Silicon Image has announced that CeRoma, a leading manufacturer and designer of system-on-a-chip (SoC) for digital video broadcasting has decided to integrate a new Multistandard High-Definition Video Decoder (MSVD-HD) IP core in a chip for set-top boxes and DTVs.
Silicon Image boasts that the MSVD-HD is currently the only IP core that can decode a1080p at 60 FPS "video stream at low clock speeds."
“The MSVD-HD IP core is capable of decoding two different HD video streams concurrently, so now, only one IP core is required in the set-top-box, video player or digital TV SoC,” said Ron Richter, director of HDMI IP Products at Silicon Image. “Silicon Image can now provide semiconductor companies with immediate access to the latest video standards using our MSVD-HD IP core technology, enabling quick time-to-market, low-cost and low-power implementations.”
The MSVD-HD IP core has very low power consumption and has an integrated solution for current HD video decoding standards, namely H.264, MPEG-2 and VC-1.
“We chose Silicon Image’s MSVD-HD core for a number of reasons – its Full HD video and content capabilities, the smallest gate-count, and extremely low frequencies,” said Uri Avimor, vice president of research and development with CeRoma. “More importantly, integrating this IP core into our library will allow CeRoma to develop the most advanced set-top box and DTV products, while providing a very quick time-to-market delivery at attractive low costs.”
Apple Inc. has fixed more serious security bugs with QuickTime. This time, users tricked into visited malicious webpages could either have their privacy breached or worse, have arbitrary code executed on their computers. The patches released are for both Microsoft's Windows operating systems and the Mac platforms.
The worst of the two involved QuickTime's implementation of Java, which could allow for the manipulation of objects outside what should be allowed by the allocated heap. "By enticing a user to visit a web page containing a maliciously crafted Java applet, an attacker can trigger the issue which may lead to arbitrary code execution," Apple said in this advisory.
The second flaw deals also deals with how QuickTime works with Java, and can lead to a user's web browser information being stolen, possibly putting sensitive information at risk. Apple gave credit to John McDonald, Paul Griswold, and Tom Cross of IBM Internet Security Systems X-Force and Dyon Balding of Secunia Research for reporting the flaws.
Yesterday, PayPlay launched "the world's largest MP3 download store", a legal music download store that will sell over 1.3 million indie music tracks and includes a nice integrated search engine that allows users to search for their favorite artists or compare similar artists.
Before the announcement, PayPlay sold DRM-crippled WMAs for $0.77. The new store will offer DRM-free 192kbps MP3s for $0.88. The company says the added price is a reflection of the "cost of retooling to host MP3s instead of WMAs."
Many of the artists are unknown to most consumers so the recommendation system is the key to the new service. It does comparisons to some of the more known artists such as the Talking Heads.
Another good thing that comes out of the new service is the way the artists get paid. Artists recive an average of $0.59 per track, which is huge when compared to iTunes, who gives artists 7 percent.
We already reported that Apple Inc.'s iTunes is now selling DRM-less versions of EMI's catalog of music (and briefly mentioned the subject at hand). However, there is a slight difference between the DRM-free downloads from iTunes and the MP3 files spread across P2P networks. Apple has decided, for security reasons (and perhaps too quietly), to embed a user's name and account email into every DRM-free download.
Of course, this was a bit of a "shocking" detail for many. However, it does serve as a reminder that the downloads are sold without restrictions so the user can do what he/she wants with it for personal use, not share it with the world through every P2P network available. This issue is still gaining a lot of attention however, as one could interpret it as an attempt to weed out file sharers quietly.
Sharing these files on a P2P network will no doubt land you with legal problems eventually, so don't do it. All in all, this doesn't take away the fact that it's a big step for the music download business and paying customers who now don't have to suffer horrible DRM restrictions.
Warner Music Group has announced plans to launch its video archive online free to fans. The label, which is home to Madonna and the Red Hot Chili Peppers will work with digital services provider Premium TV to develop "digital hubs" (online TV sites) that are organized by genre, label or artist. They will be funded primarily by advertising. Music companies are looking for ways to generate revenue while the demand for video content online continues to rise.
Warner said the platforms would show previously unseen footage and would eventually be available in different languages. While advertising will drive revenue, users can also download videos for an additional fee. "This major new proposition in online TV represents a key step in our continued transformation,"Patrick Vien, chairman and chief executive of Warner Music International said.
He added: "These unique digital hubs will further enable us to monetize our content across the myriad of ever-developing ways that people enjoy music."
Universal Studios will stand by the HD DVD disc format according to Ken Graffeo, Executive Vice President, Marketing, Universal Studios Home Entertainment (USHE). Graffeo said Universal is committed to supporting the HD DVD format exclusively, being the only studio to do so. He said that he believes the format war between HD DVD and Blu-ray Disc is ultimately good for consumers in the long run.
"A little over a year ago, the least expensive HD-DVD player was $799. Now, with Toshiba's current rebate promotion, you can get an HD-DVD player for as little as $299....On the Blu-Ray side, the players started at $1,000 to $1,800 at the end of (2006) and this summer will be down to $599 with new models from Sony and Panasonic. It's the format war that's driving pricing down at such a dramatic, accelerated rate," Graffeo told the Philadelphia Daily News.
Many Industry officials and retailers would not agree with his views. They believe that the format war is confusing for consumers and is keeping the sales of players and HD films lower than they should be. Graffeo said that Universal supports HD DVD because it offers the, "better set of mandatory specifications", and every HD DVD player comes with an Ethernet port and has the software to support interactive features.
RealNetworks announced on Thursday that its new version of its digital media player will allow users to save video from websites such as YouTube. A "Download this video" will hover next to videos seen on thousands of websites allowing users to save them for viewing later or even to be stored on DVD. This comes as many companies are developing solutions to bring Internet video to television screens.
Consumers can download multiple videos simultaneously, including videos in the Flash, Windows Media, and QuickTime formats. As with other companies that have offered features like this, RealNetworks will now be part of the copyright debate with regard to unauthorized uploading of videos on YouTube and similar sites.
"The technology we have enabled is for personal use, and that is within copyright laws," said RealNetworks General Manager Ben Rotholtz. "But we honor any copy protection." The company said its software is downloaded about 1.5 million times daily.
A few weeks back, Microsoft began banning modded Xbox 360s from Xbox Live and many users learned this the hard way.
However, the modding community has quickly come back and released a new firmware that according to Xbox-Scene, will allow you to play your modded systems on XBL.
The new firmware will work on any console that has the TS-H943 DVD drive and will prevent any Xbox Live detection attempts while allowing you to play your "backup" games.
Here are the details on the new firmware, according to Xbox-Scene:
iXtreme firmware 1.0 for TS-H943 Xbox 360
>> A new firmware replacement for the TS-H943 xbox360 drive
Features
(v1.0) Defeats all current and some future Xbox Live detection attempts
(v1.0) Boots ONLY Stealth Xtreme Xbox 360 backups
(v1.0) Boots ONLY Stealth Xtreme Xbox 1 backups
(v1.0) Boots all Xbox 360 originals
(v1.0) Boots all Xbox 1 originals on Xbox 360
Use on Xbox Live at own risk!!
Thanks to everyone on #FW, Xboxhacker.net , Xbox-Scene.com, Maxconsole.com and Xbins.Org for their support. Keep up the good work everyone.
If you prefer to use Xbox Boot Maker,grab the updated definitions here
One week into Toshiba's month-long HD DVD promotion, the manufacturer is reporting extremely strong sales, including 5 to 10-fold increases at a few retail outlets.
A couple weeks ago, we reported that Toshiba was starting the promotion and offering a $100 rebate with its HD-A2 model, dropping the price of the unit to $299 after rebate. Amazon began selling the unit at a price of $238 after rebate and the player almost immediately jumped to the top of Amazon's hottest selling DVD players.
Jodi Sally, VP of marketing for Toshiba had this to say during an interview, "We’re thrilled to see that consumers are, by far, choosing Toshiba’s HD DVD players as their source for high-definition."
According to Toshiba, starting June 10th, the $100 rebate will be extended to all of Toshiba's HD DVD players.
This morning, Google announced that it had signed a deal with EMI that would allow users of the gigantic social video site YouTube to view videos and other content from the label's artists. The deal would also allow for users to use portions of the artist's videos in their own content.
The agreement now means that YouTube has distribution deals with all four of the major worldwide labels. "We're excited to add EMI Music's stellar roster of artists' content to our site and make it available to our community," YouTube CEO and co-founder Chad Hurley said in a statement.
The deal does more to protect YouTube from future lawsuits brought by content porviders and copyright holders. Recently, YouTube was sued by Viacom which is hoping for $1 billion USD in damages over the use of copyrighted content on the site.
The International Federation of the Phonographic Industry (IFPI) has published today an article, titled, "Ten inconvenient truths about the music industry today". It is simply a list of 10 "truths" related to music piracy internationally with some familiar names. The title of the report is no doubt aimed at grabbing media attention, but a bad attempt at putting the damage of music piracy on the same level as the other topic "inconvenient truth" is associated with, Climate Change (if that was the aim of the IFPI).
So what are these ten truths?....
Pirate Bay, one of the flagships of the anti-copyright movement, makes thousands of euros from advertising on its site, while maintaining its anti-establishment "free music" rhetoric.
Allofmp3.com, the well-known Russian website, has not been licensed by a single IFPI member, has been disowned by right holder groups worldwide and is facing criminal proceedings in Russia.
Organised criminal gangs and even terrorist groups use the sale of counterfeit CDs to raise revenue and launder money.
Illegal file-sharers don’t care whether the copyright infringing work they distribute is from a major or independent label.
Reduced revenues for record companies mean less money available to take a risk on "underground" artists and more inclination to invest in "bankers" like American Idol stars.
ISPs often advertise music as a benefit of signing up to their service, but facilitate the illegal swapping on copyright infringing music on a grand scale.
The anti-copyright movement does not create jobs, exports, tax revenues and economic growth – it largely consists of people pontificating on a commercial world about which they know little.
Piracy is not caused by poverty. Professor Zhang of Nanjing University found the Chinese citizens who bought pirate products were mainly middle or higher income earners.
Most people know it is wrong to file-share copyright infringing material but won't stop till the law makes them, according to a recent study by the Australian anti-piracy group MIPI.
P2P networks are not hotbeds for discovering new music. It is popular music that is illegally file-shared most frequently.
It's not at all surprising that the Pirate Bay and AllofMP3 made the top 2. However, there is a real "inconvenient truth" here to deal with; both sites are still online. The reason for this is that neither service is considered illegal in either country (Sweden and Russia) and both claim that no laws are broken.
Apple Inc. and Google Inc. have worked together again to bring videos from the mega-popular YouTube to the TV screen via Apple TV. By mid-June, thousands of the most popular videos on the service will be viewable through an Apple TV device over a wireless network. The full archive of videos on YouTube will be available later in the year, according to Apple.
Of course, this sounds alarm bells for Apple becoming involved in copyright infringement problems currently being experienced by YouTube. Viacom Inc., which is currently suing Google/YouTube for $1 billion, said it would consider licensing its content to Apple. "We're always vigilant about protecting our copyrights. But we would welcome the opportunity to license our content to Apple as we do with all distributors," a Viacom spokesman said.
Apple TV will allow users to sign into their YouTube accounts to search and save videos. Apple will also start selling a new model of its Apple TV, with a 160GB hard disk drive, advertised as capable of storing 200 hours of video, 36,000 songs or 25,000 photos. An Apple TV costs $299. The larger model will cost $399, and will be available on Thursday.
Situations like this have arisen a few times and it's always horrible to read or write about such tragedies. The family of an Illinois child who died in a house fire has filed a lawsuit against Microsoft Corp., claiming that a faulty Xbox 360 console was responsible. According to the lawsuit, the family is blaming the wiring between the console and an electrical outlet for starting the catastrophic fire by overheating considerably.
The lawsuit says the fire was a, "direct and proximate result of the overheating of the game's power supply and wiring". Wal-Mart and unnamed power-supply maker have been named in the lawsuit. However, it does appear that a mistake has been made somewhere, as the fire took place in December 2004, while the Xbox 360 launched in 2005.
However, before clearing Microsoft products of any blame, remember that Microsoft issued a recall for 14 million Xbox power cords in February 2005, citing fire concerns. Perhaps the lawsuit simply got the console name wrong. Whatever happened, it is a terrible tragedy. Wade Kline's family is seeking 'unspecified damages' in excess of $50,000.
YouTube has just been unbanned by the Moroccan government after citizens were unable to access the popular video-sharing website, owned by Google, for about five days. The site reportedly was unavailable in the country from May 25th after videos were posted by the Western Saharan independence movement that showed Moroccan police beating female independence protesters.
Many videos with different political views on the country are available on YouTube, some calling for independence and others calling for continued violence against protests. The country's King is also mocked in many of the videos. Maroc Telecom, owned by the Government, claimed that the site was unavailable due to a "tecnical fault" however.
Many have been left asking how exactly a technical fault would leave just one website inaccessible for five straight days. It is fairly clear to the people that the site was banned due to the videos. Reporters San Frontieres welcomed the change of heart from the government.
CBS Corp announced on Wednesday that it has bought Last.fm, a social networking site constantly growing in popularity, in a deal worth $280 million. CBS said the service has over 15 million active users in more than 200 different countries and will fit well with its aim of attracting younger viewers. As part of the deal, the Last.fm team will continue to run the service work with CBS and will apply their community-building and technology expertise to extend CBS businesses online.
Last.fm's music recommendation system has been particularly successful. The site monitors music habits of its users and automatically recommends music from users that have similar tastes. It has stuck content deals with Warner Music Group and EMI Group to use their music catalogs. The service originally launched in 2002.
"Last.fm is one of the most well-established, fastest-growing online community networks out there,"Leslie Moonves, President and Chief executive of CBS said. "Their demographics play perfectly to CBS's goal to attract younger viewers and listeners across our businesses. Last.fm adds a terrific interactive extension to all of our properties and also is a huge step in CBS Corporation's overall strategy of expanding our reach online to transition from a content company into an audience company."
An update has been released for TVersity, the software which allows you to share (and transcode on-the-fly if necessary) multimedia content between your PC and many home devices including a PlayStation Portable, Wii, PlayStation 3 or Xbox 360. The update supports the Sony PS3 firmware 1.8 update. Internet Radio now works with the PS3 and problems with green bars and distorted colours have been fixed.
For the Xbox 360, TVersity can now produce WMV7 or WMV8 or WMV9 or MSMPEG4V3 (have to edit the wmProfile variable in config.xml to one of wmv7, wmv8, wmv9, mp43). You can also now choose between transcoding to WMV using DirectShow or ffmpeg. For now, only producing WMV8 can be done with the ffmpeg option. There have also been some improvements while used with a Wii and more general bug fixes.
Here is the changelog...
Support the Sony PS3 firmware 1.8 - From firmware 1.8 there is no need to use the Adobe Flash interface for the PS3 (it is still the only way to stream media to the Nintendo Wii). You can now access your entire audio, photo and video collection from the PS3 Dashboard, including Internet Radio/TV, RSS feeds and more. The changes from the previously released patch are:
Internet radio now works on the PS3. First playback attempt is likely to fail with an “Access to the media server has been denied” message (or “unsupported data” message), this is because the PS3 does not wait long enough for the data to be fetched over the Internet. After this failure, wait a few seconds and try playing this same station again. Assuming a connection to that station was possible, there won’t be an error message, however the actual playback may take up to two minutes and more to start since the PS3 requires about 1 MB of data before it initiates playback.
Internet video and transcoded content starts playing faster than it used to (saving about 5 seconds).
Library refresh is now reflected on the PS3 and on any other device that checks the media server for updates (leaving a folder that has updates and then going back to it is required in order to see the changes).
When moving from one Internet video to another, previously the older video was not always terminated, this is now fixed.
Issues with green bars or distorted colors when playing via PS3 were resolved.
The TVersity icon is now shown by the Ps3.
Support the Xbox 360 spring update This includes hierarchical video browsing and native playback of MPEG4 (including H.264 and AAC). Changes from the previously released patch are:
TVersity can now produce WMV7 or WMV8 or WMV9 or MSMPEG4V3 once can switch between them by seting the wmProfile variable in config.xml to one of wmv7, wmv8, wmv9, mp43.
TVersity can now Encode to WMV in two methods, the first is via directshow (which always existed and still is the default) and the second is via ffmpeg. While for now only wmv8 can be produced via ffmpeg, it is slightly faster than directshow and hence it may prove beneficial in certain cases.
Conversion to WMV of MJPEG with mono audio no longer fails.
Improved Adobe flash library interface (for Nintendo Wii or any web browser with support for Flash 7 or higher)
Solve the occasional interface locks during browsing.
Add a download button that is more accessible and does not require any menu selection, but rather considers the currently selected profile.
More reliably termintate previously played Internet streamed when moving to new ones.
Stop playing current media when the GUI is minimized to the tray icon.
Other fixes and improvements
Reading tags from AVI files is now turned off by default. It can be turned on by setting the readAVITags variable in config.xml.
The TVersity service is now starting more reliably during a reboot, waiting, if necessary, for the networking to finish initializing, instead of quitting if it is not already initialized when Tversity is started.
Correctly detect some cases where transcoding is not needed, and were mistakenly transcoded in the past.
Do not block every URL with two consecutive dot characters, but rather check if the canonical path is shared or not and based on this determine if to allow ot deny access to it. This solves some playlist related playback issues.
The device selection menu in the settings tab of the GUI, has now a scrollbar.
Fix image browsing for the DirectTV HR20.
Faster response time when searching the media library.
LG Electronics has launched its first DVD writer equipped with SecurDisc technology for data protection. The Super Multi Security drive has been launched in the UK and is available (internal drive) from PC World. The SecurDisc technology is licensed for use by Nero and HL Data Storage. It allows users to add layers of security to the disc including password protection, digital signatures and protection against duplication.
Password will have a minimum length of 16 characters and hope to prevent unauthorized access to the data. Each disc is encrypted with a unique identity to assure the recipient of the authenticity and integrity of the disc. Any disc with this function enabled with be protected against copying. A viewing application is required for the data.
To protect against data loss, data is duplicated in any spare space on a disc, improving chances of recovery if the disc gets damaged. "Most companies keep sensitive personal and business information in their files and on their computers, information such as names, financial details and intellectual property, but if this data falls into the wrong hands, it can lead to fraud or identity theft", said Suan Choi, product manager for LG Electronics.
Yesterday, the electronics giant LG patented a washing machine that can play MP3s.
Now, families around the country can enjoy their favorite tunes and wash their dirty laundry with the same machine, which I'm sure has been the dream of many.
As LG describes their invention, "The washing device comprises: an input/output terminal for physically connecting the washing device with the MP3 player for data communication with the MP3 player; a connector for physically connecting the washing device with the MP3 player to receive an audio signal outputted from the MP3 player; a key input unit for inputting washing or drying mode conditions and a control command for the MP3 player from a user; a display unit for displaying information regarding an operation of a washing or drying mode and information regarding an operation of the MP3 player; an audio output unit for outputting a mode state in the form of an audio signal and the audio signal from the MP3 player received through the connector; and a controller for, in response to a control of the user through the key input unit, controlling the operation of the washing or drying mode, and controlling the operation of the MP3 player by performing the data communication with the MP3 player through the input/output terminal."
This morning, Apple announced the launch of iTunes U as its own dedicated area of the bigger iTunes store. iTunes U offerss free content from leading US colleges and universities including Stanford University, U.C. Berkeley, Duke and MIT.
"It's just an amazing way for lifelong learners to get more material," said Chris Bell, Apple's director of worldwide marketing for iTunes. "This really opens up the world of digitial education."
iTunes U was created to make it easier for colleges and universities to post audio and video content online and has come a long way. Students can download the content to Macs and PCs and then can choose to sync it to their iPods.
Until today, iTunes U content had been available only on a need to know basis and you needed to know the specific URL in order to view the content. Today's announcement opens the doors to to all iTune Store users.
Some of the content includes lectures, language lessons, lab demonstrations, sports highlights and campus tours.
Last week, US and South Korean officials released the text of the Free Trade Agreement between the two countries. Of course, the agreement contained stong language about intellectual property rights and its enforcement.
Now that the pact is signed Korean P2P users can prepare for stronger enforcement. There will be a new "joint investigation team" that is on notice to operate at the request of any copyright holder and which can shut down any website that "permits the unauthorized reproduction, distribution, or transmission of copyright work."
In their end of the agreement the Korean government pledged to provide "more effective enforcement of intellectual property rights on the Internet" and said it would target P2P networks and services.
South Korea also pledged to give added authority to the "joint investigation team" that would allow it to "take criminal action for online piracy".
Korean and American groups such as the EFF have shown opposition to the new deal because of some of the wording. Reading the agreement suggests that there is a possibility that sites with legitimate uses could be targeted even if 99% percent of their content is legal.
The US software company Beatnik has begun approaching mobile phone operators with a new music download system that they say can compress songs up to 10 times better than the MP3 format. The new software would allow for much faster downloads on lower-end phones, says the company.
Most music download services are only available to users with more expensive smartphones using 3G networks, which have significanty higher download speeds than GPRS, said Jeremy Copp, chief sales officer for Beatnik.
Copp added that the software compresses songs by "taking common elements or repeated sounds and only replicating them once in the compressed file." The music player on the phone would then be able to recreate the sounds in the right place during playback. The smaller file size would also for much quicker downloads over the same bandwith and could allow users to listen to the song even as the rest is downloading.
Beatnik hopes the new system will make music download services more appealing in developing and 3rd world nations, such as countries in South America and India and Pakistan where most users havent upgraded to 3G or can only afford cheaper phones.
Compared to the broadband service offered by 3G networks, "There's still a huge proportion of the market that doesn't have access to that kind of bandwidth," Copp noted.
After announcing last month that they would be launching EMI's full catalogue DRM-free on their iTunes platform, Apple finally announced that they had made good on their promise and iTunes Plus was launched this morning.
The tracks are in AAC form, DRM-free and encoded at 256kpbs, but will cost $1.29, a 30 cent premium over all DRM infested tracks.
User can choose to upgrade their old DRM versions of the track to the new DRM-free version for 30 cents as well so they do not need to purchase the song all over again.
There will still be the option however, to purcahse EMI's tracks with DRM and encoded at 128kbps for the original 99 cents. Apple CEO Steve Jobs noted that he hopes to have 50 percent of Apple's catalogue DRM-free by the end of 2007. This follows statements made by Jobs that DRM did nothing to prevent piracy.
"This is a tremendous milestone for digital music," said Eric Nicoli, CEO of EMI Group. "Consumers are going to love listening to higher quality iTunes Plus tracks from their favorite EMI artists with no usage restrictions."
However, if you are planning to download the new DRM-free music and share over P2P networks, forget about it. All files you download are embedded with your name and email address, which will definetely come back to haunt you if you were to get caught illegally uploading the new songs.
The closely followed court case in Finland that will ultimately decide whether DVD movies can be legally copied for personal use or not, is heading to the Finnish Appeals Court.
Last week, Helsinki District Court sent shockwaves through the media industry in Finland and across the EU by ruling that the CSS encryption mechanism found on virtually all commercial DVD-Video discs can be cracked legally. The ruling stated that CSS cannot be described as "efficient copy protection mechanism" due the widespread availability of tools that allow cracking it. Finnish legislation, which is based on European Union Copyright Directive, clearly states that cracking "efficient" copy protection mechanism is illegal.
Now, the prosecutor in the case has announced that she will bring it to the appeals court. This will mean that the case will be postponed by several months. If the appeals court decides not to alter district court's decision, the prosecutor can still ask the Supreme Court to overturn the original ruling.
A Tokyo district court has found that a service allowing users to store their music online was infringing copyright. Image City allowed users to store their music from CDs on an off-site server, allowing them to later download them to mobile phones while on-the-go. The Japanese music copyright association (JASRAC) attacked the service and claimed it was obviously infringing copyrights.
JASRAC demanded that the service be taken offline. Image City denied any wrong doing, saying that the music stored on its servers was owned by the customer that uploaded it. The company believed that since users and the company were not copying the music for other people's use, they were essentially doing nothing wrong.
The Judge disagreed and ruled in favor of the Japanese music copyright association.
Right now, having a TV that is capable of 1080p is what many people are after due to its sharp and clear quality while playing back Full HD content. While most people generally don't have a HDTV, Japan's public broadcaster Nippon Hoso Kyokai (NHK) is already developing what it hopes will serve as successor to HDTV. Super-Hi-Vision (SHV) is what the company has come up with.
Many of you have already seen details on its development (remember UHDV?). An SHV image has an astonishing resolution of 4,320 horizontal lines and 7,680 vertical lines (7680x4320). If you have an excellent working brain and have not already seen these figures, you might have noticed they are exactly 4 times that of whats considered Full HD, 1920x1080. Speaking in terms of pixels, it has 16 times the number of pixels compared to Full HD.
NHK demonstrated some important developments in its research on Friday, including a new image sensor for use in TV cameras that can shoot an entire SHV screen. NHK demonstrated capturing an entire SHV screen with a single sensor. A scene was setup about 3 meters away which included a newspaper. On a monitor displaying the image, the newspaper stories could be read easily, a task that would be very difficult with today's high definition systems.
Sony Corp. has announced it will begin offering HD Radio products in July this year. According to the HD Digital Radio Alliance, more than 1200 radio stations in the U.S. have adopted the technology, which allows them to deliver extra music content on up to four side channels that piggyback on the frequency it already uses.
For the end-user, a special radio receiver is needed to tune in. HD Radio also boasts improved sound quality. About 50 models are available already, made for home audio equipment and car stereos. "Digital terrestrial radio is the last frontier in audio," said Andrew Sivori, a senior product marketing manager at Sony's personal audio division.
He added: "And it's coming to price points that are becoming more reasonable for consumers." Sony will offer XDR-S3HD, a $200 tabletop AM/FM/HD radio, and the XT-100HD, which is a $100 tuner module for vehicles that will work with most Sony car stereo units. The first products debuted more than two years ago with price tags around $800. With significantly lower prices, the HD Digital Radio Alliance expects more than 1.5 million HD Radio devices to be sold in 2007.
Online retailer CD WOW! has been ordered to pay £41 million in damages to the British Phonographic Industry (BPI), the largest damages award ever made in favor of the BPI. CD WOW found trouble with the music industry long ago by importing music CDs and DVDs from outside the European Economic Area (which were licensed for sale and distribution in other territories) and had a reputation for selling products for much cheaper when compared to retail stores in the United Kingdom.
BPI Chief Executive Geoff Taylor said...
"CD Wow has been undermining the legitimate businesses of UK retailers and record companies by continuing to import CDs and music DVDs illegally from Asia, despite having given court undertakings that it would stop doing so.
Illegal imports of this kind undermine the huge investments made by businesses here in homegrown musical talent. This ruling illustrates the lengths that the rogue retailer went to flout the law and maximize its profits at the expense of British musicians and record companies supporting them. CD Wow is no consumer champion; it is a rogue trader that now has to face the consequences of its actions.
We have an extremely competitive record industry and retail sector here in the UK, and at an average price of around £8.50, CDs are better value than ever.The vibrancy of British music depends on a fair return on the investments that allow British talent to shine. This decision is an important step in ensuring that British music has a bright future."
The BPI has already begun taking steps to enforce the damages award, having obtained a freezing order on the retailer's Hong Kong bank accounts and assets. It is recognized that enforcement of the award will be time-consuming and complex given that the company's assets are located in a number of jurisdictions.
Yesterday, we reported that Robbie Bach, the head of Microsoft Entertainment had said that over one million Zune units had been sold , beating company expectations.
Today however, Microsoft says it was misquoted and that have not yet reached one million sold although they are on track to hit that mark by the end of June.
Cesar Menendez, a product manager for Zune, made the restatement but did add that "we've achieved our goal of being the number 2 player in the hard-drive category."
The player holds a decent 10 percent market share of the HDD based music player market but only a 3 percent overall market share.
During the same period, Apple has sold about 25 million iPods but nevertheless, Microsoft is happy about their progress.
Robbie Bach said reaching the milestone was "a good start," but also added, "I'm not going to pretend it's some gigantic move."
Late last year, Toshiba launched its Gigabeat V pvp with a 3.5" screen and in 30GB and 60GB capacities. Today, it was announced the the company plans to revamp the line and offer new players with added improvements in hopes to add market share.
The new Gigabeat V will be available in 40 GB and 80GB capacities but will weigh a hefty 8.6 ounces and 9.3 ounces respectively. In comparison, the 80 GB 5.5 generation iPods weigh 5.5 ounces.
The new player however does feature other upgrades including a bigger screen (4") and a nice 480x272 widescreen display compared to the 2.5" screen and 320x240 display on the aforementioned iPod.
The upgraded line is capable of WMA, WMA 9 Lossless, MP3, WAV and WMV playback. Advertised battery life is an astonishing 28 hours for audio and 8 hours for video.
The Gigabeat V will launch on June 1st in Japan for 50,000 yen ($500 USD) for the 80 GB model and 80 dollars less for the 40 GB model. No date set so far on a North American release.
Last week, the European Commission gave approval for the Universal Music Group to take over BMG Music Publishing, bringing a close to the $2.1 billion USD merger that began five months ago.
The EC, the EU's antritrust authority said in its decision that Universal had responded to the charges by "offering to sell off the rights of key labels in the music giant's roster." These concessions include the sale of Rondor U.K., Zomba U.K., BBC Music, 19 Songs, 19 Music as well as its European license for the Zomba U.S. catalog.
EU competition commissioner Neelie Kroes added, "I am satisfied that the significant remedies will keep these markets competitive and ensure that consumers will not be harmed by the merger," she said.
The new merged company will now go under the name Universal Music Publishing Group brand.
The takeover was cleared months ago in the US by the FCC and the EU approval was the last hurdle for the merger could be completed. BMG has an active catalogue of over one million songs.
In the search for an illegal BitTorrent P2P network that spanned most of Germany, German authorities this week were finally able to obtain evidence that concentrates on a 38 yr old suspect from Baden-Württemberg.
The suspect had come to the attention of the authorities before but officials say now he is strongly suspected of illegally distributing unauthorized movies and games via the network.
The official investigation began in March after the German Federation against Copyright Theft (GVU) informed authorities that a computer game had been made available on the Internet prior to its official release date.
According to the Public Prosecutor's Office, this week the suspect's home was raided and raids occured in other sites in Baden-Württemberg, Bavaria, Berlin, Saxony-Anhalt and Thuringia.
So far, authorities indicate that the group of file sharers, including the lead suspect, ran the network on a few rented computers in which they illegally uploaded unathorized computer games and movies. Authorities also indicated that the investigaton was not over and they are searching for the rest of the group. If charged the suspect will face copyright violations charges as well as civil lawsuit from the copyright holders.
Nintendo America boss George Harrison took some time to talk about his competitors and how he feels they dont understand the gaming market. Harrison believes Sony and Microsoft lack the "DNA" necessary to understand the market, one he feels wants a more rewarding gaming experience than "just the next version of Halo or Grand Theft Auto."
"So far they haven't spent a lot of time focused on us. Now that we're having some success, they probably will," commented Harrison to Wired.
"We can already see some of the things they've tried. For last year's E3, at the last minute, Sony rushed out their Sixaxis controller as an effort to respond to the Wii remote. We saw Microsoft roll out Viva Piñata as their killer app for the Pokemon set. And neither of those worked really well.
"Part of this is, I think it's not in their DNA. They're really good at reaching a certain customer, and have a real difficulty understanding how we succeed with the customers that we have," said the senior vice president of marketing and communications.
So far the Wii and DS consoles have dominated sales and Harrison said he felt confident that Nintendo could take as large as a 50 percent market share for the "next gen" lineup of consoles.
Taiyo Yuden has introduced its new "That's Triple Guard"DVD-R series. The company has basically re-enforced the protection and durability of its blank media in three ways. Taiyo Yuden media is regarded by many as one of the best quality brands to buy (many consider it to be "the" best). The "Triple Guard" refers to....
Scratch guard: 200x more durable to scratches than ordinary Taiyo Yuden DVD-R Prevents accidental scratches that may occur while putting the disc into and getting it out of the case or drive.
Fingerprint protection: The stickiness on the Triple Guard surface is less than 1/7 of the stickiness on normal Taiyo Yuden DVD-R.
Static protection: 1000x more static electric discharge, compared to normal Taiyo Yuden DVD-R.
The new, inkjet-printable Triple Guard 16x DVD-R will be released to the market on June 12 in 10 slim jewel case packs and 50 disc cakeboxes, for both (CPRM) video and data usage.
The International Chamber of Commerce (ICC) has urged leaders of the G8 to take bigger steps against counterfeiting and piracy. The ICC sent letters to the G8 leaders in advance of their Summit Meeting in Heiligendamm, Germany. The letter was signed by 23 CEOs and senior business executives. It included recommendations for immediate actions that could be taken by the G8 countries.
"ICC welcomes the importance the G8 has placed on this critical global issue, by keeping counterfeiting and piracy on the agenda for the past four summits and by setting up a working group on intellectual property rights," said Jean-René Fourtou, Chairman of the Supervisory Board of Vivendi and Co-Chair of ICC's Business Action to Stop Counterfeiting and Piracy (BASCAP) initiative.
Fourtou added: "It is now critical, however, that the words be turned to concrete actions by G8 governments to bring an end to the increasing damage being done by this illegal activity. Other government leaders watch the actions being taken by G8 countries, and we are asking the leaders of the G8 governments to take immediate steps to demonstrate their commitment to stop counterfeiting and piracy and to urgently take tougher measures that will serve as an example to the rest of the world."
Microsoft Entertainment head Robbie Bach, in a press conference yesterday, contradicted Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer's controversial remarks about the upcoming iPhone and noted that it should be an interesting device with a good amount of attention.
"Apple is very good at design; they come up with interesting approaches to products," Bach said. "Like anything else, it will have its trade-offs. It will be pretty high priced, and just on the Cingular (AT&T) network. But, it's an Apple product. It'll attract its level of attention from Apple enthusiasts, and we'll see where it goes from there. And it's a new concept, highly integrated."
Bach did say though that the Microsoft Windows Mobile team was not going to change its approach towards smart phones anytime soon seeing as it has an edge over Research In Motion and its Blackberry line of smartphones. Microsoft believes, Bach says, that "entering on an individual class of phone" is inappropriate due to the large scope of the mobile phone business.
"We think phones are deeply personal," he added. "Some people want a flip phone, some people want a candy bar, some people want a QWERTY keyboard, some people want a touch screen, some people want music phones -- people have different needs."
When Microsoft began selling the Zune it had a target of one million sold by June 2007. According to Microsoft Entertainment head Robbie Bach, the company has beat their expectations and sold "a little over a million" of the 30GB players as May comes to a close.
Bach also said that the company hopes to expand the online Zune Marketplace and that after a few software upgrades the Wi-Fi on the Zune might be used for more than just Zune-to-Zune file sharing.
Furthermore, Bach said it was "fun" competing with Apple because the company is a very "worthy and skilled" competitor. Apple still holds an almost 70 percent market share with its iPod player and recently sold its 100 millionth unit.
According to Sharp, the company is ready to introduce the world's smallest blue laser for Blu ray and HD DVD optical players.
The new laser is a tiny 3.3mm in diameter, smaller than the tip of a pencil. For now, the GH04020A4G semiconductor will be available as ¥12,000 ($99 USD) sample quantities until mass production begins later in July.
The device has an advertised 10,000 hours of operation before needing to be replaced.
Last month, the US Ambassador to Canada, David Wilkins, told the Empire Club that CDN IP piracy was costing the Canadian economy up to $30 Billion a year. Here was his full quote:
And we are working with the Canadian government now on that issue. We have met with Ministers Bernier and Oda and members of the Prime Minister's staff and we are requesting a stronger copyright bill be introduced and be passed.
We are joined by the U.S. and Canadian motion picture and sound recording and computer software industries. Right now the copyright laws or the intellectual property right protection in Canada is considered the weakest of the G-7 countries. So we are asking that be strengthened.
And it really does cost the Canadian economy a huge amount every year. It is estimated to be from some $10 to $30 billion per year.
Yesterday however, the CBC reported that Canadians spend almost $21 billion a year on prescription drugs, a figure that is the third highest per capita in the world behind the US and France.
So if we are to compare these numbers, then it seems that either Canadians engage in piracy that is worth almost $10 billion more than their prescription drug expenditures or maybe that the Ambassador overexaggerated, and by alot, in another ploy to get regular consumers to believe that piracy is more "evil" than it really is.
According to company officials, the world's largest mobile phone maker, Nokia, expects to begin selling phones for China's 3G mobile technology TD-SCDMA when the network is up and running in early 2008.
"Currently we see that there will be market need from the first half of 2008. Hence, we will have some kind of offering on the market," said Thomas Jonsson, Nokia's spokesman in China.
Earlier this year, pre-commercial testing of the TD-SCDMA standard was extended to 10 cities from the original 5 it was tested on last year.
Analysts have called the trial extension a "soft launch" of sorts, one that is aimed at local phone makers instead of foreign companies who are focused on the popular CDMA and CDMA2000 standards.
Ericsson, Nortel and Motorola have also jumped onto the TD-SCDMA standard, hoping for a piece of the expected $10 billion USD worth of network equipment orders.
The industry is still waiting for the official launch of 3G licenses in China, but analysts fear that date could be pushed back to 2008.
Thanks to Dr. Janet Coyle, a hospitalist at Riley Hospital's Tom C. Maynor Rehabilitation Center, the Nintendo Wii has been incorporated into the center's rehabilitation program for patients who have suffered strokes.
“Dr. Coyle got one (Wii) for Christmas and after playing on it for awhile, she realized that it would be wonderful for our stroke patients,” said Ben Rucks, director of rehabilitation services at Riley.
Since its introduction late last year, the Wii has been cited as useful in losing weight and has also been used to treat children who suffer from the paralyzing hemiplegic cerebral palsy.
“Unlike other video games — which only use the thumbs — the Wii requires use of the whole body, balance and hand-eye coordination,” Rucks said. “This is especially ideal for stroke patients in their recovery.”
Im glad to see the console being put to so much good outside of its intended goals.
According to French sources familiar with the negotiations, Apple is preparing to launch EMI's DRM-free catalogue later this week on its iTunes platform.
The sources said the delay was due to Apple's desire to offer the entire catalogue at launch. The companies' technicians are "simply in the later stages of encoding and hosting the files before they go live," the contact says.
The deal requires that the new albums be offered as 256Kpbs AAC files and without Apple's FairPlay DRM.
Both Apple and EMI confirmed they would like to have the catalogue available by the end of the month.
Yesterday, the HD DVD Promotional Group took steps to correct an erroneous report published by Home Media Magazine. The report claimed that the HD DVD camp was planning to release 800 new titles by the end of the year, a number that is apparently very wrong.
The report gave a monthly listing of title counts from May to December of this year, but the numbers increased exponentially with a total of 500 titles planned for the fourth quarter of this year alone.
Aware of the report, the HD DVD Promotional Group announced that the number was incorrect. The group instead said they were hoping for a global total of 600 titles for the year and that those expectations were "conservative".
The Home Media Magazine publication also incorrectly reported on the amount of Blu ray titles for 2007, saying that the total would be 43. There have already been 160 titles released in the US so far this year with many more planned.
According to Japanese retailers, Nintendo is planning on releasing Wii consoles in Japan that are mod-proof.
The new hardware revisions would include the "snipping" of "some of the pins from the surface-mounted IC on the motherboard,", a change that would make current modchips useless and send modders back to the drawing board.
No official word from Nintendo yet, and so far the only systems affected would be Japanese consoles, not North American or European.
In another sign that artists are understanding more and more the effect of the internet on their sales and popularity, former Beatle Sir Paul McCartney has premiered his latest music video on YouTube.
According to YouTube, the video has over 200,000 hits in under 48 hours
"With its community of millions of worldwide users, YouTube is the leader in online video, and the premier destination to watch and share original videos through a Web experience," McCartney said in a statement on his Web site. "The video for 'Dance Tonight' will be featured and promoted through the 'Director Videos' slots, which sit at the top of the homepage."
McCartney's newest album, "Memory Almost Full" is set for release next week and "Dance Tonight" is the first single.
Artists have been using sites like YouTube and MySpace more often to help gain new fans and to release videos to broader audiences. This is a trend I hope will continue.
At the recent "Automotive Engineering Exposition 2007", Toshiba unveiled an automotive HD DVD player and a touch panel LCD.
The company said it is co-developing the player with Alpine Electronics and hopes the final product will hit shelves by 2008. Toshiba streamed video on the show and the results were positive although I find it hard to imagine that the 1080p was noticeable at such a small size.
The LCD was a prototype and has some interesting features. Toshiba has "integrated an optical sensor along with a transistor formed on each pixel on the panel. This technology enables the panel to detect the shadow of a finger when the panel is touched and work as a touch panel during the day. At night, the panel can sense finger touches using the backlight, which reflects when a finger touches the panel."
Toshiba hopes to have a final product for the touchscreen LCD by 2008 as well.
In January, the Japan and International Motion Picture Copyright Association (JIMCA), feeling pressure from American studios, submitted a statement to the government calling for an anti-camcording legislation
Today, that legislation passed and soon camcording in Japanese movie theaters will be punishable by up to 10 years in prison.
The bill will go into effect in early August and prohibits the use of any recording device in movie theaters. Besides the prison sentence, convicted violators face a 10 million yen ($82,645 USD) fine.
According to JIMCA exec director Yasutaka Iiyama, the new law "will make it significantly easier for the police to interdict pirate camcording."
Of course MPAA boss Dan Glickman backed the decision and noted that piracy cost Japanese business $742 million USD in revenue.
"The adoption of this crucial law by the Japanese Diet is a victory for the worldwide film industry," said Glickman.
"The passage of this law today by Japan's Diet serves as a reminder to governments around the world that every movie screen is a point of vulnerability and must be protected."
Once again, the debut of surface-conduction electron-emitter display (SED) television sets has been put back. Toshiba has delayed the technology, which was set for a Q4 introduction, and now it is unknown when SED sets will make it to the market. The company has blamed Canon, which is producing the panels that were set to be used in Toshiba's TVs, for the latest delays.
"The decision is based on information provided by Canon, indicating that Canon will not be able to provide SED panels to the original schedule," Toshiba said. Canon said that it is working to establish the technology it needs to mass-produce them more cheaply. SED technology can produce TVs as thin as plasma or LCD screens, but with the refresh speed of CRT along with the color intensity.
Failing to bring products to the market for so long means that SED will have even more competition to face from LCD and Plasma displays, which have seen falling prices and oversupply in recent times.
Sony has developed a razor-thin display that bends like paper while continuing to show high quality full-color images. The company showed the technology off in a video which shows the 0.3 millimeter (0.01-inch)-thick display being squeezed by a hand while it shows color images of a bicyclist stuntman, a picturesque lake and others.
The display combines thin film transistor (TFT) technology with organic electroluminescent display technology. The company said commercial plans for these displays is still undecided. "In the future, it could get wrapped around a lamppost or a person's wrist, even worn as clothing," said Sony spokesman Chisato Kitsukawa. "Perhaps it can be put up like wallpaper."
"To come up with a flexible screen at that image quality is groundbreaking,"Tatsuo Mori, professor at Nagoya University's Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, said. "You can drop it, and it won't break because it's as thin as paper."
European Ministers have agreed on new rules for television and Internet video-on-demand services. According to the European Commission, the new version of the 1989 "TV Without Frontiers" directive aims to make the market more competitive in the territory. Broadcasters will still be limited to 12 minutes of advertising per hour, but the limit of 3 hours per day has been scrapped in the new Audiovisual Media Services Directive.
As for product placement, it is still banned from children's or news programming and viewers will need to be informed when product placement takes place. Product placement is the act of including a sponsor's product in a TV show. The directive allows countries some flexibility to set stricter national rules and a "country-of-origin" principle means that broadcasters are governed by the rules of their home country, even if their programmes are transmitted in other states with different rules.
The directive is due to take effect by the end of the year now that it has been backed by the Commission, the European Parliament and the member states' governments. "It promises less regulation, better financing for European content and higher visibility to Europe's key values, cultural diversity and the protection of minors," EU Media Commissioner Viviane Reding said.
Looking yet again for another stream of revenue, the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) has set its sights on public radio. The trade group that represents the music industry in the United States, believes that radio has been given free play time for too many years. The RIAA believes that this fact is unfair.
It's not just the RIAA either who think its time for public radio to pay up, Mary Wilson, one of the original members of the Supremes, is an advocate for this cause too. "After so many years of not being compensated, it would be nice to now at this late date to at least start. They've gotten 50-some years of free play. Now maybe it's time to pay up," Wilson said.
She claims that the exemption enjoyed by public radio forced artists to continually go on tour to earn money. The National Association of Broadcasters (NAB) does not agree with the RIAA's position at all. "The existing system actually provides the epitome of fairness for all parties: free music for free promotion," says NAB president David Rehr. Public radio stations have warned that having a royalty "tax" would cause serious financial harm to them.
The proposed sale of EMI to Terra Firma in a deal worth over $4 billion is unlikely to affect EMI's deal with Apple Inc.'s iTunes to sell music downloads without Digital Rights Management (DRM). Both companies announced last month that EMI's catalog would be available on iTunes without any DRM included and with a higher bitrate for 30c more than the standard 99c price per track.
Neither of the companies have commented yet on how the sale would affect DRM-free downloads, but one industry analyst expects the DRM-less tracks to be available on schedule. "EMI made its decision to side-step DRM in part to demonstrate its forward-thinking strategy, so potential purchasers would see greater value in the company," said Aram Sinnreich, founder and managing partner of Radar Research, a Los Angeles media consulting firm.
Sinnreich added: "They can't renege on the deals very easily without the value of the company plummeting." Many believe that EMI's decision to drop DRM is good for the growing market for music downloads and for consumers. It is unknown, however, if the new owners would keep EMI's current strategies and vision for the future of the industry.
Cinemas in Malaysia have had success using military-style night-vision goggles against movie pirates. The targets are individuals that attempt to copy movies using camcorders or mobile phones. Ushers have been trained by the Motion Picture Association (MPA) to catch the pirates, and have managed to nab 17 people in the past two months while hits such as Spiderman 3 and the third Pirates of the Caribbean movies have been released.
"All of the cases were spotted with night-vision goggles," MPA's Malaysia manager, Nor Hayati Yahaya, said on Friday. "Its very successful." Malaysia has stepped up its efforts against piracy while it is engaged in free-trade talks with the United States. The country features on the U.S. watchlist for movie and software piracy.
The use of DVD sniffer dogs in the country has brought about much media attention. The Labradors, Lucky and Flo, have assisted in the seizures of over 1 million discs and lead to a counterfeit DVD ring being smashed. It is believed that Malaysian pirates have put a bounty on the dogs in response to their success.
In their latest blog entry, the admins of The Pirate Bay speak out about the prosecutor and his public announcement that he is going to file for an extension in his case against them. According to the prosecutor, the "work of going through the servers" is still not completely done, although they were confiscated almost a year ago.
Here is the full blog entry:
The prosecutor Hakan Roswall has publicly stated in Ny Teknik that he is going to file for an extension in the case against The Pirate Bay since the work of going through the servers is still not done.
After almost one full year the police has still not come up with any evidence against The Pirate Bay. Wasting more of the tax payers money and not returning the over 100 servers from unrelated PRQ customers is nothing but a big scandal by the Swedish authorities.
Further, he states that they are about to start going through the encrypted material on many computers.
There was no encrypted harddrives, partitions or even loop files on the servers that belong to The Pirate Bay. The encrypted data he is talking about must therefore belong to the PRQ customers.
It is our firm belief that either Hakan Roswall is using The Pirate Bay raid as a cover-up for going through other peoples data or that he is about to take a long holiday and do not want to work this summer.
According to court documents released today, Target Technology is suing Sony for patent infringements involving Blu ray disc technology.
Target says that Blu-ray infringes on patents held on the reflective-layer materials of the optical discs. The patent was filed in April 2004 and granted in March 2006.
Accroding to Target, the materials help discs corrode less easily than standard definition discs by using silver-based alloys instead of much more expensive and ineffective gold-based ones.
The company is seeking a permanent injunction and "significant" monetary damages.
Target also filed a seperate suit against the disc manufacturer Williams Advanced Materials, whom they accuse of violating another set of alloy patents held by the company. The company also claims that Target founder Han Nee was the original developer of the silver-based alloy materials used in current optical discs.
The Paris-based company CoPeerRight Agency has been distributing flyers to producers at the Cannes Film Festival claiming that they can sabotage pirates and telling the producers that they can "watch in real time the illegal download of your films" at the company's booth at the Cannes Film Market.
Besides claiming it can prevent distribution of movies via P2P, the company also offers to demonstrate how the system can "protect your rights, before and after the digital piracy of your films."
And how does the company intend to sabotage the pirates? According to the company, they first identify the pirates IP address and then forward it to producers and the pirate's ISP. They then flood the P2P networks with "decoy" files which would in theory bury the original files as well as "saturate the networks' waiting lists to increase file's download time" and send "corrupt data to users while they are trying to download the pirate files."
CoPeerRight Managing Director Romina González Galetto called the solution "Bytes Corrupted" and said that many of the producers at the festival were surprised by the claim. The company claims it is "the only way to retard the download of the illegal copies available on P2P networks."
StreamCast Networks Inc., the firm behind the P2P client Morpheus has filed a lawsuit against Skype and Joost in a dispute over technology that makes it "easier to place Internet phone calls and watch videos on the Web."
The lawsuit states that Morpheus had "the right of first refusal" when the founders of Kazaa, (also the founders of Joost) sold the failing company and transferred its P2P technology FastTrack to another firm.
The founders used the technology to create Skype a few years back, and the company was bought by eBay in 2005 for $2.6 billion USD.
"But for this act that happened some years ago, we would be Skype," said Daniel Woods, an attorney for Morpheus.
Lawyers for Joost said the legal claims have no merit and should be thrown out.
The lawsuit also claims that after the sale of Kazaa, the FastTrack technology was disabled, which forced Morpheus users to move away from the Morpheus client. Morpheus was then forced to develop and implement alternate technology, the lawsuit claims.
StreamCast is hoping to receive money from the sale of Skype to eBay as well as an injunction barring the FastTrack technology from use on Joost.
In an unanimous decision released today, Helsinki District Court ruled that Content Scrambling System (CSS) used in DVD movies is "ineffective". The decision is the first in Europe to interpret new copyright law amendments that ban the circumvention of "effective technological measures". The legislation is based on EU Copyright Directive from 2001. According to both Finnish copyright law and the underlying directive, only such protection measure is effective, "which achieves the protection objective."
The background of the case was that after the copyright law amendment was accepted in late 2005, a group of Finnish computer hobbyists and activists opened a website where they posted information on how to circumvent CSS. They appeared in a police station and claimed to have potentially infringed copyright law. Most of the activists thought that either the police does not investigate the case in the first place or the prosecutor drops it if it goes any further. To the surprise of many, the case ended in the Helsinki District Court. Defendants were Mikko Rauhala who opened the website, and a poster who published an own implementation of source code circumventing CSS.
As reported earlier this week, the delayed Halo 2 Vista will hit North American retail outlets at the end of this month.
The cause of the delays however, had not been revealed until today. Microsoft said in an official statement that the delays were caused by the discovery of "partial nudity" in the content.
"It has come to our attention that an unfortunate, obscure content error which includes partial nudity was included in our initial production of Halo 2 for Windows Vista.
"As such, we have updated the initial game packaging at retailers with a label, so customers are aware before purchasing the game... This packaging will only be labelled for the initial run of games; subsequent shipments will not include the content."
Available on Halo2.com as well is an update which consumers can download to patch the content.
Microsoft is taking big strides to avoid a repeat of the 2005 Hot Coffee scandal, in which a sex mini-game in Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas led to lawsuits and a re-rating of the game to Adult Only.
Microsoft's statement concludes,"We apologise for any inconvenience this may cause our customers. At Microsoft we take the Entertainment Software Ratings Board guidelines very seriously and hold ourselves to high standards, with our customers always in mind."
The very popular AC3Filter software has been updated to v1.35b. AC3Filter is an open source AC3 decoding filter that allows you to watch videos with AC3-encoded surround audio. After you install the filter, all video players, including Microsoft's Windows Media Player, that use DirectShow, should be able to play AC3 audio correctly. Filter also supports ProLogicII audio as well. This item has been downloaded 757,425 times from AfterDawn.
Here is the changelog for v1.35b...
Fixed a bug in AC3 decoder (decoding of 4.1 and 3.1 AC3 files was affected). Thanks to Dietmar Kleiner for reporting and testing!
Fixed a bug with fast playback of mono files in WMP
Delay units works correctly in offline config utility
SPDIF page added, all SPDIF-related options are moved there
AC3Config utility supports themes
Invert levels option to fix a bug with levels display in 3rd-party themes
Default output format changed to stereo (Much of people with stereo setup cannot hear center channel with default multichannel output)
BitComet v0.88 (latest stable) has been released, providing a whole host of GUI improvements and bugfixes. BitComet is a BitTorrent/HTTP/FTP download management software, which is powerful, fast, very easy-to-use, and completely free. It contains many advanced features for BitTorrent download and extends its leading BitTorrent technology to HTTP/FTP to accelerate downloading up to 5 - 10 times faster, or more. AfterDawn users have downloaded this item 1,530,555 times.
Here is the changelog...
GUI Improved: add an option to verify login password at program startup in perferences dialog
GUI Improved: add default task related info pane option in perferences dialog
GUI Improved: add an option to set Bitcomet as default IE download tool in perferences dialog
GUI Improved: add an option to enable torrent share in perferences dialog
GUI Improved: open BCTP link dialog replaced by open BC link dialog, which can create HTTP/FTP/BT task from BC link
GUI Improved: add "copy BC link to clipboard" command to task list context menu, with hotkey Ctrl+C
GUI Improved: add snapshot number column in task list
GUI Improved: add tooltip to display detail task status info when mouse hover on task icon in task list
GUI Improved: add tooltip to display upload rate, left time, health when mouse hover on download rate, progress, seed number
GUI Improved: upload rate, left time, health will not display in task list by default (can be shown in View menu)
GUI Improved: when task stopped, task can be renamed even if task is not completed
GUI Improved: double click to download torrent file in peer shared torrent list
GUI Improved: add popular column in peer shared torrent list
GUI Improved: new icon and tooltip to designate whether the torrent has been downloaded or shared by me in peer shared torrent list
GUI Improved: add auto-refresh checkbox in toolbar of peer shared torrent list
GUI Improved: add share-all checkbox in toolbar of my shared torrent list
Matsushita Electric Industrial Co. and Hitachi Ltd. have decided to join forces against competition in the flat-panel TV market. Both companies will add each others' plasma display panels (PDP) to their product line-ups. Matsushita (Panasonic brand) will supply Hitachi with 103-inch panels in the current business year to March 2008, and Hitachi will Matsushita with 85-inch panels in the next business year.
Plasma makers took a hit when manufacturers of liquid-crystal display (LCD) TVs started rolling out larger screens at lower prices. Plasma TVs once dominated the 40-inch-and-larger market, but now plasma makers are being urged to keep closer ties to compete with LCD. Global LCD TV sales grew 54% from a year ago to $13.6 billion in the latest quarter, while plasma TV sales fell 9% to $3.6 billion.
Matsushita said that it is currently unclear how much annual revenues the new deal with Hitachi could generate. The move by both companies follows LG Electronics Inc. and Samsung Electronics Co. Ltd.'s formation of an alliance to enhance competitiveness.
Sony has revealed that a version of its PlayStation 3 (PS3) console with an 80GB hard disk drive will go on sale in South Korea on June 16th. The model will come with a price tag of 518,000 won ($556). Two other versions of the PS3 have been sold, one with a 20GB HDD and one with a 60GB HDD. In Europe, only the 60GB model is available and Sony will discontinue sales of 20GB models in North America.
The PlayStation 3 is Sony's weapon in the console war with Nintendo (Wii) and Microsoft (Xbox 360). The three companies are battling for dominance in the $30 billion global video game industry and all have touted their strengths but can't keep their weaknesses off the blogs.
Sony has also said that it will release the 80GB version of the console in other territories if there is sufficient demand for it. The extra storage capacity is offered in South Korea due to high interest in online games in the country.
According to research from Italy's Luigi Einaudi Foundation, file sharing of music and movies cuts into consumers' purchasing of physical products like CDs and DVDs. The research shows that nearly a third of file-sharers (30%) have cut back on the amount of physical music products they buy. Only 6% of those surveyed said that file-sharing increased their propensity to buy CDs, while 64% of respondents said their habit did not change their music buying habits.
77% of all those who said they download music have used P2P networks to obtain music, while only 23 per cent have used an authorized online service. The research showed that 31% of those questioned had downloaded music or video from the internet in the last month. Nine-in-ten of the tracks downloaded were singles (91%), predominantly current chart hits. The most popular device for playing this material was a music player (84%), followed by hi-fis and MP3 players (39%).
The most popular P2P software among those asked was eMule (51%), followed by WinMX (25%) and Kazaa (13%). Three in five of those interviewed (61%) said the bought less than one CD a month and more than 30% of this group buy no physical copies of recorded music at all. Researchers interviewed wide cross-section of Italians, with 50 per cent of respondents aged between 15 and 34 years old, 25 per cent between 35 and 44 years old and 25 per cent between 44 and 54 years old.
Apple Inc. has set its sights on high street adult retailer Ann Summers over a sex toy that is intended to be used with iPods and other MP3 players. The iGasm connects to an MP3 player and gives the user erotic vibrations in sync with the beat. Apple is furious, but not exactly at the toy itself, more-so how it is advertised.
According to the News of the World, Apple is demanding that all posters for the gadget be taken down, under threat of legal action. The neon-pink posters depict an underwear-clad female silhouette holding an oval white device with two cables, one which is connected to a pair of white headphones, the other is heading towards.... well, you get the idea!
The sales pitch encourages users to, "Go at it hard and fast with a pounding drum 'n' bass track or chill with an ambient classic." Apple's problem is with the these advertisements, claiming they are an abuse of the silhouette-based images it uses in its own advertising for its music products.
Former Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of the EMI Group, Jim Fifield, is reported to be still working on a deal to buy the record company despite losing financial backer, Corvus Capital. The private equity group had considered making a bid for EMI for some time, but in the end decided against the idea. The New York Post reported on Thursday that Fifield had received financial commitments from members of the Qatari royal family.
It said Fifield wanted to run EMI's recorded music division and sell its publishing assets to record executive Charles Koppelman and private equity firm GTCR Golder Rauner. EMI's board recommended 265 pence a share offer (over $4 billion) from private equity group, Terra Firma Capital Partners, on Monday. The deal would spare EMI the regulatory uncertainty that would come with another music company buying it.
In March, Sony issued a press release that stated that the Blu ray edition of "Casino Royale" had shipped over 100,000 units. Today, Warner Home Entertainment announced that their dual-format release of "The Departed" had surpassed that number, and had sold over 100,000 units.
Although the total sales are based on both Blu ray and HD DVD sales of the movie, 100,000 units sold is still a significant number for next gen movie sales.
"It's no accident that Warner is the first studio to reach this benchmark. We owe this success to a combination of great content and our decision to support both high definition formats... By releasing titles on HD DVD and Blu-ray, Warner Home Video not only increases our potential audience reach, but also offers consumers assurance that regardless of the format they choose they can enjoy our movies," said the statement.
Warner is not the only neutral studio, but so far it has been the most aggressive, releasing more titles than any other studio so far. Warner also noted they were planning to release a hybrid format entitled "Total Hi-Def" sometime later this year.
"High definition media represents an incredible opportunity for the industry, and we, as content providers, can help push mainstream adoption by producing in both formats and giving the consumer a simple choice," said the statement. "At a time when the home video business is flat and high definition media presents our best hope for near term growth, it is unfortunate that we as an industry continue to perpetuate consumer confusion."
As reported earlier this week, Sony will be releasing an 80 GB PlayStation 3 to the Korean market next month. According to a report from the Korea Times, the main reason for the larger HDD is because the new PS3s will feature video-on-demand (VOD) functionality.
South Korea, known for a relatively advanced network infrastructure and high-bandwith Internet services would be able to take full advantage of a network-enabled PS3.
Sony Korea confirmed the news report by saying it was in talks with telecom operators. “We are contacting some Korean firms in order to incorporate VOD applications into PlayStation 3 service line-up,'' Sony spokeswoman Park Seo-yun said.
Although Sony did not reveal which firms it was in talks with, Hanaro Telecom spoke up about its talks with the company. “We are negotiating with Sony and the atmosphere is pretty good. We hope we will be able to reach an agreement in June,'' a Hanaro Telecom spokesman said. “Should we strike a deal with Sony, PlayStation 3 users can watch all the HanaTV programs after downloading software, without having to buy a dedicated set-top box.''
The Russian music download store AllofMP3 called out the IFPI today, claiming their recent raid was made as a publicity stunt.
The accusations follow the news that the IFPI and British law enforcement raided the home of a 25-yr old London citizen who was selling vouchers to use on ALLofMP3 as payment. The IFPI claims the man then transferred that money to the Russian company's off shore bank accounts.
The parent company of AllofMP3, Mediaservices was forced to use voucher payments for North American and European customers, after the major credit card companies and Paypal refused to continue servicing the site. AllofMP3 is currently facing a $1.65 trillion USD lawsuit from US music publishers.
Mediaservices, in a statement, said the arrested man was not an employee of the company, and that he was merely "reselling gift certificates."
"The Allofmp3 administration reiterates that the store has never had any activities outside Russia. Thus we do not have any offices or employees abroad. Allofmp3 operates in full compliance with Russian legislation and pays the necessary royalties to the rightholders and authors," the statement reads.
"The members of the IFPI are unable to do anything about the natural crisis the music industry faces in the digital era. Instead they engage in unfair competition practices and political lobbying. They make up 'sensational' news to attract public attention to their activity which becomes less and less valid every day."
According to a press release by Microsoft, the long awaited Halo 2 PC game will finally hit Vista-equipped computers on May 31st in North America and then on June 8th in Europe.
The MSRP on the game will be £34.99 and $49.99 USD.
The North American version had a planned May 22nd release date but unspecified reasons pushed the date back. According to a Microsoft spokesperson, "Halo 2 for Windows Vista did not release to retailers on May 22, as previously announced and will now ship from manufacturers on May 31. Shadowrun will be the first game to debut the highly anticipated Games for Windows – LIVE system on May 29. We apologize for any inconvenience this may have caused our customers."
The release of Halo 2 Vista is a long time coming for PC users who have wanted to play the game but do not own an Xbox.
A small independent record label owned by bluegrass musician David Grisman has filed a class action lawsuit against Apple, Napster, and other digital media stores as well as the Big 4 record labels that carry the label's catalogue of tracks.
The small label, Dawg Music, is accusing the labels and stores of carrying the label's music and seling his works "with poor or nonexistent compensation and without his consent."
The lawsuit also claims that Universal and Warner have neglected the label's copyrights and royalties when signing deals with online stores, including iTunes and Napster.
Those two giant record companies agreed to online distribution of Dawg Music's library, but did not acquire permission first from the label. Dawg claims that because of the lack of communication, the label received "gross underpayments," and that online music stores are "guilty by association because they agreed to host and sell the unsanctioned tracks."
The suit accuses the following companies of trading songs without genuine consent: AOL Music Now, Buy.com, Apple's iTunes, MSN.com, Napster, RealNetworks' Rhapsody, Wal-Mart.com, and Yahoo Music.
Samsung does not seem convinced that Sony will be able to deliver on a promise it made to begin selling Organic Light Emitting Diode (OLED) displays to consumers this year. Sony had promised to begin selling 11-inch OLED monitors before the end of the year. That announced spurred its rivals to begin accelerating their OLED display development tasks.
OLED technology can allow resolution displays to be created using ultra-thin panels, and since OLED screens are self-illuminating, the lack of a need for an LCD-like backlight cuts down the power consumption even further.
"I hope Sony will really do it, but considering circumstances, I doubt they will be able to start selling it this year. Maybe it would be possible for them to make a hundred or a thousand units as artifacts, but no more than that."Yoo Eui-jin, vice president and chief of Samsung SDI's OLED team, said.
Samsung recently announced plans to introduce AM (Active Matrix) OLED screens to markets for portable devices such as mobile phones. The company claims its 2.2-inch AM-OLED is the world's thinnest, measuring just 0.53 millimeters thick.
According to reports on Tuesday, Royal Philips Electronics NV is currently in talks to sell its stake (33%) in flat-panel display maker LG.Philips. The move could bring the company €3.7 billion (US$5 billion) in proceeds. The company has faced oversupply in the market for LCD and is also being investigated by U.S. and Asian regulators for anticompetitive practices.
Gerard Kleisterlee, President and Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of Philips was quoted as saying the company was in talks with "LG.Philips and other parties," on the disposal. Philips' lockup period on its stake ends in July, and the company has revealed plans to sell in the past. LG.Philips has a market capitalization of roughly €11 billion (US$15 billion).
LG.Philips posted a first quarter net loss of US$180 million (€133 million), tightening from a loss of US$185 million a year earlier.
We reported yesterday that SoundExchange, the group backed by the record industry to collects Internet music royalties from Webcasters and satellite radio, offered to defer new copyright-payment rates for small Webcasters who claim the new payments would bankrupt them. The US Copyright Royalties Board (CRB) will implement higher charges for online radio music licenses from 15th July. Many companies say it will put them out of business.
SoundExchange offered smaller webcasters a deal that would allow them to keep paying the current royalties, but larger stations would have to pay the new amounts. SaveNetRadio, a group representing Internet radio stations, rejected the plan and said it is designed to stifle the growth of Internet radio services.
"The proposal made by SoundExchange would throw 'large webcasters' under the bus and end any 'small' webcaster's hopes of one day becoming big," SaveNetRadio spokesperson Jake Ward said. "Under Government-set revenue caps, webcasters will invest less, innovate less and promote less. Under this proposal, internet radio would become a lousy long-term business, unable to compete effectively against big broadcast and big satellite radio – artists, webcasters, and listeners be damned."
Cyberlink Corp. has announced that its HD playback software, PowerDVD Ultra, now supports AMD UVD Unified Video Decoder technology on the newly released ATI Radeon HD 2400 series and ATI Radeon 2600 series graphics cards. PowerDVD Ultra supports playback of Blu-ray Discs, HD DVDs, and DVDs, and now offers support for AMD UVD Technology ensuring a high-quality playback experience with minimal power consumption on both Windows XP and Vista operating systems.
With support for AMD UVD features like VC-1, MPEG-4H.264 CABAC (Context-based Adaptive Binary Arithmetic Coding), Motion Compensation and iDCT (Inverse Discrete Cosine Transform), both desktop PC and notebook users will be able to enjoy enhanced video quality with incredibly low CPU consumption.
"CyberLink is delighted to work with AMD to deliver the best high-quality video playback possible with PowerDVD Ultra optimized for the latest ATI Radeon HD2000 series graphics cards," said Alice H. Chang, CEO of CyberLink Corp. "This is indeed a great success for both AMD and CyberLink to satisfy the growing demand for high-definition video performance within the mainstream PC market."
Details of the PlayStation 3 (PS3) 1.80 firmware update, which will be available tomorrow, show that the console will get an excellent improvement in its quest to be your home entertainment hub. The most interesting added functionality is, of course, the ability to upscale PlayStation 1 (PS1) and PlayStation 2 (PS2) games, as well as DVD-Video, to 1080p (Full HD) through HDMI on a HD display.
The update also brings support for Remote Play for the PSP, meaning a user can access their PS3 from anywhere in the world where an Internet connection is available. This feature will need both 1.80 firmware on the PS3 and also PSP firmware version 3.50, which will be available at the end of the month. The update also allows users on a home network to view and play media content stored on DLNA3-enabled devices.
Another notable addition to the PS3's list of features is the ability to print photos stored on the console's hard drive or storage media using some models of Epson printers through a USB cable.
Democratic Sen. Herb Kohl of Wisconsin, the chairman of the U.S. Senate's antitrust subcommittee, urged regulators on Wednesday to block a proposed merger of Sirius Satellite Radio and XM Satellite Radio. Kohl sent letters to the Justice Department and the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) urging them to oppose the deal as it would cause "substantial harm to competition and consumers."
"Such a result should be unacceptable under antitrust law and as a matter of communication policy," Kohl wrote to FCC Chairman Kevin Martin and the Justice Department's antitrust chief, Thomas Barnett. The proposed deal would see Sirius buying XM in an all-stock deal worth $4 billion, effectively combining the only two satellite radio providers in the U.S.
The Justice Department and the FCC are currently reviewing the deal. Back in 1997, the FCC issued both companies licenses on the condition they would never merge. Sirius Chief Executive Mel Karmazin has promised that the combined company would not raise prices for customers. He believes the deal is not anti-competitive because traditional radio and even MP3 players could be considered competition for the services.
According to the results of nationwide survey released by the Business Software Alliance (BSA), illegal downloading of copyrighted works by youths aged 8-18 is down 24 percent since 2004.
The survey, which was first conducted in 2004, showed that for this year, the percentage of participants who reported downloading software, music, movies or games without buying it was at 36 percent compared to the hefty 60 percent it was in 2004.
There were many reasons given by the youths as to why the illegal downloading stopped, but the most common were; fear of accidentally downloading a computer virus (62 percent), getting into legal trouble (52 percent) and accidentally downloading spyware (51 percent). 48 percent of the youths also reported they feared getting in trouble with their parents.
“This study indicates that parents represent a growing and effective influence on the online practices of youth,” said Diane Smiroldo, vice president of public affairs for BSA. “But, while decreases in downloading are encouraging over recent years, youth are still taking too many risks online. We hope that parents continue to take seriously their role in helping their children make the right choices online.”
Sony has signed a four yeal contract with VoIP company BT that would bring video and voice calls as well as messaging to Sony's handheld, the PSP.
Using BT's technology, PSP users will be able to communicate using wireless internet for now. The companies say they are working on PC, mobile phone, and fixed line integration for the future.
"The PSP is an excellent device for both gaming and communications because of its high quality screen and audio capabilities," offered Steve Andrews, chief of mobility and convergence for BT.
"With over 8 million PSPs shipped across Europe, we are very excited by the opportunity to give customers a whole new communications experience, connecting and seeing friends across the world through BT's technology."
Sony also added that the service will begin in the UK, and then move to other regions.
"The opportunity to combine our market leading expertise with BT's knowledge in communications opens up many possibilities and we look forward to bringing many exciting functions to PSP fans," commented David Reeves, president of Sony Europe.
Nintendo made an announcement today that by 2012 they expected to sell as many as 35 million Wii consoles in the US alone. That figure would put place the console near the record 38.2 million US PlayStation 2s sold to date.
So far, 2.5 million units have been sold, higher than the Playstation 3 but still lower than the Xbox 360 which was released in 2005.
Nintendo also told Bloomberg News that they had no plans for price cuts, as a price cut would cause supply shortages.
The company also stated they feel the market favors the simplicity of the Wii over rival consoles.
"We're starting to see in the performance of the PS3 and Xbox 360 that that's not necessarily motivating the market the way it used to," Nintendo of America marketing head George Harrison told Bloomberg. "So we're going to start work on future technology only when we believe it's necessary."
Nintendo concluded by noting that 14 new games will be released in the 3rd quarter 2007, most of which will take advantage of the Wii's motion-sensing capabilities.
Tribler, a Dutch BitTorrent client recently updated to version 4.0, adds Last.fm-style personalization to your torrent downloading. Whenever you open the client, Tribler suggests new media based off you previous downloading history. European public broadcasters have begun looking into the program as it combines collaborative filters with YouTube browsing, something never seen before.
Tribler is part of a joint research project collectively called I-Share, which is exploring “sharing mechanisms in virtual communities.” Last year, I-Share received 6 million Euros in funding by the Dutch government and claims that 20 scientists are working on Tribler as we speak.
So why all the funding for what can be considered a generic torrent client? Because the program uses P2P to "discover other clients and exchange metadata about downloaded files." Tribler also makes great use of the data to generate each user recommendations, in the same way Last.fm does, or even Netflix.
The latest version of Tribler, v4.0, also incorporates YouTube. Use the integrated search to look for YouTube clips and watch them with an integrated video viewer. Tribler team member Freek Zindel explains the integratation of YouTube: “With Tribler we want to enable our users to share and interact with content from any source. In the near future we plan to open the Peer to Peer transport layer to content that was previously only available from central servers. This would bring a new level of redundancy, availability and scalability to user generated content.“
The Apple iPhone set for release next month in North America, has allegedly made a carrier exclusivity agreement with At&T, a deal that would finish in 2012.
AT&T will have exclusive US distribution for the next five years and the deal stops Apple from developing a new version of the phone for CDMA wireless networks such as Sprint and Verizon's. Basically if you want the iPhone, you will have to take your service to the GSM based AT&T (formerly Cingular).
Stan Sigman, CEO of wireless at AT&T, talks about the tough approach towards the iPhone:
"I'm glad we have (the iPhone) in our bag," he says. "Others will try to match it, but for a period of time, they're going to be playing catch-up."
Reports have also showed the Verizon passed on the opportunity to be exclusive distributor as they felt Apple was too demanding.
If you want the iPhone before 2012, it seems like you will need to switch carriers to AT&T.
Among the daily software updates on AfterDawn.com and Filepedia.com servers are the five popular items, FFDShow, uTorrent, BitComet, K-lite Codec Packs and SmitFraudFix. FFDShow has long been in our top 5 downloads with 4,749,105 downloads to date. The popular BitTorrent clients BitComet and uTorrent are downloaded quite often, accounting for 1,529,303 and 85,085 downloads respectively at time of writing.
The K-Lite Codec Packs have proven to be a hit and have been updated on our servers today (5 separate updates) and account for about 455,645 overall downloads at time of writing. SmitFraudFix is an excellent anti-malware tool that is constantly updated on Filepedia.com and has been mentioned in this article since it recently flew passed 100,000 downloads (100,733 currently). So here are the download links and changelogs (if applicable)...
After being hit with a lawsuit from the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF), The man who claims to have created "The Electric Slide" has agreed to call off his online video takedown campaign and to stop threatening people using the popular line dance for non-commercial purposes. The EFF filed a lawsuit against Richard Silver on behalf of videographer Kyle Machulis.
Silver sent a takedown demand to YouTube under the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA), requesting that a video uploaded by Machulis to the service be taken down. The video contained concert footage that included a ten-second segment of audience members attempting to do the Electric Slide. Silver claimed he owned the copyright to the Electric Slide and that the video infringed his rights and of course, the video was removed.
"Mr. Silver's misuse of the DMCA interfered with our client's free speech rights," said EFF Staff Attorney Corynne McSherry. "New technologies have opened multiple avenues for artists and their audiences to create, share and comment on new works. We cannot let absurd copyright claims squash this extraordinary growth."
Joost has been named as a defendant in a lawsuit filed a year ago over the technology upon which Skype and Joost are based. Last year, StreamCast Networks accused Niklas Zennstrom and Janus Friis, the pair that developed the technology behind the companies Kazaa and Skype, of breaking an agreement to give StreamCast the first right to purchase their FastTrackP2P protocol.
FastTrack was formerly the network which Morpheus' file-sharing application operated on and is also the technology foundation of Skype's voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) service. StreamCast claims that the entrepreneurs breached contract by improperly transferring technology rights away from StreamCast.
SoundExchange, the group backed by the record industry to collects Internet music royalties from Webcasters and satellite radio, said on Tuesday it would defer new copyright-payment rates for small Webcasters who claim the new payments would bankrupt them. The U.S. Copyright Royalty Board (CRB) introduced sharply higher royalty rates for these companies on May 1, 2007.
SoundExchange said its new offer applies to webcasters with revenues of $1.25 million or less, adding that it was addressing "alleged weaknesses in the small Webcasters' businesses." The move follows pressure from Congress, where legislators are attacking the royalty rate increase saying it threatens the fledgling industry.
"Although the rates revised by the CRB are fair and based on the value of music in the marketplace, there's a sense in the music community and in Congress that small Webcasters need more time to develop their businesses," said John Simson, executive director of SoundExchange. However, Jake Ward of the SaveNetRadio Coalition believes the offer falls short.
"A proposal like this would doom small Webcasters and kill large Webcasters," Ward said. He believes that deeming a webcaster large and therefore subject to higher rates ignores the fact that many of these "larger" sites are still small and struggling companies. "It would also force small companies to stay small," he said. "There's no question that Webcasters with government-set revenue caps would invest less, innovate less and promote less."
Subscribers of XM Satellite Radio may have noticed problems yesterday acquiring a usable signal, mostly across the Eastern United States and Canada. "Some customers are not receiving a signal. We don't know the exact number, but some,"Chance Patterson, XM's vice president of corporate affairs said earlier. XM Satellite radio has about eight million subscribers in total.
The company explained that the problems, which reportedly started on Monday around noon (ET), were the result of a software glitch. "The problem occurred during the loading of software to a critical component of our satellite broadcast system, which resulted in a loss of signal from one of our satellites. We expect normal service to resume midday [Tuesday]," a statement posted on the company's website reads.
Services are now reportedly back to normal. "XM Satellite Radio has resumed normal levels of service for customers who experienced outages or significantly degraded service starting yesterday," the company wrote on its site. "After you turn on your XM radio, please allow five to ten minutes to reacquire the XM signal." XM's program lineup includes Oprah Winfrey and Major League Baseball.
Taiwanese optical disc producer, Ritek, has announced it has received the certification for both HD DVD-R (recordable, write once) and HD DVD-RW (rewritable) formats. The company indicated that the technological barrier for HD DVD-R is quite high and that for HD DVD-RW is higher. Volume production of the discs is expected to begin in the second half of this year at the earliest.
CMC Magnetics recently received certification for Blu-ray Disc (BD)-R production and may be ready to begin volume production as early as next quarter. Support from the Taiwan's manufacturing capabilities will be a key promotion tool for the BD and HD DVD platforms.
Ritek's manufacturing capability for DVD+R/-R DL (single-sided double-layer) discs was helpful in obtaining the certification, according to the company.
The popular burning/multimedia suite Nero Burning ROM has been updated today to version 7.9.6.0. Nero Burning ROM is probably the best all-in-one CDR/DVDR application on the market and is certainly one of the most popular available. Nero combines huge amounts of features in a compact and easy to use package. It handles disc duplicating and pre-mastering with ease, supported by a cover designer and even an audio file editor.
Nero 7 Premium Reloaded, the all-in-one solution that is Certified for Windows Vista brings you AVCHD, BD-AV, and HD DVD support, as well as innovative iPod and Xbox 360 features. Nero 7 Premium Reloaded has everything you need to manage your digital lifestyle.
Opening an audio file could lead Nero Burning ROM to stop working properly
In specific cases no output file format could be selected while creating an image file
Problem was encountered while Burning very long slideshows (2000 pictures)
Adding non video files to VCD/SVCD compilations was not possible anymore
At the Gamers Day event this week, Sony America president Jack Tretton said that a protable version of the PlayStation Store would be coming to PSPs soon.
"I think the advent of a long awaited and quite frankly long overdue ability to deliver a downloadable service for the PSP will help us out a great deal," he said. "Hopefully we'll have it out there by the fall."
Basically, PSP users will now be able to browse, download and buy games and content right from thier PSP when connected to Wi-Fi.
Offering special editions of games for a higher price is already being done frequently with next-gen consoles. For example, the Legendary Edition of Halo 3 will sell for a whopping $129.99. Many hardcore gamers will definitely pay the extra price for the more expensive Halo editions and you could argue that the following for the Grand Theft Auto brand would do exactly the same - even Rockstar thinks so.
A special edition of Grand Theft Auto IV will cost $89.99, $30 more than the regular edition at $59.99. For the extra fee, customers will get extra goodies which include a limited edition Rockstar duffel bag and book which contains production artwork from the game, and also a soundtrack CD. All of the goodies will come inside another goodie... a fully lockable metal safety deposit box.
The bundle will contain a special keychain to access the lockbox. Both versions of the highly-anticipated game will go on sale in North America on October 16th and then in Europe three days later. It is set in during the present day and Rockstar has promised the soundtrack will contain "new material from top artists available only on this release."
Fujitsu Limited has announced a new large-scaled integrated (LSI) chip capable of compressing and decompressing Full High-Definition (HD) video (1920 x 1080) content in the H.264 format. The new chip, the MB86H51, is the industry's first one-chip LSI for full HD H.264 High Profile video processing with embedded memory.
This new chip enables high image quality recording, playback, and transmission of full high-definition video over a wide range of fields from consumer to industrial applications, such as for digital video cameras (camcorders), hard disk digital video recorders (DVRs), home network devices, security cameras, and broadcasting equipment.
H.264 format is rapidly becoming widespread as a technology for compression and decompression of large volumes of high-definition video data, as H.264 features higher compression performance compared to previous formats such as MPEG-2.
EMI Group PLC has accepted an offer of £2.4 billion (GBP) or $4.7 billion (USD) from private equity group, Terra Firma Capital Partners. The label accepted the 265 pence ($5.23) per share takeover bid on Monday but the deal has raised speculation of an upcoming bidding war for the music company. Analysts have said that the offer could flush out a higher offer from Warner Music.
Shares of EMI finished 8.5 percent higher at 269 pence ($5.30) after the offer was made just before the closing bell on the London Stock Exchange. "The global music industry is undergoing significant change and, whilst EMI is confident in its ability to deliver its recently announced restructuring plans, significant uncertainty exists as to the timing and extent of future market developments," said EMI Chairman John Gildersleeve.
He added: "Terra Firma’s offer is the most attractive proposal received and delivers cash now, without regulatory uncertainty and with the minimum of operational risk to the company." EMI reported a net loss of 288.5 million pounds in its most recent earnings release, following a profit of 86.1 million pounds in 2006. EMI is home to artists such as the Beatles and Coldplay.
News coming from the Blu ray Disc Association for months have suggested that the impact of the PlayStation 3 on Blu ray disc movie sales in North America and Japan have been "significant".
They also note that a similar sales trend is occuring in Western Europe right now.
Industry stats for the period of January to May show a huge change in the European HD movie market. Up until the PS3's launch in late March, HD DVD was outpacing Blu ray by a hefty amount. Since the launch of the console, Blu ray movies have consistently outsold its rival, and by a large margin as well, almost 3 to 1.
The Association concludes that the stats seem to justify Sony's decision to include a Blu ray drive into the PS3, as the console is greatly helping in a format war Sony cannot afford to lose.
LG Electronics has announced it is producing its smallest plasma display panel (PDP) for the Chinese TV market. The South Korean company, which is the world's #2 manufacturer of plasma display panels (PDP), said it will supply 32-inch plasma panels for unspecified Chinese TV set makers. LG recently moved to cut its output and restructure its PDP business amid falling panel prices and growing losses.
"We will begin the mass production from June, at our module plant in Nanjing," a company spokesman said. "China's 30-inch grade TV market is set to grow quickly ahead of next year's Beijing Olympics." He added that LG will offer the 32-inch PDP screens at a lower price than smaller sized LCD panels but declined to set a price or the planned production volume.
On Friday, LG halted production of plasma display panels at its smallest of its three domestic plasma panel lines before the end of June. The company trails behind Matsushita Electric Industrial Co. in the plasma business, but is ahead of the another South Korean giant, Samsung SDI Co.
TiVo has learned how to ensure its widespread adoption continues by once again bringing out its mail-in rebate program, this time for Series 3 high definition TiVo box. Customers who go out and purchase a TiVo series 3 box will be entitled to a $200 mail-in rebate. The price of the Series 3 TiVo box has stayed at $800 MSRP, meaning the new offer brings the final retail price to about $600 overall.
Some retailers have already pushed the price down to $600, meaning it is possible, if you look around, to push it down to a $400 price overall. The Series 3 still has its initial $800 price tag, but TiVo did announce earlier this year that it plans to drop that price by a couple of hundred dollars by the end of 2007.
The new rebate program is set to kick off on May 27th and is valid for purchases that are made through June 16th.
In the ongoing effort by the music industry to squash Russian MP3 download site, AllofMP3.com, Police have raided and shut down an online voucher system used by the site. The action follows a pan-European investigation, conducted by the global recording industry body, the International Federation of the Phonographic Industry (IFPI) and UK record companies' association, BPI, which led to the arrest of a 25-year-old male in Bow, London.
The individual was allegedly the UK-based European agent for AllofMP3.com, facilitating the sale of digital downloads by advertising and selling vouchers through auction sites such as eBay and the website allofmp3vouchers.co.uk. That website has now been taken offline. The vouchers contained a code that allowed UK and European consumers to access and download music from AllofMP3.
The vouchers cost about £10 each, which would buy you more tracks than you would think. The Russian site sells MP3 downloads for far less than iTunes and other authorized sellers. The IFPI and record companies around the world maintain that AllofMP3 is an illegal site, even though it claims it complies with copyright law in Russia. The company lost the ability to be paid via PayPal, Visa, Mastercard etc. last year, and the record industry is now looking at how it can block the site's revenue even more.
On Tuesday, Dell is expected to began selling three new models of notebooks and desktops loaded with Ubuntu Linux.
According to an email sent to Linuxquestion.org,
"We will be launching a Linux-based OS [Ubuntu] on the E520 [budget Dimension desktop PC], 1505 [Inspiron laptop] and [home entertainment level PC] XPS 410 starting next Thursday, 5/24," the Dell e-mail stated, according to a blog on the site. "Please cover the huddle deck below with your team by [end of business] Sunday. If any questions come up, please let me know so I can address them before launch. The goal of launching Linux is to continue to give our customers more choices to customize their new Dell. Providing more options to our Linux Enthusiast customer group will hopefully create even more Raving Fans!!"
Jeremy Bolens, a Dell spokesman, declined to comment on the blog report today however.
More updates on the machines as they become available.
In an effort to curb piracy in the country, Microsoft said on Monday that it had signed an anti-piracy agreement with the Vietnamese goverment that would require that all government officials and offices to use genuine copies of all Microsoft software.
According to recent studies, Vietnam has one of the highest rates of piracy globally and Microsoft loses billions in revenue each year because of such piracy.
CEO Steve Ballmer was there to witness the signing and had this to say, "I see a prosperous future ahead for Vietnam, and the country is doing the right things by looking now at how it can foster a healthy local software ecosystem, which will help open up this market to the rest of the world".
The Prime Minister of Vietnam seemed to agree with Ballmer's sentiments. "The agreement demonstrates very strong commitments of the government of Vietnam in protecting intellectual property rights". he said before the signing.
Last year, during a visit by Bill Gates, Vietnam's Ministry of Finance signed a similar deal, the first of many Microsoft hopes.
Microsoft has announced that they will be giving a special bonus to all Xbox Live users who purchase the upcoming Matrix Trilogy on HD DVD. Microsoft, who is an exclusive supporter of HD DVD, is using the new releases as a good opportunity to promote both its Xbox 360 and the format its backs.
Inside every package of the Matrix trilogy there will be "tokens" that will allow users to download the entire Animatrix series from XBL for free.
XBL will also be offering HD trailers and favorite scenes from the movies for free between May 15th and the 25th.
The Complete Matrix Trilogy available for $99.99 MSRP this Tuesday.
For months we have heard rumors about larger capacity PlayStation 3s hitting shelves, but yesterday, a Sony spokesperson made it clear that an 80 GB model would be released in South Korea but that the company had no plans of releasing an 80 GB model in Europe.
The new model will be released in Korea on June 16th with a price tag of EUR $412/$550 USD.
The same spokesperson also confirmed that there was no plans to release the 20 or 60 GB models in Korea and that there were no plans for a European launch of the larger capacity units and that a North American launch hadnt been talked about. "At this moment in time, there are no plans to introduce the 80GB version of PlayStation 3 in Europe." he added.
Those that recall, the rumors began a couple months ago when an FCC filing showed Sony asking for a Class II permissive change. The Sony spokesperson confirmed that the larger HDD was the only thing changed from past units, squashing rumors that the Bluetooth features had been updated.
BitComet 20070519 Beta has been released, providing a whole host of GUI improvements and bugfixes. BitComet is a BitTorrent/HTTP/FTP download management software, which is powerful, fast, very easy-to-use, and completely free. It contains many advanced features for BitTorrent download and extends its leading BitTorrent technology to HTTP/FTP to accelerate downloading up to 5 - 10 times faster, or more. AfterDawn users have downloaded this item over 1.5 million times.
Here is the changelog...
GUI Improved: add search for eDonkey download source option in BT task properties dialog
GUI Improved: add ED download plugin configuration page in perferences dialog
GUI Improved: add an option to verify login password at program startup in perferences dialog
GUI Improved: add default task related info pane option in perferences dialog
GUI Improved: add an option to set Bitcomet as default IE download tool in perferences dialog
GUI Improved: add an option to enable torrent share in perferences dialog
GUI Improved: open BCTP link dialog replaced by open BC link dialog, which can create HTTP/FTP/BT task from BC link
GUI Improved: add "copy BC link to clipboard" command to task list context menu, with hotkey Ctrl+C
GUI Improved: add snapshot number column in task list
GUI Improved: add tooltip to display detail task status info when mouse hover on task icon in task list
GUI Improved: add tooltip to display upload rate, left time, health when mouse hover on download rate, progress, seed number
GUI Improved: upload rate, left time, health will not display in task list by default (can be shown in View menu)
GUI Improved: when task stopped, task can be renamed even if task is not completed
GUI Improved: double click to download torrent file in peer shared torrent list
GUI Improved: add popular column in peer shared torrent list
GUI Improved: new icon and tooltip to designate whether the torrent has been downloaded or shared by me in peer shared torrent list
GUI Improved: add auto-refresh checkbox in toolbar of peer shared torrent list
GUI Improved: add share-all checkbox in toolbar of my shared torrent list
Satellite provider, DirecTV, has filed a lawsuit against Comcast for alleged misrepresentation in an advertisement where Comcast claims its picture quality to be superior. DirecTV only had its own advertisements pulled back in February which also claimed that its broadcasting was superior in quality to what cable companies offered. Time Warner Cable had sued DirecTV for the claims.
Now, its DirecTV's turn to fire shots as the spat between Satellite and Cable in attracting the growing interest for HDTV programming continues. The most recent advertisement in question from Comcast (March 2007) cites a survey from Frank N. Magid Associates which showed Comcast was preferred over DirecTV with regard to picture quality.
"The Magid survey upon which Comcast relies does not provide or sufficiently substantiate the propositions for which Comcast cites the survey. Comcast's advertising and promotional claims, including the aforementioned, are literally false," DirecTV's lawsuit alleges. DirecTV is seeking monetary damages and expects retracting statements be made by Comcast.
Motorola and Modulus Video have announced the signing of a merger agreement that will see Motorola acquiring the video compression company. Modulus Video provides MPEG-4 Advanced Video Coding (AVC) compression systems for delivery of video content in the IPTV, cable, broadcast and satellite marketplace. The two companies have been working together on encoding solutions for over two years.
"Motorola is committed to offering an integrated, end-to-end video portfolio designed to meet the current and next-generation requirements of operators," said Dan Moloney, President, Home and Networks Mobility business, Motorola. "As consumers demand more high-definition (HD) video and interactive services, the need for advanced compression technology is increasingly important. As part of its advanced real-time video encoding products, Modulus Video has a powerful architecture and product development framework that is well suited for continued technological advancement."
Computer dealers in Gujarat, India, have reportedly staged a one-day strike in protest over recent Microsoft anti-piracy efforts. The Redmond-based software giant recently sent notices to about 6 PC dealers in Gujarat accusing them of selling pirated copies of Windows. The company demands a payment of 200,000 Rupee ($4,955) and a fine of 1,600,000 Rupee ($39,638) if the vendors continued to sell pirated copies of the OS.
Microsoft conducted its investigation by sending a dummy customer into the stores asking for a copy of Windows be installed on their PC. "We are not against piracy but against the way Microsoft is working to stop it,"South Gujarat Information Technologists Association (SITA) president Bharat Randheri told itVARnews. "Moreover, if they want to do business in India then they should change their prices and policies according to the Indian market. We are the one who are promoting their products in the market and if they will behave in such a rash manner with us then we will stop business with them."
One retailer claimed that they are actually helping Microsoft by installing the software on customers PCs. "Since we are are not charging anything extra for installing the software, it means that we are actually not trading in pirated software. For us this is just a sewa (selfless act) that we are offering to our customers. Besides, the pricing of their operating systems is way too high for the Indian markets," he said.
During CES in January, Onkyo announced its plans to sell an HD DVD player and not a Blu ray player. It seems now that the company may be having second thoughts about that decision.
At a press conference yesterday at the company's headquarters, Keith Hass, the director of sale said the company is “looking at both [the HD DVD and Blu-ray] formats” and that it was rethinking its past decision. He even hinted that a dual-format unit might be a possibility.
Hass did say however that whatever player the company decided on, it would be released in the fourth quarter of this year.
In another amazingly bold statement, the MPAA has claimed that its efforts to prevent illegal recording of Spider-Man 3 gave it "a fair shot at its record-setting opening."
The MPAA noted that in total 31 would-be pirates were caught by cinema staff equipped with night vision goggles. The Association offered $500 USD reward to the staff for each person found trying to illegally record the movie.
Of course, the flawed logic behind the statement is that it only takes ONE illegal recording to hit the internet before the movie is considered pirated, and it doesnt matter how many people are stopped after that. But if the MPAA would like to think they helped Spider-Man 3 make over $150 million opening weekend, lets let them.
According to a leading expert on Climate Change issues, Governments around the world should explore possibilities of placing taxes on Plasma TVs and other power-hungry devices to promote more energy efficient designs. Plasma screens are much bigger than cathode-ray tube TVs and consume about four times the power on average. Professor Paul Ekins, who studies the economics of climate change, said placing a tax on these screens would reflect their "greater climate change burden."
A CRT TV costs about £25 (GBP) per year to run and causes 100kg of carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions on average, compared to plasma's running costs of £100 (GBP) per year, accounting for 400kg of C02 emissions on average. Obviously, there is no easy comparison because of the size difference between plasma displays and others.
"At the very least you might think that government would provide some differential incentives to accelerate the development of more energy-efficient diode screens and encourage their take-up," said Professor Ekins, co-director of the UK Energy Research Centre (UKERC). "Once plasma screens are bought, they are likely to be there for five years at a minimum - perhaps 10 years, perhaps longer."
Almost a year after the police raids on The Pirate Bay, Prosecutor Hakan Roswall decided to press charges against the admins of the popular torrent tracker site.
However, a new information leak clearly shows that the Swedish police have a weak case and have little to no evidence against the admins.
This morning, over 100 servers that were confiscated in the raids were finally returned to TBP even though the "offending data" had long been copied.
Mr Roswall has long tried to find something to use against the admins but it seem now they have little to nothing. "Brokep", and admin at TPB wrote this in his blog:
“I talk to alot of people that are somehow connected to other interesting people - one of them told me that the police officer in charge of the case against The Pirate Bay actually has _nothing_ to give the District Attorney. Still he’s pressing charges.”
So far it seems the raid did nothing but bring huge media attention to the tracker and fuel its ego.
Symantec, the makers of Norton products and other software announced on Wednesday that it was suing 8 different companies it accuses of illegally copying its products. The company is seeking $55 million USD in damages.
Symantec is just the latest company to resort to legal action as an effort to fight piracy. Industry reports tell us that piracy costs software makers billions of dollars in lost revenue every year.
For each of its cases, Symantec is asking for a jury trial and a range of $4 to 10 million USD in damages from each company it is accusing.
The businesses named are Acortech.com of California; m-Plus International Technology Inc. of Florida; Logical Plus Inc. of New York; SoftwareOutlets.com Inc. of Florida; Rowcal Distribution of California; Global Impact Inc. of Florida; and eDirect Software of Canada. Most of the sales were conducted online, Symantec said.
Symantec alleges the companies "engaged in trademark infringement, copyright infringement, fraud, unfair competition, trafficking in counterfeit labels and documentation, and false advertising".
The cases are also seeking permanent injunctions on future sales of the alleged pirated software.
In a statement released yesterday, Ohio University officials said they have recieved a subpoena forcing them to turn in the names of 14 students who have been accused of illegally sharing music to the RIAA.
This latest action is part of the ongoing campaign by the RIAA to stop unauthorized file sharing on collge campuses. In February, the RIAA sent out 100 pre-lawsuit letters to Ohio University telling them to notify the students that a lawsuit was upcoming if the students did not settle.
Ohio University was only one of the more than 30 universities targeted so far.
The 14 students subpoenaed yesterday did not settle with the RIAA and so now face a lawsuit from RIAA prosecutors in the upcoming months.
According to the gaming blog Kotaku, Colin Sebastian, a top analyst at Lazard Capital Markets, has told investors that a new revamped, redesigned PSP is on its way by the end of the year.
Sebastian told industry website Next Gen that his sources confirmed Sony “definitely has something in the works” but then got more vague and didnt elaborate further.
Sony recently dropped the prices on the PSP so consumers shouldnt expect this new PSP for at least a few months but if it is coming it will certainly be here before the Christmas rush.
According to Japan's Association of Copyright for Computer Software, police forces arrested three males suspected of unauthorized sharing of Manga. The three suspects were arrested on May 18th and had their homes searched. Each is accused of scanning and uploading images of "Weekly Shonen Jump" and "Weekly Shonen Sunday" magazines on the Winny P2P network.
The three suspects are accused of uploading the scans during periods between February and April and that all the scans were for issues that had not hit bookstands yet.
Officers raided the homes of the suspects and seized computers, scanners, printers, and manga.
The Winny P2P software promised anonymity for its users but members of the Kyoto High Tech Crime Task Force found flaws in the integrated forum feature. The creator was arrested and convicted and forced to pay a $12,000 USD fine. Apparently the flaws have not been fixed, as these arrests mark the 3rd, 4th, and 5th in the past year.
Creative is taking another shot at Apple's huge market share by announcing a rival for the iPod Nano.
The new player, the Zen Wav will include a smooth,rounded metallic shell similar to those of a Nano. The Wav will have a 1.5-inch screen, FM radio, microphone for recording, and a small directional pad like those in the Zen V line. An added perk is an integrated pair of speakers to provide sound without the need for a speaker dock.
The only model known so far is a 2GB model and that will be released in Singapore this week. There is no set price or release date for the North American version as of yet, but they should be out before the end of the year.
The Pirate Bay, the infamous torrent tracker site has ended all specualtion and officially announced its latest project, a YouTube-esque video streaming site without any censorship.
The Pirate Bay Blog had this to say:
Oh, and the surprise that's coming... it's still not what people think it is... it's been speculations on it being Playble.com or the video somewhat secret video site.
But, as a treat I can tell you - YES - we're going to do a video streaming site. It's true. It's in the works being done right now and as usual we put a bit of Pirate Bay mentality behind every project we do.
The new site will be at thevideobay.org and a TPB admin has confirmed that they tested streams on Eurovision a while back with "no problems whatsoever".
The site will have user generated content, and will have no censorship. They added also that the community had the option to censor but that the admins would not censor anything.
"We're going for a free system, with a solution to not care so much about copyright but still not breaking laws," he said. "We're not revolutionizing the world, we're taking it just a small step further," added the admin.
Samsung Electronics and LG.Philips may have boosted the goal of creating thinner mobile phones and other portable devices with the development of new active-matrix OLEDs (AMOLED). Samsung is calling its 2.2-inch display the "world's thinnest" at just 0.52mm but LG.Philips has developed a 4.0-inch display just 0.15mm thick which is also flexible. Both display at a resolution of up to 320x240.
Samsung outdoes LG.Philips in terms of color display, supporting 262 million colors compared to LG.Philips' display of 16.7 million colors. Samsung is also reportedly ready to mass-produce its display for various mobile devices while LG.Philips' offering has only been announced.
LG.Philips' claims that its display is "barely thicker than a human hair" and it is also the first AMOLED display to use amorphous silicon technology allowing it to bend and roll without causing damage. "This display capitalizes on the strengths of OLED technology and its image quality is really something to behold," said LG.Philips VP Hyunhe Ha in a statement.
Hyunhe Ha continued: "Although we are still in the initial stages with this technology, we expect to make some exciting advances in the near future. LG.Philips LCD is focused on customer-centered technology development to introduce products that customers want."
LG Electronics Inc. has announced it will close a manufacturing plant that produces over 840,000 42-inch plasma panels per year (about 70,000 per month) used in flat-panel television sets. The South Korean firm is making the move to cut costs and rejuvenate its business. The plant is located in Gumi, 260km southeast of Seoul, according to LG spokeswoman Judy Pae. She said the shut down of the plant is scheduled to happen in the first half of this year, so very soon.
"This move is to increase operational efficiency and to reduce costs totaling US$22 million to US$32 million annually," LG Electronics said in a statement issued later. "This is a part of LG's ongoing efforts to improve the performance of its plasma display panel business as a whole." LG's total 42-inch plasma display module production capacity will decline to 360,000 units per month, or 4.32 million a year, with the loss of the "A1" plant.
The company lost 123 billion won (US$132.1 million) in the three months ended March 31 after it had recorded net profit of 150.8 billion won a year earlier. The market for flat panel TV sets, including liquid-crystal display (LCD) and plasma sets, has suffered from oversupply and falling prices. LG competes with many other huge plasma makers including Samsung Electronics and Matsushita Electric Industrial Co.
A new Copyright Alliance launched yesterday in Washington D.C. with a self-described goal of "promoting the value of copyright as an agent for creativity, jobs, and growth." While promoting the value of copyright it aims to strengthen existing copyright protection laws. The group has the backing of many organizations including MPAA, NBC, News Corp., Disney, Time Warner, the Business Software Alliance, Microsoft, ASCAP and the NBA.
Several members of congress also back the new Copyright Alliance, including Rep. John Conyers (D-MI) and "Hollywood" Howard Berman (D-CA). The group is headed by Patrick Ross, formerly of the Progress & Freedom Foundation who has written about Intellectual Property (IP) issues for years. The Alliance is dedicated to "strengthening copyright law" using "bilateral, regional, and multilateral agreements to protect creators" and advancing educational programs "that teach the value of strong copyright."
In several papers published on the organizations website, the group repeats the claim that piracy is responsible for the loss of billions of dollars of sales of software, movies and music and argues that most "fair use" claims made today are misleading.
In a nice reminder from the entertainment industry that a lot more than just a motion picture itself is subject to copyright, German and Polish police have arrested several administrators and translators for a popular Polish site that offers user-generated subtitles. Napisy.org was the target of the Police raid and several computers were seized as part of the investigation.
The administrators have been charged with copyright infringement, even though apparently it was the site's users that did the translations. Under Polish law, translators need permission from content providers before working on copyright material. The head of napisy.org claims that "the idea of the service is noncommercial" and may fall under some fair use rights.
There is good reason for Polish subtitles to be translated and offered like this; many official Polish translations don't become available until months after a major film has been released and some users simply don't want to have to wait that long. The downloaded subtitles can be played back when paired with a DVDRip which can of course come from a legitimate source but the movie industry will probably not acknowledge that fact.
New NPD figures show that Nintendo has once again performed exceptionally well in both hardware and software sales during the month of April. The Nintendo DS handheld outsold all other gaming hardware, moving an impressive 471,000 units while the Wii console followed with 360,000 units. Sony's PlayStation 2 (PS2) console was ahead of Microsoft's Xbox 360 with 194,000 units and 174,000 units sold respectively.
Sony's PlayStation Potable (PSP) also had a good month, moving 183,000 units. Sony's PlayStation 3 (PS3) console slipped to 82,000 units, outsold by the aging Game Boy Advance (GBA) by just 2,000 units. GameCube managed to scrape up 13,000 unit sales in the month. Nintendo also performed very well with software sales, scoring the top four best-selling games for April.
Pokemon Diamond and Pokemon Pearl for the DS sold 1.045 million and 712,000 units respectively. Super Paper Mario followed with 352,000 sales and then Wii Play recorded 249,000 sales during the month. Guitar Hero II sold 197,000 units for the Xbox 360, platform and also 142,000 units for the PS2 platform. Other notable figures were God of War II for PS2 selling 101,000 copies SpiderMan 3 selling 117,000 copies for Xbox 360 platform and 105,000 for PS2.
Nero has announced that its Nero 7 package is to be the first multimedia suite to be certified for both the Authoring and playback of the Advanced Video Codec High Definition (AVCHD) standard. AVCHD is a new recording format introduced by Sony and Panasonic that uses an MPEG-4AVC (H.264) video codec to allow for greater compression efficiency as well as higher quality audio and video capturing.
In gaining this certification, Nero 7 has successfully passed the stringent quality standards and guidelines as outlined by Sony and Panasonic to ensure the best user experience for AVCHD. AVCHD authoring in Nero 7 empowers users to take their own HD content from AVCHD camcorders or other sources, and add menus, create chapters, edit, and encode into AVCHD. Nero 7's certified authoring capability ensures that content can be played on consumer devices such as PlayStation 3 and Blu-ray Disc players.
Cyberlink Corp. has announced that its PowerDVD Ultra software, the only retail software to support playback of Blu-ray Disc, HD DVD and DVD media now has support for NVIDIA's second generation PureVideo® HD (VP2) architecture on NVIDIA's latest GeForce 8500/8600 series graphics cards.
PowerDVD Ultra uses the PureVideo hardware engine to power superior H.264 decoding technology, providing owners of NVIDIA GeForce 8500/8600 series graphics cards the benefit of dramatically reducing CPU utilization when executing high-definition video decoding and playback.
"With our ongoing collaboration with NVIDIA to drive high-definition video technology, CyberLink is now able to provide both PowerDVD Ultra and NVIDIA GeForce 8500/8600 series graphics cards users with an exceptionally smooth high-definition video decoding and playback experience," said Alice H. Chang, CEO of CyberLink Corp.
"We are ecstatic that Cyberlink PowerDVD Ultra supports the new PureVideo HD processing engine on NVIDIA GeForce 8600 and GeForce 8500 graphics cards," said Scott Vouri, NVIDIA General Manager of Multimedia. "Now even users with mainstream PCs will be able to experience the beauty and detail of Blu-ray Disc and HD DVD movies."
It has been a few months since Microsoft unleashed its new Windows Vista operating system to the public, and during the time while it has sold millions of legitimate copies, crackers have been trying to get around its anti-piracy measures which Microsoft claims to have significantly improved over XP. There has been a variety of options to pirates, including workarounds to delay activation indefinitely and the OEM BIOS cracks that have floated around.
However, pirates do show that they complain even about stuff they get for free, and many find even the BIOS hacks too hard to follow. Warez group, NoPe, recently gave these lazy gits a surprise with a release of Windows Vista that works straight from installation, no serial input necessary and no activation to crack or get around.
Amusingly, it would appear that this "release" needs even less manual labor than the copies of Windows XP that are distributed with key generators and cracks and feedback in all the regular places shows some users find it works properly whatever the case, others claim it will only work as promised on a Dell machine.
Hitachi hopes to boost Blu-ray in the market in 2009 by offering a 200GB Blu-ray optical disc. The capacity, which is 4 times what today's largest available Blu-ray discs offer, is achieved by packing eight layers onto a single side of the platter. Blu-ray already has an advantage over its rival, HD DVD, in terms of capacity, offering 25GB per layer compared to HD DVD's 15GB per layer.
A triple layer HD DVD disc has been produced, packing 17GB into each layer for a total of 51GB storage capacity. While it would push HD DVD's capacity over that of the currently available Blu-ray media, the development from Hitachi shows that it might not be too hard at all for Blu-ray to go over the top again,... far over.
A triple layer HD DVD disc also would surely have compatibility problems with today's available hardware anyway (as surely an eight layer Blu-ray disc would also) and that's not even to mention the cost of producing either format's discs with more than 2 layers anytime soon.
The creators of the infamous video sharing website, YouTube.com, have challenged the Pentagon and the U.S. Military over the assertion that soldiers overseas were using too much bandwidth on the military's network by watching online videos. The Defense Department recently imposed a ban on several websites including YouTube, MySpace, Metacafe, Studip Videos, IFilm, MTV and Photobucket.
"They said it might be a bandwidth issue, but they created the Internet, so I don't know what the problem is," laughed YouTube Chief Executive Chad Hurley, saying that the company is trying to work with the Pentagon to reverse its course or at least partially lift the ban which affects many soldiers serving in Iraq and Afghanistan.
"We'd like to explore what's at issue here and talk about what we can do to sort out what's the issue here," YouTube spokeswoman Julie Supan said. Company officials were confused mostly because the block comes just days after the Military launched its own channel on YouTube which it describes as a "boots-on-the-ground" perspective of scenes of combat.
YouTube has always removed videos that contain footage of extreme violence which have included attacks on U.S. soldiers and Iraqi civilians. To make this whole situation even more interesting, a new policy implemented in Iraq by the government aims to block news photographers and camera operators from filming bombing scenes, which raises many questions about censorship and the people's right to know what's really going on on the ground.
The first person to be convicted for uploading movies (or technically chunks of movie files) using BitTorrent software has lost an appeal against a jail sentence in Hong Kong. Chan Nai-ming was sentenced to three months in prison in 2005 for uploading Daredevil, Miss Congeniality and Red Planet using P2P software. It was "distributing" and not "downloading" that got him a jail sentence.
Chan used the screen name "Big Crook", which probably didn't help his case and is presumably why he was such a good candidate to pursue as an example. The lawyer for the 38 year old said that he uploaded the movies but did not distribute them. The five-member Court of Final Appeal did not agree with that claim and handed down its unanimous verdict.
"He plainly succeeded in distributing... copies of the films in question and was correctly convicted," said Justice Robert Ribeiro. An earlier appeal had also been rejected. Chan Nai-ming will now have to serve the three-month prison term.
Among the daily software updates today to AfterDawn.com and Filepedia.com servers were the popular items, FFDShow, Azureus and µTorrent. FFDShow has long been in our top 5 downloads, standing at about 4,734,881 downloads at time of writing. µTorrent is a popular BitTorrent client and has been downloaded 83,145 times from AfterDawn. Another BitTorrent client, Azureus, has been more popular overall with 270,875 downloads.
JVC has launched 3 new models in their 1080p LCD TV line that are packing a brand new display engine. The new engine, dubbed "Clear Motion Drive II", better handles fast movement.
The technology is said to "dramatically improve processing by interpolating on-screen movement in any direction using 8,000 surrounding pixels and adapting the technology to a full HD, 1080p panel. JVC even boasts that its new LCDs with an 8ms pixel repsonse can beat a 60Hz set with no lag whatsoever.
The thee new sets, the 37-inch LT-37X898, 42-inch LT-42X898, and 47-inch LT-47X898 all advertise full 1080p resolution and 120Hz display. All include HDMI 1.3 inputs as well which JVC said can be used to see "deep" colors from the Sony PlayStation 3 and HD DVD and Blu ray players.
Official dates and prices will be released soon said JVC.
A few days ago, we reported about Apple losing stock due to an inaccurate report by Engadget. Engadget claims the email was sent from a trustworthy source at Apple, and there is no doubt about its validity.
Apple however, feels differently. Apple spokesperson Natalie Kerris has flatly denied the claim that Apple sent the email. She also confirmed the iPhone was on track for its June launch, and that the new OS, Leopard, was still scheduled for an October public beta.
Industry watchers are begging for an SEC investigation, especially if the email is determined to originally come from someone hoping to manipulate Apple's stock prices.
Yesterday's FCC approval of the iPhone has helped to raise the stock back to its average price so the damage was reversed.
Today, during its "Hybrid Business" strategy launch, computer giant Dell spent a few minutes discussing its new DisplayPort standard. According to Dell CTO Kevin Kettler, the new "interconnect will redefine what an LCD monitor looks like".
He mentioned it will support 4x the current HDTV resolutions, allow for integrated peripherals around the display and allow the user to "daisychain" mulitple monitors instead of installing them in a star configuration. According to Kettler, the audio, microphone, panel I/O and more will all go through a single bi-directional cable.
The main point was that the new LCD monitors would be super-thin due to the elimination of the electronics used for video conversion. The prototype, displayed to the right, is only half and inch thick and very sleek looking.
Despite continued efforts by the AACS LA to protect next gen discs from content pirates, the pirates always seem to be one step ahead.
The latest volume key, scheduled for release next week, has already been cracked. Pirates using the latest Slysoft AnyDVD HD beta have been able to rip HD DVD discs using the new AACS version 3. Although scheduled for release next week, the pirates tried, and succesfully ripped early release previews of the Matrix Trilogy, the first movies to use Version 3.
If this is to keep happening (keys being cracked before the DVDs hit shelves) it might be time for the AACS to rethink the whole key model. After the last AACS key hit the internet, AACS LA chairman Michael Ayers stated that "the organization planned to continue clamping down on key dissemination, despite the fact that attempts to do so only encouraged further dissemination."
And so the war between hackers and the AACS continues on.
As many Afterdawn users found out the hard way this week, Microsoft has begun banning modified Xbox 360 consoles from being able to access Xbox Live. A Microsoft spokesperson described the move as "an important part of our efforts to try and maintain a fair gaming environment for the large majority of gamers that play by the rules".
Microsoft also said it was banning by unit rather than by Live account. Anyone using a modified console to connect to Live should recieve error code ("Status Code: Z: 8015 - 190D").
"These users will not have their account automatically banned from Live, but they will no longer be able to access the service from the console they modified," Microsoft said.
The company has "a no tolerance policy towards inappropriate behaviour like hacking or cheating", and believes that "this topic is more important than ever given the recent release of the Halo 3 beta".
"We have stated in the past that customers can only enjoy access to the Xbox Live community through the use of a genuine, unmodified, Xbox console and we will continue to enforce this rule to ensure the integrity of our service, the protection of our partners and the benefits of our users," a statement on the global community Gamerscoreblog concluded.
According to FCC documents, the Apple iPhone only just received FCC approval although its release date has been set for weeks.
The phone was tested for the safety of its wirelss elements (GSM and Wi-Fi) and passed. The documents also say that Apple sent a special confidentiality letter with their submission that asked that no photos of the product or the manual be made public for 45 days after approval.
"These documents reveal technical and design information that has not been publicly disclosed in such [existing] marketing and that is protected by Apple as confidential and proprietary trade secrets," said Apple EMC and Wireless Compliance manager Robert Steinfeld in the letter.
Analysts believe the secrecy may be to protect the iPhone's finger-operated interface, which is partially guarded by patents but can be seen in the Prada Phone by LG.
I guess we will have to wait until release week to see what the iPhone is all about.
This afternoon, SanDisk, in a surprising statement,
praised Amazon's DRM-free music store and EMI's support.
The company praised the "embrace of a universal format" (MP3) and said it was crucial "to establishing the digital music business."
"This is the first time a major record label and a major retailer have come together to offer consumers the freedom to buy music compatible with all MP3 players," said company general VP Daniel Schreiber. "As consistent advocates of consumer choice, we believe this is an important step forward."
This recent statement contradicts SanDisk's previous comments in which CEO Eli Harari attacked Apple and Steve Jobs when he suggested a DRM-free approach for iTunes.
At that time, Sandisk claimed that music stores should not suggest changes to the way music labels offered their music. Harari suggested that "store-independent" DRM formats were a better alternative.
On Thursday, computer giant HP began shipping its new line of HDTV LCDs and plasmas. The new line includes HP's first ever 1080p "direct-view" LCD sets.
The 42-inch LC4276N and 47-inch LC4776N can both achieve the full 1080p HD resolution and have an advertised 1,200:1 static contrast ratio. Each has 3 HMDI ports as well as a VGA connector and a RS232 port. The suggested retail prices are $1900 and $2500 respectively.
In the new line are two new 720p sets, the LC3272 and LC3772, which are 32 and 37 inches, and include the same ports. MSRP are $899 and $1,199 respectively.
Also included is two new plasma displays. The 42 inch PL4272N has a "wide-pixel 1024x768 resolution and a brighter 10,000:1 contrast ratio while the premium PL5027N adds a true 1366x768 panel and the same improved contrast." The MSRP on those two TVs are $1,399 and $2,099.
After rumors emerged that Microsoft was considering supporting Blu ray in the future, the company has put their foot down and stated that they have "absolutely no plans" to support any format besides HD DVD.
The rumors, mainly based on Peter Moore's January comments in which he suggested the company might be willing to adapt to consumer needs, have been refuelled recently by tech website around the internet.
"We're fully committed to HD-DVD and have absolutely no plans to support other optical formats," confirmed Microsoft on its Gamerscore marketing blog.
"We firmly stand behind the HD-DVD format as the best choice for consumers. Current reports indicating that Microsoft has a back-up plan which includes Blu-ray support are incorrect," detailed the company.
In a large announcement yesterday, Apple and Coke have said they will be teaming up in Europe to offer one of, if not the largest music promotions in the continent's history.
Starting later this month, and ending in August, the companies will give away 2 billion music downloads to drinkers of Coke products. Apple also plans to give away concert tickets and iPods.
There will be a limited edition Coke bottle shipping during the promotion and Apple also said that exclusive downloads of the concert performances would be available on iTunes as well.
This is a good deal if you are a big Coke product drinker, and like legal music.
After tech-gadget site Engadget reported that Apple is facing more delays, this time with the iPhone and Leopard, the next version of Mac OS X, Apple stock immediately fell 2.2%. Engadget posted its story at 11:49am ET on Wednesday morning. It read, "This one doesn't bode well for Mac fans and the iPhone-hopeful: we have it on authority that as of today, the iPhone launch is being pushed back from June to... October (!), and Leopard is again seeing a delay, this time being pushed all the way back to January."
Shorty after the item was published, Engadget updated the article to say that it had heard back from Apple PR that there was no delay. The source of the inaccurate report was an internal memo that was sent to Engadget saying that the company issued a press release with the news that the iPhone was now scheduled for October, and Leopard was delayed until January.
After about an hour and a half, Apple itself issued an email update saying the first mail was a fake and that the delivery schedule for the iPhone and Leopard had not changed. Engadget then updated its article, with the headline, "False alarm: iPhone delayed until October, Leopard delayed again until January." There are some unhappy shareholders out there now after Apple's stock was still down slightly in afternoon trading.
LG.Philips LCD Co. Ltd. has revealed it expects prices of its TV panels to fall at a much slower rate this year on stronger demand and limited output growth. The industry has suffered from tumbling prices and oversupply of LCD TVs since last year but is finally expecting to see a cyclical upturn in the second half as low price tags encourage consumers to buy larger TVs.
"TV panel prices in March-April were likely the lowest throughout the year,"Champ Shin, vice president in charge of TV panel sales, said at the Reuters Global Technology, Media and Telecoms Summit. He expects the decline for the entire of 2007 to be no worse than 15%, compared with 30% last year.
"The prices will likely be stable for the time being. In the strong season, there's even some chance for a (price) rise," said Shin. reported its fourth consecutive quarterly loss in the January-March quarter but expects that in the current quarter it will turn around to a profit. "We are confident of a monthly break-even in the second quarter," Shin said.
LCD is increasing its share in the market for 40-inch-and-larger TV sets in a price war with plasma display panels (PDP). Plasma makers still have an advantage in the 50-inch-and-bigger category however, where few LCD makers supply.
Napster has closed its fourth quarter with subscribers to its music rental service being at an all time high but with a widened loss during the quarter due to the impact of a one-time gain in the same quarter of the previous year. The company reported that its net loss was $8.5 million, about 20 cents per share in the period that ended March 31, compared to $4.4 million, or 10 cents per share in the same period a year before.
Revenue rose 9 percent to $29.1 million, compared with $26.8 million in the same quarter last year. The company's shares fell 15 cents, or 3.7 percent, in extended trading after they rose 9 cents to $4.07 in regular trading Wednesday. Napster Chairman and Chief Executive Chris Gorog said that the company was in its strongest position since launching.
"As we head into fiscal 2008, we are acquiring customers cheaper and keeping them longer. We are growing revenues while reducing expenses. We are attracting more world-class partners than we ever have before," Gorog said. Napster closed the quarter of a subscriber base of 830,000 which includes 225,000 former AOL Music Now users and University users.
The number of paid Napster subscribers rose 37 percent from the same quarter of the previous year. For the fiscal year, the company reported a net loss of $36.8 million, or 85 cents per share, compared with a loss of $54.9 million, or $1.28 per share, during the previous year while total net revenue increased 17 percent to $111.1 million from $94.7 million in fiscal 2006.
Sanford University has responded to being fingered by the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) as one of the worst 25 schools for piracy by enforcing reconnection fees for students caught up in DMCA complaints. To cover the costs involved with keeping up with the number of file sharing complaints received, Stanford will disconnect students who receive DMCA complaints or pre-litigation letters and charge a fee to be reconnected.
Stanford claims that the money spent on copyright enforcement related activities is "an irresponsible waste of Stanford's resources." Upon the first complaint against a student, the Information Security Office (ISO) will forward a copy to the student and request that infringing material be removed. If the student does not respond or remove the material within 48 hours, he/she will be disconnected from the school network and charged a $100 reconnection fee.
Any further offense will lead to an immediate disconnection from the network. For a student caught twice, a $500 reconnection fee will be charged. Upon the third instance, a student will have to indemnify the university against any further copyright violations and pay a $1,000 fee for a new account on the school network to regain access and will be referred to Judicial Affairs for disciplinary action.
A pledge from the Australian federal government to provide $12.4 million over two years to to tackle the problem of
intellectual property (IP) crime has been welcomed by the Business Software Alliance (BSA) Australia Committee and the ARIA's Music Industry Piracy Investigations (MIPI). Dr Jim Macnamara, spokesperson for the BSA Australia Committee commented that IP crime is not a victimless crime as often thought.
"Piracy hurts local software developers and resellers, confuses and misleads consumers, and also impacts on international software companies selling their products in Australia," Macnamara said. "We have to recognize that Australia is part of a global economy and thus address IP issues in an internationally consistent way, in concert with our trading partners. We believe the IP initiatives announced by the Attorney General last week are particularly relevant, certainly needed and overall a very good step forward for Australia."
Sabiene Heindl, the General Manager of MIPI supported the promise made by the federal government. "Music piracy adversely affects a range of people in the music industry – from up-and-coming artists, songwriters, sound technicians, graphic designers to music retailers. Ultimately consumers pay the price with less Australian music because less money in the industry necessarily translates to less investment in discovering and nurturing new Australian talent," Heindl said.
The International Federation of the Phonographic Industry (IFPI), the trade group that oversees the global record industry, has backed the recommendation by the UK's Parliamentary Culture, Media and Sports Committee that copyright term for recording artists should be extended and that ISPs and search-based businesses should do more to discourage piracy.
The report concludes that the Government, "should press the European Commission to bring forward proposals for an extension of copyright term for sound recordings to at least 70 years, to provide reasonable certainty that an artist will be able to derive benefit from a recording through his or her lifetime."
It disagrees with the outcome of the review of copyright term by Andrew Gowers last year, saying it focuses only on economic analysis rather than the moral rights of creators. "The Select Committee has given a ringing endorsement for fair treatment of the UK music industry. It has backed two simple principles – that UK performers must get a term of copyright protection comparable to composers, and that Britain must not be left with weaker copyright protection than its international partners," said IFPI CEO and Chairman John Kennedy.
In April, the "Big 4" music label EMI took a big step towards DRM-free music when it announced it would sell its full catalogue on iTunes for $1.29.
Today, they announced that they would be partnering with Amazon to once again bring their full catalogue DRM-free to Amazon's new, yet unnamed, music download store. Unlike iTunes however, the tracks will be available in high bitrate MP3.
"Amazon.com is synonymous with a great consumer experience, and they have become an important retail partner of ours," Eric Nicoli, CEO of EMI Group said in today's press release. "I applaud Jeff Bezos and Amazon.com for making this move. Amazon.com’s deep understanding of consumers and vast knowledge of music paves the way for a smooth entry into the digital arena. Their arrival in the digital music market will offer even more consumer choice and will be a big advance in addressing the lack of interoperability which has frustrated many music fans.”
Hopefully this will help push the market towards freedom and not the forced AAC/iPod world we live in today.
Google Inc.'s YouTube service has been hit with yet another copyright infringement lawsuit, this time from David "Dawg" Grisman, who once recorded with The Grateful Dead. He filed a complaint on May 10th seeking an unspecified amount of damages for the illegal posting of his videos. Grisman and his business partner, Craig Miller, claim the legal action is aimed at "helping independent musicians whose music is distributed without authorization by YouTube's owner, Google Inc".
The lawsuit filed specifically accuses that Google "deliberately refuse to take meaningful steps to deter the rampant infringing activity readily apparent on YouTube". "We are looking out for ourselves and all the other people like us - musicians and independent publishers," Grisman told the Associated Press.
The Grateful Dead is noted to have always had a relaxed attitude toward bootleg tapes of its shows but Miller claims there is "a difference between fan bootlegs and the global distribution of Google".
TiVo has announced a new search feature for its line of DVR set-top boxes, Universal Swivel Search, which the company is describing as he first "TV-centric on-screen search tool." Universal Swivel Search not only allows users to search for broadcast TV and cable TV listings, but also expands the device to Internet videos. A search for a popular TV show may bring up a broadcast TV or cable listing, but might also offer on-demand episodes from Amazon's Unbox service.
It also allows users to search for a subject matter both online and offline, like "football" or "healthcare tips". The feature also suggests video content to the user based on the users preferences and other users favorites. "The [TiVo] search tools have always been task-based; you could only search for titles you already know by using specific keywords," says Bob Poniatowski, TiVo's product marketing manager for core DVR. "This [Swivel] is less about knowing exactly what you want, and more about finding things similar to things you already enjoy."
Obviously, bringing more online video to the TV set is a great improvement, but for now TiVo's online search functionality is limited to Amazon's Unbox and a few websites including the New York Times and Cnet. TiVo is currently updating Series2 and Series3 TiVo boxes with the new search service.
One of the world's four major record companies, Warner Music Group Corp. has filed a lawsuit against Imeem Inc., a music-based social networking site. The record company accuses Imeem of infringing the copyright of its artists including Madonna, Red Hot Chili Peppers and Green Day. Warner accuses the site of building up its 16 million members through "illegal use of 'free music.'" The lawsuit was filed at the U.S. District Court, Central District of California.
Imeem does warn users that attempt to upload MP3 tracks about copyright issues and does not condone or allow uploading of work that the user does not own. However, Warner does not believe that Imeem is the innocent party in this case. "Imeem is no innocent infringer. It invites Imeem's millions of users to flock to its website to copy, adapt, distribute and perform unlicensed sound recordings and music videos," the Warner lawsuit reads.
Warner is claiming damages of up to $150,000 for each infringement and as evidence, the complaint includes an exhibit that shows thousands of "play counts" for its artists' works on the popular site. Imeem is considered the fourth most popular site of its kind in the U.S., behind YouTube, Google Video and MySpace.
Sony Corp. reported widening losses for Q4 today blaming both the costs associated with the launches of the PlayStation 3 (PS3) console and reduced sales of the previous generation's king, PlayStation 2 (PS2). The consumer electronics giant reported operating losses of 113.4 billion yen (€695 million) compared with a loss of 51.9 billion yen (€318 million) in the same quarter of the previous year.
The operating profit for the financial year ending March 31st was 71.75 billion yen (€440 million) while revenue was up about 10% to 8.3 trillion yen (€51 billion). The company predicts operating profits of 440 billion yen (€2.7 billion) for the coming year. The company will work on reducing the production costs of the PlayStation 3 (PS3) console and also produce cheaper LCD displays.
Microsoft Corp. has revealed when the third Halo game will be available to purchase for the Xbox 360 console. The highly anticipated title will hit store shelves on September 25 and Microsoft hopes that the launch will be even more successful than that of Halo 2, which brought in $125 million in sales in its first day. Microsoft also expects Halo 3 to spur more sales of the Xbox 360 console.
The first Halo game launched back in November 2001 when Microsoft was a newcomer to the video games industry. The title helped Microsoft to gain a foothold in the market. After Halo 2 was launched, it sold incredibly well, cementing its place among the world's most popular games and ensuring the growth and success of the Xbox Live online service.
"This is going to be a critical holiday for us versus Sony, especially on the console generation side, and they don't really have an answer for 'Halo 3',"Shane Kim, head of Microsoft Game Studios, said. "Given that, I suspect 'Halo 3' to drive a lot of Xbox 360 sales and Xbox Live memberships, I think at those midnight (launch) events, there are going to be a lot of people walking out with an Xbox 360 along with their copies of 'Halo 3'."
The US Department of Justice recently proposed more severe penalties for software copyright violators, including the criminalization of "attempted" piracy and the foregoing of patent registration before prosecution.
The Attorney General, Alberto Gonzalez, submitted the "Intellectual Property Protection Act of 2007" to the US Chamber of Commerce this week. The chamber represent more than 3 million business groups and is the biggest business lobby group in the US.
"These crimes, as we all know, also have a direct impact on our economy, costing victims millions of dollars and, if left unchecked, diminishing entrepreneurship," Gonzales said.
The proposal wants to, among other things, make it a Federal crime to "attempt to commit" criminal copyright infringment.
"It is a general tenet of the criminal law that those who attempt to commit a crime but do not complete it are as morally culpable as those who succeed in doing so," the proposal states.
An example would be finding a warehouse full of DVDs but the inability to prove that any had been distributed or that there was an intent to sell. With the new proposal, you will be federally charged with "attempted" piracy, even if you had no intent to distribute those discs.
In a new effort to promote HD DVD, Toshiba said in a press release that they would be offering a "Father's Day Sale" on their HD-A2 player.
The deal is as follows and will surely bring new buyers to the table.
"From May 20 through June 16, consumers that purchase any Toshiba HD DVD player will receive a $100 in-store instant rebate."
Also:
"Toshiba continues to offer its well accepted five free HD DVD movie mail-in offer promotion. Running through July 31, 2007, consumers who purchase any Toshiba HD DVD player can get five HD DVD titles for free. Consumers can choose the five free HD DVD movies from a selection of 15".
Doing some quick math will show that after the rebate, the HD-A2 will cost you $299 USD and will come with 5 HD DVD movies that have a combined MSRP of $150 USD.
Toshiba says this promotion is for any store selling the HD-A2 and I feel it is an excellent deal for those that werent sure about moving on to next gen DVDs. Be reminded that the closest priced Blu ray player is double the price, at $600.
First Word Records, an independent label from the U.K., has introduced a new idea in an effort to boost sales. A vinyl record that includes downloadable MP3s.
The new product, named DigiWax, should help FWR, mainly because thier primary customers are DJs.
The records are double-weight vinyl discs that each come with a unique code. With that code, the buyer can download a DRM-free 320Kbps version of the track.
The new product makes alot of sense to FWR, as DJs always want top quality for their media and so they will purchase the physical media. A digital track however, is very convinient and can be used in mixing and other endeavors. Also, it is almost impossible to lose if backed up properly and easier to carry then a vinyl.
FWR's founder talked about the reason for DRM-free music: "Once a customer has paid for the track they should be free to play it in any player," he says. "Making a legal, paid-for version of the file less useful than a copied or pirated one doesn't make sense."
He also noted that DRM made tracks unplayable in software used by DJs, such as Serato.
FWR sells their music on iTunes, Napster and Clickgroove and sees the new hybrid as an extension of choice. "This is just a little something extra for the true vinyl fans and collectors," he added.
Today, Amazon confirmed the long running rumor that it was starting a music download store to compete with Apple's iTunes. Amazon's new service will however be different than all its competitors and will only sell songs DRM-free.
Amazon said the new service will offer million of tracks from 12,000 record labels including EMI.
"Our MP3-only strategy means all the music that customers buy on Amazon is always DRM-free and plays on any device," said Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos. "We're excited to have EMI joining us in this effort and look forward to offering our customers MP3s from amazing artists like Coldplay, Norah Jones and Joss Stone."
With Amazon putting weight behind the DRM-free movement it could persuade other major labels to follow in EMI's footsteps. Universal and Warner have already admitted they are testing unprotected music, but are afraid of piracy that can come about after the tracks are purchased.
Amazon has also chosen MP3 as the format of the tracks it is selling, which means music purchased at the Amazon store will be compatible with almost all digital media players. iTunes sells its tracks in Apple's AAC format which is only really compatible with the iPod and a few other players.
Walt Disney Co.'s Disney-ABC Television Group is set to begin offering high definition (HD) video content available on its website starting this summer. Beginning with a beta test in July, episodes of popular shows such as Lost, Desperate Housewives, Grey's Anatomy and Ugly Betty will be available on a HD broadband channel on the ABC website. An expanded line-up will be available when the new season begins in September.
Later on, in the fall, ABC plans to showcase national news and local content using its full-episode player. To fund the content, ABC will use local ads and other individualized marketing. ABC's portal currently offers viewing of more than a dozen television shows free-of-charge to users the day after the episodes originally air on TV.
Samsung Electronics has announced that sales of defective flat-panel Liquid-crystal display (LCD) and PDP (Plasma Display Panel) television sets have been suspended, according to Chinese-language Economic Daily News (EDN). The affected models are found to have defective digital tuners and Samsung has promised to help solve issues with those already sold to customers.
The affected LCD models are LA40M81, LA46M81, LA32R81 AND LA40R81 (sizes from 32, 40 to 46 inches) and affected PDP models include the PS42Q91 and PS50Q91 (42 and 50 inches), according to EDN. Samsung has notified retailers to immediately stop selling the models set up special services for consumers having purchased the models, according to the newspaper report.
The U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) has revealed that its crackdown on online piracy has reached its 50th felony conviction. Operation FastLink is an on-going investigation that targets warez groups responsible for bringing pirated movies, music, software and games to the Internet often before their official release. Christopher E. Eaves, 31, of Iowa Park, Texas pleaded guilty to one count of conspiracy to commit copyright infringement for his involvement in "Apocalypse Crew" (aPC).
According to the DOJ, APC thrived to bring music to the Internet before it release date. Eaves is scheduled to be sentenced Aug. 10. He faces up to five years in prison and a $250,000 fine. The conviction "represents a milestone never before achieved in any online piracy prosecution,"Alice Fisher, assistant attorney general in the DOJ's criminal division, said in a statement.
Operation Fastlink has resulted in more than 120 search warrants executed across 12 countries, confiscation of hundreds of computers and other equipment and the removal of approximately $50 million worth of pirated games, software, music and movies from distribution channels.
Finnish mobile phone giant, Nokia, hopes that Apple Inc.'s upcoming iPhone will help to boost consumer interest in more expensive models with advanced features. Smartphones can be multimedia gadgets, can surf the web, take excellent photos and play games but since many cost more than $400 before subsidies by mobile carriers, the average consumer may not look twice.
"The (U.S.) consumer ... hasn't had a lot of choice to go out and purchase these kind of higher-end, feature-rich multimedia devices. If that can help that market grow, I think that gives us an opportunity," Nokia Chief Financial Officer (CFO) Rick Simonson said at the Reuters Global Technology, Media and Telecoms Summit.
Apple Inc. CEO Steve Jobs has set a goal of selling 1 million iPhones in Calendar 2008. "Don't get me wrong, they will bring some things to the table that we have to be responsive to, but we have been investing in this area or some time," Simonson said. "We are leading in multimedia convergence."
Simonson pointed out Nokia's N73 and N95 best-selling handsets as examples of multimedia feature-rich handssets already on the market from the company. "It (the N95) is already out there, doing many of the things that people are talking about the iPhone doing. The iPhone is interesting. It's very much a validation of what we've been doing, in terms of saying there is a multimedia device out there that people will pay for," he said.
News Corp.'s social networking giant, MySpace, is to begin offering online television channels through deals with news and entertainment networks including National Geographic, Reuters and The New York Times Co. The new channels will also include programming from "lifestyle" media companies that will offer animation, night life, video game shows and music. MySpace has lately been attempting to re-assure content providers by increasing anti-piracy features across the site.
The market for online video content is getting noticeably bigger and a giant like MySpace cannot afford to fall behind the competition, which includes YouTube, Joost and many more. Advertising revenue is seen by content providers as a new source of revenue for video content, but so far, sites like YouTube have been filled up with unauthorized clips by users, making them a less attractive option for content providers.
Virgin Media has denies that it has begin blocking the controversial Russian MP3 site, AllofMP3.com. The site, which is second most popular paid download site in the United Kingdom behind iTunes, sells tracks for only a fraction of the price of other "authorized" stores. The website has been highly criticized by the record industry and and US trade officials but insists it complies fully with Russian IP laws.
Virgin subscribers noticed recently that there were problems accessing AllofMP3 and jumped to the conclusion that Virgin had blocked the site. However, the company denied such a policy change. "One of our networks team tested this out for me and indeed we do seem to have a problem here - but we don't block the site, this looks like a fault. The technical support team are raising this now," said Alex Brown, the firm's broadband product manager.
No other ISPs in the UK appear to have a problem with AllofMP3. Russian president Vladamir Putin promised action against AllofMP3 parent company, Mediaservices, but the site still remains available and working (and cheap) to this day. U.S. trade officials have said that AllofMP3 is acting as an obstruction to Russia joining the World Trade Organisation (WTO).
Microsoft announced today that they had issued a firmware update for its Xbox 360 HD DVD add-on.
The updates include full 1080p HD support, the option to select audio output, improved parental controls, and added compatibility with HD DVD titles. Im sure owners of "Children of Men" will be happy with the latter update.
Users can choose to either update manually from Xbox.com or have the update delivered automatically when logged into Xbox Live. To have it automatically downloaded, you must be playing a movie in the drive when logged into Live.
Panasonic today released its DMP-BD10A Blu ray player with the somewhat cheap price tag of $600. The player will offer 7.1 channel sound and has support for Dolby TrueHD as well as DTS-HD Audio.
The player features full 1080p resolution and can upconvert standard DVDs to the HD signal. As an added incentive to buy the player, Panasonic is bundling 5 Blu ray movies for free which the company says have a combined MSRP of $150.
The movies are:"Pirates of the Caribbean, Curse of the Black Pearl", "Pirates of the Caribbean Dead Man's Chest", "Transporter", "Fantastic 4" and "Crash".
Today, Motorola announced that they would be replacing Apple with Napster as the source of their subscription music service for their ROKR phone line.
The new partnership would be for the US, UK, and German markets.
Initially, the companies will place "Napster To Go" on the ROKR Z6 and then see the results.
Customers would be eligible for a free month of Napster To Go and European customers will also receive five free permanent downloads.
The Z6 with Napster will be launched in a few months and the service will use Windows Media DRM.
"We are very pleased to announce this new global relationship which supports our focus on driving adoption of our subscription model by attaching to music enabled cell phones which are expected to become the dominant device for portable music over the next few years," Napster CEO Chris Gorog said.
An IDC study commissioned by the Business Software Alliance (BSA) reported on Tuesday that the rate of piracy globally has remained fairly stable, but as the software market grows so does the cost of the piracy to developers.
The study found that worldwide, 35 percent of all software is pirated and that for every $2 spent on legitimate software, $1 is lost to piracy.
"The good news is we are making progress, however, we still have a lot of work to do to reduce unacceptable levels of piracy," said BSA President and CEO Robert Holleyman.
The report also found that losses amounted to $40 billion USD in 2006, an increase of 15 percent from 2005. However, in a silver lining, piracy rates dropped in 62 countries and only increased in 13.
China's piracy rates dropped 10 percent from 2004-2006, but still stood at an unbelievable 82 percent. The report claims that the 10 point drop led to an extra $864 million in revenue.
"This continued decline in China's software piracy rate is quite promising," Holleyman said. "BSA is encouraged by the commitment from the Chinese government to ensure legal software use.
Russia also saw a 7 percent drop, but still stood at an astonishing 87 percent. The study also concluded that the US had the lowest rate of piracy, although it had the highest total losses, $7.3 billion USD.
Playing down concerns of underachieving sales figures, Sony America president Jack Tretton has confirmed that the company has long term plans for the PlayStation 3, at least for the next decade.
"We didn't get into PS3 for the first six months of 2007 - we're into this for the next 10 years and beyond," said Tretton.
"A million units one way or another at this point isn't going to worry us."
In agreement with Tretton's argument was IDC analyst Billy Pidgeon. "The PS3 is ahead of the market, while the Xbox 360 and the Wii were designed for immediate market impact," he said.
Pidgeon also said he expected sales of the PS3 to increase during 2008.
However, Kyoshi Shin of Japan's International Game Developers' Association, did not agree and implied that many developers were changing their focus to the rival Nintendo Wii.
"When people talk about the PS3 on chat forums, they say it's like going to a very expensive restaurant and not getting anything to eat," he added.
Thanks to an online audio archive developed by professors at the University of Pennsylvania, recordings of poets' work are available for free thorugh Pennsound.
According to the site, PennSound currently feautures 200 writers and over 10,000 recording contributed either by poets, fans or global scholars. The site boasts that they recently recieved rare readings by Ezra Pound, the famous poet.
Hearing any poet "makes the poems easier to move into, in some cases," said Tree Swenson, director of the Academy of American Poets in New York. "Our ears are less logical than our eyes, somehow."
She continued on by praising Pound. "Pound is a perfect example of a poet whose tone and phrasing is so distinctive."
What differentiates PennSound from the rest is that the poetry does not need to be streamed and can be downloaded in MP3 format for use offline or on portable media devices. The iPod is compatible.
Emily Warn, editor of Chicago-based poetryfoundation.org, called PennSound a "fabulous resource" and one that she feels can help expand the current audience for poetry.
"People are afraid of poetry. They don't know where to begin," Warn said. "They value it in general, they think it sharpens the intellect ... but they know very little about it."
In a new report by Forrester Research, analyst James McQuivey has called paid downloads and the Apple TV a "dead end", explaining that as more programming becomes free, consumers will swarm to that model even if they are forced to watch advertisements.
McQuivey thinks the "dead end" can get here as soon as 2008 even though the paid download market continues to grow. He expects sales to increase from $98 million USD to $279 million USD by the end of this year but he sees growth slowing to a crawl after that. He attributes all the growth to early-adopters and points out that only 9 percent of adults have paid for any type of video content online and that the tail end of early adopter sales is approaching. "Free TV streams will steal eyeshare back from paid downloads," says the report.
If this report is to be believed then Amazon Unbox, MovieLink and other paid programs are in trouble. iTunes will hit the "dead end" later due to its postition as #1 in paid downloads according to the report.
The group also specifically notes Joost as a major threat to the whole concept of paid downloads. Joost has recently raised $45 million USD and gotten content from CBS and Viacom among others. Forrester questions: "With all the top networks putting up free content at such high quality, why would people pay for downloads?"
Ok, so maybe this can be considered rumor for now, but Sony posted this list on their press site, before taking it down a couple of hours later. Its a list of updates for the PlayStation 3 firmware. Here is the list as posted by Sony and then reposted by Arstechnica:
* Users
You can now password-protect user accounts.
* Settings
[Dynamic Normalizer] has been added as an option under [Sound Settings].
[Energy Saver] has been added as an option.
[Equalizer] has been added as a feature under [Music Settings].
[Full] has been added as an option for [DVD Wide Display] under [BD / DVD Settings].
[Photo Settings] has been added as an option.
[PS / PS2 Settings] has been added as an option.
[RSS Channel Settings] has been added as an option.
[Sample Rate] has been added to [Audio CD Import] under [Music Settings].
[Screen Saver] has been expanded under [Display Settings].
The method of selecting an output resolution has been changed in [Video Output Settings] under [Display Settings].
[Theme Settings] has been added as an option.
[Zero Unused Disk Space] has been added as an option under [System Settings] > [Format Utility].
* Photo
Additional slideshow effects have been added.
[Photo Effects] have been added as a feature.
Wallpaper feature has been added.
[Zoom] has been added as a feature.
* Music
Additional visualization effects have been added.
CD information can now be entered.
Three-speed fast forward and fast reverse has been added as a feature.
* Video
Files can now be played sequentially.
Three-speed fast forward and fast reverse has been added as a feature.
You can now select [Zoom] under [Screen Mode] when playing video files saved on the hard disk or storage media.
*An appropriate USB adapter (not included) is required to use storage media with some models.
* Game
Support for PLAYSTATION®3 format software titles has been expanded.
XMB™ (XrossMediaBar) is now accessible during gameplay.
* Network
[RSS Channel] has been added as a feature.
* Friends
You can now have multiple chat sessions.
You can now select an image to use as your Avatar from [Photo].
* Other
Date and Time is now shown when the PS button is pressed.
File sorting has been changed.
[Help] has been added as a feature.
Playability status with the PS3™ system has changed for some PlayStation® and PlayStation®2 format titles.
To check on the latest status, visit the search site for compatible titles.
[Secure Delete] has been added as an option.
Some PLAYSTATION®Network features have been revised.
In his latest blog entry, Trent Reznor, lead singer of the popular band Nine Inch Nails, speaks out about music piracy and how he feels the consumer is being screwed over by the desperate record labels. It is a very interesting read with some good points I feel.
Here is the complete blog entry:
As the climate grows more and more desperate for record labels, their answer to their mostly self-inflicted wounds seems to be to screw the consumer over even more. A couple of examples that quickly come to mind:
* The ABSURD retail pricing of Year Zero in Australia. Shame on you, UMG. Year Zero is selling for $34.99 Australian dollars ($29.10 US). No wonder people steal music. Avril Lavigne's record in the same store was $21.99 ($18.21 US).
By the way, when I asked a label rep about this his response was: "It's because we know you have a real core audience that will pay whatever it costs when you put something out - you know, true fans. It's the pop stuff we have to discount to get people to buy."
So... I guess as a reward for being a "true fan" you get ripped off.
* The dreaded EURO Maxi-single. Nothing but a consumer rip-off that I've been talked into my whole career. No more.
A study presented by a 17 year old high school student to a meeting of heart specialists on Thursday showed proof that Apple Inc.'s iPod player can cause cardiac implantable pacemakers to malfunction by interfering with the electromagnetic equipment monitoring the heart. Many other types of MP3 players or portable devices could also have the same effect, but this study only covered iPods.
One hundred patients, whose mean age was 77, were tested as part of the study. Results showed that electrical interference was detected half of the time when the device was held about 2 inches away from the patient's chest for a duration of just 5 to 10 seconds. In some cases, interference was detected at distances up to 18 inches.
Such interference causes the device to misread the heart's pacing and in one case caused the pacemaker to stop functioning altogether. The study was held at the Thoracic and Cardiovascular Institute at Michigan State University and the results were presented at the Heart Rhythm Society annual meeting in Denver.
Jay Thaker, lead author of the study, concluded that the interference can lead to physicians misdiagnosing actual heart function. Thaker was put in touch with Dr. Krit (Jongnarangsin), after asking his father, who is an electrophysiologist, about a potential interaction between pacemakers and iPods.
The speculation about what carrier will provide Apple Inc.'s iPhone in the European territory is ongoing. According to rumors circulating the industry now, Vodafone may in fact be second place to T-Mobile to offer Apple's first mobile phone to the European market. Previously, Vodafone had been thought of as the front runner by most until unnamed sources claimed T-Mobile, owned by Deutsche Telekom, is at the top of Apple's shortlist.
How much sense does it actually make to choose just one carrier for the European market though? Gartner research director, Martin Gutberlet, believes that Apple could be making a big mistake by looking for one partner for the iPhone. "It would be in Apple's best interests to get more than one operator to distribute the phone," he said, adding that Apple may realize its mistake soon after and rush to find more distributors.
As an example of how this is a problem for the European market, T-Mobile, the alleged front runner, doesn't have a prominent presence in Italy, Spain, or France. The consumer interest for the iPhone in the U.S. is growing rapidly, with AT&T claiming to have received requests for iPhone information from 1 million consumers.
The German music label Peppermint Jam has sent out 3636 copyright infringement notices to alleged Italian file sharers for downloading music off p2p programs such as eMule and BitTorrent.
The notices inform the file sharers that they "have been found guilty of uploading copyrighted songs". Although that is not true and just a scare tactic, the notices also tell the file sharers to immediately remove all Peppermint Jam label music from their HDDs as well as discontinue seeding any music on torrents.
In a twist, each user has been only accused of sharing a single song, most likely because subpoenaing 3636 hard drives must get very expensive.
In addition, the notices also give the alleged file sharers the opportunity to pay a one time $400 USD fee or face a "...criminal and/or a civil lawsuit brought against them."
Although this may seem like a good deal to many who just want to get it over with, if a large amount of alleged sharers admit guilt by paying up, this can give the record labels an advantage later on.
Social networking giant MySpace has taken more steps to protect copyright as its users continue to upload unauthorized videos. While sites like MySpace and YouTube have systems in place to allow content owners to identify and request items get taken down, users have a nasty habit of simply uploading the same content again as soon as possible. MySpace's new Take Down Stay Down feature tackles this issue.
Take Down Stay Down prevents video content from being uploaded again once it has been taken down at an owners request, though its method to identify the content is unclear (whether or not slightly altering a file will bypass it for example). MySpace has other features in place too, such as an audio filtering feature that tackles uploading of bootleg music and a video filtering feature that does the same for video content.
To have a chance of dealing with the big media companies, sites like MySpace need to show that they take copyright protection seriously and sit on the same side of the copyright debate itself as the content providers. YouTube, the world's largest video sharing site, is the target of a billion dollar lawsuit brought by Viacom Inc., the outcome of which will have a dramatic effect on the operation of these services in future.
As the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) continues its war against Internet piracy, more and more college students have been targeted and the trade group plans to target even more. Hundreds of students have again been sent e-mails threatening lawsuits if they do not settle out of court. Sarah Barg of University of Nebraska-Lincoln (UNL) was accused of illegally downloading and sharing 381 tracks using the Ares client.
She initially thought the e-mail was spam, as it offered her the chance to make a settlement or face tough legal action. However, student legal services confirmed to her that the e-mail was in fact real and that she faced an expensive decision. "Obviously I knew it was illegal, but no one got in trouble for it," Barg said.
Her parents coughed up the $3,000 settlement fee to avoid a lawsuit. "I don't know what I would have done. I'm only 20 years old," Sarah said. UNL freshman Andrew Johnson also settled for $3,000. "They're targeting the worst people," he said. "Legally, it probably makes sense, because we don't have the money to fight." He was forced to pay the settlement from his college fund and now has to work three jobs to get back the money. However, the RIAA firmly believes that these legal threats are an educational tool.
Microsoft Corp. is looking forward to the launch of Halo 3 and is confident that its success will surpass that of the Halo 2 launch. The third installment of the mega-popular Halo franchise is also expected to spur sales of the Xbox 360 console and strengthen Microsoft's fight against Nintendo and Sony in the console war. "There's a significant number of people just waiting for that one game,"Craig Davison, Microsoft's director of marketing said, "and this is the game."
The company gave a sneak peak at Halo 3 on Friday to mixed reviews. "The graphics can use some work ... They're not much different than the previous Halo," said Nicholas Puleo, editor of gaming news Web site Evilavatar.com. "They've got five, six months until release, so they'll add some polish ... When I compare it to other things in the platform, it's not standout."
Microsoft staged previews in New York City and San Francisco on Friday, ahead of the beta of Halo 3 which goes live on Wednesday. Bungie Studios has tried to improve realism in the game by implementing the laws of real world physics more thoroughly. A grenade thrown against snow will stick in place while the same grenade will bounce and roll off a hard surface, bullets ricochet off walls and players can get maimed by the shrapnel effect when standing too close to an exploding grenade.
According to a report in Broadcasting & Cable, HBO CTO Bob Zitter has said that he believes that consumers would most likely accept the concept of DRM if it was called something different.
Zitter feels the technology should be marketed in a way that would let users feel they could "use content in ways they haven't before." He suggests the term "Digital Consumer Enablement" instead.
The term, "DCE", could be used to describe HBO's upcoming high-definition digital content although some believe the new "DCE" by HBO will not be compatible with control mechanisms build into current TVs.
Those beliefs have led Freedom to Tinker engineer Ed Felten to make the following comment: "So what HBO wants is to disable the analog outputs on the set-top box, so consumers have no choice but to adopt HBO's favored DRM. Which makes the nature of the 'enablement' clear. By enabling your set-top box to be incompatible with your TV, HBO will enable you to buy an expensive new TV. I understand why HBO might want this. But they ought to be honest and admit what they are doing."
Im sure "DCE" sounds good to the greedy CTO but to us consumers it sounds like more of a rip off.
Qpixel Technology has announced today the availability of the Qpixel QL202B, the third member of its low-power Main Profile (MP) H.264Codec family. It integrates a 10/100 Ethernet MAC and an external flash memory interface for stand-alone operation, reducing cost and component count in devices such as digital video recorders and security cameras. With the new QL202B, consumers will be able to store and transmit video with the same quality as today's MPEG-4-based systems, using as low as half the bandwidth and storage space.
Unlike its predecessor the QL201B, which was designed to run as a companion chip, the QL202B is ideal for stand-alone operation in a variety of networked and storage-based consumer appliances. Using the software development kit, customers can quickly and easily develop a product with the QL202B, since the SOC design handles all processing for capture, compression, transmission and storage of audio and video content.
According to the official blog at The Pirate Bay, a hacker or group of hackers found a security hole on the site and used it to steal the full user database of all registered users.
According to the blog entry, the admins of the site claim to know who stole the database but assured users that their passwords were stored "very encrypted" and there should be no worries.
The admins recommend changing passwords as soon as possible and updating their password other sites where the might be using the same password and username.
Here is the complete blog entry:
User data stolen but not unsecured
Hi, we have some sad news, but don't be alarmed...
Some people (and yes, we know who) found a security hole on our web site (in fact, actually in this blog).
They have got a copy of the user database. That is, your username and passwords. But, the passwords are stored encrypted, so it's not a big deal, but it's still very sad that it's out there. All e-mails are for instance encrypted as well, they will most likely not be able to decrypt them either (they are _very_ encrypted).
We encourage all our users to change passwords as soon as possible - and if you have the same password on the bay as other places, you should update them as well.
The new version of the very popular BitComet torrent client, version 0.87 (stable), has a few new features.
The new version incorporates a "resource browser" to help "accelerate open web pages", although the web browser in itself isnt very fast.
BitComet now also has sidebar advertisments which means you will have to look at ads whenever you open the client up.
Here are the rest of the release notes:
GUI Improved: add an option in BT task properties dialog to add this torrent file to my shared torrent list
GUI Improved: add "view task" command to the context menu of my shared torrent list
GUI Improved: add a filter in the toolbar of peer shared torrent list
GUI Improved: display peer shared torrent file number in peer shared node of fav list
GUI Improved: add an option to enable BT task search for HTTP/FTP download source in preferences dialog
GUI Improved: add commands to import/export task list and global settings under file menu
GUI Improved: add "rename task" function in context menu of task list
GUI Improved: detail error information will be displayed in tooltip when mouse cursor hover on the red-cross icon of a task which encounter error like disk full
According to sales numbers consolidated by NPD Group for the month of March, Apple iPod sales were down as the player lost market share again.
The iPod fell below 70 percent market share for the first time since early 2006. Picking up the extra share was SanDisk which reached 11.2 percent, and Creative which reached 3.6 percent.
The Microsoft Zune stayed at 2.5 percent market share, but Microsoft said they were optimistic that they could increase share with the release of new models and international sales.
The stats report also saw Apple destop and notebook sales increase for the month.
Although he was quoted last month as saying that his company would perhaps support both Blu ray and HD DVD, Disney CEO Robert Iger seems to have moved his support back towards Blu ray in a new quote this week.
Last month, Iger seemed to imply that his Blu ray exclusive studio would consider joining the format neutral camp alongside Warner and Paramount. This week however, Iger made a more critical statement in support of Blu ray saying "the single greatest thing we can do right now is to not waffle, but to be very, very blunt about it, to continue our support of Blu-ray because we sense a real advantage."
Here is the full transcript of Iger's comments this week:
"We made our bed with Blu-ray because we believed more in that format for a variety of reasons; some technical in nature, some due to the fact that it simply had broader support from a variety of industries, notably the motion picture studios but also what I’ll call the consumer electronics and the tech industry.
What we are seeing lately is that sales of Blu-ray discs are outpacing HD discs by at least two to one. As more quality Blu-ray product comes on the market, which is going to happen, notably with Pirates on May 22, we actually believe that the difference or the advantage of Blu-ray is only going to widen.
Media Rights Technology (MRT) has sent cease-and-desist letters to giants Microsft, Adobe, Real and Apple claiming that their products, including Vista, Flash, RealPlayer and iTunes all infringe the DMCA.
"Together these four companies are responsible for 98 percent of the media players in the marketplace; CNN, NPR, Clear Channel, MySpace, Yahoo, and YouTube all use these infringing devices to distribute copyrighted works," said MRT CEO Hank Risan in a statement. "We will hold the responsible parties accountable. The time of suing John Doe is over."
The argument that MRT is using is kind of confusing. They are not a content owner so it seems strange that they are suing under the DMCA. They claim that the media player software created by Apple, etc, can "tune into digital music streams like Internet radio stations, many of which are transmitted without any sort of DRM attached. Although streams are designed to be ephemeral, it's trivial to use streamripper software to snag copies of the songs being played through such services."
MRT argues that the four companies should use some form of DRM to protect those streams. However, MRT only recommends one form of DRM, their very own "X1 SeCure [sic] Recording Control."
Right on the heels of Onkyo's announcement of a DTS-HD MA decoding receiver, Pioneer became the second manufacturer to announce they would be releasing such a receiver.
The top three models in Pioneer's new line, the VSX-91TXH, VSX-92TXH and VSX-94TXH all will support HDMI V1.3a connectivity.
The recievers will "seamlessly" pass 1080p video while decoding Dolby TrueHD and DTS-HD Master Lossless Audio formats.
"Pioneer continually answers the call from audio video enthusiasts seeking the ultimate in rich home theater design. Our new line of Elite A/V receivers with HDMI 1.3a connectivity allows consumers to enjoy the benefits of the new technologies being used on music and movie discs," said Dave Bales, marketing manager of audio products for the home entertainment division of Pioneer Electronics. "We're bringing the true essence of high definition emotion to the audience."
The company said the VSX-91TXH would be released in June with a suggested retail price of $1000 USD. The other two models will be released in August, with suggested prices of $1300 USD and $1600 USD.
Today, the Chinese computer maker giant Lenovo made a deal with Microsoft to buy up to $1.3 billion USD worth of Windows Vista and Office 2007 software for the next year.
Lenovo made a similar deal last year for $1.2 billion USD and the US considered it a huge step towards fighting piracy in China.
Lenovo is the third largest computer manufacture behind Dell and HP and is hoping to gain customers as well as forge closer ties to Microsoft.
Joost announced today that they have raised $45 million USD from a group of investors that includes CBS and Viacom. This news comes after Joost announced they would be allowing unlimited invites for the beta version fo their service.
To date, Joost's largest problem is the quality of the content viewers can receive. Hopefully this new funding and CBS and Viacom's plans to make their content available on the service will help to solve that problem.
Microsoft Corp. has a final patch available to fix an issue with Windows Vista that could leave a user's iPod corrupt and in need of a restore once it is disconnected. The problem was with the "Safely Eject Hardware" (ironic?) feature in Windows Vista. If a user chose the Safely Eject Hardware or the Eject command in Windows Explorer, the iPod device could be corrupted and would need iTunes' restore features.
Several compatibly bugs and issues arose between Apple's iTunes and iPods and the Windows Vista operating system. Apple was unable to fix the iPod bug or several graphics problems with iTunes when the iTunes 7.1 update was released, and so warned its users against using Vista with either.
Get the update here or wait for it to be delivered via Automatic Updates on Tuesday, May 22nd.
The first man to be convicted of distributing movies illegally over the Internet using BitTorrent software, has appeared in Hong Kong's highest court on Wednesday to appeal the verdict. Chan Nai-ming was sentenced to three months in prison in 2005 for uploading Daredevil, Miss Congeniality and Red Planet using P2P software. It was "distributing" and not "downloading" that got him a jail sentence.
Chan used the screen name "Big Crook", which probably didn't help his case and is presumably why he was such a good candidate to pursue as an example. The lawyer for the 38 year old said that he uploaded the movies but did not distribute them. Interestingly, his lawyer seems hopeful that the court will determine whether the uploading done by Chan can really be considered as distribution.
He said that if any distribution took place at all, it was the downloaders who initiated the process. Since sharing of files on BitTorrent is done in chunks, users may have downloaded only very small amounts of any movie from Chan. An earlier appeal from Chan was rejected.
We've seen all sorts of attempts to protect movies on DVD discs from "digital theft" but now technology is being pitched at studios to tackle physical theft from retailers. A chip, smaller than the head of a pin, would be placed literally onto a DVD disc along with a thin coating placed to stop DVD players from reading critical information from the disc. However, at a checkout a simple scan will activate the chip, sending out an electrical pulse making the thin coating transparent.
The radio frequency identification chip is made by NXP Semiconductors, based in the Netherlands, and the Radio Frequency Activation technology comes from Kestrel Wireless Inc., based in Emeryville. They expect to announce deals with Hollywood studios during the summer and said the technology could be used with other products like ink jet cartridges, flash memory drives and even flat-screen TVs.
The Entertainment Merchants Association (EMA) estimates that theft of entertainment products, including video games, adds up to $400 million in losses every year.
In an effort to control piracy in Asia one country at a time, Warner Bros. has announced that they will be launching a new movie download service in Hong Kong dubbed 08Media.
08Media will be offered by ViDeOnline Communications and will include many blockbusters such as the Harry Potter franchise and Superman Returns immediately when it starts. Warner hopes that by offering 100 titles initially via the new service, it will deter consumers from buying pirated copies. Warner also noted that additional titles will be released simultaneously in theaters and on the service.
"This deal fits perfectly with our philosophy of providing consumers around the world with access to our world-class entertainment," said president of Warner Bros. Jeffrey Schlesinger.
There is no set start date, or the prices of the movies, but this seems to be a smart move on Warner's part in their efforts to curb piracy.
A patch has been released for the media sharing software TVersity that fixes a problem which surfaced after the latest Xbox 360 update. The Xbox 360 update added support for viewing shared media files in a folder hierarchy instead of just one long list as before, and so applying the patch will make this possible. The TVersity patch is needed to stream video content to the console but is not needed for picture and audio sharing.
Make sure you have version 0.9.10.2 installed, otherwise install it. Please note that this patch cannot be applied on top of older versions and is designed for 0.9.10.2 ONLY.
Stop media sharing (via the advanced menu or the tray icon)
Unzip the patch file and copy its content over to the TVersity installation folder (by default it is Program FilesTVersityMedia Server)
At The Cable Show conference in Las Vegas this week, Comcast CEO Brian Roberts unveiled a new cable modem technology that could bring amazing speeds of 150 megabits per second. Roberts said the technology would be a good way to compete with lower cost DSL and the significantly faster FiOS. FiOS currently offers up to 50 megabits.
The new technology, Version 3.0 of the DOCSIS standard, is developed by the Cable Television Laboratories which represents all of the cable providers in the country. The new technology utilizes four channels to send data instead of just one and that "channel bonding" would enable speeds 25 times higher than most current cable modems can handle.
Roberts added that manufacturers are planning to submit DOCSIS 3.0 modems for certification later this year, and that he hopes to see the technology in the homes of customers within a couple years.
In hopes of increasing PlayStation 3 sales for the 4th quarter 2007, Sony has announced they will launch an aggressive marketing campaign for the console that will mainly highlight the hardware's Blu ray capabilities.
Due to lagging console sales, Sony is focusing on marketing the PS3 as the "most comprehensive Blu-ray Disc player on the market."
The campaign will inlcude promoting the console's extensive studio support, superior picture and sound and even its web-enabled connectivity (although there have been no titles to feature online content yet).
"Our goal is to definitely widen our target base and not be so niche," Kim Nguyen, Sony PlayStation 3 Manager, said about the campaign, which will encompass internet, TV, print and radio.
"This is high-def entertainment messaging, where we have our exclusive software titles, and we are delivering a very powerful machine. On the movie side, you have beautiful movies that you can watch on the PS3. We are going for that larger audience," she added.
Sony did not give an exact date for the start of the campaign, but it is expected by July.
Trying to push the next gen HD format war in their favor, Sony has released a new notebook in their Vaio line, the VGN-FZ180U/B, that features a Blu ray burner at its core.
Although the price tag is still pretty hefty at $2149 USD, the price is much lower than any previous notebooks featuring Blu ray.
The notebook weighs a decently light 5.75 pounds and has a 15.4 inch screen. The laptop features an HDMI-out port to transfer HD video to your TV and has a Nvidia GeForce 8400M GT video card.
The notebook runs on a Core 2 Duo processor and its main attraction is a Blu ray reader and writer that can write at a slow 4x. Battery life is approximately 2 hours on charge.
Pioneer has announced that soon they will be releasing their second generation Elite Blu ray disc player, dubbed the Elite BDP-94HD.
The player will be a follow up to the sucessful first gen player, the BDP-HD1, but will feature several key upgrades.
A few of the upgrades are a retooled user interface, support for internal decoding of Dolby TrueHD, and enhanced networking capabilities.
"This new player is a prime example of our dedication to exceptional quality, creating sights and sounds that leave an emotional impression for movie enthusiasts," said Chris Walker, senior manager of marketing and product planning at Pioneer Electronics. "A significant aspect to a quality home theater is convenience and this unit is designed to deliver high performance with minimal user effort for a premier entertainment experience."
The player is set to hit shelves later this month with a $1000 USD price tag. Pioneer also said that the player would come with 2 vouchers for free Blu ray movie discs but did not elaborate on which movies.
Onkyo Electronics has announced that they will be releasing two new A/V receivers later this year, the TX-SR605 and the TX-S4806, each supporting full DTS-HD Master Lossless Audio and Dolby TrueHD decoding.
Both receivers are the first pieces of hardware capable "of decoding DTS-HD Master Lossless Audio at their full resolution, via HDMI V1.3A connections." Currently, there is no way for the home consumer to enjoy DTS-HD soundtracks on their nex gen HD DVD or Blu ray discs as, at best, current receivers have only been able to extract a standard DTS 1.5mpbs "core" audio stream from DTS-HD-encoded discs.
Both models have been added to the Onkyo website, and you can visit those pages for further technical details.
The TX-SR605 will hit shelves by late May, with a suggested retail price of $599 USD. The higher end THX Ultra 2-c certified TX-S4806 will be released later in the year with a hefty $1099 USD pricetag.
Peter Moore, the head of Microsoft games has said that the company is seriously considering running a Folding@home type reseach project on the Xbox 360.
The current Sony Folding@home project allows all PlayStation 3s that decide to participate, the ability to calculate data that aids medical research for Stanford University.
Idle consoles are able to simulate the processing power of a couple PCs, and Sony's initiative has brought great attention to such research projects.
"If we truly believe that we can in some way marshal the resources of a much larger installed base of Xbox 360 owners, with a processor that's of equal power to the PS3, then you have my commitment that we'll look at that," commented Moore, corporate VP of interactive entertainment at Microsoft, to The Mercury News.
"And if we believe we can add value to solving a gnarly problem such as medical problems and the health problems that Folding@home seems to be doing, then we'll certainly look at that very strongly."
So far Sony has reported 250,000 registered users for the F@h project but Moore is wary of the results,
"I'm not quite sure yet whether we're seeing real tangible results from the PlayStation 3 Folding@home initiative. We continue to look at this and see whether there's real value," he added.
In an effort to promote their upcoming Matrix box trilogy, Warner Home Video has made a 40 second trailer available online for consumers who want to see the trilogy in full HD DVD glory before the set becomes available on May 22nd.
The clip can be found here, the official HD DVD Forum consumer website. Warner lists the site as one of thier promotional partners.
The set will tout "over 35 hours of supplements" found on both 'The Ultimate Matrix Collection' and 'The Complete Matrix Trilogy' box sets. The clip also unsurprisingly promotes Toshiba HD DVD players, and the Xbox 360 add-on drive.
When the Matrix sets hit shelves at the end of the month, most in the industry expect it to be the best selling HD DVD release to date. Warner also said they would be releasing the movie in Blu ray but had no set date to do so.
Warner Bros. has announced that they will stop holding promotional screenings of their movies in Canada which the company says is a response to increasing movie piracy in the country.
The studio said all press and critic screenings would take place in private rooms with the audience checked for recording devices.
Although China and Russia are usually blamed as the largest sources of pirated content, Warner believes that Canada is just as big of a problem. The company claims that over the past 18 months, 70 percent of its films have been pirated in Canada and then sold to the rest of the world.
"The newly enacted policy represents the studio's response to the lack of legislation in Canada to curtail the growing wave of camcorder-shot ("camcorded") films being trafficked around the world,” Warner Bros. said in a statement.
"Despite incontrovertible evidence that film piracy has become a major economic and law enforcement issue, Canada has not adopted a federal law making camcording illegal or permitting the confiscation of equipment, and, as a result, has become the main source for most of the world's film piracy."
The company claims that within a week of a screening, a Canadian copy of the movie hits the internet before finding its way around the world.
German Chancellor Angela Merkel has met with heads of the international recording industry in Berlin to hear their concerns and suggestions regarding music piracy in Germany. The leaders of the recording industry urged the Chancellor to ensure that the industry had the tools it needed to combat piracy, the "epidemic" of CD-R burning be tackled and ISPs be engaged in the fight against Internet piracy.
German music sales have dropped a massive 50% since 2000. The industry blames this huge drop mostly on CD-R burning and Internet piracy. "The international recording industry has now taken its concerns about the state of the German music market to the highest political level in Europe. We left the meeting appreciative of the fact that the Chancellor understood the nature of the problems we are facing and is willing to play a role in seeking a solution to them,"IFPI Chairman and CEO, John Kennedy, said.
He added: "If the German government acts now, we are confident that the German music industry could reverse the decline and be viable again in three to five years." Another great reason to meet with Chancellor Merkel however is the fact that she also is the President of the European Council and the G8. This extra political advantage is seen in what the recording industry suggests Merkel call the German government to do:
Introduce an obligation on ISPs to terminate service to subscribers abusing the service to make infringing content available
Permit CD burning only from own legally purchased original and prohibiting copying by third parties
Improve the German draft law implementing the EU Enforcement Directive to ensure proper tools to fight piracy
Ensure that the EU plays an active role in the WTO case against China on Intellectual Property enforcement and market access
Urge the Czech government to clean up the huge pirate markets on the Czech-German border
Support an improvement in the length of the EU term of protection on sound recordings to match the level of protection provided in the U.S.
Not really sure what the China WTO case or the copyright terms for sound recordings have to do with German music sales.
Canon U.S.A., Inc. unveiled the new HR10 High Definition Camcorder earlier this week, which the company says will help users help users effortlessly create and share high definition movies on convenient DVD discs. The Canon HR10 HD Camcorder offers the benefits of top-notch broadcast quality lenses and photographic heritage by providing users with a Genuine Canon 10x optical zoom lens, a Full HD 1920 x 1080 CMOS image sensor and the AVCHD video format.
The Canon HR10 HD Camcorder features the ability to Capture three megapixel still images, the new Multi-Angle Vivid LCD and the look and feel of film with the 24p Cine Mode. Through the use of the ultra-efficient Advanced Video Codec High Definition (AVCHD), the Canon HR10 High Definition Camcorder records 1080 HD video to conventional 3-inch (8cm) DVD discs. The AVCHD codec allows HD video to be captured in a variety of Compression rates, using less storage space, and recorded to DVD discs, including high-capacity dual-layer discs for longer recording time. This allows consumers to play back their footage on many AVCHD compatible DVD players, including most Blu-Ray disc players.
"Research shows that consumers are looking for the convenience of DVD, as well as high-quality HD video when choosing a camcorder. With the introduction of the Canon HR10 High Definition Camcorder, we provide consumers with a better way to record and preserve their memories in High Definition," said Yuichi Ishizuka, senior vice president and general manager of the Consumer Imaging Group, Canon U.S.A., Inc. "The Canon HR10 HD Camcorder enhances our offerings to the home theater aficionado, who demands nothing but the best in image quality, expands our product portfolio and strengthens our market leadership."
Canon's Full HD CMOS Sensor features on-chip Noise reduction technology, to help ensure the signals from each pixel are as pure as possible, with minimal "noise" or other image distortion even in dimly lit scenes. What's more, the CMOS sensor incorporates an RGB Primary Color Filter with a Bayer placement to help deliver sharp, High Definition images in true vibrant, accurate color.
It appears that owners of Series3 high-definition TiVos will be able to drive up their storage a bit after a simple hack was revealed over the weekend. Using the method, TiVo users can expand the amount of storage available to the digital video recorder by using an external Serial ATA hard drive. The method allow the use of the SATA pots included with the TiVo hardware.
Normally the devices store an advertised 30 hours of high-definition programming. So far using the method, which includes pressing pause and 62 on the device remote control, is reported to work with hard drives with capacities up to 750GB.
This week, Pioneer introduced new HDTVs based on plasma technology that should have strong boosts in quality and performance.
The new TVs, the PDP5080XD and PDP6080XD will almost eliminate a concern of plat panel TVs, the inability to produce rich, deep and dark blacks. The new TVs promise 80% darker blacks than anything currently available on the market.
The new screens will boast a very nice contrast ratio of 20,000:1 due to what Pioneer calls "deep encased cell structure, crystal emissive layer and first surface color filter."
According to Pioneer, "with significantly deeper black levels (80% deeper than before), which ultimately lead to richer colours and sharper details, the new screens are unrivalled in video and audio performance."
Pioneer is calling the new line "Project KURO" (kuro is "black" in Japanese) and the TVs will support full 1080p resolutions.
There are no prices available as of now but Pioneer says the TVs will be hitting shelves soon.
Joost, the latest craze in the online video revolution has been given a boost with a deal that will see Warner Bros. Television Group content being made available through the service. This makes Warner Bros. the latest entertainment company to join the move to Internet video, both companies said on Monday after the deal was announced. No financial terms were disclosed.
Through the deal with Warner Bros., part of Time Warner Inc., Joost will now get a science fiction and celebrity channel this month. Joost has already signed up with Time Warner's Turner Broadcasting System Inc., Sony Corp.'s Sony Pictures Television and Hasbro Inc. for high quality full-length content.
Joost differs from services like YouTube, which host generally low quality short clips and favor amateur video (though are still loaded with unauthorized clips). It was created by the entrepreneurs behind the original Kazaa and of course, Skype. It is currently in public Beta phase.
Anti-piracy experts have worked closely with Mexican authorities in executive several search warrants against a freight forwarding company that was a distribution point for pirated music and film product to various cities across Mexico. An investigation was underway for a number of weeks after a seizure of 37,000 pirate CD-Rs in the company's dispatch terminal.
The latest operation, which involved over 300 police officers and prosecutors from the Attorney General's office (PGR), turned up 416,000 recorded CD-Rs, eight million covers, and 133 CD/DVD burners. Mexican authorities stated that the raids had dealt a serious blow to major organised criminal activity in Mexico City's Tepito market. The freight forwarding company had a legitimate operating license but authorities had suspected it of having links to organised criminal syndicates in Tepito.
"The smashing of this criminal syndicate is great news and an excellent example of partnership between the Mexican authorities and private sector anti-piracy experts. Other criminal gangs involved in counterfeiting music in Mexico should be put on notice that we could be coming for them next," said Iain Grant, head of enforcement at International Federation of the Phonographic Industry (IFPI).
Major movie studios are already facing a tough uphill battle against attacks on copy protected retail HD DVD and Blu-Ray Disc releases. Hackers have found keys and posted them on web forums, which spread to huge user-driven sites like Digg.com and then exploded across the web. The keys could be used with the proper software to decrypt AACS content protection and extract unencrypted content from HD discs.
Of course, the Advanced Access Content System Licensing Authority (AACS LA) tried to battle the spread of a 32-bit hexadecimal key and in doing so, motivated frustrated web users enough to spread it to thousands more web pages and use it for music lyrics and t-shirt designs - obviously the opposite effect the group intended to have by invoking the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) against several web services and search engines.
"It's sort of a violation without a satisfying remedy from the standpoint of the companies and the consortium ... because how are they going to sue every blogger and everyone who has access to the code?" said Richard Neff, an intellectual property attorney at Greenberg Glusker in Los Angeles. Michael Ayers, chairman of the AACS group, said that newer movie titles cannot be decrypted using the key.
According to Lazard Capital Markets, Sony will not have a boost in sales for the fourth quarter 2007 for its PlayStation 3 console unless it delivers a stronger software line up punch and cuts the price of the console.
Colin Sebastian, an analyst for the firm, revealed those thoughts in a note to investors saying, "We continue to believe that a significant pre-holiday ramp in PS3 unit sales is unlikely without a more robust title line-up and/or a hardware price cut."
Sebastian noted that the financial reports of a few publishers such as Activision and Ubisoft were very impressive and he expected software sales to steadily grow for the rest of 2007.
"We believe videogame sales remain generally healthy year-to-date despite tougher year-over-year comps for the remainder of 2007. We continue to expect solid 15 per cent plus growth in software sales in North America this year," Sebastian said.
Sony should use that software growth to their advantage if they hope to get a boost in sales.
Apple has made an announcement that they will transition their LCD displays from the old mercury-based fluorescent panels to the new LED-backlit panels. Steve Jobs commited to making Apple a more "earth-friendly" company and he confirmed that the panels will transition by the end of 2007.
The progress of this transition seems to be moving swiftly as reports have confirmed that AU Optronics and Chi Mei Optoelectronics all have LED-backlight LCD panels that are under review by Apple. So far, the 15.4-inch MacBook Pro already uses the new panel and Au Optronics and Chi Mei Optoelectronics confirmed that they have 13.3-inch and 15.4-inch panels already certified by Apple.
Wedbush Morgan Securities analyst Michael Pachter believes that the next gen console war will not be won by games such as Final Fantasy XIII or MGS4, but rather by exclusive movie titles like Casino Royale.
Pachter is quoted from a 207-page industry report, saying “Notwithstanding the efforts of the three console manufacturers to deliver compelling exclusive content, we expect the ultimate outcome of the console wars to be decided by the motion picture studios.”
“Should the studios embrace Sony's Blu-ray standard for high definition DVDs, we think Sony will gain an insurmountable advantage over Microsoft; should the studios embrace Sony rival Toshiba's HD-DVD format, we think that Microsoft can maintain its first mover advantage and will dominate software sales for years to come,” clarified Pachter.
Pachter goes on to speak about how he feels the console race will play out in the next few years. He belives Microsoft will hold the market until 2008, when Nintendo will take a short lead, and then fall into an even market share by the end of the year.
“Ultimately, we see Sony 'winning' the console war with 36 percent of the market, with Nintendo 'capturing' second place at 34 percent and Microsoft finishing third at 30 percent. We believe that this is essentially a dead heat, and each manufacturer will have sufficient market share to generate significant profits,” Pachter concluded.
If you have missed any of the recent NBA playoff games, the NBA Download Store is now fully open for business and has begun offering single game downloads for $3 USD and individual series for $13 USD.
Although the games have DRM that prevents it from being burnt to DVD, you can put the games in up to 3 portable media devices or seperate computers.
The games are only available to US and Canadian consumers and you must have Windows XP or higher.
According to Steve Grimes, who, as the league’s vice president of interactive services, oversees NBA.com, early sales have been “promising.”
“It’s not a big surprise: great games and surprising results have driven the most popular downloads,” Mr. Grimes said.
The recent Golden State Warriors and Dallas Mavericks series, for instance, has been selling very well just like last year's Finals between the Miami Heat and the Mavericks.
The downloads also include some very appealing features such as commercial and timeout-free coverage meaning action from whistle to whistle.
Another feature to be added soon will allow users to search the content using event tags such as shots scored, assists, and rebounds of each player and then quickly be able to find and view that segment of video footage.
- Change: Prioritize seed queue based off seed/peer ratio (use_seed_peer_ratio)
- Change: Sort advanced settings by name
- Fix: Some ancient modal dialog bugs where nonmodal dialogs could get activated
- Fix: Bug where one addtorrent dialog could get activated when another was already active
- Fix: Don't repeatedly retry to start if another uTorrent window is discovered but hung
- Fix: uTorrent continues normal startup if another uTorrent instance is detected and exits; previously it would inform the user uTorrent was already running and exit
According to PCWorld, Hewlett-Packard has announced that it will be one of the first major PC builders to sell a system including a hybrid HD drive.
The company says the intended drive will be the LG GG-W-H10N, known as the "Super Multi Blue."
The drive can read both Blu ray and HD DVD discs but cannot write HD DVD. The drive can write to CD, DVD and Blu ray, the latter at only 2x speed.
HP says the drive will be available in HP systems within six weeks and also promises that the computers with the drive will have HDMIoutputs, and use HDCP-compliant GeForce 8000-series video cards.
Alexander Ponosov, a Russian headmaster, has been fined half of his monthly salary for using pirated copies of Microsoft software in his school's computers.
Prosecutors in the case said Ponosov violated Microsoft's property rights by allowing his students to use 12 school computers that were running on unlicensed copies of Microsoft Windows XP and had unlicensed Office software as well.
In his defense, Ponosov said he did not know the computers had fake licenses when they were delivered by a contractor.
Illegal copies of the XP operating system can be found on the streets of Moscow for an average of $6 and the US government has urged the Russian government to crack down on such rampant piracy if it has any hope of joining the WTO.
"Today the court brought in a guilty verdict - they ordered me to pay a fine of 5,000 roubles (about $195 USD)," Ponosov told Reuters by telephone from the Perm region.
"I consider myself not guilty and I will file an appeal," he added, also noting that he had not paid the fine yet.
The Russian President, Vladimir Putin, called the case "utter nonsense" and former President Gorbachev even asked Bill Gates to intercede and stop the case.
Today, Dell announced that it has agreed to work with Microsoft and Novell Inc. in a group whose aim is to make it easier for the Windows OS and Linux to work together.
When Novell and Microsoft partnered in November 2006, Microsoft said it would offer its corporate customers a chance to license Windows as part of a package that would include maintenance and support for Novell's Suse Linux operating system.
Along with the announcement, Dell agreed to buy Suse Linux Enterprise Server certificates from Microsoft and that the computer maker will also set up services and marketing programs aimed at getting users to switch to the new Suse Linux offering.
"Dell is the first major systems provider to align with Microsoft and Novell in this collaboration, and we intend to lead in this space," Rick Becker, a vice president in Dell's product group, said in a statement.
The pact between Microsoft and Novell is "primarily aimed at the growing number of major companies and government agencies that rely on both Redmond, Wash.-based Microsoft's patent-protected Windows and Novell's open-source Linux platform to run their computers."
NYC Mayor Michael Bloomberg recently just signed a legislation that will upgrade film piracy from a simple violation with a $250 fine to a misdemeanor that will carry a maximum of six months in prison and a penalty of up to $5000.
The signing comes on the heels of the MPAA claiming that 40 percent of camcorded films come from NYC movie theaters.
The MPAA says that piracy costs US film studios upwards of $6 billion dollars each year and a new study by the group notes that the New York movie industry loses an estimated $1.5 billion per year because of piracy.
"We're going to keep the heat on the con artists, so that the real artists who make up our film industry can continue to thrive," Bloomberg said after signing the law.
Bloomberg also said that piracy not only hurts the industry but the average New Yorker who is cheated out of his money for poorly made pirated copies.
The Mayor also noted that the New York Police Department has begun cracking down on the distribution of pirated films and a recent report showed that the police had seized 195,000 counterfeit DVDs and arrested 29 bootleggers so far in 2007.
For the past few months, the MPAA has been claiming that Canada is a hotbed of piracy and that the country is the source of 50 percent of all camcording of films.
This week however, the MPAA reported that New York is responsible for 40 percent of the camcorded films. Doing some simple math we can see that the MPAA has now claimed that 90 percent of camcorded films come from Canada and New York, leaving the complete rest of North America to account for a measly 10 percent.
While obvious that these stats dont add up, the head of the U.S. National Association of Theatre Owners puts the argument to rest. He recently indicated that last year, research led the group to find that 15 states were sources of camcorded films. 90 percent coming from Canada and New York? We dont buy it.
In an update to our previous article here, the RIAA has sent out another round of prelitigation letters.
Announced today, the group has sent out 402 new letters to 13 new schools. The schools are as follows:
"Brandeis University (15 pre-litigation settlement letters), Duke University (35), Iowa State University (15), Massachusetts Institute of Technology – MIT (23), Northern Illinois University (50), Syracuse University (20), Tufts University (15), University of Georgia (19), University of Iowa (25), University of Southern California (50), University of South Florida (50), University of Tennessee (50), and the University of Texas - Austin (35)."
We will see how this new round of schools responds to the bullying.
A new study released by Ipsos, says that although in general CD sales continue to slide, the US population are still buying physical CDs from thier favorite band.
Although they can download the music from stores such as iTunes and Napster, the survey shows that the allure of supporting the group by buying a physical CD is still overwhelming.
"For new releases from a favorite artist, physical CDs remain the primary method of acquisition among US Music Downloaders aged 12 or older. 62% of US Downloaders purchased a physical CD of their favorite artist’s last release versus just 28% who paid to download one or more individual tracks," the study found.
Although that news was good for popular artists and older artists that have been around a long time, the survey also showed some bleaker stats. Ipsos found "that the number of US citizens that purchased 1 CD in the last six months has declined by 15% since 2002. In 2002, approximately 63% of Americans bought a CD in the previous six months. This number now hovers around 51%."
The study showed that although people are still willing to buy CDs from their favorite artists they are not so keen to experiment with their money on new acts. For this, they would rather download the track and perhaps waste the 99 cents instead of the $15 USD a physical CD costs. It is time that the music industry begins to understand that logic and move even more towards online music stores.
GameTap, the subscription-based video game on demand service, has announced that starting May 31st they will be offering up to 60 of its classic video games for free via a web-based app launcher called the Lite Player.
The new free service will be supported by banner advertisements played in the player right before the game loads. In order to access the Lite Player you have to first register for a free "Green level membership" at GameTap.
Gametap also announced that the company will be launching some titles simultaneously with its retail release date in store. Tomb Raider Anniversary, set the be released on May 29th in retail outlets, will also be immediately available at GameTap.
GameTap usually costs $10 a month, or $7 a month if you pay for a full year in advance.
YouTube has announced that they will extend their revenue sharing partnership beyond big commercial content firms such as NBC, to regular uploaders.
Many popular uploaders, such as the guys behind the "Ask a Ninja" series, have long asked for a revenue sharing and it seems YouTube has finally taken action.
The first uploader added to the partnership is the essayist LisaNova the "creative mastermind behind Don't Be A Douche Bag, a treatise on modern rage."
YouTube has said that only a "select" few will enjoy the partnership for now and that anyone who feels they should get paid can register an interest with the company. There is however, no idea how much the sharing will be, and when the company will start paying.
YouTube says you have to have "built and maintained an audience" to be considered.
AACS LA businees group head Michael Ayers has made the first public comments since the 32-hex-digit media processing key was posted on Digg and then thousands of other web pages. He told BBC that the group was tracking down those responsible for the post and reserves the right to take serious legal action against them.
"There is no intent from us to interfere with people's right to discuss copy protection," the AACS LA's Michael Ayers told BBC technology editor Darren Waters. "We respect free speech... But a line is crossed when we start seeing keys being distributed and tools for circumvention. You step outside of the realm of protected free speech then."
Ayers' comments seem to point to the possibilty that a legal concern could emerge from just by saying the code, on the grounds that it constitutes a breach of provisions of the DMCA.
The AACS LA's position is that it is illegal to say something that can be used in the circuvention of copyright. If that is true, then I'm sure millions of you are violating federal law right this instant.
Ayers also confirmed that the key had been revoked and is now useless. This will cause a problem however, for users that paid for software that use the "09 f9" media key. "As newer HD DVD discs are distributed, revocation keys extracted from those discs by player software will cause software that uses the "09 F9" media key not to work."
Last week, Google and Microsoft competed in a very public face-off for internet advertising giant Double Click and Google won with a final bid of $3.1 billion.
The final price left many wondering what Microsoft's true motives were. At the time of the final bid, Microsft had double the amount of available cash in its bank than Google did and could have easily outbid Google had it chose to.
Today, Forbes reported that Microsoft was in negotiations to acquire Yahoo! in a deal that could be worth up to $50 billion USD. According to Forbes, Microsoft "is feeling greater pressure to compete in the online advertising space."
Microsoft would also love to catch up to Google in search. MSN Search has been marginally increasing in users but adding Yahoo would skyrocket the company into a different level.
Microsoft has also asked regulators to closely monitor the Google-DoubleClick deal, and has loudly voiced its opinion against the deal.
Pioneer has announced that will be releasing a Blu ray Disc drive for the PC with a suggested retail price of $299 USD. The player, the BDC-2202 will be available starting in June, and while it is not a standalone player, the new drive should help bring in consumers who were scared of Blu ray's otherwise very expensive price tag.
Here are some specs of the drive:
The BDC-2202 can read BD-ROM/BD-R/BD-RE at up to 5X and can read BD-ROM (DL) and BD-R/-RE (DL) at up to 2X speed. The drive can also read and write digital content to DVD and CD. “With the BDC-2202, computer savvy consumers are now privy to what was previously only available to professional users. In addition to maintaining the same benefits of current optical disc drives, the included software means users can now enjoy their favorite Blu-ray Disc movies as well as their own personal disc creations,” said Andy Parsons, senior vice president at Pioneer Electronics (USA) Inc.
The next cheapest Blu ray player is the PlayStation 3 at double the price of the BDC-2202 and many consumers with home theater PCs should enjoy the cheaper alternative.
The competing format, HD DVD has a $199 add-on drive for the Xbox 360 and an entry level standalone player, the Toshiba HD-A2 for $399. Pioneer's new drive will close the gap in prices and could forseeably help Blu ray increase their small lead in movie sales.
According to an interview with eWeek, Robbie Bach, the president of Microsoft's entertainment and devices division, has said that the company's console business will begin making a profit starting next year.
"It's a business that will be profitable next year. We'll make money next year and that will be the first time, which is pretty exciting," he said.
This interview comes on the heels of last weeks announcement that falling Xbox 360 sales had led to a 21 percent drop in revenue for the entertainment and devices division in the first quarter 2007. Although the losses were less than the comparable period of 2006, they were still a hefty $315 million USD.
Bach noted that revenue from games, Xbox Live, and accesory sales would help contribute to bringing the console production back int profitability.
"Xbox is the hardest piece of consumer electronics hardware to produce in the world, no debate," he said, admitting that "costs are a little higher than we'd like".
Microsoft doesn't expect to make a profit on hardware alone, but "we'll probably be gross margin neutral on that over the life cycle of the product, and try to break even on that".
After weeks of constant complaints from HD DVD buyers, Universal has finally issued a statement regarding the playback issues on a few of their new releases.
In late March, many users complained of playback issues for the title "Children of Men" especially on their Xbox 360 HD DVD add on. More recently, the title "The Good Shepherd" and a couple other Universal titles have had reported playback issues.
Today, the studio acknowledged the problems and launched a new disc replacement program for those affected. The full statement from the studio is as follows:
"Universal is currently investigating reports that Children of Men, The Good Shepherd, and select other discs not playing properly in some HD DVD players. While we believe this is limited to a small number of HD DVD discs, Universal is offering a replacement service for any customers who are experiencing this problem. We are still investigating the cause and will provide further updates as we get them. Any customer problems should be directed to USHE.ConsumerRelations@worldmarkinc.com."
If you have had any playback issues with Universal titles, hopefully these new replacement discs will solve them.
According to Sony sources quoted in Smarthouse, a new PlayStation will be available in less than 18 months.
The console will not be entirely new, say the sources, and will include the same architecture as the PS3 with the exception of a new bay drive and attachment area. The new console however, will include an extensive media center software suite for managing content being streamed to a TV or Hi Fi source.
It would seem that the new updates will try to convert the PS3 to a home entertainment hub from a gaming machine.
“We have even looked at a Sony home server based on PlayStation technology. This would allow consumers to connect home automation devices to the Sony server while also delivering online gaming and access to an extensive movie and music library,” said one Sony source.
Based on these sources, and the industry shift into home entertainment space, it seems very possible that a new PlayStation console (not a PlayStation 4) is in the works.
Although it never made it out of Japan, Sony Corp. released a similar product in 2003 called the PSX. The PSX was a home entertainment center based on the PS2 hardware and also included DVD recordable functionality. Sales were poor.
US Congress has begun sending out "surveys" to the presidents of 19 leading Universities hoping to receive answers in regards to what the university is planning on doing to curb piracy on campus networks.
House Judiciary Committee member Lamar Smith (R-TX)however, made it clear that these surveys were not innocent. "If we do not receive acceptable answers, Congress will be forced to act," Smith said in a statement.
The universities that received that survey are: Boston University, Columbia University, Duke University, Howard University, Michigan State University, North Carolina State University, Ohio University, Purdue University, Rochester Institute of Technology, University of California at Los Angeles, University of Massachusetts at Amherst, University of Massachusetts at Boston, University of Michigan, University of Pennsylvania, University of Nebraska at Lincoln, University of South Carolina, University of Tennessee, University of Wisconsin at Madison, and Vanderbilt University.
"The fact that copyright piracy is not unique to college and university campuses is not an excuse for higher education officials to fail to take responsible steps to eliminate such activity nor to appropriately sanction such conduct when discovered," the letter reads.
After Blockbuster announced its first quarter earnings yesterday, a few things became clear. The company had gained market share on rival Netflix but at the loss of profit. Losses were $46.4 million total on revenue of $1.47 billion compared to the same quarter in 2006 where there was a loss of only $1.9 million on revenue of $1.4 billion.
Subscriber growth was up according to Blockbuster chairman and CEO John Antioco: "The first quarter of 2007 was our highest subscriber growth quarter ever, surpassing even the initial success of the program and providing clear testimony to the consumer appeal of our integrated online and in-store offering".
Antioco also stated that the company gained 800,000 new subscribers during the quarter bringing their total close to 3 million. He said the company hopes to reach 4 million subscribers by the end of 2007.
Although Blockbuster had a greater growth than Netflix did for the quarter, Netflix's 6.8 million subscribers still dwarfs that of Blockbuster.
However, the growth is coming at a price. The company's new Total Accesss Program, which allows users to return their online rentals in-store in exchange for a free rental is very costly. Blockbuster also runs the risk of cannibilizing their brick and mortar rental store business, as online rentals skyrocket and in-store rentals shrink.
The group responsible for the licensing of the Advanced Access Content System (AACS) copy protection present on Blu-ray Disc and HD DVD movies, AACS LA, has literally attempted to banish a string of letters and numbers from the Internet. The sequence of letters and numbers that is the headline can be allegedly used as a "processing key" to decrypt several HD DVD movie titles.
Recently this 32-hexadecimal digit code got a lot of attention, particularly on Digg.com, and it seems that AACS LA got angry about it and decided to test the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA). Attorneys for the group issued letters to multiple Web sites and services, including search engines, demanding the removal of the "key".
"It is our understanding that you are providing to the public the above-identified tools and services at the above referenced URL," reads one letter sent to Google, "and are thereby providing and offering to the public a technology, product, service, device, component, or part thereof that is primarily designed, produced, or marketed for the purpose of circumventing the technological protection measures afforded by AACS (hereafter, the "circumvention offering"). Doing so constitutes a violation of the anti-circumvention provisions of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act."
Creative has announced that they will be releasing a rival to the iPod Shuffle, named the ZEN Stone. The tiny 1 GB flash-based player will cost $39.99 and can hold up to 250 songs and will compete against the $79.99 2nd gen Shuffles.
The ZEN Stone will be available on May 14th in black, blue, green, red, pink, and white.
"The Creative ZEN Stone, at just $39.99, opens up a huge new market for MP3 players," said Creative chairman and CEO Sim Wong Hoo. "This is an incredible price for everyone to get a superior quality MP3 player capable of holding up to 250 songs. Whether it's your only player or a second player to take with you anywhere, the low price lets you think of MP3 players in a whole new way. You can loan it to a friend just like you would a CD or a mix tape and not have to worry about it, but you'll like it so much that you'll want another, so you always have one with you."
Along with the ZEN Stone, Creative will be releasing the companion TravelSound Zen Stone, which turns the MP3 player into a portable speaker system. The TravelSound operates on AAA batteries and has advertised 20 hour life.
Corporate giants Microsoft and Apple recently asked the US Government to place Canada on its high priority piracy list arguing that the country was not doing enough to prevent the piracy of it's products.
The government however decided against it and Canada was placed instead on the lower priority list for the fourth year in a row.
It joins other countries such as Belarus, Belize, Bolivia, Brazil, Colombia, Costa Rica, Dominican Republic, Ecuador, Guatemala, Hungary, Indonesia, Italy, Jamaica, South Korea, Kuwait, Lithuania, Malaysia, Mexico, Pakistan, Peru, Philippines, Poland, Romania, Saudi Arabia, Taiwan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan and Vietnam.
The International Intellectual Property Alliance (IIPA) which represents companies like Apple and Microsoft, stated in their reoprt that "Canada’s long tenure on the USTR Watch List seems to have had no discernible effect on its copyright policy. Almost alone among developed economies in the OECD, Canada has taken no steps toward modernizing its copyright law to meet the new global minimum standards of the WIPO Internet Treaties, which Canada signed a decade ago. Its enforcement record also falls far short of what should be expected of our neighbor and largest trading partner.
Today, in an open letter, Neuros Technology has called on Apple TV hackers and coders to develop and open-source set-top box to prevent IPTV from falling into the hands of large corporations.
CEO Joe Born, in his letter said that the new box he wants to make will prevent content providers who are trying to "lock down what consumers can watch, where and when."
He also believes that to prevent that "lock down", the world needs to back the software development work that allows hardware to support wide ranges of formats and devices, making the hardware more relevant to consumers.
Of course, Neuros would profit from this new box, but Born clearly hopes to free consumers from being forced into watching what corporations want you to watch or download.
I feel this call out to these coders is a good step in protecting consumer rights but its a wonder who will answer.
After weeks of having a private beta period for its service, Joost has announced today that they will be moving into public beta and that they will allow their current beta testers to invite an unlimited amount of friends and family to try out the service.
If you are a current tester, than all you have to do is click on the "My Joost" area and select the "Invite Friends" widget.
Joost recently announced they had added 31 advertisers, and they two announcements should help to bring many new users to the service.
"Today marks the beginning of an exciting phase for Joost - we are officially open for business," global advertising chief David Clark said in a statement.
Joost will feature more than 150 channels from all genres which would also vary by region due to the deals with content providers. Joost also announced it hoped to add more content for users outside of the US soon.
If anyone has a beta invite, you know where to send it ;-)
Ken Kutaragi, the creator of PlayStation, has revealed that alothough he is retiring in June, he already has a vision for the PS4 and even the PS5 and 6.
According to his interview with the EE Times, Kutaragi said he was unable to talk about the "next step" until now because the PlayStation 3 had not been launched worldwide yet.
"We've introduced PS3 in Europe, so now I can openly talk about future plans", he continued.
"As a matter of course, I have the vision of Playstation 4, 5 and 6, which will merge into the network."
In the interview, Kutaragi also said that he had supplied Sony's designers with a few ideas to cut the cost of manufacturing the current PS3s.
He is now focusing on exploiting all the opportunities offered by connectivity saying "The design concept of the Cell processor is the network processor."
Although Kutaragi announced his retirement last week, in the interview he stated that he will continue to have a relationship with Sony, but for the most part, he will be working independently.
As he said, "Now I'm ready to start working with a much wider world."
Today, Sony has announced that they will be introducing a new camera accessory for their PSP handheld.
The accessory will go on sale on May 16th in Europe only for GBP 34.99 or EUR 49.99.
The camera, named Go!Cam, will give users the option to take still images or record film footage as well as record audio thtough the built in microphone. Sony will include Go!Edit software bundled with the camera to help users edit their photos, videos and audio clips on the PSP.
''Go!Cam is fantastic news for all those PSP owners looking for something new, fun and creative," said PSP marketing manager Stephane Hareau.
"With summer around the corner and the ability to turn your PSP into a mini camcorder and capture all the best moments in your life, this is yet another reason to get a PSP and to take advantage of truly portable entertainment. It demonstrates yet again the potential, versatility and evolving nature of PSP.''
The North American release date and pricing are unknown at the moment, but the details will most likely be revealed soon.
Silicon Image has announced that CeRoma, a leading manufacturer and designer of system-on-a-chip (SoC) for digital video broadcasting has decided to integrate a new Multistandard High-Definition Video Decoder (MSVD-HD) IP core in a chip for set-top boxes and DTVs.
Apple Inc. has fixed more serious security bugs with QuickTime. This time, users tricked into visited malicious webpages could either have their privacy breached or worse, have arbitrary code executed on their computers. The patches released are for both Microsoft's Windows operating systems and the Mac platforms.
Yesterday, PayPlay launched "the world's largest MP3 download store", a legal music download store that will sell over 1.3 million indie music tracks and includes a nice integrated search engine that allows users to search for their favorite artists or compare similar artists.
