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Building on a technology partnership announced at the International CES show earlier this year, LG Electronics and Netflix are poised to launch a new Blu-ray Disc player with the ability to stream feature films and popular TV episodes from Netflix's catalog of more than 12,000 titles, beginning this autumn.

"It's an important development and Netflix is a good dance partner for LG," said Joshua Martin, a senior analyst at the Yankee Group. "If Netflix can get on stand-alone consumer devices and TV sets with as little added cost to the consumer as possible, they certainly will benefit."

Playing In 30 Seconds

The explosion of media resources in the home, ranging from high-definition and satellite broadcasts to the Internet, is creating headaches for some consumers because of all the connections to the TV set. For example, the stand-alone Roku device for accessing Netflix content that rolled out earlier this year "is an example of having to add another box," Martin noted.

"But Netflix is also taking the opposite approach," Martin said, by combining its online delivery service with Microsoft's Xbox 360 game player and LG's player.

Although LG has not announced a price for its BD300 Network Blu-ray player, Netflix Vice President Steve Swasey expects it to be well under $500 when it hits store shelves on Oct. 1. The player will let consumers watch Blu-ray discs and convert standard DVDs to the 1080p format for "a bit better quality" than before, Swasey said.

Netflix subscribers will be able to stream movies and TV episodes to the player at no additional charge, Swasey said. The device's queue-based user interface "displays all the user's Netflix programs on order in a list that shows up on the LG Blu-ray player when you turn it on and hit the Netflix button," he added. Once selected, movies will begin...

The International Olympic Committee (IOC) and the Chinese government confirmed Wednesday what free-speech advocates loathe to hear: Reporters covering the Olympic Games won't be able to access Web sites that China deems politically sensitive.

Internet censorship is standard for China's citizens, but China vowed seven years ago to allow journalists unfettered access during the Olympics. The backpedaling means about 20,000 reporters and technicians that will flood Beijing next week for the Olympic Games will be working with a handicap.

"The Olympic committee should have understood in the first place that censorship is a core strategy the Chinese government uses to maintain control. The IOC was naive to think China would relinquish that control, if only for a week," said Leslie Harris, president and CEO of the Center for Democracy and Technology. "It is very disappointing. I am as disappointed in the IOC as I am in China."

Condemnation for China's Policies

Reporters Without Borders is condemning the IOC's acceptance of Chinese authorities' decision to block access to certain Web sites at the Olympic Games media center in Beijing. The organization also condemns the IOC's inability to prevent this situation.

"Coming just nine days before the opening ceremony, this is yet another provocation by the Chinese authorities. This situation increases our concern that there will be many cases of censorship during the games," the organization said. "We condemn the IOC's failure to do anything about this, and we are more than skeptical about its ability to 'ensure' that the media are able to report freely."

Sun Weide, the chief spokesperson for the Beijing Organizing Committee for the Olympic Games, said the authorities would only guarantee "sufficient" Internet access for accredited media.

Many Broken Promises

Beyond the Internet censorship, Chinese authorities have broken their promise to improve the country's human-rights situation and betrayed the core values of the Olympics, according...

Intel Corp.'s low-cost laptop initiative is set to get a boost Wednesday from Portugal's government, which is pledging to provide elementary school students with 500,000 computers based on the chipmaker's Classmate PC design.

The announcement brings Intel's rivalry with the One Laptop Per Child organization into the spotlight once again.

In May, the nonprofit OLPC group said its green-and-white XO laptop computers would work with Microsoft Corp.'s Windows in addition to a homegrown Linux-based operating system.

The move was seen as a way to make the so-called "$100 laptop," which actually costs about $188, more palatable to education ministers in developing countries who might have balked at an open-source system.

But in a single deal for half a million PCs, Intel nearly matched OLPC's total orders to date -- 600,000 units as of May -- calling into question whether OLPC's adoption of Windows has made much difference.

Representatives for Cambridge, Mass.-based One Laptop Per Child did not immediately return calls or e-mails seeking comment and an updated order total.

As part of its biggest deal for the Classmate PC to date, Intel said it will serve as technology adviser to Portugal's Ministry of Public Works, Transportation and Communications, which is coordinating the laptop program.

Intel spokeswoman Agnes Kwan said parents of young school children will be able to choose between computers running Microsoft Corp.'s Windows operating system and ones with an open-source Linux operating system, and that the government will distribute the machines to Portugal's elementary school students over the course of the 2008-2009 school year.

As of the middle of this year, "hundreds of thousands" of the Classmate PCs had already shipped to customers in more than 30 countries, according to Kwan.

The spokeswoman declined to disclose how much the laptops will cost parents or other financial terms of the deal. She said Portugal's Ministry of Education is...