Now that Commodore USA has sufficiently piqued your curiosity with a revamped Commodore 64 prototype, it’s ready to capitalize on the idea. Quite literally, we might add. 5 buys you the basic basic model with an 1.8GHz dual-core Intel Atom D525 chip, NVIDIA ION 2 graphics, 2GB of RAM and a 160GB hard drive — which it promises to deliver by “early June” — with hundred-dollar increments adding premium features like an additional 2GB of memory, a Blu-Ray drive, up to 1TB of storage, 802.11 b/g/n WiFi and Bluetooth. However, if you’re simply looking for a compact keyboard computer (rather than reliving 80′s nostalgia) there’s another option on tap — a likely rebadged wedge of a machine (with weaker specs) that Commodore’s calling the VIC-Slim. Even at just 5, though, something tells us it won’t be the “wonder computer” of 2011.

Continue reading Commodore USA puts the new C64 up for pre-sales, unveils far-less-retrotastic VIC-Slim

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After pre-selling 120,000 iPads last week, an Venezuelan analyst named Daniel Tello estimated that Apple iPad pre-sales fell to 1,000 per hour on Sunday. Tello believes that the first boost was all about “pure overexcited fanboism” and the demand will fall over the next week.

To put this into perspective, however, I doubt any one Nokia phone sells 1,000 units an hour, let alone an untested, unseen device sold only in the American market. Obviously a lot of these sales can most definitely attributed to carpetbaggers hoping for a quick eBay fix as well as to frothy fanbois, but I assure you, Mr. Tello, that Apple is crying all the way to the bank with their pre-order cash.

While I agree that this thing could end up being another MacBook Air, for some reason I have a good feeling about this device. People have been looking for it, whether they knew it or not. In fact, they’ve been looking for it since about 2001 when the first tablets hit the street and disappointed us.

via Fortune

Because of so many new technologies altering the way movie reviews and filmmaking are done, the financial environment of independent cinema in Hollywood is changing. It used to be that only a little over 900 production and film financing distribution partners invested in Indie Films through private placement memorandums. Any willing investor could do it today.

Several areas have been influenced: 1) Filmmakers now have online schools where they can get training, learn about filmmaking, and locate a mentor in the industry to work with. 2) Traditional fundraising methods to secure film distribution are becoming outdated, while new funding opportunities for independent filmmakers are emerging.

Internationally, financiers favor big productions. In the past, many of the large studios have used German tax shelters, New Zealand subsidies, and pre-sales to fund big blockbuster film projects. But what about the small independent filmmaker? Where can he get funding for his projects?

Right now, the digital revolution is not only changing the way films are made, but how films are distributed. Independent filmmakers no longer need a large distributor because faster broadband now allows people to watch movies from their computer screens. Anyone can purchase some films from their websites. “The Fall of America and the Western World” is one such film.

Independent filmmakers who are hoping to get their film projects can look forward to the future when these changes increases their opportunities.

There are also online companies that match filmmakers with distributors and/or investor nowadays. Filmmakers from small towns can make use of these kinds of services.

It also helps when an independent filmmaker has good movie reviews from film critics for past film projects. These movie reviews lend credibility to filmmakers when they are seeking investors.

The filmmaker would submit a description of their film for consideration to these online websites. There are many investors registered on the website who can then access the list of projects at their own pace, and review those projects that are in need of funding. They in turn can directly contact the filmmakers, which cuts out any middlemen as was popular for film financing in the past.

Independent filmmakers are also assisted by some non-profit organizations to locate financing and distribution for their projects. They don’t fund filmmakers, but they do offer fiscal sponsorship. Sponsorship allows filmmakers to receive funding from sources that limit their funding to nonprofits.

Independent producers can also post website ads and information abour their projects on other websites that link them to investors.

Lots of excitement today over a second Palm WebOS device now that the Pre has launched. The only problem is that none of this is news. We broke the story about the device, code named Pixie, on April 29. A day later we had the Pixie name and additional details.

As far as I can tell there are no additional details coming out now. So I’ll supply additional information that we’ve gathered. Our sources in Asia tell us that Palm continues to push development of the device but is far from making a launch decision. “Palm has decided to put the Pixie on hold until they have better visibility into how its current models are selling in the market.”

Our guess is that low Pre sales rates make it less likely for the Pixie to hit the market this year. Palm’s WebOS is the best mobile operating system in existence, in our humble opinion. But the hardware is, at best, a B.

Bonanza! I’m afraid it’s a bit like a little kid saying “I ate more hot dogs than ever before!” when they’re up against Takeru Kobayashi, but we’re still proud of little Sprint. Check out what their excited VP of Business Marketing had to say:

We experienced our best one day of sales and single weekend sales for any phone we’ve launched in our history. We sold out of the device over the weekend in most of our store locations. And it happened at a much faster rate than we had planned on.

Independent estimates place the Pre sales at more than 50,000 and less than 100,000 over the weekend, and hey, that’s great, but when your opponent in the race is a rare tortoise-hare hybrid like Apple, slow and steady isn’t going to cut it. I’m still rooting for you, Sprint, but you guys need to go big or you’re not going to have a home to go home to.