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Looks like the days of the triple-update are long gone as this week is another two-game showdown on the Virtual Console.

Harvest Moon (1997, SNES, 800
Wii points): What’s considered to be a relatively rare title is no longer scarce as Harvest Moon makes its way to the virtual console today. The game is basically a farm simulator in which you must raise livestock and grow crops in addition to turning a run-down farm into a thriving success.

Lords of Thunder (1993, Turbografx 16, 800 Wii points): Lords of Thunder is a side-scrolling shooter with a heavy-metal soundtrack. Blast through six stages of intense action as you try to revive “The Dark One.”

Infosys: Holograms on handsets by 2010

Icahn set to release his final Yahoo slate

The last week has seen a slew of high-level departures from Yahoo. What do they mean? CNET News.com reporter Stephen Shankland breaks down the executive exodus–or as he calls it, “execudos.”

And be sure to tune in Monday, when News.com’s Holly Jackson will talk to New York Post entertainment features writer Michael Kane about his new book Game Boys: Professional Videogaming’s Rise from the Basement to the Big Time. Kane followed two of professional gaming’s most well-known teams, Team 3D and CompLexity, as they fought for sponsorships, players, and the No. 1 spot in gaming. Listen now:

Download today’s podcast

Plus, new numbers from metrics firm ComScore show that in May, the battle of the social-networking sites may have gained a new front-runner: Facebook. It appears to have surpassed longtime rival MySpace in worldwide unique visitors for the first time.

Making bats the Louisville Slugger way

ComScore: Facebook is beating MySpace worldwide

Today’s stories:

Jammie Thomas likely to get another day in court

eBay pumps up PayPal protections

Note to Netflix: Roku box needs latest movies

Yahoo natives abandoning ship

Update:

After spending some time with Apple’s Time Capsule this afternoon, we have some impressions for you. We’ll dig deeper before our full review on Monday, but here are some initial thoughts.

We paired the Time Capsule with a MacBook Pro with a home cable modem providing the Internet connection. In order to keep it simple, we relied on hard-wired Ethernet all the way, linking the cable modem to the Time Capsule, and the Time Capsule to our laptop. Setup is easy. All you need to do is plug all of the appropriate cables in for your network and then plug in the Time Capsule’s power cord. There’s no power switch, so it comes right on.

The first software screen you see when you insert the Time Capsule disc

(Credit:
CNET)

The screen above pops up when you insert the Time Capsule’s CD, and from there you click on the Time Capsule icon to install the update to your
Mac’s AirPort Utility. The AirPort Utility serves as the primary software interface for the Time Capsule. Most of the software setup is easy, but a few screens might puzzle you if you’re not that network savvy.

Not every Time Capsule setup screen will make sense to the average user.

(Credit:
CNET)

Assuming you make your way through the setup process (the default option on each screen was usually the right one, at least at home), you’ll know it’s successful when Time Machine, Apple’s automated backup software, finds the Time Capsule’s drive. “J Boogie” in the screen below would be our music-loving Associate Testing Analyst Julie Rivera, who’s testing the MacBook Pro laptop we’re using.

We have Time Machine turned off here because when it’s on it gives you a 2-minute countdown before it performs a backup. We wanted to investigate the software some more before losing it to the hours-long backup process, but we’ll turn it on tonight to see how that goes.

When Time Machine finds your Time Capsule, you know you set it up correctly.

(Credit:
CNET)

One feature Time Capsule offers is the ability to add more storage via its USB port. We connected a simple USB flash drive (the “NO NAME” volume in the shot below), and it popped up almost instantly on the Time Capsule’s devices screen. The only stipulation is that you have to enter the Time Capsule’s password, which you establish during setup, before it will allow you to access the new drive.

Adding external storage to the Time Capsule is easy.

(Credit:
CNET)

Even though initial set up at home was relatively easy, we hit a few snags. We were able to use the Time Capsule successfully as a router for our home network, and we got online on both the MacBook Pro as well as a Windows XP desktop in the other room. We hoped the Time Capsule’s hard drive would just pop up in Windows, but it didn’t. And after we reconfigured the drive properties and restarted the Time Capsule, per its software instructions, it hung. Every time you make a settings change it seems to want to reboot itself, which takes a while. Worse, whenever it failed a restart, the Time Capsule and our Macbook seemed to lose each other, and we had to go through the whole setup process from scratch.

We’re going to spend more time with the Time Capsule tomorrow and we’ll have our full review up by Monday. In the meantime, Flickr user nakedmac posted a gallery of the Time Capsule’s internals (seems you can swap in a new hard drive). And Schmittroth, to answer your question in the comments about the power cable, nope, no brick. Just a thin white cord as you can see from the shot below.

No clunky power brick here.

(Credit:
Rich Brown/CNET Networks)

Original post (by Matthew Elliott):

Time Capsule: Time for your close-up.

(Credit:
Phil Ryan/CNET Networks)

Apple’s Time Capsule began shipping yesterday, and after a run to The Westchester mall in White Plains, N.Y., this afternoon, we now have one in hand. Stay tuned for our full review, which we plan to bring you on Monday. In it, we’ll discuss throughput of the 802.11n router, transfer speeds of the 500GB drive (call us cheap–we bought the lower-end $299 model), and how it jibes with Leopard’s Time Machine feature for wireless backups. Anything else you want, let us know. In the meantime, read Rich Brown’s breakdown of Time Capsule here.

From the left: the power cord, a USB port, one Gigabit WAN port, and three Gigabit LAN ports.

(Credit:
Phil Ryan/CNET Networks)

Updated at 1:55 p.m. PT with additional details, and at 3:20 p.m. with further details from the conference call.

Apple blew away expectations for its second fiscal quarter, reporting revenue and net income far beyond what the Wall Street community was expecting amid a poor economy.

For the period ended March 28, Apple recorded $8.16 billion in revenue, up from $7.5 billion in revenue during the same period last year. Net profit was $1.21 billion, or earnings per share of $1.33. Analysts had been expecting revenue of $7.96 billion and earnings per share of $1.09.

Apple sold 2.22 million Macs, 11 million iPods, and 3.79 million iPhones during the quarter, meeting or exceeding expectations from financial analysts. CFO Peter Oppenheimer called it “the best nonholiday quarter revenue and earnings in our history,” in a statement announcing the results.

As usual, Oppenheimer provided third-quarter guidance below what analysts were seeking. The consensus Wall Street estimate for Apple’s June quarter was $8.28 billion in revenue and earnings per share of $1.12, while Oppenheimer said Apple expects to record between $7.7 billion and $7.9 billion in revenue and earnings per share between 95 cents and a dollar during the current quarter.

Apple CFO Peter Oppenheimer said the company has just had its "best nonholiday quarter revenue and earnings in our history." Click the image for a full chart, with sales figures for product categories and year-over-year percentages.

(Credit:
Apple)

During Apple’s earnings conference call, Oppenheimer attributed that lower guidance to, among other things, the fact that Apple has stopped recognizing revenue from
iPhone sales after the March 17th iPhone OS 3.0 event, and does not plan to recognize iPhone revenue again until the company ships that software sometime this summer. Apple accounts for iPhone sales on a subscription basis, meaning the company defers the initial revenue from the sale of an iPhone over a 24-month period in order to satisfy an obscure accounting rule.

Mac shipments fell 3 percent compared to last year. It’s the first time Mac shipments have fallen year over year, but some had expected worse. Desktop shipments fell 4 percent, and portable shipments fell 2 percent, but revenue was way off: 22 percent in desktops, and 12 percent in portables. Still, as with last quarter, international Mac sales were stronger than U.S. Mac sales.

Apple COO Tim Cook said during the company’s conference call that shipments to educational customers are weak right now, given the budget crunch that many U.S. states are facing. He also said that shipments of Apple’s most expensive Macs–the Mac Pro and MacBook Pro–were off during the quarter, but that the less-expensive consumer-oriented Macs held up reasonably well.

The
iPod lineup appeared to get a clear boost from the launch of the new iPod Shuffle, with Apple selling about 1 million more iPods than analysts had expected. iPod shipments were up 3 percent compared to last year, as revenue fell 16 percent, suggesting that sales of the $79 iPod Shuffle made up a greater amount of Apple’s iPod mix than usual.

iPod Touch sales doubled compared to last year, Cook said, and Apple has now sold 37 million iPhones and iPod Touches combined. In March, Apple said it had sold 30 million of those two devices since their introduction.

And as had been foreshadowed earlier on Tuesday, Apple sold 3.79 million iPhones, which Piper Jaffray’s Gene Munster predicted based on AT&T’s activation numbers for the quarter. iPhone shipments were up sharply compared to last year, but they fell coming off the holiday quarter.

When asked to comment on whether there was any update concerning CEO Steve Jobs’ return to the company, Oppenheimer reiterated the company’s usual statement: “We look forward to Steve returning to Apple at the end of June.”

(Credit:
Rick Broida)

Stand back! My cheapskate senses are tingling! A new site called Daily Dollar Deals catalogs soon-to-end eBay auctions that have prices below $1. Just pick a category–anything from Antiques to Video Games–and you’ll see a list of all under-a-buck auctions, sorted by time remaining. (You can also drill down into sub-categories to get more targeted listings, and there’s a search option as well.)

Talk about a great way to scoop up bargains! Admittedly, sometimes the stuff that’s selling for a buck isn’t worth much more than that, but there are exceptions. For instance, I found four tickets for tonight’s Pistons vs. Cavaliers game. Cheap seats, sure, but if I can take my whole family to see LeBron for 99 cents? Oh, yeah, I’m there. (But make no mistake: I’ll be rooting for the Pistons.)

Daily Dollar Deals also offers a categorical list of Amazon products based on discount, from 10-90 percent. However, those numbers usually take into account used items as well as new–just something to keep in mind.

For anyone who loves the thrill of scoring dirt-cheap deals, I highly recommend bookmarking Daily Dollar Deals. My only concern is how much time I’ll end up wasting there.

[via AppScout]

Find more deals, coupon codes, and bargains on CNET’s Shopper.com.

Do you find Windows Media Center’s blue, remote controlled fa?ade easier to navigate than the cold red, white, and yellow world of Netflix? Then check out Andrew Park’s new plug-in for the Vista version of Windows Media Center called MyNetflix. The plug-in lets users link to their Netflix account, search for movies, and make changes to their queue without leaving the couch.

Users navigating from their computers can also partake in Netflix’s streaming service, letting them watch movies without having to wait discs to come in the mail. Because of the reliance on software, users enjoying Media Center via extenders (read: the
XBOX 360) cannot partake in the streaming–that is, unless they’ve got their PC hooked up directly to the TV, or are planning to get one of those newfangled Netflix Watch Now-enabled set-top boxes due to arrive later this year.

The software is in “beta” and we haven’t tested it out, but if you’re a Netflix user who happens to use Media Center, this is definitely the missing link.

[via Engadget]

Watch your 'Watch Now' streaming movies from Netflix on big TVs in a more eyeball-friendly manner with this Vista Media Center plug-in.

(Credit:
Anthony Park / www.anpark.com)

But Arrington said in a brief interview with CNET News.com that he isn’t discouraged and will go after the pre-teen and teen market with the same gusto he has the technology industry. Already, he has planned meet-ups hosted by pre-teen bloggers scheduled to coincide with 11-year-old Mackenzie Dwyer’s slumber party in Chevy Chase, Md., this Saturday night and the junior high dance the following weekend in Oak Park, Ill.

“As you can tell by the geographies we’re taking our road show to, we’re going after the kids with parents with piles of cash,” Arrington said. “Ultimately, the pre-teen market is all about innovation and targeting the right audience, and I challenge anyone–Sony, Warner Bros., even those dinosaurs at Disney–to understand this market as well as me and my new partners at Tiger Beat.”

Exact terms of the deal weren’t disclosed, but Arrington made it clear he intends to shut down the magazine and go online-only with Tiger Beat, which tech reporters covering the news Monday discovered is actually called Bop Tiger Beat. Within the next 30 days, the site will be renamed CrunchKids.

“When I left Silicon Valley the first time around, I assumed someone would truly innovate around pre-teens and teens. Sure, there have been some efforts, Hello Kitty cell phones and other accessories immediately come to mind. But for the most part it’s been hugely disappointing,” Arrington wrote. “So screw it. I’m cashing in.”

“It’s the perfect fit for us,” Arrington said in a blog post announcing the deal. “I’ve always thought Big Tobacco had it right: Get ‘em while they’re young. But instead of polluting their lungs, we’re just going to pollute their minds. And really, at some point, like when they’re 14 or so, they’ll get tired of discussing teen news and focus on what I can bring to the table: deep discussions about late-round financing of important new Web 2.0 sites, new services, and TechCrunch’s dream of a $1 billion payday.”

Arrington wrote that he believes there is terrific synergy between his knowledge of social networking sites such as Facebook and MyYearbook and the Tiger Beat editorial staff’s knowledge of important pre-teen and teen news such as the hilarious new video posted by the Jonas Brothers on YouTube.

Arrington’s post, written at 3:24 a.m., goes on for an additional 2,132 words and outlines his plans for the new company, along with angry words on mainstream media and the tech industry’s failure to understand the importance of the pre-teen and teen market.

We’re going to win this fight,” he added. “It will be long and it will be tough. But is Disney willing to get out of bed at 4 a.m. to dig into the rumor that Miley Cyrus was grounded again? I am. I will make that commitment.”

Not surprisingly, TechCrunch’s move has roiled the blogging community. “What Tiger Beat does is not blogging; it’s gossip news targeting a teen and pre-teen audience,” wrote sometime Arrington friend (and sometime Arrington foil) Dave Winer. “It is endlessly frustrating to me that people should want to make money off what they write. And making money off what they write for pre-teen and teen girls is even more offensive.”

The Silicon Valley gossip site Valleywag was even more scathing in its careful critique of the merged sites’ potential. “It sucks,” wrote one Valleywag commenter who was believed to be older than a pre-teen. “Arrington can’t go out in the sun without SPF 45. So how’s he going to look side-by-side on a Web site with the likes of dreamy Zac Efron and Chace Crawford? That’s right, he’ll look terrible. This is dumb. Arrington sucks.”

Editor’s note: Remember, tomorrow is April 1, a day reserved in the U.S. for some levity. Happy April Fools’ Day.

Move over, Hannah Montana. There's a new kid in town.

In a stunning move that caught the blogosphere off-guard, TechCrunch editor Michael Arrington announced Monday that his fast-growing blog empire is acquiring the venerable teen magazine and Web site Tiger Beat from the magazine’s parent company, Laufer Media.

On Galli, I’ve found him to be fair in his past coverage of open source. Let’s hope it stays that way.

commentary

It is my great pleasure in welcoming Peter Galli who is joining Microsoft as Senior Communications Manager on the Platform Strategy team. This is a unique opportunity for the Platform Strategy team to leverage Peter’s talents and experience as he plays a key role in setting strategy for our Free and Open Source Software (FOSS) community marketing efforts. Peter’s distinguished career as a journalist, his illustrious tenure at eWeek, his intimacy of our customer’s voice, and his impactful storytelling will offer us a force multiplier in our ability to change customer and industry perceptions as we reach broader audiences.

When eWeek’s Peter Galli wrote last year about Microsoft fracturing the open-source community, who could have known that he would become the very person chosen to strengthen the software giant’s role in it?

Galli is the latest member of the media to find himself joining a company he once covered. Joe Brockmeier, former editor-in-chief of Linux Magazine, joined Novell last year as its OpenSuse community manager. I guess this means it’s about time for John Markoff to leave The New York Times to head up Google’s community relations.

This past week, Galli accepted a job as the newest member of Microsoft’s open-source team, focused on community relations. According to an internal e-mail sent out by Robert Duffner, Microsoft’s senior director of Platform Strategy:

The Facebook credentials, for example, come from the social network’s new Facebook Connect service, an extension of its developer API.

AOL acquired social aggregator Socialthing this year, but has not specifically integrated its technology into the new AOL.com–yet. Clark said that the separate teams have been “comparing notes,” though.

“Traditional portals have gone about as far as they can go,” Clark added.

A look at the 'My Networks' widget.

These are just the launch partners, AOL executive James Clark told CNET News last week, and more social-networking and messaging services will be added to the lineup over time. “(It’s) part of a consistent evolution of opening up,” Clark explained, pointing to AOL’s addition last month of outside e-mail service alerts to AOL.com. The more dynamic homepage, which also includes an embedded RSS reader, is indicative of a new direction for AOL, he said.

A widget (or module, or gadget, or whatever you want to call it) on the new AOL.com features a tabbed interface with updates from five different social-networking and messaging services: AOL’s own AIM and Bebo, MySpace, Twitter, and Facebook. Called “My Networks,” the tabs invite members to log into their social profiles and see a limited amount of information–feed and in-box updates from Facebook and MySpace, new Twitter messages, AIM status messages, etc.–as well as links to access the full versions of the apps.

Social networks are front and center in the latest redesign of AOL’s AOL.com homepage, which the company announced Thursday and says it will start to gradually roll out to users over the next few weeks (unless they choose to opt in earlier).

(Credit:
AOL)

Mike Olson is on the entrepreneurial prowl again. The co-founder of Sleepycat, who sold his company to Oracle and recently left Oracle for a brief stint as a relaxed person, is back in action.

I talked a day ago with a company that has talked to Mike about an executive role, and told them what I’ll tell anyone who asks:

commentary

Welcome back, Mike. I won’t say we’ve missed you, because you never really left, but welcome back all the same. It will be fun to see where you land. Round II, coming up.

Hire him. Immediately. He’s smart, pragmatic, and a huge asset to anyone lucky enough to interest him.