Last week it was announced that the Disney Co. is buying Marvel Entertainment for around $4 billion -- Mickey Mouse meets Spider-Man, I suppose.
These two companies are technical giants. Disney started of course with animation and evolved over time to develop feature films, a cable TV network and various online properties. Marvel started as pulp producer Timely Comics and really came into its own in the '60s when writer Stan Lee developed characters such as Spider-Man, the Hulk and the Fantastic Four. Marvel recently has had tremendous success bringing its characters to the movies, including blockbusters based on its X-Men and Iron Man characters.
The combination of these two should produce a powerhouse of entertainment.
* Logitech recently released the SqueezeBox Radio, a device that streams Internet radio, online music and songs stored on your computer. Zdnet reviewed this device and gave it high marks, especially in the number of audio formats it supports.
There are sometimes stories online that will remind you of a nagging headache -- not really all that painful but always there. One of these was resolved last week, in that eBay finally closed a deal to sell most of its interest in Skype, its much-maligned VoIP client. You'll recall that VoIP is Voice Over Internet Protocol, the service that allows you to make phone and video calls online.
Ebay took a lot of heat from investors after buying Skype because, apparently, they could not find any way to make money with it. The consummation of this sale will put all this to rest, and hopefully we'll see Skype with new useful features soon.
* YouTube apparently is working on a deal to enable it to stream rented movies in full quality. The site continues to struggle with ideas to become profitable, and this is one more effort in that direction. They'll face some stiff competition with Netflix and others who have a head start in this area.
* Techcrunch published an interesting statistic recently, namely that one quarter of Facebook users often connect via a mobile device or cell phone. If this is correct, it is very telling of the future of Facebook and other social networks because the mobile phone is considered the computer of the future by many. If the various rumored Tablet PCs come into being, mobile access will be even more widespread as the devices become common.
* Also from Techcrunch, this is the week when dreams come true, if you've been dreaming of multimedia on your iPhone.
They are basing this primarily on the Apple event that takes place Wednesday, rumored to announce new iPods and of course iPhone news. Lack of promised multimedia features has been the cause of much battering of AT&T in blogs and other online destinations. So if this comes to pass, it will take a lot of pressure off the company and fulfill the promise of the iPhone.
* Regular readers and Facebook followers know I have a love-hate relationship with the browser Opera. I love almost everything about it, especially its speed, but it has a few quirks that drive me nuts. Still, stubborn person I am, I keep using it and will for a while.
The company just released Opera 10, and webware.com did a great article on some of the game widgets included within it. While games are the last thing on my agenda in choosing a browser, some of these are absolutely great. Just be prepared to waste part of your day if you get involved with them.
* Finally, an interesting thought. It's said that nothing is new under the sun. While reading the Dilbert comic strip in the Times Free Press, it occurred to me that, other than the telegraph, newspaper comic strips were in fact the first Twitter, the first method of sharing complex information in a small constrained space. It goes to show you that too much time is a dangerous thing, even for technical writers.
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