out, because Activision will be rocking you yet again…

Disclosure: I own shares of Activision; positions can change at any time.

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Filed under: International markets, Products and services, Annual meetings, Competitive strategy, Economic data, Oil

In case you haven’t noticed it, oil prices are surging, and the impact of these high prices isn’t going unfelt by the major airlines. This day, Europe’s largest airline, Air France-KLM, said what most of us already knew… it’s not going to be a pretty year for the company’s bottom line.

During its fiscal fourth quarter the airline swung to a loss of $853.81 million. During the same period last year the company was able to show a profit of $44 million.

The current surge in oil prices (which hit $135 earlier this day), definitely played a role in the weak quarter, but weren’t the main culprit in the hefty loss. Most of the loss was due to $834 million after-tax provision due to a European and U.S. investigation into the air-cargo industry.

While the airline predicts that its 2008 fiscal year will be challenging, it is expecting to show an operating profit of $1.5 billion. While this is well below its 2007 operating profit (operating profit = earnings from ongoing operations) of $2.21 billion, it is still respectable given the current marketplace, and shows that the company has been better than most airlines at dealing with the rising costs of keeping their planes in the air. It noted that its annual fuel bill increased by 7.4% to $7.2 billion.

While current oil prices are definitely having an impact on the company’s bottom line, in the end the airline could actually emerge as a strong player as a result. Andrew Lobbenberg, an analyst with ABN Amro, noted that the current economic situation is going to weed out the smaller players, and in the end, more massive carriers like Air France are going to end up with a higher market share than they had before oil prices starting shooting to the moon. The only question is, what damage is going to be done between now and then.

Michael Fowlkes has worked as a stock trader for seven years and spent the last four years working as an analyst for the on the internet investment advisory service Investor’s Observer.

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Filed under: Before the bell, Major movement, Forecasts, Bad news, Products and services, Competitive strategy, Technology

Shares of video game retailer Gamestop Corp (NYSE: GME) are getting shot down over 10% in premarket trading despite the company’s record first quarter earnings.

So let’s take a look at the numbers. Earnings per share came in at 37 cents for the quarter, two cents above the 35 cents that analysts had been anticipating to see. At 37 cents per share, the company showed a pretty remarkable 151.4% earnings growth from the same period last year.

Revenue figures were also very respectable for the company, with a reported $1.813 billion (a 41.8% year over year increase), and well above the $1.72 billion estimate. Same-store sales got a boost of 27.1%, and if you take a look at new videogame software growth, that figure is an breathtaking 72%.

So far so good. Reading the above paragraphs you might wonder why the stock is getting so beaten up this morning. Well, the answer comes in the company’s Q2 and full year forecasts. Even here, the numbers are not that bad. Wall Street had been hoping to see the company show forecast of 26 cents a share for the second quarter, and Gamestop forecast in-line estimates of 26 to 28 cents. During the current quarter, the company estimates that same-store sales will grow by 12% to 14%, much lower than the 27% it had in the first quarter, but still pretty respectable.

The full year forecast is what’s really causing the stock trouble. The company raised its full year EPS forecast to $2.30 to $2.39, but that low end is slightly under the $2.33 that Wall Street was hoping to see.

So basically what we are seeing here’s a record quarter, with some really nice numbers, but a full year forecast that was just not enough to get Wall Street enthused about the stock.

Look for the stock to open lower, but do not be surprised if you see some bargain hunters coming in later in the morning and into the afternoon to push the stock back up by the end of the day.

Disclosure: Mr. Fowlkes holds a long position in GME

Michael Fowlkes has worked as a stock trader for seven years and spent the last four years working as an analyst for the on the web investment advisory service Investor’s Observer.

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