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Windows 10 is up to 14 million installs already
Microsoft's Yusuf Mehdi is checking in with a Windows 10 status update, revealing that the OS is already on some 14 million devices. He noted that not everyone who reserved an upgrade has gotten it yet, but says the rollout will continue in phases over the next few weeks. While whether or not you can upgrade to Windows 10 may still be in question, we have information to help decide if you should with our FAQ and review. Of course, if you're one of the millions already in the door, you can just let us know how the new experience is working so far.
Internet Explorer 9 hits 2.35 million downloads in first 24 hours, we're mildly impressed
Okay, so 2.35 million downloads in a single day is nothing to scoff at, but it's also not a monumental achievement in terms of browser downloads in the first 24. A post to Internet Explorer's official blog used the word "wow" to describe the IE9 numbers, but considering Firefox 3 got the Guinness world record for most software downloads in a day, with 8 million way back in 2008, we're reluctant to call this news wow-worthy. Given, Firefox 3 was available for both Mac and PC, but it still beat Windows' new browser three times over. Don't get us wrong, we like IE9, but we still think a little bit of modesty goes a long way.
Solar Impulse begins 24-hour test flight, lets you watch the whole thing live
Boy, these Franco-Swiss research teams sure do like to exhibit their work to the world. After the Large Hadron Collider crew did a live webcast of their record-breaking 7 TeV proton collisions, here's Captain Piccard's Solar Impulse gang showing off their latest feat via a live video stream. Taking off shortly before 7AM Central European Time today, the HB-SIA craft is currently cruising above the idyllic plains of Switzerland, with the plan being for it to start gently descending through the night and plopping itself back down on terra firma early in the morning. Hit the source link to track its laps in real time, replete with sporadic commentary from the monitoring crew. It's riveting stuff.
Resolved: iTunes movie rentals should offer an extended-time option
In the first half of our iTunes movie rental debate, Mike stakes out the "Pro" position on extended-duration rentals with an appeal on behalf of tired, stressed parents everywhere.Let me just say it: there is a perfect market for iTunes movie rentals. It's the same market that Netflix or VOD sales addresses, the same audience that prefers (or is limited to) staying at home rather than a night out at the movies. You know who we are -- the stroller patrol, the breeder bastion, the Momfia... the parents. We crave entertainment, and we're willing to pay for it, but our evenings are squeezed to the point of nonexistence. By the time the offspring are fed and watered, tucked away in their beds, we might only have an hour or two's worth of 'we' time to enjoy a feature film. If someone wakes up and needs 15 minutes of settling back to bed, well, forget it. With the 24-hour watch time limitation on iTunes movies, tomorrow night, when we might have another chance to view our movie, it's too late.Thus, opinionated folk such as David Pogue, Rob Griffiths, Glenn Fleishman, and our reader Marshall (his open letter to Apple is reproduced at the end of this post) all concur that some form of extension past the 24-hour limit makes great sense to parents and great sense to Apple's rental market. I join my voice to theirs, and offer this modest proposal: Add a $0.50 surcharge for a 6-hour extension, or $1 for a 12-hour bump. Make the extra time optional -- you'd still have to decide and pay for it at rental time, not add it on after renting the movie, as the DRM challenges of a shifting finish line + multiple playback devices are probably too much to handle. I bet that parents of young kids, or families with variable evening schedules, would fork over the extra spare change to extend their rental times, and let's remember that those couple of quarters are pure profit (it costs the same in encoding and bandwidth for a 36-hour movie to download as for a 24-hour movie). I'd gladly take the extra time for free, but if you've got to add a modest surcharge I'll swallow my pride.Give me a 36-hour rental and I promise this: I will buy an Apple TV and I will start renting movies on it. That's $225, cash on the barrel, plus what I'll spend on the flicks. Who's with me?
BC selling like hotcakes made of gold
Our good friends over at Joystiq are reporting the first of the Burning Crusade sales numbers: in a mere 24 hours, the WoW expansion sold 2.3 million copies on North America and Europe, and an extra .1 million to make it 2.4 million worldwide. That makes Blizzard's expansion the fastest selling PC game ever. And that's game as in game, not just expansion. The other interesting figure is that Blizzard says they have only 2 million players in North America, which is a much smaller portion than I expected of the eight million worldwide players. But of those 2 million, they say 1.2 million bought the expansion in the first day, which (just over 50%) is a huge sellthrough rate for an expansion no matter how you slice it.Now, I thought the Walmart figures were crazy, but they said the expansion would sell 5 million in the first ten days, and considering they've sold at least half that in the first day, that means they're on pretty good track to do exactly what they thought-- at least. And they've just plain rocked the best selling expansion pack ever (Sims: Livin' Large), which sold what seemed like a whopping 700,000 copies in its first year.Say what you want about Blizzard (the Warriors definitely do), but these guys know how to sell a game.
