Cool Tech Reviews

I mentioned back in March that unless there was some last minute change, you could wave goodbye to Internet Radio. Since then there have been a variety of news stories that raise hopes only to have them dashed later as Congressional action or new royalty plans or whatever fail to pan out. Now in a last ditch effort, Internet radio broadcasters have declared a Day of Silence:

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Michael Kanellos from CNET reports that a price war among memory manufacturers has lead to a precipitous drop in prices which is good news for consumers planning an upgrade:

Alarming price declines in some types of semiconductors have sucked the revenue growth out of the industry for 2007.

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The average selling price of DRAM, the type of memory used in PCs, dropped 33 percent from December to April. Flash memory prices have declined by 35 percent, year over year, yet shipments have gone up 54 percent.

“This is inordinate,” said George Scalise, president of the SIA, in an interview on Thursday. Ordinarily, prices might decline by 20 percent or so in a year. “This comes at a time with a lot of demand, which is what makes it so unusual.”

The declines appear to be caused by companies seeking market share at the expense of profits.

All of which is great for folks planning to buy new or additional PC memory or a flash drive. Supplies are expected to tighten up in the 2nd half of the year, so if you have been thinking about buying memory, now is the time.

I got an email the other day with a bargain offer for the Acer AL2216WBD 22 inch LCD Monitor. By the time I got around to checking it out it had expired, but this monitor is currently offered at a variety of places for what seem to be really low prices (e.g. Amazon: $239.99 or less, NewEgg: $249.99) so I thought I would see what you can get for so little. The AL2216WBD specs are at first glance pretty startling: (more…)

Ed Oswald at BetaNews has the latest from the front lines:

Sony on Monday said it is lowering the cost of its upcoming Blu-ray player to $499 USD. Although it claims the $100 price drop is due to falling production costs and growing demand, Sony’s move is likely more in response to rising sales of HD DVD players.

Data indicates that player sales for HD DVD have increased by five to ten times depending on the retailer following its price drop to $299 USD. Sony had originally planned for the BDP-S300 player to retail for $599 USD.

At $499, it’s the same price as a Sony PS3 game console, part of whose attraction has always been that it was a cheap Blu-ray player. As for features:

Sony’s entry-level player will support 1080p, and has essentially the same feature set as the company’s high-end BDP-S1 in a smaller form factor. Sony also announced a price drop on that player to $799 USD.

So why would anyone buy a BDP-S1? Price war is hell, I guess.