Stories about: Blockbuster

Well, we blew it a year ago on the prediction that last month's US presidential election would lead to historic turnout -- it didn't quite hit that mark -- and unprecedented problems with e-voting systems. The problems, it turns out, were for the most part precedented. On the positive side, we nailed the result, forecasting the election of Barack Obama. Not inclined to rest on that laurel (and a few others we also accurately foretold), we've set forth again to find out what industry analysts are forecasting for 2009, and we've talked to sources as well as to our geekiest friends and colleagues to come up with our own set of predictions for 2009.

DRAM makers are facing one of the worst downturns in their history and governments around the world are lining up to help companies through the mess.

Microsoft's answer to Adobe Flash and Flex and several other RIA (rich Internet application) and AJAX frameworks, Silverlight arrived with a flourish just over one year ago. Silverlight 1.0 manipulated its multimedia-savvy, WPF (Windows Presentation Foundation) user interface using JavaScript. Silverlight 1.1, which added support for compiled .Net languages and supported more of the .Net API, was available at that time only as an alpha test.

As Microsoft releases its Silverlight 2.0 media player tomorrow, it is claiming strong momentum for its free, would-be Adobe Flash-killer.

The 13th annual Tokyo Game Show opened at Makuhari Messe just outside of Tokyo Thursday morning with a record number of game titles on display from a record number of exhibitors.

A group of technology and entertainment heavyweights is undertaking a public relations campaign to dissuade consumers from illegal file sharing, something the group calls "net pollution."

Intel and Yahoo have partnered in the development of a hardware and software platform designed to meld television and the Internet.

Adware company Zango profits from copyright infringement, a Harvard researcher charged Monday, after the company claimed that sites serving up links to pirated movies were operating within its rules when they pressed users to install its software.

Google for the past three years has been allowing its employees to place bets on various questions like if a new Google office will open on time or if a new product will ship on time. The company, which had logged 80,000 bets through March, is aiming to use this method of gathering opinions from employees -- a method often called crowdsourcing through the use of prediction markets technology -- to better gauge their employees' real opinions. And Google has found that its employee bets are usually right.

No one will deny the global celebrity of Angelina Jolie. She's on the cover of magazines, stars in blockbuster movies and is a ratings bonanza each time she appears on TV. Now that she's had twins, she's got triple the appeal for some fans.

OK, it's not perfect. But Windows Vista on a new PC is perfectly serviceable for many users. In some ways, in fact, Vista is a better operating system than Windows XP. Unfortunately, XP's heir apparent is also the most derided and discounted Microsoft operating system since Windows Me.