JVC has announced they have finally stopped production on VCR standalone players, marking the end of an era for the now dead format.
There are, of course, still other manufacturers producing combo VHS/DVD players or even combo Blu-ray and VHS players, but JVC was the last to make complete standalone VHS players.
The VCR is 33 years old, and over its lifespan 900 million VCRs were produced, 50 million by JVC.
Amazon has begun a new promotion on select Blu-rayplayers where if you purchase the player and four Blu-ray movies, you will recieve $100 USD off the entire order.
Using the coupon, and purchasing the four cheapest movies, players can be had for $170 USD including the four movies.
The best price is on a Sylvania player but the best overall deal is most likely the PlayStation 3.
Netflix and TiVo have announced a long anticipated partnership today meaning that Netflix subscribers will be able to stream movies through TiVo's set-top boxes.
The deal is the latest in a string of moves that has positioned Netflix to become one of the leaders in digital offerings through media hubs. Netflix currently has over 13,000 movies, televisions, and concerts available through their "Watch Instantly" streaming service.
TiVo will begin testing the service today and will make it widely available by Christmas. There will be no extra charge as long as you have a Netflix subscription that costs over $8.99 USD.
“For us this is very much aimed at new customers,”said Tom Rogers, chief executive of TiVo. “There are nine million Netflix subscribers out there who are movie lovers and who want something that really adds juice to their overall television experience.”
“That was a great testament to the over-optimism of technologists like me,” added Reed Hastings, Netflix’s chief executive.
Confirming reports published yesterday, The Beatles, MTV and Harmonix have jointly announced that they will be collaborating on a "brand new videogame featuring the music of the iconic Beatles" and will be out in time for the holidays 2009.
Harmonix CEO Alex Rigopulos added the game will be a "new, full-blown custom game title production built from the ground up". This won't be a special one band branded game like Aerosmith had with Guitar Hero however, it will be a whole new game.
Jeff Jones, CEO of Apple Corps, noted that the catalog would include songs from the entire run of The Beatles. It also appears the game will work with peripherals from Rock Band as well as Guitar Hero.
"We want to take players on an experiential journey through the band's history," he said. "A visual exploration of the Beatles' imagery is a big part of this project," Rigopulos said. "With apologies...there's very little that we're ready to say about the game itself."
MTV Networks president Van Toffler added, "We're going to provide the ultimate platform for new generations of fans to start their own love affair with the Beatles". Van Toffler also noted that the song of George Martin, Giles Martin, would be doing music production for the game.
Didiom has announced the launch of a mobile application that will allow users to purchase and download over 1 million MP3 songs.
The free application will also allow music fans to remotely access their home iTunes library from over 200 movile devices including BlackBerrys and phones with Windows Mobile operating systems.
Along with the launch Didiom has also announced they have signed licensing deals with CD Baby, which is the largest retailer for independent music, Naxos, the world's leading producer of classical music, Saavn, the world's largest digital distributor of South Asian content and other indie projects such as Phonofile, Bonzai Music, Soul Seduction, eClassical, Xpressbeats, Reggae Country, MisRolas, EmuBands, Armenian Music Center, Quarterlife Records and Resonant Vibes.
"We've developed a simple and fun way to mobilize music and to discover new music from around the world while on the go,"said Ran Assaf, Didiom's founder and CEO. "More and more music fans are tired of wasting valuable time sideloading music from their computer to their phone or iPod. We provide them with a new type of experience that lets them not only stream music from their computer to their handset over the air, but also to discover, bid for and share music in new and exciting ways."
DreamStream has announced they have signed a deal to encrypt Royal Digital Media's new optical media format, a competitor to Blu-ray.
The company uses military strength encryption and says the protection will be used on commercial motion picture discs.
"DreamStream and RDM's technologies align perfectly, as they both rest exponentially beyond the standards currently being employed," added DreamStream's Chief Development Officer Ulf Diebel.
The protection used will be 2,048-bit encryption. In comparison, Blu-ray uses 128-bit.
RDM's new HD media offers storage capacity of 100GB per disc, a notable upgrade from Blu-ray's 50GB. The company says their discs can also offer display qualities higher than 1080p.
"RDM's format will transform perceptions of high-definition," said Diebel. "RDM's system is able to display the next generation of high-definition: 1920p. With this advancement in technology, true digital cinema will soon be a widespread reality."
A single disc can hold about 4 hours of 1920p resolution video, added the company.
Microsoft is about to release the much rumored 60GB Xbox LIVE starterpack, according to a GameStop pre-order page.
The bundle will include a 60GB hard drive, headset, and 3-month free Live Gold subscription.
The package is intended to pimp Microsoft's popular online service which allows for downloads of Xbox Live Arcade and Xbox Original game titles as well as demos, game content, HD videos and more.
The 60GB hard drive should provide sufficient space for music, movies and other downloads.
The Xbox Live 60GB starter pack will be available for $100 USD beginning on November 4th.
Marking the first time their music will ever be available legally online digitally, The Beatles and MTV are expected to announce a deal tomorrow that will allow for the use of the band's music in the hit game 'Rock Band 2'.
Viacom, MTV's parent, and The Beatles have been in negotiations for months and Viacom has issued media invitations to a "a global music project" teleconference tomorrow when the deal is expected to be announced.
The Wall Street Journal has cited "people familiar with the matter" in saying that the teleconference is absolutely about the Beatles music being licensed for Rock Band.
The Beatles have never licensed their music for digital distribution online and if the report is true, this deal would be a huge win for Rock Band which is in hot competition with Activision Blizzard's Guitar Hero series.
Netflix has announced that Xbox 360 owners who are subscribers to the rental service will be the first to receive HDstreaming capability for Netflix's 15,000 strong streaming library.
The feature will be added on November 19th with the launch of the "New Xbox Experience" dashboard update.
According to Steve Swasey, vice president of marketing at Netflix, 300 HD titles will be available at launch and that Microsoft is implementing a soft rollout for the service.
"As we're adding content to the site all the time, we will continue to add high-def content, but it's not the major emphasis because it is a small number in the total 12,000 [videos] available to stream," Swasey added.
To be able to use the service you must have an Xbox Live account and be a Netflix subscriber with a plan that costs more than $5 USD a month, the minimum.
"Netflix has been on a roll. They realize that partnerships are integral in the connected world we live in today. The HD thing is really interesting. I can see a business model emerging in the long term where they charge for the streaming. It makes sense. It's a great value add,"added Joshua Martin, a Yankee Group analyst.
Despite overall bad numbers for the Q2, Sony's gaming division, dubbed the PlayStation division, cut its operating loss, year-on-year, and increased revenue over 10 percent.
The division still saw a $405 million USD loss for the three months ending September 31st, a huge improvement over the $1 billion USD loss they posted the same quarter last year.
Sales rose from $2.5 billion USD in 2007 to $2.76 billion USD this year, a 10 percent increase.
The revenue boost was attributed to rising sales of both the PlayStation 3 and the handheld PSP. Sony sold 2.43 million PS3 units for the period, up from 1.12 million for the same period year. The PSP sold 3.18 million units and the aging PlayStation 2 sold 2.5 million units.
For the period, the PS3 outsold its main rival the Xbox 360 by 230,000 units, as Microsoft announced last week that they had sold 2.2 million consoles during the period.
MTV has announced the launch of MTVMusic.com, an video site devoted to showing off MTV's large music video catalog.
The new site includes 16,000 videos, tons of "MTV Uunplugged" performances and exclusive MTV concert footage. MTV says more videos are being added daily and they should have their full catalog up soon.
MTV Networks also has community features using its Flux technology, allowing users to rate videos, comment, and share the code on Facebook, MySpace and other sites.
The broadcaster will have an uphill battle winning market share back from YouTube but overall the new site is very good and should remain popular.
Sony America has announced it will be dropping the 4GB Memory PSP Entertainment Pack that had been previously scheduled to be released in the US.
The company made the decision "following discussions with our retail partners."
The latest move means consumers will but one choice for purchasing the new PSP-3000, and that is the Ratchet & Clank Size Matters PSP Entertainment Pack.
PSP director of hardware marketing Jon Koller added that the bundle was dropped because they expected low sales from the bundle after hearing feedback from retailers and customers.
The 4GB Memory Stick Duo will be available separately for $45 USD.
Wal-Mart has aggressively lowered the price today of their MP3 music downloads available from the Wal-Mart Music Downloads Store.
The service will now offer tracks for as low as 74 cents, a steep discount against market leaders iTunes and Amazon which offer most tracks for 99 cents.
From what I can see from glancing at the store (Wal-Mart MP3), the top 30 most downloaded tracks are priced at 74 cents while all other tracks cost 94 cents, a 5 cent discount from iTunes.
The new version of the store will also be available to more platforms (it was previously Windows and Internet Explorer only) and will now work on Linux, Macs, and browsers such as Opera, Firefox and Safari.
According to the iPhone Dev Team, unlocking software for iPhone 3G units can soon be a reality.
A video produced by the team shows that they have gained access to the baseband processor used in the iPhone 3G. CNET says the "the baseband chip is what controls the connection between the phone and the mobile phone network, meaning that a software download that could let you use your iPhone 3G on a carrier network other than the ones officially designated by Apple could be released soon."
The original iPhone was unlocked within a short time from its launch but the 3G model has proven harder to crack. The baseband in the new model is more difficult to exploit than its predecessors.
Although it is possible to unlock the iPhone 3G by modifying a SIM card, there are no software-based unlocks available yet.
The demand for unlocked iPhone 3Gs is smaller than that of the original iPhone due to Apple's decision to release the phone all around the world and on many carriers. However, there are still places such as China that do not have official iPhone carriers and where mobile phone users want iPhones.
The umbrella group UK Music has been created today to establish a unified anti-piracy position.
The new group will be releasing a program on October 30th that includes "cross-industry submission to government on illegal file sharing and a music industry manifesto."
UK Music will also look into new revenue models such as unlimited music subscriptions bundled with broadband service.
Feargal Sharkey, UK Music CEO added"The launch of UK Music marks a bold new chapter for the UK's commercial music industry. [It] will serve a huge spectrum of the commercial music sector, and championing our industry's creativity and shared commercial interests will be at the heart of what we do."
Chairman Andy Heath says, "Until now, it has been incredibly difficult to establish a unified music business position, whether that's concerning illegal file-sharing or music education. In that sense, this new organisation, which pulls together and represents such a wide range of interests, is a real game-changer."
The founding members of UK Music include the BPI, the Association of Independent Music, the British Academy of Composers and Songwriters, performing rights body the MCPS-PRS Alliance, the Music Managers Forum, the Music Publishers Association, the Musicians Union and Phonographic Performance Limited (PPL).
Microsoft has confirmed that a major update for its Vista operating system is coming soon and that Vista Service Pack 2 will enter public beta next week.
Unlike Service Pack 1, which mainly packaged together securities fixes, SP2 will come with new improvements which will add support for newer hardwares and technology standards.
PC World says the highlights of SP2 are as follows:
* The introduction of Windows Search 4.0, said to speed up searching and deliver better keyword relevancy
* The addition of the Bluetooth 2.1 Feature Pack, which will support emerging Bluetooth technology
* The added ability to record data to Blu-ray discs directly within the operating system
* Improved WiFi setup with changes to Windows Connect Now, Vista's network configuration tool designed to detect and configure wireless devices.
* Better time zone-safe file synchronization with new support for the exFAT file system, which allows for UTC timestamps.
All beta testers in Microsoft's Technology Adoption Program will get the beta on October 29th and the final release will be based on how much changes are required during the beta period.
RIM has announced that BlackBerry phones will soon be video broadcasting machines thanks to new support from Qik.
The service will allow owners to broadcast live video from the phone's camera directly to the Internet using a Wi-FI or 3G connection. The feature is currently available on jailbroken iPhones, Windows Mobile and Symbian smartphones as well as Java 2 Micro Edition feature phones, but BlackBerry phones were notably missing it.
Initially the Qik service will only work on BlackBerry Bold, Pearl 8120, and Pearl 8130 smartphones. Curve and Flip support is coming soon.
"We are excited to bring our lifestyle technology to the millions of BlackBerry users worldwide,"added Ramu Sunkara, CEO of Qik. "In our quest to bring mobile live video sharing to the masses, we now support the broadest range of platforms, including Symbian, Windows Mobile, BlackBerry, and Java-enabled mass-market phones."
The public beta will be available in a few weeks and BlackBerry owners can get it at the Qik official site.
Rental giant Netflix has announced that Mac users can finally use the "Watch Instantly" service on their computers, however it will only work on Macs based on Intel chips.
For now, the updated service “will initially touch a small percentage of new Netflix subscribers,” but as Apple is expected to keep Intel chips in their Macs for the future, future Mac users should be happy with the service.
The service is built on Microsoft’s Silverlight software and Mac users will have to download a Silverlight player to play Netflix's extensive streaming library.
The company did add however that about 70 percent of their subscribers with Macs have Intel chipsets.
"Watch Instantly" has been available for Windows users since early 2007.
TiVo has announced that it will be adding Disney and Jaman VOD services to its ever increasing on-demand video library.
Jaman offers "a selection of international independent movies and foreign films and serials" and the Disney content will come from CinemaNow beginning next week.
The content will be available in SD with MPEG-2 encoding and can be accessed through Series2 and Series3/HD DVR hardware.
TiVo currently offers 30,000 TV and movie titles for rental or purchase and the rentals start at $1.99 per title.
Most movies will be available day and date with the retail DVD release.
Denon has announced the upcoming launch of it's DVD-3800BD high-end Blu-ray player, one that promises "reference-standard" playback.
The player, according to Pocketlint,is "the first Blu-ray player to use the 10-bit Silicon Optix sxT2 HQV Realta chipset to provide the player with highest resolutionHD video currently offered via an HDMI 1.3a connection with 36-bit deep color support. To ensure high-quality sound reproduction, Denon used a DDSC-HD audio output along with dual 32-bit floating-point Burr Brown DSPs and its AL24 processors and Dolby TrueHD and DTS-HD Master Audio decoders."
Good Old Games, a European gaming company, announced in July that it will begin allowing gamers to access and download old PC games that are very hard to find legally or have been abandoned.
The company will provide titles from as far back as the early 80's and in a downloadable format that is completely DRM-free. The games will also be reasonably priced, ranging from $5.99 to $9.99 per title. Also, once you have purchased the title, you can download it whenever you want, all the times you want.
The store has now hit its public beta stage.
"You won't find any intrusive copy protection in our games; we hate draconian DRM schemes just as much as you do," says the site. "Once you download a game, you can install it on any PC and re-download it whenever you want, as many times as you need, and you can play it without an internet connection."
One month after launching their MySpace Music streaming service, the company has announced a new deal that will double the amount of indie music available through the service.
The deal, with the Independent Online Distribution Alliance (IODA), will add more than 1 million tracks from over 3000 indie labels to MySpace Music.
IODA founder and Chief Executive Kevin Arnold added that the songs will be added to the service in December.
MySpace music currently has several million tracks available to its 120 million users from the Big 4 labels as well as independent music distributor, The Orchard, whose catalog is over 1.3 million tracks.
Frank Hajdu, executive director of MySpace Music, noted that it was looking to add as much content as possible, as efficiently as possible.
"Many, many services that have been launched, they build their content catalogs out over time. If you wait indefinitely, you'll never launch," he added.
Hadju also noted that it was still in talks with the largest independent distributor, Merlin, who is in charge of digital distribution for over 15,000 labels.
Dell has announced that it has signed an agreement with Universal Music Group to offer either 50 or 100 DRM-free songs bundled with new PCs sold by the vendor.
The price is a nice discount as well with 50 songs costing $25 USD and 100 songs costing only $45 USD in addition to the price of the laptop or desktop PC.
A couple catches however are that the bundles aren't available on Dell XPS One desktops, Inspiron Mini 9 laptops, or on systems selling with Linux distributions or 64-bit Windows XP or Vista.
All the music will be in MP3 form and DRM-free and can be played back on any portable player. The current library is somewhat small but Dell says it is looking to expand.
Sweden's Council on Legislation has suggested that it will not stop a new law that will make it much easier to arrest suspected Internet pirates. The law will go into effect during April 2009.
The government -backed law would give copyright holders the ability to request personal information of any suspected pirate based on their IP address.
The law itself is based on a broader EU directive but the Council on Legislation stated that Sweden's regulation goes much further than is required by the directive.
Sweden's proposal would allow the copyright holders to request the personal information if they believe there is "probable cause" of a copyright law being broken. They can then use the info to begin legal proceedings seeking monetary damages.
The EU directive only states however that "people should have the right to access information in connection with a trial."
The OWC can connect via USB 2.0, FireWire 400, Firewire 800, or eSATA to Macs or PCs and will write BD-R or BD-RE, single layer and dual layer at 4x.
The drive can also notably burn HD DVDs, DVDs and CDs and will work with a myriad of software including AppleiTunes, Apple iDVD 5, Apple Disc Burner, Apple DVD Studio Pro, NTI DragonBurn, Roxio Toast, Roxio Easy Media Creator, and Nero.
Samsung has announced that it has signed a deal with Netflix that will allow the company's Blu-ray players to stream movies and TV shows from Netflix's "Watch Instantly" streaming service.
Many analysts believe that the deal is just the beginning and that Netflix will eventually make a similar move allowing for instant streaming playback of their service on HDTVs made by Samsung.
The deal marks the second time Netflix has had software embedded in Blu-ray players. LG Electronics currently has a Netflix streaming enabled player available for $350 USD.
"Watch Instantly" continues to add content, and now has over 12,000 movies, TV shows and concerts available to Netflix subscribers.
All future Samsung models will have the feature built-in but two current players, the BD-P2500 and BD-P2550 will work after a firmware upgrade.
Apple has announced today with their fiscal Q4 financial statements that the recent economic downturn is not effecting them as badly as other mobile phone vendors and that smartphone sales continue to flourish.
The company has so far sold 6.9 million iPhone 3G units, eclipsing the 6.1 BlackBerry sales pushed by RIM in the same quarter.
“Apple outsold RIM last quarter, and this is a milestone for us. RIM is a good company that makes good products, and so it is surprising that we could outsell them in any quarter after only 15 months in the market,”said Apple CEO Steve Jobs.
iPhone revenue hit $4.6 billion for the Q3 2008 making Apple the third largest mobile phone vendor in terms of revenue behind Nokia and Samsung. Behind Apple are such big names as Sony, LG, Motorola and RIM.
Microsoft has noted that the highly anticipated Primetime channel of the New Xbox Experience will not be launching on November 19th with the rest of the interface update.
The company also added that other features may be absent at launch but did not say which ones.
"The New Xbox Experience is a long-term initiative, and what we are rolling out on November 19 is only the beginning,"said a spokesperson.
"With the New Xbox Experience we will have the flexibility to roll out features and updates dynamically, unlike in the past where we were on a more biannual schedule. So, there are a lot more exciting features, including Primetime, that will be coming soon."
Primetime should be ready to go by spring 2009, bringing a mix of gaming and TV to fans of quiz shows.
The blogger allegedly had been streaming songs from the still unreleased new Guns N' Roses album "Chinese Democracy" on his site for some time.
Coghill, despite admitting twice in writing to the FBI that he was guilty, pleaded not guilty in court today. He faces up to three years in federal prison if convicted of copyright infringement and up to five years if the court believes he posted the songs for commercial gain.
The defendant was originally given a public defender attorney but has now retained his own lawyer and is fighting the charges.
The FBI reported that in June, Coghill admitted to the crime and signed it in writing, confessing that he uploaded the songs but then took them down because the traffic took down the servers running his site.
Guns N' Roses added that they do not condone Coghill's actions, but that their real "interest is in the original source" of the material.
In an interview with Kotaku, Aaron Greenberg, group product manager forXbox 360 has said that the company is confident it's console will outsell the rival Sony PlayStation 3 for the holiday season, worldwide.
"We expect to continue our price advantage over the PlayStation 3 for a long time," said Greenberg.
"And we feel confident that we'll outsell the PS3 this holiday season in North America and in Europe. We'll do it on a global scale."
Greenberg cited the across the board price cut as well as a collection of new bundles as reasons for why the console will succeed.
"We've seen lifts across all consoles, but the Arcade is doing exceptionally well,"added Greenberg.
The 360 has outsold the PS3 in Japan for five weeks straight and recently outsold its rival in the US for the month of September.
Despite the spectre of a recession looming over the US economy, Netflix Founder, Chairman, and CEO Reed Hastings is confident about his company's position for the remainder of the year. Although he sees slower growth than last year he predicts that recent and future developments will continue to fuel profitability.
One of things Hastings spoke proudly about in a presentation that was part of the company's third quarter earnings conference call today was the deal struck recently with the Starz premium cable network. Starz opted to close their Vongo service, choosing instead to let Netflix provide internet delivery for them.
He pointed out that one of the biggest stumbling blocks for providing such services is the contracts the big networks have that tie up major studio content, adding "With this new model we think we can generate increased profit for Starz, increased profits for Netflix, and over time for the studios."
He also spoke extensively about innovations that are around the corner for the Netflixstreaming service. The previous quarter saw the introduction of the first Blu-ray player that can be used to stream movies from Netflix, LG's BD 300. He also hinted at additional players with Netflix support coming in the future, saying "we'll announce more Blu-ray partnerships as they're ready for consumers."
The movie download service Vudu has announced that it has added over 1000 professional home installation companies to its distribution network.
The company says the move was necessary after the launch of its HD format HDX which the company calls the "the most advanced quality video for Web, cable, satellite and broadcast platforms."
Many of the companies are aligned with Vudu's expensive XL set top box which offer one terabyte of movie storage and better quality.
Vudu currently offers 10,000 titles that users can download to their set-top boxes and watch on their TVs.
“HDX is clearly resonating with people who understand AV for the home inside and out,”said Mark Jung, Vudu CEO. “Their commitment to Vudu means that consumers around the U.S. will be able to enjoy the highest quality 1080p on-demand movies on their home theater systems.”
This past weekend Best Buy announced the price cut of their Insignia-branded 1080pBlu-ray player, the NS-BRDVD, down from $229 USD to $199 USD, the price point in which "mass adoption" is supposedly achieved.
Making the announcement more notable is that the Insignia player was only launched in June at $350 USD meaning it has almost been slashed in price by 50 percent in just under 4 months.
The player is Profile 1.1 and is now the cheapest player available along with the discontinued SonyBD-S300 which retails for $199 and is Profile 1.1 as well.
The move could also be based on recent competition from Target which has exclusively released an Olevia branded Profile 1.1 player for $229 USD.
Although newsgroups had largely remained outside of the focus of lawsuits aimed at P2P users, the media industry has started to notice.
In response, major ISPs have discontinued their support of newsgroups or restricted them only to news reports.
The only major newsgroups that are remaining are Giganews and major indexing services such as Newzbin. Slyck defines Newzbin as operating "similarly to BitTorrent indexing sites, as they both act like card catalogs in a library. Similar to BitTorrent indexing/tracking sites, Newzbin contains no copyrighted work on their servers - only NZB files. NZB files are analogous to torrent files; like torrent files, NZB point the user to where the file is located on the network."
It appears Newzbin is expecting lawsuits however just like their BitTorrent indexing brothers and the company announced today that it has "received two distinct complaints" regarding the service they employ.
"It is likely that we will in the coming weeks be presented with a court case and have to defend our rights," the announcement reads. "We will be defending ourselves vigorously against both the complainants if necessary and we believe a court will agree with our view that linking to content on Usenet is indeed legal and our method of dealing with unlawful content is appropriate. We believe that, or we wouldn't still be here."
According to a report from China.org.cn, Chinese citizens are upset over Microsoft's latest anti-piracy tactics.
The software giant is bringing its Microsoft Windows Genuine Advantage (WGA) and Office Genuine Advantage (OGA) software to China next week, but the software will be more intrusive then it is for US users.
Users of pirated Windows will see reminders every few hours that they should purchase legitimate software and occasionally the software will turn your screen black. A Microsoft official described it this way:
"The user may reset the background to a wallpaper or another background color, but every 60 minutes, the desktop will be reset to a plain black color until the copy of Windows passes validation. In addition, a persistent notification will appear in the lower right corner of the desktop."
Luckily for Chinese pirates, the software is opt-in so if they do not want it they do not have to download it.
According to the New York Post, Facebook is reportedly considering adding music to its popular social networking site, either as streaming to compete with MySpace or as a pay-per-download site such as iTunes.
Facebook would be joining up with either Rhapsody.com, iMeem.com, iLike.com or Lala.com, says the report and also notes that Facebook is in talks with the Big 4 labels.
"Facebook is a serious challenger to MySpace and they would certainly want to do anything that record labels would allow them to do with advertising-supported music,"said Phil Leigh, senior analyst at Inside Digital Media. "Advertising-supported revenue would be good for Facebook and certainly free access to recorded music would be good for Facebook members. It would be good for the labels, too. If the MySpace deal is working out well, then the labels would probably want to replicate that on Facebook."
The much anticipated launch of the Sony PlayStation 3 exclusive game LittleBigPlanet has been pushed back until October 27th after background music using Qur'an verses has caused controversy.
At the beginning of the third world, the background song, "Tapha Niang," sung by Toumani Diabate, uses a couple of verses from the Qur'an which roughly translate to "Every soul shall taste of death" and "All that is on earth shall perish.” The lyrics have caused controversy and therefore Sony has pushed back the launch in order to remove them.
"During the review process prior to the release of LittleBigPlanet, it has been brought to our attention that one of the background music tracks licensed from a record label for use in the game contains two expressions that can be found in the Qur’an. We have taken immediate action to rectify this and we sincerely apologise for any offence that this may have caused."
New Zealand has become the first country to adopt a '3-strikes' law for Internet pirates after signing the Copyright Amendment Act 2008 this year. The bill will go into effect on March 1st 2009.
The three strikes law, as previously discussed in France and the UK, would give pirates two warnings before kicking them off the Internet for good on a "third strike." The EU recently struck down a bill calling for the three strikes rule and it appears that opposition is growing in New Zealand as well despite the fact the bill has already been signed.
The section of the act signed into law, 92A reads as follows:
Internet service provider must have policy for terminating accounts of repeat infringers
(1) An Internet service provider must adopt and reasonably implement a policy that provides for termination, in appropriate circumstances, of the account with that Internet service provider of a repeat infringer.
(2) In subsection (1), repeat infringer means a person who repeatedly infringes the copyright in a work by using 1 or more of the Internet services of the Internet service provider to do a restricted act without the consent of the copyright owner.
According to a post on the official Ubisoft forum, it appears the French game publisher is looking to not fall into the same traps that Electronic Arts has with their hit game Spore which has been slammed for using restrictive SecuROMDRM.
For the upcoming expected blockbuster Far Cry 2, Ubisoft has admitted they will be using DRM, but with much less restrictions then Spore or Bioshock.
* You have five activations on three separate PCs.
* Uninstalling the game "refunds" an activation. This process is called "revoke", so as long as you complete proper uninstall you will be able to install the game an unlimited number of times on 3 systems.
* You can upgrade your computer as many times as you want (using our revoke system)
* Ubisoft is committed to the support of our games, and additional activations can be provided.
* Ubisoft is committed to the long-term support of our games: you'll always be able to play Far Cry 2.
Plextor has announced today the release of its first external Blu-ray drive, the PX-B920UF, which is capable of writing BD-R at 4x and can also playback HD DVD discs.
The drive connects via either a USB 2.0 or FireWire meaning it can be used for either Macs or PCs. The drive also has LightScribe technology.
The PX-B920UF features black casing with satin finish and can accept both 12cm full and 8cm mini BD as well as HD DVD and DVD and CD. Featured write speeds are 4x BD-R, 2xBD-RE, 16x DVD+R/-R, 8x DVD+RW, 6x DVD-RW, 4x DVD+/-R DL, 5x DVD-RAM, 40x CD-R and 24x CD-RW.
Playboy Enterprises has announced it will shuttering its DVD production as part of a company-wide restructuring plan aimed at reducing costs.
To return to profitability for the 2009 fiscal year, Playboy chair and CEO Christie Hefner says the company must shave expenses by $10 million USD. In addition to dropping out of the physical media business, the company will be cutting 80 jobs.
Playboy will be moving its DVD activities to digital downloads, which the company considers a profitable operation. The company is also set to re-launch its Web site, Playboy.com, next year.
“We will continue to deliver more of our content digitally, using our assets across multiple distribution platforms and adding more a la carte offerings,”said Hefner. “Given the declines in the DVD market, we will exit that business in phases over a few months to concentrate on selling that content online.”
20th Century Fox Home Entertainment has begun testing simultaneous day-and-date releases of their latest titles on DVD and VOD.
The testing began on October 7th, with the M. Night Shyamalan thriller "The Happening."
Steve Feldstein, senior VP of marketing communications, added,“We’re looking at a lot of different models and looking at various incremental points of distribution that are available. We’re doing a little experimenting with dating and windows.”
Warner senior VP of strategic promotions and communications Jim Noonan added that the studio is expecting to release 4 in 5 films simultaneously on VOD and DVD next year.
“We’re kind of learning as we go here,” Noonan said. “We’re watching very carefully. It has been very good for us in the VOD business. We’re not interested in growing VOD to the detriment of the packaged goods business.”
The Hong-Kong director Wayne Wang has announced that he will be premiering his latest film for free on YouTube today.
Wang, best known for "The Joy Luck Club", has said his latest drama, "The Princess of Nebraska" will be available at youtube.com/ytscreeningroom, a channel dedicated to film content.
The drama "is based on a story by Beijing-born writer Yiyun Li, about a Chinese exchange student in America who finds herself pregnant."
The move is something not usually seen in Hollywood, especially due to piracy concerns.
Recently the Oscar-winning independent film-maker Michael Moore released his latest film, "Slacker Uprising," for free via his site and torrents.
Mozilla has released the first public alpha of its upcoming Firefox Mobile software, allowing PC, Linux and Mac users to try out the software through thier computers.
The browser, codenamed "Fennec", is built on the same Gecko code base that is being used for Firefox 3.1.
Mark Finkle, Mozilla's platform evangelist, added that the company is hoping for as much feedback as possible into the browser.
"We are also releasing desktop versions of Fennec," said Finkle. "That's right, you can install Fennec on your Windows, OS X or Linux desktop too! We want you to be able to experiment, provide feedback, write add-ons and generally get involved with the Mozilla Mobile project, even if you don't have a device."
Finkle added that a Fennec version for Windows Mobile operating system was in the works but not yet ready for public testing.
The Hong-Kong based electronics company AMEX Digital has announced the launch of a new slim Blu-ray drive for both Macs and PCs.
The Portable Blu-ray Super Multi Drive has the design of the MacBook Air's Superdrive and will allow for the reading and writing of Blu-ray discs in BD-R and BD-RE formats and both full-sized 12cm and mini 8cm sizes. Users can also burn to dual-layer 50GB discs using the drive's USB 2.0 port.
The company says it's patented Quiet Drive Technology "reduces the noise level of the drive, while a liquid crystal tilt/blur compensator compensates for warped discs for a more reliable writing process."
The drive can only burn Blu-ray discs at 2x speeds, which practically makes the drive useless when compared to newer Sony and Buffalo drives which can burn at up to 8x speeds.
According to a few reports, Microsoft is preparing to release eight new Xbox 360 bundles in Europe, three of which will be available tomorrow.
The available ones include Xbox 360 Elite and Premium consoles bundled with Lego Indiana Jones and KungFu Panda for EUR 299 and EUR 239 respectively as well as an Arcade bundle that will come with Sega Superstars Tennis and sell for EUR 179.
The final bundle will package a Premium 360 with Pro Evolution Soccer 2009 for EUR 270 but will only go on sale in Austria, Greece, Hungary, Italy, Netherlands, Portugal, Spain, and the UK, later this month.
Thanks to recent price cuts across the board, the Xbox 360 outsold the Sony PlayStation 3 pretty handily in the US for the month of September despite both consoles combined selling less than the Wii for the period.
However, since the hardware was priced lower, total hardware revenue for the industry fell from $546 million USD year-on-year to $498 million USD.
According to the NPDdata, Nintendo sold 687,000 consoles for the month, while Microsoft sold 347,000 units and Sony sold 232,000.
For the handheld market, the Nintendo DS continued to dominate, selling 537,000 units compared to 238,000 for the Sony PSP.
DivX and Samsung have jointly announced that high-end Samsung HDTVs will soon be able to support DivX files through USB devices or DLNA-certified Ethernet connections.
Beginning in 2009, DivX Certified HDTVs will be available from Samsung allowing for the playback. Samsung currently has deals with DivX for products ranging from mobile phones to DVD players.
DivX is a codec that allows for small file sizes along with good quality video using MPEG-4 ASP compression.
Sherwood has announced the launch of their first Blu-ray player, dubbed the BDP-5003 which will retail for $300 USD.
The player is Profile 1.1 and will play full HD1080p content at 24Hz or 60Hz. The player has two HDMI 1.3 outputs and "onboard processing deliver lossless Dolby TrueHD and DTS Master Audio HD sound formats." The player also supports CD, DVDs (with upscaling) and JPEG.
A front panel USB port adds support for DivX, JPEG and MP3 playback. Electronistaadds "sound connections include coaxial and Toslink digital audio outputs along with two-channel analog outputs. Processing is via 192kHz/24-bit audio DACs, while an Ethernet port allows for firmware upgrades."
Despite their best efforts to replace Xbox 360 consoles that have failed, including upping the warranty for free, Microsoft is now facing a class action lawsuit out of California over the hardware failures.
The suit claims that an "excessive" number of consoles have failed giving users the dreaded "red ring of death." The lawsuit also alleges that Microsoft had concealed the failure rate of the console in order to better compete with the pending launch of the PlayStation 3 and Nintendo Wii in 2006.
The lawsuit cites articles published in credible gaming trade journals each of which show that Microsoft knew in November 2005 that over 50 percent of the initial sales launch Xbox 360 consoles were defective.
California is seeking an order that "Microsoft disgorge all profits attributable to its sale of the Xbox 360, as well as that Microsoft publicly announce and implement a refund program in California."
Apple has announced that all four of the major TV broadcasters; ABC, CBS, FOX, and NBC, have agreed to offer programming in HD on the company's iTunes platform.
The shows will cost $2.99, a premium over the $1.99 for standard definition and the company says there are about 600 shows available in HD on iTunes now.
Since Apple announced limited HD programming last month, they have sold over 1 million HD shows, most being NBC content that returned to the store after a one year absence.
A few of the new notable shows added are ABC's "Brothers & Sisters," "Desperate Housewives," "Dirty Sexy Money," "Eli Stone," "Grey's Anatomy," "Life on Mars," "Lost," "Private Practice," "Samantha Who?" and "Ugly Betty." CBS programming includes "CSI," "CSI: Miami," "CSI: New York," "NCIS" and "Numb3rs." FOX shows include "Bones," "House," "Prison Break" and "Sons of Anarchy," from FX.
While speaking in Des Moines, IA on Monday, Pandora internet radio founder Tim Westergren indicated that he believes webcasters and record label representatives are close to a deal on royalties for internet radio. The comments came at a gathering of Pandora listeners, which you can read more about in a new article here at Afterdawn.
Mr. Westergren took a few minutes to sit down with me and discuss the current state of Pandora and even speculate a little about the future. We also talked about devices that make it possible to listen to Pandora when you're not sitting in front of the computer, including mobile phones and appliances that connect to both your home network and home stereo.
EA CEO John Riccitiello has made some comments recently regarding the DRM and it appears that he also dislikes DRM but says piracy is too strong to completely remove it.
"We implemented a form of DRM and it's something that 99.8 percent of users wouldn't notice. But for the other .2 percent, it became an issue and a number of them launched a cabal online to protest against it," Riccitiello said."I personally don't like DRM. It interrupts the user experience. We would like to get around that. But there is this problem called piracy out there."
What is the point of the DRM though? The game was leaked to torrent sites and P2P four days before its official launch date, SecuROM or not. The game sold extremely well, and was pirated in unprecedented numbers. So once again, why have the DRM at all?
Sony has announced the launch of a PlayStation-branded YouTube channel in which the company will show off video content ranging from trailers to game footage and director's commentary.
Fans can also share user-generated content as well as participate in promotions and contests.
There is content available currently from for SOCOM: US Navy Seals Confrontation, MotorStorm: Pacific Rift, NBA '09: The Inside, and the PlayStation Network, with much more promised.
Sony added "it planned to evolve the YouTube PlayStation channel over time, starting with features and promotions for its top games and eventually developing in a hub for user-generated content. The channel will also contain links that allow used to interact with the PlayStation website and blog."
Sony has detailed the new PlayStation 3firmware update, version 2.50, and with it comes the much anticipated addition of Macromedia Flash 9 support.
Users can now watch much more videos then they could previously using the built-in browser on the PS3.
2.50 also brings support for the latest PS3 Bluetooth headest as well as more "PlayStation Trophies, interface enhancements, Friend status, video, Playstation Store, Power Save Settings, Background download, and ingame screenshots."
The most notable of those features is probably the background which means that PS3 owners can now begin a download of a demo, game or movie and turn the system off with hindering the download.
SanDisk has announced a new SansaMP3 player that will sport no internal memory or screen and will instead use a microSD slot to read slotMusic albums.
The Sansa slotMusic Player is tiny and will run on AAA batteries and will cost just $19.99 USD. Making the launch even more notable is the fact that the player can play any files on a microSD as long as they are MP3 or WMA.
There will be a variety of artists such as Rihanna and Daughtry, ABBA and Elvis available on 1GB microSD cards, each of which will cost $15 USD. The microSD albums will also include album art, and liner notes and usually video content. (Which makes no difference for this player)
The files are DRM-free and can be taken off the cards and added to your music libraries on any PC. Each card also comes with a USB adapter to allow users to take the music off.
Apple CEO Steve Jobs has confirmed that the company will not be bringing Blu-ray drives to its Mac laptops any time soon, or at least until "things settle down."
"Blu-ray is just a bag of hurt," stated Jobs. "It's great to watch the movies, but the licensing of the tech is so complex, we're waiting till things settle down and Blu-ray takes off in the marketplace."
Because the licenses are so complex, and the drives would push up the price of their laptops, Jobs does not want to add the drives to his companies notebooks any time soon. If demand grows however, the company will consider adding them later to new models.
As an alternative, Apple has been pushing its own HD downloads, sold through their iTunes platform.
In an effort to promote Blu-ray, Sony last month took out an ad in Wired magazine which included a free Blu-ray disc of Coma, a new crime series.
We have reviewed three netbook models from some of the largest netbook - and laptop - manufacturers in the world. Among the three models we received are the Asus Eee PC 901, Acer Aspire One 110 and MSI Wind U100. You can read other two reviews via the links below and the wrap-up from here. The tests did not cover all the aspects of computing and only scratch the surface of the three devices. Still, if you are interested in buying a netbook at some point, maybe these reviews can point you in the right direction.
MSI Wind U100 is the lone 10" laptop amongst the three we tested. With a bigger display you'll obviously have to compromise for a larger and heavier device. Size is not all bad, and an inch wider keyboard can make all the difference. Even though it is almost a third heavier than the other two, the weight distribution seems better than, for example, the Eee PC 901 which is prone to falling back. MSI's netbook is also the only one with a traditional hard drive instead of SSD.
We have reviewed three netbook models from some of the largest netbook - and laptop - manufacturers in the world. Among the three models we received are the Asus Eee PC 901, Acer Aspire One 110 and MSI Wind U100. You can read other two reviews via the links below and the wrap-up from here. The tests did not cover all the aspects of computing and only scratch the surface of the three devices. Still, if you are interested in buying a netbook at some point, maybe these reviews can point you in the right direction.
Acer tackles the same category as Eee PC 901 with their Aspire One A110 - an ultra-portable laptop or a netbook with 8,9" display. Our test device was equipped with an 8GB SSD and Linpus distribution version of Linux. The package contained a small manual, the device itself with 3-cell Li-ion battery and a rather large AC adapter. Unlike in the Eee PC package, this one didn't include any kind of sleeve case. From the beginning the Aspire One gave a good quality impression with a metallic blue casing and a durable feel. The model is also available in brown, pink and white.
We have reviewed three netbook models from some of the largest netbook - and laptop - manufacturers in the world. Among the three models we received are the Asus Eee PC 901, Acer Aspire One 110 and MSI Wind U100. You can read other two reviews via the links below and the wrap-up from here. The tests did not cover all the aspects of computing and only scratch the surface of the three devices. Still, if you are interested in buying a netbook at some point, maybe these reviews can point you in the right direction.
Asus was the first one to hit the jackpot with ultra-small and cheap laptops. They first released a couple of Eee PC models, and following their success the company built a production line and brand around Eee PCs. We tested the Windows version of the white Asus Eee PC 901 with 12GB SSD. It isn't quite the cheapest of them but with under $500 (or £300) on the price tag it can't be considered expensive either. The box contained a set of manuals, a black sleeve case and a handy AC adapter (the smallest of the three netbooks).
We took the liberty of testing netbooks of three of the largest netbook manufacturers in the world - Asus, Acer and MSI. The widely popular netbooks have hit the portable computing market by storm and nearly 10 models have surpassed Apple's Macbook line-up in terms of popularity. Two of the models we tested, the Asus Eee PC 901 and the Acer Aspire One 110, were as small as 8,9" and the third, MSI Wind U100, was almost as tiny at 10".
Technical specifications (more detailed specs in Hardware):
Sony has followed through on its promise that it would become the first studio to premiere a major motion picture rental on a networked video hub before it premieres on physical media.
Owners of Sony BRAVIA HDTV sets with Internet Video Link will soon have the option to rent Hancock , almost a month before its stated DVD release date. The options include a 720pHD version as well as a 480p version for users with slower Internet connections.
The rentals are similar to those of iTunes in which the rental is yours for 24 hours of unlimited viewing. The price however is a totally different story. Apple and VUDU charge $6 USD for new-release 720p titles while the new Sony titles will cost $10 USD.
Pioneer has announced two new DVD burner drives, the internal DVR-2920Q and external DVR-X162Q each of which will allow users to create DVDs from downloaded content found on the Qflix video download site.
Just like the Dell Qflix drives introduced last month, users will be given Qflix DVD Download & Burn technology that will turn the content to formats that can be read in all standalone players. These drives will also require special DVD+-R discs just as the Dell ones do.
Qflix uses the current 1000 movie CinemaNow library and the new drives will allow the users to write the CSS-protected content to disc for playback on standalone players.
The drives write DVD and CD at 16x and 48x respectively otherwise when not using Qflix.
Qflix-compatible DVD+-R still do not have a disclosed price but be do know that RiDATA and Roxio will be creating them.
According to an HDGuru report, Panasonic is set to bring a Blu-ray recorder and player combo stateside next year, marking the first time a company has chosen to release one outside of Japan.
There was no other details available about the recorder itself but in Japan Blu-ray recorders have been slowly dropping in price, beginning at $2000 in 2006 and dropping to just over $800 now.
Sony announced last month that it was launching six Blu-ray recorders in 2009 each of which will cost between $1,000 and $2,600 USD.
Panasonic also showed off a prototype3D Plasma TV at the CEATEC event. The company remains committed to developing a 3D consumer HDTV system industry standard in conjunction with the Blu-ray Disc Association.
Olevia, best known for their LCD TV partnership with Syntax Brillian, has announced that they have begun licensing their brand name for Blu-ray disc players and home theater systems and their first player, the BD-110 will sell for $229 USD exclusively at Target.
The BD-110 is the cheapest MSRP Blu-ray standalone now on the market (the Samsung BD-P1500 admittedly sells for less on some retailers) and is profile 1.1 capable.
Olevia noted that the player will sell only through Target but that the company is planning more models, including BD-Live capable units that will sell from more retailers.
Joost Inc. revealed on Tuesday its new flash-based video service on joost.com. Unlike past efforts from Joost, there is no software that requires installation exclusively for Joost, only a typical flash plug-in, just like other video sharing sites. "People have always relied on their friends' recommendations to figure out which movies they want to watch, or talked about their favorite TV shows and moments with friends and colleagues – and now Joost has combined those real-life experiences in one online destination," said Mike Volpi, CEO, Joost.
Volpi continued: "Our integrated social tools make it easier than ever for people to find the shows, film and music they want to watch, and to form communities around that content, which ultimately enriches their overall experience." In addition, Joost features a number of social tools which are designed to help people navigate through the largest online library of legal video programming and to integrate user expression directly into the service.
Users can interact with video and with other people on Joost: they can voice their opinions about video through comments, "shouts" or tags; they can find out what their friends are watching by adding friends through most major online webmail services via the Friends section; or they may interact with others in the Joost community through groups around their favorite shows, characters or artists.
Gamers may be surprised to find that while driving through their favorite parts of town in the Xbox 360 version of the hit game Burnout Paradise, Presidential hopeful Barack Obama will be looking down at them from a few of the game's virtual billboards.
The billboard ads, which feature Obama's face and the tagline "Early Voting Has Begun. VoteForChange.com", have been sighted by gamers and the publisher Electronic Arts has confirmed that the campaign paid to have the ads placed there.
"Like most television, radio and print outlets, we accept advertising from credible political candidates," EA spokeswoman Holly Rockwood added. "Like political spots on the television networks, these ads do not reflect the political policies of EA or the opinions of its development teams."
The European Union has told MP3 player owners that they are risking permanent hearing loss if they continue to listen to their favorite music at maximum levels.
Scientists from the EU reported that listening to MP3 players at volumes over 89 decibels, for more than an hour daily, for at least five years will leave almost 10 million Europeans with hearing loss.
EU spokeswoman Helen Kearns added "it's damage that may come back and haunt you later in life."
Kearns added regulators would be looking into lowering the limit of 100 decibels for MP3 players sold in the EU. In the past Apple was forced to pull its iPod line from shelves and upgrade the firmware to limit sound output to 100 decibels.
The World Trade Organization (WTO) has made a split decision on a year old complaint filed by the US against China over piracy concerns.
The panel concluded that China was responsible for not prosecuting pirates who copy CDs and DVDs. The news was not all good for the US however as the panel also concluded that
"Chinese thresholds for prosecuting piracy do not break WTO rules."
The thresholds allow pirates of anything from clothing to medicine to avoid any prosecution as long as it is under 500 infringing copies.
A third issue, that of whether "seized goods can be reintroduced into the market if the infringing material is removed" was more confusing but a US trade official says the US won on that count.
Washington has been complaining for years that China is a safe haven for product piracy, especially on a commercial scale. "Over the past several years, China has taken tangible steps to improve (intellectual property rights) protection and enforcement. However, we still see important gaps that need to be addressed," Sean Spicer, spokesman for U.S. Trade Representative Susan Schwab, said in a statement last year.
Sony Computer Entertainment president Kaz Hirai has restated that hopeful gamers will not see a PlayStation 3 price cut this year and that the console is a "very good value proposition".
"The answer is yes, if you're asking, 'Are these the prices we're going with this Christmas?'" Hirai added. "When you really compare apples to apples, then I think we have a very good value proposition."
Sony's decision to not cut the price of their console for the holiday season could put them under pressure from Microsoft which has recently cut the price across the board for their rival Xbox 360 console. The current global economic downturn could also put added pressure on Sony.
Hirai believes the videogame market will do just fine even with the economic downturn. "As long as we can generate excitement, then we will be less affected than other industries," he said but also added, "we're getting to the point where price becomes more important".
According to a new report by Parks Associates, worldwide Blu-ray set-top player sales will outpace most other consumer electronics items (including HDTVs) over the next four years as HD machines see more widespread adoption.
Kurt Scherf, principal analyst for Parks Associates, added that Blu-ray player sales will total 5 million globally this year (excluding the Sony PlayStation 3), up 625 percent from 2007 where 800,000 players were sold. Scherf says by 2012 there will be 40 million units sold.
The latest forecast agrees with what DisplaySearch said last month, which was that Blu-ray player unit sales will triple for 2008, double in 2009 and then by 2010 "unseat" the PlayStation 3 as the most popular platform for HD discs.
"As a category, it's going to outpace a lot of other consumer electronics sales, because we see Blu-ray players complementing what's happening with HDTVs overall," added Scherf.
Microsoft has announced that it has struck a deal with PBS to have some of the broadcaster's TV series available for download on the Xbox Live Marketplace.
XBL users can download Ken Burns' Jazz and America series as well as "Wired Science" and "Scientific American." PBS added that XBL users will have access to over "8,500 hours of programming from 45 content producers."
"Non-fiction programming has performed very well on Xbox Live,” Ross Honey, general manager of Microsoft's media and entertainment group, added. "The addition of a premiere brand such as PBS will not only enhance our overall video offering but will strengthen a content category that our users demand."
Microsoft has been adding more and more media content to its Marketplace over the past six months including a huge deal with Netflix and another large deal with NBC-Universal.
According to Nielsen VideoScan data from Home Media Magazine, Blu-ray Disc had its best week ever as a format, thanks mainly to the blockbuster smash hit Iron Man.
'Iron Man' sold 7.2 million DVDs for the week of September 29th to October 5th and sold 510,000 Blu-ray Discs, smashing previous first week records for the HD format.
Paramount added that the disc sold 260,000 units on its first day (including pre-orders) to set the single day record.
The popularity of Iron Man helped push Blu-ray to a market share (of top 20 volume) they have never seen before, 13 percent. Iron Man BD also "stole" 17 percent of sales from DVD, the highest number ever for a day-and-date release.
Netflix has announced that they will be raising subscriber rates for consumers who want to receive Blu-ray discs by $1 USD beginning next month.
Netflix has been testing such a price increase on certain markets since August but the hike will go official to all Netflix consumers who want Blu-ray on November 5th.
Netflix currently has 800 Blu-ray titles available but says that less than 20 percent of subscribers order the titles. The company is "is raising Blu-ray access prices to make up for this significant cost difference" added Jessie Teitz, VP of marketing at Netflix.
The company also reiterated that its video streaming service would be available to Mac owners by the end of year.
According to a new study by Ipsos' TEMPO Digital Music Brandscape, despite the emergence of Amazon, Apple's iTunes platform still managed to gain market share in the increasingly crowded legal net music store crowd.
iTunes moved to 57 percent market share, up from 50 percent last year at this time, and Amazon's DRM-free store moved into second place with 9 percent share, a large number considering the store has not been open for even a year yet. Rhapsody, which recently turned DRM-free, jumped up in market share as well, from 4 percent last year to 7 percent now. Each continues to expand and is expected to take more market share, but at whose expense? It appears everyone but iTunes.
Other stores such as Napster, Yahoo Music and Walmart have taken a hit in market share, at the expense of the now clear leaders.
Can anyone overtake the DRM giant that is iTunes though?
According to the EFF, the recent Hollywood suit against RealDVD is nothing more than a smokescreen aimed not at piracy but instead at stifling innovation.
"It has nothing to do with piracy and everything to do with controlling innovation," said Fred von Lohmann, EFF's senior attorney.
The suit contends that RealNetwork's RealDVD software is in violation of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act as well as a breach of contract with the DVD Copy Control Association.
RealNetworks claims that the software "allows consumers to securely store, manage and play their DVDs on their computers" and "does not enable users to distribute copies of their DVDs." It also mentions that RealDVD adds another layer of DRM to the ripped movies which makes it much harder to move to films off the computer that has the program installed.
TF is reporting that Romanian ISP UPC Romania subscribers headed to the large Romanian torrent site Torrentbits.ro will have blocked access, another setback for the site which has been trying to come back since it was raided by the police last year.
The new move by the ISP mirrors that of the more famous case involving the The Pirate Bay in which all Italian ISPs blocked the site at the pressuring of the IFPI. The Pirate Bay successfully won an appeal in court however and is now unblocked in the country.
UPC Romania has over 1 million subscribers currently and users had been reporting problems accessing the site for days. Users from other ISPs receive this message on the frontage however, addressing the problem.
Sony has confirmed that it will be giving Japanese PSP users direct access to the PlayStation Store via the handheld's built-in Wi-Fi connection.
Beginning on October 15th, users will be able to use the store to purchase and download any game that would normally only be available on UMD from that point forward. The downloads will have faster loading times and get rid of the need to carry around the physical UMD.
There will also be add-ons and in-game items available from the store for current games as well as future games.
No word was given on whether users could download movies or music but the company did promise "more network services" for the handheld by the end of 2008.
There was no word on European or North American launches but it is safe to say we will see the update at some point.
Google has announced that it will begin offering full-length TV episodes through its YouTube platform beginning this week, thanks to a content deal with CBS.
“This is what the users want,” noted Jordan Hoffner, the director of content partnerships for YouTube.
The videos will of course be free to YouTube users but will have advertisement before, during and after the episode, similar to rival video site Hulu which promotes NBC Universal content.
Shiva Rajaraman, a senior product manager for YouTube, added that the company is still searching for the "right ad format for the right content experience.” For the time being it remains committed to in-video overlays for short clips but is still experimenting with longer videos.
Users heading to the CBS page on YouTube will find classic shows such as “MacGyver” and "Beverly Hills: 90120" as well as newer shows such as “Dexter” and “Californication.”
The BBC has announced that its popular iPlayer service has gone portable and will be compatible with a large list of portable devices, including the Apple iPod Touch and iPhone.
"This is the first time that you can play BBC iPlayer TV programmes on a range of portable media devices," says Anthony Rose on the official iPlayer blog.
Rose says the iPlayer will work on SonyWalkman E and S series, Archos 605 WIFI and Internet Media Tablet, Philips GoGear 52xx series, Samsung YP-P2 and YP-Q1 and Nokia N96 devices. The entire list, which is updated weekly, is available here.
If your device does not have Wi-Fi, you will have to download the shows and not stream, but Rose notes that any PMP that can play "PlaysForSure" media (now known as "Certified For Windows Vista") is compatible.
After first being announced at CES 2007, Sling Media has finally announced the availability of the SlingCatcher playback device, 18 months after its initial unveiling.
The SlingCatcher, according to Cnet is a "playback device that's designed to pull digital content from three sources and display them on your TV. It can play a variety of digital video files from an attached USB storage device (anything from a thumbdrive to a hard drive); display anything on your PC screen (including full-motion video) via the SlingProjector "screen scraping" software; and stream video from any source connected to a Slingbox (elsewhere in the house in high-resolution, or from a remote Slingbox source over the Internet at lesser quality)."
The SlingCatcher, especially with its $300 USD price tag, may seem like a niche product for the time being, but it stands to gain momentum when a few more features are upgraded.
Sling Media's has already introduced Sling.com which it calls a "premium library of movies, TV shows, and Web videos" which already has content deals with NBC, Fox, CBS, Showtime, Break.com, National Geographic, and MGM. Dave Zatz, a former Sling employee adds "SlingCatcher will eventually tap directly into Sling.com for some web video, perhaps partially taking the PC out of the mix."
Last month we reported that Wal-Mart was shutting down its MP3 DRM servers, effectively killing off any music you have purchased from the retailer, unless you burn the music to CD and then rip it back DRM-free.
It appears the giant retailer has done an about face after public backlash and will keep the servers running at "the present time," according to Ravi Jariwala, a Walmart.com spokesman.
The decision follows that of both Yahoo and MSN who decided to shut down their servers and reversed the decision after public backlash.
"(Walmart.com) will continue to evaluate options and no decisions have been made at this point. In the meantime, we'll continue to offer MP3 downloads through our online music store and will assist with DRM issues for protected Windows Media Audio (WMA) files purchased from Walmart.com," added Jariwala.
Microsoft VP John Schappert has confirmed today at the Tokyo Game Show event that the Xbox 360 "New Xbox Experience (NXE)"dashboard revamp is coming on November 19th to 26 countries and in 19 languages.
The NXE will completely transform the intrerface of your console but the biggest change is the move to cover flow-esque navigation, working the same way Vista's Aero task switcher does. From there you can cycle through various channels (avatars, demos, new movies, Netflix, etc) and it appears there will be an expansion of channels, from the current 5.
NXE will certainly include Netflix support with the ability to stream over 15,000 movies, concerts and TV shows to your 360. You can also "stream the movie with up to seven other consoles in a 'party' you can also haul around the dashboard, in and out of movies or games."
The NXE also adds Mii-like avatars where gamers can customize a character to look like them (or anyone else) including the face, hair, body and clothing and accessories.
According to an Xbit Labs report, the popular Xbox 360 console will be getting an external Blu-ray disc drive, and "soon."
The report says that Toshiba-Samsung Storage Technology Corp. has been contracted by Microsoft to begin manufacturing the drive and that it will sell for the cheap price of $100-150 USD, in an effort to stay competitive with the Sony PlayStation 3, which has a built-in Blu-ray drive.
Of course this isn't the first time that we have heard of Xbox 360 Blu-ray rumors but it is the first since June.
Microsoft did not comment on the report and has always maintained that their business model was geared towards digital downloads.
Yesterday we told you about a letter from the US Chamber of Commerce to President Bush in an effort to convince him to sign the annual attempt at draconian intellectual property enforcement legislation. The centerpiece of their argument to the President is a pair of oft-cited statistics claiming piracy has cost the US 750,000 jobs, as well as annual financial losses of $250 billion.
Now Ars Technica has published an interesting article that sheds a significant amount of light on the actual source of those figures and the closer you look, the less credible they look. That's not surprising considering $250 billion is more than the combined US revenue of the music, movie, and software industries. It's more than a little difficult to believe they're losing more than they're making.
A look at the sordid history of these numbers reveals just how useless they really are. To begin with they appear to have been extrapolated from the results of a survey compiled in the 1980s. The survey was conducted on a small sample of US businesses, with the resulting numbers then multiplied into an estimate of worldwide losses not from piracy, but from the IP laws in many countries, which are far less restrictive than in the US.
Google has announced they will be adding links to select media content on YouTube videos that will allow users to purchase music and games from both Amazon MP3 andiTunes.
The service, the YouTube eCommerce Platform began today and will be expanded internationally over the next few months.
"Our goal is to improve the overall YouTube experience by connecting consumers with relevant information and entertaining content," Chad Hurley, co-founder and CEO, YouTube, said in a statement."The addition of retail links will enhance the viewing experience and allow people to engage more deeply with the content they want to consume."
Beginning today, on the pages of "authorized video content", Google will be placing embedded download links to the online music services of Amazon and Apple.
Two days ago we reported that Real's new legal DVD ripper, RealDVD, was temporarily not available, but it appears now that the restraining order on the software will not be lifted until the district judge that placed it "learns from experts, including the court's, how the software functions."
RealNetworks claims that the software "allows consumers to securely store, manage and play their DVDs on their computers" and "does not enable users to distribute copies of their DVDs." It also mentions that RealDVD adds another layer of DRM to the ripped movies which makes it much harder to move to films off the computer that has the program installed.
The software will not reappear on Real's site or in stores until at least late November, which is the next time U.S. District Judge Marilyn Patel will have a hearing.
"I am extending the temporary restraining order because I'm not satisfied in the fact that this technology is not in violation," Patel added. "There are serious questions about copyright violations. There are questions about violations of the (Digital Millennium Copyright Act), and violations of these companies' agreement."
In the recent years no internet music store has come even close to challenging iTunes for the number one spot. With generally every store selling songs and albums at the same price it's Apple, with the wide-spread iPod, who collects the money. However, now Sony BMG Music and Dada S.P.A. have decided to do something different by selling song for as cheap as 66 cents.
Dada.net offers consumers from the US a limited monthly download plan for a fee of $10. The user can download 15 songs from the selections of both Sony BMG Music and Universal Music Group. According to Sony, Dada.net will also feature in the future songs and artists from other major and indie labels.
The monthly fee of Dada.net will have to be paid as a part of your cell phone bill and therefore it doesn't work on all of the operators or mobile plans. Also currently the MP3s can be downloaded only to your computer, but downloading music directly to your phone will be made possible in the future.
Several times a year we see lobbyists and legislators in Washington trying to sell the Department of Justice on the idea of a so-called Copyright Czar. Such a position would essentially create a staff of pro bono lawyers to litigate what are currently civil cases for copyright holders (ie the music, movie, and software industries). Now they're getting heat from the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, which sent a letter to President Bush claiming IP infringement "has already caused the loss of an estimated 750,000 American jobs."
That's right. Of the 9.5 million Americans who are unemployed, nearly 8% have apparently been put out of work by pirates. At least if you believe the Chamber of Commerce figures.
Of course you'd be hard pressed to confirm that since the letter doesn't bother to list any sources for that figure. Nor does it explain exactly how it "poses a severe health and safety risk to consumers."
MySpace has announced that over 1 billion songs have been streamed so far through their newly launched MySpace Music service.
"We can confirm that we hit a milestone of one billion music streams only a few days after launching the new product," the company said in a statement. "More importantly, we are still compiling our metrics on engagement and unique users which will tell a much richer story on how positively the community is responding to the new music experience. We're excited to share more information and data as soon as it's available."
Although comparing the two is a far stretch (one is free, one is not), it is important to note that the iTunes store hit its five billionth song downloaded after five years in business whereas MySpace music hit 1 billion in a week.
Nintendo has confirmed to Eurogamer that any new software created for the new DSi handheld will be region-locked and that NA, EU, or J software will only work on consoles sold in those specific regions.
Current DS and GameBoy Advance handhelds are region-free meaning consumers can purchase software from other regions and it will play just fine.
Nintendo says the DSi is region locked "because DSi embeds net communication functionality within itself and we are intending to provide net services specifically tailored for each region". "Also because we are including parental control functionality for Nintendo DSi and each region has its unique age limit made by different independent bodies."
Existing DS software will still be region-free, noted the company.
Two weeks ago we reported that Mitchell Baker of Mozilla Europe was quoted as saying that Firefox Mobilewas in the works and would be coming before 2010.
It appears however that we may be seeing the alpha stage of the application much sooner, even as soon as a couple of weeks.
Mozilla CEO John Lilly, in an interview with the San Jose Mercury News said that the Firefox Mobile Alphas "could be released in a few weeks.”
The full quote says, "We want to make sure that the Web on mobile is more like the Web than what the mobile industry offers today, which is closed, separate networks and not a very good information-getting experience for the user. The first thing is to bring Firefox to mobile devices. We’re working on that, and we’ll see some alphas in a few weeks."
RealNetworks claims that the software "allows consumers to securely store, manage and play their DVDs on their computers" and "does not enable users to distribute copies of their DVDs." It also mentions that RealDVD adds another layer of DRM to the ripped movies which makes it much harder to move to films off the computer that has the program installed.
However, the movie studios have sued the company back and it seems the software is now down temporarily with no word on when it will be available again.
A visit to the RealDVD site will give you this message: "Due to recent legal action taken by the Hollywood movie studios against us, RealDVD is temporarily unavailable. Rest assured, we will continue to work diligently to provide you with software that allows you to make a legal copy of your DVDs for your own use."
New York District Judge William H. Pauley III has dismissed the RIAA's copyright infringment lawsuit against MP3Tunes' CEO Michael Robertson but has said the lawsuit against the company itself will go on as planned.
The lawsuit, brought forward by the RIAA on behalf of EMI and 14 other labels claims that MP3Tunes "infringed on copyrights as it offers an online music storage service, allowing users to upload their music collections and access them from virtually anywhere."
Robertson is quick to point out that much larger corporations offer the same exact service as his company does and that "MP3Tunes was targeted because of its comparatively small size, ensuring EMI an easier victory that would then be used to shut down similar services and cripple consumers’ rights." A few notable examples of other similar services are AOL’s Xdrive, Microsoft’s Skydrive and BT’s The Vault.
When the case is eventually ruled on it will determine whether customers can store their legally-obtained music in cloud services. MP3tunes currently has 150,000 customers who have uploaded their music into online "lockers." The music is then accessible from any web-enabled device.
Warner Bros. has announced that they will be upping efforts to curb piracy in South Korea by releasing their movies on demand at least two weeks before official DVD release dates.
The experimental move, according to Thomas Gewecke, president of Warner Bros. Digital Distribution, is a chance to see if the move will curb Internet piracy at all in a country where almost everyone has broadband Internet.
"Korea is the ideal market for us to expand our digital distribution strategy," Gewecke said. "There is already a broad base of consumers who are immersed in technology and very comfortable getting movies through video-on-demand or similar services."
"According to the Korean Film Council, more than 47% of people surveyed said they had downloaded movies from the Internet at least once,"added Harrison Lee, managing director of Warner Home Video Korea.
There were no specifics yet on which movies would be released first.
Vudu has officially announced that it will be rolling out films in a new high-definition format, dubbed HDX which the company claims is the best looking format yet for content delivered via the web, TV or cable VOD.
The launch will have 50 films available in the format, which plays back in full HD1080presolution. A few of the releases include the new hits The Spiderwick Chronicles, In Bruges, Speed Racer and a few classics such as Close Encounters of the Third Kind and Chinatown.
All Vudu users can watch the content via a purchased set-top box and although Vudu admits Blu-ray will offer a superior video and audio experience, HDX will trump any current HD service.
Although the company did not say how large the file sizes were on average, they did say HDX delivery would take about 4 hours per film for the average user. HDX will cost the same as the current HD films, $3.99 to $5.99 per film.
Enterbrain has released the videogame sales figures for the first six months of the fiscal year in Japan and it appears that sales have slowed greatly, falling over 20 percent year on year.
The sales data is for the period of March 31, 2008 through September 28, 2008 and despite the sharp fall the Sony PlayStation Portable handheld was the biggest seller, beating out its biggest rival the Nintendo DS Lite handheld.
According to Kotaku, the figures look like the following:
• Hardware:
Nintendo DS (DS and DS Lite)
First half of the year: 1,314,919
Total units sold: 23,484,680
This morning 60 of Britain's largest pop stars announced they are forming the Featured Artists' Coalition , a group that will seek out greater control of the artists' music in the digital age.
Robbie Williams, Radiohead, the Verve and Kaiser Chiefs are just some of the members included in the Featured Artists' Coalition.
In a claim that many artists have been making for years, the group says it wants the artists to actually retain control over their music instead of the record labels having those rights. The group claims that artists are usually left out of the cut when their songs are distributed digitally, whether it be online or through mobile services.
"It is time for artists to have a strong collective voice to stand up for their interests,"said Brian Message, co-manager of Radiohead and the singer Kate Nash. "The digital landscape is changing fast and new deals are being struck all the time, but all too often without reference to the people who actually make the music."
Jazz Summers, manager of The Verve, added that the group would "seek to improve the treatment of artists within the business and campaign to update laws and practices that better reflect the new music landscape."
According to the latest figures from Enterbrain, the Microsoft Xbox 360 has outsold its rival the Sony PlayStation 3 in Japan for the month of September marking the first time the console has ever outsold Sony on its home turf.
The strong sales came mostly after Microsoft slashed the prices of its console across the board and for the month Microsoft sold 53,547 units compared to Sony's 33,071 units.
The Wii continued to be a strong seller and moved more than both its rivals did combined for the month, selling 109,548 units.
Although the race between the 360 and the PS3 is normally very close in North America, the race has never been close in Japan with Microsoft lagging far behind. In an effort to spur sales worldwide, Microsoft slashed the prices of each model of the 360, to 19,800 yen for the Arcade model, 28,000 yen for the Premium model and 39,800 yen for the Elite model.
EMI has announced that they have joined Nokia's "Comes With Music" unlimited mobile download service, meaning that each of the Big 4 record labels is now on board for the launch of the service this month.
Universal Music Group,Sony BMG and Warner Music Group have all been signed for some time now, as well as a ton of indie labels.
Buyers of a few models of Nokia handsets will receive the service for free for one year in which they are allowed to download unlimited music for the year and then keep the music forever.
The service is free because the phones with it will sell at a premium.
Netflix has said that its large streaming "Watch Instantly" service is now finally available for Mac users, a feature many subscribers have been hoping for for some time.
The giant rental company already has a catalog of over 12,000 movies and TV shows available through its streaming service but has been making deals at a rapid clip as of late. Netflix has over 100,000 titles available on DVD however so the gap is still huge between the content formats.
At least Mac users have another option now however for their video downloads.
In more news that bodes well for the future of the Blu-ray format, Warner has revealed that at least the first installment of the blockbuster trilogy The Lord of the Rings is finally headed to Blu-ray, and it is "coming soon".
The revelation came as part of an insert added into the new 'Poltergeist' Blu-ray Disc that shows what "Collector's Editions" of BDs are coming as well as movies that are "Coming Soon." A few other notable movies shown on the insert are "Shawshank Redemption", "The Notebook", "The Wizard of Oz" and "Rush Hour" among others.
Industry sources have also noted that the entire trilogy is headed to Blu-ray in 2009, although there was no word on whether the first editions sold would be theatrical cuts or extended cuts.
Nintendo of America president Reggie Fils-Aime has noted that American fans hoping to get their hands on the newly released Nintendo DSi will have to wait until at least April 2009.
Fils-Aime also said he expect consumers to continue buying up DS Lite handhelds and hopes that they will choose to upgrade later.
"All through the Americas we continue to have great momentum on DS Lite and so for us we have a huge opportunity, much more consumers who want the original DS Lite, and so it will be for us a fantastic opportunity in our next fiscal," noted Fils-Aime.
"The critical decision for those consumers is how long do you wait? We haven't announced a launch date, and really for us it's going to be in our next fiscal, so certainly, after April – that's a long time to wait for a consumer who will be bypassing new titles like Chrono Trigger.
On Monday we reported that Apple was threatening to close down iTunes if the Copyright Royalty Board voted to raise digital music distribution royalty fees.
It appears however that fans of the iTunes store need not worry as the vote has come through and the rates will remain unchanged, at least for the near future.
The rate hike talk will be re-voted on in 2012, but for the time being everyone seems happy with the decision including the record labels and the Digital Media Association, the group of which most online music retailers including Apple and Amazon are a part of.
Jonathan Potter, the Association’s executive director, added "that the decision to keep the rates at the same level will significantly help digital services and retailers in their quests to innovate and grow over the next several years."
Although we wont have the official numbers until Tuesday, Iron Man director Jon Favreau has confirmed that the blockbuster film is already the highest selling Blu-ray title of all-time, despite the fact that it was only released on September 30th.
Favreau made the announcement during an interview with 'shock jock' Howard Stern on Stern's radio show on Sirius XM.
Online music service Rhapsody has announced that the popular musician Kid Rock has chosen the platform as the exclusive online venue for his music, snubbing the market share leader iTunes in the process.
The musician's music has never been legally available digitally but as of today his entire catalog will be available for purchase and streaming through the subscription service.
Kid Rock has always shown his distaste for the iTunes store, despite the fact that it is the clear market leader for digital downloads.
In June, Rock even went as far as to tell kids to pirate his music as much as they want. "I was telling kids - download it illegally, I don't care. I want you to hear my music so I can play live," he said at the time.
His most recent album, 'Rock N Roll Jesus' has sold 1.7 million CDs, a very high number in this day and age.
Although Nokia continues to struggle for market share in the US, sales overseas continue to grow and today the handset maker announced the launch of the Nokia XpressMusic 5800 , nicknamed "the Tube", in what should be their largest release of the year.
The 5800 launches alongside the release of Nokia's "Comes with Music" unlimited music download service and uses a Symbian S60 interface that Nokia has been demoing since last year.
The device is touchscreen and can be considered more of music player than a phone. Its dual speakers face outwards and there is a 3.5mm headphone jack, two features not found on many phones. Also included are 81 MB of on-board memory and a large 8GB microSD card as well as a guitar pick stylus.
Music playback includes protected WMA, MP3, AAC and there is word that the phone can use Windows Media Player 11 as its on-board player.
Iron Man, the Paramount blockbuster, has been selling very well on both standard DVD and Blu-ray since its release on September 30th but many Blu-ray buyers have been having problems over the last two days when trying to access the BD-Livefeatures of the disc.
Paramount has issued a statement however, and it seems that the demand was higher than the studio had anticipated and the servers had been overloaded.
"The Iron Man Blu-ray went on sale Tuesday and due to the overwhelming popularity of the release an unprecedented demand was placed on the BD-Live connection. The disc represents a truly state-of-the art Blu-ray presentation with a first of its kind BD-Live application. As such, the heavy amount of traffic strained the servers due to so many people heading to the same destination. The bandwidth capacity was increased in preparation for the release but the demand exceeded all expectations so capacity was expanded dramatically last night and local servers were established worldwide to accommodate all the fans. The issue should be completely resolved but if anyone experiences a brief traffic jam, we have provided consumers with a menu option during disc startup that allows them to go directly to the movie main menu or continue to download the BD-Live features."
According to a ruling published yesterday, a court in Hamburg, Germany has ruled that Rapidshare is currently not doing enough to combat copyright infringement and that its filter system is ineffective.
The ruling says Rapidshare must now become more active in finding files that infringe on copyrights, especially after rights holders makes the company aware of them. The new rule is very similar to that of the DMCA here in the States.
Besides taking down infringing content however, the company must also "proactively check content before publishing it" to see if similar files have been posted before and to see if those files infringed content. More strikingly however, Rapidshare has to log IP addresses of "potential infringers."
Rapidshare currently uses a MD5 Hash checking filter to stop the upload of previously removed material, but the court ruled that that was not sufficient as uploaders would only have to change a couple of bytes in the file in order to circumvent the filter. Archives with passwords are also very hard to check, if not impossible.
Sling Media, the creators of the popular Slingbox media hub has announced the beta of their new video portal Sling.com.
The official email for beta testers goes like this:
Dear Sling Beta Team,
Sling Media is getting ready to roll out a private beta program for our new website, Sling.com. And you’re invited!
We really need your help banging on the site and providing feedback so we can improve some rough spots before we push a release to a broader audience.
Getting Started
- First, go to https://betasecure.sling.com/account/login and click “REQUEST AN INVITE” on the right.
- Over the course of the next couple of days and weeks we’ll be sending out batches of invites to our beta team.
- When you get your invite, follow the link provided and you’ll be prompted to either create an account or update your existing Sling Account. Then you’ll be off and running.
- Please keep in mind, this is a US only test. Other users will be geo blocked unfortunately.
Sling.com Features
Sling.com is a new online video portal that will give users access to a premier library of content from top TV networks, movie studios, sports leagues and websites. Combining professional programming, editorial expertise and social networking features alongside easy and logical navigation.
Nintendo has officially confirmed the launch of the DSi, an upgrade to the current DS handheld line.
The DSi, exclusively in Japan for now, has a slimmer body, wider screens, two cameras, photo and music players, and an SD slot in replacement of the current GBA slot.
The new handheld is 12 percent thinner than the DS Lite and the screens are 17 percent larger, at 3.25 inches.
Nintendo has added a 3MP camera to the exterior of the handheld and a 2MP camera to the interior hinge. Even more interestingly, the DSi will have a new Internet browser which will allow users to use Wi-Fi to browse the Internet and Nintendo's new DSi shop to download old GBA games and other applications.
Set to launch in Japan on November 1st for ¥18,900 ($179 USD), international releases are slated for 2009.
Sony has officially lowered the price of two of its most popular Blu-ray players, along with adding BD-Live capabilities to one.
Via a firmware update, theBDP-S350 will now be BD-Live capable along with seeing its price slashed $100 USD, to $299 USD. The BDP-S550 will see the same price slash, to $399 USD.
The move marks the first time Sony has officially lowered the price of a Blu-ray player lower than the price of its $399 PlayStation 3console, which remains far and away the most popular Blu-ray player on the market, from any brand.
The price cuts follow the recent trend of price reductions, with Panasonic doing the same last week and Memorex introducing a $279 USD player earlier this month.
According to a new report from What They Play, Nintendo is intent on making a "true" next-gen console but is going to ride the commercial success of the Wii for as long as possible.
Citing insider sources, the report says the upgraded Wii will keep current motion-based gameplay but will add processing and graphics power that can drive HD support. The new console would also include a hard drive, acknowledging the main problem gamers have had with the Wii.
The console will also have backwards-compatibility for Wii games and should also be compatible with Virtual Console games.
The report also says the console would include a new GPU from AMD and a new CPU from IBM, both of which will include provisions to play Wii software without the need for emulation.
Netflix has announced another partnership, this time with Starz Entertainment, that will bring 2500 movies, TV shows and concerts to the rental company's "Watch Instantly" streaming service.
The giant rental company already has a catalog of over 12,000 movies and TV shows available through its streaming service but has been making deals at a rapid clip as of late. Netflix has over 100,000 titles available on DVD however so the gap is still huge between the content formats.
The deals also mean that the company will remain relevant if the world ever moves to digital downloads and streaming and away from DVD rentals, just like the migration from VHS to DVD a decade ago.
Starz says the deal will give Netflix viewers a chance to view the movies online alot earlier than they would otherwise be able to. One example, "Spider-Man 3" would have not been available for streaming for 9 years had the deal not been struck.
Apple has threatened to close down its iTunes store if proposed royalty rate increases for digital music sales pass tomorrow.
The Copyright Royalty Board is set to meet tomorrow to vote on whether to increase royalties 66 percent, to 15 cents a track from the current 9. The rise would either have to paid by Apple, the record labels or the consumer.
Apple is completely against the rate hike and has said it will close down the store rather than absorb the hike or raise the price of a track to over 99 cents.
Eddy Cue, the vice president for iTunes, said this to the Board at the Library of Congress.
"If iTS (iTunes Store) were forced to absorb any increase in the mechanical royalty rates, the result would be to significantly increase the likelihood of the store operating at a financial loss - which is no alternative at all.
JVC has announced they have finally stopped production on VCR standalone players, marking the end of an era for the now dead format.
Amazon has begun a new promotion on select 
Netflix and 
