Motorola’s got a surprise up its sleeve for Xoom pricing—and that surprise is all the money that it’s taking out of its own pocket. Meanwhile, The Daily opens up its own pocketbook, and Netflix shells out for a deal that could change the face of TV. Don’t worry: we built the remainders for Wednesday, March 16, 2011 on rock and roll.
Motorola Xoom Wi-Fi edition due on March 27 for $599 (The Loop)
The unsubsidized Wi-Fi-only version of the Android tablet drops later this month for a cheaper-than-expected $599 price. At which point it will surprise every single pundit on Earth as it becomes best friends with the iPad 2 and they pitch a TV pilot about a pair of mismatched roommates.
The Daily: Rupert Murdoch’s iPad newspaper to launch in UK by June 2011 (The Telegraph)
Rupert Murdoch’s much-touted iPad-based newspaper, The Daily, is finally set to take your hard-earned money, beginning next week. A year’s subscription will set you back $40, and will hopefully contribute to upgrading the hamsters that are powering the app’s sluggish carousel design.
Netflix To Enter Original Programming With Mega Deal For David Fincher-Kevin Spacey Series ‘House Of Cards’ (Deadline Hollywood)
What if you could watch TV on Netflix—wait, wait, there’s more—before you watched it anywhere else. The video-streaming (and don’t forget disc-mailing) company has reportedly struck a deal to fund an original series, produced by director David Fincher and starring actor Kevin Spacey. The company reputedly outbid AMC and HBO, among others, for the potentially groundbreaking deal. We sincerely hope that the series, titled House of Cards, does not live up to its name.
The 10 most Mac-friendly countries on the planet (Pingdom)
Curious to know which country boasts the highest popularity for the Mac? The answer might surprise you: it’s Switzerland. Followed by Luxembourg. (This is based on desktop marketshare numbers collected by a company that does Website statistics.) Of course, when you think about it, is it really shocking that a country famed for efficiency and chocolate would embrace Apple computers?
Product Remainders:
Wuala 1.11 – The client-side data encryption app by LaCie comes to iOS, offering protection for your files directly on your iPhone.
Photoshop Express 2.0 – A new Camera workflow for faster photo-taking in-app, Retina display support, and an in-app purchase for the Adobe Camera Pack headline this 2.0 update for this universal app.
Everlands 1.12 – Hexage’s $2 turn-based strategy game, featuring anthropomorphic animals, is now on the Mac App Store.
StoryMill 4 – Mariner Software’s $50 novel-writing software gains the ability to snapshot scenes for later reference, a redesigned timeline view, and a trash feature akin to Mac OS X’s.
FrameLoader 1.1.4 – Nova Media’s app for managing digital picture frames is now available in the Mac App Store for $12.
Notebooks 4.1.1 for iPhone – Support for Markdown formatting, an extra row of keys for formatting text, and the ability to create PDFs from plain documents highlight this update. The separate 2.1 update to the iPad version brings the same changes.