News archive (2 / 2007)

Sony Computer Entertainment has confirmed how much downloadable PS3 games will cost UK customers. The range will be between £1.99 and £6.99. A European price of €2.99 and €9.99 had been confirmed on Monday. Of course, some UK gamers were interested to know the price of the content in the UK specifically, since the territory usually suffers higher prices.

For example, the PlayStation 3 (PS3) console will sell for &euro599 in European when it launches on March 23rd (60GB version). In the UK, the console will sell for £425, which converts to €630 (US$834). At the current exchange rate, downloadable games will cost UK gamers more in the higher priced category, with £6.99 converting to €10.35.

For the lower price titles, UK gamers will pay just a tiny amount less, with £1.99 converting to €2.95. Sony has still to confirm the European line-up of downloadable games.

Source:
GamesIndustry.biz

A deal struck between Google Inc.'s YouTube video sharing site and the NBA will allow YouTube users to view original content from the league and to also upload their own videos to share with other NBA fans. Through the partnership, the most popular of the uploaded videos will then be shown on the NBA's cable network each week in a show called "NBA Top 10 on YouTube".

"NBA fans will be able to interact and share their passion for the game by posting their 'best moves'," Commissioner David Stern said. "YouTube's popularity and wide-reaching community of users provides the NBA with another unique way to reach our fans." Google's Adsense program will also syndicate NBA content through its advertising network, allowing publishers to use NBA content on their sites.

"We are thrilled to partner with the NBA to give them access to an amazing platform to further engage their fans around the world," Google CEO Eric Schmidt said. YouTube also currently has a similar deal with the NHL.

Source:
Betanews

New Medium Enterprises has gotten its first distribution deal in the United States with PC Rush. The deal will see PC Rush distributing HD Versatile Multilayer Disc (VMD) players to the U.S. market. Two players will be marketed, the HD VMD Media Player Duo and HD VMD Media Player Quattro, priced at $199 and $249 respectively. Both plays give consumers access to HD content on VMD discs and can upscale DVDs.

PC Rush plans to have the players available to purchase in Q2 2007. HD VMD aims to compete with Blu-ray and HD-DVD by offering consumers full HD content for prices that are comparable to the current consumer DVD market. The format is based on red-laser technology and supports discs on up to 8 information layers on each side.

"We are committed to providing U.S. consumers with an affordable and high-quality HD experience via the HD VMD solution. The red laser-based VMD format and players are a natural successor to the DVD market, allowing consumers to get high-definition for a fraction of the cost of today's HD-DVD or Blu-ray discs and players," said Mahesh Jayanarayan, CEO, NME, Inc. "Our partnership with PC Rush represents a strong step towards our goal to bring HD VMD to a wide consumer base in the U.S."

Digimarc Corporation has announced its first successful patent application this month, which was first filed in November 1998. According to filings at the US Patent and Trademark Office, Digimarc's "Method for monitoring internet dissemination of image, video and/or audio files" is a monitoring service that scans digital content on the Internet, searching for watermarks to identify material subject to copyright.

When material is identified, it can then contact the registered owner of the content and inform them of the discovery. Digimarc is now promoting the system to fix a major problem with social networking sites like YouTube and MySpace; a very large portion of content uploaded does not belong to the uploader.

Bruce Davis, Digimarc chairman and CEO, said the system could help build "viable business models" in an arena rife with disruptive changes in entertainment distribution and consumption. "Much of the repurposed content on YouTube, for example, contains copyrighted entertainment," Davis said in a statement.

He continued: "If social networking sites implemented software to check each stream, they could identify copyrighted subject matter, create a report, negotiate compensation for the value chain and sell targeted advertising for related goods and services. There is no need to impede consumers. In fact, the specific identification of the content could guide provision of related goods, services and community designed to maximize the consumer’s enjoyment of the entertainment experience."

Guatemalan National Police in co-ordination with the Attorney General's Office conducted a massive raid in downtown Guatemala City that turned up over one million counterfeit discs containing pirated music and movies. The major street operation took place on February 9th, and involved 560 officers in total.

The officers raided 80 points of sale in the "Avenida 6" market, seizing not just the one million counterfeit discs, but 45 CD/DVD burners, thousands of counterfeit inlay cards and audio and television equipment. "We congratulate the Guatemalan police officials for a job well done and look forward to more operations like this in the near future." Raul Vazquez, head of IFPI's Latin American regional office, said.

Source:
Press Release

Canon Inc. recently lost a license to an important patent related to surface-conduction electron-emitter display (SED) flat panel TVs. The Japanese firm originally paid $5.6 million for the patent license, which is a deal considering Canon planned to enter the $84 billion global flat-panel TV market using the technology. However, the firm made its first mistake by forming a joint venture with Toshiba to produce SEDs.

The US-based owner of the patent, Nano-Proprietary Inc. contested that the license held by Canon did not extend to Toshiba, and in an attempt to resolve the situation, reached out to Toshiba to strike a separate license agreement. Canon made another mistake then by blocking talks between Toshiba and Nano-Proprietary.

Canon claimed that the joint venture with Toshiba was in fact, a subsidiary of Canon because the firm's 50% stake included one more share than Toshiba's stake. Nano-Proprietary sued Canon in April 2005, pitting itself against a company that has $35 billion in annual revenue as well as 500 employed intellectual property experts.

In an attempt from Canon to resolve the situation, the company decided to buy Toshiba's stake, but Judge Sam Sparks of Texas said the move came too late from Canon. The two sides are now reportedly working to reach a settlement before a court decision on damages due to Nano-Proprietary.

Jack Tretton, chief executive of Sony Computer Entertainment America has told Reuters that Sony is working to resolve PS3 shortages by May and that the company is on track to have shipped 2 million PS3 consoles to North America by the end of March. "April or May is when we feel like we're going to catch up to demand and have product fully in stock across North America and stay there," Tretton said.

When asked about claims that PS3s are sitting on shelves in some area's in North America, Tretton said, "Our goal is to fill shelves across the United States. Our goal is not to have empty shelves, it's to have full shelves. If we have empty shelves, that's one less consumer who could have bought a PlayStation 3."

When asked about PS3 shipment goals, he said, "We're in pretty good shape to do that. The early returns are quite favorable," he said. Sony set of a goal of shipping 6 million PS3 consoles worldwide by March 2007.

Source:
Reuters

SCE Australia boss Michael Ephraim responded to criticism in the region over the price of the PlayStation 3 (PS3) console. He explained the price by claiming that the PS3 is in a whole different league to its rivals. "We think PS3 is not a product to be compared with Wii, it is a completely different product. This is a digital hub, that is a games console," he told news site The Age.

He took some shots at what many believe to be Xbox 360's disappointing multimedia features. "To maximize Xbox 360, you need Media Centre, you need a PC. And now if you want to play high-definition movies (and we can argue which format is going to win) you have to spend another AUD $249 [EUR 150]. Xbox is significantly dearer than PS3 for what it can do straight out of the box," he said.

He said there was no other product on the market that offers the same digital content or Blu-ray features as the PS3. The 60GB PS3 will cost AUD$999 when it launches on March 23rd, which is equal to the European price of €599 (60GB model).

Source:
GamesIndustry.biz

Even though the Blu-ray camp has already declared victory for itself and Sony's PS3 has been loosed in Japan and North America and with the highly-anticipated European launch less than a month away, Toshiba Corp. is sending a message that it is far from giving in to Blu-ray. Toshiba has submitted the specification of the 51GB HD DVD disc to the standard's overseer.

The 51GB capacity has been achieved by packing three layers into a disc that can store 17GB of data each. Toshiba has not proved the technical feasibility of the disc and there are no details on whether any currently available HD DVD hardware is "triple-layer-ready". Nevertheless, the company hopes to have the disc out in the wild by the end of the year.

Toshiba had talked about a triple layer 45GB disc back in May 2005, but by pushing capacity to 51GB the company may aim to get it out while Blu-ray dual-layer discs offer 50GB capacity. Of course, Blu-ray is not "stuck" at 50GB just as Toshiba is not stuck with 30GB, and a Blu-ray disc with 4 layers offers an impressive 100GB capacity. For now though, even HD DVD's 30GB capacity has been adequate for high-definition movie releases.

Sony has announced that the company will offer a new, cheaper Blu-ray Disc player to consumers this summer. The player will cost $400 less than Sony's BDP-S1 Blu-ray player, which sells for $999. The new BDP-S300, will be priced at $599, bringing the price of the stand-alone Blu-ray equipment to the PS3 60Gb model price. While it will be the cheapest stand-alone for Blu-ray, consumers can still choose a 20GB PS3 for $100 less.

The BDP-S300 will also be much smaller and more compact and will support playback of CDs. The price is still too high for most consumers when DVD players sell for $50, but any price cuts are great news for users hoping to invest in high-definition content.

On the other side of the format war, HD DVD stand-alone players can be found for $400, or a consumer can pick up an Xbox 360 HD DVD add-on drive to use with the console or a Windows XP/Vista operating system for $200. Blu-ray managed to outsell HD DVD titles in January, helped by the PS3 consoles that have been sold.

According to Sony VP Randy Waynick, "Eighty percent of people who buy a PS3 also buy Blu-ray movies to go with it."

Apple Computer Inc. has delayed the launch of the Apple TV device until next month, the company has revealed. Apple TV (formerly known as iTV) is a set-top box that intends to bring content from your computer straight to your television with the help of iTunes software and a home network. "Wrapping up Apple TV is taking a few weeks longer than we projected, and we now expect to begin shipments mid-March," spokeswoman Lynn Fox said.

In order for the market for online video sales to see optimal growth, analysts agree that consumers need to be given solutions to easily view content they buy from the Internet on a proper Television screen. One service that achieves this goal is Microsoft's Xbox Live Video Marketplace, which sells movie downloads that can be viewed on a TV using the Xbox 360 console.

Apple hopes to offer an attractive solution to customers while also keeping Apple TV simple. So far, devices intending to bridge the PC - CE gap have been considered to either fall short in features or have been too complicated.

Source:
Reuters

Disney is set to test digital distribution of video games by offering a range of casual games for PCs. The company has teamed up with copy protection firm Macrovision to offer titles based on Pirates of the Caribbean, The Little Mermaid, The Lion King and Aladdin. "Disney Game Downloads is a good example of our continued success in leveraging new technologies to deliver unique entertainment experiences," said Myles MacBean, vice president of technology for The Walt Disney Internet Group.

The system will allow users to download trial versions of games for testing before purchasing, and will also enable the customer to share the trial version of the game an unlimited amount of times. "Digital distribution is a key focus for Macrovision and we enjoy working with our customers when they enter the online distribution market, seek to reach greater audiences, and move into new and different digital distribution areas," said Fred Amoroso, CEO of Macrovision.

Source:
GamesIndustry.biz

Microsoft's Peter Moore has revealed in an interview by Game Informer that they are going to reshape their Xbox 360 strategy. The idea behind this is the success of fun-oriented competitor Wii, even Microsoft has noticed and accepted the simple and effective approach of Wii, which appeals to a wide range of customers with its easy and fun to play games.

"From a first-party point of view, it's not just about E-rated games, it's going to be about the experience that, quite frankly, Nintendo has done a tremendous job in capturing, in bringing back fun - if you will - to the gaming platforms," Moore said in the interview.

It's not all Wii, Microsoft has made a few family games such as Viva Pinata before, and Peter Moore said that their "strategy has been laid out for us years in advance." However, he also hints that the solution doesn't necessarily involve games but "more experiential" updates. This is where motion-sensing comes in. Currently Xbox 360 is the only next-gen console not to feature a motion-sensing controller, question remains how long?

Speculations aside, according to Moore, Microsoft is going to rely more in downloadable content in the future, "Digital distribution is coming. All three consoles have some form of it as you know. Xbox Live Arcade is, I think, the premiere way we're looking at digital distribution, which is, if you will, more snack-sized games rather than full downloads of multi-gigabyte gaming experiences."

Google Inc. is reportedly working with the Dow Jones, Sony BMG Music Entertainment, Conde Nast and many major content providers to syndicate their huge collections of video content with other websites. The New York Times reported that video content would be displayed inside a Google ad box on a website, and would show content relevant to the website's focus and/or advertisements run during or after.

The revenue from the advertisements would be shared between Google, the provider of the video content and the website that displays the Google video ads. Google is not the only company looking to corner this market, even NBC Universal is attempting it, but considering the reach of Google's Adsense program online, the company appears to have the upper hand.

None of the companies cited in the New York Times report gave any further details on the matter.

Source:
Reuters

Apple Computer Inc., Samsung and Sandisk Corporation have been sued for allegedly infringing an MP3-related patent. The lawsuit was filed by Texas MP3 Technologies, a little known firm. It was filed in Marshall, Texas, a city that is becoming a hot spot for these cases due to its speedy process and tendency to be sympathetic of the plaintiff's claims.

The patent in question is U.S. patent 7,065,417, which was originally awarded to iPod chip-maker SigmaTel in June of last year. It covers "an MPEG portable sound reproducing system and a method for reproducing sound data compressed using the MPEG method." SigmaTel apparently passed the patent to a Dallas, Texas-based patent licensing agency shortly after receiving rights to it.

"Because these are such basic patents to digital music, we believe it will be difficult to design around these patents and have a commercially viable player," SigmaTel said in a statement at the time. It is not clear whether Texas MP3 Technologies is that specific Dallas-based company or if it acquired it from another source.

Source:
AppleInsider

After Viacom Inc. demanded that YouTube remove about 100,000 clips from the service and ran off to sign a deal with Joost instead, the media focus helped to drive YouTube's traffic up 14% according to analysts at Hitwise. According to LeeAnn Prescott, writing on the Hitwise Intelligence Analysts Weblogs, this is double the average weekly traffic increase since the start of the year.

YouTube currently sits as the 12th most visited website on the entire Internet, behind giants like Yahoo, MSN, MySpace, Google and Hotmail. However, while it sits behind all of those other major Internet resources, all of the combined traffic of all U.S. Television networks' websites is still far behind YouTube's traffic.

The 56 TV cable and broadcast networks received about 0.48% of US internet traffic while YouTube dragged in 0.60% of all U.S. Internet traffic during the week of 17th February. "This is a landmark event in the changing face of web traffic and entertainment consumption, now that entertainment seekers are now more likely to go to YouTube than any other television network or gaming website", Prescott wrote.

YouTube is currently negotiating with several content providers, reportedly including the BBC.

BitTorrent Inc. has finally launched its legal download store, the BitTorrent Entertainment Network (BEN). The company that creates software that was once scorned by Hollywood will now offer content from 20th Century Fox News Corp, Warner Bros. Home Entertainment, Lionsgate Entertainment Corp, Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Inc., Paramount Pictures and Paramount's sister company, MTV Networks.

This puts BitTorrent in direct competition with services from Amazon and Wal-Mart, but BitTorrent thinks it has a shot at beating the competition because of its massive user base and its determination to stay away from the stale look of "just another online retailer". President and co-founder of the company, Ashwin Navin, said that BitTorrent will offer not only Movie and TV show download, but music, videos and games.

"The last thing we could afford to do was launch another sterile retail site," Navin said, called the community building aspect of the network, "our heart and soul." The BitTorrent Entertainment Network also plans to offer the community the ability to post their own videos for others to download, giving independent filmmakers somewhere to promote and/or sell their content.

Canadian online music retailer, Puretracks Inc., is now offering 50,000 music tracks for download without any Digital Rights Management (DRM) restrictions included. The files are sold in the MP3 format, making them playable on virtually any MP3 player and permitting free sharing. Most of the tracks come from smaller labels, but big Independents are also playing along, like Nettwerk, whose roster includes heavyweights Avril Lavigne, Sarah McLachlan and Barenaked Ladies.

Puretracks President, Alistair Mitchell, admitted that the big four record companies, Universal, SonyBMG, EMI and Warner, are all still committed to including digital locks on music downloads. EMI had been in negotiations with several retailers about selling DRM-free downloads, but broke off the tracks presumably over failing to agree on an upfront fee that retailers would have to pay.

Some industry insiders do acknowledge that DRM stances are changing rapidly however. "The industry is starting to wake up to the realization that you can't treat your fans like criminals from the get-go," said Andrew Cash, head of the Canadian Music Creators Coalition. "When you do that you're just not going to keep them. This is sort of a wide-open field - we need to get into some serious discussions about how to monetize the free peer-to-peer networks that are out there so that people do get paid."

EMI, one of the world's big four major record companies, has opted to keep selling its music with Digital Rights Management (DRM) restrictions through online retailers. EMI is the smallest of the four majors and was tipped to be the most likely to sell DRM-free downloads on the Internet. As Apple CEO, Steve Jobs, pointed out, it is pointless to enforce restrictions on consumers of digital music when CDs are sold completely unprotected.

EMI axed its chairman and CEO Alain Levy in January and alone announced £110 million in cuts are needed this year. The company turned over £867 million in October, with a pre-tax profit of £18.6 million. Since sales of physical CDs have declined by up to 15% in recent years, record companies look at digital sales to fill the gap.

Unfortunately, digital sales have not filled up the gap for major labels, but have been successful for Independents. It was reported that EMI was considering selling DRM-free music through online retailers in exchange for large upfront payments to guarantee revenue. One can only speculate that talks broke down because no retailer would agree on a payment that would suit EMI, but walking away from what could have been a breakthrough in digital music sales might only hurt EMI as it does consumers.

Sony has announced pricing for European PlayStation 3 first party launch titles. The five disc-based launch titles, including Motorstorm and Resistance: Fall of Man, are priced €59.99 (£39.99, AUD 99.95, NZ 109.95). In addition downloadable PlayStation Network titles, such as BlastFactor, flOw and Super Rub a Dub, range from €2.99 to €9.99 during the introductory period.

PlayStation Network will also host other files for download including game items and premium video content, such as SingStar tracks, and a premium pack for MotorStorm, which would include a new track, additional vehicles, liveries and multiplayer modes. These items are priced on a "sliding scale" from €0.99 and increasing depending on the content.

Also PlayStation Network exclusive Gran Turismo HD Concept, a one-track glimpse to next-gen racing with 1080p HD graphics, will be available for free download from PlayStation Store.

Source:
Sony Press release
Sony press release #2

Samsung Electronics Co., Ltd., the world leader in advanced memory technology and the leading producer of high-end graphics memory, has increased the speed of the GDDR4 (graphics double data rate 4) memory by two-thirds. Graphics memory processes video images in desktop PCs, notebooks and workstations to move huge volumes of video simultaneously.

"Our new GDDR4 memory will add even more zip in video applications, making gaming, computer-aided design and video editing a lot faster than ever before," said Mueez Deen, marketing director, graphics memory, Samsung Semiconductor, Inc. "This will enable ultra-smooth movements in animation, making games incredibly realistic, resulting in a truly immersive experience."

Using 80nm production technology, Samsung has produced memory that delivers 4Gb/s (2.0GHz) speed, 66% higher than the commercially available 2.4Gb/s GDDR4. Most graphics cards from Nvidia and Advanced Micro Devices' ATI division currently use GDDR3 memory, and you'll find that type of memory in Sony's PlayStation 3 (PS3) console.

Analysts expect GDDR4 to significantly boost demand for the high-performance memory market segment over the next 12-18 months.

BitTorrent is to launch a download store tomorrow. The BitTorrent Entertainment Network, will distribute more than 5,000 titles from movies, TV shows, games and other media. The company is not afraid to go up against stores like iTunes or newer contenders like Joost or YouTube, touting a user base of up to 135 million users.

BitTorrent has managed to strike deals with major names such as 20th Century Fox, Lions Gate and Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Studios, despite that fact that BitTorrent software is used for mass piracy around the world. In order to sell BitTorrent as an option to studios, the company had to agree to deploy digital rights management (DRM) on content it sells or rents.

The initial challenge of course for BitTorrent as a company, is to offer consumers an attractive legitimate way to purchase content compared to its competitors, while also making sure not to alienate the current BitTorrent users who get their DRM-less downloads for free. BitTorrent President Ashwin Navin is not worried about the included DRM, saying this is just the early stages.

Maxell Corporation of America has introduced its own Professional Disc optical media for XDCAM high definition video systems. Professional Disc is designed for the growing number of direct-to-disc tapeless recording solutions in the professional video market. The Professional Disc employs a high precision, polycarbonate plastic cartridge to protect it from damage.

"Direct-to-disc recording provides video professionals and broadcasters in all specialties with the speed, flexibility and physical capabilities that allow them to bring a new dimension to their work," said Anthony Petruzziello, director of sales for Maxell Professional Products. "Our new Professional Disc for XDCAM systems provides an element of quality and performance that gives our customers confidence in what they capture and produce will end up on the screen as they envision it."

Professional Disc media can store up to 23.3GB of data, providing for up to 122 minutes of record/playback time in the HD format (MPEG HD LP mode), more than 65 minutes in the HD format (MPEG HD HQ mode), approximately 45 minutes at 50 Mbps in the SD format (MPEG IMX) and up to 85 minutes in the SD format (DVCAM). It delivers a transfer rate of 72 Mbps with one optical head and 144 Mbps with two optical heads.

A Doom9 member, ATARI Vampire, has posted on the Doom9 forums that he has found the WinDVD 8 sub device key in memory. This is the latest of several weaknesses exposed in the Advanced Access Content System (AACS) copy protection that is used to protect the contents of both commercial HD DVD and Blu-ray Disc titles.

Using the WinDVD 8 Device Key, it is now possible to decrypt any movie playable by WinDVD 8 by using it. The new discovery by ATARI Vampire is based on previous work done by muslix64 and arnezami. Muslix64 found a way to retrieve the Title Keys and released BackupHDDVD, and later, BackupBluray. Arnezami extracted the processing key of a software player.

WinDVD 8 was also shown to be vulnerable to a simpler "Print Screen" attack several months ago, but that vulnerability was quickly (apparently) patched. SlySoft has also brought a software solution for decrypting HD DVD movies for the average user, releasing AnyDVD HD some weeks back.

Sources:
Doom9
Engadget HD
Slashdot

Imation Corp. has announced the world's first inkjet-printable and water-resistant Blu-ray Disc media. Optimized for professional disc duplication, users can record high-definition video, gaming, data and other content on Imation Inkjet Printable BD-R Media with AquaGuard technology, then print water and smear resistant graphics and text right on the disc's surface.

The discs are compatible with Blu-ray disc players and recorders, including the Primera Bravo XR-Blu Disc Publisher and the Bravo SE Blu, the world's first automated burn and print devices to support high-capacity Blu-ray media.

"Imation's Blu-ray media with AquaGuard technology is the perfect disc," said James Milligan, General Manager, Commercial/OEM Division, Imation Corp. "We've designed each side of the disc for professional use. The data side features high capacity and scratch resistance. The inkjet printable side allows for creation of custom, water-resistant printed images and text. When used with Primera's industry-leading disc publishers, users can quickly and easily create high-quality, cutting-edge Blu-ray disc projects with ease."

Nintendo has contradicted reports that it is no longer producing hardware or software for the GameCube platform, saying that the company still supports it on a global basis. "I can confirm that globally, Nintendo is still continuing production of GameCube hardware and GameCube software," a Nintendo spokesperson told Eurogamer.

The reports that Nintendo cut support for the GameCube platform stemmed from comments made by American exec Perrin Kaplin, which indicated that the company was no longer manufacturing the consoles or developing first-party software titles.

Ever since the launch of the Wii console, retailers have reported a surge in game sales for the GameCube. This is due to Wii's backwards compatibility support for GC titles, giving low prices to new Wii owners for titles such as Capcom's Resident Evil 4 and Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker.

Source:
GamesIndustry.biz

MPEG LA has announced that the fourth meeting of essential Blu-ray patent owners, which includes 18 separate companies, was held in New York on February 6th and 7th. It aimed to create a joint license to provide fair, reasonable, non-discriminatory access to essential patents. The idea is to avoid the need to negotiate separate licenses with all different companies.

MPEG LA said that significant progress has been made in identifying licensing terms for Blu-ray Disc products such as players, recorders, drives, software, recordable discs and prerecorded discs. "The participation of this group of diverse companies in the development of a joint license bodes well for offering an efficient way to address intellectual property licensing needs for advanced optical devices, discs and related implementations," said MPEG LA CEO Larry Horn.

He added: "The group especially appreciates the input and views received from interested parties, including potential licensees, in all related industry sectors. MPEG LA welcomes the opportunity to facilitate any and all efforts to assist users with their advanced optical disc technology choices in order to give consumers the benefit of innovative information and entertainment applications."

Verizon has announced a deal with video sharing site Revver, which shares revenues with users who submit their own content to the site. Videos will be made available through Verizon's broadband service by the end of March, and then on FiOS TV by the end of the year. Revver signed a similar deal with Verizon's sister company, Verizon Wireless in November last year.

"Backed by Verizon's technology, we'll make it easy for our FiOS TV and broadband customers to enjoy the best of the cutting-edge videos that Revver is known for," Verizon video solutions senior vice president Marilyn O'Connell said. "This is just another way that FiOS continues to distinguish itself from old-fashioned TV."

Users of Revver would have to choose to allow their content to be shown on Verizon's services. The revenue will be split 50/50 between the content creator and Revver. "This initiative will help us further support our creators by bringing their content to a whole new TV audience," Revver CEO and founder Steven Starr stated. "It's a fantastic opportunity for our company and the growing Revver community."

Source:
Betanews

As well as Blu-ray Disc and HD DVD, New Medium Enterprises' (NME) HD VMD will shown at the 2007 MEDIA-TECH conference. The company announced that that Dr. Eugene Levich, CTO of NME, has been invited to speak about the company's High Definition Versatile Multilayer Disc (HD VMD) at the conference which will be held in Barcelona, March 6th & 7th. The red laser-based HD VMD optical disc and format aims to give consumers a cost-effective alternative to Blu-ray and HD DVD.

Dr. Levich will speak on Wednesday, March 7 at 11:30 a.m. and will illustrate his lecture with a live demonstration of the true HD VMD 20 (GB) disc played back in a regular "off the shelf" DVD drive. He will also display a new HD VMD Media Player based on this "off the shelf" DVD loader.

"The invitation to speak at such a respectable forum as MEDIA-TECH is recognition of VMD as one of the world's best disc solutions for the market's needs today," said Mahesh Jayanarayan, CEO, NME, Inc. "Replication manufacturers have long desired a more effective and efficient method to create HD discs -- and only HD VMD gives them a seamless method to move towards HD with their existing infrastructure. Our red laser format is a front line technological adaptation of DVD technology to the demands of HD quality. As the blue laser production costs become more realistic for consumer market and available for mass production, the VMD know-how and technologies will play major role in developing cost effective multilayer and multi-format HD solutions."

Aleratec, Inc. has unveiled its next generation of the Super Copy Tower, the new high speed 1:11 DVD/CD Super Copy Tower HS stand alone DVD/CD Duplicator. It can copy up to 11 DVDs at 20X or 11 CDs at 48X without the need for a computer. This Super Copy Tower supports DVD-RAM and 8.5GB Double Layer technology. Also featured is a new removable 160GB hard disk drive for secure storage of frequently used source discs.

"Prosumer users demand the best performance available and in response we have added very significant features to this next generation Aleratec Super Copy Tower. Our DVD recording speeds are now up to 20x. We have added a 160GB hard disk drive for storing more disc images and made it removable for the ultimate in keeping your data secure. With the new 20x speed, we are improving the fastest, most economical way to duplicate very large volumes of DVDs. For those with the need for speed, we can again say there is nothing even close to the Aleratec 1:11 DVD/CD Super Copy Tower HS at any price," stated Perry Solomon, President and CEO of Aleratec.

The 1:11 DVD/CD Super Copy Tower HS incorporates a 160GB removable hard disk drive that can store up to 32 images of your frequently used DVDs for making up to 11 quick copies of any one simultaneously. The hard disc drive is removable and has a key lock for security and safety in operation. The removable HDD provides extra security, in that you can remove the drive containing the images of your discs and put it in a safe place where unauthorized users cannot copy or view your data.

New York-based IFC Films, one of the world's largest Independent movie distributors, has made several movies available for download from Apple Computer Inc.'s iTunes store. The company said it will initially add the movies that were nominated for the 2007 Independent Spirit Awards to the store and seven more will also be added that were nominated in previous years.

"By making IFC films available on the world's most popular online movie store we're giving independent filmmakers the exciting opportunity to reach a wider audience of movie enthusiasts," IFC's senior president of sales and development Lisa Schwartz said. "American Gun," "Happy Here and Now" and "Land of Plenty," are among the movies added, which are prices at $9.99.

Source:
Betanews

Internet law professor Michael Geist has wrote an interesting article in his column on the BBC News website. Geist brings forth some facts about the United States Intellectual Property protection views and highlights how they are, in cases, out of touch with the rest of the world. Here is an extract from his intriguing piece...

The US implementation, contained in the 1997 Digital Millennium Copyright Act, represents the world's most aggressive approach to the WIPO Internet Treaties, setting very strict limits on the circumvention of Digital Rights Management systems and establishing a ban on devices that can be used to circumvent DRM, even if the circumvention is for lawful purposes.

Given the US experience, it is unsurprising that many countries have experimented with alternate implementations.

This experimentation invariably leads to heavy criticism from the IIPA as countries such as Canada, New Zealand, Japan, Switzerland, Hong Kong, South Korea, Israel, Mexico, and India are all taken to task for their implementation (or proposed implementation) of anti-circumvention legislation.

Nichia Corp. of Japan has broken the speed record for writing to a recordable Blu-ray Disc. The company has announced a new blue laser diode that is capable of writing a double-layer Blu-ray disc at up to 10X speed. Compare that with the currently available Blu-ray and HD DVD burners that offer 2X and 4X write speeds.

Nichia's new blue-violet semiconductor laser diodes can reportedly operate at 320 mW (milliwatts), compared to blue laser devices currently available today that operate in the range of 20mW. "Writing speed is totally dictated by the output power," Steven DenBaars, professor of materials and co-director of the Solid-State Lighting Center at the University of California Santa Barbara, said. "The more power you have, the faster you can spin the disk."

He said a 2X devices can sustain a write speed of about 8.99 Mbps, whereas a device capable of 10X can write at 44.9 Mbps. Burning a full disc at 2X can take up to 50 minutes, whereas, 10X speed will cut that time down to around 10 minutes.

Source:
DailyTech

With the launch of Sony's PlayStation 3 (PS3) console set for next month, it has been revealed that unlike the PS3s sold in North America and Japan, the units available for purchase during the launch do not have hardware that provides backwards compatibility (support to play PS1 and PS2 games). In a statement, Sony revealed the European systems feature "a new hardware specification," and Sony won't "concentrate on PS2 backwards compatibility."

The company is instead, "increasingly focused on developing new games and entertainment features exclusively for PS3, truly taking advantage of this exciting technology." Therefore, like Microsoft's Xbox 360, these systems will get their support for old games from software that definitely wont be as reliable as the hardware solution.

"Certain PlayStation 2 format software titles may not perform properly on this system," a Sony statement reads. There is also currently no list of supported or unsupported games. The hardware was cut from the PS3 units to reduce production costs.

Source:
Ars Technica

Adams Media Research has published a study that estimated in the year 2011, spending on video downloads will have reached $4 billion. Last year, video downloads generated about $111 million in revenue. "The Internet is going to revolutionize the distribution of video," said Tom Adams, Adams Media Research president. Giants like Wal-Mart, Apple and Amazon offer downloads of premium movie and TV content to consumers.

Bridging the gap between PCs and CE equipment throughout a household is believed to be vital to the success of the online video market. The AppleTV device is designed specifically to do this but will have a lot of competition when it launches. Microsoft's Xbox 360 can download high definition content from the Xbox Live Video Marketplace for viewing on a TV screen without any further steps.

This is how Adams Media Research sees the market growing in the next few years...

• Year 2007 - $472 million
• Year 2008 - $1.2 billion
• Year 2009 - $2 billion
• Year 2010 - $3.1 billion
• Year 2011 - $4 billion

The United States Congress will hold hearings into the proposed merger of two U.S. satellite radio companies, Sirius Satellite Radio and XM Satellite Radio. The House Judiciary Committee is to question CEO designate Mel Karmazin on how this deal would benefit consumers. The current spectrum agreements with both require that there be two providers.

"It's a very high hurdle that they would have to meet to demonstrate if it's in the consumer's best interest," FCC Chairman Kevin Martin said. Any merger will require a change in the agreements. The House Antitrust Task Force will hold the hearings, which would be the first item on the panel's agenda, and would include both Republicans and Democrats.

"Digital music is at the cutting edge of technology and innovation," Rep. John Conyers (D-MI) said in a statement. "We are holding this hearing to allow Members to probe whether this merger will enhance or diminish competition in the digital music distribution industry."

Source:
Betanews

Ahead of the European launch of the PlayStation 3 (PS3) console in Europe, Greece has become the latest country to have a "higher than promised" retail price for the console. The 60GB version of the brand new Sony console will be sold for €659 (US$867) after the RRP was raised in the country. Even the Sony Center in Greece lists the 60GB version of the console for €659.

The console was expected to have a blanket price across the European countries of €499 for the 20GB model and €599 for the 60GB model. Both British and Irish gamers are also being charged more for the 60GB model; which goes for £425 (€633 / US$834) in the UK and €629 (US$827) in Ireland. The reason given for the higher price is that the territory is "traditionally more expensive than other territories."

No Sony spokesperson commented yet on the price hike in Greece.

Source:
GamesIndustry.biz

Google Inc. is attempting to ease tension between its YouTube service and several content providers that have complained in the past about user uploaded content. Google Chief Executive Officer Eric Schmidt said on Wednesday, that the company will soon offer anti-piracy technology to copyright holders. "We are definitely committed to offering copyright protection technologies," Schmidt said.

"It is one of the company's highest priorities," he added. "We just reviewed that issue about an hour ago, It is going to roll out very soon ... It is not far away." The tools will help copyright holders identify illegally uploaded content on the YouTube site, but for now, they are only being offered as part of licensing talks.

Schmidt declined to give a time frame for when the technology will be available. "It is not some product you can just build and leave alone," he said. News Corp.'s MySpace will also offer its own version of anti-piracy tools soon, but will offer the services for free.

Several days ago, a spokesman for Viacom Inc. said that YouTube's "proposition that they will only protect copyrighted content if there's a business deal in place is unacceptable." Viacom recently demanded that YouTube remove 100,000 videos after a deal between the two collapsed. Viacom then went on to strike a deal with Joost instead.

Microsoft Corp. will show off the Xbox 360 IPTV features at next month's Connected Home exhibition in London. The event will take place between March 5th and 7th. Ed Graczyk, Microsoft's Worldwide director of marketing, will demonstrate the service during his keynote speech titled, "The Future of Connected Entertainment".

"Separately the Xbox 360 and Microsoft TV IPTV Edition deliver unique and exciting entertainment experiences, but IPTV on Xbox 360 delivers a real value proposition for consumers, service providers and content and game developers alike," Graczyk said.

He added: "By integrating these industry-leading solutions, we continue to drive innovation and enable new connected entertainment experiences for consumers." The IPTV service is set to launch in Europe before the end of the year. Being part of the Xbox 360 brings some new feature possibilities, such as recording video while playing games and chatting over Xbox Live while watching TV.

Source:
GamesIndustry.biz

Apple Computer Inc. and Cisco Systems Inc. announced on Wednesday that both companies have settled a dispute over the iPhone trademark. Both companies reached an agreement that will allow each to use the iPhone trademark, but financial terms were not disclosed. Additionally, both companies will explore ways to work together in security and consumer and institutional communications.

Cisco obtained the iPhone trademark when it purchased Infogear in 2000. Since then, Linksys, a division of Cisco, has used the iPhone name for wireless products it has been selling since last year, with new products added to the line in December. Previously, Infogear had also sold several devices that were called iPhones.

When Apple unveiled the new iPhone in January, Cisco immediately sued the company but later granted Apple time to negotiate for the use of the iPhone trademark.

Source:
Reuters

With a lawsuit brought against it by Cisco Systems pending, Apple Computer Inc. may also have to face another lawsuit from Quantum Research over technology used in the iPhone product. QR claims that from what is known about the iPhone already, it infringes on two patents held by the company. The first covers the touch sensitive technology used by the iPhone and the second covers the near-field proximity sensor that detects if the device is against a persons face.

Quantum Research has not filed any formal complaint, but it is eagerly awaiting to check the iPhone when it is finally released. "The description of the iPhone suggests it uses a rear-surface touch screen, and has proximity sensing which can tell if it is held to the ear. That's a QR capability," said Duncan Bryan, Quantum Research's licensing director.

Quantum Research actually already sells chips to Apple that cover some of the features offered by the iPhone. A lawsuit filed against Apple by Cisco Systems contests Apple's use of the iPhone trademark, which belongs to Cisco and has even been used with several products already. Cisco had extended time for negotiations between the companies until today.

Google Inc.'s YouTube service is hitting more bad luck on the road to becoming more legitimate. After losing a deal with Viacom and being ordered to remove thousands of illegally uploaded videos, talks with CBS has fallen apart. The negotiations have reportedly collapsed, even though Google and CBS were reportedly close to reaching a deal that would put CBS TV shows on YouTube.com.

The Wall Street Journal reported that the deals were for several years and included deals to market CBS radio advertisements to Google advertisers. The negotiations reportedly failed to reach an agreement on how long the deals should last. Now both companies have decided to focus on smaller deals.

YouTube is currently in talks with more content providers, with reports of talks with the BBC already in progress. It helps with YouTube's image from content providers' perspective, many of which have already clashed with the site over unauthorized videos that users uploaded.

Source:
Pocket-Lint.co.uk

The Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA), a trade group that represents music companies including the "big four" record companies, has increased the amount of complaints it makes against University students across the U.S. The RIAA has been sending thousands more complaints to Universities than it did last year. The complaints are against students who share files from campus computer networks.

"It's something we feel we have to do," RIAA President Cary Sherman said. "We have to let people know that if they engage in this activity, they are not anonymous." The RIAA gave a top 25 list of the worst offending Universities to the Associated Press, claiming to have sent over 15,000 complaints to these locations in all.

The top five schools are Ohio, Purdue, the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, University of Tennessee and the University of South Carolina. Some Universities choose to punish students who receive complaints, with penalties ranging from simple email warnings to being suspended from classes for an entire semester. "They're trying to make a statement," said Randall Hall, from Michigan State University, 7th on the list with 753 complaints.

Just a day after UK retailer Makro dropped £80 off the price of the Xbox 360 Premium console, several online retailers have cut up to £50 from the price of the Core version of the console. Play.com has cut a quarter of the price of the console, sealing it for £149.99 instead of the RRP of £199.99. Microsoft has made no official price cut for the Xbox 360 consoles.

Rival retailer, Amazon.co.uk, has also dropped the price of the Core unit slightly, down to £189.99 from the RRP. Amazon is also selling Sony's PlayStation Portable (PSP) console for £109, £40 less than the RRP. Rumors of an official Microsoft price cut for the Xbox 360 circulated recently, naming the PS3 launch as a time frame for an announced.

Microsoft is also expected to unveil a black Xbox 360 around the time of the European PS3 launch.

Source:
GamesIndustry.biz

The British Government has refused to ban the use of Digital Rights Management (DRM) software included on music, movie and software downloads. A call to ban these digital restriction enforcements was rejected by the government after 1,400 consumers signed an e-petition. The petition was posted on a government website setup to let anybody start a petition on an issue important to them.

It called for the ban of DRM use because it "locks users into using a particular service", and makes it impossible for users to exercise their freedom to choose between competing products. It had acknowledged the costs involved in producing digital content and distributing it, but said it should be done in a way where the buyer had control over what they could do with their media.

Neil Holmes, a member of the Defective By Design anti-DRM group, started the petition. In response to the petition, the Government stated it has no plans to ban the use of DRM and that companies should "be able to continue to protect their content in this way." However, the response did say that care has to be taken to ensure that DRM does not damage the needs and rights of consumers.

According to data released by market research firm NPD, Nintendo's Wii was the biggest selling gaming console for January 2007 in the United States. U.S. gamers bought up 436,000 Wii consoles during the month, which was released last November and sells for $250. The second best selling console was Sony's PlayStation 2 (PS2), moving 299,000 units.

Microsoft had a close third place with 294,000 units moved, up 18% from the 250,000 Xbox 360 units sold last January. The PlayStation 3 (PS3) console stayed behind the Xbox 360, selling 244,000 units during the month. The video game hardware and software sales totaled $1.3 billion in January. Game sales hit an impressive $549 million.

"Lost Planet: Extreme Condition," took the No. 1 spot for game sales and was one of three Xbox 360 games in the top 10; the other two were "Gears of War" (No. 3) and "Tom Clancy's Rainbow Six: Vegas" (No.9). The PS3 title, "Resistance: Fall Of Man" was the only PS3 game in the top 10 at No. 8. Two PS2 titles and two Wii titles also made the top 10.

Source:
Reuters

Germany, holding the presidency of the European Council, is pushing through stricter restrictions with the support of European Commission to the sales of violent video games. This new institution would affect all the EU members states, currently EU doesn't control member states' legislation on the subject.

The legislation would require all games to be revised to fit the target age group. According to vice president of European Commission Franco Frattini, there is a wide mutual understanding in EU about how the sales would be restricted. The current legislation of Germany is considered the most strict in Europe and according to Frattini would be a good base for all the other members as well.

The PEGI system, which allows large publishers like Nintendo and PlayStation to rate their own games, currently in use in 16 countries would be replaced. Next step will include inquiry to member states, which will map the means of punishment and give the base to Germany's final proposal.

Source:
HS.fi (in Finnish)

Joost, an Internet-based TV-on-demand service created by the original founders of Skype and Kazaa, has signed a deal with Viacom. Through the agreement, content from companies including MTV Networks, BET Networks and Paramount Pictures will be available for free on the net. Content includes MTV's Laguna Beach and Beavis and Butthead and Comedy Central's Freak Show.

Joost is currently still in beta. It is a peer-to-peer powered platform that aims to be secure, efficient and piracy-proof while delivering premium video experiences. It is supported by video advertising.

"People are looking for increased choice and flexibility in their TV experience, while the entertainment industry needs to retain control over their content", said Fredrik de Wahl, chief executive officer of Joost.

Source:
Pocket-Lint

Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer has suggested that the reason for "slower than expected" initial sales of the Windows Vista operating system is piracy. In late 2006, analysts had predicted that Vista sales could reach 90 million units in 2007, compared to 67 million XP units sold in its first year on the market. Now Microsoft has said analysts were "overly agressive" with their projections.

PC Advisor is reporting that Vista sales are off by about 60% compared to the 2001 launch of Windows XP, and revenue is also down 23% since Vista launch. In response, Ballmer has repeatedly suggested piracy is the problem, and said Microsoft needs to step up its anti-piracy efforts, which if history repeats itself, could mean more problems for many legitimate users caught in the crossfire.

"Piracy reduction can be a source of Windows revenue growth, and I think we'll make some piracy improvements this year," Ballmer said. "We will have strong growth in the Windows business in emerging markets: China, India, Brazil, Russia and many others. Those markets are very high in piracy."

Source:
DailyTech

Skype has launched its Skype Pro service in the UK. The service, which comes as a flat-rate monthly subscription, will allow UK users to talk for free (besides connection fee) to landlines in the UK. The service costs £1.50 per month. There is an £8 introductory fee for the first 5 months of service and the connection fee per call is 3.3p.

The popular Skype features including video calling, conferencing calling up to 10 people and Skypecasts are included. Many service sin the UK, including BT, Cable & Wireless, NTL and Sky already offer flat rate monthly charges for unlimited UK landline calls.

Source:
Pocket-Lint

Even though a bill proposing gaming regulations was stalled in Indiana before legislators could vote on it last year, lawmakers are once again proposing restrictions on video game sales. Senators David C. Ford (Republican) and Vi Simpson (Democrat) have introduced a bill that would ban the sale of video games with an M (Mature) or AO (Adult Only) rating to minors.

This week, the Senate Committee on Economic Development and Technology recommended it be passed by the Senate in a 5-2 vote. Before voting, committee members had been shown controversial footage from video games, that reportedly included characters "urinating on victims and setting them on fire" and "gunning down people in a church."

Another video game rewarded achievements by showing footage of strippers. A representative of the Entertainment Software Association (ESA) argued before the committee that the bill was unconstitutional like many others struck down across the United States. In response, Ford said he would continue work on the bill to make it constitutional.

Source:
GameSpot

Microsoft has updated the Windows Genuine Advantage program today in response to feedback from users. WGA is software that attempts to identify whether or not a Windows installation is genuine or not. If found to be illegitimate, the program periodically alerts the user that the software is pirated and blocks access to some downloads.

When it was discovered that WGA was "phoning home" secretly, it was heavily criticized and became even more unpopular. Other problems included false positives, where users of genuine software were told they were running pirated software.

After a WGA test, the software will now label your installation genuine, non-genuine or "not sure". The software will rolled out in Automatic Updates over "the next several weeks or months" and will update every 90 to 120 days.

"There's no denying WGA has had its challenges but we really think we've listened to customers. When a customer fails it now gives more information as to why. Some 33 million people have gone through WGA now in the UK alone. We've added a glossy wizard to make it easier for customers. If any IT manager does have problems, please get in touch and we'll try to help." Microsoft UK anti-piracy head Michala Alexander told The Register.

Retail chain Makro has reduced the price of the premium version of the Xbox 360 console to £199, a reduction of £80. This means that the premium console is selling for the same price as the cheaper Core unit. "It's something we're doing to bring customers into the stores, it's not an official price cut from Microsoft," Joanne Armstrong, spokesperson for the buying team at Makro UK, told GamesIndustry.biz.

Armstrong also said the retailer has, "plenty of machines in stock" and will be, "running this promotion for two weeks." Additionally, Makro is also selling a bundle that includes Project Gotham Racing 3, Arcade Unplugged and a wireless controller for £34.99 and selling chart games at £36.99.

"Xbox does not control the retail price of the Xbox 360 videogame and entertainment system - prices are set by retailers," a Microsoft spokesperson said, distancing the company from the promotion. "The promotion that Makro is running is not endorsed or administered by Microsoft."

As expected, several other retailers have criticized the price cut. "If the machine was selling badly, I could understand a price cut. But the machine is selling well, along with the software," said Don McCabe, MD of Chips.

In the ongoing format war between HD DVD and Blu-ray Disc, Blu-ray still holds the most studio support by far, but HD DVD is holding its affordable advantage. Now HD DVD is offering another way for consumers to move to high definition video called 3X DVD. Doug Carson & Associates (DCA), which produces DVD Mastering software, said that the first 3X DVD-ROM was officially mastered over the weekend.

3X DVD is like HD DVD on DVD discs; it uses actual red laser-based DVD discs, just with high definition content, UDF 2.5 file structure and AACS copy protection. Video content would be available at 720p in VC-1 or H.264/AVC to fit the maximum capacity that DVD discs offer while maintaining superb quality. Of course, 3X DVD's will not work with regular DVD players.

Movies and TV shows are sold in VC-1 at 720p on Microsoft's Xbox Live Video Marketplace, and are reportedly doing very well. Since 3X DVD uses the good old DVD format, it can be assumed it will cost much less than a regular HD DVD disc or Blu-ray disc for consumers.

According to a study published in the February edition of Archives of Surgery, Surgeons who regularly play video games are generally more skilled at performing laparoscopic surgery. Laparoscopy involves controlling surgical instruments through a small incision or body opening, where the Surgeon is guided by a TV screen. The study found that regular gamers made fewer errors, performed faster and performed better in a surgical skills test.

33 doctors from Beth Israel Medical Center in New York participated in the study. The 9 doctors that had at some time played video games at least 3 hours per week made 37% less errors than 15 doctors who had never played video games. They also performed 27% faster and scored 42% better in a surgical skills test.

"It was surprising that past commercial video game play was such a strong predictor of advanced surgical skills," said Iowa State University psychology professor Douglas Gentile. Dr. James Rosser of Beth Israel, said, "Video games may be a practical teaching tool to help train surgeons," but the authors don't recommend that this research should be used to allow younger children and students to play games too often.

Sweden is host to the notorious Pirate Bay and even has its own political party that is hellbent on bringing about the end of copyright and IP laws, so it is no surprise the country was recently dubbed a "piracy safe haven" by the International Intellectual Property Alliance (IIPA). Also, we will never forget the embarrassing moment for the movie industry when a raid against the Pirate Bay only disrupted the site very briefly.

Now, it seems like the MPA is getting fed up and has teamed up with the FBI to train an "elite anti-piracy force" in the country. Six police officers have begun training provided by the MPA and overseen by FBI special agent Andrew Myers. The effort aims to visibly improve the response from Swedish police to piracy, although in reality, the entire effort is probably aimed at sinking the Pirate Bay (or trying to.... again).

"I have full confidence in the organizer of the course. We have contacts with organizations outside the police. If we have made the judgment that if a group has competence that we can use, then we invite them in." Marianne Hilton, head of studies at the Swedish National Police Academy, told Computer Sweden.

Chelsea F.C. has become the first English Premiership football club to announce a deal with Google Inc.'s YouTube video sharing site. The club will will offer archive footage and daily news on its own channel at youtube.com/chelseafc. YouTube will not be used as a venue to broadcast live games of course, due to contracts with television broadcasters.

At the moment, there is no money involved in the deal but Chelsea could decide to add advertising in the future. "Chelsea is the first football club to move into what is clearly one of the fastest growing new media platforms", said Peter Kenyon, Chelsea CEO. The Premier League is currently working with YouTube to remove content that was posted illegally by users.

This move by Chelsea will most likely be repeated by other teams in the near-future, whether its with YouTube or perhaps Microsoft's Soapbox.

Source:
Pocket-Lint

Sirius Satellite Radio and XM Satellite Radio have announced that both companies will merge in a stock-for-stock deal. They are the two main U.S. satellite radio providers in the young industry. This deal had been expected for a long time. XM and Sirius plan to combine to create a company with a $13 billion enterprise value (which includes $1.6 billion in net debt).

The deal will go ahead provided it receives regulatory approval. Under the deal, XM shareholders will receive 4.6 share of Sirius. Chief Executive Officer of Sirius, Mel Karmazin, will act as CEO of the combined company and XM chairman, Gary Parsons, will act as chairman of the combined company.

Source:
Reuters

A Nintendo spokesperson has confirmed that the Wii Virtual Console could be host to games not previously released in Europe. "There is always the potential for games that haven't seen the light of day in Europe to be on the Virtual Console. The Virtual Console is the perfect platform for them," a Nintendo UK spokesperson told Eurogamer.net.

There is a possibility that fan-favorite titles from third party developers that were previously only released in the United States, could be available in Europe via the download service. "I can't speak for third-parties, but if it's the right game then there's absolutely no reason why it should just be a first-party game," the spokesperson said.

Nintendo of America vice president, George Harrison, previously also commented that the platform holder was open to previously unavailable Japanese games being released in the US if they could be translated properly.

Source:
GamesIndustry.biz

Users of peer-to-peer file sharing utilities in Canada have been receiving emails if they are found to be sharing copyrighted content. This is not a new concept in the global fight against Internet piracy but it is interesting considering how much pressure has been on Canada lately over its enforcement of intellectual property protection.

Canadian ISPs, including Rogers, Bell and Telus, have volunteered to forward email warnings to subscribers on behalf of major content companies (mostly located in the United States). Telus forwards an average of 4,000 notices every month. This campaign is dubbed "notice and notice."

Users are identified by IP address when they are sharing files on P2P networks and BitTorrent trackers. The identification process is not hard at all, especially when the ISPs are on your side. The Business Software Alliance (BSA) was responsible for about 60,000 "notice and notice" e-mails to Canadian file sharers in 2006.

"They've been most effective," Neil MacBride, a vice-president with the BSA, said.

Several members of Nintendo of America's forums are reporting some video problems with the Wii console while displaying 480p content. Reports include those of a black screen and of annoying flickering. The reported problems also have varying display devices. The reports also indicate that the standard component cables from Nintendo have the problem, ruling out a source in cables from third parties.

The problems have also been reported to occur in certain parts of games and applications. Several members say that the display goes blank during several sections of Zelda and the Wii Channel and Opera browser. In almost all cases, switching to 480i fixes the issue.

Hopefully Nintendo will release an update to fix the issues in the near future.

Source:
Engadget

Nintendo of America President, Reggie Fils-Aime, spoke in an interview at last week, explaining and apologizing for the shortages of Wii and DS Lite consoles. "We apologize that it continues to be a difficult problem to get your hands on [a Wii]," he said. "The fact is, we manufactured 4 million Wii consoles by the end of the calendar year."

He continued: "Our challenge was getting them not only into our warehouses and then into warehouses of our retailers, but there is some handling of the consoles in terms of putting the "Wii Sports" disc in. That whole inventory chain is what prevented us from selling all 4 million that had been produced."

He revealed that production for the Wii is at 1 million units per month and another ramp up will be coming soon. Shortages of new consoles are expected for some months after the initial launch, but the Nintendo DS Lite handheld console has also been in short supply despite being on the market for a much longer time.

"We put everything in the marketplace that we humanly could by December 25th. But from December 26th until mid-January, we were effectively out of stock." Fils-Aime said. "It's going to be tight probably until March. And then as we gear up for the April 22nd launch of 'Pokémon Diamond' and '[Pokémon] Pearl,' things should certainly open up at that point."

Macrovision has responded to an open letter published on Apple.com by Steve Jobs about digital rights management (DRM). In the open letter, Jobs recommended that record companies drop DRM completely and sell unprotected downloads, as downloads from stores like iTunes are not a source for piracy. He also highlighted the problems that DRM bring to consumers.

Many industry experts and consumers alike believe that DRM is a sad chapter in the history of the music industry, but Macrovision disagrees. The company that thrives off of content protection technology now contests that "DRM increases not decreases consumer value". The comment was made by Fred Amoroso, CEO and President of Macrovision.

He also thanked Steve Jobs for "offering his provocative perspective on the role of Digital Rights Management (DRM) in the electronic content marketplace and for bringing to the forefront an issue of great importance to both the industry and consumers." The company acknowledged that there are many problems with maintaining an interoperable DRM system, but says that the industry should still pursue it.

Virgin Media and The Walt Disney Company's Buena Vista International Television (BVITV) announced a deal earlier this month, that will provide content for Virgin's TV-on-demand service in the UK. The deal includes hit U.S. shows including Grey's Anatomy, Criminal Minds and Alias. The deal also includes high definition versions of all the shows except Extreme Makeover UK.

"We're strengthening our TV-on-demand and HDTV offerings with this major new agreement. Our customers already love the additional choice and control offered by on-demand and now we're focused on creating a must see menu of entertainment." Steve Burch, president and CEO of Virgin Media, said. Virgin expects to strike several more major content deals soon, bringing more HD content to UK customers.

"Flexibility and choice are becoming increasingly important factors to consumers of TV entertainment, so we're pleased to be working to offer this strong selection of our series to Virgin Media's customers across the UK, in convenient ways." Jim Brehm, senior vice president, Sales, BVITV EMEA, said.

Source:
Press Release

Sony Computer Entertainment Europe (SCEE) executive vice president, Phil Harrison, has hinted that movie downloads may be available soon for the PlayStation 3 (PS3) console. In an interview with 1UP, Harrison revealed the company will expand the PS3's functionality to include "not just games but movies, music, HD, standard definition TV", all part of a 10 year plan for the console.

"Well we made a very conscious decision in putting a hard drive in every machine and a minimum of 20GB, 60GB and who knows in the future, maybe that will rise -- you know, that tends to be a trend," he said, while speaking about the benefits of the included HDDs. "The ten year plan of allowing people to download all kinds of digital content to their PlayStation 3 -- not just games but movies, music, HD, standard definition TV, you name it. And that was a significant investment, but it was absolutely the right thing to do."

When asked if Sony would reveal a similar service to Microsoft's Xbox Live Video Marketplace, Harrison said, "We have a hard drive, we have a commerce engine, it doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure out we will have that on the network very shortly." Microsoft's download service for the Xbox 360 has seen strong sales, especially of high definition downloads.

Shigeru Miyamoto, creator of the infamous Mario, has warned that Nintendo is paying far too much attention to what the company's rivals are doing. He said that Nintendo needs to focus more on its own offerings and unique strengths. "I do think we are too conscious of competition. There are many companies today that can be compared to Nintendo, but I think that Nintendo should be unique and become a company that can not be compared with the other corporations." he told CNN.

He continued: "Our former president himself has said, 'Do not try to compete with the others, try to be the only one, set yourself apart from others.' We are able to spend as much budget as needed for the challenge of creating something that makes us "the only one. That is why Nintendo puts as much money as possible into such projects and big challenges. Our company thinks that there is never a big enough budget for such challenges"

He referred to the Wii console and the DS handheld console as examples of how Nintendo's innovation can set it aside from competitors. "A new market will open up when you introduce something that people have not expected. I feel strongly that we can have a chance in taking the lead in that market. Nintendo, historically, is a company that takes risks," he said.

According to a Survey conducted by Q Research, half of the UK's youth pay to download music. Around 1500 people, aged between 11 and 25 were included in the research. According to the results, 85% of the respondents own an MP3 player, with Apple's iPod being the predictable most popular item. About 45% of respondents do not pay for music downloads.

Around a third claimed to pay about £5 per month on music downloads with only 3% claiming to pay more then £25 per month. Most of this 3% was aged between 20 and 24. In the older range, about two-thirds pay about £10 per month for downloads and about 15% pay between £10 and £20.

When asked about interest in multimedia phones, 81% of males asked said they would be interested in having music on their mobile phones while a lower 72% of girls were interested. Of those who already have music on their phones, 4 out of 5 buy through Internet services using computers first, and then transfer downloads to their phones, citing high data charges as reason to avoid direct downloads.

Source:
Pocket Lint

Sling Media has been sued by an inventor for alleged patent infringement over technology used with the company's Slingbox television placeshifting device. Stuart Mershon was awarded a patent back in 2001 that covers a "wireless speaker system". He contests that the Slingbox and SlingPlayer software infringe his patent because they can transmit audio wirelessly along with the video signal.

The case was filed in US District Court for the Eastern District of Texas, known to be a hotspot for this type of case due to a reputation Judges and Juries have for being sympathetic to plaintiffs. Mershon clams to have contacted Sling Media on March 4, 2005, before the launch of the Slingbox.

The company responded and said it has "not infringed and is not currently infringing the '282 Patent, either directly or indirectly, contributorily or by inducement." It also filed a counterclaim seeking a judgment of non-infringement and invalidation of the patent in question.

The patent describes a system comprised of a transmission unit and wireless headphones or speakers. The system allows the users to control the audio output from virtually any location with a keypad being into the headphones. The whole system depends on a "wireless telephone network" to function.

Microsoft's Soapbox video sharing service is now in public beta after being in private beta mode since last year. Soapbox is Microsoft's hope to damage rivals such as YouTube and MySpace. The service uses Window Media Player to display content to users with Internet Explorer and Flash for other users.

One advantage over YouTube lies in the interface, which allows users to simultaneously browse for videos on the left while watching a video on the right. You can also upload videos while watching another (with multiple simultaneous uploads supported). The service has a 100MB upload limit per video, but has no limit for the length of the video content.

It currently supports 13 file types. Videos can be watched by any users, but only users with a Windows Live ID can upload videos, or post comments on others.

Source:
Tech2

As technology advances and more data can be crammed into smaller HDDs and solid-state memory chips, the future looks much brighter for music-capable mobile phones. At 3GSM this year, multimedia phones were shown off with unique style and innovation that ensure they will move from retail shelves. Many have a small amount of internal memory to offer, but can be used with removable storage solutions.

The maximum capacity that removable memory cards can hold is increasing rapidly. "In the past, the doubling of capacity has been every 18 months. Now it is coming down close to 12 months." Sandisk's Dan Inbar said. "Of course the other side of that is the applications that go with it. Currently the applications are running very, very fast as well."

With developments in the area in the past couple of years, lots of companies are lining up to offer services to deliver premium content to these new phones. A lot of eyes are on Apple after the announcement of the iPhone. The past Apple / Motorola music phone venture failed and a major reason was the inability of the ROKR to download music over-the-air.

Now that Apple's new iPhone should have this capability, the rush is on to tackle the iPhone before it dominates. UK-based Omnifone is seeking to do just that by offering a subscription service to rival what will come from Apple. "Apple's business is an Apple-centric solution," said Rob Lewis, head of Omnifone. "Steve Jobs wants to be center stage of hardware and digital music sales."

Cisco Systems Inc. has confirmed that it has given Apple Computer Inc. more time to respond to a lawsuit filed over the "iPhone" device. The network equipment maker has given Apple an extension to February 21st for negotiations. Cisco sued Apple immediately after Apple unveiled the iPhone. The company claims to own the iPhone trademark and accuses Apple of infringement.

"Cisco has agreed to give Apple an extension until Wednesday, February 21," Cisco said in a statement. "Cisco is fully committed to using the extra time to reach a mutually beneficial resolution." After acquiring Infogear in 2000, Cisco obtained the iPhone trademark. Infogear had sold "iPhone" devices for several years.

Apple spokeswoman Natalie Kerris confirmed the extension, adding that discussions were aimed at reaching an agreement on trademark rights and interoperability. It was the second agreement to an extension after a similar move on January 31st.

Source:
Reuters

According to Red Herring, Google Inc. is preparing to take a step into in-game advertising as predicted, by acquiring Adscape Media Inc. for $23 million. Red Herring cited sources familiar with the matter in its report. Google declined to comment on the report citing company policy. Video game industry analysts say that the acquisition could give a major boost to the in-game advertising market.

Microsoft Corp. purchased Massive Inc. for $200 million, sealing itself into the market. Massive struck several deals with publishers including UbiSoft Entertainment SA, THQ Inc. and Take-Two Interactive Software Inc. to place advertisements in their titles. Many experts say that Google dropped the ball when that deal was struck.

"My take on this probable deal is that it doesn't make a lot of difference to Google ... but it does provide significant credibility to the game marketing space," Forrester Research Inc. analyst Shar VanBoskirk told Reuters. Other companies that Adscape competes with include Double Fusion and IGA Worldwide.

Source:
Reuters

Two German defendants have admitted to selling pirate copies of movies, music and games on the Internet. The men were part of an operation, FTPWelt.com, which offered pirated content to paying customers through a high-speed download service. A thrid man has denied any wrongdoing. The case opened this week in the District Court of Mühlhausen in Germany.

Investigators said it was one of the biggest cases of Internet piracy and illegal copying that was ever discovered. The men grossed about €1 million from the activity. After their arrest in 2004, the state prosecutor's office of Mühlhausen in Germany also started criminal proceedings against 15,000 users of the service.

The reasoning was simple; it was evident that the customers knowingly paid for illegal content. The two brothers can now expect a maximum suspended prison sentence of 18 to 24 months.

Source:
The Register

Cyberlink Corp., the company behind the successful PowerDVD titles, has announced that its products now fully support Microsoft's Windows Vista operating system. CyberLink also launched a verification feature on its website that allows consumers to test if their existing software is "Vista Ready".

The CyberLink Software Vista Upgrade Test quickly scans software and determines whether the versions of the software currently in use are ready for Vista. After testing, users can choose to update through available patches or purchase an upgrade to become Vista Ready.

"As a leading innovator in consumer software for video playback, editing, and disc burning, CyberLink is ensuring its customers can now enjoy total compatibility with Windows Vista," said Alice H. Chang, CEO of CyberLink. "With each new version of the Windows operating system, we have leveraged new features and improved usability to deliver the best possible entertainment and creativity experience possible on the PC."

CyberLink Vista Update Center: http://www.cyberlink.com/vista

Just as many U.S.-based airline companies seek to add iPod seat connections to their planes, a Mexican airline is already offering iPods to customers. Low-cost airline, Volaris, rents the music device to passengers during flights. "We're the first to use iPod's. We like it because no one else has it," said public relations officer Alfonso Collantes.

The company began giving out 30GB versions of the iPod during flights on February 8th for free, but will soon switch to charging 50 pesos per flight. The iPods are full with popular Mexican TV Shows and music and the airline plans to add content from the U.S. soon. "We just went out and bought a bunch of iPods and started giving them out to passengers," said Collantes.

Apple Computer inc. has sold 70 million iPods since the device was first introduced back in 2001. It currently holds an approximate 72% of the U.S. market for MP3 players.

Source:
Reuters

Google Inc.'s YouTube service has once again clashed with media companies over anti-piracy tools that the company will soon offer. The problem this time is that YouTube will only give access to anti-piracy tools to companies who have distribution deals with the service. YouTube's tool would help companies identify pirated content posted to the site.

YouTube's rival, MySpace, will offer its own version of copyright protecting software for free. "YouTube's proposition that they will only protect copyrighted content if there's a business deal in place is unacceptable," a spokesman for Viacom Inc., owner of MTV Networks and Comedy Central, said.

Viacom recently demanded that YouTube remove about 100,000 video clips from the site after they failed to reach a distribution deal.

Source:
Reuters

Even though Google Inc.'s YouTube service was recently shown to have extreme videos linked with Mexican drug cartels on offer, the site's users have made a move to protect youths from the horrors of health awareness and human anatomy. Despite regular breast examinations and testicular examinations being highly recommend practices, instructional videos of either are regarded as adult material, at least by YouTube users.

Dr Chris Steele, host of TheFamilyGP.com and seen on ITV's This Morning, posted two videos containing a demonstration of each examination to YouTube in hopes it would help the fight against, and awareness of Cancer. The videos have received an "adult-only" rating from users due to their graphical content, in case innocent surfers accidentally stumble upon them.

"These are videos that I have produced at my own expense to help educate the public. I know for a fact that people find this material very helpful, as they are often provided with minimal support information when they enquire about these procedures." Dr Steele told The Register.


Source:
The Register

Traxdata has officially announced the available of its first rewritable Blu-ray discs (BD-RE). The single layer discs can store up to 25GB of data, suitable for those looking to experiment with the Blu-ray format and high definition video content.

For various other digital data such as music, documents and images the Blu-ray format simply allows users to vastly increase the amount they can store on the one disc. Through utilising the massive storage capacity and its rewrite function, a 25GB Blu-ray Disc can offer the functionality of a large removable hard disk drive. This provides greater sales opportunities through the smaller business and home office channels as an alternative high capacity storage solution.

Guido Liber, sales and marketing director at Traxdata, said: "This is the latest addition to our recordable media range and the first Blu-ray product available from Traxdata. It is important for us to remain at the forefront of media technologies in Europe and with the steady introduction of next generation media players such as the Playstation 3 from Sony, we are beginning to experience the consumer demand for the accompanying media."

Terrestrial radio stations/broadcasters are once again showing off their fear of digital radio by attempting to convince Government to limit their potential offerings. Specifically, a new bill introduced to the U.S. Congress, titled "Local Emergency Radio Service Preservation Act of 2007," H.R. 983, aims to ban services like XM and Sirius from offering "locally differentiated services".

The bill is cosponsored by Rep. Gene Green (D-TX) and Rep. Chip Pickering (R-MS) and unsurprisingly has received backing from the National Association of Broadcasters (NAB). The backers claim the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) only intended satellite radio services to provide national programming.

Local services include weather programming, traffic alerts and other public safety information. An example of how satellite services offering such services can be beneficial over terrestrial broadcasters is the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, when they became an important resource as other local stations were knocked off the air.

Source:
Ars Technica

Microsoft Corp. has responded to an episode of BBC's Watchdog that investigated complaints from consumers about flaws with the Xbox 360 console. In two cases, two different gamers claimed their console stopped working shortly after the warranty term was up. Each customer had to pay £80 to get the issue fixed, which neither thought was acceptable for consoles just over a year old.

Microsoft responded by saying that the vast majority of Xbox 360 users have an outstanding experience with the console, and that Xbox 360 has "no systemic issue". The company did admit to receiving a number of isolated complaints from users, but that the return rate is significantly lower than average for the consumer electronics industry.

"Customer satisfaction is our highest priority, and we do everything we can to take care of gamers who may be having problems with their consoles," the company said. "Anybody having an issue with their Xbox 360 console should call customer service immediately so that we can help. Microsoft voluntarily provides customers with a one year manufacturer's warranty in the UK which operates over and above the legally required retailer warranty for all consumer goods."

Getting ready for the launch of the PlayStation 3 (PS3) console in Europe, retailers are reporting overwhelming demand and huge numbers of pre-orders in comparison to other consoles. Play.com is taking six times more pre-orders for the PS3 than for the Xbox 360, and 15 times more than Nintendo's Wii console. Play is offering a PS3 bundle including MotorStorm, Resistance: Fall of Man and Genji for £524.99.

Play is also working to avoid disappointing customers on launch day. The company ran pre-orders for the Xbox 360 and Wii, but due to stock shortages, many customers didn't receive a console on launch day as promised. "We underestimated the demand and we were very disappointed that we could not fulfil all pre-orders due to stock shortages," said head of games Gian Luzio.

"We have taken the necessary steps to ensure that customers will only be able to pre-order the system up until Play's allocation has been reached." he continued. "We will always want more consoles to satisfy customer demand, however, we are satisfied that Sony are doing all they can to fulfil demand,"

A spokesperson for Sony also told GamesIndustry.biz that several other retailers including Woolworths and Amazon, have reported similar demand for the console. "With an unprecedented day one shipment of 1 million machines into Europe and a software catalogue of over 30 titles available at launch, retailer feedback has been overwhelmingly positive." the spokesperson said.

A Russian piracy case that sparked attention even from President Vladamir Putin was thrown out by a court in Perm, some 1000km east of Moscow. The case had been brought against Alexander Ponosov, a headteacher, for allegedly installing pirated copies of Microsoft's Windows operating systems on 12 school computers. Posonov had claimed that he didn't know the software was pirated when the computers were bought.

The court dismissed the case today, referring to it as "trivial". "We're off to drink champagne now," Mr Ponosov told the Associated Press. "Of course, it was trivial." Industry experts rank Russia as second only to China for use of illegal software. Posonov told the BBC that the case was brought against him by Russian prosecutors, and that he was unaware of any Microsoft claims against him.

Source:
BBC News

According to a survey conducted by Jupiter Research, almost two thirds of music industry executives believe that removing Digital Rights Management (DRM) from music downloads would lead to increases in downloading. The firm studied the attitudes to DRM systems in Europe music firms. Many believed the the current DRM systems were not fit for their purpose.

Analyst Mark Mulligan, one of the authors of the report, said that the study was carried out between December and January, before Apple CEO Steve Jobs published an open letter encouraging record companies to drop the need for digital rights management. Mulligan said he was surprised with the responses received from large and small record companies, rights bodies and digital stores.

About 54% of executives questioned thought that current digital restrictions on music downloads were too harsh. About 62% believed that if DRM was dropped, music download sales would rise due to interoperability. Of all questions, 70% believed that the future of music downloads depends on making tracks playable on as many players as possible.

Sling Media Inc., creator of the Slingbox gadget, has said it is not worried about traditional broadcasters turning to video on demand services. The company has said its Slingbox product offers consumers a much more personalised experience. Slingbox enables users to watch their video content from anywhere with a broadband connection.

"I think video on demand is complimentary to our business. Channel 4 and the BBC are offering their programmes through their portals using their players. But anything that helps educate consumers is good." Stuart Collingwood, Sling Media's vice president of Europe, said.

He also said that the Slingbox is not only used to view TV content remotely, but can be used for anything including content from a DVD player or a camcorder. The device is attracting interest from several Internet Service Providers who are looking for ways to encourage customers to upgrade their services, and Pay-TV companies looking to expand their offerings.

Source:
The Register

Warner Music Group has signed two new deals to provide content to mobile phone users in Europe, North Africa and the Middle East. Two separate deals have been made that will allow Warner to offer its catalog of mobile content, which includes ringtones and full track music downloads to millions of customers.

The record company signed a deal with Egypt's Orascom Telecom, which operates in countries including Algeria, Bangladesh, Italy, Pakistan and Tunisia. The deal will make Warner's content available to 60 million Orascom subscribers.

"Orascom's scale, ambition and commitment to promoting legitimate, pan-regional mobile music services make them the ideal partner for us as we develop our presence in the Middle East and North Africa," Warner Chairman and CEO, Edgar Bronfman Jr, said in a statement.

The second deal was struck with Norwegian telecom group Telenor, to offer content to 9 of its 13 mobile operators that are available in countries including Norway, Sweden, Ukraine and Hungary. Telenor's total mobile customer base reached an impressive 105 million by the end of 2006.

Source:
Reuters

A TV show aired by the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC), called Watchdog, has investigated a number of complaints consumers have sent about Microsoft's Xbox 360 console, particularly problems that arose shortly after the console came out of its warranty period. The show's presenters said they received 248 complaints from consumers.

The show highlighted two incidents, in which two different owners of an Xbox 360 console experienced the dreaded "ring of death" right after the console's warranty was up. Each owner had to pay £80 ($156) to get the fault fixed. Both thought this was highly unreasonable as both consoles were just about a year old.

"Most people who have an Xbox 360 have an outstanding experience and there's no common fault. Each incident is unique, and looked at on a case by case basis." presenter Nicky Campbell read from a Microsoft statement. No Microsoft representative appeared on the show.

Source:
GameSpot

The International Intellectual Property Alliance (IIPA) has criticized Canada for its failure to prevent piracy. The IIPA has seven members including the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA), the Entertainment Software Association (ESA) and the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA). The groups, which represent the games, music and movie industries, said Canada failed to deliver on promises to change copyright law.

The coalition has asked the U.S. to put Canada on a list of the world's worst countries in terms of enforcing intellectual property rights and fighting piracy. "Canada remains far behind virtually all of its peers in the industrialized world with respect to its efforts to bring its copyright laws up to date with the realities of the global digital networked environment," the IIPA said.

The group continued: "Indeed, even the major developing countries have progressed further and faster than Canada in meeting the challenge." It accuses Canada of being a leading exporter of bootleg copies of movies and of modchips for gaming consoles.

Source:
GameSpot

A Sony Corp. executive has revealed that the company aims to cut back on chip spending in the future and may not produce advanced chips used in the PlayStation 3 (PS3) console in-house. The Cell chip that powers PS3 is currently being produced with 90nm and 65nm circuitry and Sony hopes to move the "supercomputer on a chip" to 45nm by 2009.

Narrower circuitry makes the overall size of a chip smaller and helps to cut production costs. Sony Executive Deputy President Yutaka Nakagawa revealed that investment in chips would be reduced significantly from the ¥460 billion (U.S.$3.8 billion) allocated over the three business years since April 2004.

The Cell chip, along with the included Blu-ray disc player, has pushed up the retail price of the PS3 console, giving both Microsoft and Nintendo an advantage in their next-gen gaming hardware offerings.

"We tentatively plan to start commercial production of 45-nanometre chips in late 2008 or early 2009. We are going to study carefully whether we should carry out all the capital investment and produce them in-house," Nakagawa said.

Texas Instruments unveiled technology at the 3GSM World Congress that can enable playback of video from mobile phones at resolutions up to 720p. The new processor is the first to offer high definition playback capability to mobile phones and other gadgets. The OMAP3430 was announced last year, and includes support for the OpenGL ES 2.0 graphics standard for 3D acceleration.

The OMAP3430 is the first in Texas Instruments series of OMAP 3 processors. The 3430 gets its power from the embedded ARM Cortex-A8 processor. According to the specifications, right now it offers 1024 x 768 (XGA) output through a composite of S-Video connection. This is good progress towards a near-future where we can output HD content easily from our mobile phones to our televisions.

Source:
Engadget HD

Internet social-networking giant, MySpace, will block unauthorized videos that are subject to copyright using new software that will monitor the uploaded videos. The audio tracks of video content will be processed to identify possible unauthorized posting of copyrighted content. The move will ease tension between MySpace and several major content companies.

The software will be provided by Audible Magic, and will automatically analyze video as it is uploaded. If it is determined that the content may be subject to copyright, the software will "flag" the video for further review. MySpace is thought to be the second largest source of user-generated video content behind YouTube.

"For MySpace, video filtering is about protecting artists and the work they create," said Chris DeWolfe, co-founder and chief executive of MySpace. "MySpace is dedicated to ensuring that content owners, whether large or small, can both promote and protect their content in our community."

Source:
The Register

The UK Government is to fund 4,500 new copyright police that will perform raids and seizures against those selling pirate and counterfeit goods. More raids and tougher action has been promised to begin by April. "From 6 April, there'll be an additional 4,500 pairs of Trading Standards eyes watching counterfeiters and pirates," said Malcolm Wicks, Trade and Industry Minister.

He added: "This will mean more surprise raids at markets and boot sales, more intelligence, more prosecutions, and more criminals locked up." The move has come as the Department of Trade and Industry passed responsibility for enforcement of copyright protection to Trading Standards Officers.

The DTI has granted more power to trading standards officers under Section 107A of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988, along with £5 million to boost the fight against copyright infringement. Section 107A gives officers the power to make "test purchases" and to enter premises to seize documents and goods.

"Crimelords currently earn fortunes peddling fake goods, bootleg CDs and DVDs through car boot sales and other outlets," Trading Standards Institute chief executive Ron Gainsford said. "People should realize that the proceeds from the sale of these goods are used to finance a whole range of criminal activities."

As the consumer electronics industry moves toward high definition video content, we must also remember the upgrades that PC equipment will receive, which inevitably means there is room for a new display interconnect standard. High-definition Multimedia Interface (HDMI) provides higher bandwidth than the Digital Video Interface (DVI) and also support for audio content.

The Video Electronic Standards Association (VESA) is promoting its own display interconnect called DisplayPort. Video-wise, it can match what HDMI boasts about, and also supports the studio-backed High-bandwidth Digital Content Protection (HDCP) and also has its own optional DisplayPort Content Protection (DPCP).

Like DVI however, DisplayPort does not support audio content. VESA however, would not see this as a problem since it didn't hinder DVI's performance in the market. On Monday, the group behind HDMI announced that more than 50 Desktops, Notebooks, Motherboards and Graphics cards are shipping with the HDMI technology on-board, sending a message to VESA that it plans to fight to become the standard.

A vicious and deadly drug gang war in Mexico has found its web presence in Google Inc.'s YouTube video sharing service. Rivals are using the site to taunt one another and post extreme videos which include footage of murders. Among the videos posted is one of a man being shot in the head, and has gained 280,000 views.

YouTube has made it clear in the past that it does not tolerate footage of sick or illegal acts. A YouTube spokesperson said however, that for the site to be kept clean, users have to flag the material as inappropriate to alert the company.

The drug war in question is between the Gulf Cartel from northeastern Mexico and Sinaloa-based traffickers. On some of the posted videos, users comment in Spanish about Joaquin "El Chapo" Guzman, head of the Sinaloa-based gang, and rival Osiel Cardenas, the Gulf Cartel's leader. One comment offers about $4,500 to anyone who has killed a member of The Zetas if they show proof "via photo, video or presenting the body."

"The messages give the impression that members of organized crime are participating," Jose Luis Manjarrez, a spokesman for Mexico's attorney general's office, said. "We can't rule out, but neither can we be totally sure, that this is being used as a form of communication by organized crime." He said that the Mexican police are currently monitoring the pages.

Only one and a half month after the first vulnerability in HD DVD encryption was found, hackers have discovered the processing key, which can be used to decrypt all HD DVD and Blu-Ray discs released so far. The key was discovered by arnezami, and it has been posted at Doom9 discussion forums along with a description on the process of locating the key.

Basically the key was discovered by the same means as the volume keys are extracted -- by dumping memory at key points while playing back a HD DVD movie using a software player. Arnezami didn't specify which player he used (or abused) for the hack, but there aren't too many around to choose from really. Frankly it doesn't matter which player is to "blame", because all software players need to store the decryption keys in memory at some point of the execution.

With the processing key out in the open, it shouldn't take too long before tools taking advantage of it become available. One can only hope that the move to High Definition formats isn't hindered too much by this latest vulnerability in the "unbreakable" AACS DRM. AACS-LA can always implement a new processing key, as well as revoke the device keys for current software based HD players (ie. WinDVD and PowerDVD), and have the software manufacturers do a better job at implementing AACS securely. But that will always take time, and there will always be hackers that outwit the software engineers.

AfterDawn.com has reached yet another milestone today. A couple of minutes ago the 2,000,000th message was posted on our discussion forums. The forums were opened in late March 2001 and it took about four and a half years to reach the 1,000,000 post milestone -- the next million was reached in mere 15 months.

AfterDawn.com currently has about 620,000 registered members. Since we launched our site back in 1999 we have served over 75,000,000 software downloads and and almost 6,000,000 legal MP3 downloads through our sister site MP3Lizard.com.

Thanks go out to all our loyal visitors!

Sony Computer Entertainment Europe (SCEE) has announced that they will reward the first 500,000 PlayStation 3 owners who have registered on the PLAYSTATION Network with a brand-new Casino Royale Blu-ray.

Casino Royale has already grossed a whopping $560 million at the box office around the globe, and has become the most successful Bond movie of all time. The movie will be handed in a 50GB dual-layer Blu-ray disc encoded in MPEG-4 AVC with 1080p true HD resolution and uncompressed audio.

“The PLAYSTATION®Network unlocks the broad range of interactive entertainment features of PLAYSTATION 3. It’s easy to set up, offers free online gaming, has great tools for staying in touch with friends and family, and includes a wide variety of content for download through the PLAYSTATION®Store," Darren Carter, VP Brand and Consumer Marketing explained the unique offer.

Source:
Press release

The Canadian Private Copying Collective (CPCC) is reportedly pursuing the reinstatement of levies to be paid on MP3 hardware. In practice, this means that the group can charge a levy on top of the price of an MP3 player which then would be re-distributed to copyright holders. Such a levy existed in Canada already but was overturned.

The Canadian courts dismissed the levies because Hard Disk Drives have failed to be classified as "audio recording media." As you might have guessed, the CPCC is now on a campaign to have the Canadian Copyright Board classify MP3 players as "audio recording equipment" to resurrect the levies.

The CPCC is also hoping to get a range increase of between CAD$5 and CAD$75 based on the capacity of the MP3 player. Thankfully, several experts have stated that the CPCC will most likely not get what it wants.

Source:
Engadget

Lions Gate Entertainment has become the latest movie studio to partner with Apple Computer Inc. for movie downloads. The studio will add a portion of its movie catalog to the iTunes download store over the coming weeks. About 400 titles of the studio's 10,000+ library is expected to be available. The downloads will cost about $10 each. Both companies announced the deal on Monday.

Among the movies set to be available are Dirty Dancing, Chaplin, Rambo & Terminator 2: Judgment Day. Apple is slowly adding more studio support for its iTunes platform, that has already sold in excess of 2 billion songs since it launched in 2003. Its movie and TV show downloading service is reportedly strong, especially over the holiday period.

With giants like Wal-Mart offering movie downloads, dominating the online market will not be as easy for Apple as it was with music. Consumers also generally prefer to watch their movies on a proper television, making the iPod+iTunes tie much less effective with video content.

Source:
ZDNet

Virgin Games and Game Domain International have teamed up to create a new virtual way to purchase game downloads. The pair hope that their project, A World Of My Own (AWOMO), will revolutionize how video games are purchased over the Internet. They promise to enable gameplay within minutes of purchase through high speed downloads with better security and usability.

The pair hopes that the launch of the service will rapidly boost the number of game downloads. "This is a really exciting development for us, as it gives us the opportunity to do for PC games what iTunes has done for music. The GDI technology will revolutionise how the mass market will play games and will give them more choice for less money." Virgin's chairman, Sir Richard Branson said.

Game publishers including Koch Media are said to have already registered their support. The platform is expected to launch "later in 2007".

Source:
GameSpot

Sony Computer Entertainment Europe (SCEE) has confirmed that a 30 game line-up will be available for the PlayStation 3 (PS3) console on launch day in Europe. The company had denied suggestions that the 30 game list was aimed for "launch window" and not all particularly available from day one. The console will launch in Europe on March 23rd.

"It is our aspiration that all of the 30 titles mentioned in our announcement will be available at launch of PlayStation 3 on 23rd March." Sony's David Wilson told Eurogamer.net. Among the games listed are first party titles including Resistance: Fall of Man and Motorstorm. Some titles such as Call of Duty 3 have been available for the Xbox 360 console for quite some time.

The 60GB version of the console will cost €599 (GBP£425) when it is released. The cheaper version will not be available at launch.

Source:
GamesIndustry.biz

It was reported late last week that EMI, one of the world's "big four" major record companies, is considering releasing a very large portion of its music for download in the MP3 format. Additionally, there would be no "technical restrictions", better known as Digital Rights Management (DRM) on the downloads. The vast majority of all music downloads sold through services like iTunes, contain DRM.

A source familiar with the situation said that EMI is preparing to offer a large amount of its music catalog in the MP3 format through various online retailers, while another source says the company is looking for large advance payments from retailers to offer unprotected downloads. Shawn Fanning's SnoCap is reportedly in talks with EMI over the matter.

An EMI spokesperson did not admit to any deals or confirm that any talks were in progress, but did say that EMI has been experimenting with the MP3 format already. "The results have been positive," the EMI spokeswoman said, adding, "lack of operability between a proliferating range of devices and hardware and the digital platforms for delivering music is more and more becoming an issue for music consumers and EMI has been engaging with our various partners to find a solution."

Users of Cyberlink's PowerDVD Ultra software are complaining about several problems occurring while trying to playback high definition video from either format on their PCs. PowerDVD Ultra supports both Blu-Ray and HD DVD movies (even includes support for Microsoft's Xbox 360 HD DVD add-on drive) making it an ideal and attractive solution to those interested in HD video.

However, complaints about the software seem to be gathering on Cyberlink's forums since a matter of days after the software's release. Some users are getting very impatient waiting for assistance from Cyberlink, or a fix that will make this $100 piece of software work properly. Some have already run out of patience and filed complaints with the Better Business Bureau....

Complaint Description:
Cyberlink is selling software that is said to be able to play HD-DVD / Blu-Ray DVD's on your PC should your PC meet their requirments. Many people are buying this software after being told their PC/Hardware was in compliance and it still doesn't work. If you Google: Error 0103, you'll see the problem that people are having. They have only a pay support phone line, all their other phone numbers are disconnected or on an answering machine. I have filed complaints online with their "support options" and received no replies. I have posted messages on their online message board and there are a lot of others with my same problem. What's worse is that there is no communication from the company even from their own website. I want a refund for the software but they're simply ignoring everyone while continuing to take orders for software that doesn't work like they're advertising.

According to a report, the number of homes with HDTV services is set to treble by 2011. The clearer, more vivid picture offered by true high definition TV has made it a "must have" in many territories. The transition is being called a landmark move for the industry, and is often compared to the transition from black and white TV to color TV.

Informa Telecoms and Media predicts that the number of homes taking HDTV services will jump to 151 million by 2011, up from 48 million at the end of 2006. 58% of all "HD homes" are found in the United States, followed by 20% in Japan, with the UK, Germany and China also high on the list.

"The falling price of high-definition sets has really caught the public's imagination, and consumer uptake is impressive," Adam Thomas, the report's author said. He did admit though that right now, some customers are unhappy with the lack of content offered by their services.

Source:
Reuters

Warner Music has rejected a suggestion from Apple Computer Inc. CEO Steve Jobs, asking all recording companies to consider dropping the requirement for Digital Rights Management (DRM) protection on music downloads. Warner boss Edgar Bronfman said the proposal was "without logic and merit". Jobs' letter had highlighted an undeniable fact; DRM is not stopping or limiting piracy.

DRM puts several restrictions on users, including the maximum amount of time that songs can be burned to CD. However, it also has the undesirable effect of making interoperability impossible - that is, songs purchased from stores only work on a limited number of music players that support the DRM system.

Jobs insisted that if record companies would allow it, the company would remove DRM from iTunes downloads. "This is clearly the best alternative for consumers, and Apple would embrace it in a heartbeat." Jobs said. Warner Music is the world's fourth largest record company.

Source:
BBC News

After already striking deals to give users access to social networking site MySpace and eBay, Vodafone is now set to offer YouTube services to its customers. Customers will now be able to view and add videos through Vodafone's mobile service. The service will be available to UK users first before eventually spreading to other countries.

By adding services like this, Vodafone, Europe's largest mobile phone company, can significantly boost revenues. Since all the videos on YouTube are of fairly low quality, video recordings from mobile phones fit the service just right. It's a good move from Vodafone in attempt to bridge the gap.

Source:
BBC News

Nintendo has been abusing all kinds of online services with Wii, one of the services that was expected was VoIP, the hope was brought to life by rumors claiming an upcoming Wiimote with a microphone.

Now it seems like we could see an actual "Wii Phone". T3 reported that information from the US patent office shows a Wiimote-looking device with gaming keys and dialing keypad. These are only speculations, and at this points, shouldn't be taken too seriously. Keep tuned for more information.

Source:
T3

Pioneer has announced the availability of two new internal DVD writers, the DVR-112 dual-format drive and the DVR-112D dual-format drive. Both new drives integrate a wide range of technologies to optimize DVD writing and speed up DVD writing to write-once media (single layer) to 18x and 10x to dual layer media.

The DVR-112 multi-format drive writes at 18x speed on DVD-R and DVD+R, 10x on DVD-R DL and DVD+R DL, 6x on DVD-RW and 8x on DVD+RW. Its write speed for DVD-RAM media is an industry-leading 12X, whilst CD-R and CD-RW media are catered for at 40X and 32X speeds respectively.

The DVR-112D dual-format drive provides almost thew same write performance but excludes support for the DVD-RAM format.

Source:
BitBurners

According to "IT Hardware" report from Prudential Equity Group analyst Jesse Tortora, Apple may move some of its iPod models away from HDD-based storage to solid-state NAND flash memory by the end of 2007. Such a move would pave the way for smaller form factor players and increase battery life of iPod models.

"We believe that the video iPod transition from 1.8-inch hard disk drives to NAND flash memory may occur as soon as late 2007," Tortora wrote. "Our checks indicate that Apple is considering canceling its next generation HDD-based iPod design, with the form factor refresh involving a move to NAND flash memory."

He noted that flash-based players would cost more to produce than HDD models, but said that history of iPod models shows Apple may make such a transition. "Flash memory is clearly more expensive on a $/GB basis than hard disk drives," he wrote. "However, the late 2005 Nano transition to flash provides a guide as to the point at which the previously mentioned non-cost advantages of flash memory outweigh the cost premium."

Tortora sees flash storage capacities up to 32GB as being cost-feasible, but questions whether it would be enough for video content. "Apple currently offers 30GB and 80GB HDD-based models, and will have the option to increase storage capacity up to 120GB this year based on new perpendicular recording technology," he wrote. "While the higher capacities would allow for more video storage, we view battery life as the key consideration for a move to flash."

Nowadays, the most news you read about video games affecting people debate whether violent video games can influence a person's behavior. With many lawmakers suggesting legislation to limit violence in games and several terrifying events that have been blamed on gaming influence, it is easy to focus on the negative effects of video games. A growing number of developers however, are focusing more on the positive.

After the success of the Brain Training games from Nintendo, which aims to improve the concentration and memory of users (amongst other things), some developers have decided to focus on how video games can affect psychological health in a positive way. Tokyo-based Dimple Entertainment will begin selling its new "DS Therapy" in Japan for the DS in May.

The title promises to deliver a a measurement on your mental and emotional health on a daily basis based on the input of the user. Mark Baldwin, a psychology professor at McGill University in Montreal, Canada, also offers another game, "MindHabits Booster". This game aims to make players feel good about themselves.

Baldwin and his team designed the game based on social psychology research. They found that repetitive components from video game play could be used to shape the way people think and how they perceive themselves.

NBC Universal CEO Jeff Zucker wasted no time on commenting about YouTube's failure to implement copyright protection technology after replacing Robert Wright. "YouTube needs to prove that it will implement its filtering technology across its online platform. It's proven it can do it when it wants to...They have the capability. The question is whether they have the will." he said.

YouTube and NBCU reached an agreement last year to allow selected content from NBC to appear on the YouTube site, but NBCU also had said it will hold YouTube to its promise to implement copyright controls. Last September, YouTube had agreed to meet NBCU's requests within a matter of months.

"By the end of the year," a company statement read at the time, "professional content creators, including record labels, TV networks and movie studios, will have the opportunity to authorize the use of their content within the YouTube community by taking advantage of YouTube's new tools and architecture. YouTube has been actively working on the operational details and building the infrastructure for this innovative new framework."

There has been speculation that Zucker's company may be planning to create its own YouTube-like service. NBC was among a group including Viacom, CBS, and Fox Interactive that planned a YouTube rival, but talks apparently were broken off before they even started.

In a response to the open letter posted by Apple Computer Inc. CEO Steve Jobs yesterday, the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) has urged the company to license its FairPlay DRM technology to other music services. "Apple's offer to license FairPlay to other technology companies is a welcome breakthrough and would be a real victory for fans, artists and labels," the trade group said.

"There have been many services seeking a license to the Apple DRM. This would enable the interoperability that we have been urging for a very long time." In Jobs' open letter, he urged the record companies to stop forcing Digital Rights Management (DRM) use on online retailers, especially since music from unprotected CDs is ripped and put on P2P networks anyway.

The letter followed complaints in Europe, and even the threat of legal action, over the limitations that FairPlay puts on music purchased from the iTunes music store. Apple cannot deny it has benefited greatly from the iPod/iTunes tie that DRM has created. Nevertheless, DRM for now, from a consumer's perspective, is completely useless.

New York state Senator Carl Kruger has introduced legislation to ban the use of mobile phones, iPods and other electronic gadgets while crossing the street. The ban would see New Yorkers fined $100 per offense. It comes after a number of recent pedestrian deaths in Kruger's district, including a 23 year old who was killed after stepping out in front of traffic while using an iPod.

"We're talking about people walking sort of tuned in, in the process of being tuned in, but tuned out. Tuned out to the world around them, so they're walking into speeding cars, they're walking into buses, they're walking into one another," Kruger said. Of course, he is not talking about completely banning the use of electronic gadgets in public.

"If you want to listen to your iPod, sit down and listen to it," he said to CBS News. "You want to walk in the park? Enjoy it. You want to jog around a jogging path? All the more power to you. But you should not be crossing streets and endangering yourself and the lives of others."

Source:
Ars Technica

Japan Electronics and Information Technology Industries Association (JEITA) has predicted a sharp rise in demand for liquid-crystal display (LCD) televisions in the coming years. The group expects LCD to outpace demand for Plasma displays, with an average 23.4% annual growth for the next five years. In 2006, 37.1 million LCD units were shipped.

JEITA expects that by 2011, it will have grown to 106.2 million units. It would then account for 53% of all color TV demand in that year. As for Plasma, JEITA expects an average 18.6% rise in demand annually over the next five years. This would bring plasma to 22.8 million units by 2011.

Sony Corp. and Sharp Corp. have boosted their presence in the market for 40-inch+ TVs with LCD displays, a market that was once dominated by Plasma.

Source:
Reuters

Despite the lawsuits filed against thousands of U.S. citizens by the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA), the number of people engaged in so called "illegal file sharing" and the number of music transfers has soared in the past year. The record industry wants to stamp out P2P sharing, which it blames almost exclusively for a 23% worldwide decline in sales of music CDs between 2000 and 2006.

To give you an idea of the size of illegal file sharing, Big Champagne estimates that over 1 billion tracks are exchanged monthly. Compare that against Apple's iTunes service, which has sold just over 2 billion songs since it launched back in 2003, which also represents over 70% of the legal music download business.

Russ Crupnick, an analyst at consumer research group NPD, noted a 7% rise in the number of U.S. households engaged in filesharing, and a 24% increase in illegal downloads over the past year. "P2P remains an unacceptable problem," said Mitch Bainwol, RIAA president. "The folks engaged in the practice are doing more of it."

According to some new research, even though your mother told you that you would go blind from playing video games, the activity may have the opposite effect. University of Rochester conducted a study which showed that people who played video games for a few hours daily over the course of a month improved their vision by about 20%.

"Action video game play changes the way our brains process visual information," explained Daphne Bavelier, professor of brain and cognitive sciences. "These games push the human visual system to the limits and the brain adapts to it. That learning carries over into other activities and possibly everyday life."

Bavelier and a graduate student tested a group of students who had played either very few or no games at all over the past year. After receiving an eye test, the subjects were divided into two groups; one which played shoot-em-up action games for an hour a day and one who played less complex and action-packed games.

After the study, the vision of the subjects was tested again showing the results. As a matter of interest, those who played the games with more action scored better on the eye exam.

Source:
Reuters

Amazon.com Inc. and TiVo Inc. have teamed up to offer movie downloads. The pair will begin testing a service on Wednesday that lets them watch rented or purchased movies from the Internet on their TVs. This is the latest example of how a company is hoping to bridge the gap between PC and CE equipment, to boost consumer experience.

Microsoft's movie download service that uses the Xbox 360 console proved successful because it offered HD downloads that could be watched on a HDTV without any in-between steps. The Amazon-Tivo service expands upon Amazon's Unbox download service, taking it one step further than rivals like Wal-Mart and iTunes.

"It's one thing for viewers to be looking at YouTube content online, but when it comes to full-length television and movies, for most people, it's not television until it's really on the TV," TiVo Chief Executive Tom Rogers said.

Source:
Reuters

Apple Computer Inc. CEO Steve Jobs has written an open letter on the company's website about Digital Rights Management (DRM) software and Apple's stance on its use. The letter comes at a time where tension is growing between consumers and online download sites, with even threats of legal proceedings against Apple because of the FairPlay DRM it adds to its music downloads.

However, Jobs is determined to put a halt to the belief that Apple is pro-DRM. Instead, Jobs points the fingers at record labels. "Since Apple does not own or control any music itself, it must license the rights to distribute music from others, primarily the 'big four' music companies: Universal, Sony BMG, Warner and EMI. These four companies control the distribution of over 70% of the world’s music." the letter reads.

It continues: "When Apple approached these companies to license their music to distribute legally over the Internet, they were extremely cautious and required Apple to protect their music from being illegally copied. The solution was to create a DRM system, which envelopes each song purchased from the iTunes store in special and secret software so that it cannot be played on unauthorized devices."

Electronic Arts has said it was "disappointed" by the sales of games for the PlayStation 3 (PS3) console during the 2006 holidays. Executive VP Frank Gibeau said the publisher was disappointed with the number of games sold per console since launch and up to Christmas. In the quarter ending December 31st, EA took orders for 900,000 titles for the PS3 console, making up a total of $41 million (€31.6 million).

In comparison, during the same time period in 2005, after the launch of the Xbox 360, the publisher took orders for 1.69 million units (for Xbox 360), making up a total of $76 million (€58.5 million). Gibeau explained this as "the eBay effect"; many consumers who bought a PS3 early planned to sell it for a higher price.

While the holiday season figures were under what EA expected, Gibeau acknowledged that things began to look up in January with a higher ratio. EA is the number one publisher for both Microsoft and Sony.

Source:
GamesIndustry.biz

The first three Wii modchips were proving Wii to be an easy task to mod, until recently Nintendo made a manufacturing modification and added D2B Panasonic chipset to Wiis. Now all the first generation modchips - Wiinja, CycloWiz and WiiKey - fail to bypass the D2B chipset.

While the first-gen modchips work like a charm in the earlier Wiis, if you have bought a Wii in January or February you should make sure what Wii you are running, before buying a useless modchip. The only way to be sure is to open the Wii and search for a chip with a GC2-D2B label.

According to Engadget, Both the CycloWiz and Wiinja teams are working on new version of modchips to get past the D2B Panasonic chipset.

Source:
Edgadget

A judge in New York has ordered satellite TV provider DirecTV to pull advertisements that feature Jessica Simpson and William Shatner while a lawsuit brought by Time Warner Cable for "false advertising" proceeds. DirecTV has claimed that its high definition broadcasting is superior in quality to cable services. Time Warner Cable found this claim misleading and filed a lawsuit against DirecTV.

The ads in question feature both Simpson and Shatner claiming that DirecTV is the best. Simpson is in her Daisy Duke character when she says, "You're just not going to get the best picture out of some fancy big-screen TV without DirecTV. It's broadcast in 1080i. I totally don't know what that means, but I want it."

Shatner is Star Trek's Capt. James T. Kirk when he says, "With what Starfleet just ponied up for the big screen TV, settling for cable would be illogical."

Source:
United Press International

We reported a few days ago that figures from Nielsen VideoScan showed that Blu-Ray began to close its gap on HD DVD in January, outselling the format by a ratio of up to 3 to 1. Sony has been quick to use these figures along with its own research to declare the Blu-ray is winning the format war over HD DVD. As you might have guessed, Sony research also includes the PlayStation 3 (PS3).

Sony took an online survey that 100,000 PS3 owners took part in. The company claims that 90% of respondents had watched a Blu-ray movie with their PS3 already, and 80% planned to buy more Blu-ray releases. The Blu-ray camp has not been shy about admitting that PS3 plays a major role (if not the biggest) in Blu-ray's possible success over HD DVD.

The next-generation DVD format war has been so intertwined with the console war that experts believe they will decide the outcome of each other. The PS3 has an internal Blu-ray drive and Microsoft released an external HD DVD drive for the Xbox 360, selling 92,000 units before the end of 2006.

Retail giant Wal-Mart introduced a test version of its new download service for movies and TV shows. Powered by technology from Hewlett-Packard, Wal-Mart's service is the first to be launched with the backing of all the major Hollywood studios. This puts the retail giant in direct competition with Apple's iTunes.

The service, which is available on Wal-Mart's website, lets users download and keep major Hollywood movies, as well as TV content. The company claims that over 3,000 films from studios like 20th Century Fox, Disney, Lions Gate, MGM, Paramount Pictures, Sony Pictures Entertainment, Universal Studios Home Entertainment and Warner Bros. are already available.

Downloads are priced between $1.96 per TV episode to $19.88 for a new movie. New movie releases will be available for download on the same date as DVD release.

Source:
Reuters

Nintendo's Wii console is benefiting from the large price gap between it and the PlayStation 3 (PS3) console, outselling the PS3 at a ratio up to 4 to 1. Between January 22nd and 28th, The PS3 sold about 20,000 units in Japan. In the same time frame, the Wii had moved another 80,000 units. The PS2 also beat the PS3 with 21,000 units sold in the same time.

PS3 wasn't the worst performing console during that time frame though, Microsoft only managed to sell 7,000 Xbox 360 consoles as it struggles to grow in the Japanese market. The PS3 launched in Japan on November 11th and has since sold 614,000 units. The Wii launched on December 2nd and has sold more than 1.4 million units since then.

This is a clear sign that Sony needs to drop the price of the PS3, according to Enterbrain's Hirokazu Hamamura. "There could be a price cut for PS3 by the end of the year, and more software titles will hit the market," he said. He said the PS3 will pick up after a while but that the Wii will continue to stay ahead for some time.

Source:
GamesIndustry.biz

A group of BitTorrent trackers in the Tomsk region in Russia have been taken offline, with no official explanation yet for the action. Obviously it has been suggested that the cybercrime police (also known as Department K) could have shut down the sites but some others are pointing the finger of blame at the Tomsk's local ISP instead.

It could be possible that the ISP wanted to ease the heavy bandwidth usage with BitTorrent use. The Russian police has denied any involvement in the action. Vadim Andrianov, an admin from one of the BitTorrent trackers, believes that this could have been part of a new anti-piracy campaign and is still waiting on an official response from the ISP.

He is not, however, afraid of any legal problems since his site only offered open source software. If this was an attempt to cut excessive bandwidth usage, then it was effective, with a reported 80% drop in P2P traffic.

Source:
TorrentFreak

Almost three weeks after LG's hybrid Blu-Ray Disc / HD DVD player showed up in some big box retailers, the item has been declared "officially on sale", meaning it will take over the DVD player section in Best Buy, Circuit City, CompUSA etc. now. The player sells for a steep $1199, claimed to be a bargain since it technically can play both next-gen discs.

The item still does not sport the HD DVD logo, due to its lack of support for the HDi (formerly known as iHD) interactivity layer that is used mainly for menu purposes on HD DVD titles. The device reportedly also lacks some other features that are considered mandatory by the HD DVD camp.

That being said, when this item was shown at the Consumer Electronics Show (CES) last month, it marked a stepping stone for bringing a wider audience to high definition movies.

Source:
Engadget

Last year, we launched a small competition to our users called innovation contest 2006 in which we wanted to hear innovative ideas from our users on how to improve our site.

During the competition, we received 500 submissions that included thousands of suggestions. Ever since the end of the competition, our staff has been reading through the ideas you guys have sent to us. Some of the ideas were good, some of them were -- unfortunately -- quite bad :-) and some of them just excellent. It was extremely difficult to select the entries that truly provided something "different", but after long consideration, we are certain we picked the right ones.

The grand prize, 1,500 euros in cash, was won by our user called lawndog. The other runner-up prizes, "AfterDawn goodie bags", went to these members: chopper, bulfrog15, Dfram, pahis, bscd, kiiveri and gwendolin.

As some of the ideas were very good and haven't been implemented to our site yet, we can't tell you what the winning suggestions were. But the competition was quite an eye-opener for us in many ways; it proved couple of things that we have suspected for years. First of all, it seems that we have thousands of users who aren't aware of the fact that AfterDawn contains sections like Software or News. It seems that there's a large proportion of users who think that AfterDawn is just a discussion forum site. And equally big chunk of users who have never "found" our discussion forums, but have read our news for years now. Seriously, some of the submissions asked for AfterDawn to "add a place where one could download video-related freeware and software tools".

According to a House of Lord committee in the UK, EU proposals to make Internet video broadcasters subject to the same rules as traditional broadcasters are "seriously misguided". The committee warned that the proposals would damage the new media industry by pushing broadcasters out of the EU. The committee discussed the planned updated to the 1989 TV without Frontier directive.

The Audiovisual Media Services Directive would reflect changes in broadcasting in recent years and would further increase regulation of Internet video content and create a more "level playing field" between traditional TV-based and online broadcasters.

"We believe that this attempt was seriously misguided and any future efforts to do the same would be in grave error." said Committee chairman Lord Freeman. "Such an attempt risks damaging the new media industry, which is a vibrant and important sector of the UK's economy." The committee said it is not the task of regulation to protect established broadcasters from new competition using a different model.

Source:
BBC News

Nintendo has denied claims made by Virgin Megastores representatives that the company failed to deliver the promised number of Wii units for launch back on December 8th. The claims started when Virgin representatives said they were keen to avoid a repeat of the "Nintendo Wii problems" during the upcoming PlayStation 3 launch in Europe.

"It's because there was an issue with the Wii. Some stores didn't get the allocation they were promised until the next day after launch," one representative said. Another said: "The full amount of stock we were promised never turned up," but Nintendo was quick to respond by denying the claims to GamesIndustry.biz.

"All UK retailers were notified of their initial day one Wii allocations in October 2006, some six to eight weeks before launch. Nintendo delivered exactly what we said we would to retailers for day one and in many instances over delivered against the initial numbers retailers were expecting." a spokesperson said.

The spokesperson also added: "Nintendo made multiple and regular deliveries to retailers across the UK in the days following launch to try and meet the huge demand for Wii as much as possible."

Former Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev has written an open letter to Microsoft chairman Bill Gates, urging him to intercede in Microsoft-brought litigation against a headteacher. Alexander Ponosov has been accused by Microsoft representatives in Russia of knowingly installing pirated versions of the Windows operating system on school computers, causing the company losses of up to $10,000.

"We have great respect for the work of Microsoft's programmers... and are in no way casting doubt on the principle of punishment for intellectual property violations. However, in this case we ask you to show mercy and withdraw your complaint against Alexander Ponosov," the letter reads.

Russian President Vladimir Putin has also criticized the prosecution of Ponosov, in Perm, east of Moscow. Because of its location, Gorbachev said that under Russian criminal law the teacher could face "imprisonment in Siberian camps". Ponosov denies the charges and said the software came pre-installed and he didn't know about it.

"It's ridiculous to just arrest a chap for using computers," President Putin said at a news conference on 1st February, where he urged Microsoft and investigators to "go after the distributors, not the users".

Hitachi, the world's 5th largest producer of plasma display technology, has announced it has postponed a decision on building its next plasma display factory. The company has now given itself until year's end to reach a decision on the next plant, as it struggles to keep up with rivals, including plasma TV leader Matsushita Electric Industrial Co.

The delay has been caused by price declines in the flat TV industry. Hitachi spokesman, Masayuki Takeuchi, said the company can meet the demands by doubling capacity through its two existing plants in Japan, to an annual 4 million panels by December.

The prices of Plasma TVs have been put under pressure from dropping prices in the LCD marker from manufacturers such as Samsung Electronics Co. Ltd and LG.Philips LCD Co. Ltd. Only last week, Pioneer Corp. announced delays in the production of a new plasma display factory also.

Source:
Reuters

The dispute between Apple Computer Inc. and Apple Corps over the use of the trademark "Apple" has finally been settled. Apple Computer Inc. is to take full control of the Apple brand and license certain trademarks back to Apple Corps - a record company started by the Beatles - for continued use. The two companies have been in a dispute over this issue for more than 25 years.

Steve Jobs said the long running dispute had been "painful". "We love the Beatles and it has been painful being at odds with them over these trademarks." he said. "It feels great to resolve this in a positive manner, and in a way that should remove the potential of further disagreements in the future."

The dispute dates back to 1980, when the George Harrison noticed an advert for Apple computers in a magazine. "It is great to put this dispute behind us and move on. The years ahead are going to be very exciting times for us." Apple Corps manager Neil Aspinall said. "We wish Apple Inc every success and look forward to many years of peaceful co-operation with them."

Source:
BBC News

Following reports that Nokia had been secretly showing off some of the tech behind a possible new N-Gage, a Nokia-sponsored blog has revealed that the next-gen N-Gage platform is set to launch this Autumn. Two major publishers are already reported to be on board to develop titles.

"We expect EA Mobile and Gameloft to bring a number of top-selling, award winning titles to our platform between our launch in September and the end of 2007," a statement on the blog reads. "They aren't the only ones, as throughout the year we will continue to make exciting announcements of other leading publishers adding their titles to our games catalogue."

The technology will be used in a series of phones rather than a single dedicated handset. According to the blog, the "biggest franchises and hottest mobile games" will be available by early next year.

Source:
GamesIndustry.biz

Sony Computer Entertainment's UK boss Ray Maguire, has attempted to explain the high price for the PlayStation 3 (PS3) console which will launch in Europe on March 23rd. Only the 60GB version of the console will be available and the UK price has been set at £425 (approx. $838). Needless to say, since the console costs $599 in the U.S., this has many gamers.

Speaking to the Guardian, Maguire cited several reasons for the decision to set the price that high. The high rate of value-added tax (17.5% in the UK), exchange rate considerations and higher salary payments to UK staff were all mentioned. He also said that UK retailers are taking a larger chunk than anywhere else in Europe, and that there generally is a higher cost of living.

"When businesses trade, they hedge. It depends what currency you're buying against. We don't buy anything in dollars, so the dollar can go up and down. If it were $1.40 to the pound as it was a while ago, then the PS3 would be a bargain compared to the US; if it's anything more than that, the UK price appears to be comparatively expensive. But we're dealing with euros and yen - it's about the relationship between those currencies." he said.

Broadcom has developed technology to integrates WiFi, Bluetooth and FM reception features into a single 65nm CMOS chip. This chip could help lower costs for manufacturers and ease on power usage, boosting battery life in mobile devices. Broadcom's technology is widely used in mobile phones, but is also used in some models of Apple's iPod.

"Our new Bluetooth, Wi-Fi and FM transceiver will help to drive this evolution and enhance devices like digital music players by dramatically reducing the cost and complexity of these key wireless technologies in innovative mobile devices," Broadcom's wireless connectivity chief Robert Rango said.

WiFi support would be present for 802.11 a/b/g and Bluetooth 2.0 support (upgradeable to 2.1) is included. The company said the chip uses up to 40% less power than competing solutions.

Source:
Betanews

With the PlayStation 3 (PS3) console set for Australia in March, Microsoft has decided to set a date to make its HD DVD add-on drive for the Xbox 360 console available in the region. It will be available one week after the launch of the PS3 console, on March 29th. At last report, Microsoft had sold 92,000 HD DVD add-ons for the Xbox 360 console since its launch in November.

In Australia, the add-on drive will cost A$249. The package will include a remote control and an HD DVD copy of Peter Jackson's King Kong. A Microsoft spokesperson said that by the time the drive for the Xbox 360 launches in Australia, there will be 40 HD DVD titles available there for it.

Source:
Gamespot

New Medium Enterprises, Inc. is set to offer up yet another disc format to the growing market for high definition video content. HD VMD is a red-laser based format that offers capacities of 9GB and 20GB (two layers and four layers respectively) and supports full 1080p HD content. Hardware players, authoring software and playback software are ready to be released.

One of the main aims of HD VMD is to immediately offer consumer high definition video content at prices similar to those of the DVD format now. The company also emphasized how the DVD format has proven the reliability of red-laser based media. HD VMD video supports MPEG-2, VC-1 and H.264.

HD VMD audio supports Dolby Digital, DTS, and PCM audio. It is a true high definition format with 1920 x 1080 progressive video with data transfer rates up to 40 Mbps. The AES encryption scheme is part of the device's content protection offerings.

Fujitsu announced the development of the MB86H50 IC last month, a chip which the company claims is capable of compressing and decompressing high definition video content in the H.264 video format in real-time. Other chips from competitors like Broadcom or Sigma Design are capable of decompression but are not capable of encoding H264 video. Fujitsu claims the chip is the "first large-scale IC" with the capability.

The chip, which is scheduled to be released in March 2007, is based on an H.264 processing algorithm developed by Fujitsu Laboratories. The IC is designed with Fujitsu's high-performance audio and video processing technology, and will be manufactured using the company's 90nm process technology.

The chip supports the H.264 High Profile, Level 4.0 which is used in video content for the next generation blue-laser optical disc formats. "The MB86H50 represents a major breakthrough in video processing, applying the highly efficient H.264 standard in high-profile applications for the first time," said Davy Yoshida, director of Business Development, Fujitsu Microelectronics America.

When the PlayStation 3 (PS3) console launches in Europe on March 23rd, the UK will have about 22% of the available stock, or about 220,000 units. All the units available will be the 60GB model, priced at £425 in the UK, with the cheaper 20GB model coming later on. The console is expected to sell out in the UK fast and at least one retailer is already using the PS3 in a bundle to eat from its demand.

"My overall number is a bit lower than it would be if I had a less well-established product. So we’re round about the 22 per cent mark which, if you divided that into the million would give you 220,000 units." Sony Computer Entertainment's UK managing director, Ray Maguire said.

The high price of the PS3 in the UK has already received a negative response from gamers. £425 is roughly US$838, while the same PS3 model sells in the United States for $599 (£304) and in Japan for ¥59,980 (£253). Ireland also has a higher price for the console, at about €629.99, which about US$816.

Source:
Pocket-Lint

Vivid Entertainment will not name the company it is partnered with to produce porn titles on Blu-ray. There are 8 companies worldwide that replicate Blu-ray discs, two controlled by Sony which has already stated it will not work with the adult entertainment industry. Five more of the companies have contracts to produce for Disney, and such are not able to work closely with any porn company.

This only leaves one more and Vivid co-chairman, Steven Hirsch, said the company will not name the partner and give rivals easy access to a company that was hard to find. Vivid is the only company in the adult industry that is actually going to use Blu-ray Disc, with everyone else opting to use the HD DVD format instead.

Vivid will release several titles on Blu-ray and monitor the sales, specifically against sales of porn in the HD DVD format. If sales are not strong enough, the company may abandon the format due to its high costs. "Blu-ray is extremely expensive to work with," said Hirsch. Authoring in Blu-ray is four times more expensive than HD DVD and three times more expensive than replicating HD DVD.

Online retailer DVD Empire has closed its games business and attacked the games industry in a statement revealing its reasons. "The video game industry only cares about mass merchandisers like Toys-R-Us, Wal-Mart, Best Buy, etc. They completely ignore the needs and wants of the medium to small game retailers," the statement reads. The retailer said that lack of price protection and unpredictable MSRP changes take smaller retailer out of the business.

The company said it is not big enough to return products and receives no compensation when there is a dramatic change to a product's Manufacturer's Standard Retail Price (MSRP), which they must observe. "If we buy a bad title, we are stuck on an industry-induced money losing ride through the land of price drops," it says.

The statement also says how it is too hard to compete with physical retailers when you are online. "Games bring in great foot traffic for physical retailers and they make money elsewhere. EB Games/Gamestop relies heavily on their used business. It is very difficult for online retailers to have an advantage, except for convenience." the statement reads.

The full statement is available at the DVD Empire site.

Dutch police have busted a 48 year old shop owner for selling counterfeit copies of music CDs and DVDs. The police found about 5200 illegal copies of content at a local music store in Delt. In a nearby store that the same man owned, they found a further 160 illegal copies and 1,300 DVDs at the man's house. Police has suspected that the man was involved with the large scale sale of counterfeit goods.

The police also found 400 illegal records (LP), 70 illegal tapes and six computers. The suspect had already been busted twice for piracy back in the 90s. He now risks a fine up to €670.000, 4 years in jail and may have to pay a Dutch anti-piracy foundation up to €3,000,000 after previously signing an agreement.

Source:
CDFreaks

If you are an iPod owner and plan to upgrade to Microsoft's latest operating system, Windows Vista, Apple Computer Inc. suggests you think otherwise due to some issues the iTunes software has with the new OS. Several report shave been coming in from users that mainly deal with problems playing purchased music, purchased TV shows, synchronizing address book contacts and slow response times.

Occasionally also, there has been reported corruption of connected iPods. Of course, not everybody has these problems, but Apple did warn users to wait until the company published a patch before upgrading to the new OS. "Although iTunes 7.0.2 may work with Windows Vista on many typical PCs, Apple is aware of some known compatibility issues and recommends that iTunes customers wait to upgrade to Windows Vista until after the next release of iTunes, which will be available in the next few weeks." said Apple spokesman Derick Mains at the time.

If you are planning to upgrade to Vista, then download the iTunes Repair Tool for Vista 1.0 from Apple.

Source:
Engadget

Rockstar has proven that Western developed games can be successful in the Japanese market. The infamous Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas has just been introduced to the Japanese market and immediately took the #1 spot in the charts. Published by Camcom in the territory, the title for the PlayStation 2 (PS2) platform sold an impressive 227,000 units in its first week.

In comparison, Gears of War entered the top ten last week in Japan, but immediately slid out of the top 50 this week. This can be explained by the poor performance of the Xbox 360 console in the territory. Namco's The Idol Master is the only title for the Xbox 360 in the top 20.

From Software's Enchanted Arms for the PlayStation 3 (PS3) console it as #29. Sony sold 19,996 PS3 units in Japan in the last 7 days, compared to 7360 Xbox 360 consoles. The PlayStation Portable (PSP) sold 35,700 units. Nintendo did extremely well with the DS moving 194,600 units in the last week, and the Wii moving 83,750 units.

Source:
GamesIndustry.biz

According to figures from Nielsen VideoScan, the Blu-ray Disc format may be catching up with its competitor, HD DVD, in terms of movie sales. Ever since both formats launched, the HD DVD format has held a clear lead in many aspects, but in January, Blu-Ray started to quickly close the gap. In the first week of January, Blu-ray movies outsold HD DVD by a ratio of 2 to 1, and the following week was 3 to 1.

At the end of 2006, only 695,000 consumers owned a player for either format, which split in to 270,000 HD DVD players and 425,000 Blu-ray players. The majority of Blu-ray players are PS3's; only 25,000 Blu-ray stand-alones were sold in 2006. As for HD DVD figures, half of them are Xbox 360 add-ons.

It isn't clear whether the boost for Blu-ray was the initial rush to "check it out" from gamers with new PS3s, or the fact that HD DVD had no new title releases over the period. HD DVD still seems to have more titles available for purchase than Blu-ray right now.

Source:
Ars Technica

The lawsuit against Apple Computer Inc., filed by Cisco Systems over the use of the "iPhone" trademark as been temporarily suspended in hopes that companies can come to an agreement. The lawsuit has not been withdrawn but the two firms have launched talks aimed at "reaching agreement on trademark rights and interoperability".

Cisco immediately sued Apple for trademark violations when the iPhone was introduced in San Francisco in January. The device will be available to purchase in June. Initially Cisco senior VP Mark Chandler said: "There is no doubt that Apple's new phone is very exciting, but they should not be using our trademark without our permission."

Apple had responded to the lawsuit by calling it "silly", adding that Cisco's trademark registration was "tenuous at best." "There are already several companies using the name iPhone for Voice Over Internet Protocol (VOIP) products," said Apple spokesman Alan Hely said at the time. "We are the first company to ever use the iPhone name for a cell phone, and if Cisco wants to challenge us on it we are very confident we will prevail."

However now both companies have released a statement that reads "Apple and Cisco have agreed to extend the time for Apple to respond to the lawsuit to allow for discussions between the companies with the aim of reaching agreement on trademark rights and interoperability."

Electronics Arts (EA) is the biggest publisher for Xbox 360, PlayStation 3 (PS3), PlayStation 2 (PS2), Xbox, PC and PSP in North America and Europe. Now the company has announced it will target Nintendo to boost up its growth. EA recently revealed revenues totaling $1.281 billion. The company will now focus a lot of effort on Nintendo's Wii console and the DS handheld device.

"We have shifted and acquired resources and are attacking these successful platforms," commented CFO Warren Jenson. "In short, we're on it." The publisher revealed it has has 15 SKUs in development for Nintendo formats. However, EA CEO Larry Probst admitted that stealing the #1 spot for Nintendo formats from Nintendo itself might not be possible, but that the company will settle for number 2.

"On the Nintendo platforms, we think that we can be very a strong number two," he said. "Clearly, Nintendo will always be number one on the Wii and DS, but we think we have a realistic goal of being number two, with a market share goal of 15-20 per cent."

Source:
GamesIndustry.biz

Disney has sold 1.3 million movie downloads on the iTunes music service in the three months on the service according to Chief Executive Officer, Bob Iger. He said that the company saw solid sales from the service in the first few weeks, which then skyrocketed and pushed passed the 1 million sales point over the holidays. The movies that brought the success were Pirates of the Caribbean and Cars.

Iger said that both movies also did well on DVD, actually exceeding the expectations of the company. "We believe the pie is getting bigger," he said, emphasizing that strong sales of either title didn't cut into DVD sales as many content providers fear will happen to them. Paramount also joined up with iTunes earlier this year.

The new studio added to the service boosted the titles on offer from 100 to 250, which is still very low in comparison to rival services. Some Hollywood studios wont join up because of Apple's DRM. One studio executive said "Apple's user rules just scare the heck out of us", since the DRM allows users to authorize up to 5 separate computers (unlimited for iPod) with unlimited playthroughs.

Viacom Inc. which owns MTV Networks and BET, has demanded that YouTube removes all clips owned by the company since both sides failed to reach an agreement. All of Viacom's properties account for about 100,000 videos on Google's YouTube service, and the corporation wants it all removed. According to Viacom, an outside consultant studies YouTube and found that its programs on the site have generated "about 1.2 billion video streams."

YouTube faces some tough times in the coming years as it tries to reach agreements with content providers to allow content to remain on the site. It also plans to launch a feature to share advertising revenue between the site and video uploaders.

Source:
Reuters

HMV's online store in the UK is taking pre-orders for the PlayStation 3 (PS3) console, but one condition will probably cause outrage amongst those looking to get a PS3 at launch. You "can" pre-order a PS3 - but only one bundled with a Sony PlayStation Portable (PSP), bringing the total cost of the bundle to a whopping £675 (€1024 or $1327). The bundle also includes Gangs of London and Killzone Liberation.

"At HMV.co.uk, we've been working with Sony to offer up to 5000 customers an incredible deal when you buy the new Sony 4GB PSP." an email sent out to customers reads. "Anyone who takes advantage of this offer will get priority over other HMV.co.uk customers for the PlayStation 3."

However, there are no "other customers" as he email also states, "PlayStation 3 solus console is currently unavailable to order from HMV.co.uk by itself, and we kindly ask customers not to contact us with regards to this." Additionally, if you are going to go for this "deal", there are no assurances you will actually receive a PS3 at launch.

"Delivery of any PS3 is subject to Sony's delivery to HMV Guernsey. Accordingly, HMV cannot guarantee that registration on the Priority List means that you will receive your PS3 on the estimated release date, nor that your order will be fulfilled within any given time frame." the email reads.

Gad Zamir, 64, was arrested for allegedly making counterfeit copies of products from companies like Microsoft and Adobe and selling them for a fraction of retail price. The Riverside Country Sherrif's department made the arrest public. Authorities armed with a search warrant found $13,000 in cash, $283,000 worth of counterfeit software and 15 computers.

The arrest stemmed from an eight month long investigation. As an example of what he charged, he sold Microsoft Server SQL 2000 Enterprise for $7,750 when it was released, which was 31% of the $25,000 retail price. He sold Adobe Photoshop Creative Suite 2 for $280, compared against its $500 retail price.

Since 2000, this practice made Zamir about $750,000. He sold the counterfeit software with illegitimate serial numbers over popular online auction sites.

Source:
The Register

During Bill Gates' tour to promote the recently launched Windows Vista operating system, Romanian President Traian Basescu reportedly told Gates about how piracy helped his country. Appearing at the opening of a Microsoft global technology center in Bucharest, he said, "Piracy helped the young generation discover computers. It set off the development of the IT industry in Romania."

"Piracy helped Romanians improve their creative capacity in the IT industry, which has become famous around the world... ten years ago, it was an investment in Romania's friendship with Microsoft and with Bill Gates," he added. There is no reported response from Bill Gates over the comments.

Microsoft aggressively pursues piracy and discourages it on a global scale, regardless of location. Of all the software in Romania, the Business Software Alliance (BSA) claims that 72% is actually pirated, estimating it costs companies like Microsoft $111 million in revenue each year.

Source:
The Register

France has moved to encourage the development of video games in the country by offering tax credits to companies, the Ministry of Culture said on Thursday. The French parliament approved the measure, which would offer tax credits to developers of games with a cultural dimension to finance 20% of a company's production costs to a maximum of €3 million per year.

The ministry said the move was an attempt to keep video game development going in France after the recognition that it had growing cultural importance. Over 15 milliuon people in the country regularly play games. "It recognizes the cultural character of the video game, which involves several branches of artistic talent: writers, directors, graphic artists, musical and sound creators," the Ministry's statement said.

It noted that the European Commission had begun a formal examination of the proposed measure.

Source:
Reuters

It seems that Sony Corp. and Nintendo are really bringing the console war to life with words being exchanged about each others consoles and sales performance. Sony Computer Entertainment of America spokesperson Dave Karraker said that 100,000 PS3 units are reaching North America each week and are selling out, but admitted that demand for the console has fallen since the holidays.

When he compared the PS3 to the Wii, he claimed the PS3 is so powerful in comparison, that it shouldn't even be in the same category. "Wii could be considered an impulse buy more than anything else," he said. While the Wii shortage continues, there are still reports of PS3s being readily available for purchase in many areas of the U.S.

In response to this, Sony has claimed that there only appears to be excessive demand for the Wii because Nintendo is shipping less stock. "That's absolutely inaccurate," Nintendo of America's vice president of marketing, Perrin Kaplan said, going further to say the company is shipping at least the same amount of units as Sony.

The New York Times also quotes company officials as saying that 1 million Wii units are shipped worldwide per month, with over half of those going to North America.

Sony Corporation senior VP Takao Yuhara, has hinted that the company may reduce the price of the PS3 console by April next year in an effort to reduce the company's losses. Sony's gaming devision lost €343 million in the last quarter of 2006. Yurhara told the News York Times that the company hopes the division will stop making losses by 2008.

He said that "such factors, including price cuts to some extent, are factored in" to break even .When asked for further details he denied giving any specifics but did say, "We may look at the price as part of our strategy to expand the market when the time is right."

He also warned that Sony's operating loss for this financial year could exceed the expected ¥200 billion.

Source:
GamesIndustry.biz