JohnTyra.com

Google Caching Plan Still Net Neutral, Say Observers.

I missed this one — apparently Google is trying to setup servers (which, let’s be honest, are a dime a dozen now days) to speed up their content delivery. Key word:content, not search pages. Thus, they are probably talking about their Google Video service and things like that. Could this mean more ’services’ in the future?

AppleInsider | Reports face off over validity of $99 Wal-Mart iPhone rumor.

Interesting…just like Wal-Mart to sell everything cheaper!

AT&T to cut 12,000 jobs and slash spending | Reuters

Reuters released a story about AT&T dropping 12k jobs, which only accounts for 4% of their headcount. Yet another company cutting off the fat…

Our good friends at Ars Technica have an article posted about the iTunes 8.0 launch which has now been ‘confirmed’ to be this Tuesday (Sept 9th). There are different features rumored to be included, yet another Ars Technica article, that range from Pandora-type functionality to HD content for TV shows.

That’s nice and all, but how about a all-you-can-eat subscription? I’ll be frank, the only reason I’m the owner of a Zune instead of an iPod is because ol Gates has a $14.99 (almost) all-you-can-download per month plan and senior Jobs does not. The Zune will probably be a great device some day with a lot of support, but let’s be serious: for any Zune accessory you find online or in a physical store, there are 100 iPhone accessories right next to it for half the price. Plus, after having problems with my third (yes, third) Zune from all of the replacements under warrenty, I’m starting to wonder if it’s worth it. I’ll be damned if I have to pay a buck per song, but a buffett subscription? Oh yes, I’ll come to the dark side for that, yes indeed….

Update: Maybe I’m not on crack after all! A lil’ Google lovin’ shows that a subscription based iTunes service has been rumored for well over a year. There is even a Wired article, link here, from just a week or so ago about said possibility. NICE!

Competition is good; it encourages companies and manufacturers to make their products better so that consumers will chose their product instead. Consumers love it, businesses hate it, because we (as consumers) get more product for less money. It makes me smile. =)

So, when there are rumors of Intel’s new (CPU) chip code-named ‘Larrabee’ that has multiple cores that directly supports both OpenGL and DirectX, it makes me smile. When I hear that it will go into a graphics card first before going into a CPU and that it’s geared towards ‘high-end gaming’ it makes me put on that evil grin. This story comes from computerworld’s article about the Larrabee chip if you’d like to read more. One of the more notable items is that this will be the first time Intel has made a separate graphics card, since all of their other graphic solutions have been on-board video.

Just a quick note, according to InfoWorld’s hinting of ‘internal Microsoft email ‘ and an unspecified source, Microsoft may be releasing their Hyper-V technology this Thursday. This technology allows direct virtualization to be used on Server 2008 installs, depending on the flavor of the install, which competes directly with VMWare and other virtualization solutions.