Palm's hotly anticipated Pre is set to go on sale in the first week of June. The smartphone, which has multi-touch capabilities like the iPhone, is expected to make Palm a notable competitor to Apple and Research in Motion. Unfortunately for Palm, Apple's Worldwide Developers Conference is also set for the first week of June, with rumors that the company will introduce both a new operating system for the iPhone and a new, cheaper iPhone.
Time Warner Cable will discontinue HDNet channels at the end of the month. TWC said the Mark Cuban owned channels, some of the first to air content in high defintion, are no longer necessary as more than 100 HD channels are already available from the service. HDNet had been available to TWC customers as a premium channel for an additional $8.99 a month, depending on your market.
Unity Semiconductor has unveiled a new type of memory chip that may be four times as dense as current technology NAND chips. Dubbed, NAND Flash, the company says it will make a 64 Gig memory chip by 2011. The technology is new and interesting, and it holds a lot of promise, but, to quote Jim Handy, "the memory game is always about cost."
Google took a 64% of search queries for the quarter, according to comScore. The search giant continues to grow, up 3% over last month. With Yahoo taking 20%, sources say that Microsoft is using its cash bundle to purchase search start-ups.
ABC, CBS and Fox each announced their lineups for the Fall yesterday. NBC and the CW are set to unveil their lineups this week. How will the upfront market be? Some say it could be down as much as 25%, giving credence to the saying that "-5 is the new +10."
Shelly Palmer is a consultant and the host of MediaBytes with Shelly Palmer a daily show featuring news you can use about technology, media & entertainment. He is Managing Director of Advanced Media Ventures Group LLC and the author of Television Disrupted: The Transition from Network to Networked TV (2008, York House Press) and the upcoming, Get Digital: Reinventing Yourself and Your Career for the 21st Century Economy (2009, Lake House Press). Shelly is also President of the National Academy of Television Arts & Sciences, NY (the organization that bestows the coveted Emmy Awards). You can join the MediaBytes mailing list here. Shelly can be reached at shelly@palmer.net For information about Get Digital Classes, visit www.shellypalmer.com/seminars