HD DVD and Blu-Ray have been battling to become the pre-eminent format for next-generation DVDs for the last couple of years.

Toshiba had its HD DVD format approved by the DVD Forum back in 2004 and the first products hit the market in the US in April 2006. The same year Sony came out with Blu-ray.

Initially the two formats seemed to have an equal number of backers although there was general dismay in the industry that a new format war could slow down developments of a nascent market and be confusing for consumers.

So what is the big deal? Well the big deal is that is the company’s that distributes the content who will control which format wins. Studios like Disney, Lionsgate, MGM, Sony Pictures Entertainment, and 20th Century Fox. Together these studios represented over 70% of home video market share.

The final battle as it turns out that was the tipping point is when Warner Brothers decided to back Blu-Ray.

Around the same time HD-DVD lost several key retailers like Wal-Mart who announced that it would phase out HD DVD products and chain Best Buy also came down firmly in the Blu-Ray camp. Even Netflix said it would also focus on Blu-Ray.

What does that mean to you when you want to go by a player for your cool HDTV that you got for Christmas? Nothing really, except that it is still expensive and the format will be Blu-Ray. I bet you might be able to pick up a HD-DVD player on the cheap and some discs too. The only downside is that there will never be any new movies on HD-DVD ever again.

So when will the world have forgotten about the HD-DVD format and begin calling Blu-Ray by the same name? I bet really soon, since consumers call things whatever they want even if it is not correct. Coke, means soda weather you want a real Coke, Pepsi, or whatever.

It make me want to go out and get one of these. Who would not want to see what is going on in the space station?

Sometimes baby monitors pick up more than they should. People have gotten radio stations or images of a neighbor’s baby. Now Nancy Pender reports a Palatine mom got quite a shock when here baby monitor started picking up broadcasts from the International Space Station.

Baby Monitor Picks Up NASA Signal of Space Station

Thanks Lynn!

So after all that time and effort, hundreds of dollars spent on cram sessions, it all boils down to how long my finger is to figure out what my scores on the SAT test.

So fast forward to the future, the next generation of kids to go to college, all they need is to send in their finger measurement for admission. Let home there is a little more than that.

A quick look at the lengths of children’s index and ring fingers can be used to predict how well students will perform on SATs, new research claims.

Kids with longer ring fingers compared to index fingers are likely to have higher math scores than literacy or verbal scores on the college entrance exam, while children with the reverse finger-length ratio are likely to have higher reading and writing, or verbal, scores versus math scores.

The researchers then looked at boys’ and girls’ test performances separately and compared them to finger-length ratio measurements. They found a clear link between high prenatal testosterone exposure, indicated by the longer index finger compared to the ring finger, and higher scores on the math SAT.

Similarly, they found higher literacy SAT scores for the girls among those who had lower prenatal testosterone exposure, as indicated by a shorter ring finger compared with the index finger.

The researchers also compared the finger-lengths ratios to all the children’s SAT scores and found that a relatively longer ring finger-indicating greater prenatal exposure to testosterone-meant a wider gap in scores for math versus literacy.

Finger Length Predicts SAT Performance

Thanks Lynn

Humm … I just need some good ideas …

Startup incubators turned into cash incinerators during the dotcom bubble and burst. Now they’re back, and Business 2.0 looks at whether they’re any better at breeding the next Google.

Naval Ravikant is a classic Silicon Valley entrepreneur: He never stops moving. In the past decade, he’s helped launch four companies, including consumer reviews site Epinions, and invested in many more as a VC, including blog aggregator Technorati.

And he isn’t about to slow down now. His next project, he explains while jogging around a Peet’s Coffee & Tea in San Francisco, will bring a group of engineers together, share resources, crank out a bunch of Web-based companies, and hope for at least one hit that makes a pile of money for the whole enterprise.

Sound familiar?

Return of the startup factory

A true US space pioneer Walter “Wally” Schirra, one of the original Mercury Seven astronauts who flew in the early days of NASA and the space race has passed away.

He was the only man to fly on Mercury, Gemini and Apollo programs. He is a true “Space Cowboy”. In 1962 he became the third American to orbit the Earth. Three years later he led the first meeting of two spacecraft in orbit, as commander of Gemini 6.

He was the first to rendezvous with a spacecraft in earth orbit. He did not walk on the moon, but was key in ensuring that the Apollo program continue after the events around Apollo 1. He was the commander of the first man-flight in the program Apollo 7.

Schirra stated a clear definition of a space rendezvous. He said:

“Somebody said … when you come to within three miles, you’ve rendezvoused. If anybody thinks they’ve pulled a rendezvous off at three miles, have fun! This is when we started doing our work. I don’t think rendezvous is over until you are stopped - completely stopped - with no relative motion between the two vehicles, at a range of approximately 120 feet. That’s rendezvous! From there on, it’s stationkeeping. That’s when you can go back and play the game of driving a car or driving an airplane or pushing a skateboard — it’s about that simple.”

“It’s a terrible loss of a dear friend, cherished comrade and a brother,” said Schirra’s fellow Mercury astronaut Scott Carpenter. “Despite our good natured competition for flights into space, Wally strove to bring a smile to everyone he met and its with a smile that I will forever fondly remember him.”

“We at NASA note with sadness the loss of yet another of the pioneers of human space flight,” a Nasa statement said.

“We who have inherited the space program will always be in his debt.”

Mr Schirra, died of natural causes on Wednesday night at a hospital in La Jolla, California, the space agency said.

There are now only two surviving members of the Mercury Seven astronauts, who became national heroes as the US took on the former Soviet Union in the space race.

Original Astronaut Wally Schirra Dies at 84

This is great and some of the best news about getting into space for the average person. I mean who has the millions of dollars to visit ISS on the a Russian Soyuz spacecraft .

I mean hats off to the Russians, who not only are getting people into space but funding their program with space touriusm. The $20 million a ticket is just a little more than I can afford to get up there, but someday perhaps.

But the Russian Space Agency is not the only player in space. Virgin Galactic is going to get that $20 million down to about $200,000.

Buzz Aldrin, the second man to walk on the moon, announced plans Tuesday for a lottery that would send its winner into space in a bid to spread the dream of extraterrestrial travel beyond the super-wealthy.

Aldrin, who followed U.S. astronaut Neil Armstrong onto the moon in July 1969, said the lottery would be run through his ShareSpace Foundation, which he set up to promote interest in science and space travel in schools.

Details of the competition are still sketchy, Aldrin said at a space investment conference on Wall Street on Tuesday, with the legal status of selling lottery tickets still to be resolved.

He said the idea was to offer the top prize of a flight into earth’s orbit, but it was not yet decided on what spacecraft.

Aldrin added that the winner would have to be over 18 years old and in good physical condition. The prize would not be transferable or salable on eBay.

Astronaut Aldrin plans space travel lottery

Google News

Here you have a neat idea to make phone service work on the Internet. You put out some television commercials, dumb ones I think, and them get you a whole slew of customers.

Then it comes to light that you really stole/used/infringed on some patents and your life is going downhill fast. This little bump or pothole as it will turn out will cost you $58 million and you are no longer allowed to get new customers to sqweeze money out of to pay for you big screw up, which is the most likely outcome from the courts in the coming weeks.

But until they stay, “STOP” you can sign people up if they are not aware of your big screw up. A simple Google search is good information for the consumer.

Is this little fact or fiction? It is fact. Poor Vonage is slowly going downhill. Good luck if you are a customer. But I would guess, that someone will pick them up cheap.

Vonage says it may face bankruptcy

As Vonage Faces Potential Bankruptcy, Deal Rumors Heat Up