News written by Andre Yoskowitz (May, 2007)

Silicon Image has announced that CeRoma, a leading manufacturer and designer of system-on-a-chip (SoC) for digital video broadcasting has decided to integrate a new Multistandard High-Definition Video Decoder (MSVD-HD) IP core in a chip for set-top boxes and DTVs.

Silicon Image boasts that the MSVD-HD is currently the only IP core that can decode a1080p at 60 FPS "video stream at low clock speeds."

“The MSVD-HD IP core is capable of decoding two different HD video streams concurrently, so now, only one IP core is required in the set-top-box, video player or digital TV SoC,” said Ron Richter, director of HDMI IP Products at Silicon Image. “Silicon Image can now provide semiconductor companies with immediate access to the latest video standards using our MSVD-HD IP core technology, enabling quick time-to-market, low-cost and low-power implementations.”


The MSVD-HD IP core has very low power consumption and has an integrated solution for current HD video decoding standards, namely H.264, MPEG-2 and VC-1.

“We chose Silicon Image’s MSVD-HD core for a number of reasons – its Full HD video and content capabilities, the smallest gate-count, and extremely low frequencies,” said Uri Avimor, vice president of research and development with CeRoma. “More importantly, integrating this IP core into our library will allow CeRoma to develop the most advanced set-top box and DTV products, while providing a very quick time-to-market delivery at attractive low costs.”

Yesterday, PayPlay launched "the world's largest MP3 download store", a legal music download store that will sell over 1.3 million indie music tracks and includes a nice integrated search engine that allows users to search for their favorite artists or compare similar artists.

Before the announcement, PayPlay sold DRM-crippled WMAs for $0.77. The new store will offer DRM-free 192kbps MP3s for $0.88. The company says the added price is a reflection of the "cost of retooling to host MP3s instead of WMAs."

Many of the artists are unknown to most consumers so the recommendation system is the key to the new service. It does comparisons to some of the more known artists such as the Talking Heads.

Another good thing that comes out of the new service is the way the artists get paid. Artists recive an average of $0.59 per track, which is huge when compared to iTunes, who gives artists 7 percent.

Source:
Boing

A few weeks back, Microsoft began banning modded Xbox 360s from Xbox Live and many users learned this the hard way.

However, the modding community has quickly come back and released a new firmware that according to Xbox-Scene, will allow you to play your modded systems on XBL.

The new firmware will work on any console that has the TS-H943 DVD drive and will prevent any Xbox Live detection attempts while allowing you to play your "backup" games.

Here are the details on the new firmware, according to Xbox-Scene:

iXtreme firmware 1.0 for TS-H943 Xbox 360
>> A new firmware replacement for the TS-H943 xbox360 drive
Features
(v1.0) Defeats all current and some future Xbox Live detection attempts
(v1.0) Boots ONLY Stealth Xtreme Xbox 360 backups
(v1.0) Boots ONLY Stealth Xtreme Xbox 1 backups
(v1.0) Boots all Xbox 360 originals
(v1.0) Boots all Xbox 1 originals on Xbox 360
Use on Xbox Live at own risk!!
Thanks to everyone on #FW, Xboxhacker.net , Xbox-Scene.com, Maxconsole.com and Xbins.Org for their support. Keep up the good work everyone.
If you prefer to use Xbox Boot Maker,grab the updated definitions here Read more...

One week into Toshiba's month-long HD DVD promotion, the manufacturer is reporting extremely strong sales, including 5 to 10-fold increases at a few retail outlets.

A couple weeks ago, we reported that Toshiba was starting the promotion and offering a $100 rebate with its HD-A2 model, dropping the price of the unit to $299 after rebate. Amazon began selling the unit at a price of $238 after rebate and the player almost immediately jumped to the top of Amazon's hottest selling DVD players.

Jodi Sally, VP of marketing for Toshiba had this to say during an interview, "We’re thrilled to see that consumers are, by far, choosing Toshiba’s HD DVD players as their source for high-definition."

According to Toshiba, starting June 10th, the $100 rebate will be extended to all of Toshiba's HD DVD players.

Source:
HD Digest

This morning, Google announced that it had signed a deal with EMI that would allow users of the gigantic social video site YouTube to view videos and other content from the label's artists. The deal would also allow for users to use portions of the artist's videos in their own content.

The agreement now means that YouTube has distribution deals with all four of the major worldwide labels. "We're excited to add EMI Music's stellar roster of artists' content to our site and make it available to our community," YouTube CEO and co-founder Chad Hurley said in a statement.

The deal does more to protect YouTube from future lawsuits brought by content porviders and copyright holders. Recently, YouTube was sued by Viacom which is hoping for $1 billion USD in damages over the use of copyrighted content on the site.

Source:
BetaNews

Yesterday, the electronics giant LG patented a washing machine that can play MP3s.

Now, families around the country can enjoy their favorite tunes and wash their dirty laundry with the same machine, which I'm sure has been the dream of many.

As LG describes their invention, "The washing device comprises: an input/output terminal for physically connecting the washing device with the MP3 player for data communication with the MP3 player; a connector for physically connecting the washing device with the MP3 player to receive an audio signal outputted from the MP3 player; a key input unit for inputting washing or drying mode conditions and a control command for the MP3 player from a user; a display unit for displaying information regarding an operation of a washing or drying mode and information regarding an operation of the MP3 player; an audio output unit for outputting a mode state in the form of an audio signal and the audio signal from the MP3 player received through the connector; and a controller for, in response to a control of the user through the key input unit, controlling the operation of the washing or drying mode, and controlling the operation of the MP3 player by performing the data communication with the MP3 player through the input/output terminal."

This morning, Apple announced the launch of iTunes U as its own dedicated area of the bigger iTunes store. iTunes U offerss free content from leading US colleges and universities including Stanford University, U.C. Berkeley, Duke and MIT.

"It's just an amazing way for lifelong learners to get more material," said Chris Bell, Apple's director of worldwide marketing for iTunes. "This really opens up the world of digitial education."

iTunes U was created to make it easier for colleges and universities to post audio and video content online and has come a long way. Students can download the content to Macs and PCs and then can choose to sync it to their iPods.

Until today, iTunes U content had been available only on a need to know basis and you needed to know the specific URL in order to view the content. Today's announcement opens the doors to to all iTune Store users.

Some of the content includes lectures, language lessons, lab demonstrations, sports highlights and campus tours.

Source:
Yahoo

Last week, US and South Korean officials released the text of the Free Trade Agreement between the two countries. Of course, the agreement contained stong language about intellectual property rights and its enforcement.

Now that the pact is signed Korean P2P users can prepare for stronger enforcement. There will be a new "joint investigation team" that is on notice to operate at the request of any copyright holder and which can shut down any website that "permits the unauthorized reproduction, distribution, or transmission of copyright work."

In their end of the agreement the Korean government pledged to provide "more effective enforcement of intellectual property rights on the Internet" and said it would target P2P networks and services.

South Korea also pledged to give added authority to the "joint investigation team" that would allow it to "take criminal action for online piracy".

Korean and American groups such as the EFF have shown opposition to the new deal because of some of the wording. Reading the agreement suggests that there is a possibility that sites with legitimate uses could be targeted even if 99% percent of their content is legal.

Source:
Arstechnica

The US software company Beatnik has begun approaching mobile phone operators with a new music download system that they say can compress songs up to 10 times better than the MP3 format. The new software would allow for much faster downloads on lower-end phones, says the company.

Most music download services are only available to users with more expensive smartphones using 3G networks, which have significanty higher download speeds than GPRS, said Jeremy Copp, chief sales officer for Beatnik.

Copp added that the software compresses songs by "taking common elements or repeated sounds and only replicating them once in the compressed file." The music player on the phone would then be able to recreate the sounds in the right place during playback. The smaller file size would also for much quicker downloads over the same bandwith and could allow users to listen to the song even as the rest is downloading.

Beatnik hopes the new system will make music download services more appealing in developing and 3rd world nations, such as countries in South America and India and Pakistan where most users havent upgraded to 3G or can only afford cheaper phones.

Compared to the broadband service offered by 3G networks, "There's still a huge proportion of the market that doesn't have access to that kind of bandwidth," Copp noted.

After announcing last month that they would be launching EMI's full catalogue DRM-free on their iTunes platform, Apple finally announced that they had made good on their promise and iTunes Plus was launched this morning.

The tracks are in AAC form, DRM-free and encoded at 256kpbs, but will cost $1.29, a 30 cent premium over all DRM infested tracks.

User can choose to upgrade their old DRM versions of the track to the new DRM-free version for 30 cents as well so they do not need to purchase the song all over again.

There will still be the option however, to purcahse EMI's tracks with DRM and encoded at 128kbps for the original 99 cents. Apple CEO Steve Jobs noted that he hopes to have 50 percent of Apple's catalogue DRM-free by the end of 2007. This follows statements made by Jobs that DRM did nothing to prevent piracy.

"This is a tremendous milestone for digital music," said Eric Nicoli, CEO of EMI Group. "Consumers are going to love listening to higher quality iTunes Plus tracks from their favorite EMI artists with no usage restrictions."

However, if you are planning to download the new DRM-free music and share over P2P networks, forget about it. All files you download are embedded with your name and email address, which will definetely come back to haunt you if you were to get caught illegally uploading the new songs.

Yesterday, we reported that Robbie Bach, the head of Microsoft Entertainment had said that over one million Zune units had been sold , beating company expectations.

Today however, Microsoft says it was misquoted and that have not yet reached one million sold although they are on track to hit that mark by the end of June.

Cesar Menendez, a product manager for Zune, made the restatement but did add that "we've achieved our goal of being the number 2 player in the hard-drive category."

The player holds a decent 10 percent market share of the HDD based music player market but only a 3 percent overall market share.

During the same period, Apple has sold about 25 million iPods but nevertheless, Microsoft is happy about their progress.

Robbie Bach said reaching the milestone was "a good start," but also added, "I'm not going to pretend it's some gigantic move."

Source:
BetaNews

Late last year, Toshiba launched its Gigabeat V pvp with a 3.5" screen and in 30GB and 60GB capacities. Today, it was announced the the company plans to revamp the line and offer new players with added improvements in hopes to add market share.

The new Gigabeat V will be available in 40 GB and 80GB capacities but will weigh a hefty 8.6 ounces and 9.3 ounces respectively. In comparison, the 80 GB 5.5 generation iPods weigh 5.5 ounces.

The new player however does feature other upgrades including a bigger screen (4") and a nice 480x272 widescreen display compared to the 2.5" screen and 320x240 display on the aforementioned iPod.

The upgraded line is capable of WMA, WMA 9 Lossless, MP3, WAV and WMV playback. Advertised battery life is an astonishing 28 hours for audio and 8 hours for video.

The Gigabeat V will launch on June 1st in Japan for 50,000 yen ($500 USD) for the 80 GB model and 80 dollars less for the 40 GB model. No date set so far on a North American release.

Source:Dailytech

Last week, the European Commission gave approval for the Universal Music Group to take over BMG Music Publishing, bringing a close to the $2.1 billion USD merger that began five months ago.

The EC, the EU's antritrust authority said in its decision that Universal had responded to the charges by "offering to sell off the rights of key labels in the music giant's roster." These concessions include the sale of Rondor U.K., Zomba U.K., BBC Music, 19 Songs, 19 Music as well as its European license for the Zomba U.S. catalog.

EU competition commissioner Neelie Kroes added, "I am satisfied that the significant remedies will keep these markets competitive and ensure that consumers will not be harmed by the merger," she said.

The new merged company will now go under the name Universal Music Publishing Group brand.

The takeover was cleared months ago in the US by the FCC and the EU approval was the last hurdle for the merger could be completed. BMG has an active catalogue of over one million songs.

Source:
Washington Post

In the search for an illegal BitTorrent P2P network that spanned most of Germany, German authorities this week were finally able to obtain evidence that concentrates on a 38 yr old suspect from Baden-Württemberg.

The suspect had come to the attention of the authorities before but officials say now he is strongly suspected of illegally distributing unauthorized movies and games via the network.

The official investigation began in March after the German Federation against Copyright Theft (GVU) informed authorities that a computer game had been made available on the Internet prior to its official release date.

According to the Public Prosecutor's Office, this week the suspect's home was raided and raids occured in other sites in Baden-Württemberg, Bavaria, Berlin, Saxony-Anhalt and Thuringia.

So far, authorities indicate that the group of file sharers, including the lead suspect, ran the network on a few rented computers in which they illegally uploaded unathorized computer games and movies. Authorities also indicated that the investigaton was not over and they are searching for the rest of the group. If charged the suspect will face copyright violations charges as well as civil lawsuit from the copyright holders.

Nintendo America boss George Harrison took some time to talk about his competitors and how he feels they dont understand the gaming market. Harrison believes Sony and Microsoft lack the "DNA" necessary to understand the market, one he feels wants a more rewarding gaming experience than "just the next version of Halo or Grand Theft Auto."

"So far they haven't spent a lot of time focused on us. Now that we're having some success, they probably will," commented Harrison to Wired.

"We can already see some of the things they've tried. For last year's E3, at the last minute, Sony rushed out their Sixaxis controller as an effort to respond to the Wii remote. We saw Microsoft roll out Viva Piñata as their killer app for the Pokemon set. And neither of those worked really well.

"Part of this is, I think it's not in their DNA. They're really good at reaching a certain customer, and have a real difficulty understanding how we succeed with the customers that we have," said the senior vice president of marketing and communications.

So far the Wii and DS consoles have dominated sales and Harrison said he felt confident that Nintendo could take as large as a 50 percent market share for the "next gen" lineup of consoles. Read more...

Microsoft Entertainment head Robbie Bach, in a press conference yesterday, contradicted Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer's controversial remarks about the upcoming iPhone and noted that it should be an interesting device with a good amount of attention.

"Apple is very good at design; they come up with interesting approaches to products," Bach said. "Like anything else, it will have its trade-offs. It will be pretty high priced, and just on the Cingular (AT&T) network. But, it's an Apple product. It'll attract its level of attention from Apple enthusiasts, and we'll see where it goes from there. And it's a new concept, highly integrated."

Bach did say though that the Microsoft Windows Mobile team was not going to change its approach towards smart phones anytime soon seeing as it has an edge over Research In Motion and its Blackberry line of smartphones. Microsoft believes, Bach says, that "entering on an individual class of phone" is inappropriate due to the large scope of the mobile phone business.

"We think phones are deeply personal," he added. "Some people want a flip phone, some people want a candy bar, some people want a QWERTY keyboard, some people want a touch screen, some people want music phones -- people have different needs."

When Microsoft began selling the Zune it had a target of one million sold by June 2007. According to Microsoft Entertainment head Robbie Bach, the company has beat their expectations and sold "a little over a million" of the 30GB players as May comes to a close.

Bach also said that the company hopes to expand the online Zune Marketplace and that after a few software upgrades the Wi-Fi on the Zune might be used for more than just Zune-to-Zune file sharing.

Furthermore, Bach said it was "fun" competing with Apple because the company is a very "worthy and skilled" competitor. Apple still holds an almost 70 percent market share with its iPod player and recently sold its 100 millionth unit.

Source:
Electronista

According to Sharp, the company is ready to introduce the world's smallest blue laser for Blu ray and HD DVD optical players.

The new laser is a tiny 3.3mm in diameter, smaller than the tip of a pencil. For now, the GH04020A4G semiconductor will be available as ¥12,000 ($99 USD) sample quantities until mass production begins later in July.

The device has an advertised 10,000 hours of operation before needing to be replaced.

More updates as they become available.

Source:
Engadget

Last month, the US Ambassador to Canada, David Wilkins, told the Empire Club that CDN IP piracy was costing the Canadian economy up to $30 Billion a year. Here was his full quote:

And we are working with the Canadian government now on that issue. We have met with Ministers Bernier and Oda and members of the Prime Minister's staff and we are requesting a stronger copyright bill be introduced and be passed.

We are joined by the U.S. and Canadian motion picture and sound recording and computer software industries. Right now the copyright laws or the intellectual property right protection in Canada is considered the weakest of the G-7 countries. So we are asking that be strengthened.

And it really does cost the Canadian economy a huge amount every year. It is estimated to be from some $10 to $30 billion per year.

According to company officials, the world's largest mobile phone maker, Nokia, expects to begin selling phones for China's 3G mobile technology TD-SCDMA when the network is up and running in early 2008.

"Currently we see that there will be market need from the first half of 2008. Hence, we will have some kind of offering on the market," said Thomas Jonsson, Nokia's spokesman in China.

Earlier this year, pre-commercial testing of the TD-SCDMA standard was extended to 10 cities from the original 5 it was tested on last year.

Analysts have called the trial extension a "soft launch" of sorts, one that is aimed at local phone makers instead of foreign companies who are focused on the popular CDMA and CDMA2000 standards.

Ericsson, Nortel and Motorola have also jumped onto the TD-SCDMA standard, hoping for a piece of the expected $10 billion USD worth of network equipment orders.

The industry is still waiting for the official launch of 3G licenses in China, but analysts fear that date could be pushed back to 2008.

Source:
Yahoo!

Thanks to Dr. Janet Coyle, a hospitalist at Riley Hospital's Tom C. Maynor Rehabilitation Center, the Nintendo Wii has been incorporated into the center's rehabilitation program for patients who have suffered strokes.

“Dr. Coyle got one (Wii) for Christmas and after playing on it for awhile, she realized that it would be wonderful for our stroke patients,” said Ben Rucks, director of rehabilitation services at Riley.

Since its introduction late last year, the Wii has been cited as useful in losing weight and has also been used to treat children who suffer from the paralyzing hemiplegic cerebral palsy.

“Unlike other video games — which only use the thumbs — the Wii requires use of the whole body, balance and hand-eye coordination,” Rucks said. “This is especially ideal for stroke patients in their recovery.”

Im glad to see the console being put to so much good outside of its intended goals.

Source:
Meridian Star

According to French sources familiar with the negotiations, Apple is preparing to launch EMI's DRM-free catalogue later this week on its iTunes platform.

The sources said the delay was due to Apple's desire to offer the entire catalogue at launch. The companies' technicians are "simply in the later stages of encoding and hosting the files before they go live," the contact says.

The deal requires that the new albums be offered as 256Kpbs AAC files and without Apple's FairPlay DRM.

Both Apple and EMI confirmed they would like to have the catalogue available by the end of the month.

Source:
Electronista

Yesterday, the HD DVD Promotional Group took steps to correct an erroneous report published by Home Media Magazine. The report claimed that the HD DVD camp was planning to release 800 new titles by the end of the year, a number that is apparently very wrong.

The report gave a monthly listing of title counts from May to December of this year, but the numbers increased exponentially with a total of 500 titles planned for the fourth quarter of this year alone.

Aware of the report, the HD DVD Promotional Group announced that the number was incorrect. The group instead said they were hoping for a global total of 600 titles for the year and that those expectations were "conservative".

The Home Media Magazine publication also incorrectly reported on the amount of Blu ray titles for 2007, saying that the total would be 43. There have already been 160 titles released in the US so far this year with many more planned.

Source:
HD Digest

According to Japanese retailers, Nintendo is planning on releasing Wii consoles in Japan that are mod-proof.

The new hardware revisions would include the "snipping" of "some of the pins from the surface-mounted IC on the motherboard,", a change that would make current modchips useless and send modders back to the drawing board.

No official word from Nintendo yet, and so far the only systems affected would be Japanese consoles, not North American or European.

More updates as they become available.

Source:
Joystiq

In another sign that artists are understanding more and more the effect of the internet on their sales and popularity, former Beatle Sir Paul McCartney has premiered his latest music video on YouTube.

According to YouTube, the video has over 200,000 hits in under 48 hours

"With its community of millions of worldwide users, YouTube is the leader in online video, and the premier destination to watch and share original videos through a Web experience," McCartney said in a statement on his Web site. "The video for 'Dance Tonight' will be featured and promoted through the 'Director Videos' slots, which sit at the top of the homepage."

McCartney's newest album, "Memory Almost Full" is set for release next week and "Dance Tonight" is the first single.

Artists have been using sites like YouTube and MySpace more often to help gain new fans and to release videos to broader audiences. This is a trend I hope will continue.

Source:
Yahoo

At the recent "Automotive Engineering Exposition 2007", Toshiba unveiled an automotive HD DVD player and a touch panel LCD.

The company said it is co-developing the player with Alpine Electronics and hopes the final product will hit shelves by 2008. Toshiba streamed video on the show and the results were positive although I find it hard to imagine that the 1080p was noticeable at such a small size.

The LCD was a prototype and has some interesting features. Toshiba has "integrated an optical sensor along with a transistor formed on each pixel on the panel. This technology enables the panel to detect the shadow of a finger when the panel is touched and work as a touch panel during the day. At night, the panel can sense finger touches using the backlight, which reflects when a finger touches the panel."

Toshiba hopes to have a final product for the touchscreen LCD by 2008 as well.

Source:
TechOn

In January, the Japan and International Motion Picture Copyright Association (JIMCA), feeling pressure from American studios, submitted a statement to the government calling for an anti-camcording legislation

Today, that legislation passed and soon camcording in Japanese movie theaters will be punishable by up to 10 years in prison.

The bill will go into effect in early August and prohibits the use of any recording device in movie theaters. Besides the prison sentence, convicted violators face a 10 million yen ($82,645 USD) fine.

According to JIMCA exec director Yasutaka Iiyama, the new law "will make it significantly easier for the police to interdict pirate camcording."

Of course MPAA boss Dan Glickman backed the decision and noted that piracy cost Japanese business $742 million USD in revenue.

"The adoption of this crucial law by the Japanese Diet is a victory for the worldwide film industry," said Glickman.

"The passage of this law today by Japan's Diet serves as a reminder to governments around the world that every movie screen is a point of vulnerability and must be protected."

Source:
VarietyAsia

In their latest blog entry, the admins of The Pirate Bay speak out about the prosecutor and his public announcement that he is going to file for an extension in his case against them. According to the prosecutor, the "work of going through the servers" is still not completely done, although they were confiscated almost a year ago.

Here is the full blog entry:

The prosecutor Hakan Roswall has publicly stated in Ny Teknik that he is going to file for an extension in the case against The Pirate Bay since the work of going through the servers is still not done.

After almost one full year the police has still not come up with any evidence against The Pirate Bay. Wasting more of the tax payers money and not returning the over 100 servers from unrelated PRQ customers is nothing but a big scandal by the Swedish authorities.

Further, he states that they are about to start going through the encrypted material on many computers.

There was no encrypted harddrives, partitions or even loop files on the servers that belong to The Pirate Bay. The encrypted data he is talking about must therefore belong to the PRQ customers.

It is our firm belief that either Hakan Roswall is using The Pirate Bay raid as a cover-up for going through other peoples data or that he is about to take a long holiday and do not want to work this summer. Read more...

According to court documents released today, Target Technology is suing Sony for patent infringements involving Blu ray disc technology.

Target says that Blu-ray infringes on patents held on the reflective-layer materials of the optical discs. The patent was filed in April 2004 and granted in March 2006.

Accroding to Target, the materials help discs corrode less easily than standard definition discs by using silver-based alloys instead of much more expensive and ineffective gold-based ones.

The company is seeking a permanent injunction and "significant" monetary damages.

Target also filed a seperate suit against the disc manufacturer Williams Advanced Materials, whom they accuse of violating another set of alloy patents held by the company. The company also claims that Target founder Han Nee was the original developer of the silver-based alloy materials used in current optical discs.

Source:
BetaNews

The Paris-based company CoPeerRight Agency has been distributing flyers to producers at the Cannes Film Festival claiming that they can sabotage pirates and telling the producers that they can "watch in real time the illegal download of your films" at the company's booth at the Cannes Film Market.

Besides claiming it can prevent distribution of movies via P2P, the company also offers to demonstrate how the system can "protect your rights, before and after the digital piracy of your films."

And how does the company intend to sabotage the pirates? According to the company, they first identify the pirates IP address and then forward it to producers and the pirate's ISP. They then flood the P2P networks with "decoy" files which would in theory bury the original files as well as "saturate the networks' waiting lists to increase file's download time" and send "corrupt data to users while they are trying to download the pirate files."

CoPeerRight Managing Director Romina González Galetto called the solution "Bytes Corrupted" and said that many of the producers at the festival were surprised by the claim. The company claims it is "the only way to retard the download of the illegal copies available on P2P networks."

StreamCast Networks Inc., the firm behind the P2P client Morpheus has filed a lawsuit against Skype and Joost in a dispute over technology that makes it "easier to place Internet phone calls and watch videos on the Web."

The lawsuit states that Morpheus had "the right of first refusal" when the founders of Kazaa, (also the founders of Joost) sold the failing company and transferred its P2P technology FastTrack to another firm.

The founders used the technology to create Skype a few years back, and the company was bought by eBay in 2005 for $2.6 billion USD.

"But for this act that happened some years ago, we would be Skype," said Daniel Woods, an attorney for Morpheus.

Lawyers for Joost said the legal claims have no merit and should be thrown out.

The lawsuit also claims that after the sale of Kazaa, the FastTrack technology was disabled, which forced Morpheus users to move away from the Morpheus client. Morpheus was then forced to develop and implement alternate technology, the lawsuit claims.

StreamCast is hoping to receive money from the sale of Skype to eBay as well as an injunction barring the FastTrack technology from use on Joost.

As reported earlier this week, the delayed Halo 2 Vista will hit North American retail outlets at the end of this month.

The cause of the delays however, had not been revealed until today. Microsoft said in an official statement that the delays were caused by the discovery of "partial nudity" in the content.

"It has come to our attention that an unfortunate, obscure content error which includes partial nudity was included in our initial production of Halo 2 for Windows Vista.

"As such, we have updated the initial game packaging at retailers with a label, so customers are aware before purchasing the game... This packaging will only be labelled for the initial run of games; subsequent shipments will not include the content."

Available on Halo2.com as well is an update which consumers can download to patch the content.

Microsoft is taking big strides to avoid a repeat of the 2005 Hot Coffee scandal, in which a sex mini-game in Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas led to lawsuits and a re-rating of the game to Adult Only.

Microsoft's statement concludes,"We apologise for any inconvenience this may cause our customers. At Microsoft we take the Entertainment Software Ratings Board guidelines very seriously and hold ourselves to high standards, with our customers always in mind."

In March, Sony issued a press release that stated that the Blu ray edition of "Casino Royale" had shipped over 100,000 units. Today, Warner Home Entertainment announced that their dual-format release of "The Departed" had surpassed that number, and had sold over 100,000 units.

Although the total sales are based on both Blu ray and HD DVD sales of the movie, 100,000 units sold is still a significant number for next gen movie sales.

"It's no accident that Warner is the first studio to reach this benchmark. We owe this success to a combination of great content and our decision to support both high definition formats... By releasing titles on HD DVD and Blu-ray, Warner Home Video not only increases our potential audience reach, but also offers consumers assurance that regardless of the format they choose they can enjoy our movies," said the statement.

Warner is not the only neutral studio, but so far it has been the most aggressive, releasing more titles than any other studio so far. Warner also noted they were planning to release a hybrid format entitled "Total Hi-Def" sometime later this year.

"High definition media represents an incredible opportunity for the industry, and we, as content providers, can help push mainstream adoption by producing in both formats and giving the consumer a simple choice," said the statement. "At a time when the home video business is flat and high definition media presents our best hope for near term growth, it is unfortunate that we as an industry continue to perpetuate consumer confusion."

As reported earlier this week, Sony will be releasing an 80 GB PlayStation 3 to the Korean market next month. According to a report from the Korea Times, the main reason for the larger HDD is because the new PS3s will feature video-on-demand (VOD) functionality.

South Korea, known for a relatively advanced network infrastructure and high-bandwith Internet services would be able to take full advantage of a network-enabled PS3.

Sony Korea confirmed the news report by saying it was in talks with telecom operators. “We are contacting some Korean firms in order to incorporate VOD applications into PlayStation 3 service line-up,'' Sony spokeswoman Park Seo-yun said.

Although Sony did not reveal which firms it was in talks with, Hanaro Telecom spoke up about its talks with the company. “We are negotiating with Sony and the atmosphere is pretty good. We hope we will be able to reach an agreement in June,'' a Hanaro Telecom spokesman said. “Should we strike a deal with Sony, PlayStation 3 users can watch all the HanaTV programs after downloading software, without having to buy a dedicated set-top box.''

The Russian music download store AllofMP3 called out the IFPI today, claiming their recent raid was made as a publicity stunt.

The accusations follow the news that the IFPI and British law enforcement raided the home of a 25-yr old London citizen who was selling vouchers to use on ALLofMP3 as payment. The IFPI claims the man then transferred that money to the Russian company's off shore bank accounts.

The parent company of AllofMP3, Mediaservices was forced to use voucher payments for North American and European customers, after the major credit card companies and Paypal refused to continue servicing the site. AllofMP3 is currently facing a $1.65 trillion USD lawsuit from US music publishers.

Mediaservices, in a statement, said the arrested man was not an employee of the company, and that he was merely "reselling gift certificates."

"The Allofmp3 administration reiterates that the store has never had any activities outside Russia. Thus we do not have any offices or employees abroad. Allofmp3 operates in full compliance with Russian legislation and pays the necessary royalties to the rightholders and authors," the statement reads.

"The members of the IFPI are unable to do anything about the natural crisis the music industry faces in the digital era. Instead they engage in unfair competition practices and political lobbying. They make up 'sensational' news to attract public attention to their activity which becomes less and less valid every day."

According to a press release by Microsoft, the long awaited Halo 2 PC game will finally hit Vista-equipped computers on May 31st in North America and then on June 8th in Europe.

The MSRP on the game will be £34.99 and $49.99 USD.

The North American version had a planned May 22nd release date but unspecified reasons pushed the date back. According to a Microsoft spokesperson, "Halo 2 for Windows Vista did not release to retailers on May 22, as previously announced and will now ship from manufacturers on May 31. Shadowrun will be the first game to debut the highly anticipated Games for Windows – LIVE system on May 29. We apologize for any inconvenience this may have caused our customers."

The release of Halo 2 Vista is a long time coming for PC users who have wanted to play the game but do not own an Xbox.

Source:
Press Release

A small independent record label owned by bluegrass musician David Grisman has filed a class action lawsuit against Apple, Napster, and other digital media stores as well as the Big 4 record labels that carry the label's catalogue of tracks.

The small label, Dawg Music, is accusing the labels and stores of carrying the label's music and seling his works "with poor or nonexistent compensation and without his consent."

The lawsuit also claims that Universal and Warner have neglected the label's copyrights and royalties when signing deals with online stores, including iTunes and Napster.

Those two giant record companies agreed to online distribution of Dawg Music's library, but did not acquire permission first from the label. Dawg claims that because of the lack of communication, the label received "gross underpayments," and that online music stores are "guilty by association because they agreed to host and sell the unsanctioned tracks."

The suit accuses the following companies of trading songs without genuine consent:
AOL Music Now, Buy.com, Apple's iTunes, MSN.com, Napster, RealNetworks' Rhapsody, Wal-Mart.com, and Yahoo Music.

According to the results of nationwide survey released by the Business Software Alliance (BSA), illegal downloading of copyrighted works by youths aged 8-18 is down 24 percent since 2004.

The survey, which was first conducted in 2004, showed that for this year, the percentage of participants who reported downloading software, music, movies or games without buying it was at 36 percent compared to the hefty 60 percent it was in 2004.

There were many reasons given by the youths as to why the illegal downloading stopped, but the most common were; fear of accidentally downloading a computer virus (62 percent), getting into legal trouble (52 percent) and accidentally downloading spyware (51 percent). 48 percent of the youths also reported they feared getting in trouble with their parents.

“This study indicates that parents represent a growing and effective influence on the online practices of youth,” said Diane Smiroldo, vice president of public affairs for BSA. “But, while decreases in downloading are encouraging over recent years, youth are still taking too many risks online. We hope that parents continue to take seriously their role in helping their children make the right choices online.”

Sony has signed a four yeal contract with VoIP company BT that would bring video and voice calls as well as messaging to Sony's handheld, the PSP.

Using BT's technology, PSP users will be able to communicate using wireless internet for now. The companies say they are working on PC, mobile phone, and fixed line integration for the future.

"The PSP is an excellent device for both gaming and communications because of its high quality screen and audio capabilities," offered Steve Andrews, chief of mobility and convergence for BT.

"With over 8 million PSPs shipped across Europe, we are very excited by the opportunity to give customers a whole new communications experience, connecting and seeing friends across the world through BT's technology."

Sony also added that the service will begin in the UK, and then move to other regions.

"The opportunity to combine our market leading expertise with BT's knowledge in communications opens up many possibilities and we look forward to bringing many exciting functions to PSP fans," commented David Reeves, president of Sony Europe.

Source:
GI.biz

Nintendo made an announcement today that by 2012 they expected to sell as many as 35 million Wii consoles in the US alone. That figure would put place the console near the record 38.2 million US PlayStation 2s sold to date.

So far, 2.5 million units have been sold, higher than the Playstation 3 but still lower than the Xbox 360 which was released in 2005.

Nintendo also told Bloomberg News that they had no plans for price cuts, as a price cut would cause supply shortages.

The company also stated they feel the market favors the simplicity of the Wii over rival consoles.

"We're starting to see in the performance of the PS3 and Xbox 360 that that's not necessarily motivating the market the way it used to," Nintendo of America marketing head George Harrison told Bloomberg. "So we're going to start work on future technology only when we believe it's necessary."

Nintendo concluded by noting that 14 new games will be released in the 3rd quarter 2007, most of which will take advantage of the Wii's motion-sensing capabilities.

Source:
BetaNews

Tribler, a Dutch BitTorrent client recently updated to version 4.0, adds Last.fm-style personalization to your torrent downloading. Whenever you open the client, Tribler suggests new media based off you previous downloading history. European public broadcasters have begun looking into the program as it combines collaborative filters with YouTube browsing, something never seen before.

Tribler is part of a joint research project collectively called I-Share, which is exploring “sharing mechanisms in virtual communities.” Last year, I-Share received 6 million Euros in funding by the Dutch government and claims that 20 scientists are working on Tribler as we speak.

So why all the funding for what can be considered a generic torrent client? Because the program uses P2P to "discover other clients and exchange metadata about downloaded files." Tribler also makes great use of the data to generate each user recommendations, in the same way Last.fm does, or even Netflix.

The latest version of Tribler, v4.0, also incorporates YouTube. Use the integrated search to look for YouTube clips and watch them with an integrated video viewer. Tribler team member Freek Zindel explains the integratation of YouTube: “With Tribler we want to enable our users to share and interact with content from any source. In the near future we plan to open the Peer to Peer transport layer to content that was previously only available from central servers. This would bring a new level of redundancy, availability and scalability to user generated content.“

The Apple iPhone set for release next month in North America, has allegedly made a carrier exclusivity agreement with At&T, a deal that would finish in 2012.

AT&T will have exclusive US distribution for the next five years and the deal stops Apple from developing a new version of the phone for CDMA wireless networks such as Sprint and Verizon's. Basically if you want the iPhone, you will have to take your service to the GSM based AT&T (formerly Cingular).

Stan Sigman, CEO of wireless at AT&T, talks about the tough approach towards the iPhone:

"I'm glad we have (the iPhone) in our bag," he says. "Others will try to match it, but for a period of time, they're going to be playing catch-up."

Reports have also showed the Verizon passed on the opportunity to be exclusive distributor as they felt Apple was too demanding.

If you want the iPhone before 2012, it seems like you will need to switch carriers to AT&T.

Source:
USAToday

At the Gamers Day event this week, Sony America president Jack Tretton said that a protable version of the PlayStation Store would be coming to PSPs soon.

"I think the advent of a long awaited and quite frankly long overdue ability to deliver a downloadable service for the PSP will help us out a great deal," he said. "Hopefully we'll have it out there by the fall."

Basically, PSP users will now be able to browse, download and buy games and content right from thier PSP when connected to Wi-Fi.

Source:
Pocket Lint

News coming from the Blu ray Disc Association for months have suggested that the impact of the PlayStation 3 on Blu ray disc movie sales in North America and Japan have been "significant".

They also note that a similar sales trend is occuring in Western Europe right now.

Industry stats for the period of January to May show a huge change in the European HD movie market. Up until the PS3's launch in late March, HD DVD was outpacing Blu ray by a hefty amount. Since the launch of the console, Blu ray movies have consistently outsold its rival, and by a large margin as well, almost 3 to 1.

The Association concludes that the stats seem to justify Sony's decision to include a Blu ray drive into the PS3, as the console is greatly helping in a format war Sony cannot afford to lose.

Source:
Pocket-Lint

On Tuesday, Dell is expected to began selling three new models of notebooks and desktops loaded with Ubuntu Linux.

According to an email sent to Linuxquestion.org,
"We will be launching a Linux-based OS [Ubuntu] on the E520 [budget Dimension desktop PC], 1505 [Inspiron laptop] and [home entertainment level PC] XPS 410 starting next Thursday, 5/24," the Dell e-mail stated, according to a blog on the site. "Please cover the huddle deck below with your team by [end of business] Sunday. If any questions come up, please let me know so I can address them before launch. The goal of launching Linux is to continue to give our customers more choices to customize their new Dell. Providing more options to our Linux Enthusiast customer group will hopefully create even more Raving Fans!!"

Jeremy Bolens, a Dell spokesman, declined to comment on the blog report today however.

More updates on the machines as they become available.

Source:
InfoWorld

In an effort to curb piracy in the country, Microsoft said on Monday that it had signed an anti-piracy agreement with the Vietnamese goverment that would require that all government officials and offices to use genuine copies of all Microsoft software.

According to recent studies, Vietnam has one of the highest rates of piracy globally and Microsoft loses billions in revenue each year because of such piracy.

CEO Steve Ballmer was there to witness the signing and had this to say, "I see a prosperous future ahead for Vietnam, and the country is doing the right things by looking now at how it can foster a healthy local software ecosystem, which will help open up this market to the rest of the world".

The Prime Minister of Vietnam seemed to agree with Ballmer's sentiments. "The agreement demonstrates very strong commitments of the government of Vietnam in protecting intellectual property rights". he said before the signing.

Last year, during a visit by Bill Gates, Vietnam's Ministry of Finance signed a similar deal, the first of many Microsoft hopes.

Source:
BetaNews

Microsoft has announced that they will be giving a special bonus to all Xbox Live users who purchase the upcoming Matrix Trilogy on HD DVD. Microsoft, who is an exclusive supporter of HD DVD, is using the new releases as a good opportunity to promote both its Xbox 360 and the format its backs.

Inside every package of the Matrix trilogy there will be "tokens" that will allow users to download the entire Animatrix series from XBL for free.

XBL will also be offering HD trailers and favorite scenes from the movies for free between May 15th and the 25th.

The Complete Matrix Trilogy available for $99.99 MSRP this Tuesday.

Source:
Dailytech

For months we have heard rumors about larger capacity PlayStation 3s hitting shelves, but yesterday, a Sony spokesperson made it clear that an 80 GB model would be released in South Korea but that the company had no plans of releasing an 80 GB model in Europe.

The new model will be released in Korea on June 16th with a price tag of EUR $412/$550 USD.

The same spokesperson also confirmed that there was no plans to release the 20 or 60 GB models in Korea and that there were no plans for a European launch of the larger capacity units and that a North American launch hadnt been talked about. "At this moment in time, there are no plans to introduce the 80GB version of PlayStation 3 in Europe." he added.

Those that recall, the rumors began a couple months ago when an FCC filing showed Sony asking for a Class II permissive change. The Sony spokesperson confirmed that the larger HDD was the only thing changed from past units, squashing rumors that the Bluetooth features had been updated.

Source:
GI.biz

During CES in January, Onkyo announced its plans to sell an HD DVD player and not a Blu ray player. It seems now that the company may be having second thoughts about that decision.

At a press conference yesterday at the company's headquarters, Keith Hass, the director of sale said the company is “looking at both [the HD DVD and Blu-ray] formats” and that it was rethinking its past decision. He even hinted that a dual-format unit might be a possibility.

Hass did say however that whatever player the company decided on, it would be released in the fourth quarter of this year.

Source:
E-Gear

In another amazingly bold statement, the MPAA has claimed that its efforts to prevent illegal recording of Spider-Man 3 gave it "a fair shot at its record-setting opening."

The MPAA noted that in total 31 would-be pirates were caught by cinema staff equipped with night vision goggles. The Association offered $500 USD reward to the staff for each person found trying to illegally record the movie.

Of course, the flawed logic behind the statement is that it only takes ONE illegal recording to hit the internet before the movie is considered pirated, and it doesnt matter how many people are stopped after that. But if the MPAA would like to think they helped Spider-Man 3 make over $150 million opening weekend, lets let them.

Source:
Engadget

Almost a year after the police raids on The Pirate Bay, Prosecutor Hakan Roswall decided to press charges against the admins of the popular torrent tracker site.

However, a new information leak clearly shows that the Swedish police have a weak case and have little to no evidence against the admins.

This morning, over 100 servers that were confiscated in the raids were finally returned to TBP even though the "offending data" had long been copied.

Mr Roswall has long tried to find something to use against the admins but it seem now they have little to nothing. "Brokep", and admin at TPB wrote this in his blog:

“I talk to alot of people that are somehow connected to other interesting people - one of them told me that the police officer in charge of the case against The Pirate Bay actually has _nothing_ to give the District Attorney. Still he’s pressing charges.”

So far it seems the raid did nothing but bring huge media attention to the tracker and fuel its ego.

Source:
TF

Symantec, the makers of Norton products and other software announced on Wednesday that it was suing 8 different companies it accuses of illegally copying its products. The company is seeking $55 million USD in damages.

Symantec is just the latest company to resort to legal action as an effort to fight piracy. Industry reports tell us that piracy costs software makers billions of dollars in lost revenue every year.

For each of its cases, Symantec is asking for a jury trial and a range of $4 to 10 million USD in damages from each company it is accusing.

The businesses named are Acortech.com of California; m-Plus International Technology Inc. of Florida; Logical Plus Inc. of New York; SoftwareOutlets.com Inc. of Florida; Rowcal Distribution of California; Global Impact Inc. of Florida; and eDirect Software of Canada. Most of the sales were conducted online, Symantec said.

Symantec alleges the companies "engaged in trademark infringement, copyright infringement, fraud, unfair competition, trafficking in counterfeit labels and documentation, and false advertising".

The cases are also seeking permanent injunctions on future sales of the alleged pirated software.

In a statement released yesterday, Ohio University officials said they have recieved a subpoena forcing them to turn in the names of 14 students who have been accused of illegally sharing music to the RIAA.

This latest action is part of the ongoing campaign by the RIAA to stop unauthorized file sharing on collge campuses. In February, the RIAA sent out 100 pre-lawsuit letters to Ohio University telling them to notify the students that a lawsuit was upcoming if the students did not settle.

Ohio University was only one of the more than 30 universities targeted so far.

The 14 students subpoenaed yesterday did not settle with the RIAA and so now face a lawsuit from RIAA prosecutors in the upcoming months.

Source:
CBC.ca

According to the gaming blog Kotaku, Colin Sebastian, a top analyst at Lazard Capital Markets, has told investors that a new revamped, redesigned PSP is on its way by the end of the year.

Sebastian told industry website Next Gen that his sources confirmed Sony “definitely has something in the works” but then got more vague and didnt elaborate further.

Sony recently dropped the prices on the PSP so consumers shouldnt expect this new PSP for at least a few months but if it is coming it will certainly be here before the Christmas rush.

Source:
T3

According to Japan's Association of Copyright for Computer Software, police forces arrested three males suspected of unauthorized sharing of Manga. The three suspects were arrested on May 18th and had their homes searched. Each is accused of scanning and uploading images of "Weekly Shonen Jump" and "Weekly Shonen Sunday" magazines on the Winny P2P network.

The three suspects are accused of uploading the scans during periods between February and April and that all the scans were for issues that had not hit bookstands yet.

Officers raided the homes of the suspects and seized computers, scanners, printers, and manga.

The Winny P2P software promised anonymity for its users but members of the Kyoto High Tech Crime Task Force found flaws in the integrated forum feature. The creator was arrested and convicted and forced to pay a $12,000 USD fine. Apparently the flaws have not been fixed, as these arrests mark the 3rd, 4th, and 5th in the past year.

Source:
ANN

Creative is taking another shot at Apple's huge market share by announcing a rival for the iPod Nano.

The new player, the Zen Wav will include a smooth,rounded metallic shell similar to those of a Nano. The Wav will have a 1.5-inch screen, FM radio, microphone for recording, and a small directional pad like those in the Zen V line. An added perk is an integrated pair of speakers to provide sound without the need for a speaker dock.

The only model known so far is a 2GB model and that will be released in Singapore this week. There is no set price or release date for the North American version as of yet, but they should be out before the end of the year.

Source:
Electronista

The Pirate Bay, the infamous torrent tracker site has ended all specualtion and officially announced its latest project, a YouTube-esque video streaming site without any censorship.

The Pirate Bay Blog had this to say:

Oh, and the surprise that's coming... it's still not what people think it is... it's been speculations on it being Playble.com or the video somewhat secret video site.

But, as a treat I can tell you - YES - we're going to do a video streaming site. It's true. It's in the works being done right now and as usual we put a bit of Pirate Bay mentality behind every project we do.

The new site will be at thevideobay.org and a TPB admin has confirmed that they tested streams on Eurovision a while back with "no problems whatsoever".

The site will have user generated content, and will have no censorship. They added also that the community had the option to censor but that the admins would not censor anything.

"We're going for a free system, with a solution to not care so much about copyright but still not breaking laws," he said. "We're not revolutionizing the world, we're taking it just a small step further," added the admin.

JVC has launched 3 new models in their 1080p LCD TV line that are packing a brand new display engine. The new engine, dubbed "Clear Motion Drive II", better handles fast movement.

The technology is said to "dramatically improve processing by interpolating on-screen movement in any direction using 8,000 surrounding pixels and adapting the technology to a full HD, 1080p panel. JVC even boasts that its new LCDs with an 8ms pixel repsonse can beat a 60Hz set with no lag whatsoever.

The thee new sets, the 37-inch LT-37X898, 42-inch LT-42X898, and 47-inch LT-47X898 all advertise full 1080p resolution and 120Hz display. All include HDMI 1.3 inputs as well which JVC said can be used to see "deep" colors from the Sony PlayStation 3 and HD DVD and Blu ray players.

Official dates and prices will be released soon said JVC.

Source:
Electronista

A few days ago, we reported about Apple losing stock due to an inaccurate report by Engadget. Engadget claims the email was sent from a trustworthy source at Apple, and there is no doubt about its validity.

Apple however, feels differently. Apple spokesperson Natalie Kerris has flatly denied the claim that Apple sent the email. She also confirmed the iPhone was on track for its June launch, and that the new OS, Leopard, was still scheduled for an October public beta.

Industry watchers are begging for an SEC investigation, especially if the email is determined to originally come from someone hoping to manipulate Apple's stock prices.

Yesterday's FCC approval of the iPhone has helped to raise the stock back to its average price so the damage was reversed.

Source:
MacNN

Today, during its "Hybrid Business" strategy launch, computer giant Dell spent a few minutes discussing its new DisplayPort standard. According to Dell CTO Kevin Kettler, the new "interconnect will redefine what an LCD monitor looks like".

He mentioned it will support 4x the current HDTV resolutions, allow for integrated peripherals around the display and allow the user to "daisychain" mulitple monitors instead of installing them in a star configuration. According to Kettler, the audio, microphone, panel I/O and more will all go through a single bi-directional cable.

The main point was that the new LCD monitors would be super-thin due to the elimination of the electronics used for video conversion. The prototype, displayed to the right, is only half and inch thick and very sleek looking.

More updates as they become available.

Source:
Gearlog

Despite continued efforts by the AACS LA to protect next gen discs from content pirates, the pirates always seem to be one step ahead.

The latest volume key, scheduled for release next week, has already been cracked. Pirates using the latest Slysoft AnyDVD HD beta have been able to rip HD DVD discs using the new AACS version 3. Although scheduled for release next week, the pirates tried, and succesfully ripped early release previews of the Matrix Trilogy, the first movies to use Version 3.

If this is to keep happening (keys being cracked before the DVDs hit shelves) it might be time for the AACS to rethink the whole key model. After the last AACS key hit the internet, AACS LA chairman Michael Ayers stated that "the organization planned to continue clamping down on key dissemination, despite the fact that attempts to do so only encouraged further dissemination."

And so the war between hackers and the AACS continues on.

Source:
Arstechnica

As many Afterdawn users found out the hard way this week, Microsoft has begun banning modified Xbox 360 consoles from being able to access Xbox Live. A Microsoft spokesperson described the move as "an important part of our efforts to try and maintain a fair gaming environment for the large majority of gamers that play by the rules".

Microsoft also said it was banning by unit rather than by Live account. Anyone using a modified console to connect to Live should recieve error code ("Status Code: Z: 8015 - 190D").

"These users will not have their account automatically banned from Live, but they will no longer be able to access the service from the console they modified," Microsoft said.

The company has "a no tolerance policy towards inappropriate behaviour like hacking or cheating", and believes that "this topic is more important than ever given the recent release of the Halo 3 beta".

"We have stated in the past that customers can only enjoy access to the Xbox Live community through the use of a genuine, unmodified, Xbox console and we will continue to enforce this rule to ensure the integrity of our service, the protection of our partners and the benefits of our users," a statement on the global community Gamerscoreblog concluded.

According to FCC documents, the Apple iPhone only just received FCC approval although its release date has been set for weeks.

The phone was tested for the safety of its wirelss elements (GSM and Wi-Fi) and passed. The documents also say that Apple sent a special confidentiality letter with their submission that asked that no photos of the product or the manual be made public for 45 days after approval.

"These documents reveal technical and design information that has not been publicly disclosed in such [existing] marketing and that is protected by Apple as confidential and proprietary trade secrets," said Apple EMC and Wireless Compliance manager Robert Steinfeld in the letter.

Analysts believe the secrecy may be to protect the iPhone's finger-operated interface, which is partially guarded by patents but can be seen in the Prada Phone by LG.

I guess we will have to wait until release week to see what the iPhone is all about.

Source:
Electronista

This afternoon, SanDisk, in a surprising statement,
praised Amazon's DRM-free music store and EMI's support.

The company praised the "embrace of a universal format" (MP3) and said it was crucial "to establishing the digital music business."

"This is the first time a major record label and a major retailer have come together to offer consumers the freedom to buy music compatible with all MP3 players," said company general VP Daniel Schreiber. "As consistent advocates of consumer choice, we believe this is an important step forward."

This recent statement contradicts SanDisk's previous comments in which CEO Eli Harari attacked Apple and Steve Jobs when he suggested a DRM-free approach for iTunes.

At that time, Sandisk claimed that music stores should not suggest changes to the way music labels offered their music. Harari suggested that "store-independent" DRM formats were a better alternative.

Source:
Electronista

On Thursday, computer giant HP began shipping its new line of HDTV LCDs and plasmas. The new line includes HP's first ever 1080p "direct-view" LCD sets.

The 42-inch LC4276N and 47-inch LC4776N can both achieve the full 1080p HD resolution and have an advertised 1,200:1 static contrast ratio. Each has 3 HMDI ports as well as a VGA connector and a RS232 port. The suggested retail prices are $1900 and $2500 respectively.

In the new line are two new 720p sets, the LC3272 and LC3772, which are 32 and 37 inches, and include the same ports. MSRP are $899 and $1,199 respectively.

Also included is two new plasma displays. The 42 inch PL4272N has a "wide-pixel 1024x768 resolution and a brighter 10,000:1 contrast ratio while the premium PL5027N adds a true 1366x768 panel and the same improved contrast." The MSRP on those two TVs are $1,399 and $2,099.

Source:
Electronista

After rumors emerged that Microsoft was considering supporting Blu ray in the future, the company has put their foot down and stated that they have "absolutely no plans" to support any format besides HD DVD.

The rumors, mainly based on Peter Moore's January comments in which he suggested the company might be willing to adapt to consumer needs, have been refuelled recently by tech website around the internet.

"We're fully committed to HD-DVD and have absolutely no plans to support other optical formats," confirmed Microsoft on its Gamerscore marketing blog.

"We firmly stand behind the HD-DVD format as the best choice for consumers. Current reports indicating that Microsoft has a back-up plan which includes Blu-ray support are incorrect," detailed the company.

Lets put the rumors to bed for now.

Source:
GI.biz

In a large announcement yesterday, Apple and Coke have said they will be teaming up in Europe to offer one of, if not the largest music promotions in the continent's history.

Starting later this month, and ending in August, the companies will give away 2 billion music downloads to drinkers of Coke products. Apple also plans to give away concert tickets and iPods.

There will be a limited edition Coke bottle shipping during the promotion and Apple also said that exclusive downloads of the concert performances would be available on iTunes as well.

This is a good deal if you are a big Coke product drinker, and like legal music.

Source:
BetaNews

In April, the "Big 4" music label EMI took a big step towards DRM-free music when it announced it would sell its full catalogue on iTunes for $1.29.

Today, they announced that they would be partnering with Amazon to once again bring their full catalogue DRM-free to Amazon's new, yet unnamed, music download store. Unlike iTunes however, the tracks will be available in high bitrate MP3.

"Amazon.com is synonymous with a great consumer experience, and they have become an important retail partner of ours," Eric Nicoli, CEO of EMI Group said in today's press release. "I applaud Jeff Bezos and Amazon.com for making this move. Amazon.com’s deep understanding of consumers and vast knowledge of music paves the way for a smooth entry into the digital arena. Their arrival in the digital music market will offer even more consumer choice and will be a big advance in addressing the lack of interoperability which has frustrated many music fans.”

Hopefully this will help push the market towards freedom and not the forced AAC/iPod world we live in today.

Source:
Slyck

The US Department of Justice recently proposed more severe penalties for software copyright violators, including the criminalization of "attempted" piracy and the foregoing of patent registration before prosecution.

The Attorney General, Alberto Gonzalez, submitted the "Intellectual Property Protection Act of 2007" to the US Chamber of Commerce this week. The chamber represent more than 3 million business groups and is the biggest business lobby group in the US.

"These crimes, as we all know, also have a direct impact on our economy, costing victims millions of dollars and, if left unchecked, diminishing entrepreneurship," Gonzales said.

The proposal wants to, among other things, make it a Federal crime to "attempt to commit" criminal copyright infringment.

"It is a general tenet of the criminal law that those who attempt to commit a crime but do not complete it are as morally culpable as those who succeed in doing so," the proposal states.

An example would be finding a warehouse full of DVDs but the inability to prove that any had been distributed or that there was an intent to sell. With the new proposal, you will be federally charged with "attempted" piracy, even if you had no intent to distribute those discs.

In a new effort to promote HD DVD, Toshiba said in a press release that they would be offering a "Father's Day Sale" on their HD-A2 player.

The deal is as follows and will surely bring new buyers to the table.

"From May 20 through June 16, consumers that purchase any Toshiba HD DVD player will receive a $100 in-store instant rebate."

Also:

"Toshiba continues to offer its well accepted five free HD DVD movie mail-in offer promotion. Running through July 31, 2007, consumers who purchase any Toshiba HD DVD player can get five HD DVD titles for free. Consumers can choose the five free HD DVD movies from a selection of 15".

Doing some quick math will show that after the rebate, the HD-A2 will cost you $299 USD and will come with 5 HD DVD movies that have a combined MSRP of $150 USD.

Toshiba says this promotion is for any store selling the HD-A2 and I feel it is an excellent deal for those that werent sure about moving on to next gen DVDs. Be reminded that the closest priced Blu ray player is double the price, at $600.

Source:
Press Release

First Word Records, an independent label from the U.K., has introduced a new idea in an effort to boost sales. A vinyl record that includes downloadable MP3s.

The new product, named DigiWax, should help FWR, mainly because thier primary customers are DJs.

The records are double-weight vinyl discs that each come with a unique code. With that code, the buyer can download a DRM-free 320Kbps version of the track.

The new product makes alot of sense to FWR, as DJs always want top quality for their media and so they will purchase the physical media. A digital track however, is very convinient and can be used in mixing and other endeavors. Also, it is almost impossible to lose if backed up properly and easier to carry then a vinyl.

FWR's founder talked about the reason for DRM-free music: "Once a customer has paid for the track they should be free to play it in any player," he says. "Making a legal, paid-for version of the file less useful than a copied or pirated one doesn't make sense."

He also noted that DRM made tracks unplayable in software used by DJs, such as Serato.

FWR sells their music on iTunes, Napster and Clickgroove and sees the new hybrid as an extension of choice. "This is just a little something extra for the true vinyl fans and collectors," he added.

Today, Amazon confirmed the long running rumor that it was starting a music download store to compete with Apple's iTunes. Amazon's new service will however be different than all its competitors and will only sell songs DRM-free.

Amazon said the new service will offer million of tracks from 12,000 record labels including EMI.

"Our MP3-only strategy means all the music that customers buy on Amazon is always DRM-free and plays on any device," said Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos. "We're excited to have EMI joining us in this effort and look forward to offering our customers MP3s from amazing artists like Coldplay, Norah Jones and Joss Stone."

With Amazon putting weight behind the DRM-free movement it could persuade other major labels to follow in EMI's footsteps. Universal and Warner have already admitted they are testing unprotected music, but are afraid of piracy that can come about after the tracks are purchased.

Amazon has also chosen MP3 as the format of the tracks it is selling, which means music purchased at the Amazon store will be compatible with almost all digital media players. iTunes sells its tracks in Apple's AAC format which is only really compatible with the iPod and a few other players.

For the next gen sales chart ending May 6th, as predicted, the beautiful BBC nature documnetary Planet Earth claimed the number 1 and 2 spots.

The HD DVD installment claimed the #1 spot while its rival Blu ray version came in second.

According to the Neilson charts however, the sales were very close, with Blu ray selling 95 copies for every 100 of the HD DVD version.

Rounding out the chart, was "Night at the Museum" (Blu ray), "Deja Vu" (Blu ray) and "Dreamgirls" (both).

Source:
HD Digest

Microsoft announced today that they had issued a firmware update for its Xbox 360 HD DVD add-on.

The updates include full 1080p HD support, the option to select audio output, improved parental controls, and added compatibility with HD DVD titles. Im sure owners of "Children of Men" will be happy with the latter update.

Users can choose to either update manually from Xbox.com or have the update delivered automatically when logged into Xbox Live. To have it automatically downloaded, you must be playing a movie in the drive when logged into Live.

Source:
BetaNews

Panasonic today released its DMP-BD10A Blu ray player with the somewhat cheap price tag of $600. The player will offer 7.1 channel sound and has support for Dolby TrueHD as well as DTS-HD Audio.

The player features full 1080p resolution and can upconvert standard DVDs to the HD signal. As an added incentive to buy the player, Panasonic is bundling 5 Blu ray movies for free which the company says have a combined MSRP of $150.

The movies are:"Pirates of the Caribbean, Curse of the Black Pearl", "Pirates of the Caribbean Dead Man's Chest", "Transporter", "Fantastic 4" and "Crash".

Source:
BetaNews

Today, Motorola announced that they would be replacing Apple with Napster as the source of their subscription music service for their ROKR phone line.

The new partnership would be for the US, UK, and German markets.

Initially, the companies will place "Napster To Go" on the ROKR Z6 and then see the results.

Customers would be eligible for a free month of Napster To Go and European customers will also receive five free permanent downloads.

The Z6 with Napster will be launched in a few months and the service will use Windows Media DRM.

"We are very pleased to announce this new global relationship which supports our focus on driving adoption of our subscription model by attaching to music enabled cell phones which are expected to become the dominant device for portable music over the next few years," Napster CEO Chris Gorog said.

Source:
BetaNews

An IDC study commissioned by the Business Software Alliance (BSA) reported on Tuesday that the rate of piracy globally has remained fairly stable, but as the software market grows so does the cost of the piracy to developers.

The study found that worldwide, 35 percent of all software is pirated and that for every $2 spent on legitimate software, $1 is lost to piracy.

"The good news is we are making progress, however, we still have a lot of work to do to reduce unacceptable levels of piracy," said BSA President and CEO Robert Holleyman.

The report also found that losses amounted to $40 billion USD in 2006, an increase of 15 percent from 2005. However, in a silver lining, piracy rates dropped in 62 countries and only increased in 13.

China's piracy rates dropped 10 percent from 2004-2006, but still stood at an unbelievable 82 percent. The report claims that the 10 point drop led to an extra $864 million in revenue.

"This continued decline in China's software piracy rate is quite promising," Holleyman said. "BSA is encouraged by the commitment from the Chinese government to ensure legal software use.

Russia also saw a 7 percent drop, but still stood at an astonishing 87 percent. The study also concluded that the US had the lowest rate of piracy, although it had the highest total losses, $7.3 billion USD.

Playing down concerns of underachieving sales figures, Sony America president Jack Tretton has confirmed that the company has long term plans for the PlayStation 3, at least for the next decade.

"We didn't get into PS3 for the first six months of 2007 - we're into this for the next 10 years and beyond," said Tretton.

"A million units one way or another at this point isn't going to worry us."

In agreement with Tretton's argument was IDC analyst Billy Pidgeon. "The PS3 is ahead of the market, while the Xbox 360 and the Wii were designed for immediate market impact," he said.

Pidgeon also said he expected sales of the PS3 to increase during 2008.

However, Kyoshi Shin of Japan's International Game Developers' Association, did not agree and implied that many developers were changing their focus to the rival Nintendo Wii.

"When people talk about the PS3 on chat forums, they say it's like going to a very expensive restaurant and not getting anything to eat," he added.

Source:
GI.biz

Thanks to an online audio archive developed by professors at the University of Pennsylvania, recordings of poets' work are available for free thorugh Pennsound.

According to the site, PennSound currently feautures 200 writers and over 10,000 recording contributed either by poets, fans or global scholars. The site boasts that they recently recieved rare readings by Ezra Pound, the famous poet.

Hearing any poet "makes the poems easier to move into, in some cases," said Tree Swenson, director of the Academy of American Poets in New York. "Our ears are less logical than our eyes, somehow."

She continued on by praising Pound. "Pound is a perfect example of a poet whose tone and phrasing is so distinctive."

What differentiates PennSound from the rest is that the poetry does not need to be streamed and can be downloaded in MP3 format for use offline or on portable media devices. The iPod is compatible.

Emily Warn, editor of Chicago-based poetryfoundation.org, called PennSound a "fabulous resource" and one that she feels can help expand the current audience for poetry.

"People are afraid of poetry. They don't know where to begin," Warn said. "They value it in general, they think it sharpens the intellect ... but they know very little about it."

In a new report by Forrester Research, analyst James McQuivey has called paid downloads and the Apple TV a "dead end", explaining that as more programming becomes free, consumers will swarm to that model even if they are forced to watch advertisements.

McQuivey thinks the "dead end" can get here as soon as 2008 even though the paid download market continues to grow. He expects sales to increase from $98 million USD to $279 million USD by the end of this year but he sees growth slowing to a crawl after that. He attributes all the growth to early-adopters and points out that only 9 percent of adults have paid for any type of video content online and that the tail end of early adopter sales is approaching. "Free TV streams will steal eyeshare back from paid downloads," says the report.

If this report is to be believed then Amazon Unbox, MovieLink and other paid programs are in trouble. iTunes will hit the "dead end" later due to its postition as #1 in paid downloads according to the report.

The group also specifically notes Joost as a major threat to the whole concept of paid downloads. Joost has recently raised $45 million USD and gotten content from CBS and Viacom among others. Forrester questions: "With all the top networks putting up free content at such high quality, why would people pay for downloads?"

Ok, so maybe this can be considered rumor for now, but Sony posted this list on their press site, before taking it down a couple of hours later. Its a list of updates for the PlayStation 3 firmware. Here is the list as posted by Sony and then reposted by Arstechnica:

* Users
You can now password-protect user accounts.
* Settings
[Dynamic Normalizer] has been added as an option under [Sound Settings].
[Energy Saver] has been added as an option.
[Equalizer] has been added as a feature under [Music Settings].
[Full] has been added as an option for [DVD Wide Display] under [BD / DVD Settings].
[Photo Settings] has been added as an option.
[PS / PS2 Settings] has been added as an option.
[RSS Channel Settings] has been added as an option.
[Sample Rate] has been added to [Audio CD Import] under [Music Settings].
[Screen Saver] has been expanded under [Display Settings].
The method of selecting an output resolution has been changed in [Video Output Settings] under [Display Settings].
[Theme Settings] has been added as an option.
[Zero Unused Disk Space] has been added as an option under [System Settings] > [Format Utility].
* Photo
Additional slideshow effects have been added.
[Photo Effects] have been added as a feature.
Wallpaper feature has been added.
[Zoom] has been added as a feature.
* Music
Additional visualization effects have been added.
CD information can now be entered.
Three-speed fast forward and fast reverse has been added as a feature.
* Video
Files can now be played sequentially.
Three-speed fast forward and fast reverse has been added as a feature.
You can now select [Zoom] under [Screen Mode] when playing video files saved on the hard disk or storage media.
*An appropriate USB adapter (not included) is required to use storage media with some models.
* Game
Support for PLAYSTATION®3 format software titles has been expanded.
XMB™ (XrossMediaBar) is now accessible during gameplay.
* Network
[RSS Channel] has been added as a feature.
* Friends
You can now have multiple chat sessions.
You can now select an image to use as your Avatar from [Photo].
* Other
Date and Time is now shown when the PS button is pressed.
File sorting has been changed.
[Help] has been added as a feature.
Playability status with the PS3™ system has changed for some PlayStation® and PlayStation®2 format titles.
To check on the latest status, visit the search site for compatible titles.
[Secure Delete] has been added as an option.
Some PLAYSTATION®Network features have been revised. Read more...

In his latest blog entry, Trent Reznor, lead singer of the popular band Nine Inch Nails, speaks out about music piracy and how he feels the consumer is being screwed over by the desperate record labels. It is a very interesting read with some good points I feel.

Here is the complete blog entry:

As the climate grows more and more desperate for record labels, their answer to their mostly self-inflicted wounds seems to be to screw the consumer over even more. A couple of examples that quickly come to mind:

* The ABSURD retail pricing of Year Zero in Australia. Shame on you, UMG. Year Zero is selling for $34.99 Australian dollars ($29.10 US). No wonder people steal music. Avril Lavigne's record in the same store was $21.99 ($18.21 US).
By the way, when I asked a label rep about this his response was: "It's because we know you have a real core audience that will pay whatever it costs when you put something out - you know, true fans. It's the pop stuff we have to discount to get people to buy."
So... I guess as a reward for being a "true fan" you get ripped off.

* The dreaded EURO Maxi-single. Nothing but a consumer rip-off that I've been talked into my whole career. No more. Read more...

The German music label Peppermint Jam has sent out 3636 copyright infringement notices to alleged Italian file sharers for downloading music off p2p programs such as eMule and BitTorrent.

The notices inform the file sharers that they "have been found guilty of uploading copyrighted songs". Although that is not true and just a scare tactic, the notices also tell the file sharers to immediately remove all Peppermint Jam label music from their HDDs as well as discontinue seeding any music on torrents.

In a twist, each user has been only accused of sharing a single song, most likely because subpoenaing 3636 hard drives must get very expensive.

In addition, the notices also give the alleged file sharers the opportunity to pay a one time $400 USD fee or face a "...criminal and/or a civil lawsuit brought against them."

Although this may seem like a good deal to many who just want to get it over with, if a large amount of alleged sharers admit guilt by paying up, this can give the record labels an advantage later on.

Source:
ZeroPaid

According to a report in Broadcasting & Cable, HBO CTO Bob Zitter has said that he believes that consumers would most likely accept the concept of DRM if it was called something different.

Zitter feels the technology should be marketed in a way that would let users feel they could "use content in ways they haven't before." He suggests the term "Digital Consumer Enablement" instead.

The term, "DCE", could be used to describe HBO's upcoming high-definition digital content although some believe the new "DCE" by HBO will not be compatible with control mechanisms build into current TVs.

Those beliefs have led Freedom to Tinker engineer Ed Felten to make the following comment: "So what HBO wants is to disable the analog outputs on the set-top box, so consumers have no choice but to adopt HBO's favored DRM. Which makes the nature of the 'enablement' clear. By enabling your set-top box to be incompatible with your TV, HBO will enable you to buy an expensive new TV. I understand why HBO might want this. But they ought to be honest and admit what they are doing."

Im sure "DCE" sounds good to the greedy CTO but to us consumers it sounds like more of a rip off.

According to the official blog at The Pirate Bay, a hacker or group of hackers found a security hole on the site and used it to steal the full user database of all registered users.

According to the blog entry, the admins of the site claim to know who stole the database but assured users that their passwords were stored "very encrypted" and there should be no worries.

The admins recommend changing passwords as soon as possible and updating their password other sites where the might be using the same password and username.

Here is the complete blog entry:

User data stolen but not unsecured

Hi, we have some sad news, but don't be alarmed...

Some people (and yes, we know who) found a security hole on our web site (in fact, actually in this blog).

They have got a copy of the user database. That is, your username and passwords. But, the passwords are stored encrypted, so it's not a big deal, but it's still very sad that it's out there. All e-mails are for instance encrypted as well, they will most likely not be able to decrypt them either (they are _very_ encrypted).

We encourage all our users to change passwords as soon as possible - and if you have the same password on the bay as other places, you should update them as well. Read more...

The new version of the very popular BitComet torrent client, version 0.87 (stable), has a few new features.

The new version incorporates a "resource browser" to help "accelerate open web pages", although the web browser in itself isnt very fast.

BitComet now also has sidebar advertisments which means you will have to look at ads whenever you open the client up.

Here are the rest of the release notes:

GUI Improved: add an option in BT task properties dialog to add this torrent file to my shared torrent list

GUI Improved: add "view task" command to the context menu of my shared torrent list

GUI Improved: add a filter in the toolbar of peer shared torrent list

GUI Improved: display peer shared torrent file number in peer shared node of fav list

GUI Improved: add an option to enable BT task search for HTTP/FTP download source in preferences dialog

GUI Improved: add commands to import/export task list and global settings under file menu

GUI Improved: add "rename task" function in context menu of task list

GUI Improved: detail error information will be displayed in tooltip when mouse cursor hover on the red-cross icon of a task which encounter error like disk full Read more...

According to sales numbers consolidated by NPD Group for the month of March, Apple iPod sales were down as the player lost market share again.

The iPod fell below 70 percent market share for the first time since early 2006. Picking up the extra share was SanDisk which reached 11.2 percent, and Creative which reached 3.6 percent.

The Microsoft Zune stayed at 2.5 percent market share, but Microsoft said they were optimistic that they could increase share with the release of new models and international sales.

The stats report also saw Apple destop and notebook sales increase for the month.

Source:
BetaNews

Although he was quoted last month as saying that his company would perhaps support both Blu ray and HD DVD, Disney CEO Robert Iger seems to have moved his support back towards Blu ray in a new quote this week.

Last month, Iger seemed to imply that his Blu ray exclusive studio would consider joining the format neutral camp alongside Warner and Paramount. This week however, Iger made a more critical statement in support of Blu ray saying "the single greatest thing we can do right now is to not waffle, but to be very, very blunt about it, to continue our support of Blu-ray because we sense a real advantage."

Here is the full transcript of Iger's comments this week:

"We made our bed with Blu-ray because we believed more in that format for a variety of reasons; some technical in nature, some due to the fact that it simply had broader support from a variety of industries, notably the motion picture studios but also what I’ll call the consumer electronics and the tech industry.

What we are seeing lately is that sales of Blu-ray discs are outpacing HD discs by at least two to one. As more quality Blu-ray product comes on the market, which is going to happen, notably with Pirates on May 22, we actually believe that the difference or the advantage of Blu-ray is only going to widen. Read more...

Media Rights Technology (MRT) has sent cease-and-desist letters to giants Microsft, Adobe, Real and Apple claiming that their products, including Vista, Flash, RealPlayer and iTunes all infringe the DMCA.

"Together these four companies are responsible for 98 percent of the media players in the marketplace; CNN, NPR, Clear Channel, MySpace, Yahoo, and YouTube all use these infringing devices to distribute copyrighted works," said MRT CEO Hank Risan in a statement. "We will hold the responsible parties accountable. The time of suing John Doe is over."

The argument that MRT is using is kind of confusing. They are not a content owner so it seems strange that they are suing under the DMCA. They claim that the media player software created by Apple, etc, can "tune into digital music streams like Internet radio stations, many of which are transmitted without any sort of DRM attached. Although streams are designed to be ephemeral, it's trivial to use streamripper software to snag copies of the songs being played through such services."

MRT argues that the four companies should use some form of DRM to protect those streams. However, MRT only recommends one form of DRM, their very own "X1 SeCure [sic] Recording Control."

Right on the heels of Onkyo's announcement of a DTS-HD MA decoding receiver, Pioneer became the second manufacturer to announce they would be releasing such a receiver.

The top three models in Pioneer's new line, the VSX-91TXH, VSX-92TXH and VSX-94TXH all will support HDMI V1.3a connectivity.

The recievers will "seamlessly" pass 1080p video while decoding Dolby TrueHD and DTS-HD Master Lossless Audio formats.

"Pioneer continually answers the call from audio video enthusiasts seeking the ultimate in rich home theater design. Our new line of Elite A/V receivers with HDMI 1.3a connectivity allows consumers to enjoy the benefits of the new technologies being used on music and movie discs," said Dave Bales, marketing manager of audio products for the home entertainment division of Pioneer Electronics. "We're bringing the true essence of high definition emotion to the audience."

The company said the VSX-91TXH would be released in June with a suggested retail price of $1000 USD. The other two models will be released in August, with suggested prices of $1300 USD and $1600 USD.

According to a report in Chosun Ilbo, Sony is preparing to launch the PlayStation 3 in Korea next month.

Only the 60 GB unit is expected to be launched and the price will fall between 500,000 and 600,000 KRW which is equivalent to 400-500 EUR.

The report says that once the launch is OK'd by Sony Japan, the Korean branch will initiate an "aggressive" marketing campaign in the country.

The report also said that over 100,000 Xbox 360s had been sold in Korea since February 2006.

Source:
GI.biz

Today, the Chinese computer maker giant Lenovo made a deal with Microsoft to buy up to $1.3 billion USD worth of Windows Vista and Office 2007 software for the next year.

Lenovo made a similar deal last year for $1.2 billion USD and the US considered it a huge step towards fighting piracy in China.

Lenovo is the third largest computer manufacture behind Dell and HP and is hoping to gain customers as well as forge closer ties to Microsoft.

Source:
BetaNews

Joost announced today that they have raised $45 million USD from a group of investors that includes CBS and Viacom. This news comes after Joost announced they would be allowing unlimited invites for the beta version fo their service.

To date, Joost's largest problem is the quality of the content viewers can receive. Hopefully this new funding and CBS and Viacom's plans to make their content available on the service will help to solve that problem.

Source:
BetaNews

In an effort to control piracy in Asia one country at a time, Warner Bros. has announced that they will be launching a new movie download service in Hong Kong dubbed 08Media.

08Media will be offered by ViDeOnline Communications and will include many blockbusters such as the Harry Potter franchise and Superman Returns immediately when it starts. Warner hopes that by offering 100 titles initially via the new service, it will deter consumers from buying pirated copies. Warner also noted that additional titles will be released simultaneously in theaters and on the service.

"This deal fits perfectly with our philosophy of providing consumers around the world with access to our world-class entertainment," said president of Warner Bros. Jeffrey Schlesinger.

There is no set start date, or the prices of the movies, but this seems to be a smart move on Warner's part in their efforts to curb piracy.

Source:
DailyTech

At The Cable Show conference in Las Vegas this week, Comcast CEO Brian Roberts unveiled a new cable modem technology that could bring amazing speeds of 150 megabits per second. Roberts said the technology would be a good way to compete with lower cost DSL and the significantly faster FiOS. FiOS currently offers up to 50 megabits.

The new technology, Version 3.0 of the DOCSIS standard, is developed by the Cable Television Laboratories which represents all of the cable providers in the country. The new technology utilizes four channels to send data instead of just one and that "channel bonding" would enable speeds 25 times higher than most current cable modems can handle.

Roberts added that manufacturers are planning to submit DOCSIS 3.0 modems for certification later this year, and that he hopes to see the technology in the homes of customers within a couple years.

Source:
betaNews

In hopes of increasing PlayStation 3 sales for the 4th quarter 2007, Sony has announced they will launch an aggressive marketing campaign for the console that will mainly highlight the hardware's Blu ray capabilities.

Due to lagging console sales, Sony is focusing on marketing the PS3 as the "most comprehensive Blu-ray Disc player on the market."

The campaign will inlcude promoting the console's extensive studio support, superior picture and sound and even its web-enabled connectivity (although there have been no titles to feature online content yet).

"Our goal is to definitely widen our target base and not be so niche," Kim Nguyen, Sony PlayStation 3 Manager, said about the campaign, which will encompass internet, TV, print and radio.

"This is high-def entertainment messaging, where we have our exclusive software titles, and we are delivering a very powerful machine. On the movie side, you have beautiful movies that you can watch on the PS3. We are going for that larger audience," she added.

Sony did not give an exact date for the start of the campaign, but it is expected by July.

Source:
HD Digest

Trying to push the next gen HD format war in their favor, Sony has released a new notebook in their Vaio line, the VGN-FZ180U/B, that features a Blu ray burner at its core.

Although the price tag is still pretty hefty at $2149 USD, the price is much lower than any previous notebooks featuring Blu ray.

The notebook weighs a decently light 5.75 pounds and has a 15.4 inch screen. The laptop features an HDMI-out port to transfer HD video to your TV and has a Nvidia GeForce 8400M GT video card.

The notebook runs on a Core 2 Duo processor and its main attraction is a Blu ray reader and writer that can write at a slow 4x. Battery life is approximately 2 hours on charge.

Source:
NYTimes

Pioneer has announced that soon they will be releasing their second generation Elite Blu ray disc player, dubbed the Elite BDP-94HD.

The player will be a follow up to the sucessful first gen player, the BDP-HD1, but will feature several key upgrades.

A few of the upgrades are a retooled user interface, support for internal decoding of Dolby TrueHD, and enhanced networking capabilities.

"This new player is a prime example of our dedication to exceptional quality, creating sights and sounds that leave an emotional impression for movie enthusiasts," said Chris Walker, senior manager of marketing and product planning at Pioneer Electronics. "A significant aspect to a quality home theater is convenience and this unit is designed to deliver high performance with minimal user effort for a premier entertainment experience."

The player is set to hit shelves later this month with a $1000 USD price tag. Pioneer also said that the player would come with 2 vouchers for free Blu ray movie discs but did not elaborate on which movies.

Source:
HD Digest

Onkyo Electronics has announced that they will be releasing two new A/V receivers later this year, the TX-SR605 and the TX-S4806, each supporting full DTS-HD Master Lossless Audio and Dolby TrueHD decoding.

Both receivers are the first pieces of hardware capable "of decoding DTS-HD Master Lossless Audio at their full resolution, via HDMI V1.3A connections." Currently, there is no way for the home consumer to enjoy DTS-HD soundtracks on their nex gen HD DVD or Blu ray discs as, at best, current receivers have only been able to extract a standard DTS 1.5mpbs "core" audio stream from DTS-HD-encoded discs.

Both models have been added to the Onkyo website, and you can visit those pages for further technical details.

The TX-SR605 will hit shelves by late May, with a suggested retail price of $599 USD. The higher end THX Ultra 2-c certified TX-S4806 will be released later in the year with a hefty $1099 USD pricetag.

Source:
HD Digest

Peter Moore, the head of Microsoft games has said that the company is seriously considering running a Folding@home type reseach project on the Xbox 360.

The current Sony Folding@home project allows all PlayStation 3s that decide to participate, the ability to calculate data that aids medical research for Stanford University.

Idle consoles are able to simulate the processing power of a couple PCs, and Sony's initiative has brought great attention to such research projects.

"If we truly believe that we can in some way marshal the resources of a much larger installed base of Xbox 360 owners, with a processor that's of equal power to the PS3, then you have my commitment that we'll look at that," commented Moore, corporate VP of interactive entertainment at Microsoft, to The Mercury News.

"And if we believe we can add value to solving a gnarly problem such as medical problems and the health problems that Folding@home seems to be doing, then we'll certainly look at that very strongly."

So far Sony has reported 250,000 registered users for the F@h project but Moore is wary of the results,

"I'm not quite sure yet whether we're seeing real tangible results from the PlayStation 3 Folding@home initiative. We continue to look at this and see whether there's real value," he added.

In an effort to promote their upcoming Matrix box trilogy, Warner Home Video has made a 40 second trailer available online for consumers who want to see the trilogy in full HD DVD glory before the set becomes available on May 22nd.

The clip can be found here, the official HD DVD Forum consumer website. Warner lists the site as one of thier promotional partners.

The set will tout "over 35 hours of supplements" found on both 'The Ultimate Matrix Collection' and 'The Complete Matrix Trilogy' box sets. The clip also unsurprisingly promotes Toshiba HD DVD players, and the Xbox 360 add-on drive.

When the Matrix sets hit shelves at the end of the month, most in the industry expect it to be the best selling HD DVD release to date. Warner also said they would be releasing the movie in Blu ray but had no set date to do so.

Source:
HD Digest

Warner Bros. has announced that they will stop holding promotional screenings of their movies in Canada which the company says is a response to increasing movie piracy in the country.

The studio said all press and critic screenings would take place in private rooms with the audience checked for recording devices.

Although China and Russia are usually blamed as the largest sources of pirated content, Warner believes that Canada is just as big of a problem. The company claims that over the past 18 months, 70 percent of its films have been pirated in Canada and then sold to the rest of the world.

"The newly enacted policy represents the studio's response to the lack of legislation in Canada to curtail the growing wave of camcorder-shot ("camcorded") films being trafficked around the world,” Warner Bros. said in a statement.

"Despite incontrovertible evidence that film piracy has become a major economic and law enforcement issue, Canada has not adopted a federal law making camcording illegal or permitting the confiscation of equipment, and, as a result, has become the main source for most of the world's film piracy."

The company claims that within a week of a screening, a Canadian copy of the movie hits the internet before finding its way around the world.

This week, Pioneer introduced new HDTVs based on plasma technology that should have strong boosts in quality and performance.

The new TVs, the PDP5080XD and PDP6080XD will almost eliminate a concern of plat panel TVs, the inability to produce rich, deep and dark blacks. The new TVs promise 80% darker blacks than anything currently available on the market.

The new screens will boast a very nice contrast ratio of 20,000:1 due to what Pioneer calls "deep encased cell structure, crystal emissive layer and first surface color filter."

According to Pioneer, "with significantly deeper black levels (80% deeper than before), which ultimately lead to richer colours and sharper details, the new screens are unrivalled in video and audio performance."

Pioneer is calling the new line "Project KURO" (kuro is "black" in Japanese) and the TVs will support full 1080p resolutions.

There are no prices available as of now but Pioneer says the TVs will be hitting shelves soon.

Source:
DailyTech

According to Lazard Capital Markets, Sony will not have a boost in sales for the fourth quarter 2007 for its PlayStation 3 console unless it delivers a stronger software line up punch and cuts the price of the console.

Colin Sebastian, an analyst for the firm, revealed those thoughts in a note to investors saying, "We continue to believe that a significant pre-holiday ramp in PS3 unit sales is unlikely without a more robust title line-up and/or a hardware price cut."

Sebastian noted that the financial reports of a few publishers such as Activision and Ubisoft were very impressive and he expected software sales to steadily grow for the rest of 2007.

"We believe videogame sales remain generally healthy year-to-date despite tougher year-over-year comps for the remainder of 2007. We continue to expect solid 15 per cent plus growth in software sales in North America this year," Sebastian said.

Sony should use that software growth to their advantage if they hope to get a boost in sales.

Source:
GI.biz

Apple has made an announcement that they will transition their LCD displays from the old mercury-based fluorescent panels to the new LED-backlit panels. Steve Jobs commited to making Apple a more "earth-friendly" company and he confirmed that the panels will transition by the end of 2007.

The progress of this transition seems to be moving swiftly as reports have confirmed that AU Optronics and Chi Mei Optoelectronics all have LED-backlight LCD panels that are under review by Apple. So far, the 15.4-inch MacBook Pro already uses the new panel and Au Optronics and Chi Mei Optoelectronics confirmed that they have 13.3-inch and 15.4-inch panels already certified by Apple.

Source:
DailyTech

Wedbush Morgan Securities analyst Michael Pachter believes that the next gen console war will not be won by games such as Final Fantasy XIII or MGS4, but rather by exclusive movie titles like Casino Royale.

Pachter is quoted from a 207-page industry report, saying “Notwithstanding the efforts of the three console manufacturers to deliver compelling exclusive content, we expect the ultimate outcome of the console wars to be decided by the motion picture studios.”

“Should the studios embrace Sony's Blu-ray standard for high definition DVDs, we think Sony will gain an insurmountable advantage over Microsoft; should the studios embrace Sony rival Toshiba's HD-DVD format, we think that Microsoft can maintain its first mover advantage and will dominate software sales for years to come,” clarified Pachter.

Pachter goes on to speak about how he feels the console race will play out in the next few years. He belives Microsoft will hold the market until 2008, when Nintendo will take a short lead, and then fall into an even market share by the end of the year.

“Ultimately, we see Sony 'winning' the console war with 36 percent of the market, with Nintendo 'capturing' second place at 34 percent and Microsoft finishing third at 30 percent. We believe that this is essentially a dead heat, and each manufacturer will have sufficient market share to generate significant profits,” Pachter concluded.

If you have missed any of the recent NBA playoff games, the NBA Download Store is now fully open for business and has begun offering single game downloads for $3 USD and individual series for $13 USD.

Although the games have DRM that prevents it from being burnt to DVD, you can put the games in up to 3 portable media devices or seperate computers.

The games are only available to US and Canadian consumers and you must have Windows XP or higher.

According to Steve Grimes, who, as the league’s vice president of interactive services, oversees NBA.com, early sales have been “promising.”

“It’s not a big surprise: great games and surprising results have driven the most popular downloads,” Mr. Grimes said.

The recent Golden State Warriors and Dallas Mavericks series, for instance, has been selling very well just like last year's Finals between the Miami Heat and the Mavericks.

The downloads also include some very appealing features such as commercial and timeout-free coverage meaning action from whistle to whistle.

Another feature to be added soon will allow users to search the content using event tags such as shots scored, assists, and rebounds of each player and then quickly be able to find and view that segment of video footage.

One of the most popular torrent clients, uTorrent, has been updated to a new build as it moves closer to a stable 1.7 version.

Get the latest version here

Changelog

2007-05-06: Version 1.7 (build 1703)

- Change: Prioritize seed queue based off seed/peer ratio (use_seed_peer_ratio)

- Change: Sort advanced settings by name

- Fix: Some ancient modal dialog bugs where nonmodal dialogs could get activated

- Fix: Bug where one addtorrent dialog could get activated when another was already active

- Fix: Don't repeatedly retry to start if another uTorrent window is discovered but hung

- Fix: uTorrent continues normal startup if another uTorrent instance is detected and exits; previously it would inform the user uTorrent was already running and exit

- Fix: incorrect DHT announce interval

According to PCWorld, Hewlett-Packard has announced that it will be one of the first major PC builders to sell a system including a hybrid HD drive.

The company says the intended drive will be the LG GG-W-H10N, known as the "Super Multi Blue."

The drive can read both Blu ray and HD DVD discs but cannot write HD DVD. The drive can write to CD, DVD and Blu ray, the latter at only 2x speed.

HP says the drive will be available in HP systems within six weeks and also promises that the computers with the drive will have HDMIoutputs, and use HDCP-compliant GeForce 8000-series video cards.

Source:
Electronista

Belkin International has unveiled a new pink Sport Armband and "Hope" Metal cases for the first and second gen iPod Nanos.

Belkin also revealed that 10 percent of the proceeds will go to support Komen for the Cure and help fight breast cancer.

The Sport Armband "is hand washable and features "stitchless" construction with a water-resistant exterior".

The "Hope" Metal cases are "made from clear acrylic and brushed metal, featuring a soft-touch click-wheel protector."

Both are on sale now, and are priced at $30 USD. If you are in the market for Nano cases, please give these a look, as it goes to a good cause.

Source:
IpodNN

Alexander Ponosov, a Russian headmaster, has been fined half of his monthly salary for using pirated copies of Microsoft software in his school's computers.

Prosecutors in the case said Ponosov violated Microsoft's property rights by allowing his students to use 12 school computers that were running on unlicensed copies of Microsoft Windows XP and had unlicensed Office software as well.

In his defense, Ponosov said he did not know the computers had fake licenses when they were delivered by a contractor.

Illegal copies of the XP operating system can be found on the streets of Moscow for an average of $6 and the US government has urged the Russian government to crack down on such rampant piracy if it has any hope of joining the WTO.

"Today the court brought in a guilty verdict - they ordered me to pay a fine of 5,000 roubles (about $195 USD)," Ponosov told Reuters by telephone from the Perm region.

"I consider myself not guilty and I will file an appeal," he added, also noting that he had not paid the fine yet.

The Russian President, Vladimir Putin, called the case "utter nonsense" and former President Gorbachev even asked Bill Gates to intercede and stop the case.

Today, Dell announced that it has agreed to work with Microsoft and Novell Inc. in a group whose aim is to make it easier for the Windows OS and Linux to work together.

When Novell and Microsoft partnered in November 2006, Microsoft said it would offer its corporate customers a chance to license Windows as part of a package that would include maintenance and support for Novell's Suse Linux operating system.

Along with the announcement, Dell agreed to buy Suse Linux Enterprise Server certificates from Microsoft and that the computer maker will also set up services and marketing programs aimed at getting users to switch to the new Suse Linux offering.

"Dell is the first major systems provider to align with Microsoft and Novell in this collaboration, and we intend to lead in this space," Rick Becker, a vice president in Dell's product group, said in a statement.

The pact between Microsoft and Novell is "primarily aimed at the growing number of major companies and government agencies that rely on both Redmond, Wash.-based Microsoft's patent-protected Windows and Novell's open-source Linux platform to run their computers." Read more...

NYC Mayor Michael Bloomberg recently just signed a legislation that will upgrade film piracy from a simple violation with a $250 fine to a misdemeanor that will carry a maximum of six months in prison and a penalty of up to $5000.

The signing comes on the heels of the MPAA claiming that 40 percent of camcorded films come from NYC movie theaters.

The MPAA says that piracy costs US film studios upwards of $6 billion dollars each year and a new study by the group notes that the New York movie industry loses an estimated $1.5 billion per year because of piracy.

"We're going to keep the heat on the con artists, so that the real artists who make up our film industry can continue to thrive," Bloomberg said after signing the law.

Bloomberg also said that piracy not only hurts the industry but the average New Yorker who is cheated out of his money for poorly made pirated copies.

The Mayor also noted that the New York Police Department has begun cracking down on the distribution of pirated films and a recent report showed that the police had seized 195,000 counterfeit DVDs and arrested 29 bootleggers so far in 2007.

For the past few months, the MPAA has been claiming that Canada is a hotbed of piracy and that the country is the source of 50 percent of all camcording of films.

This week however, the MPAA reported that New York is responsible for 40 percent of the camcorded films. Doing some simple math we can see that the MPAA has now claimed that 90 percent of camcorded films come from Canada and New York, leaving the complete rest of North America to account for a measly 10 percent.

While obvious that these stats dont add up, the head of the U.S. National Association of Theatre Owners puts the argument to rest. He recently indicated that last year, research led the group to find that 15 states were sources of camcorded films. 90 percent coming from Canada and New York? We dont buy it.

Source:
MG.ca

In an update to our previous article here, the RIAA has sent out another round of prelitigation letters.

Announced today, the group has sent out 402 new letters to 13 new schools. The schools are as follows:

"Brandeis University (15 pre-litigation settlement letters), Duke University (35), Iowa State University (15), Massachusetts Institute of Technology – MIT (23), Northern Illinois University (50), Syracuse University (20), Tufts University (15), University of Georgia (19), University of Iowa (25), University of Southern California (50), University of South Florida (50), University of Tennessee (50), and the University of Texas - Austin (35)."

We will see how this new round of schools responds to the bullying.

A new study released by Ipsos, says that although in general CD sales continue to slide, the US population are still buying physical CDs from thier favorite band.

Although they can download the music from stores such as iTunes and Napster, the survey shows that the allure of supporting the group by buying a physical CD is still overwhelming.

"For new releases from a favorite artist, physical CDs remain the primary method of acquisition among US Music Downloaders aged 12 or older. 62% of US Downloaders purchased a physical CD of their favorite artist’s last release versus just 28% who paid to download one or more individual tracks," the study found.

Although that news was good for popular artists and older artists that have been around a long time, the survey also showed some bleaker stats. Ipsos found "that the number of US citizens that purchased 1 CD in the last six months has declined by 15% since 2002. In 2002, approximately 63% of Americans bought a CD in the previous six months. This number now hovers around 51%."

The study showed that although people are still willing to buy CDs from their favorite artists they are not so keen to experiment with their money on new acts. For this, they would rather download the track and perhaps waste the 99 cents instead of the $15 USD a physical CD costs. It is time that the music industry begins to understand that logic and move even more towards online music stores.

GameTap, the subscription-based video game on demand service, has announced that starting May 31st they will be offering up to 60 of its classic video games for free via a web-based app launcher called the Lite Player.

The new free service will be supported by banner advertisements played in the player right before the game loads. In order to access the Lite Player you have to first register for a free "Green level membership" at GameTap.

Gametap also announced that the company will be launching some titles simultaneously with its retail release date in store. Tomb Raider Anniversary, set the be released on May 29th in retail outlets, will also be immediately available at GameTap.

GameTap usually costs $10 a month, or $7 a month if you pay for a full year in advance.

Source:
DailyTech

YouTube has announced that they will extend their revenue sharing partnership beyond big commercial content firms such as NBC, to regular uploaders.

Many popular uploaders, such as the guys behind the "Ask a Ninja" series, have long asked for a revenue sharing and it seems YouTube has finally taken action.

The first uploader added to the partnership is the essayist LisaNova the "creative mastermind behind Don't Be A Douche Bag, a treatise on modern rage."

YouTube has said that only a "select" few will enjoy the partnership for now and that anyone who feels they should get paid can register an interest with the company. There is however, no idea how much the sharing will be, and when the company will start paying.

YouTube says you have to have "built and maintained an audience" to be considered.

Source:
TheRegister

AACS LA businees group head Michael Ayers has made the first public comments since the 32-hex-digit media processing key was posted on Digg and then thousands of other web pages. He told BBC that the group was tracking down those responsible for the post and reserves the right to take serious legal action against them.

"There is no intent from us to interfere with people's right to discuss copy protection," the AACS LA's Michael Ayers told BBC technology editor Darren Waters. "We respect free speech... But a line is crossed when we start seeing keys being distributed and tools for circumvention. You step outside of the realm of protected free speech then."

Ayers' comments seem to point to the possibilty that a legal concern could emerge from just by saying the code, on the grounds that it constitutes a breach of provisions of the DMCA.

The AACS LA's position is that it is illegal to say something that can be used in the circuvention of copyright. If that is true, then I'm sure millions of you are violating federal law right this instant.

Ayers also confirmed that the key had been revoked and is now useless. This will cause a problem however, for users that paid for software that use the "09 f9" media key. "As newer HD DVD discs are distributed, revocation keys extracted from those discs by player software will cause software that uses the "09 F9" media key not to work."

Last week, Google and Microsoft competed in a very public face-off for internet advertising giant Double Click and Google won with a final bid of $3.1 billion.

The final price left many wondering what Microsoft's true motives were. At the time of the final bid, Microsft had double the amount of available cash in its bank than Google did and could have easily outbid Google had it chose to.

Today, Forbes reported that Microsoft was in negotiations to acquire Yahoo! in a deal that could be worth up to $50 billion USD. According to Forbes, Microsoft "is feeling greater pressure to compete in the online advertising space."

Microsoft would also love to catch up to Google in search. MSN Search has been marginally increasing in users but adding Yahoo would skyrocket the company into a different level.

Microsoft has also asked regulators to closely monitor the Google-DoubleClick deal, and has loudly voiced its opinion against the deal.

Source:
Dailytech

Pioneer has announced that will be releasing a Blu ray Disc drive for the PC with a suggested retail price of $299 USD. The player, the BDC-2202 will be available starting in June, and while it is not a standalone player, the new drive should help bring in consumers who were scared of Blu ray's otherwise very expensive price tag.

Here are some specs of the drive:
The BDC-2202 can read BD-ROM/BD-R/BD-RE at up to 5X and can read BD-ROM (DL) and BD-R/-RE (DL) at up to 2X speed. The drive can also read and write digital content to DVD and CD.

“With the BDC-2202, computer savvy consumers are now privy to what was previously only available to professional users. In addition to maintaining the same benefits of current optical disc drives, the included software means users can now enjoy their favorite Blu-ray Disc movies as well as their own personal disc creations,” said Andy Parsons, senior vice president at Pioneer Electronics (USA) Inc.

The next cheapest Blu ray player is the PlayStation 3 at double the price of the BDC-2202 and many consumers with home theater PCs should enjoy the cheaper alternative.

The competing format, HD DVD has a $199 add-on drive for the Xbox 360 and an entry level standalone player, the Toshiba HD-A2 for $399. Pioneer's new drive will close the gap in prices and could forseeably help Blu ray increase their small lead in movie sales.

According to an interview with eWeek, Robbie Bach, the president of Microsoft's entertainment and devices division, has said that the company's console business will begin making a profit starting next year.

"It's a business that will be profitable next year. We'll make money next year and that will be the first time, which is pretty exciting," he said.

This interview comes on the heels of last weeks announcement that falling Xbox 360 sales had led to a 21 percent drop in revenue for the entertainment and devices division in the first quarter 2007. Although the losses were less than the comparable period of 2006, they were still a hefty $315 million USD.

Bach noted that revenue from games, Xbox Live, and accesory sales would help contribute to bringing the console production back int profitability.

"Xbox is the hardest piece of consumer electronics hardware to produce in the world, no debate," he said, admitting that "costs are a little higher than we'd like".

Microsoft doesn't expect to make a profit on hardware alone, but "we'll probably be gross margin neutral on that over the life cycle of the product, and try to break even on that".

After weeks of constant complaints from HD DVD buyers, Universal has finally issued a statement regarding the playback issues on a few of their new releases.

In late March, many users complained of playback issues for the title "Children of Men" especially on their Xbox 360 HD DVD add on. More recently, the title "The Good Shepherd" and a couple other Universal titles have had reported playback issues.

Today, the studio acknowledged the problems and launched a new disc replacement program for those affected. The full statement from the studio is as follows:

"Universal is currently investigating reports that Children of Men, The Good Shepherd, and select other discs not playing properly in some HD DVD players. While we believe this is limited to a small number of HD DVD discs, Universal is offering a replacement service for any customers who are experiencing this problem. We are still investigating the cause and will provide further updates as we get them. Any customer problems should be directed to USHE.ConsumerRelations@worldmarkinc.com."

If you have had any playback issues with Universal titles, hopefully these new replacement discs will solve them.

According to Sony sources quoted in Smarthouse, a new PlayStation will be available in less than 18 months.

The console will not be entirely new, say the sources, and will include the same architecture as the PS3 with the exception of a new bay drive and attachment area. The new console however, will include an extensive media center software suite for managing content being streamed to a TV or Hi Fi source.

It would seem that the new updates will try to convert the PS3 to a home entertainment hub from a gaming machine.
“We have even looked at a Sony home server based on PlayStation technology. This would allow consumers to connect home automation devices to the Sony server while also delivering online gaming and access to an extensive movie and music library,” said one Sony source.

Based on these sources, and the industry shift into home entertainment space, it seems very possible that a new PlayStation console (not a PlayStation 4) is in the works.

Although it never made it out of Japan, Sony Corp. released a similar product in 2003 called the PSX. The PSX was a home entertainment center based on the PS2 hardware and also included DVD recordable functionality. Sales were poor.

US Congress has begun sending out "surveys" to the presidents of 19 leading Universities hoping to receive answers in regards to what the university is planning on doing to curb piracy on campus networks.

House Judiciary Committee member Lamar Smith (R-TX)however, made it clear that these surveys were not innocent. "If we do not receive acceptable answers, Congress will be forced to act," Smith said in a statement.

The universities that received that survey are: Boston University, Columbia University, Duke University, Howard University, Michigan State University, North Carolina State University, Ohio University, Purdue University, Rochester Institute of Technology, University of California at Los Angeles, University of Massachusetts at Amherst, University of Massachusetts at Boston, University of Michigan, University of Pennsylvania, University of Nebraska at Lincoln, University of South Carolina, University of Tennessee, University of Wisconsin at Madison, and Vanderbilt University.

"The fact that copyright piracy is not unique to college and university campuses is not an excuse for higher education officials to fail to take responsible steps to eliminate such activity nor to appropriately sanction such conduct when discovered," the letter reads.

After Blockbuster announced its first quarter earnings yesterday, a few things became clear. The company had gained market share on rival Netflix but at the loss of profit. Losses were $46.4 million total on revenue of $1.47 billion compared to the same quarter in 2006 where there was a loss of only $1.9 million on revenue of $1.4 billion.

Subscriber growth was up according to Blockbuster chairman and CEO John Antioco: "The first quarter of 2007 was our highest subscriber growth quarter ever, surpassing even the initial success of the program and providing clear testimony to the consumer appeal of our integrated online and in-store offering".

Antioco also stated that the company gained 800,000 new subscribers during the quarter bringing their total close to 3 million. He said the company hopes to reach 4 million subscribers by the end of 2007.

Although Blockbuster had a greater growth than Netflix did for the quarter, Netflix's 6.8 million subscribers still dwarfs that of Blockbuster.

However, the growth is coming at a price. The company's new Total Accesss Program, which allows users to return their online rentals in-store in exchange for a free rental is very costly. Blockbuster also runs the risk of cannibilizing their brick and mortar rental store business, as online rentals skyrocket and in-store rentals shrink.

Creative has announced that they will be releasing a rival to the iPod Shuffle, named the ZEN Stone. The tiny 1 GB flash-based player will cost $39.99 and can hold up to 250 songs and will compete against the $79.99 2nd gen Shuffles.

The ZEN Stone will be available on May 14th in black, blue, green, red, pink, and white.

"The Creative ZEN Stone, at just $39.99, opens up a huge new market for MP3 players," said Creative chairman and CEO Sim Wong Hoo. "This is an incredible price for everyone to get a superior quality MP3 player capable of holding up to 250 songs. Whether it's your only player or a second player to take with you anywhere, the low price lets you think of MP3 players in a whole new way. You can loan it to a friend just like you would a CD or a mix tape and not have to worry about it, but you'll like it so much that you'll want another, so you always have one with you."

Along with the ZEN Stone, Creative will be releasing the companion TravelSound Zen Stone, which turns the MP3 player into a portable speaker system. The TravelSound operates on AAA batteries and has advertised 20 hour life.

Source:
DailyTech

Corporate giants Microsoft and Apple recently asked the US Government to place Canada on its high priority piracy list arguing that the country was not doing enough to prevent the piracy of it's products.

The government however decided against it and Canada was placed instead on the lower priority list for the fourth year in a row.

It joins other countries such as Belarus, Belize, Bolivia, Brazil, Colombia, Costa Rica, Dominican Republic, Ecuador, Guatemala, Hungary, Indonesia, Italy, Jamaica, South Korea, Kuwait, Lithuania, Malaysia, Mexico, Pakistan, Peru, Philippines, Poland, Romania, Saudi Arabia, Taiwan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan and Vietnam.

The International Intellectual Property Alliance (IIPA) which represents companies like Apple and Microsoft, stated in their reoprt that "Canada’s long tenure on the USTR Watch List seems to have had no discernible effect on its copyright policy. Almost alone among developed economies in the OECD, Canada has taken no steps toward modernizing its copyright law to meet the new global minimum standards of the WIPO Internet Treaties, which Canada signed a decade ago. Its enforcement record also falls far short of what should be expected of our neighbor and largest trading partner. Read more...

Today, in an open letter, Neuros Technology has called on Apple TV hackers and coders to develop and open-source set-top box to prevent IPTV from falling into the hands of large corporations.

CEO Joe Born, in his letter said that the new box he wants to make will prevent content providers who are trying to "lock down what consumers can watch, where and when."

He also believes that to prevent that "lock down", the world needs to back the software development work that allows hardware to support wide ranges of formats and devices, making the hardware more relevant to consumers.

Of course, Neuros would profit from this new box, but Born clearly hopes to free consumers from being forced into watching what corporations want you to watch or download.

I feel this call out to these coders is a good step in protecting consumer rights but its a wonder who will answer.


Source:
RegHardware

After weeks of having a private beta period for its service, Joost has announced today that they will be moving into public beta and that they will allow their current beta testers to invite an unlimited amount of friends and family to try out the service.

If you are a current tester, than all you have to do is click on the "My Joost" area and select the "Invite Friends" widget.

Joost recently announced they had added 31 advertisers, and they two announcements should help to bring many new users to the service.

"Today marks the beginning of an exciting phase for Joost - we are officially open for business," global advertising chief David Clark said in a statement.

Joost will feature more than 150 channels from all genres which would also vary by region due to the deals with content providers. Joost also announced it hoped to add more content for users outside of the US soon.

If anyone has a beta invite, you know where to send it ;-)

Source:
BetaNews

Ken Kutaragi, the creator of PlayStation, has revealed that alothough he is retiring in June, he already has a vision for the PS4 and even the PS5 and 6.

According to his interview with the EE Times, Kutaragi said he was unable to talk about the "next step" until now because the PlayStation 3 had not been launched worldwide yet.

"We've introduced PS3 in Europe, so now I can openly talk about future plans", he continued.

"As a matter of course, I have the vision of Playstation 4, 5 and 6, which will merge into the network."

In the interview, Kutaragi also said that he had supplied Sony's designers with a few ideas to cut the cost of manufacturing the current PS3s.

He is now focusing on exploiting all the opportunities offered by connectivity saying "The design concept of the Cell processor is the network processor."

Although Kutaragi announced his retirement last week, in the interview he stated that he will continue to have a relationship with Sony, but for the most part, he will be working independently.

As he said, "Now I'm ready to start working with a much wider world."

Source:
EETimes

Today, Sony has announced that they will be introducing a new camera accessory for their PSP handheld.

The accessory will go on sale on May 16th in Europe only for GBP 34.99 or EUR 49.99.

The camera, named Go!Cam, will give users the option to take still images or record film footage as well as record audio thtough the built in microphone. Sony will include Go!Edit software bundled with the camera to help users edit their photos, videos and audio clips on the PSP.

''Go!Cam is fantastic news for all those PSP owners looking for something new, fun and creative," said PSP marketing manager Stephane Hareau.

"With summer around the corner and the ability to turn your PSP into a mini camcorder and capture all the best moments in your life, this is yet another reason to get a PSP and to take advantage of truly portable entertainment. It demonstrates yet again the potential, versatility and evolving nature of PSP.''

The North American release date and pricing are unknown at the moment, but the details will most likely be revealed soon.

Source:
GI.biz