Amazon's Unbox service might finally get some HD action. This screencap is from a survey sent out to their customer panel—notice the $4.99 pricepoint to rent an HD movie is the same as iTunes. Where's the "cheaper, plz" option? They also asked whether there's interest in subscriptions—like to "hit movies," or say, indie flicks. What say ye? [Thanks Michael!]

If you are ever confronted with a fire or carbon monoxide situation in your home, it goes without saying that you would want an alarm that will give you the best chance to escape. That having been said, the ONELink system from First Alert does just about everything outside of physically carrying you out of the building. Because they can be wirelessly networked (up to 16 units), when one of the devices goes off, they will all go off, giving you more time to take action no matter where you are in a building.

The ONELink can also give you verbal alerts that define whether you are dealing with smoke or carbon monoxide and where the problem is occurring in your home. They can even be tested and / or programmed using your standard television remote. As you might expect, the ONELink is a bit pricey at $99 a unit, but if they work as advertised, it may be a small price to pay. [Smarthome and First Alert via Gizmag]

According to News.com, Microsoft is slashing prices on several versions of Vista, dropping upgrade versions of Vista Ultimate to $219 from $299 (full version drops to $319) and Home Premium to $129 from $159 for U.S. customers. Naturally, the price drop has raised a lot of eyebrows from Vista haters and XP die-hards, which got us wondering which our smarty-pants readers prefer:

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Let's hear what's motivating your preference—whether your a die-hard who's sticking with XP or you're an early adopter who embraced Vista while it was still in beta—in the comments.

Filed under: Home Entertainment

Just when the members of the Blu-ray Disc Association were settling down to enjoy the fruits of victory, another challenger has entered the ring -- oh wait, it's just NME, makers of VMD, so it's really more like "remained in the ring and basically ignored." The company just issued a press release saying "All indications are that VMD can fill the void left by HD DVD," and that "The way is now clear for VMD to be embraced by the industry." We suppose that's true -- the Asian bootlegging industry really hasn't weighed in with a format choice yet, has it? In any event, VMD players have apparently been shipping to the US for a month now, so all you HD DVD fans out there looking to back yet another losing horse can probably find one -- start at the shadiest retailer you can think of, and then move downwards.

[Thanks, Chris]

 

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AppleInsider says Apple is "actively" poking Sony (as opposed to other BR manufacturers) for slot-loading Blu-ray drives for MacBook Pros—Apple supposedly even wanted to offer BR SuperDrives with the new Penryn-powered machines, but "quality issues" meant Sony could only deliver combo drives. Apple said shno thanks for now.

Reasonably, summer wouldn't be a bad time to expect them to come through, especially with the even more efficient Montevina chipset to offset Blu-ray's battery-killing nature. But, Apple's official support for Blu-ray has been completely non-existent despite its exceedingly long rumor half-life.

On the other hand, Blu-ray's victory logically means we'll see them populating more computers in (sorta) short order, now that the risk of shipping machines with $300 drink holders is gone. [AppleInsider]

Windows only: Firefox extension Firefox Throttle caps your download and upload rates in Firefox you so can throttle the amount of bandwidth Firefox can use. The extension is full-featured, with options for excluding specific web domains and toggling the bandwidth throttle, along with some simple traffic stats for the current session. If you really want to take control of how your internet connection's bandwidth is used up, setting up Quality of Service rules on your router is by far a better solution, but if you just wanted to limit the amount of bandwidth your browser can eat, the freeware, Windows-only Firefox Throttle should do the trick.

Filed under: Gaming

digg_url = 'http://digg.com/xbox/worst_parents_in_the_world_Xbox_prank';When you were a kid did your parents ever do anything mean to you for their own amusement? Whatever it was, something tells us it wasn't as evil as what Jonathan's (above) family did on Christmas morning, having him unwrap an empty Xbox box with some shirts inside -- while on video, mind you -- and then everyone laughing at him when he got upset and cried over being hoodwinked. For the love of all that is holy in the gadget-loving world, that is so wrong. Despite the fact his family told Jonathan multiple times in the video, "C'mon, you know we can't afford an Xbox!", the kid's shining example of an older brother (who uploaded the video) claims that they actually did get him the console, and that he'd eventually upload the video of the "real" unwrapping. He never did. Right.

Jonathan, you out there? Screw those people, they clearly don't understand what it is to be a kid and to want an awesome gadget so badly you can taste it. We've been there our whole lives. Since, as a publication, we can't just adopt you and raise you as our own, I will personally send you an Xbox 360 and some games -- but only on the condition that you swear to you'll never let your douchebag family play with it. Hit me up at engadget at gmail dotcom, make sure you can identify yourself so I know I've got the right person.

Continue reading Worst parents in the world punk kid into thinking he got an Xbox 360

 

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Gadget addiction. It sounds stupid but names like "Crackberry" exist for a reason. Think of all of the shiny gadgets you own and ask yourself "could I do without?" More specifically, which gadget do you need more—a computer or a cellphone?

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Filed under: Cellphones

Nice going RIM, you've successfully filed for a patent on a device that companies like HTC have been making since 2005. That's right folks, your friends at Research In Motion have just thrown an application in the direction of the US Patent Office which should look painfully familiar. The company is calling it a "Hybrid Portrait-Landscape Handheld Device With Trackball Navigation and QWERTY Hide-Away Keyboard," but we're calling it the Wizard. We suppose it's possible that the BlackBerry-maker has something up its sleeve that goes beyond the typical functionality of a phone like this, but nothing in the application seemed to indicate such a scenario. Did RIM even check out the competition before issuing this paperwork? It seems unlikely given the obvious and commonly used shape and design of this particular handset... oh, wait, this one has a trackball. Okay, our bad.

[Via BlackBerry Cool]

 

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After we posted yesterday about Ian's surprise $1.99 fee for asking Comcast to stop mailing him junk mail, a Comcast rep contacted Ian and apologized for the confusion, explaining that the fee is real but "it is not for changing marketing preferences." His full email after the jump.

On behalf of Comcast I would like to apologize for the $1.99 fee being assessed to your account. This fee is assessed when you make changes to your account, like changing the level of services you receive, but it is not for changing marketing preferences. This should not have happened, and we've reviewed your account to verify that the marketing profile has been updated properly and the credit has been applied to your account. Per my voicemail, we have laced an additional credit on your account for the trouble that you experienced.

We've also coached the representative who processed the change to your account and are taking steps to make sure this process is clear to all of our representatives, so this doesn't happen again.

We'd like to thank you for sharing this feedback with us and thank you for being a valued Comcast customer!

Sincerely,
Frank Eliason

Thanks, Frank! But you handled this so quickly and professionally... are you sure you're working for the right company?