Vista upgrade will cost you $5000 per person
Making the uograde to Vista will cost your company between $3,250 and $5,000. That's each and every Vista user. Money will go to Microsoft for Vista and Office 2007, to hardware vendors for new PCs and components, and possibly a few bucks to Apple for those users jumping to a Mac. After all, if Apple's higher cost has been the factor keeping your company from trying a Mac, that factor just washed away. Why $3,250-$5,000? - New PCs will cost $1,500-$2,000. Most existing corporate PCs will have the video horsepower needed to run Vista, Vista's primary upgrade inducement. You need 256MB of video RAM to run Vista properly. Vista needs a minimum of 1GB of RAM. The hardware cost of the RAM may be less than your labor costs getting that installed in every PC. If your existing PCs can take full advantage of Vista . Depending on your volume purchasing agreements, new copies of Vista and Office will total between $750 and $1,000. The real value of Vista and Office 2007 includes new collaboration services. This means new back end servers. Most estimates place the back end support cost at $2,000 per user.

Google in talks to acquire YouTube for $1.6 billion
Google is in talks to acquire YouTube for about $1.6 billion. Google and YouTube are still at a sensitive stage in the discussion. Founded in February 2005 by three former employees of eBay's PayPal electronic-payment unit, YouTube is surging thanks to the increased availability of high-speed Internet connections and gadgets such as camera phones and digital cameras capable of taking video. Most of YouTube offerings are short amateur clips, although professional filmmakers, television networks and even political campaigns have posted materials. YouTube users watch more that 100 million videos daily, and the site's market share tops that of similar services offered by Google and other popular websites, according to some research firms. Google's video service lets everyday users post clips, too, and unlike YouTube, Google also gives them the choice of selling video. All YouTube clips are free. When rumors circulated earlier this year that some major media companies were interested in buying YouTube, the company's chief executive, Chad Hurley, said the company was not for sale and a future initial public offering was possible.

Half of MySpace's users are 35 or Older
Half of MySpace's users are 35 or older. Only 30% are under 25, despite a common belief that the site is mostly populated with children and young adults. Just a year ago, teens under 18 made up about 25% of MySpace, the popular online hangout run by News Corp. That is now down to 12% in the comScore analysis released yesterday. By contrast, the 35-to-54 group at MySpace grew to 41% in August, from 32% a year earlier. Sites such as MySpace encourage users to stay in touch by offering tools such as message boards, photo sharing and personal profile pages. Members can expand their networks by adding other users as friends and, in turn, connecting with their friends. The study was based on comScore's regular panels for measuring Internet audiences, rather than MySpace's registration information, where users often lie about their age. MySpace had 56 million unique U.S. visitors in August, much less than the 100 million-plus registered users MySpace has world-wide. The company has said about 10% of its users are abroad. A better explanation for the gap is the fact that many people have multiple profiles. Facebook had 15 million unique visitors, Xanga eight million and Friendster one million.

Ken's Favorite Bluetooth Headset - Plantronics Voyager 510
Most Bluetooth headsets manage to defeat the purpose of going wireless. Either they're too painful to wear for extended periods of time or they run out of juice halfway through your workday. The Voyager 510 is different. In addition to offering a whopping six hours of talk time, it's the most comfortable wireless headset we've ever tested. The device comes with three removable speakers of varying size and shape, covered in a spongy cloth, that are easily attached to the headset in order to rest snuggly in your ear canals. It's an effect that's fairly similar to your average stereo ear buds. The Voyager's top and boom arm swivel to adjust the headset for use on the right or left ear. The swivel function allows for the user to fold up the headset for easier storage when not in use. At a relatively light 0.7 ounces, it's fairly easy to forget that you have the device stored in your pocket, never mind on your ear. The boom's arm extends off of the headset more than two inches, ensuring clear speech.

The "Star Trek" auction start at Christie

Bidders, at least one of them costumed, paid top dollar for "Star Trek" items at the start of Christie's auction of memorabilia from the seminal television and movie franchise. A model of the Starship Enterprise E was bought by an online bidder for $132,000, including commission, more than 10 times its $8,000 to $12,000 presale estimate. Another item, a 30-square-inch Borg cube model used in "Star Trek: First Contact," sold for $96,000 to a telephone bidder. Its estimated value was between $1,000 and $1,500. With 1,000 lots of CBS Paramount Television material on offer over three days, Christie's--better known for Picassos and Monets than Starfleet banners and costumes--had anticipated a total of up to $2 million. Prices from the first session suggested the final tally could go much higher. Enterprise Captain Jean-Luc Picard's chair sold for more than $62,000, while a 42-inch bazooka-style prop rifle used by Michael Dorn as Worf in "Star Trek: Insurrection" fetched $19,200 after being estimated at between $600 and $800. The auction, which marks the 40th anniversary of the "Star Trek" phenomenon, ends Saturday when some of the most coveted items, including costumes worn by William Shatner as Captain James T. Kirk and Leonard Nimoy as Mr. Spock from the original 1966 television series, go on the block. A bidder who came dressed as Picard bought actor Ron Perlman's vinyl jumpsuit from "Star Trek: Nemesis" for $6,000. "It's with Picard then," the auctioneer said during bidding, adding, "A sentence I never thought I'd say."

Starbucks on iTunes
Starbucks has become the latest to muddy the waters of the digital music pool with plans to sell its burgeoning music collection on iTunes. Apple’s site will feature a zone dedicated to Starbucks playlists. The expresso dealer has caused consternation among music mega-labels in the past by signing exclusive deals on recordings by artists including Bob Dylan and trippy wailer Alanis Morissette. The move is part of a plan that would appear to include taking over the world. Starbucks wants to expand from 30,000 to 40,000 stores, sell more sandwiches and sell drinks via vending machines.

NASA looking for students for low gravity tests
NASA is calling for US undergraduates to design and then take part in a series of lunar and zero gravity experiments. It wants submissions by 30 October. NASA has run low gravity experiments for students for many years, but this time it wants students to design experiments for lunar gravity, one sixth of that on Earth. But don't get your hopes up too high: the space agency does not propose loading the students on to the next Shuttle and sending them to the ISS. Instead, it wants volunteers for a series of experiments on the so-called vomit comet, NASA's modified McDonnell Douglas DC-9 jet aircraft. The DC-9 aircraft can easily reproduce the feeling of being in space by performing a series of climbs and freefalls. By altering its slope of descent slightly, it can also produce short periods of lunar-equivalent gravity. Each proposal, NASA says, will be evaluated for technical merit and safety. The "winners" will be announced on 11 December and flown in 2007.

Today's Site To Peek At:
Microsoft has recently released a new desktop feed aggregator, codename Max. Max features news displayed in a newspaper layout and two-pane interface, a bit different approach than many other aggregators on the market. MSN Filter is built-in, helping you follow the hottest news in lifestyle, music, TV, sports, technology, and movies. You can share your favorite feed items with the Filter community to help influence the recommended reading of others. Microsoft Max is available for Windows XP SP2 and above (including Media Center). It takes advantage of some of the latest hardware and software, including .NET Framework 3.0 RC1 and the Windows Presentation Foundation. Max also features a photo organizer to bring more of your digital lifestyle into one application. If you haven’t tried the Max photo tools, you should check it out as well. It does a very good job of indexing photos stored on the hard drive and allows for easy sharing with friends by email. If these tools are bundled in with Vista, and we assume they will be, PC-based desktop aggregators like those offered by Newsgator are going to be in a very tough position competitively.

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