Even though Microsoft is making attempts to woo users to upgrade to Vista, the truth is that many more users will require a new computer to get the most out of Vista than, perhaps, has been the case with any previous version of Windows. In fact, the hardware manufacturers are salivating over the prospect of being able to sell more advanced, higher-priced computers during a time when hardware prices have fallen to record lows. According to a recent article in eWEEK Strategic Partner:

After a very long wait, many promises, and much delay...Windows Vista is finally available on retail store shelves everywhere! Ranging in price from $US99 – $US259 to upgrade from Windows 2000 or XP to Vista, it doesn't come cheap. However, there are improvements in every area, especially looks and ease-of-use.

As with previous versions of Windows, Microsoft will soon pull suppport for prior versions of Windows and all new Windows computers will come with some flavor of Vista pre-installed.

Warner Home Video filed a patent which may resolve the current battle in DVD standards between Blu-ray and HD-DVD. In addition, the solution will also be able to play current, standard DVDs.

Warner's patent is for a single disc which can store information for both Blu-ray and HD-DVD in multiple layers. Regular DVD data may be stored on the opposite side of the disc from the two high-capacity formats.

Robert Iger, CEO of The Walt Disney Company, said yesterday that Disney had sold over $1 million of movies via Apple Computer, Inc.'s iTunes service in the first week that movies have been available. Over 125,000 Disney titles were downloaded from the new component of iTunes.

The announcement, given at the Communacopia Conference sponsored by Goldman Sachs, was apparently intended to encourage ot

TransMedia announced the imminent release of a significant upgrade to its desktop-like web service, Glide Effortless. Glide 2.0 – to be released on October 3, 2006 – allows you to share and modify photos, music, movies, documents, and other files online in web applications that approximate the experience of using equivalent applications on your desktop computer.

Apple's recent announcements of iPod revamps and downloadable movies met with a favorable reaction among market analysts according to Business Week.

Apple seems to have successfully introduced relatively minor, but effective updates to its iPod/iTunes product line. This should buy them some extra time to continue working on its heavily speculated upon "true video" iPod.