DVD Battle Heats Up

There's a lot of anticipation in my living room as the Astros are so very close to the World Series. In fact, if you're reading this and we're not in the World Series then life just sucks. Anyway, HP is being a pretty reasonable party in the conflict over the best next-gen DVD standard. They're making it known that they will pull support from the Blu-ray if the technology doesn't support mandatory managed copy (for use on home networks) and iHD (supposedly to allow interactivity in Windows Vista). What's the response? Still no comment. Doesn't that sound kind of disturbing? They're not purposely not commenting, but they're not being as decisive as they should be. I think that HP's stake makes complete sense. I don't know how important iHD is, but if that capability really takes off it could mean the end of Blu-ray. So why wouldn't they comply? Maybe they want to just stay the course, or maybe there's a cost issue, or maybe they have conflicting interests. One research group is already putting Blu-ray ahead of HD-DVD, but this mandatory managed copy thing has been an issue for at least a week. Can Sony handle the heat?

We have another relatively slow day in tech today. Apple made another announcement this week: they're unveiling a new line of PowerMac G5s featuring dual core processors for the first time and an improved series of PowerBooks. Apple makes some damned sexy laptops, and you can get a surprising amount of power for under $2000. Some people are still recuperating from the new iPod, and WSJ has conducted a screen test to prove that it's just as good as it looks minus some accessories (like a power adapter and TV cable). Sorry to saturate you with so much about it, but I keep seeing good articles. Firefox has finally reached 100 million downloads, which is a huge deal and will go down in history as the first browser to pose a serious threat to IE. And lastly, I just couldn't resist showing you this cartoon that Absath drew over at Ctrl-Alt-Del:



Saw II is surprisingly shaping up to be a good movie. AICN has a very positive review of the horror flick and Yahoo! Movies has an exclusive clip to boot. If you want to look into a promising thriller you should watch the trailer for Derailed showing Jennifer Aniston in her first serious role like ever. IGN spoke with Ralph Fiennes, who will playing Lord Voldemort in the fourth Harry Potter movie and it sounds like it'll be a real interesting take on the character. All I have left for you are pictures. There are some new shots from Pirates of the Caribbean 2 and they're actually in great resolution. JoBlo acquired some really high quality pictures from The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe that are worth a look for fantasy fans.

Now for the Wednesday Mind Hump:

1. What are some of the dorkiest clothes or outfits you've worn?
Those mostly belong to elementary school when my mom dressed me. They were just retro outfits because they were hand-me-downs from my brother (who's almost 8 years older so you can imagine the fashion gap).

2. Are there any current fashion styles you think are especially dorky, or just downright embarrassing?
I find the popped collar to be hilarious. Why do people think that actually looks good? And I don't mind pink on guys, but some guys wear too much of it or they wear a really girly shade of it. Ok, we get in, you're confident in your sexuality just spare my eyes please.

3. What would I have to give you or do for you to make you wear the DORKIEST outfit you can think of, in public, for an entire day?
Tuition for a year would be nice ;)