MySpace Getting Members Registered to Vote
MySpace is running ads on its Web site and giving members tools such as a "I Registered To Vote On MySpace" badge to place on their personal profile pages. News Corp.'s MySpace is the leading online social-networking site, in which users stay connected by adding others as "friends" and expanding their networks by meeting friends of their friends. MySpace offers message boards, Web journals and other free features its members can use to circulate links for video and other items they like. Election Day is Nov. 7, and many states close voter registration up to a month before that. To register, members simply go to http://www.myspace.com/declareyourself and enter a state or ZIP code. After entering the requested information, the site generates a PDF file that can be printed and mailed to state election officials. A Spanish version also is available. Although MySpace has a heavy youth population, about 80 percent of its 114 million registered members are old enough to vote.


Hybrid To Defuse DVD Format War?
The format war around next generation DVDs may be over before it has begun, thanks to a breakthrough from a British media technology company. Britain-based New Medium Enterprises (NME) said it had solved a technical production problem that makes it possible to produce a cheap multiple-layer DVD disk containing one film in different, competing formats. A low yield means that many DVDs coming off the manufacturing lines are not working and have to be discarded. The production costs of a multi-layer DVD using the new NME technology are estimated to be around 9 cents, compared with the 6 cents for a standard single-layer play-back DVD, according to Dutch company ODMS, one of the world’s leading makers of production lines for optical disks. This 50% cost increase compares favourably with the current generation of multi-layer recordable DVD disks which cost 3 to 5 times as much to produce than a single layer disk, due to low yields.

The Iridium Pain
Iridium, a satellite phone company that sold bulky $3,000 handsets with antennas the size of toothbrushes, continues to weigh like a brick on its former parent, Motorola Inc. The global satellite phone operator, nurtured and spun off by the Schaumburg, Ill., telecom equipment maker, filed for bankruptcy just nine months after it began offering service in 1999. It had signed up barely 10% of the 213,000 customers that its loan covenants required. Its $5 billion in assets were liquidated and sold for $25 million. Now, Iridium's creditors are seeking the return of $3.7 billion plus interest that Motorola received from them for building the start-up's satellite network.

Bringing the Price of 3G Down
Vodafone will attempt to jump-start the disappointing 3G market with low-cost handsets from Chinese equipment supplier Huawei Technologies. According to the plan Vodafone will attach its own brand to the handsets, which will be customized for specific services. There were no details as to whether customization meant the phones were stripped down to achieve the lower price. Vodafone would not comment on the story, but the mobile giant has targeted the gap of about $60 between the cost of 2G (second generation) and 3G (third generation) mobile phones as one of the reasons why subscribers have not been using 3G data services

Nokia's Music Store
Nokia, after spending considerable resources on making photos and videos part of the mobile experience, is turning its attention to music. At the Nokia Open Studio event in New York City, the company gave a glimpse at what could be coming from world’s largest mobile handset maker. Nokia, as many of you might remember had bought struggling Loudeye music service back in August 2006 for $60 million dollars. That service is going to become a strategic component of this music service; as critical as the enhanced music playback abilities of some of the Nokia N Series phones.

Hot Island for Sale
Interested in buying an island this Christmas and dont want to settle for anythingless then the best! Then, get ready to free millions for owning the most expensive freehold island in the world, Vatu Vara island in Fiji. The island is nicknamed Hat Island due to its unusual shape and it is said to be one of the last four freehold islands to come on to the market in Fiji. The two-mile-wide island is for sale for an asking price of $75 million.

Today's Site To Peek At:

Wallop is a Flash based social network that will compete with Myspace, Facebook and others. It includes free unlimited storage for people to upload photos, videos and music. Unlike the other social networks, it has no plans to ever put advertising on the site. Wallop wants a piece of the $3 trillion per year U.S. market for self expression items (clothes, furniture, beauty supplies, etc.). As sites like Cyworld have shown, people are willing to spend money for online expression items, too (Cyworld brings in a reported $300,000 per day inmicrotransactions to its users). So Wallop has created a marketplace for “self expression” items on the site. Flashdevelopers can create items and sell them to users. Music clips, animated widgets, artwork, avatars, clothing for avatars, etc. will all be for sale. Wallop handles payments and DRM, and takes 30% of the sale price. The rest goes to the seller. Marketplace functionality is still being built, but Wallop says they will have the ability for sellers to createauction sales for one of a kind items, limited edition sales, etc. in the near future. Invited users will be given five invitations each that can be used to invite others into Wallop. More invitations will be given to users based on how active they are in the service. Look for the service to leave beta and open to the general public in early 2007. Wallop is basedin San Francisco and has 27 employees. They’ve raised a total of $13 million in venture capital over two rounds, from Bay Partners , Consor Capital and Norwest Venture Partners.

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