News written by Andre Yoskowitz (March, 2007)

Cinézime, a French "video on demand" company for independent movies, will now offer some of its movies without DRM.

Next to many DRM-protected movies, the company will sell 100 DRM-free movies, a good portion of which are free.

The company was able to convince some producers to sell their movies without DRM in a move that mirrors developments in the online music market in France.

Orna Ghenassia, the founder and manager of Cinézime, had this to say about the decision: “ I am convinced that ultimately a majority of movies will become DRM-free. DRMs do not stop piracy. However, they hinder the development of VOD. By unlocking the movies we open our catalogues [notably] to Mac users”.

Users who purchase the DRM-free music must first accept a license agreement that states that the movie can only be viewed within a circle of friends and family members and not distributable to other persons. This is “in order to protect the rights of authors who trust you” the license states.

We can hope that moves like these will be successful and the model will move from independent producers to a full DRM-free market.

Source:
French-Law

Its been a long time coming and finally the Apple TV has shipped, allowing consumers and critics to review and see if the Apple TV can be a hit like iTunes and the iPod.

Apple TV is basically a wireless network adapter that allows users to stream movies, music and photos straight from their computer through their home entertainment system. The Apple TV has an advantage over the competition because it is the only device to support music or movies that were bought at the iTunes store.

The Apple TV has however, been knocked by some critics for its small 40 GB HDD, limited file support, and overly priced movies. Other cons include the fact that you cannot buy directly from the iTunes store from the device.

The AppleTV is available at all Apple retail locations for about $300.


Source:
Reuters

The latest PlayStation 3 firmware update, version 1.82, released yesterday by Sony, promises to improve AVC playback as well as backward compatibility.

AVC High Profile (H.264/MPEG-4) format video is a high image quality encoding method used by Blu ray discs among others.

“Hopefully this update is moving us closer to the audio playback features many of you commented about,” wrote Eric Lempel, director of PlayStation Network operations. “We’re continuing to evaluate and improve things across the board, including PS2 software compatibility. Thanks for all of your support and feedback, keep it coming!”

Along with the improved AVC High Profile playback, also improved is the backwards compatibility for PlayStation and PlayStation 2 games although no specific titles were mentioned.

The new firmware is just a small incremental update building upon the 1.80 firmware which added 1080p upscaling for backwards compatible games as well as DVDs. 1.81 added an RGB Full Range setting for HDMI users.

Source:
DailyTech

The proposed XM-Sirius merger now has another hurdle to jump. The Consumer Coalition for Competition in Satellite Radio (C3SR) is sending a commissioned study to the FCC claiming that if they companies were to merge it would constitute a monopoly.

The group formed after the merger was announced "to counter the potentially dim prospects facing subscribers of satellite radio under a monopoly provider," claims the group's Web site.

The study, which was commisioned by J. Gregory Sidak (a former Deputy General Counsel for the FCC), claims that the merger would have no benefit for consumers.

"No matter how you slice it, dice it or package it, the merger of XM and Sirius would establish a monopoly, which are typically characterized by a lack of economic competition for the good or service that they provide, as well as a lack of viable substitute goods," Sidak says.

The study argues that the merger meets the definition of monopoly by any reasonable market definition.

"Even if one includes AM, FM, and HD radio, the market power of the combined company is enough to cause concern" the study says.

"This study confirms, empirically, what we have been stressing since before this merger was even announced: subscribers do not view their satellite radio service as a substitute for other forms of entertainment, and a merged provider would be able and motivated to raise prices and cut back the programming that so many listeners value and depend on," said Chris Reale, one of the founders of C3SR.

Sony unveiled today that they were launching two new front home-theater projectors at a starting price of about $1,000 USD.

According to Sony, both new projectors, the BRAVIA 3LCD VPL-AW15 and the VPL-AW10, feature 1,280×720 progressive resolution, which is ideal for enjoying HD movies, sporting events, and gaming as well.

The VPL-AW10 model can reach a contrast ratio of up to 6,000:1 when certain modes are selected. The VPL-AW15 model can reach a dynamic contrast ratio of up to 12,000:1 when certain modes are selected.

"Users can also optimize the AW15's model's color palette with Sony's Real Color Processing function. Color hues can be adjusted to match specific tastes."

Each projector has an HDMI input supporting 1080/24p, which is downscaled to native 720p. Both projectors also include component, composite, S-video and HD15 inputs.

The projectors are expected to hit shelves in June and sell for between $1000-1300 USD retail.

Source:
Digitimes

According to Taiwanese game developers, the PlayStation 3 platform, even in comparison to the Xbox 360, is technologically too complicated to make it easy to develop games, especially by second-tier developers.

The second-tier developers, including those in Taiwan, do not have the financial or technological capabilities that international developers do and therefore cannot pass the technological barriers that the PS3 platform imposes.

This fact can partly account for the limited amount of PS3-specific games.

The developers also indicated that the Xbox 360 platform much was easier to produce games for.

The developers also made some interesting points. Although the PS3 might have stronger hardware functionality than the Xbox 360 many users do not see better video quality while playing the same game on both systems. A reason for this phenomenom is possibly that game developers are more willing to invest in optimized performance for the Xbox 360 simply because those games are currently more profitable.

Source:
Digitimes

Dell has announced that it will epxand its support for Linux operating systems from servers and workstations into both notebooks and desktops.

Back in February, Dell asked for customer input through its "IdeaStorm" web site. Out of the more than 100,000 repsonses that were recieved, over 70% asked for some sort of pre-installed home Linux product.

Linux users are now curious to know what versions of Linux will be distributed as well as when Dell will begin shipping these products out.

Dell has working relationships with Novell and Red Hat, which have created very popular Linux OSs. There are others though such as Ubuntu and Debian so it will be good to see which distributions Dell decides on.

Dell plans to ask for more user input regarding Linux and open source technologies in the future.

UPDATE (May 1st):
According to SearchEnterpriseLinux, Dell will be offering the new PCs and notebooks pre-installed with Ubuntu Linux 7.04. The computers will be sold through Dell's web site and "We have worked with Dell to get Ubuntu fully supported and fully certified on Dell hardware," said Jane Silber, director of operations for Canonical Ltd., the company behind Ubuntu. "Ubuntu has the full endorsement of Dell." she continued.

In a lawsuit filed in Texas today, Hewlett-Packard has sued Acer for allegedly infringing 5 HP patents.

HP believes that from the years 1997 to 2003, Acer infringed on patents that include power management, DVD editing, clock switching, processing capabilities, and several other technologies.

HP wants an injunction placed on Acer that would force them to stop selling some of their products in the US, as well as unspecified damages.

"HP believes Acer has been selling computer products that use HP's patented technologies without permission. HP respects the intellectual property rights of others and expects the same treatment in return," HP said in a statement.

An analyst believes that this lawsuit shows that HP can no longer ignore Acer, which has seen a high level of growth and acquired market share in the U.S, anymore. "Acer has become a threat that leading PC vendors cannot afford to neglect. We understand why competitors would desire a halt to Acer's expansion in the U.S. market."


Source:
Dailytech

Sony has filed a request with the FCC (Federal Communications Commission) asking for a class 2 permissive change that included details of some minor tweaking to the PlayStation 3s Bluetooth features. Amongst the models that were listed with the filing included the currently available 20GB and 60GB consoles but surprisingly, a new 80GB model as well.

Sony however, has dismissed any rumors that an 80 GB model is on its way. A Sony spokesperson stated, "The 80GB we're not making any comment on, but we don't have any plans at the moment."

I do believe however, that with the launch of the Xbox 360 Elite it is only a matter of time until a PS3 with a larger HDD, possibly 120 GB to match that of the Elite, is available in stores.

Source:
Gamesindustry.biz

GameStop CEO Dan DeMatteo has recently accused Nintendo of withholding Wii consoles from retail outlets around the US.

DeMatteo has stated that he believes that Nintendo hit its wanted target for the 2006 fiscal year and is withholding stock to boost performance in the first quarter of 2007.

"This is just my opinion – I think they intentionally dried up supply because they made their numbers for the year. Their new year starts April 1 and I think we're going to see supply flowing," he said.
He expalined that they were getting shipments for April, and hopes to not have crippling shortages in the future.

"Next week we get our first allocations of Wii and DS and we are quite pleased with those numbers. We are concerned about the dryness here in March, but it looks like April is going to be good," commented DeMatteo.

Source:
Gamesindustry.biz

Toshiba announced today that they would be lowering the price of their entry-level HD-DVD player down to $400 USD and that they would also be introducing a 1080p player with a $500 price tag.

The new "HD-A2" would become the latest entry-level player, and the "HD-A20" will be great for those on a budget but looking for a full 1080p resolution. The best of the best, the "HD-XA2", which includes 1080p, had its price cut to $800 earlier this month.

Along with the price drop the HD-DVD Promotional Group announced that there will be 70 more new HD-DVD movies made available through July. They include such hits as the Matrix Trilogy, Dreamgirls and The Bourne Identity.

Universal's HD-DVD chief had this to say: "The spring is ramping up well for HD DVD, with an incredible list of movies and the best priced hardware on the market".

Universal is the only of the major movie studios to completely back HD-DVD. Others like Paramount produce for both formats.

The Blu-Ray camp declared victory at CeBIT and the HD-DVD camp has conceded that they are losing in hardware sales simply because every PlayStation 3 has a Blu-Ray drive. The HD-DVD camp has also said that disc sales around the country are even with those of Blu-Ray discs.

Microsoft has finally put all the rumors to rest by officially announcing the black Xbox 360 Elite.

The new 360 will go on sale in the US on April 29th with the retail price of $479 USD.

The new additions are as follows:

- An all black finish with matching accesories such as wireless controllers.

- IPTV capability

- HDMI output

- Detachable 120GB HDD (The HDD is also available seperately for $180 USD)

- A data transfer cable which will allow users to copy game saves, and other content from their other 360 HDD.

Those that buy the new 360 will also get a free Xbox Live Silver Membership and 1 month free Gold Membership.

Note: As many of our Afterdawn readers have noted in past news articles, the new 360 will have the same 90 nm chipset that run in the current 360s. Officials say the new chipset will be available in Premiumm Xbox 360s in the fall.

With the confirmed rumors of the Xbox 360 Elite currently being manufactured in China, Sony PR Peter Dille has sent a welcome message to Microsoft:

"We think every PlayStation 3 owner should have an 'elite' experience, which is why we include an internal hard drive and HDMI output in every PS3 we sell, along with the 50 GB of storage capacity on a high definition Blu-ray disc. Sony has been the strongest advocate of high definition as the future of next-generation gaming. This requires high-definition components, including HDMI output, and large storage devices to deliver and store all that rich and vivid HD content. Microsoft's announcement today [er, "tomorrow"] not only legitimizes Sony's PS3 strategy, it moves us closer to adopting universal standards in the area of high definition gaming that will benefit game developers and ultimately the end user."

This week, APRIL (l'Association pour la Promotion et la Recherche en Informatique Libre) has brought an case before the French Supreme court requesting an annulment of a decree that "introduces a maximum €750 fine for possession and use of DRM circumvention technologies". If the action fails, the decree would be introduced into the French Copyright laws as article R 335-3.

APRIL's argument is that being fined for merely possessing an anti-DRM device/program "imposes an unfair and disproportionate threat on users of open source software and the whole movement of open source software."

In their argument for the anulment of the decree APRIL has cited Article 6-1 of the EUCD, “Member States shall provide adequate legal protection against the circumvention of any effective technological measures, which the person concerned carries out in the knowledge, or with reasonable grounds to know, that he or she is pursuing that objective.” They also point out that “in the knowledge or with reasonable grounds to know, that he or she is pursuing that objective” should be punished is not in that decree.

APRIL also feels that the fines would breach the right to interoperability and provide legal uncertainty for open source software.

On Tuesday, a top European Commission official raised questions as to whether competition authorities need to beign regulating Apple's iPod music players.

Many critics have argued that Apple should make the music it sells at its iTunes store compatible with all mp3 players, not just the iPod.

"Before we jump in to regulate competition on the market it is worth asking whether competition is actually harmed," the Commission's director general for competition, Philip Lowe, said at an antitrust conference in Munich, Germany.

"Is there not vigorous competition between different bundles of mp3 players and music libraries?,"said Lowe, who is the second-highest ranking competition official in the EU.

Consumer rights organizations that originate from Germany, France, Finland and Norway have all agreed to jointly campaign against iTunes.

Norway, who is not a member of the EU, made comments in January that said Apple must liberalize its music download system by October 1 of 2007 or face legal action.

Source:
Reuters

In another update to the rumored Xbox 360 Elite, Shawn Hargreaves, and XNA Framework Developer for Microsoft has commented that there will be no code changes necessary to support the HDMI output in the new, revised 360.

Hargreave's comment seems to insinuate that the new HDMI output options will "be completely transparent to developers" which should leave all the video duties up to the advanced scaling hardware inside the revised 360.

His comment could also mean that games that dont natively support the 1080p resolution will be upscaled to do so. Movie fans should be happy as well because the current 360 line can only send a 1080i signal using component cables.

For the current line of 360s, you have to use a VGA cable to hit 1080p but that should not be the case soon when the Elite hits store shelves.

Source:
DailyTech

According to new statistics from Chart-Track, it appears that there are now over 3 million Nintendo DS or DS Lite owners in the UK.

Nintendo had this to say in a statement: "DS was the best-selling platform during 2006 and has already established itself as the UK market leading hardware format again so far in 2007".

The DS is also handily winning its battle against Sony's PSP, securing an overwhelming 68 percent market share in the UK for the first quarter of this year.

Nintendo attributed their success to the great sales of games such as Brain Training, Nintendogs, and Tetris, all of which are designed to bring in audiences of all ages.

"It’s a great testament to the strength of the DS hardware and software range available that just as Nintendo DS has passed its second birthday here in the UK, it reaches such a landmark sales figure," said Nintendo UK boss David Yarnton.

"With many more Touch! Generations games launching in 2007, Nintendo DS and Wii will continue to be the main driving forces behind the expansion of the videogame market this year."

The original DS went on sale in the UK in March 2005 and the DS Lite launched in June of 2006. Currently the DS Lite can be purchased for 145 EUR retail.

UK Xbox boss Neil Thompson has taken a verbal jab at Sony's PlayStation 3 by attacking the system’s hefty price tag and Blu-ray functionality.

Thompson also completely dismissed the idea that the 360 was inferior because of the PlayStation 3's in-built Blu-ray drive.

"Do I want to make people pay £200 extra for a machine with discs that have storage space I don’t need? My answer’s no, I don’t need to do that today," Thompson said. "And I don’t think I’m going to need to do that for quite a while."

Thompson argued that the 360 is more flexible and allows users to upgrade at their choosing, not have to pay extra for a format they may not care about. He also believed that flexibility was the key to the console's success in the future. "I’m not sure the market has moved to high definition [movies] yet," he said.

"And if and when it does, then the way that we’ve constructed the offering we’ve made means we’ll be able to go whichever way we want."

The inclusion of a Blu-ray drive in every stock PlayStation 3 is one of the reasons for its hefty price tag but it does allow you to play high definition movies right out of the box. You must buy an HD-DVD add-on to be able to play HD dvds on an Xbox 360.

In a small update to a recent article, many news outlets are reporting that Microsoft does indeed plan to release the black Xbox 360 Elite console which will include an HDMI connector, IPTV capabilities, and a 120GB hard drive for a decent $479 USD price tag.

The new 360 would have an updated motherboard as well which would incorporate the new 65 nanometer technologies. By updating the motherboard, Microsoft can cut down on manufacturing costs. This leads to speculation of a price cut for the holidays which would put extreme pressure on the 360's console rivals Wii and PlayStation 3.

Analysts believe that even if there is no price cut, the addition of IPTV will give the 360 an edge over its competition which lacks the technology.

Source:
BetaNews

The PlayStation Store is billed as "an integrated and streamlined online storefront which allows all PS3 users to browse and download available entertainment content". However, Sony has confirmed that some PlayStation 3 owners will have to wait before they can get access to the store while other owners will not get access at all.

The Store allows users to purchase full games as well as download demos and HD game videos.

Since the European launch last week, many PS3 owners have complained that they cannot access the Store at all. These users come from Bulgaria, Croatia, Greece, Iceland, Israel, Saudi Arabia and Slovenia.

Sony's director of corporate communications had this to say:
"There are more than 102 territories in the region, and each Store has to be made unique for each territory due to different currencies and languages," he explained. "Stores will reach some territories in due course."

The director did explain that some countries would not be able to access the store at all due to a myriad of factors including a lack of broadband penetration. "The PS Store may not be accessible in Azerbaijan, for example," he explained.

For those countries that have to wait, Sony has not announced how long you will be waiting.

In a follow up to our Folding@home story here, the latest stats for the project show that over 30,000 PlayStation 3 users have signed up.

The statistics also show that almost 40,000 PlayStation 3 CPUs are linked to the project and over 30,000 of them have been actively performing calculations in the last two months.

The European launch has helped boost the stats which have jumped from 15,000 to the current stats in a little over 4 days.

If you would like to sign up for Folding@home you may choose to do so through the folding@home icon in the Xross Media Bar.

Source:
Gamesindustry.biz

An American company, EM-SEC Technologies, has recently stated that they have successfully tested wireless-blocking paint. They applied their "Coating Solution" to a test facility last week and the paint sccessfully protected against "wireless devices and other electronic equipment".

According to the company, "a one-time application of the coating creates an 'electromagnetic fortress' by preventing airborne hackers from intercepting signals."

EM-SEC hopes that the paint will be useful in corporate offices, boardrooms, server and computer rooms, and R&D labs where wireless intruders would not be welcome.

In the past, EM-SEC has worked more with government and military customers earning some impressive validations in the process. The EM-SEC website claims that the coatings have been checked out by various groups including Sandia Labs and the Naval Surface Warfare Centre Crane Division (which tests technology for the Navy SEALS)

The paint is also approved as a TEMPEST countermeasure by the US National Security Agency (NSA).

At the moment, the paint may be too advanced for the regular consumer, especially those who would like to use a cell phone inside their painted rooms. However, this product could be bound for commercial use. A movie theater could use the paint to block incoming and outgoing cell phone calls, thus avoiding the legal issues with "jamming".

According to a White Paper written by PC Pro, businesses can save almost $100 USD per PC by using the new power management facilities of Windows Vista.

Most of these savings will be because of the default power-management settings of Vista, which puts the PC into "Sleep mode" after an hour of inactivity.

Windows XP, which on default leaves the computer running idle, wastes large amounts of energy if OEMs, third-party software or employees didn't apply standby settings.

The sleep mode in Vista is more reliable than XP's equivalent "Standby setting" and your Vista PC will come back from sleep mode in a couple of seconds, very fast considering the mode it is awaking from.

The White Paper reports that these settings can save almost $100 per desktop especially if the administrator uses the new power management "Group Policy." The settings also help your business become more green friendly, sharply cutting carbon dioxide emissions.

Source:
PCPro

In Symantec's newly-published Internet Securtiy Threat Report, which covers the period of July 2006 to January 2007, it appears that the Mac OS X is less secure than Windows XP.

According to the report, Microsoft took an average of 3 weeks to develop a patch after a vulnerability was reported. This turnaround was faster than Sun, HP, Red Hat and Apple although it was slower than their 13 day turnaround for the patches in the first 6 months of 2006.

Apple, during the same period, took an average of 66 days to patch vulnerabilities. This was also a slowdown from the first 6 months of 2006 in which their turnaround was 37 days.

Moving into web browsers, Internet Explorer was reported as having 54 vulnerabilities while Mac's Safari had 40. However, Microsoft patched its browser vulnerabilites in an average of 10 days, while it took Apple 62 days to patch their default browser vulnerabilities. Symantec did however explain that those stats were "skewed by a smaller sample set of patched vulnerabilities and exploits."

Source:
PCPro

Sony has announced that they have developed a new "block cipher algorithm" that is specifically designed to enable advanced copyright protection and authentication for distribution of digital media such as music, movies and images.

Sony says it plan to reveal more details about the technology, code named CLEFIA, at the Fast Software Encryption 2007 conference which begins on March 26 in Luxembourg. To date, Sony has revealed that the technology is "a 128-bit block encryption that supports key lengths of 128, 192 or 256 bits." They also say that CLEFIA is powerful enough to defend the digital media against "known cryptoanalytic attacks."

Sony hopes that the technology will make its way into software and AV devices in the future and they claim that CLEFIA can offer stronger security while requiring fewer operations during encoding and decoding processes. The whole process would reduce strain on hardware and can lead to smaller and better AV devices in the future. The company also revealed that the technology "achieves a maximum data bandwidth of 1.42 Gb/s in 90 nm CMOS cell libraries, which would be efficient enough to bring CLEFIA to smartcard environments."

More news will be posted on the technology as it becomes available.

Over the past few years, the EU has sanctioned Microsoft for antitrust violations, forced them to make unspecified changes to Windows Vista, and more recently, demandedthat they alter their server protocol pricing.

Yesterday, during a speech to the European Parliament, a top EU antitrust official, Neelie Kroes, accused Microsoft of abusing its position as market leader and gaining market share because of these abuses.

"Microsoft is constantly gaining market share and that is what is worrying me in the workgroup server operating market," Kroes told Reuters "As a consequence of your abusive behavior you are getting positive results for the company—that's not acceptable in my opinion."

Statistics released by the European Commission show that Microsoft's share of the workgroup server market has grown 100% since 1999 when the EU began its investigation from about 35% then to 70% today. Kroes' comments also seem to imply that Microsoft has continued to grow through their abusive behavior in spite of massive fines, penalties and the demands of the EU.

The EC has always maintained that Microsoft has an unfair advantage over competition because they refuse to share information and code with competitors. However, the EC seems to be on the verge of accusing that Microsoft has only gained market share as a result of illegal, abusive behavior. That statement in itself would be very bold considering the size and complexity of a company such as Microsoft. "There's a fine line between preventing abuse of monopolistic power and implying that Microsoft has only been "dealt with" appropriately when the company ceases to grow its market share, or even loses share to a competitor's products."

Last night, at the official UK launch of the Sony PlayStation 3, Sony Worldwide Studios boss Phil Harrison explained that he believed that the European maket was the key to the console's success.

In his own words, "This is the third continent out of three, but it is the most important...It's got most countries, it's the most people, it's the most cultures...the fact that we've got the launch here with more consoles shipped on day one that we've ever had in our history is a compliment to the importance of the European market."

The PS3 launched in the US last November and in Japan last December, but until this week, European gamers had to wait to get their hands on the new console. The official midnight launch in which Harrison was in attendence took place at a Virgin Megastore on Oxford Street.

Harrison seemed emotional about the launch and had this to say "it's an important day for the games industry and gamers alike: "I've seen PlayStation 1 and PlayStation 2 launched on Oxford Street but this is the most meaningful for me personally, because I think it's so important not just for our industry but for UK consumers - the fact that they're going to get the best machine with the best software support, the most Network service and the firmware update." Read more...

Officials in Malaysia reported today that Malaysian movie pirates have placed a bounty on the heads of the two sniffer dogs who helped bust an illegal fake DVD ring with a seizure of $3 million USD worth of discs.

"Lucky and Flo, two female black Labradors deployed by Malaysian authorities in their crackdown on pirated movie DVDs and music CDs, carried out their first major successful operation in Johor state on Tuesday."

Syndicate bosses have now offered a reward for the killing of the two dogs.

An official for the MPAA had this to say: "As a result of the extent of loss to the pirate syndicate, we have information from the domestic trade ministry that the Johor syndicate is intent on killing Lucky and Flo...The Malaysian authorities are taking this threat seriously and the security around the dogs' current location has been beefed up."

During Tuesday's succesful raid in the southern city of Johor Baru, 6 people were arrested and the dogs helped to seize about a million pirated games and movies.

Replicating machines, the DVD's and many other tools used to create and distribute the discs were found hidden in concealed spaces and hidden compartments spread out over four floors of an office building.

Sales of physical CDs in the US have plummeted about 20 percent in the first quarter of 2007 as more and more consumers turn to digital media.

89 million CDs have been sold from the start of the year until March 18 compared to 112 million CDs sold during the same period in 2006. All figures are according the industry tracker Nielsen SoundScan.

Individual song downloads rose from 242 million tracks during the period last year to 288 million this year in the same period.

Digital music industry analyst Michael McGuire had this to say: "Consumers are sending a message to artists that while you may have put a lot of thought into the sequence of the album, I only like these three songs"

"It comes back to consumers being in complete control of their media experience, and that is not going backwards,"

"This is a tough business being a record label because they have to find new sources of revenue."

Although statistics show that CD sales have been in decline for at least the last 5 years, they still account for almost 90 percent of album purchases.

McGuire also had this to say: "The last couple of years the music industry didn't move fast enough and they are trying to catch up now...But, the whole digital thing is a train that is picking up speed."

Over the past month there have been a few new guides added, and the staff would like to announce them here in case you have missed them:

DVD rebuilder free basic operations

DVD to .avi using AutoGK

Adding subtitles to any .avi

Maxing out speed with uTorrent

RAR playback and extraction guide

Remember, if you have any questions ask in the forums after using the search function.

At CeBIT, Samsung Electronics, the industry giant, has unveiled 2 new DVD writers and 2 new Blu-Ray burners.

The SH-S203 with SATA writes DVD±R at 20x, DVD±R DL/-RAM at 12x, DVD+RW at 8x, and the DVD-RW at 6x. The SH-S203 is the first certified burner to have 12x writing speeds for dual layer DVDs.

The SE-S204 is an external burner using USB 2.0. Shipment for the SH-S204 begin in May.

The SE-B046 is an external Blu-ray burner with USB 2.0/IEEE 1394 (Firewire).

The SH-B043 can write Blu-Ray recordable discs at 4x, and BD-RE at 2x. "The drive uses 2 lens and 2 laser diodes for supporting all BD/DVD/CD formats. The external player will only be available in 2008, while the built-in one will be in store by year end."

SE-B046

Here is a pic taken by our Afterdawn staff live at CeBIT.
CeBIT SH-B043 pic

Source:
PClaunches

Early Wednesday, Apple said it had begun shipping its Apple TV. With Apple TVs release, Apple hopes to solidify its hold on the digital entertainment industry and expand to markets they are currently not a part of.

"The device acts as a link between iTunes on the computer and a user's big-screen television by using a preexisting Wi-Fi network. For faster transfer, the device would use 802.11n technology. It includes a 40GB hard drive to store the information locally to the device, negating the need to download it before each viewing."

You can read more about the Apple TV in this article: Apple TV

Source:
BetaNews

Mozilla, the creators of the open source browser Firefox have recently announced that they will stop support for their 1.5.0.x browser and ask all users to upgrade to the 2.0 series. The exact date given for the end of support is April 24th 2007.

Mozilla has slowly been cutting off updates to Firefox 1.5 and that is very obvious in the last update (1.5.0.11, in which all that was included was a patch for the browser's FTP protocol.)

This decision could be a bit rash, because many users and especially businesses still use 1.5 and like to test the stability of an updated browser before upgrading.

I will still be using 1.5 as I feel 2.0 is bloatware.

Source:
Xtreme-Source

This morning, Italian gamers looking for Playstation 3s were able to pick some up at retailers that decided to break the street date and begin selling the console two days earlier than the March 23rd street date.

Davide Sher, of TIM, the "leading specialist publication for Italian retailers" had this to say about the situation: "It's a strange situation. This is the first time retailers have broken street dates by two days."

Sher went on to explain that the problems began earlier this week when the retail chain Darty took out ads in the national newspapers advertising that they would be selling the consoles on Wednesday instead of of Friday's street date.

Rival retailer Media World learned of the news and cancelled its launch date event and moved the release date up to Wednesday as well.

Upon learning of the news of its rival stores, the huge retail chain Gamestop stated it was policy to not break street dates but they might start so they do not lose their edge over the competition.

Sher had this to say: "The mainstream consumer electronics retailers get their PS3 stock early, so they can start selling early," he said, confirming that Sony's new console did indeed go on sale at Media World this morning but many specialist retailers don't have any units yet and won't receive any until Friday morning. This puts them at a real disadvantage."

Earlier this year, a picture of a prototype Xbox 360 console leaked on the internet and with it began rumors of a revamped 360 that would include an HDMI output and an upgraded scaling chip.

The newest issue of Game Informer adds fuel to the fire by showing an image of a black Xbox 360 and along side it, specifications that include a 120GB HDD, matching black accessories, HDMI output and an HDMI cable all for the reasonable price of $479 USD.

Matt Helgeson, a senior editor at Game Informer has reportedly confirmed that the story is not an April Fool's joke like many readers believe it to be.

Along with the pictures and the specifications, there is mention that existing owners can choose to purchase the larger HDD for "under $200 USD".

However, the current external HD-DVD drive will continue to be an external accesory and Microsoft official statements repeat that the console will never include an internal HD-DVD drive.

Chris Satchell, the general manager of the game development group for Microsoft had the following to say about the rumors: “We're always working on prototypes and new technologies and just playing with stuff in Redmond to see what's interesting. I think at the moment we have the widest available connections on the system. If you want to get great HD, I think we've got a good solution for that.” Read more...

As Apple launches its new Apple TV, Microsoft has sent out a press release to make sure they are not forgotten in the online movie and TV download sector.

The press release claims that monthly downloads on Xbox Live Video are now on a double-digit month to month growth, and overall have increased about 400 percent since XLV went live in November.

In the press release Microsoft also claims that XLV is the top downloading service "in the living room" and number two in downloading services behind iTunes.

iTunes has about 1,000 hours of content available for download while Microsoft claims 1,500 hours on XLV.

Microsoft also reminds that XLV is the only download service to offer HD programming at the moment. There are rumors however, that iTunes will begin to offer HD programming alongside the launch of Apple TV.

However, the HD content available on XLV does have its drawbacks. HD content take up much more room than non-HD content, and Xbox 360s have small 20 GB HDDs.


Source:

Arstechnica

Late last week, Michigan congressman Fred Upton (R) filed the Video Game Decency Act of 2007 under the bill H.R. 1531.

The bill asks for federal legislation that would make it illegal for game developers to hide content in their games in the hopes of receiving a less restrictive ESRB rating.

If you recall, Upton was a harsh critic of the now-infamous Hot Coffee scandal and this is obviously seen in the language of the bill which in part says: "It shall be unlawful… to… distribute… any video game that contains a rating label… for that video game where the person, with the intent of obtaining a less restrictive age-based content rating, failed to disclose content of the video game that was required to be disclosed to the independent ratings organization"

According to Upton, any violations would constitute a deceptive practice under guidelines of the Federal Trade Commission.

This is not the first time Upton has introduced a bill asking for video game decency. He introduced a similar bill in 2006 asking for more FTC enforcement over video game content. The bill went unsigned.

Source:
GamePolitics

Posted here is U.S. attorney and Christian conservative activist Jack Thompson's response to the fact that Take Two has sued him in which he posts a few biblical explanations as to why he does not want Grand Theft Auto IV or Manhunt 2 released. The text has not been changed in any way:

Dear Gamers and Gamer Publications on the Internet and Elsewhere:

I have been praying, literally, that Take-Two and its lawyers would do something so stupid, so arrogant, so dumb, even dumber than what they have to date done, that such a misstep would enable me to destroy Take-Two. With the filing of this SLAPP lawsuit last week, my prayers are finally answered.

This lawsuit, filed in US District Court for the Southern District of Florida, is, without a doubt, the single dumbest thing I have ever seen any lawyers do in my thirty years of practicing law -- while in continuous good standing to do so with The Florida Bar, I might add, the shock radio and video game industry's efforts notwithstanding.

I encourage folks to read Psalm 35, a Psalm of David, which is brilliant in its entirety (since God Himself wrote it), but for those who don't own a Bible or who think their hands will catch on fire if they touch one, here is the salient portion that applies to this lawsuit: Read more...

According to a Wall Street analyst from ThinkEquity, Apple TV can "prove to be as disruptive to legacy video purchase-and-consumption behavior as the iPod has been to traditional music business model...Apple TV is an ideal conduit for multiple services including DVR, paid-for content, gaming, or advertising."

The analyst also explained that the huge combined value of all the opportunities brought forth by Apple TV could be worth as much as $11.4 billion USD.

The analyst sees Apple TV as having the potential in the future to target gamers and also feature a rival to TV Guide which could bring in advertising revenue.

Apple TV is a "network computer in disguise" according to the analyst and he states that with some hardware and software tweaks, a lot is possible with the new TV.

"Apple TV can, in our opinion, be easily turned into a DVR with little or no hardware modification and a software upgrade...We think Apple's brand, established distribution, marketing power, over 100 million total iPod unit shipments, and 22 million active Mac users would create more than enough energy to propel an AppleTV TiVo-like service to a higher subscription base than TiVo's current 4.4 million users."

As the next generation console battle rages on, one question continually comes to the consumer's mind. For how much longer can Microsoft continue to charge $70-a-year for a subscription to Xbox Live?

With Microsoft's announcement last week that they will be introducing cross-platform play in June (allowing Xbox Live subscribers to play against gamers on Widows Vista pc's) many Xbox Live subscribers were excited for the new feature that wont cost them one cent more then their annual fee they are already paying. Microsoft however, must notice that most PC owners will not pay for features that they have been gettting free for years. In my opinion, a Gamertag is not worth $70-a-year.

After this, the real question lies in how long Xbox Live can stay a pay service when the free PlayStation 3 online service gets going.

Source:
theAge

According to two company filings with the Taiwan Stock Exchange,Chi Mei Optoelectronics (CMO) has announced it will be adding investments of $14 million USD via Ampower Holding for LCD components.

In the filings, CMO reported that it will acquire 45% of the holding company.

"The panel maker has been aggressive in better completing its upstream supply chain. The maker announced last December it is investing US$1.21 million in Guan-Jie Electronics (transliterated from Chinese). Thanks to the investments, CMO gained 57% of the company, which was reported by the Chinese-language Commercial Times as an LCD inverter maker."

Source:
Digitimes

The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) has gained entrance into the "secret' meetings of the Digital Video Broadcasting Porject (DVB), a group of technology and television companies that create the TV and video specifications that are used in Europe, Australia, Asia and Africa and has uncovered some startling facts.

In thier newest report, EFF reports that US movie and television companies have convinced the DVB to create new specifications that would force DRM technology into televisions. This would be to take away consumer's rights and most likely force them to pay over and over again to view legally acquired degital television content.

Ren Bucholz, EFF's policy coordinator in the Americas had this to say "DVB is abetting a massive power grab by the content industry, and many of the world's largest technology companies are simply watching. This regime was concocted without input from consumer rights organizations or public interest groups, and it shows."

Despite recent record profits, American movie and television studios insist that new technologies could ruin their industry. Notably in the past they have tried to block VCRs and recordable VCR and DVD devices in the US. Now, using the DVB, their plan has gone international.

One of the largest online music stores in Europe, Musicload, owned by Deutsche Telekom has recently come out against DRM on account that it has negative effects on the marketplace and the service's customers.

In an open letter distributed last week by Musicload, the company said it was having constant problems with DRM, so many that 75% of its customer service calls were the result of some sort of DRM-related problem.

As told by Musicload, "DRM makes the use of music quite difficult and hinders the development of a mass-market for legal downloads." Musicload is saying that DRM is unfair to the customers and also prevents competition between rival music services.

Musicload is in a heated competition in Germany against Apple's iTunes music service which also does not offer DRM-free music.

In December, Musicload began to allow independent music labels to sell their music on the service without DRM and Musicload has reported that artists that chose to drop DRM saw a 40 percent increase in sales since that time., and that more artists and labels are showing interest. Musicload hopes to see DRM-free MP3's make a comeback in the near future but major labels have dropped little hint that that is a reality.

Sharp, the TV distributor, currently has a prototype of a 64-inch TV with a resolution of about 4000x2000 pixels, which is equivalent to 8.8 megapixels.

To compare, a 1080p TV has a resolution of 2 megapixels so this new prototype blows a current generation HDTV out of the water.

Reviews at Cnet say that the quality of the picture is unbelievable and hope to see Sharp commercialize the TV in time for the next HD disc war that follows Blu-Ray and HD-DVD.

Source:
Cnet

As February came to a close, one thing was very clear. Nintendo was blowing away the competition in console sales. The company sold 485,000 DS units and 335,000 Wii consoles for the month. During the same period Microsoft's Xbox360 sold 228,000 units and Sony's PlayStation 3 lagged behind with 127,000 units sold.

By using some simple math, we can see that Nintendo's latest console, the Wii, almost outsold it main competitors' combined sales for the month.

However, Sony's PlayStation2 continued to see well, selling almost 300,000 consoles for the month.

Nintendo noted that the game systems "represented 54 percent of all hardware sales in February, more than those of all other manufacturers combined."

In general, all console sales on a "year-to-date" basis increased by 106% from 2006.

The report was not a complete loss for Microsoft and Sony however. The PlayStation 2 sales were a shining spot and so was the best seller Guitar Hero 2. Crackdown and Gears of War sold very strongly for Microsoft.

Why are the Nintendo consoles selling so well? Envisioneering Group Research Director Richard Doherty gives a simple answer: "Keeping it simple, stupid, is winning...Both Wii and the DS don't require big instruction books and that's expanded the audience...Sony and Microsoft took a different path, producing consoles of stunning power and complexity ... and price." Read more...

When Halo 3 hits shelves later this year for the Xbox360, the highly anticipated game will be available in three editions, confirmed Microsoft yesterday.

The first edition is the "Standard Edition" which simply included the standalone game. A limited quantity "Legendary Edition" will be released at the same time and will include a collectable Spartan helmet case, a Halo 3 storyboard art and two exta discs full of bonus material.

The "Limited Edition" version comes in a metal case and includes the first extras disc from the "Legendary Edition". Buyers will also enjoy a Halo fiction and art book which features a guide to the game's universe and previously unseen material.


The first disc of the "Legendary Edition" will include behind-the-scenes footage that features a "Making of Halo 3" documentary and early game concept storyboard. Also included on the disc is a special audio-video calibration tool that will let fans enjoy optimised audio and extra high definition footage.

The second disc, exclusive to the Legendary Edition includes remastered cinematic material from Halo 2 and Halo: Combat Evolved, complete with developer commentaries.

Earlier this week, Take Two, the game distributor, took a step to get Jack Thompson off their backs by filing a federal court case against him in the state of Florida. Mr. Thompson has, for the past year, been attacking the distributor, trying to get restraining orders against their games, the most recent being "Bully".

Take Two has plans to release Manhunt 2 and Grand Theft Auto IV in the near future and are trying to avoid another of Mr. Thompson's lawsuits. Thomspson made it clear he would try to block both games from being released and so Take Two asked a judge to "enjoin him from bringing suit on behalf of the State of Florida to enjoin the sale of GTA IV or Manhunt 2."

According to the lawsuit, Take Two is tired and frustrated by Thompson's threats, lawsuits, retractions, and dismissals. The complaint states such actions by Mr. Thompson as "he brought suit on behalf of the State of Florida, dismissed it, filed again, sought a temporary restraining order, and then failed to pursue that motion" These lawsuits come at "unpredictable times and under unpredictable circumstances" which also interrupts a smooth transition between Take Two and retailers. In the past, Mr. Thompson has sued such giants as Walmart, Best Buy and Target over the sales of Take Two distributed games.

On Wednesday night, Skype launched a new beta of a service that would allow any user with the latest updated version of the software to charge for voice and video calls placed to their account.

The beta, dubbed "Skype Prime," allows users to have the option to either charge by the minute or a single charge for the entire call. All fees would be taken out of the caller's Skype Credit account, and the called party would receive 70 percent of the proceeds collected, payable through PayPal.

Since SkypeOut was launched in 2004, Skype says that the features of Skype Prime have been a very common request from its loyal users.

Writes a company spokeswoman: "I'm happy to finally see us rolling this out, and I'm sure it will enable a whole new range of businesses...so nothing will change in our free global Skype-to-Skype calling, but on top of it, you can now have paid calls if you want."

Skype says that this offer benefits global businesses that are wanting to charge for phone calls. At the moment, premium landline numbers can only be accessed within the country they're based. With the new Skype Prime, companies can now make their services available worldwide.

ESA,The Entertainment Software Association, has begun sending preliminary invitations for the upcoming E3, which is to take place from July 11-13.

The invite says that this year's E3 will offer "the opportunity to engage in one-on-one meetings with leading game company executives in an intimate setting, as well as network, socialize, and test pilot major company offerings".

E3 will take place in "an environment designed to ensure that you can get your business done efficiently and effectively".

Complete invites will be sent out in April and will include further details of the event such as schedules, transportation, and travel planning.

This is the first year that E3 will be hosted at a smaller venue, and the ESA has promised that this E3 will be smaller scale then in years past.

Although its not completely clear how many companies will be in attendance, you can expect to see Nintendo, Sony and Microsoft and many other third-party companies.

Source:
Gamesindustry.biz

TrueDisc, announced yesterday that they were releasing their TrueDisc mastering software which creates archival quality CD-Rs and DVD-Rs. TrueDisc claims that files burnt with their software and discs can sustain disc damage as high as 90% and still retain the original file.

"TrueDisc burns standard files to CD-R, DVD-R, DVD+R, and DVD+R Double Layer in a special damage-resistant format. These files, called "master copies", can be read back off the disc by the TrueDisc software. If disc damage prevents some of the file from being read, TrueDisc automatically uses patent-pending algorithms to reconstruct the missing data. This allows TrueDisc to restore the original file even when the disc is damaged due to age or abuse," claimed the announcement.

The TrueDisc format supports burning for up to 600MB of data on to CD-R and up to 4.2 GB of data onto a DVD-R.

TrueDisc is available now and requires Mac OS X 10.2.8 or later. It is priced at $89 USD but there is currently a discounted price of $52 USD.

Source:
MacObserver

In less than a day of deliberations, a federal jury has found the VoIP company Vonage guilty of infringing on 3 of 7 VoIP-related patents that are held by Verizon. The jury that heard the case awarded Verizon $58 million USD in damages and stated that Vonage must pay royalties of 5.5 percent to Verizon if it wishes to continue using Verizon's IP.

In a statement after the decision was made, Vonage noted that the jury likely reduced the damages award from the $197 million figure Verizon was seeking because it was ruled that Vonage did not willfully infringe on the patents.Two of the three patents that were infringed were related to billing and not to the actual services.

Vonage says it plans to appeal the verdict and is assuring customers that there will be no interruption in services. They also stated that if Verizon's request for an injunction against Vonage was granted, it would be immediately appealed to make sure service was never interrupted. A hearing for Verizon's requestis to take place on March 23.

In a statement, Verizon said that "We are proud of our inventors and pleased the jury stood up for the legal protections they deserve."

Analysts feel the verdict should make other VoIP providers anxious at the prospet that Verizon will come after them as well, having this decision in their corner. Vonage, currently the biggest VoIP provider in the US, has 2.2 million subscribers.

Amie Street, a web based music downloading service that started up last July has recently come into the public eye by signing a new deal with the Nettwerk Music Group, a group with very well known names such as the Barenaked Ladies, Paul Van Dyke, and Avril Lavigne. Up until this point, Amie Street had sold music from independent artists and without DRM.

For those unfamiliar with Amie Street, the company is very unique. It not only offers DRM-free music but its pricing system is set up differently than that of its competitors, most notably iTunes. In their system, all the musc listed on the site starts out free, but as more and more people download the songs the price of the tracks goes up until it hits its peak of 98¢. The company says that it takes about 98 downloads for the price to hit 98¢. The Barenaked Ladies music selections have already hit that point and are listed at 98¢ apiece. Nettwerk's other artists are to be added over the upcoming months.

Amie Street, unlike iTunes, forces you to buy credits before you can purchase any tracks, but it also (like iTunes) allows you to choose whether to buy a full album or individual tracks. The album prices are affected by the prices of the single tracks so in reality you can purchase a DRM-free album for under a dollar if you get in early.

At the recent Game Developers Conference, Chris Hecker, the founder of "Defintion 6", unleashed an attack on the Wii and Nintendo claiming they fail to recognize games as an "art form".

His attack came during the "Burning Mad: Game Publishers Rant session". Last year at the same rant session, he attacked the PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 for focusing on graphics instead of gameplay. He finished off his 2006 rant by asking "Will Nintendo save us?". Judging by his 2007 rant, the answer to that is "No".

Included in his rant were the following comments: "I have uncovered the secret to Wii manufacturing. The way you manufacture a Wii is you take two GameCubes and some duct tape".

He continues with: "This thing is totally underpowered... This is not about graphics, more polygons, all that kind of crap. What I want to be able to do is spend CPU to make the machine smarter, more interesting and more automatically intelligent.

"It's about interactivity - that is the key differentiator of our art form, and interactivity is about doing something interesting with that input and threading it back to the user. You can't do that with a POS underpowered computer."

Mark Cuban the tech billionaire has filed a lawsuit against YouTube asking it to report users who upload videos which one of his investments own the copyrights to.

Last year, when YouTube was purchase by Google, Cuban infamously called the move "moronic." He claimed that the video sharing site was based completely on the illegal distribution of copyrighted material and therefore should not be in existence.

Magnolia Pictures, the film distributor which is partially owned by Cuban is demanding that Google and YouTube report critical details of users who have uploaded clips of its movies, which most famously include the documentaries "Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room" and "Capturing the Friedmans".

The subpoena expects Google to fork over the user details before March 20th.

Cuban has made it clear however, that the filing is more about making a point to Google and YouTube then to get individual users in trouble. He explained to Reuters this morning that "We don't expect to get valid user information. If we do, we will contact them and ask them what induced them to upload content they don't own."

Fox issued a very similar subpoena in January, except their lawsuit identified one uploader in particular, a man who had uploaded many Simpsons and 24 episodes.

Sirius and XM issued open letters to their customers this past week hoping to ease the minds of consumers who were anxious over their upcoming merger. In the letters, the companies assured that all radios and receivers would continue to work after the merger, and that the current monthly fee for current members would not be raised in any way.

During the weeks that followed the announcement of the proposed merger analysts of both companies began to contemplate that the monthly rates would increase and also that newer radio and receiver models would replace the current ones.

There does not seem to be any plans for major changes in the near future, although the letters do leave the opportunity open for rate increases for new customers as well as new radios that have added functionality for the merged company.

XM had this to say in a statement about the proposed merger: "Sirius has millions of radios in the market, including many that are built into the vehicles manufactured by its automakers...Following the merger, XM expects that the existing radios will be able to receive a mix of programming from both services."

XM had its letter published in the Monday edition of USA Today, while Sirius has begun a new iniative called the "Sirius Guarantee" which is being printed in national papers.

In late February, The DVD Forum, during its 37th Steering Committee, approved the "China High Density Read-only Disc" (conveniently tagged as C-HD DVD-ROM) physical specification, which they termed as Version 10.0 (China only), in an effort to promote the HD-DVD standard in the huge Chinese market. All this is according to industry sources in Taiwan.

The sources also explained that The DVD Forum will design a licensing system for the C-HD DVD-ROM in China.

This comes at a time when the format battle between Blu-Ray and HD-DVD is still very hot. Last week Sony showed off their base-level Blu-Ray Disc player, the BDP-S300 with a retail price of $600 USD which is meant to compete directly with Toshiba's HD-DVD players which sell for $499 USD.

Source:
Digitimes

Sony Computer Entertainment worldwide studios president Phil Harrsion has revealed in a recent interview that although the PlayStation3 does not have a dedicated video scaling chip, the console would be getting a form of upscaling in the near future.

“You know, we're not sure when it's coming, but we're going to have DVD upscaling on Playstation 3,” exclaimed Harrsion in his interview with Newsweek.

For those not familiar with DVD upscaling, it is the practice of "converting 480i/p material into a 720p or 1080i/p image for display on high-definition televisions that support higher resolutions." The result of this upscaling is a marginally improved image that is noticeable on fixed pixel TV's and monitors such as plasmas and LCD.

Upconverting DVD players are standalone DVD players that can upscale the picture to higher resolutions. Many powerful PC software programs intended for DVD viewing, such as Cyberlink PowerDVD and WinDVD feature upscaling to fit the native resolution of the viewer's monitor.

The rival Xbox 360 can also upscale DVD movies, but you need to purchase a VGA cable that must connect the console to the TV for that feature to work.

The huge manufacturer Samsung, although a fully paid member of the Blu-Ray Disc camp has recently showed off a very powerful 17 inch widescreen notebook whose main component is an HD-DVD optical drive.

The Samsung M55 HD boasts a display of 1,920 x 1,200, which is ideal for 1080p High Definition content. "The screen's driven by an Nvidia GeForce Go 7600 mobile GPU with 256MB of GDDR 3 video memory. The laptop's processor is a 2GHz Intel Core 2 Duo T7200 backed by 2GHB of 667MHz DDR 2 SDRAM and 120GB of SATA hard drive storage. The package also come with a pre-loaded Windows Vista premium version.

The M55 goes on sale soon for the hefty price tag of $3,186 USD or 2,419€.

This goes to show that there are no real complete supporters of either disc except for Sony and Microsoft. Samsung understands that at this moment in time, it makes no sense to completely back one format or the other.

Source:
Reghardware

Earlier this week, Michael Alan Crooker filed a lawsuit against Microsoft in the Massachusetts Supreme Court claiming that Microsoft falsely advertised that its product, Internet Explorer would keep his information and browsing habits secure.

In 2004, the FBI raided Crooker's home based on reports and evidence that he had bomb-making materials. Federal agents did find "laboratory devices, apparent IEDs, fermenting castor beans, chemicals and chemical equipment appropriate for the processing of castor beans into ricin, and what appeared to be ricin and ricin precursors in various stages of development, indicating that Crooker was successfully manufacturing ricin."

After finding all these materials, the FBI then confiscated Mr. Crooker's computer. The FBI broke through his Compaq DriveLock security layer encryption mechanism and found a vast array of file including homemade sex videos and and cached hardcore pornography. The embarrassment of this led Mr. Crooker to start the lawsuit.

He claims that he set Internet Explorer to automatically delete his browsing history every 5 days but that the browser failed to do so. In his words "Any day beyond those parameters is supposed to be permanently deleted and is not supposed to be recoverable." Mr Crooker seems to have a valid claim, but the larger problem appears to be that Circuit City, the retailer he purchased his computer from specifically told him that Windows XP, Internet Explorer and the DriveLock would completely keep his information secure.

According to the market research firm IDC, Nintendo's new Wii console will continue to outship and outsell the competition, Microsoft's Xbox 360 and Sony's PlayStation 3, throughout 2007 and 2008.

However, the firm does not see a clear cut winner anytime soon. The Xbox 360 enjoyed a year's head start over its competition and the Wii is selling very well, but even those factors leave no winner as the dominant console.

IDC had this to say in a statement: "IDC believes hardware shipments of Nintendo's Wii will capture a little more than a third of the worldwide market by 2008, rising slightly above Sony's PS3 and Microsoft's Xbox 360"

The firm then continued by observing that: "Nintendo is the only one of the three manufacturers working to grow its accessible market for its hardware and software by broadening its audience beyond the traditional market"

While Sony and Microsoft continue to strive for more powerful hardware and home entertainment packages, IDC feels that Nintendo will continue to keep capturing new consumers or those that would otherwise be afraid of more powerful, expensive systems.

The firm firmly believes that by leaving Sony and Microsoft to fight it out for the higher end market, the Wii will continue to penetrate the market.

Office Live LLC., an online only media company that gives free professional advice as well as run a few websites, including Officelive.net and Autoofficelive.net has started a lawsuit seeking to get an injunction stopping Microsoft from using the "Office Live" name.

Office Live LLC. has had the name "Office Live" federally trademarked since 2002, well before Microsoft launched their Office Live service in 2006.

In late December 2006, after the release of Microsoft’s Office Live services, Office Live LLC. filed the lawsuit against Microsoft, but after talks with Microsoft they decided to refrain serving the lawsuit until both sides could work out a deal. However, when the companies met in February, all talks collapsed and an agreement could not be met.

The CEO of Office Live LLC. had this to say in a statement: "It is shocking that Microsoft would have so little regard for another company's intellectual property rights that it would select a name belonging to another company. Online software may be the next big thing, but Microsoft has no right to use our trademark without permission."

According to the Wall Street Journal, Movielink, the movie download specialist, is on sale for $50 million USD.

The huge games and movie retailer and rental specialist Blockbuster, is in deep talks to buy the online movie rental and download site.

Movielink, which is jointly owned by MGM Studios, Sony Pictures, Paramount Pictures, Universal Studios and Warner Bros. will be sold for $50 Million USD (equal to about 38 million Euro) in cash and other stock options.

The move should help Blockbuster to continue fighting in its rivalry with Netflix, the largest online movie rental site.


Source:
Gamesindustry.biz

In another case of possible exploding/combustible laptop batteries, Lenovo, the Chinese laptop manufacturer, is voluntarily recalling 100,000 batteries from laptops in their IBM ThinkPad line. The certain batteries in question are manufactured by Sanyo.

The batteries being recalled are Lithium-ion batteries which are known to be very sensitive to the daily abuse a laptop sustains.

Due to the chemical sensitivity of the Lithium-ion battery, continued abuse to the battery pack itself can cause the circuitry that is designed to keep the battery safe to fail. This effect is amplified if there is a manufacturing flaw, which can cause the battery to catch on fire or even explode with continured abuse.

According to the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission, if the "laptop is struck forcefully on the corner, such as from a direct fall to the ground, the battery pack can overheat and pose a fire hazard to users. This is not an internal battery cell defect."

Lenovo has additional information for all its consumers on its website, including call numbers and laptops that are impacted by this recall. Lenovo also suggests to not use the battery pack and keep your notebook on AC power.

According to the Times Online, O2 has signed an exlusive deal with Apple to bring the iPhone to the United Kingdom.

Although Vodafone was the early favorite for the contract, it seems O2 has come away with the deal. It is also believed O2 will revenue share with Apple from revenue generated from each new iPhone customer.

T-Mobile is expected to make a similar deal for exclusive rights in Germany and Orange is close to making the same deal for France.

In the US so far, the iPhone has been a great success despite its hefty price tag.

Source:
Dailytech