News written by Andre Yoskowitz (November, 2007)

In an update to our article here, z4 has sued Microsoft again over what it calls "insufficient progress in complying with the terms of the ruling."

The small Michigan-based company says that Microsoft continues to infringe on the rights of its patents. z4 is again asking the courts to find Microsoft liable of patent infringement and is again looking for monetary damages.

"Microsoft's ongoing infringement of the z4 Patents is willful," z4 said in its complaint.

Source:
betanews

In October, we reported that The Pirate Bay had somehow obtained the IFPI.com domain name and was using it to create the "International Federation of Pirate Interests". The IFPI is, of course, the industry trade group the International Federation of the Phonographic Industry.

TBP obtained the domain because the IFPI neglected to renew it and an anonymous individual picked it up and donated it to TPB. After the news hit the group, they quickly filed a complaint with the WIPO (World Intellectual Property Organization), requesting that the domain be returned to its previous owners. It seems that WIPO has ordered TPB to return the domain, and there is little that the admins at TPB can do about it.

"For all the foregoing reasons, in accordance with Paragraphs 4(i) of the Policy and 15 of the Rules, the Panel orders that the domain name, be transferred to the Complainant."

It was fun while it lasted.

Source:
Slyck

According to Shinji Hatano, licensing director for Nintendo, the Wii's Virtual Console download service has become a lucrative business model and has so far generated JPY 3.5 billion, the equivalent of 33 million USD.

Hatano released the figures during a recent press conference in which he also marked a "collaboration with NTT for broadband internet access for the home console."

So far, 7.8 million items have been download through the service, which offers games from past Nintendo consoles and are usually priced between $5 and $20 USD.

Source:
GI.biz

Rumors having begun swirling around the internet that EMI, one of the big four record labels, may be deciding to cut down or stop funding to trade groups including the RIAA and IFPI.

Currently, EMI, Warner, Sony BMG, and Universal reportedly make regular payments to groups such as the IFPI and the RIAA and it has been reported that the IFPI alone received $132 USD million a year from the four labels.

Much of these millions of dollars are used to "combat" piracy but given EMI's recent actions, like the dropping of DRM on their music, makes the rumors not all that surprising.

We will keep you updated as updates become available.

Source:
betanews

Samsung has announced that they will be introducing a new display, a flat panel X-ray detector (FPXD) monitor that sports a resolution higher than anything seen commercially to date, at 3072 x 3072.

The display is intended for X-ray machines but the company says the uses extend beyond medical purposes. It can also be used in traditional CAT scan machines, building inspections and airport security systems.

Samsung "attaches photodiodes to a TFT substrate it produces using a proprietary amorphous silicon technology."

The device should be available worldwide in the first quarter of 2008.

Source:
Dailytech

Iceland's largest torrent site, torrent.is has been shut down due to a coalition effort by a few European anti-piracy organizations. The organizations, however, were denied their request to seize all computer hardware associated with the site.

The tracker has received an injunction that has effectively shut down the popular site. As of last week, the site had 27,000 active users, making it without a doubt the most famous and popular private tracker in Iceland. The tracker only allowed Icelandic IPs to connect in an effort to ensure fast connectivity among its users.

Svavar Kjarrval, the lead admin of the site says he is going to fight the injunction. “I’m going to fight this as far as I possibly can. The general public seems to be on our side.”

As a result of the takedown, the head of the Icelandic equivalent of the MPAA, the SMAIS has received numerous death threats and hate mail.

Source:
TF

Nero and TiVo have signed an agreement that will finally bring the TiVo service to home PCs. The new agreement should help TiVO attract new subscribers in the growing TV-on-PC market.

By adding its services to the PC, TiVo will have its service in all major media distributions, cable, satellite, and computer.

"The partnership with TiVo extends the TV experience for the connected digital home, enabling easy access anytime, anywhere to the most extensive TV content," Nero chief Richard Lesser said.

Source:
betanews

The North American HD DVD Promotional Group has made a press release announcing their latest sales milestone, 750,000 standalones sold through last week.

Thanks to incredible November deals on Toshiba HD DVD players, the milestone has been reached with numbers continuing to grow at a steady rate. The numbers also include the Xbox 360 HD DVD add on.

"HD DVD continues to gain momentum and market share with consumers," said Ken Graffeo, executive vice president of HD strategic marketing for Universal Studios Home Entertainment, and co-president of the HD DVD Promotional Group. "With more than four weeks left for holiday shopping, HD DVD is turning out to be a perfect consumer electronics gift."

According to the The Digital Entertainment Group, Blu-ray standalone sales have not even reached 200,000 units yet. Those numbers, of course, do not include the Sony PlayStation 3.

Source:
Dailytech

Security-Assessment.com security consultant Nick Breese has presented a new report to the Kiwicon hacker conference in which he claims the Sony PlayStation 3, with its powerful Cell processors, can be a great asset to hackers.

He claims that the console can crack passwords at speeds 300 times faster than Intel hardware can.

Speed is the most important factor in "brute force" password cracking, and Breese says the PS3 helps cut down speed considerably.

"Suddenly we have a massive increase in terms of . . . cryptography cracking," he said. "Eight-character 'strong' passwords can be broken in a couple of days whereas before it would take weeks."

Breese does note howevwer, that other password types are handled more securely and remain unaffected by Breese's findings.

"They're still safe. However, the gap has shrunk a hell of a lot," he added. "If you had access to a thousand PlayStations you could (still) crack an eight-character Linux password in a few days."

The PS3 can also be used to "break basic encryption schemes" added Breese, although "ciphers such as the 128-bit Secure Sockets Layer (SSL)" are safe for the time being. "It'll speed up the attacks but I can't see that it's broken, (It) is still safe because the people implementing the ciphers foresaw CPU power rapidly increasing."

The Pirate Bay has announced that it has canceled its plans to launch BOiNK, a replacement to the recently shut down OiNK. The Pirate Bay will be leaving the revival of thousands of music albums to more specialized private BitTorrent trackers instead.

TBP canceled its plans because several new sites sprung up to replace OiNK just days after it was taken down. As Brokep , and admin at TBP said, “There are so many people opening up new music trackers right now so there’s no need for us to go and do that as well.”

"It’s simply better for us not to interfere with the music lovers that want their special ratio trackers for only scene releases and so forth. That’s not our specialty! Each to do what they’re best at and what they love the most,” he added.

Some other music trackers, including what.CD, waffles.fm, and STmusic have seen a huge traffic jump since the fall of OiNK, with triple digit increases.

Source:
TF

Warner has announced that its upcoming HD DVD release of 'Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix' will bring HD interconnectivity to a new level with the introduction of the "Live Community Screening" feature.

The new feature will allow "multiple owners of the 'Order of the Phoenix' HD DVD to simultaneously watch the film via their own individual web-connected players." The playback is controlled by one user who is host and can invite the other users to the viewing. There will even be a virtual "live chat" where participants can text between their remote devices.

The release date for the movie is December 11th and although Warner is releasing a Blu-ray version as well, it will not include any web-enabled content.

Source:
HD Digest

IBM has patented a new concept that will place commercials during the movie you are watching on your legally purchased or rented DVD.

The scheme, which is a terrible abuse of consumers, will allow purchasers to either purchase or rent the movie at the current standard rate with commercial interruption or pay extra money to have it commercial-free.

When the new DVDs are inserted, the DVD player will automatically check to see what type of disc you are inserting and if it is the commercial-infused version, it " will either play embedded ads on the disc over the course of the movie, or connect to the internet to download new ads to embed in real-time into the film."

If the patent is granted, one of only two situations is possible. Either the consumer will see the movie industry as even greedier than they are and sales will fall. There is the possibility however that the consumers will not mind so much and the movie industry will get added revenue from the ads.

What do you think?

Source:
Dailytech

Microsoft and Autodesk have lost their patent appeal against the company z4 over patents surrounding anti-piracy technologies. The companies will need to pay $160 million USD in total penalties for the infringements.

z4's patents relate to technology that provide a "method for software to be activated once it is installed. The same technology could also be used to deactivate the software in an effort to deter piracy."

z4 sued both companies in 2004 and a federal jury found both companies liable for patent infringement in 2006. Microsoft has to pay $115 million in fines and $25 million for willful patent infringement. Autodesk must pay $18 million.

Microsoft did make it clear however that the decision would not affect XP, Vista, or Office 2003 or 07.

Source:
BetaNews

Since the introduction of the stripped down, $399 40 GB model on November 2nd, sales of the Sony PlayStation 3 have tripled. The numbers however, also take into account Black Friday specials such as the one seen at Wal-Mart.

The news comes on the heels of similar news from Japan, where the PS3 outsold the Nintendo Wii for the week for the first time since they were both launched.

In an ironic twist, the Wii's breakthrough success could actually aid the PS3 for the holidays. Nintendo of America President Reggie Fils-Aime has been quoted as saying that he spent Black Friday morning searching for Wiis and could not find any available. There were however, PS3s everywhere.

Sony had more good news as well when the data figures came in and sale of their aging PS2 console rose 275 percent as well for the last few weeks of November.

Source:
betanews

According to a Nintendo spokesperson, the company has lost the battle against unauthorized third-party modification devices for their DS handheld.

"We cannot smash them all", read the spokesperson's quote.

The R4 and M3, just two of the more popular mod devices are microSD readers that fit in the DS's Slot-1 port and allows for the playing of downloaded Roms, as well as music and movies. Both cards retail for the very cheap price of $45 USD and require no drivers.

Unfortunately for Nintendo, these products are technically legal although most if not all are used illegally.

Source:
Betanews

According to a new study performed by Gfk NOP, the Apple iPhone is perceived to be too expensive in the UK, and that most will not purchase due to the high price.

The research, a poll of 500 UK citizens suggested that outside of the "Apple cult" fans, the regular consumer will not be buying the device. Actually, according to the survey, a remarkable 72% said they would not be buying the device because of the price.

Brand awareness, as could be expected, was very strong, with 75% saying they've heard of the brand. 30% said the one and only deterrent from buying the device was the price.

"Apple’s history proves that it has the magic touch when it comes to product development and marketing, however the iPhone has yet to Capture the imagination of the UK public. iPhone hype is in full-force, but our data shows that it is very much a considered purchase, with its high price turning many consumers off. We must take into account that the UK mobile market’s success has been down to subsidised handsets, therefore the iPhone’s price really stands out and consumers are not used to paying in excess of £200 for a phone”, Richard Jameson of GfK NOP commented.

According to the magazine MCV, Sony has once again squashed the rumors that it will be launching a PSP phone with Sony Ericsson intended for gamers.

A Sony Europe spokesperson is quoted in the magazine as saying the following; “We can categorically state that we are not currently working with Sony Ericsson on any form of PlayStation phone."

“We feel that [SCE co-chief operating officer] Jim Ryan has been misquoted [in saying the idea is 'definitely plausible']."

“We hold constant dialogue with Sony partners – Sony Pictures, the hardware team and Sony Ericsson – but there are no collaborations happening between us on a PSP or PlayStation phone."

"That’s totally untrue – and goes for now and the foreseeable future.”

The rumors have been floating around for months after patents surfaced earlier this year for a "PlayStation themed gaming-enabled mobile phone." Sony Ericsson games boss Peter Ahnegard further fueled the rumors when he stated that consumers would "see a PSP phone before Christmas".

Source:
Pocketlint

Canon has introduced a new portable DVD recorder dubbed the DW-100, that allows for the easy transfer of camcorder footage direct to DVD without the need for a PC.

The DW-100, available in Asia starting in March 2008 can work with MPEG2 video in standard definition as well as HD content recorded using the AVCHD Codec.

The recorder can also be hooked up to a PC or Mac using a USB connection and used as an external DVD writer.

Source:
Pocketlint

Creative has begun offering two new, higher capacity models of its tiny Zen Stone Plus MP3 player.

The new models, in 4GB and 8GB,will cost £69.99 and £99.99 respectively.

Although meant to compete with the iPod Shuffle, the new players offer up to eight times the capacity and have built in tiny LCD screens and built-in FM radio, all features the Shuffle lacks.

You can also use the built in microphone to record voice notes as well as record from line-in direct to WMA without a PC.

Source:
Pocketlint

Mere weeks after he was quoted all over the internet as saying Blu-ray could possibly lose the high-def format war and that it is currently at a "stalemate" with HD DVD, Sony CEO Howard Stringer has reaffirmed the company's full commitment to the format.

According to the Hollywood Reporter, Stringer is quoted as saying that Blu-ray has "the momentum and the scale" to beat HD DVD in the long run.

"I think Blu-ray is just a better format," Stringer said. "Our partners are with Blu-ray Disc because, first of all, we have greater security, which Fox is particularly good at. Disney thinks it's a better picture. And the sheer amount of bandwidth on the disc gives directors and beyond all kinds of future opportunity, including director's cuts and who knows what 3-D capabilities will be down the road."

"I think that's why Steven Spielberg held out his own product from going to HD DVD," he added. "Ultimately, if you're passionate about movies, which these DVD collectors are, Blu-ray is the best answer. I think that is true, and we see that in the blogging environment."

Nintendo has announced that its ever-popular Wii console has sold 200,000 units in Australia in just under 50 weeks of release, making it the fastest-selling console in the country's history.

The console sold almost 60,000 units in its first week of sale last December and the console has helped Nintendo of Australia double its sales revenue for the financial year, to AUD 138.8 million.

The Wii continues to sell heavily worldwide, with some countries still having supply issues due to such high demand for the console.

Source:
GI.biz

Iiyama has announced that it is launching a new lineup of touchscreen LCD monitors for desktop PCs.

The lineup will include the ProLite T1530SR, the T1730SR, and the T1930SR, at 15, 17 and 19 inches respectively. All of the monitors connect through either VGA or DVI and support RS-232 and USB for the touchscreen interface.

The ProLites, which are compatible with Windows and Mac systems use a full screen 4:3 Aspect ratio and and come in either a black or white bezel.

The smaller model has a slow 16ms response time and a relatively low 1024x768 Resolution but the 17- and 19-inch versions have 5ms response, and a resolution of 1280x1024.

The 15-inch model will sell for £330 ($700 USD), £350 ($750 USD) for the 17-inch model, and £400 ($850 USD) for the 19-inch unit.

Source:
Electronista

For those that are interested, the large internet retailer Amazon has dropped the price on the Samsung BD-P1400 Blu-ray Player to $339.99 USD, making the player the lowest priced Blu-ray standalone ever.

Although, there was no word on how long the price drop will last, but for now at least its good to see any price drop on Blu-ray standalones. Toshiba's recent price drops on the HD-A2 and HD-A3 players have proved that lower prices guarantee greater sales and maybe the Blu-ray camp is taking notice.

More information when it becomes available.

Source:
HD digest

If you were expecting to get one of the new Sony OLED TV sets this holiday season, your chances just got much slimmer. Engadget is reporting that there are only 2,000 Sony XEL-1 TVs available worldwide, with all of them being in Japan.

Sony announced its super slim 3mm set two months ago and since then other HDTV makers have followed suit in promising OLED TVs. Toshiba claims it will have a 30-inch set available commercially, and globally by 2009 and Samsung has recently announced that it will have a 42-inch model on the global market by 2010.

Sony Electronics President Stan Glasgow has said however, that the XEL-1 could possibly make it to North America if not all of the Japanese sets sell. But considering there are only 2000 available in Japan, I'd say the chances are slim to none that America will be seeing the XEL-1 this year.

Source:
Dailytech

Thanks to a ground-breaking industry agreement backed by French President Nicolas Sarkozy, internet users in France that download unauthorized music and movies could find their internet access cut off by the government.

The plan, which Sarkozy will talk about more in depth tomorrow, will be a three strikes you're out policy in which you lose internet access after the third strike. Repeat offenders will receive two warnings before being shut down. ISP's will be forced to give information to the proposed enforcement body on "high volume users", basically users that use large amounts of bandwidth per month.

The proposal has been written up by an independent review led by heads of the entertainment and retail industries. If it goes through, the music and film industries, internet service providers and the government are all likely to sign up.

There is however, a bright side to this deal. In exchange for the clamp down on unauthorized downloading, the French music industry has agreed to remove DRM from archive French material. The film industry also agreed to release DVDs quicker after its cinematic release, reducing the delay from 7½ months to 6 months.

The DVD Forum Steering Committee has finally approved amended specifications for the 51 GB three layer HD DVD disc, meaning the disc, dubbed Version 2.0, can possibly begin to move into production.

It is not completely clear whether the decision officially opens the door for production to begin but those details should be available soon. The new, larger capacity HD DVD should help the format gain even more ground in its war against Blu-ray as the Blu-ray camp has long advocated its superiority due to the ability to generate 50 GB titles.

Source:
VideoBusiness

Jeboo, China's largest online cinema, has had a series of lawsuits filed against it by five Hollywood giants, namely Twentieth Century Fox Film Corporation, The Walt Disney Company, Paramount Pictures Corporation, Columbia Pictures Corporation, and Universal.

The studios claim that the company "transmitted movies they produced without their permission" and demanded an injunction to stop the transmissions immediately. The studios are also asking for an official apology and 3.2 million yuan ($433,000 USD).

Jeboo, established 3 years ago, has network copyrights for almost 30,000 films and television programs and is the first provider of its kind in China.

More updates as they become available.

Source:
China.org

Nintendo has recently announced that Japanese DS owners will be soon be recieving a TV tuner attachment dubbed the DS-TV.

The DS-TV will be a cartridge with an attached antenna which will allow owners to watch TV on the go.

After the announcement last week, the company began taking pre-orders for the device and the Japanese site actually crashed due to the intense inbound traffic from would-be buyers.

The device carries a 6,800 yen (approximately $63 USD) price tag and an estimated battery life of 3 to 5 hours depending on how bright you keep your DS screen.

When asked whether the DS-TV could work in foreign companies, Nintendo made it clear that they had no plans to launch it anywhere outside Japan and that the cartridge would not work on European or North American DS's.

Source:
Dailytech

The very popular torrent site Mininova has posted that they have hit a new milestone, 1 million uploaded torrents, just weeks after announcing they had surpassed the 3 billion torrent download mark.

An anonymous user uploaded the torrent yesterday but it unfortunately has no seeds, not even the original uploader.

The number is very large considering that Mininova only allows user uploads and does not scrape torrents from other sites. The site hit 500,000 uploads in early November 2006, meaning that the growth of downloading is much larger than that of uploading.

On a side note, according to Alexa ratings, Mininova has become one of the top 70 most visited websites on the whole internet.

Source:
TF

According to Home Media Magazine, Warner Home Video President Ron Sanders has made a statement that his company's ambitious Total HD project would most likely be scrapped for good. He did not however, completely shut the door on the idea.

Total HD was supposed to be premiered at CES 2007 but production delays and executive decisions on the format have so far killed the project. In June, the company said that consumers should expect to see Total HD in "early 2008" getting many to assume that it would be premiered at CES 2008.

The new comments seem to throw that out the window however. "Total HD only makes sense for studios supporting both formats, and since Paramount went the other way and retail didn't push the issue, one studio isn't enough for us to pull the trigger," said Sanders to the magazine, so for now, "it’s on hold.”

Source:
BetaNews

Only a month after they began offering a symmetrical 20 Mpbs download and upload speed option for their FiOS internet service, Verizon has announced that for double the price of the current service, users can get download speeds of maximum 50 Mbps along with 20 Mbps uploads.

Although just the thought of those speeds must excite file sharers, the prices may not. The fastest option will cost you $139.95 USD per month while the slower connection will run you $69.99 USD per month.

FiOS is currently available in only 16 states and so far the fastest option is only confirmed in New York, New Jersey and Connecticut.

Source:
BetaNews

According to head of online marketing for Sony Europe Darren Cairns, the new PlayStation Store for PC will not kill of the Sony-created Universal Media Disc (UMD) format.

"The UMD business is still good for us and our publishers. It's still a burgeoning market, and we're still selling a large number of PSPs on a weekly basis, so there are a large number of new people coming into the market."

By using the PC store and cutting out production and retail costs, Sony has the potential to offer their game titles at a lower price, but it does not seem the company has any plans for that anytime soon.

"I don't think that this would give us any cause for concern over UMD, I think they sit very well together. When you talk about the more casual games, pick-up-and-play games, you would definitely want to put them through the Store rather than have disc production, in to retail, and so on," Cairns added.

When asked if the Store could possibly begin offering video and music tracks for download, Cairns argued that the focus was on games not on general entertainment media.

"The PC Store is very much targeted at getting lots of really good game content at the start for the millions of PSP users that we've got. Longer term, the PlayStation Store is predominantly for game content for day one and we're working on the plans to build that out after. Read more...

Ending December 14th, Microsoft has started an Xbox Live Arcade based promotion in which new UK customers receive 10 free Xbox Live arcade titles.

Some of the notable hits included in the offer include Sonic the Hedgehog, Every Extended Extra Extreme, Street Fighter II Hyper Fighting and Zuma Deluxe.

"Going into this holiday period with one of the greatest line ups in video game history is certainly a compelling reason for a friend to jump into the world of Xbox 360," added Stephen McGill, head of gaming and entertainment for Microsoft UK.

"However, this incredible offer also enforces the fact we've got an exceptional online service in Xbox Live, which truly does bring everyone together."

Source:
GI.biz

Cryptography Research, Inc. has agreed in principle to sell the BD+ copy protection to Macrovision for $45 million USD in cash and stock.

Macrovision, for the money, is getting all of CRI's BD+ patents, its ciphers, as well as its customer partnerships. That being said, CRI is getting out of the Blu-ray encryption business for good and passing it on to a company that cares more about it.

To date, Macrovision has contributed to the protection schemes ACP for DVD and AACS. In 2004, the company tried to buy its way into a different area of the digital content protection realm by purchasing InstallShield.

Starting next week, the giant retailer Wal-Mart will be starting a PlayStation 3 and Blu-ray "Special Sale" that should rival the recent secret sale of the Toshiba HD-A2 HD DVD player.

Beginning on the 24th at 8 am and ending at midnight, the retailer will be giving 10 free Blu-ray titles to any purchaser of the $499 USD 80GB model of the Sony PlayStation 3. This promotion is stackable on the Blu-ray "five free" promotion meaning any customer will walk away with 15 free movies with their purchase.

The only catch is that the 10 movies you get to pick at the store must be under $30 USD to qualify for the promotion. Here is to hoping Wal-Mart doesn't mark up their entire Blu-ray collection to $30.01 USD.

Wal-Mart Secret Sale Info

The infamous Dutch anti-piracy group BREIN has now gotten the web host LeaseWeb to take down several more torrent trackers, and this time the names are very recognizable.

The ISP has said it is determined to fight BREIN in court but for now they have no other option than to take the sites down when they are ordered to do so.

Working off their successful court case against LeaseWeb in an Amsterdam court where the ISP was forced to shut down everlasting.nu and hand over the owner's personal details, BREIN seems intent on taking down every torrent site hosted by Leaseweb.

In an email written by Leasweb to one of the sites, the host says this, “In a recent case at the Amsterdam District Court, LeaseWeb was ordered to take down such sites. Although LeaseWeb has filed an appeal and will keep fighting for its client’s rights up to the highest court, LeaseWeb regrettably has no choice but to obey the court order and take down sites that list (bittorrent/edonkey) files.”

For those interested in what sites are hosted by LeaseWeb, here is a list, with some very noticeable names. btjunkie.org, seedpeer.com, torrentleech.org, mybittorrent.com, btmon.com, sumotorrent.com, what.CD, waffles.fm, hdbits.org, bitenova.nl, torrentportal.com, monova.org, not to mention dozens more smaller sites.

According to anonymous industry sources it seems Samsung looks to be turning to smaller sized plasma TVs in the face of "persistent" LCD panel shortages.

Earlier this year LG made a similar move and created the 32-inch 32PC5RV PDP. Plasma displays are generally over 37 inches.

However, the company will not launch any 32-inch PDP TVs in the near term due to capacity constraints. Sources say the PDP capacity is still tight due to increased demand from Philips and Chinese customers.


Source:
Electronista

According to a Billboard Magazine interview, it appears that Gene Simmons, the founding member and front man of KISS, hates music pirates as well as the new ideals of Radiohead and Trent Reznor.

As quoted from the article, Simmons had this to say about anyone who downloads unauthorized music from the internet. "Every little college kid ... should have been sued off the face of the earth. They should have taken their houses and cars and nipped it right there in the beginning."

But Simmons wasn't done yet. When asked how he felt about the band Radiohead and Trent Reznor, the front man of Nine Inch Nails, who are offering new, interesting purchasing models for their music and removing the record labels completely from the equation, he added this, "I open a store and say 'Come on in and pay whatever you want.' Are you on f---ing crack? Do you really believe that's a business model that works?"

According to a comScore report however, Radiohead made $2.7 million USD on its first day of sales, a day anyone would hope for especially considering the record label wasn't there to take 90 percent of all profits.

Gene however, in his most hypocritical statement of the whole article, said it was not about the money. "The most important part is the music. Without that, why would you care?" You must be reminded however that Gene has a reality show, a cartoon show, and had been branding KISS merchandise for at least 20 years. About the music indeed Mr. Simmons.

According to NPD sales data, US videogame hardware and software sales rose 73 percent for the month of October as compared to the same month last year.

Total sales rose over $450 million USD to $1.1 billion USD.

After a brief drop to number two, the Wii returned to lead in hardware sales with 519,000 units sold. 366,000 Xbox 360 consoles were sold for the month finishing out the list was the PlayStation 3 with 121,000 consoles sold.

Software sales were up to $513.9 million USD, an almost 40 percent rise from October 2006.

Halo 3 continued to sell excellently, topping out the software list. Guitar Hero III, the latest installment of the hugely popular game, came in second, third and fourth place for sales with the 360 version being the most popular.

Source:
GI.biz

Sony has started a new promotion in which it is offering a free Blu-ray movie with the proof of purchase of two others.

The deal however, is not as good as it seems from the outside. First, Sony is only offering the free movie from a list of 12 and the other two movies you actually purchase must be from that same list. You may also not even get the free movie you like, as the rebate form asks for your top three picks. On top of that all, you must enclose $2.99 USD for shipping on each order.

The offer is good for disc purchases made between October 28 and December 15, 2007 and is stackable on other offers such as Amazon's "Buy One, Get One Free" sale on Sony discs, and DVD Empire's $17.95 Sony Blu-ray sale.

Here is the rebate form for those interested: Sony rebate form

Source:
HD Digest

A new Russian movie download site has appeared, found at ZML.com, that appears to be following in the footsteps of AllofMP3.

The site is offering 1500 different movies for download without any DRM, in the same fashion in which AllofMP3 offered music. The site also offers a large selection ranging from classics such as Apocalypse Now and Aliens to the newly released Transformers.

Each of the movie files are encoded with the Xvid or DivX codec and start at $1.99 USD. There are higher resolution versions available for $2.99 and $4.99 respectively.

Just like AllofMP3, ZML says it is doing nothing illegal and is following the policies of the Russian Organization for Multimedia and Digital Systems (ROMS).

"All materials presented on this site are available for the distribution over the Internet in accordance with the license of the Russian Organization for multimedia and Digital Systems (ROMS) and intended for personal use only. Further distribution, resale or broadcasting is strictly prohibited," it adds.

In celebration of the 5th anniversary of Xbox Live, on November 15th Microsoft will be giving all Xbox Live users the chance to download Carcassone for free.

The company also boasted that “more than eight million members are now actively engaged in the largest social entertainment network on TV.”

Any active user that joined in 2002 will receive 500 free Microsoft Points as a reward for being loyal.

"In just five short years Xbox Live has revolutionized the way friends and family have fun in the living room," said John Schappert, corporate vice president of Live, software and services at Microsoft. "On its fifth birthday, Xbox Live truly is the place for hanging out with friends and enjoying downloadable TV shows, movies, videos, game add-ons, and now downloadable Xbox games on demand."

Source:
Dailytech

Coming with the Xbox 360 Fall Dashboard update on December 2nd, Microsoft has said six new full version original Xbox games will be available for download.

The six games are as follows, Burnout 3, Crash Bandicoot: The Wrath of Cortex, Crimson Skies: High Road to Revenge, Fable, Halo: Combat Evolved, Indigo Prophecy.

The games will cost 1200 Microsoft points, approximately $15 USD and will most likely have similar DRM to that of Live Arcade games.

Microsoft is also planning to release more Xbox games on the Marketplace soon, and it is expected Halo 2 will be among that bunch.

Source:
Dailytech

Creative has announced that they have shipped their 25 millionth MP3 player, eight years after shipping their first digital music player.

In comparison, Apple surpassed the mark in 2006, after only five years on the market. Since that point however, iPod sales have surged and recently Apple passed the 110 million mark. The research firm IDC has noted that however big the gap between Apple and Creative, the Korean company is still the 2nd largest manufacturer of MP3 players.

"Shipment of 25 million MP3 players marks a major milestone in Creative history, as our player unit volume exceeds the combined unit sales from some of the biggest names in consumer electronics," chairman and CEO Sim Wong Hoo said.

Source:
BetaNews

According to a few rock labels, the hit game Guitar Hero III has had a significant impact on CD sales for the bands featured in the game.

The record label Roadrunner Records stated that sales of DragonForce's album "Inhuman Rampage" increased 126% from the week before the game's release. One of DragonForce's songs is an unlockable bonus track in the game. Roadrunner also said that sales for Slipknot's latest album saw a noticeable increase.

The new reports come on the heels of comments made by Electronic Art's Steve Schnur, which were that "games were now more relevant than radio when it comes to promoting new music."

Maybe the record industry will see this new trend and jump on it early.

Source:
GI.biz

It seems that Microsoft is hoping to hop on the ever increasing popularity of social media and has posted jobs wanted postings on their website looking for a program manager for a new photo and video sharing website.

The site would be a new addition to the Live family of services and work across Spaces, SkyDrive, Messenger, and Hotmail.

"This feature team is building a next-generation photo and video sharing service that will compete with Flickr, Smugmug and other photo web solutions today," the job posting read. "This is a 'v1' opportunity."

Microsoft has tried a video and file sharing site before, named Soapbox but it never took off in the market.

Source:
BetaNews

YouTube has announced that it has increased its upload size limit to 1 GB and introduced the option to upload batch videos.

The software however, is a separate download that must be run off the users hard drive. There is still the option to upload through the browser if you so choose though but the new size limit does not apply.

The new size limit should help to solve some of YouTube's video quality issues as the compression will not be as high as current videos are.

This latest move should also give YouTube another edge over the competition, because most offer only 100 MB maximum uploads.

Source:
betaNews

According to an article in Home Media Magazine, HD DVD standalone sales will hit the 500,000 mark in the next few weeks and currently sits at about 430,000.

The news comes after reports that over 100,000 standalones were sold just last week after the widely hyped price drops of a couple Toshiba players.

Hitting the 500,000 unit mark would seem to cement HD DVD's lead in the standalone player sales but the Blu-ray camp will quickly mention that the PlayStation 3 has sold over 2 million units in the US since its launch.

Should be interesting to see the end of year stats for standalone sales and disc sales.

Source:
HD Digest

Although the rumors of Apple offering movie rentals through its iTunes platform are certainly not new, a Carnegie Mellon student has evidence that movie rentals are indeed coming soon.

The student has posted that while doing a dump of the strings from an older version of iTunes to compare them to the new 7.5 upgrade released this weeks, he discovered a few interesting new strings.

They are: "rental-content, rental-bag, rbsync, source-rental-info, dest-rental-info, getvodaccountselectionlist, GET VOD ACCOUNT SELECTION LIST, and supportsRentals."

Those strings would imply that Apple may finally be adding movie rentals to its available content on iTunes.

Say a few analysts, "We've been predicting that Apple was going to provide rentals for about five months now," Blackfriars Communications analyst Carl Howe said. "It will give a nice bump to Apple TV sales over the holidays, which we had also predicted would remain low until this release."

Source:
betanews

The Apple iPhone has finally gone on sale today in both the UK and Germany and early reports show that sales are brisk in both countries.

T-Mobile has said that more than 10,000 phones had already been sold in Germany, and that there were lines in front of stores waiting for the device.

Since its launch in the US in June, about 1.4 million units have been sold and Apple hopes to ship 10 million phones next year. More European launches are slated for the end of the year and the phone will reach Asia in 2008.

One complaint of European buyers however, must be price. The phone is selling for 399 euros ($587 USD) in Germany and 269 pounds ($566 USD) in the UK. In the US, the phone sells much cheaper at $399 USD.

Are we to expect price cuts in the near future on European iPhones?

Source:
BetaNews

Despite months of Blu-ray camp statements indicating their format was running away with the lead in the next-gen format war, it seems at least one executive has their head on straight.

Sony CEO Howard Stringer, at a lecture yesterday in New York, admitted that the format war was nowhere near over and that it both Blu-ray and HD DVD were in a stalemate.

Also noting what many HD DVD enthusiasts have been calling the "turning point" in the format war, Stringer admitted that Blu-ray was doing very well until August when Paramount decided to support, exclusively, HD DVD.

"It's a difficult fight. We were trying to win on the merits, which we were doing for a while, until Paramount changed sides," the AP quoted Stringer as saying.

Stringer was also reported as saying that he wished he was Sony's CEO a few years ago so that he could use his power to help bring the formats together and forgo the entire format war.

The quotes come after a weekend in which HD DVD sold over 100,000 standalone players after extensive mark downs in price on a couple Toshiba players.

Ticketmaster and Apple have formed a partnership in which digital albums will be sold right alongside the concert tickets for many artists on Ticketmaster.com.

Over 700 artists including such huge names like Kanye West, Keith Urban and Bon Jovi will be part of the cross promotion. As an added promotion, the albums sold at Ticketmaster would be $1 cheaper than on iTunes through the end of the year.

The new promotion will stack on the current Target based promotion in which a $50 iTunes card is sold that gives a $25 credit towards a purchase at ticketmaster.com along with $25 in iTunes credits.

Source:
BetaNews

Sony announced today that it had released v2.0 of its PlayStation 3 firmware which adds the feature "to remotely turn the console on and off through the remote play function."

That feature will give any PSP owner the access to content on their PS3 hard drive from anywhere. Users will also have the ability to create an unlimited amount of music and photo playlists. There could however be a catch. Many reports are saying that to use the feature, you will also be required to run the cooling fan constantly.

Another couple of more minor features are enhancements to the XMB interface which will allow for customization of the background and color.

Additionally, "a information board feature has been added that would keep users up to date on new PlayStation news, a new PlayStation Network category, and Trend Micro Web Security, which is provided free of charge until April of next year."

Source:
betanews

LG announced yesterday that it had selected Broadcom's integrated dual HD disc format system-on-a-chip to power its next dual-format HD player.

Broadcom boasts that there chips are the only ones in the industry that can completely support HD DVD's HDi and Blu-ray's BD-Java among other mandatory requirements.

According to Broadcom, the chips support "the H.264/AVC, VC-1, MPEG-2, Dolby Digital Plus, Dolby TrueHD audio and video standards, and features backwards compatibility and DVD-R, DVD-VR, and CD support as well."

So far, the high prices of dual format players have kept many from purchasing, considering most players run around $1000 USD. You can purchase a Blu-ray and HD DVD player separately for under $600 USD combined.

"Our universal system-on-a-chip and software solution brings us one step closer to ending the confusion surrounding the current format war by supporting both HD DVD and Blu-ray Disc formats at the highest performance levels," Broadcom's consumer electronics chief said in a statement.

In an effort to promote the Xbox 360 as a "family friendly" console, Microsoft announced yesterday a new feature called Family Timer which will allow parents to limit the amount of time their children can play the console on a daily or weekly basis.

Available through the "Family Settings Screen", the timer can be set and when the time limit is reached the console will save your current game and shut down automatically.

"The campaign is designed to educate parents on the tools and resources available that can help them manage their family's media use," explained Robbie Bach, president of Microsoft's Entertainment and Devices Division. "The main program was a 20-city bus tour where we visited with parents and showed them how to use the controls on the Xbox 360 and Windows Vista, and with kids showing them that there are fun games for all ages."

The Family Timer is not a brand new feature however, it can also be used by those with administrator privileges on any computer using Windows Vista.

Source:
betanews

The famous pop musician Prince has continued his crusade against online content by sending legal notices to fan sites demanding that "anything linked to the likeness of" of the artist, including music, lyrics and images, be removed immediately.

Three of the affected sites, housequake.com, prince.org, and princefans.com, have formed a union called "Prince Fans United" in an effort to fight back what they call violations of free speech laws.

This latest news follows the events that occured over the summer when the pop star had all content that contained his name removed from YouTube.

Unfortunately for Prince though, his crusade to remove all content from YouTube has landed him in a lawsuit brought forth by the EFF and the uploader of a video that was removed. The video, a 30 second clip of the uploader's baby daughter dancing to Prince's song "Let's Go Crazy" was taken down and the the uploader and EFF believe "the removal infringed upon her fair use and free speech rights."

Should be interesting to see what happens after this latest attempt by Prince to censor the internet.

Source:
betanews

Microsoft has come to an agreement with China's second largest computer manufacturer, Founder, in which more and more new computers will come with genuine copies of Windows pre-installed.

The agreement follows an almost identical deal with the country's top manufacturer Lenovo, both of which were made as an effort to curb the rampant piracy of Microsoft software in China.

Microsoft chairman Steve Ballmer called the deal an "essential part" of its Chinese strategy and said Windows would now come on every new personal computer sold and about 40 percent of business computers.

According to the BSA, up to 82 percent of all software used in China is illegally obtained.

Source:
betaNews

According to Video Business, over 90,000 Toshiba HD-A2 HD DVD players were sold over the weekend by brick and mortar outlets such as Wal-Mart, Best Buy, and Circuit City. The figures however, do not include online retailers, most notably Amazon, which means the sales figures could easily be over 100,000.

Many analysts estimate 40,000 being sold at Wal-Mart alone over the weekend, making it a very hot seller.

Sales of the newer HD-A3 model also appeared to be brisk, with many locations selling out after the A2 quickly depleted.

As a comparison, Blu-ray's top selling standalone (PS3 not included), the Sony's BDP-S300, has sold 100,000 units total since its introduction nearly 5 months ago.

Source:
BetaNews

Sony is set to release a third generation PlayStation 2 in Japan before the holidays with a built-in AC adapter that weighs only 25 ounces.

The new, lighter model will sell for 16,000 yen ($140 USD), equal to the price of the current model.

Sony has given its support for the PS2 until at least 2010, and with the company losing significant amounts of money per PS3 console sold, the PS2 is crucial to keeping Sony's gaming division afloat.

Source:
BetaNews

Corel has announced DVD Copy 6 Plus, an update to their DVD Copy series designed to help users copy their unencrypted DVDs as well as convert video for playback on a variety of platforms such as the iPhone and other mobile devices.

The new program allows users to convert in video in three quick steps and the end results can be played on the iPhone, iPod, PSP, Zune, or even the Nintendo DS.

According to the site, DVD Copy 6 Plus now supports "DivX Ultra, XviD, H.264 HD and MPEG2 HD as well as AVCHD and HDV, including direct import from the latest AVCHD camcorders."

As an added bonus, the program comes with WinDVD 8 Silver, the Virtual Drive Tool and Disc Label with Lightscribe support.

The program works on XP and Vista and is available now for about $50 USD.

Source:
Pocketlint

Joost has decided to scrap its own inline chat client and instead join with Meebo, the popular cross-platform chat service that supports all notable IM clients including MSN, Yahoo Messenger, AIM, Google Talk, ICQ and Jabber.

Although Meebo is browser-based, and Joost normally takes up the full screen, the company has said it will integrate the service as layer on top of the application which will eliminate the need to switch to the browser.

Source:
BetaNews

According to an email sent out to users of the Zune media player, Microsoft is preparing to launch its upgrade to the desktop software as well as the device on November 13th.

The updates will be delivered automatically beginning on that day and will add wireless sync, a new Zune Marketplace, and a social network built around the device.

"By accepting the updates, your Zune will have the same software that comes preloaded on all new devices," Microsoft said.

Microsoft is pushing the updates in an effort to keep early adopters current with the new features available to newer Zune users.

Source:
BetaNews

Nokia has announced that their relaunch of the failed N-Gage platform will be delayed until at least December as the company works on finalizing the software for the online-enabled service.

Nokia's new OVI brand will incorporate music, gaming, GPS, photography and other online-enabled features including N-Gage functions.

"N-gage is coming in December. Software testing is taking a bit more time than what we had expected," said Kari Tuutti, spokesperson for Nokia.

The N-Gage service, which allows players to download demos, connect to other players, as well access other gaming features and read reviews will have games created by Gameloft and Electronic Arts when it goes live.

Source:
GI.biz

This morning, the Writers Guild of America formally went on strike after negotiations with the Alliance of Motion Picture & Television Producers over a contract dispute fell through.

The WGA's current contract expired last Wednesday and the two groups had been in negotiations in an effort to avoid a strike.

“Early today, the WGA completely withdrew its DVD proposal, which the [AMPTP] companies said was a stumbling block,” said WGA West in a Sunday statement. “Yet the AMPTP made no response to any of the other proposals that the WGA has made since July.”

Some of the demands the WGA is looking for include a substantial hike in the writers’ share of electronic sell-through revenue, "which is currently based on 1.2% of the licensing fee production companies receive for each downloaded item." The WGA wants 2.5%.

The WGA also wants to get paid for internet streaming of its work which they currently do not. The AMPTP calls web streaming "promotional" and insists that studios do not get significant revenues from streaming to pay other content partners.

Although rumors have been swirling for weeks that it would be moving from dual format to Blu-ray, Warner has said that is has no plans to turn away from dual-format and instead pledged a strong line-up for both formats for the upcoming year.

Many of the rumors started due to a Home Media Magazine article last week in which Warner VP of High-Definition Media, Dan Silverberg made the following quotes:

"One thing that may be changing is our strategy," Silverberg was quoted as saying. "When both formats launched and hardware prices were high, we made a decision to support both formats and let the consumer decide. But now that hardware pricing is affordable for both Blu-ray and HD DVD, it appears consumers no longer want to decide -- so the notion of staying in two formats for the duration is something we are re-evaluating."

Silverberg was then quoted as saying "we can definitely talk Blu-ray" and that Warner is "committed to the format", quotes that suggest the company would be moving to Blu-ray.

Now however, Jim Noonan, SVP of Strategic Promotion and Communication for Warner Home Entertainment Group is saying that Silverberg's remarks were "misquoted and misconstrued."

Thanks to a new deal signed by the companies, CinemaNow's video download service will now be available on Samsung's P2 PMP.

User can now purchase movies, TV shows and music video from Samsung.CinemaNow.com with all videos priced between $1.99 and $19.95 USD.

According to CinemaNow, users will have access to movie and TV releases from "Walt Disney Studios, 20th Century Fox, Lionsgate, MGM, Paramount Pictures, Sony Pictures, Universal Studios and Warner Bros.; music videos from EMI and Sony BMG; and programming from the Sundance Channel, A&E, The History Channel, Egami and others."

“CinemaNow is continuously innovating to provide a comprehensive set of tools that leading companies across the digital entertainment landscape can use to deliver a high-quality video experience,” said Curt Marvis, CEO of CinemaNow. “Samsung Electronics is a global leader in creating innovative media ecosystems, and we are pleased to partner with them to offer consumers a branded digital video experience they can count on as the portable video market continues to grow.”

"Samsung is dedicated to providing consumers [with] an easy-to-use interactive media environment solution,” said Reid Sullivan, VP of Digital Audio and Video Marketing, Samsung Electronics America. “By partnering with a leading digital video service provider such as CinemaNow, Samsung will bring Hollywood directly to consumers and elevate the user experience to the next level.”

Toshiba has announced a 22.2-inch TFT color LCD monitor which it boasts has a QUXGA-W screen resolution of 3840 x 2400.

The typical high resolution for LCD monitors is
2560 x 1600 and normally seen on the 30-inch variety.

Although the resolution may excite you, the price and other specifications will not. The monitor sports a dim 235 cd/m2 brightness and a small 300:1 contrast ratio. The viewing angles disappoint as well, with only 120 degrees horizontal and 100 degrees vertical.

Toshiba has said the display will sell for approximately $18,000 USD and will require a video card that sells for about $2,700 USD. Why the insanely large price? Because there are no current production lines capable of producing LCD substrates with such high resolutions and the displays come from "experimental" facilities used normally for medical imaging equipment.

The estimated shipping date for the monitor is Spring 2008.

Source:
Dailytech

Although the UK government has threatened to crack down on illegal file sharing through new legislation, John Lovelock, the director general of the Federation Against Software Theft (FAST) feels his method will work just as well, ban any pirates from the Internet.

FAST would like to monitor and filter all ISP networks to ensure that unauthorized file sharing does not occur. If such file sharing does occur, FAST wants the ability to lifetime ban the user from the ISP in which the offense occurred. But what if the user than decides to move to a new ISP? FAST will follow that user and "If there's evidence of that person then joining another ISP and then taking up again, we would go to that ISP and say: Here's the evidence and we don't think they should be allowed to use your network". Such tactics would effectively ban a pirate from using the Internet.

Although there is no way Lovelock will get his way on this, it brings up serious questions about civil liberties and how involved anti-piracy groups can become on an ISP level.

Source:
PC Pro

As we have reported here at AfterDawn, last month Jammie Thomas, the first person to ever go to trial over unauthorized file sharing lost her case and now owes the entertainment industry a $200,000 USD settlement.

We also reported that she has decided to pay the the full settlement herself and it seems she has been doing anything possible to raise the money.

It seems Jammie has launched a new store here in which she sells coffee mugs, t-shirts, baby bibs, and even women's thongs all stamped with a "Free Jammie" logo created by her supporters.

As the store says, "Free Jammie Merchandise Store is a store that sells products with the Free Jammie logo to get the word out about freejammie.com."

Buy a thong and fight the RIAA.

Source:
ZP

Last month The Pirate Bay filed a lawsuit against some major players in the entertainment industry alleging that they were trying to corrupt to sabotage the infamous torrent tracker.

The MPAA has finally responded to the claims and to no ones surprise, they have denied all the claims including that they ever worked with MediaDefender. Unfortunately for the MPAA's claims, archives of leaked MD emails beg to differ.

MPAA attorney Espen Tøndel said that the "companies represented by the MPAA never requested MediaDefender to do the things The Pirate Bay claims."

One example given by TF involves Universal Pictures, a studio known for being represented by the MPAA. The leaked emails leave nothing to the imagination when Universal execs say “can you jump all over this swarm and try to kill it?”, meaning they are asking MD to pollute torrent sites with fake files in an effort to hide real ones. Universal is just one of many movie studios that have been hired by MD, yet the MPAA somehow denies the claims.

ArkivMusic.com has signed agreements with the Big Four record labels, Universal Classics, EMI Classics, Sony BMG Masterworks and Warner Classics as well as 24 indie labels in an effort to produce CDs on demand under the newly formed ArkivCD program.

The program will include title "sets with massive booklets, such as operas with lengthy libretto texts and translations."

The company hopes to have 5000 titles available by the end of the year.

Source:
Reuters

Nintendo has finally decided to stop support for the original Nintendo Entertainment System, 24 years after the system's launch.

A spokesperson has said the company made their decision due "to increasingly short supplies of replacement parts."

The iconic console was known as the NES in Europe and North America and the Famicom in Japan.

Nintendo's Ken Toyoda said it was regrettable that the company has to turn its back on the old console but he wants Nintendo's loyal fans to focus on the Wii, the hottest selling next-gen console.

Since its launch late last year, the Wii has sold over 12 million consoles worldwide. The NES sold 60 million through 2006.

Source:
BetaNews

In just another sign that P2P file sharing is not going away anytime soon, the very popular torrent site Mininova has reached its 3 billionth download with hopes that it will reach 4 billion before the year is up.

Traffic tracking sites have shown that the site has 3 million daily visitors and over 10 million torrents are downloaded each day. The site continues to show tremendous growth since its launch three years ago.

Because there are legal loopholes that .torrent files nicely fit, sites such as Mininova continue to thrive. Such large companies as Ask.com, eHarmony, and Howard Johnson hotels even have advertising on the site currently despite the blatant illegal file sharing that happens because of the site.

Source:
Betanews

University of London researchers Birgitte Andersen and Marion Frenz, have reported in a new survey of a large group of Canadians that the more unauthorized music people download on P2P networks, the more CDs they legally purchase.

The report states “We estimate that the effect of one additional P2P download per month is to increase music purchasing by 0.44 CDs per year.”

Using a simple example, if someone downloads 270 songs via P2P, that person will buy 9 more CDs than someone who only downloaded 27 songs. Those results should be more than surprising to the record industry and anti-piracy groups.

The researchers did not find a positive or a negative relationship between filesharing and CD sales so according to the report, filesharing is not the cause of the drop in CD sales. It may actually even be a boon to it.

Here is just another study telling us what the RIAA doesn't want people to know, that piracy isn't as bad you may think.

Source:
TF

Although Sony has kept mum on the subject, online reports have suggested that a new model of the PlayStation 2 could be hitting the US in 2008 with a sub-$100 USD price tag.

According to the games industry trade paper MCV, this third generation PS2 will be even more compact than the current Slim models and "see the power brick moved inside the casing."

Most reports have the console retailing for $99 USD in North America and £75 overseas when it hits at some point during 2008.

Sony announced last week that it hoped to sell 12 million more PS2s worldwide in the five months ending March 2008 and this new third gen console would certainly help.

Source:
TheRegister

According to Enterbrain data figures, the Nintendo Wii outsold the Sony PlayStation 3 2-to-1 in Japan for the month of October as compared to just four months ago, when the Wii was outselling the PS3 6-to-1.

110,415 Wii units were sold in October in Japan compared to 47,183 PS3 units.

The higher PS3 sales can mostly be attributed to a stronger lineup of games as well as recent price cuts of the console. The narrowing sales lead must be a welcome sign for Sony's game business, which just posted an operating loss of 96.7 billion yen ($841.8 million USD) for the period of July-September.

Source:
Yahoo!

Nintendo America has shot down any rumor that the Nintendo Wii will be getting a hard drive to facilitate upcoming WiiWare titles.

"The way that we look at it is, we really don't want people storing every single game they buy on their drive," PR manager Eric Walter said.

"When you buy a game, it's yours forever, so you can delete it, and go back and get it at any time you want. In a way, we liken it to putting music on your iPod; you listen to it for a while, and then you get tired of it, and you pull it off, and you put some new stuff on" he added.

Gamers have complained about transferring data between the console's 512MB internal flash memory and an SD card and depending on the size of the WiiWare games, a significant amount of space may need to be cleared in order to have room for the titles. Walter however, does not see this as a problem.

"A lot of the games for WiiWare that have been submitted so far are smaller in size, so they’re not gonna take up a ton of your drive," he added.

Source:
GI.biz

In response to widespread reports that it would be only stocking HD DVD players for the holiday season, Kmart VP Jonathan Magasanik released a statement which said the following.

"There have been numerous statements in the media today, attributed to Toshiba, indicating exclusive support for the HD DVD format in Kmart stores. These statements are false. Kmart intends to support both the HD DVD and Blu-ray platforms, and has no plans to support either platform exclusively" read the statement.

Its still not clear what Blu-ray players Kmart will stock next to its Toshiba HD DVD players, but Kmart has had the PS3 available on shelves since its release.

Source:
HD Digest

Sony Electronics president Stan Glasgow has said that more than a couple Blu-ray players will drop in price to around $399 USD in part to keep up with the mass price drops on Toshiba HD DVD players.

For those hoping the players will drop in price even more, Glasgow had this to say. "I don’t expect it to go much lower than that."

The president went on to say that Sony was planning new players for 2008 with "possibly 1.2" features.

The 40GB PlayStation 3 is set to begin selling at $399 USD making it the cheapest Blu-ray player on the market.

Source:
HD Digest

Napster announced on Thursday that its net loss for the Q2 2007 was smaller than the loss in Q2 2006 because the service posted higher revenue despite a loss in paid subscribers.

For the quarter ended September 30th, the company reported a net loss of $5.1 million USD as compared to $9 million USD for the comparable period last year. Revenue increased 24 percent to $31.6 million USD.

Napster said it ended the quarter down 20,000 subscribers to 750,000 from 770,000 in the first quarter.

Source:
CBC

In a somewhat surprising move, Best Buy and Circuit City have begun offering Toshiba's 1080i HD-A3 HD DVD player for $199 USD, a $100 cut off the original price. What makes the move surprising is that the player has only been in stores since October.

To sweeten the pot, the A3 comes with 7 free HD DVD movies, two with the purchase and 5 more through a mail-in-offer.

Although Sears announced they would have the player for $169 USD on Black Friday, supplies will be very limited then. Best Buy and Circuit City don't appear to have limited supply and are offering the deal online and in-store.

Source:
BetaNews

Sony has begun a "much more aggressive" holiday marketing campaign with an emphasis on the PlayStation 3's Blu-ray playback.

Sony Marketing SVP Peter Dille said the new campaign is set to start in conjunction with the launch of the 40GB model of the system and it will be the company's "largest-ever marketing effort for a hardware platform."

Victor Matsuda, VP of Sony's Blu-ray Disc Group explained that the campaign would put emphasis on the Blu-ray capabilities of the console. The campaign will "focus on the convergence of the PS3 as a movie and game device" and that it was "a big part of the corporate strategy for promoting Blu-ray Disc this fourth quarter."

Matsuda even admitted that the company was considering bundling the PS3's Blu-ray remote with every console to help emphasize the Blu-ray capabilities.

Source:
HD Digest

Sony Pictures Entertainment is currently looking to sell over 50 percent of their digital and animation divisions which could sell for up to 500 million USD.

Sony Pictures Animation which is best known for movies such as "Open Season" and "Surf's Up" and Sony Pictures Imageworks, which is famous for its effects in the "Spider-Man" trilogy should be worth most of that value.

The company hopes to have one investor as it believes both businesses are "very closely linked." The company also believes both divisions can expand into video games given the right investor.

A Sony spokesperson told the NYTimes that the company was "open to exploring equity partnerships, and it's no surprise that there is market interest in our visual effects and animation businesses."

Source:
GI.biz

Qloud, the new music service by Steve Case has a very interesting premise. It wants to help users share his or her iTunes music library with their friends using an application on the social networking site Facebook.

The company went into beta three months ago and since then it has gained over a million registered users and totaled 120 million plays according to the company.

Qloud "looks at a user's library of songs in iTunes, and then syncs it with an application on Facebook. The service isn't necessarily streaming music from your own computer: instead it is matching songs from your library to its own catalog of six million plus songs."

You will need to get a plug-in for iTunes however, or the linking between the applications won't work. The service will also allow users to search the libraries of their Facebook friends, as well as play and exchange playlists. Users can then adds songs from their friend's libraries to their own.

"Although there are hundreds of music sites, Qloud provides consumers with unparalleled choice, control and convenience," Case said of his service. "We're delighted to be partnering with a 'supergroup' of legends from the music and Internet industries to take music -- and social networks -- to a whole new level."

Now that it is mandatory for Blu-ray players to have the necessary hardware to support Final Standard Profile (1.1), Panasonic has become the first manufacturer to officially announce a player with support for 1.1.

The DMP-BD30 will support picture-in-picture, audio mixing and have an SD memory card slot which will allow for playback of HD content in the AVCHD format. The slot will also allow for the playback of digital pictures stored on the card.

Gene Kelsey, VP of Panasonic feels Profile 1.1 is enough to give Blu-ray an edge over HD DVD. "The DMP-BD30 will contribute greatly to Blu-ray's mounting lead over the competing format," said Kelsey.

"One of the more intriguing aspects of the Final Standard Profile is the Picture-in-Picture feature that would allow the movie fan to access a variety of entertainment enhancements, such as having the director or an actor POP up to discuss a scene you are watching, or with an animated movie, you might see the actor performing their character's voice over, all while still watching the movie. Not only do these features give Panasonic a strong advantage in the high definition market, but they provide the movie community with numerous opportunities to embellish the viewing experience with additional creative elements."

Blockbuster has announced their financial statement for the Q3 in which the company saw total revenues decreasing by 5.7 percent to 1.24 billion USD. The net loss was 35 million USD as compared to a net loss of 24.7 million USD for the same period in 2006.

The company blamed the decrease in revenue on the closure or sale of 526 separate stores but did say they had seen an increase in revenue from its online rental service.

"We believe the actions we have taken over the last quarter have better positioned Blockbuster for the future," said Jim Keyes, Blockbuster's chairman and CEO.

The Blockbuster management has plans to "reduce annualized overhead costs by approximately USD 45 million through the elimination of staffing and operational redundancies in their in-store and online corporate support structure and through improvements in other operating efficiencies" and has already begun implementing the plan.

"Going forward, we are focused on protecting our core rental business, developing new retail opportunities, and becoming the preferred provider of digital entertainment," Keyes said.

Over 20 million customers worldwide used Blockbuster during the Q3 2007 with over 3 million using the online service.

This isnt much of a news article, but just a heads up that Wal-Mart will be selling the Toshiba HD-A2 1080i HD DVD player for $98 USD tomorrow beginning at 8 am.

The price is half of the current lows offered by Circuit City and Amazon, and also marking the first time an HD standalone has fallen below $100 USD which is normally the realm of standard DVD players.

Find more information here:
Wal-Mart Secret Sale

Kmart has announced that they will be dropping Blu-ray players for the holidays due to their high prices. The company will be focusing solely on HD DVD instead.

The HD DVD Promotions Group said the move was made because Blu-ray players "are more tailored to home theater enthusiasts" while HD DVD has players under $200 USD available now and most likely for under $150 after Thanksgiving.

Best Buy is selling the Toshiba HD-A2 for $179 USD, and other retailers such as Amazon and Circuit City have it for $198 USD making it by far the cheapest standalone HD player on the market. The Microsoft Xbox 360 add-on drive meanwhile, is selling for $164 USD with the first season of Heroes, which normally retails for $70 USD.

Sears, on Black Friday, will be offering the new Toshiba 1080i HD-A3 for $169 USD with 7 free movies, a deal that should make any interested buyer more than excited.