Nintendo has announced the launch of the highly anticipated WiiWare and with it, the availability of six WiiWare titles.

The cheapest title available is the popular Internet flash game "Defend Your Castle" from XGen Studios which sells for 500 Wii Points ($5 USD). The most expensive game is "Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles: My Life As King" from Square Enix which will sell for $15 USD. The other games available are Frontier Development's "LostWinds", Nnooo's "Pop", High Voltage Software's "V.I.P. Casino: Blackjack," and Gameloft's "TV Show King" which range from $7 to $10.

In its press release the company said that the release process for the new games would be the same as Wii Virtual Console games, which are released every Monday.

Back in February, Nintendo said in an interview that over 100 WiiWare games were currently in development.

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Although it has said for years that all digital downloads should have standard pricing, it seems Apple will finally acknowledge that not all TV shows are equal or will sell for the same price.

According to the NYTimes, the company will be selling some HBO shows on its iTunes platform for over its standard $1.99 price. The new deal may lead other premium media companies to ask for price changes for their digital content.

The deal is not official yet but could be announced as early as tomorrow, says a person close to the negotiations. The same person added that over time the complete series' “Sex and the City” and the “The Sopranos” will be added to the iTunes platform.

Representatives from both Apple and HBO declined to comment on the matter.

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SingTel has announced that is has inked a deal with Apple to sell the iPhone in Singapore, India, Australia and the Philippines meaning that at least in two of those countries, the carrier will have to compete for iPhone sales.

Last week Vodafone made a similar announcement stating that it had signed an agreement to distribute the phone in 10 countries, including Australia, India and Italy. Later that day, Telecom Italia announced it was also selling the phone in Italy meaning Apple was moving away from its history of signing only exclusive deals with carriers.

It seems low sales in Europe and Asia have gotten Apple to rethink its model somewhat.

Although there was no word on when the carrier will begin selling the phone, they did say "SingTel Mobile will distribute the iPhone in Singapore, while the handset will be sold by Optus in Australia. Bharti Airtel and Globe Telecom will handle sales in India and the Philippines, respectively."

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Last week, PC game Mass Effect's producer Derek French confirmed that the game would have rolling DRM, meaning every 10 days you would need to activate the game again over the internet. If you couldn't, you would not be able to play the game.

According to a new Q&A on the company's official forums however, BioWare will be scrapping that type of DRM and giving gamers back their freedom to not phone home if they do not want to.

"BioWare has always listened very closely to its fans and we made this decision to ensure we are delivering the best possible experience to them," says BioWare community manager Jay Watamaniuk in the post.

"To all the fans including our many friends in the armed services and internationally who expressed concerns that they would not be able re-authenticate as often as required, EA and BioWare want you to know that your feedback is important to us."

That "feedback" was of course, hostile reactions from every community that posted the news, including here at AfterDawn.

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Although there have been rumors swirling for months that it was going to happen, TiVo has officially confirmed that Amazon Unbox will be going HD.

"Unbox, the content-downloading service TiVo started with Internet retail leader Amazon.com last year, can’t process HD content, though the companies will announce HD capabilities “in the not too distant future,” Mr. Denney of TiVo said.

Amazon explains the process of using Unbox on TiVo on its official site. "After a simple registration process, you will be able to shop for Unbox videos to your TiVo DVR from two places - the Amazon Unbox website and directly from your TiVo DVR.

If you're shopping on the Amazon Unbox Website, just look for the TiVo logo to find TiVo-enabled videos. You'll be able to select your TiVo DVR as a RemoteLoad download destination each time you purchase or rent a video at amazon.com/unbox.

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Orb Networks is claiming that they have developed "the world's first way to stream live TV to the iPhone and iPod Touch."

OrbLive, as the application is called, will work with "jailbroken" iPhones and iPod Touches. Despite being the "first" to make an application of the sort, it is really not all that special. Users install the Orb streaming application on their TV-tuner enabled PCs and OrbLive on their handheld devices. You then set the PC to live TV and stream it directly using the Wi-Fi.

Adds Orb's CEO, Joe Costello, "Although the iPhone provides users with a great way to experience the Web, it offers a ridiculously sub-par streaming video experience. When all the carriers' free phones can stream lots of things that my iPhone can't, something's seriously wrong. OrbLive finally brings the iPhone's streaming video experience up to par with other mobile phones."

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The Criterion Collection, the leading distributor of classic cinema, has announced that it will begin its Blu-ray support this year with at least 13 confirmed titles.

The announcement, through the company's official email newsletter, says that the first releases will hit retail shelves in the Q3 of this year.

The thirteen confirmed titles are 'The Third Man,' 'Bottle Rocket,' 'Chungking Express,' 'The Man Who Fell to Earth,' 'El Norte,' 'The 400 Blows,' 'Gimme Shelter,' 'The Complete Monterey Pop,' 'Contempt,' 'Walkabout,' 'For All Mankind,' 'The Wages of Fear,' and the 'The Last Emperor.'

Criterion adds that the new editions will feature "glorious high-definition picture and sound," and all the special and supplement content of their DVD cousins.

Another welcome situation is that of price. Criterion says the movies will cost the same as their standard DVD counterparts, a welcome relief from the expensive pricing of current Blu-ray films.

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For those interested Amazon has begun offering a new "Buy 2 Get 1 Free" sale on hit Blu-ray titles effectively dropping the price of each title (when buying 3) from about $28 USD to $18 USD, a very good price for Blu-ray titles.

There are 34 titles available including "X-men: The Last Stand", "I, Robot", "28 Weeks Later", and all the "Die Hard" movies.

Amazon has been sending out emails to customers informing them of the sale and all you have to do is add 3 titles to your cart and Amazon will automatically deduct the price of the lowest priced title.

The whole list of movies available can be found here, and there are a few good movies available for those looking.

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Samsung has introduced a new high-definition video camera that can also take high resolution digital photos as well as take smooth slow-motion video.

The new HMX20, which was originally shown off at the CES event, can manage full blown 1080p full high definition (1,920 pixel by 1,080 pixel resolution) and 8-megapixel images. Also of note is the feature of being able to take pictures while video is being recorded.

The camcorder also has a 2.7-inch widescreen LCD monitor.

The most interesting feature is a 300 frames per second slow-motion video shooting mode that will allow video to be slowed down by as many as 10 times and still appear smooth during playback. The camcorder is much smaller than most current video cameras as it has no optical drive or HDD and instead saves all images and video to flash memory, 8GB of internal to be exact. You can add extra memory through SD cards.

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Iceland's most popular torrent tracker, torrent.is has announced that it has won another court decision and the site will reopen next week, May 16th.

In late March the original case against torrent.is was dismissed but the Icelandic movie and music industry appealed to the Icelandic Supreme Court. In the original case, the courts ruled in favor of torrent.is and awarded it 400,000 ISK ($5025 USD). Last night the Supreme Court ruled in favor of torrent.is again, and awarded it an extra 500,000 ISK.

The case was dismissed once again because of legal formalities.

Torrent.is owner, Svavar Kjarrval, confided that he was “very happy with the decision,” and added that he wants to reopen the site next week. “However, the executive of one of the plaintiffs [SMÁÍS] claims he will use any means available to stop the site from reopening. I don’t know if that will succeed or not.”

A spokesman of SMAIS added “this verdict is sad, and it is incredible to deny copyright holders seeking their rights. This is an unnecessary adherence on legal formalities in this case, rather than taking on the subject as it should. There still has not been a formal verdict in this case and it seems to be hard to get a judge to review the facts of the case itself, that is, the copyright laws themselves.”

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Citing “minor input” from the MPAA and RIAA, the Los Angeles County government has now added piracy to its definition of “public nuisance", meaning all properties used in the dissemination of counterfeit goods can now be seized.

Physically pirated goods, such as bootleg DVDs or CDs, are now considered to be the same as counterfeit watches or handbags.

This new so called "Counterfeit Goods Nuisance Abatement ordinance" says that the counterfeit goods “substantially interfere with … lawful commerce in the county, property values, and is detrimental to the public health, safety, and welfare of the county's citizens, its businesses, and its visitors.”

Any property owner that knowingly allows piracy on their premises can be held responsible to pay $1000 USD for every, yes every, pirated work produced. The district attorney can also “temporarily restrain, preliminarily enjoin, and/or permanently enjoin the person or persons intentionally conducting, or knowingly maintaining or permitting the public nuisance from further conducting, maintaining, or permitting such public nuisance.”

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Just two weeks after the device sold out in the UK, it seems the 1st generation Apple iPhone is now sold out in the US as well.

A quick search of the Apple website will show that the popular device is "Currently Unavailable" in both the 8GB and 16GB variations.

The news has generally sparked rumors that the upcoming 3G iPhone will be released in the next 30 days, giving it the June launch date that many have been predicting.

The speculation puts the launch of the 3G model at the company's Worldwide Developers Conference (WWDC) in early June, a one year anniversary of the launch of the 1st generation of the device.

More updates as they become available.

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Apple has announced that they will be settling a pair of class-action lawsuits in Canada stemming from claims that the company misled customers "about the staying power" of the popular iPod MP3 players, especially the gradually dwindling battery life of first and second generation devices.

According to court documents, Apple is offering an online store credit of about $44.75 CAD for those living in Canada that purchased an iPod before June 24, 2004.

To be eligible for the credit, the battery life of your iPod "while continuously playing music — needs to have dropped to five hours or less for the first and second generation of the device and four hours or less for the third generation."

The lead plaintiffs in the case, two iPod owners, claim that the company misrepresented its product by saying it was capable of 10 hours of continual music playback. It is a well known fact that after even the first recharge, iPod battery lives began declining.

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Just days after being hit with one of the largest fines in copyright infringement history, a lawyer for the now dead torrent search engine TorrentSpy has said the business is bankrupt and they will not be able to pay the fine.

The fine, $110 million USD, was ordered two days ago by a judge, following a high profile case brought forth by the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA).

Because the site refused to turn over any internal documents the judge also ruled that the site can never go online again.

According to attorney Ira Rothken the owners of TorrentSpy have filed for bankruptcy protection in England "and have no appreciable assets."

"This was a Hollywood publicity stunt," Rothken added.

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Toshiba has announced that is planning to launch two new commercial products that will be based on PlayStation 3 technology.

The Japanese news site Tech-On! reports that an upcoming Toshiba HDTV will use the PS3's core Cell processor to enable some high-end features not normally seen on consumer television sets. One of these features is "real-time upscaling of SD signals into HD resolution". Another interesting feature will be "the ability to play and record multiple TV shows at the same time." Another feature is described as the ability to "display video as if it is being viewed through opera glasses." Although unclear, it seems that may be a description of a zoom function.

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The popular music community site Last.fm has launched its own online channel for video interviews, starting a trend of original content production it hopes to continue into the future.

Dubbed Last.fm/presents, the channel will show off videos of interviews with established and upcoming artists including Moby, Santogold, Joshua Radin and Neon Neon.

The site's co-founder, Martin Stiksel, added that the interviews will "complement Last.fm's "music discovery experience". He also makes the somewhat bold claim that the site is the only place where "favourite artists talk so candidly about what makes them the musicians they are today".

The videos will be distributed by CBS and its syndicate partners Joost, Bebo, AOL and NetVibes.

Since its acquisition by CBS last year, Last.fm has been aggressively expanding its services and has signed deals with all four major labels - Universal, Sony BMG, Warner and EMI allowing the service to stream tracks for free on the site. Because of the deals, the site claims its amount of users have risen 59 percent as a result.

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