Paramount cited Sony's next-generation PlayStation 3 game console as a key factor behind its decision. Due next spring, the next-generation console will come equipped with a Blu-ray DVD player and that could drive demand for movies on Blu-ray discs.

This could carry the day. I've heard that the biggest title for PS/2 for the first year or so it was out was The Matrix -- as in the movie. When it launched, PS/2 was the cheapest DVD player you could buy in Japan by a fairly wide margin.

Rival camps keep slugging it out in DVD format war

But renting might deserve another look right now. After five years in which rents have barely budged while house prices in New York, Washington, Los Angeles and elsewhere have doubled, renting has become a surprisingly smart option for many people who never would have considered it before.

I'd heard this before. Here's the Times writeup. Take the difference between the total cost of home ownership and your rent and buy the SP500 or something.

Is It Better to Buy or Rent?

Verizon Communications began taking orders yesterday for its new television service, which the company hopes will draw business away from cable and satellite providers.

I'm hoping it will be a win for everyone when I can buy voice, video and data -- aka data, data and data -- from either an RBOC or a cable company.

Verizon Introduces Fiber Optic TV Service

A consortium of eight companies said on Thursday that it would spend about $100 million to prepare applications to build two nuclear reactors, in Mississippi and Alabama, a step that seems to move the industry closer to its first new reactor order since the 1970's.

Energy Group Plans to Build Nuclear Plants in Gulf States

Rattle wrote:

And now for the knee-jerk lefty response. Yes it's time to decommision old ones, no it's not time to build new ones. When we figure out what to do with the radioactive waste, then maybe it'll be time to start building new ones.

Screw that perspective. I'm probably more of a liberal than I am a conservative, and on both grounds I can find a way to refute it. You are very right in classifying that as 'knee-jerk".

There was just such a rambling piece in the Guardian this week.

If projects like Yucca Mountain were not mismanaged, we would have a solution already. On-site storage is even workable.

I have to say Yucca mountain is a pretty dumb idea; all storage *must* be recoverable; it is ludicrous to suppose that we'llhave any idea what will happen to the stuff on a geological time scale. Further, how on earth are you going to get the stuff there? As it stands, you have to cross something like 40 states to get there from all of the nuke sites. On-site isn't perfect but Yucca mountain certainly isn't the answer either. Put it in relatively low-density dry casks until we can come up with a better solution.

RE: Partnership Formed to Build Nuclear Plants

After a gap of three decades in orders for nuclear power plants, two companies interested in building new ones announced Thursday that they had formed a partnership intended to create a new business model for the industry.

Its crazy to be one-offing these things. It sounds like
there may be some progress here.

Partnership Formed to Build Nuclear Plants

With a billion users and counting, the Internet hardly needs an evangelist.

Yet "chief internet evangelist" is precisely the title chosen by Vinton G. Cerf for his new job at Google Inc.

The company, based in Mountain View, Calif., announced earlier today that Dr. Cerf will be leaving MCI, where he is senior vice president of technology strategy, to be one of a dozen or so vice presidents working closely with Eric Schmidt as the company continues to move beyond its roots as an Internet search engine.

Internet Pioneer Leaving MCI to Join Google

Surprising investors and analysts, Google said today that it would sell up to $4 billion in stock, but the Internet search company offered few details on what it would do with the cash other than to hint at possible acquisitions.

Google to Sell Up to $4 Billion in New Stock

TiVo is looking at Internet TV, the digital recording company confirmed Friday, by testing a service that would let customers download TV shows on their set-top box from the Internet before the show is aired on TV.

About time...

TiVo Testing Internet TV

APPLE HAS worked out a way to prevent their customers downloading the company’s new Intel-based operating system into cheaper and uglier PCs.

Unfortunately, it doesn't work this way round; I can patch my x86 media to bypass this check. Apple is silly.

Apple sneaks in security chip