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Some gamers, however, would most likely love to see a console from Nintendo that can offer high-quality graphics and HD capabilities, which is why any new Wii, such as the one talked about in these rumors, centers on that functionality.

So why would Nintendo want to put out a new console that would almost surely cost more?

Eventually, of course, Nintendo will have to release a new console–and the traditional five-year console cycle would have the company coming out with a new one in 2011. But why mess with the kind of success the Wii is having?

And over the next couple of years, the Wii’s price could drop further, joining the Xbox below the $200 threshold and ensuring continued strong sales.

For its part, Nintendo said it does not comment on rumors.

If there’s one thing that’s sure to get video gamers talking, it’s a rumor that there could be a new
Wii,
Xbox, or
PlayStation console on the horizon.

Price-wise, however, it’s hard to see how a new Wii device would make sense. One way the Wii has arrived at its dominant position–one few expected before the three consoles hit the market in 2005 and 2006–is by having the lowest price.

All in all, it’s hard to know how to take rumors like these. There are certainly some reasons to think Nintendo would want to go this direction, and there are other reasons why it wouldn’t.

One big question is why Nintendo would be rushing to put out a new console when the Wii is selling at unbelievable levels, far outselling Microsoft’s Xbox 360 and Sony’s PlayStation 3. In August, according to industry analysts The NPD Group, the Wii sold 453,000 units, while the Xbox moved 195,000 and the PS3 just 185,000.

Well, the hot topic of discussion du jour is that there could be a new Wii by 2011, according to a post on the blog What They Play.

(Credit:
Nintendo)

More likely, the news that Nintendo will put out Thursday will be about a new multimedia DS handheld device, such as the one the video game blog Joystiq says could be unveiled at a separate press event in Japan Wednesday night.

But the Xbox and the PS3 are both HD consoles that provide very high-quality graphics capabilities. By contrast, the Wii’s graphics are not nearly as powerful; instead, the console’s success is based mainly on its innovative motion-sensitive controllers.

Of course, as has been made abundantly clear over the last year or so, many people don’t consider the Wii to be a direct competitor to the Xbox and the PS3. Rather, some see the Wii as complementary to the other two consoles, despite the fact that before any of them hit the market, all three were touted as “next generation” devices.

It would be fair to ask why a Nintendo console would need HD capabilities, and the answer there could easily be that just because any new device had them doesn’t mean all new games for it would have to take advantage of them. Some could, however, and I’m sure gamers would like the variety of choices that such a development would offer.

That site “has heard from multiple sources in the game development and publishing community that Nintendo is currently showing early presentations of its next home console hardware. Apparently set to hit the market ‘by 2011,’ the device is said to be the true ‘next generation’ Nintendo console, and far more than a simple refresh of the current (Wii) hardware.”

The post continued, asserting that this rumored new device could have high-definition capabilities, as well as a “greater emphasis on digitally distributed and backwardly compatible content.”

That’s the question I think is hard to answer. The company would almost certainly have to subsidize the price to keep it low, and as long as there wasn’t yet a new Xbox or PlayStation–some think Microsoft may have a new device in the works, while almost no one foresees a PlayStation 4 any time soon–a new HD Wii would mean that Nintendo would have to lose money in the short term to build market share with a new device, even as the Wii would likely still be selling well.

Now, however, the lowest-end Xbox costs less than the Wii. Last month, Microsoft said it was lowering the price of the Xbox Arcade to $199, becoming the first next-gen console to break the $200 price barrier that many industry observers feel is the magic price point that opens up a market to mass consumers. The Wii still costs $249.

Still, if the new Wii rumors are true, it will be a long time before Nintendo would be ready to unveil any details–think maybe the Game Development Conference in March, 2009, or E3 next July. Or possibly not even then.

Update at 2:10 p.m. PDT: This story now reflects Nintendo’s response to a request for comment.

It could be mere coincidence (because odds are that even if the rumors are true, Nintendo wouldn’t want to confirm them for quite some time), but on Thursday, the company is hosting its annual media day here in San Francisco. And I’d been told that it would “have news” it would be releasing at the event. Until now, I’d assumed the news would be something only minimally consequential, but of course, announcing a new Wii development project would make a few headlines, I would think.

But in my opinion, that $50 price difference would not be enough to discourage Wii buyers–holiday 2008 sales will tell the story, I suppose–and I expect that in the near term, Nintendo will continue to see its sales be an order of magnitude higher than the Xbox or the PS3.

The Flip Video went from basically nothing to grabbing an outsize chunk of the video camera market in two years, inspiring more established electronics brands like Kodak and Sony to follow suit with their own small video cameras.

Pure Digital has discussed possible sale at least once before. CNET News reported in January that Sony tried to buy Pure Digital–but balked at the price–before developing its own Webbie HD camera.

TechCrunch cites several anonymous sources saying that San Francisco-based Pure Digital is considering a sale. Another source says the Cisco sale “is a done deal,” and puts the price tag at “north of $500 million.”

Pure Digital had been in the business of making one-time-use cameras for about five years before it hit the jackpot with its Flip Video, a small, flash-based video camera that allows easy uploads of videos directly to YouTube and other online video sites.

The original Flip Video camera from Pure Digital.

Pure Digital, maker of the popular Flip Video camera, is reportedly nearing a deal to be acquired by Cisco, according to a report in TechCrunch.

Pure Digital CEO Jonathan Kaplan wasn’t available for comment.

(Credit:
Pure Digital)

And those long lines? A total of one million iPhone 3G units were sold. The millionth phone was sold on Sunday.

Despite the outages, shortages, and related hand-wringing associated with last Friday’s iPhone 3G launch and Thursday’s release of the
iPhone 2.0 firmware, Apple says there were nevertheless 10 million downloads from its new App Store in its first weekend of existence.

“The App Store is a grand slam, with a staggering 10 million applications downloaded in just three days,” Apple overlord Steve Jobs said in a release Monday. “Developers have created some extraordinary applications, and the App Store can wirelessly deliver them to every iPhone and
iPod touch user instantly.”

There are currently about 800 applications available for download in the App Store, over 200 of which are free; at launch, there were about 550.

And on the phone sales, Jobs said, “It took 74 days to sell the first one million original iPhones, so the new iPhone 3G is clearly off to a great start around the world.”

And here’s why the device doesn’t go far enough: It lets you expend your energy but doesn’t do anything with it. In an era of emerging environmental consciousness, I don’t know how it’s legal to build exercise equipment that doesn’t feed the energy that people expend working out back into the power grid, or at least back into the equipment itself. I’m serious.

(Credit:
Rafe Needleman / CNET)

Here’s an idea that only goes half way: Furniture maker and D6 sponsor Steelcase was showing off its Walkstation product. It’s a stand-up desk integrated into a treadmill. So now you can take a walk while you’re working.

See also: More Walkstation coverage on Crave.

The device is thousands of dollars, steep for the average worker. I fully expect the Walkstation desk to show up on CSI soon, as metaphor for wretched executive excess.

A D6 attendee tries the Walkstation.

I tried it and it’s not as awkward as you might think. You have to get the speed on the treadmill just right, so you can walk without thinking, but once you do it is actually possible to read and type while walking.

Click here for full coverage of the D: All Things Digital conference.

Global IP Solutions, a company well recognized for its media-processing expertise in IP communications, announced on Monday its SDK, which enables Voice over IP applications to be made for Apple’s
iPhone.

So far, GIPS claims that its voice engines have been downloaded and used more widely than any other voice engine worldwide. GIPS’ voice engines enable consumers and businesses to enjoy affordable, high-quality, IP-based communications, even under adverse network conditions.

Soon enough, you will be able to voice chat using instant messenger on an iPhone.

(Credit:
Dong Ngo/CNET Networks)

This means that developers can now use GIPS’ VoiceEngine Mobile, to create real-time VoIP applications, such as games, social-networking applications, and, of course, applications for making calls to regular phone lines over the Internet. Soon enough, you will be able to use instant messenger to voice chat with friends on the iPhone, just like you’ve been doing on your computer for ages now.

Being the inventors of the popular iLBC codec standard (which got approved by IETF in late 2004 and is currently implemented in the iPhone), GIPS’ decision today seems a natural move, considering the popularity of the iPhone. According to Apple, more than one million iPhone 3Gs were purchased over the launch weekend; and exactly one month later–today–you can still find people waiting in line outside some Apple stores for the device.

Though this is exciting news indeed, GIPS VoiceEngine Mobile will only work with iPhone’s Wi-Fi connection and will not take advantage of the new iPhone’s 3G connection. This is because Apple has always blocked the use of VoIP on the carriers’ data connection; and AT&T, understandably, wouldn’t be too happy about supporting something that potentially costs them long distance phone business. We can only hope this will change in the future. For now, in my experience, AT&T’s 3G coverage is still too patchy and unreliable to be a platform for VoIP calls, anyway.

See also: Ghostzilla

The browser itself is just a reworked version of Internet Explorer, although it won’t import any bookmarks from there. You can, however, enter in any Web address, or pick from a small selection of sites from Double Vision’s content portal.

What makes the software so special is that you can control the transparency of the browser window and continue to interact with whatever application it’s partially blocking out. This is useful for keeping an eye on your e-mail inbox or IM window while surfing somewhere else. The makers of Double Vision are pushing it as a simple way to watch how-to software videos while using the software (note: this excuse only works if you have one monitor).

Transparency isn’t Double Vision’s only forte; it’s got a few other tricks. For instance, you can cut out a specific part of a page just to get at the content. This is especially helpful when visiting YouTube since you can pull out the player and move it to a less conspicuous part of your screen while watching. Hitting the “boss” button combination will also cut out any sound from that video when it’s not the front-most application.

This reminds me quite a bit of a now-defunct site called Workfriendly.net, which would skin Web sites to look like a Microsoft Word document. With Double Vision, you’d simply be able to keep working in Word while enjoying the very best of ninja cat.

Double Vision (download) is the latest tool for people who don’t like doing work while at work. This small piece of software lets you casually surf the Web inside of other programs, then hide the window with a simple keyboard shortcut.

In other words, ShiftSpace is mildly interesting, but I don’t (yet) see the point. Can someone enlighten me?

I will admit that I still don’t 100 percent understand what I’m supposed to be doing with ShiftSpace, an open-source “browser plug-in for collaboratively annotating, editing, and shifting the Web.”

Then there’s SourceShift, which allows you to re-tool a Web page with HTML. On the InfoWorld page in question, I changed the title to something more to my liking. While a momentarily fun act of graffiti (harmless, because it’s just an overlay only visible to ShiftSpace users), it doesn’t really serve much of a purpose.

Other features, such as the ability to “image swap,” do not. ImageSwap allows me to take a picture from one Web page and then swap it with the picture on another Web page. This would be great…if I could figure out a reason that I’d want to do that. For example, I pulled Microsoft’s “heroes” off an InfoWorld page and replaced it with a Mona Lisa graphic (as at right). I suppose it was mildly entertaining, but useful? Nah.

Using Greasemonkey at its heart, ShiftSpace is supposed to make the Web a more active experience. Earlier this month, ShiftSpace came out in version 0.11 and with a revamped Web site.

commentary

The annotation and highlighting part I get. Basically, it allows me to mark up Web pages with my own commentary and then have that available for future reading (by myself or by others, if I so choose). This makes sense.

The company’s previous round, with veteran investor Ron Conway and Tech Coast Angels contributing, had totaled $4.3 million.

Its name might be wacky, but some investors with deep pockets think it’s the real thing: SodaHead.com, a polling and answers site, announced Wednesday that it has raised $8.4 million in Series B venture funding. The money comes from new lead investor Mission Ventures, as well as existing investor Mohr Davidow Ventures.

Currently, SodaHead has about 600,000 subscribers. The new venture money will be used, according to a release, to get the word out, support a growing user base, and make some “strategic hires.”

SodaHead was founded by Jason Feffer, former vice president of operations at MySpace, and his childhood friend Michael Glazer. Feffer describes the site as “the Internet’s modern day town square,” and has said that polling records produce so much information about user preferences that they’re a dream for advertisers.

Apple has scheduled a music-related event for Tuesday that’s widely expected to involve iPod news.

The full-fledged Spore goes on sale Sunday in North America. Players get to design their own creatures before beginning on an evolutionary quest through the game’s many levels.

The company also has versions of Spore Origins for other iPod models and non-Apple mobile devices.

EA had said at the E3 game conference in July that it planned to build a number of games that would take advantage of the accelerometer built into the iPhone, along with its Wi-Fi capabilities.

The game giant’s EA Mobile unit announced Friday that it will offer Spore Origins for Apple’s gadgets, starting later this month. The variation on EA’s new Spore game is designed to take advantage of the motion-sensing technology in the iPhone and the iPod Touch so that players can tilt and angle their way through a digital take on evolution.

Electronic Arts is bringing its new creature feature to the
iPhone and
iPod Touch.

For those whose video-gaming tastes run to more traditional fare, EA Mobile said Friday that it has nine other games in development for use on the iPhone and the Touch, including Yahtzee Adventure, EA Mini Golf, Monopoly: Here and Now (world edition), SimCity, and The Sims 3.

This post was updated at 1:12 p.m. PDT with the closing price of Yahoo’s stock and other related information.

“A DOJ approval would be mildly positive for the stock,” said Mark May, an analyst for Needham & Co. “It has a greater than 50 percent chance of being approved, so it’s already baked into the current stock price.”

“All of these things could potentially happen,” he added. “But the question is: can they execute going forward and take share in a meaningful way from Google, MSN, or anyone for that matter?”

Yahoo, which was Nasdaq’s most actively traded company, closed down 5.38 percent over the previous day during the regular trading session.

Potential drivers of Yahoo’s share price could be the sale of its investments in Yahoo Japan, as well as in Chinese search site Alibaba, or a buyback of its shares, noted Steve Weinstein, an analyst with Pacific Crest Securities.

“It’s unclear what impact it will have over time. It depends on what happens with the rest of the economy,” Brown said. “If AMP is wildly successful and it’s perceived that Yahoo is taking advertising wallet share, then that could move the stock. But the possibility that will happen in the short-term seems very low.”

Wall Street is largely expecting the deal to go through, so any upside to Yahoo’s share price would likely be minimal if the Department of Justice gives it the green light, analysts say.

Yahoo’s third quarter comes to a close at the end of September. Analysts aren’t anticipating any major upswing surprises in its financial performance, they note.

Yahoo’s share price performance not only pushes it past the 52-week mark it was trading in January, but also knocks it back to a level not seen since early October 2003. And while some investors may note that Yahoo was knocked about with the rest of tech stocks–as the tech-heavy Nasdaq took a beating Thursday–it may not cushion the pain of what could have been.

“Unless there’s a material change in market share, it’s hard to see a single data point from a third-party metrics provider serving as a catalyst,” said Derek Brown, an analyst with Cantor Fitzgerald.

In the coming weeks, Yahoo may be receive early indications as to whether federal antitrust regulators oppose its controversial search-advertising deal with Google. State regulators are expected to weigh in with their decision this fall.

Yahoo’s pending advertising management platform (AMP) launch is a wild card.

The new figure is below the previous 52-week low of $18.58, which it reached in late January–just before Microsoft announced its unsolicited buyout offer of $31 a share on February 1. Yahoo rejected that bid, arguing it undervalued the company. Months later, Yahoo also dismissed Microsoft’s sweetened $33 a share offer, countering with a requested bid of $37 a share. Microsoft, subsequently, pulled its buyout offer.

And anything absent of a sea change in the monthly Nielsen Online search rankings will have minor effect on the stock.

With Microsoft no longer in the picture, investors are wondering what, if any, catalysts are on the horizon.

Yahoo closed at $17.75 a share Thursday, marking a new 52-week low for the Internet pioneer and raising the question of whether any near-term catalyst exists that could revive the battered stock.