By Michael Santo
Contributing Writer, RealTechNews

Lately it’s seemed that when a new product or other revelation about a problem comes out, it takes a long time for the company to admit something … sometimes they never do. Examples would be the Sony DRM debacle, overheating Xbox 360s, fiery Dell laptops, etc. Sometimes it’s a small percentage of people affected, but if you’re in that percentage, it feels like 100%.

Well, people have been complaining about problems with hinges cracking on the DS Lite since its release. While maintaining it’s a minor issue, Nintendo is now offering free repairs … if you can do a little talking, anyway.

The customer service guy asked me about how the crack formed and when I told him I didn’t know, that I noticed it after reading about it on Kotaku, he said that since the information is getting out there and going “kinda wild” Nintendo has decided that they are willing to take a look at DS Lites with cracked hinges.

So to summarize, if your DS Lite has the hinge crack that we’ve all seen, then Nintendo will likely repair it free of charge. It also sounds like Nintendo may have figured out that the crack was caused by overtightening. Source: Kotaku

We Say: Good to see they’re responding, though there is probably no certainty that you will get a free repair if you call. It might depend on the support rep you speak to.

By Michael Santo
Contributing Writer, RealTechNews

Despite issues with overheating as well as supply, Microsoft announced its fiscal results today for the year as well as Q4. According to a slide presentation, approximately 5 million 360s were sold in the year, with 1.8 million sold in Q4 alone.

The company had expected to sell between 4.5 and 5.5 million units by the end of its fiscal year. The Home and Entertainment division said that “approximately” 5 million units were sold in the last fiscal year. 1.8 million of those were shipped during the fourth quarter. Source: GameDaily Biz

We Say: So, Microsoft hit its target. Will the PS3 repeat or will it, because of its high price, unceremoneously flop?

By Michael Santo
Contributing Writer, RealTechNews

It’s just an experiment, but it’s an exciting one. You can buy a personalized version of the new Jessica Simpson song “A Public Affair” at Yahoo! Music. So what? Well, besides the personalization, which means it’ll insert your name, the tracks are MP3s … no DRM. And, as blogged at the Yahoo! Music blog, this is something Yahoo! would love to extend to … well, everything.

As you know, we’ve been publicly trying to convince record labels that they should be selling MP3s for a while now. Our position is simple: DRM doesn’t add any value for the artist, label (who are selling DRM-free music every day — the Compact Disc), or consumer, the only people it adds value to are the technology companies who are interested in locking consumers to a particular technology platform. Source: Y!Music Blog

We Say: Cool, especially if they could work out a deal with music labels (though I see that as unlikely). More thoughts here.

Sometimes a picture is really worth a thousand words.
Source: Worth1000.com (what else?)

By Jimmy Daniels of The Grid Live
Contributing Writer, RealTechNews

Looks like Flickr had a storage problem last night.

We’ve had a temporary storage failure affecting a sizable chunk of old Flickr photos and are moving about 20 terabytes of photos across a few thousand miles (between two of our data centers) to ensure consistency and smoothness. ALL PHOTOS AND DATA ARE SAFE AND NOTHING HAS BEEN LOST. The site will come back up as soon as possible.

In a few minutes we’ll make a decision about whether to bring the site back online right away, or wait until all the photos are sure to show up. (If we bring it up right away, there will be lots of “This photo is currently unavailable” images, but everything will function properly.) Source: Flickr

We Say: Looks like all my stuff is cool and everything is back online.

By Michael Santo
Contributing Writer, RealTechNews

In an effort to curb piracy (I guess), the city of Nanjing is offering to give retailers one “real” DVD for every three pirated DVDs they bring in.

One former seller of pirated products had handed over more than 20,000 discs, the newspaper said. The company operating the scheme, with support from the city government, was investing “several million yuan” in the campaign, the newspaper said. Source: Reuters

We Say: I’m wondering, though, what the real point to all this is? Read more here.

By Chief Gizmateer
Contributing Writer, RealTechNews

China looks to leapfrog US’ domination in the Internet arena with the next-generation Internet. As part of China’s new five year strategy of converting from a manufacturing economy to one based on China’s scientific and technological breakthroughs, China plans on unveiling China’s Next Generation Internet (CNGI) at the 2008 Olympic Games.

CNGI is based on IPv6. Of course, the US Government has specified that all federal agency backbones should deploy IPv6 by 2008, but this Geek doesn’t buy it. I’ve heard about converting to IPng (IP Next Generation) since 1994 and I seem to remember talk that the Internet would transistion to IPv6 back in 2000.

Today, the CNGI connects 100 universities, 100 research facilities and 100 companies in 20 Chinese cities. The thought from China is the first to the market will win the strategic advantage and produce the next wave of eBays and Googles.

With the current restrictions placed on China’s access to the Internet, we’ll have to see how the strategy works out.

Read the entire article here.

Source: Gizmos for Geeks

By Jimmy Daniels
Contributing Writer, RealTechNews

Okay, the title is an edited quote from a Futurama episode, because I really didn’t know what to call this, as I was trying to keep it clean. Apparently our friends from Zango, 180Solutions, or ZangoBar, whatever you want to call them, are at it again. Serving up porn videos on a site that looks like it should be for kids, all the way down to it’s goofy looking header.

Yep, turns out Teenlaughs has some issues where relevant (or even semi-relevant) advertising is concerned. Yay! Chicks bouncing! Birds burping! Nipple piercing! Vida’s ass!

But wait - we’re not done yet. Let’s check out the sponsors…can you say “oiled up and ready to rock”?

Eva’s bra! Some chick’s completely naked butt! And though they’re just out of shot, there’s also Carmen Electra’s Striptease Workout (it says here) and, er, “Christina Aguilera Grabbing Herself”.

The chicks, Vida and Pink? Zango!

Eva, Xtina and Buttcheek Girl? Zango!

And….go back to the first screenshot. See “Today’s Funniest Videos”?

Zangoooooooooooooooooooooooooal! Source: Vitalsecurity

We Say: Zango management: No need for you to complain someone, somewhere, somehow, yada, yada, yada, we already know the routine by now. You are completely innocent, and everyone who has your program really, really wants it. We know you are going to drop this distributor as soon as someone will tell you who it is and that will be the last time anything like this ever happens.