News written by Andre Yoskowitz (August, 2007)

According to both the LA Times and the New York Post, Apple seems on the verge of joining the ringtone market.

Both papers report that Apple is planning to let iPhone users purchase ringtones through the iTunes store, but only the Post reports that "iPhone users would also be able to make ringtones out of songs they've already purchased from the iTunes Store."

Both papers also report that the announcement will be held at Apple's special event on September 5th in which a long overdue unveilment of new iPods is expected.

More updates on both announcements after the event.

Source:
CNet

According to TF, three more torrent tracker sites have been shut down by BREIN, the Dutch anti-piracy group. Once again at the center of the situation is Leaseweb, the web host based in the Netherlands.

Recently, BREIN took down everlasting.nu and then tried to take down the large public tracker Demonoid which immediately relocated to Canada where it remains live and well.

BREIN however, has been emboldened by small victories and yesterday moved to shut down three more Leaseweb-hosted torrent trackers, Araditracker, BitHQ, and Peerportal which combined have tracked 10,000 torrents. BREIN also said the Leasweb had given up the personal details of all the admins even though the three sites left Leaseweb for hosting elsewhere in Europe.

Tim Kuik of BREIN said “we have the names and addresses of these administrators, so we can get to these people through our contacts abroad.”

BREIN says it intends to force the admins to compensate content owners for "lost revenue" and also to prevent the sites from ever opening again. Of course, the latter has failed, as two of the three sites are already back up and fully functional. Sorry BREIN.

Source:
TF

The huge German media conglomerate Bertlesmann AG has settled another lawsuit due to their involvement with the original Napster, the infamous P2P client that brought music file sharing to the masses. The National Music Publishers' Association had alleged that Bertlesmann had encouraged copyright infringement.

In April, the conglomerate settled with Warner Music for over $100 million USD as well as settling with EMI and Universal for undisclosed amounts. For all the cases including the latest, Bertlesmann admits no wrong doing but will pay a monetary settlement.

A joint statement says the settlement only requires court approval and should be finalized in a few months.

Source:
BetaNews

Earlier today we reported that Apple has prematurely dropped NBC Universal video content from its iTunes platform. There was rumors as to why the split occurred but Apple has finally responded, giving its reasoning for the drop.

During a press release this afternoon, Apple stated that NBC asked for a huge increase in the per-episode price of their TV shows. According to Apple, NBC asked to have the price raised to $4.99 per episode, compared to the current $1.99 per episode. All other major broadcasters are signed for the next TV season at $1.99 per episode.

"We are disappointed to see NBC Universal leave iTunes because we would not agree to their dramatic price increase," said iTunes VP Eddy Cue. "We hope they will change their minds and offer their TV shows to the tens of millions of iTunes customers."

Apple also said they were dropping NBC Universal immediately instead of waiting until their contract ends in December. Apple also said that NBC owned 3 of the top 10 most downloaded shows and accounted for almost 30 percent of all TV show sales.

Source:
Dailytech

At the recent IFA consumer electronics show in Berlin, Sony Pictures Home Entertainment used the show to boast about the company's Blu-ray movie sales across the world.

According to the company, sales for the studio's movies were near one million in North America and approaching 250,000 in Europe.

The numbers, although still small, are impressive considering Blu-ray movie sales only surpassed the million mark total in April. Sony expects there to be a sales boost at the end of October however when the Spider-Man trilogy gets released.

“These sales milestones across the world illuminate the positive reception from retailers and consumers alike for Blu-ray,” said David Bishop, president of Sony Pictures Home Entertainment. “Our strong fourth quarter line-up will underscore the confidence in this format.”

Sony also took time to reiterate that Blu-ray "software now accounts for 69 percent of the total high-definition market in Europe." Although that number may seem overwhelming, many reports have put Blu-ray hardware at 90-95 percent of the market when including the PlayStation 3 thus making the 69 percent no longer so overwhelming.

YouTube said today that they had finally agreed to a royalty deal with MCPS-PRS Alliance, the organization in the UK that distributes royalties to the record industry. The deal would compensate artists for their music that is posted on the UK version of YouTube.

The deal, for an undisclosed sum, would license 10 million tracks of music and would shelter the video site from any possible legal actions.

The deal should also cover media content such as music videos, said officials knowledgeable of the deal.

"Whether it is music videos, user uploads or other audio visual content, our agreement will allow our 50,000 songwriter, composer and music publisher members to be paid when their creative talents are being enjoyed on YouTube's service across the UK," MCPS-PRS CEO Steve Porter said.

The deal is the first permanent one for YouTube anywhere in the world, as the similar agreements in North America are only temporary intended to keep both sides happy for the time being.

The royalties should be distributed according to how many times an individual artist's content is viewed but the company did admit it would be difficult to monitor the massive amount of content on YouTube.

Last month, Sony announced they were killing off their 20GB model of the PlayStation 3 and dropping the price on the 60GB model. At the same point, Sony introduced an 80GB model for $599 USD which included Motorstorm the game.

The price cut ended up giving Sony a sales spike on the console, but reports and rumors surfaced that the 60GB model was being discontinued and the end of the road has finally come for the 60GB model

Sony has stated that all inventory for the unit is now either on route to retail shelves or already sitting there. "We no longer have any inventory in SCEA warehouses. All inventory has been purchased and shipped to retailers," said SCEA communications officer Dave Karraker.

"We don't have visibility as to if that is on their store shelves or in their warehouses at this time. However, based on inventory reports from our retailers, there is ample supply still left in the channel."

Once the remaining stock finishes up that will be the end of the model and leave the 80GB unit as the only remaining PS3. At that point, Sony should have a dilemma seeing as how the price drop on previous models helped boost sales so much. We wont know until that day hits however. "We won't be making any further announcements regarding our PS3 model hardware strategy in North America until the 60GB model is exhausted and market conditions are evaluated," said a Sony representative.

According to Chart Track, the Nintendo Wii has become the fastest selling console in UK history, hitting 1 million units sold in just under 38 weeks.

In comparison, the best selling console of last generation, the PlayStation 2, hit the 1 million mark in 50 weeks and the Xbox 360 took 60 weeks.

The same data means that the Wii now has a 68 percent market share of the UK console market and with continued excellent sales of the DS, an 86 percent share of the handheld market.

"The non-stop demand for Wii even in the traditionally slow sales periods for videogames in the UK is clearly behind this record breaking achievement," added the report.

"The performance of both systems appears to indicate that unprecedented interactive entertainment experiences, provided by a combination of the revolutionary nature of DS and Wii with the increasing number of unique software titles for the system from Nintendo and third parties, are being enjoyed by both avid and new gamers of all ages."

Source:
GI.biz

Sony Europe said yesterday that they will begin shipping their latest Blu-ray disc standalone player, dubbed the BDP-S500 in Europe starting in October and that the new player will be the higher-end brother to the company's BDP-S300 which will also begin shipping in October.

The S300 will retail for 599 Euros and the S500 will retail for 899 Euros when it hits retail shelves. Both players will come bundled with the Spiderman trilogy, added Sony.

Among the featured specs are 1080p upscaling, 24p True Cinema, support for the x.v.Color standard, and HDMI. The more expensive S500 will have HDMI 1.3 as well as support for Dolby and DTS-HD1 audio.

"Blu-ray is taking off, and the BDP-S300 player is designed to give many more people a way of joining the party in style," Sony Europe Home Entertainment chief Hiro Shinohara said in a statement.

Source:
BetaNews

Sony Ericsson’s gaming guru Peter Ahnegard has hinted that the possibility of a PlayStation-branded mobile phone, a hybrid similar to the iPhone or defunct N-gage is possible and may be in the works.

“Gaming is probably the most mature content area we have today in mobile phone and Sony Ericsson has always reflected that, having games embedded on our handsets for many years,” said Ahnegard. He also added however that the company had not focused on gaming nearly as much as they did on music and imaging for which its phones are well known for.

“The power of the phones we're creating now is phenomenal,” noted Ahnegard. “Smartphones like the W960, P1 and associated families have hardware acceleration and OpenGL ES and are capable of providing gaming experiences on a level similar to PSP, certainly somewhere between PS1 and PS2.”

Ahnegard also concedes that melding a phone and game system together is challenging. “It's a tricky balance. The latest craze for slim handsets doesn't really go hand-in-hand with gaming comfort. Console controllers are bulky for a good reason and have been designed with specific elements in mind, e.g. the need to be hardwearing, ergonomically comfortable, etc. The same considerations go into our phones and there are lots of elements that affect gaming performance, from the spacing between buttons to joypad position. We have to accept that some devices simply won't be appropriate to drive some games and, in many cases, gaming or other entertainment content isn't the prime concern behind the design.”

Apple has finally confirmed that it will be holding a special event on September 5th, in which it is generally expected to unveil new versions of its iPod player which many believe will have a touch sensitive screen (like that of the iPhone) or perhaps a new flash based iPod.

There is also speculation that the Beatles will be finally getting their digital tracks available for download on iTunes.

The rumors of the new iPods have been alight for months, and validated when a website claiming it had pictures of the new iPod Nano line was asked to remove the pictures or face a lawsuit.

More updates on September 5th.

Source:
MacNN

Creative's latest Zen player, set to hit retail shelves next month, will be the first player from the company to support AAC and iTunes Plus tracks.

Additionally, the new slim PMP will have a 2.5-inch color screen and support for SD memory cards incase the onboard memory is not sufficient.

The new player will be available in three models, 4GB, 8GB and 16GB models, with $149, $199, and $299 USD price tags respectively.

The official specs read that "Video formats supported include WMV9, MJPEG, MPEG4, as well as DivX 4 and 5 and XviD. Approximately 5 hours of video and 25 hours of music playback are possible through the device."

As with most Creative players, the Zen will have built-in FM radio and a voice recorder.

Source:
BetaNews

Canadian-based Venturer Electronics has announced that they will be bringing an inexpensive HD DVD player to the market, in time for the holidays.

Dubbed the Venturer SHD7000, the standalone will feature all basic functions of an HD DVD player including 1080i output, HDMI connections, and Dolby TrueHD support.

Although there was no price set by Venturer, in its press release the company said it expected the player to be one of, if not the most inexpensive entry-level HD DVD players on the market. The player will be “sold through national retailers with retail prices expected to be one of the lowest among entry-level HD DVD players” read the statement.

With Toshiba's entry-level players hitting as low as $210 USD, the Venturer SHD7000 could conceivably be under $200 USD, which would certainly be a price that many would pay attention to.

Source:
Dailytech

The giant retailer Amazon has begun a huge promotion that should heat up the already hot next-gen format war. They have dropped the price on three Toshiba HD DVD players and the Sony PlayStation 3 as well as add combo packages that lower the price even furthur.

Purchasing the three standalones, the Toshiba HD-A2, Toshiba HD-A20, or Toshiba HD-XA2 will get you 3 HD DVD movies instantly and stacks on with the "Five Free" promotion that has been running for awhile now. At its best, the promotion will get you a Toshiba HD-A2 plus 8 movies for $211 USD. The movies instantly available are such hits as "The Departed", "300", "TMNT" and "Happy Feet" among others.

If you are an Xbox 360 owner, the deal gets even sweeter. Buying the drive will get you the 8 movies as well as an extra "King Kong" title for $180 USD.

The deal for the PlayStation is almost equally as good as the HD DVD deal. Buying the system will get you 8 Blu-ray movie titles with a final price of $472 USD.

Warner has denied the ongoing rumors that it will follow in Paramount's footsteps and drop dual support for HD discs and pick either Blu-ray or HD DVD.

The rumors began early last week when Paramount dropped dual-format releases and became exclusive to HD DVD and Warner VP Steve Nickerson, the industry's largest supporter for dual-format support, stepped down from his position at the company.

Warner Home Video spokesman Jim Noonan says however that the departure of Nickerson should not be taken as an indication of the studio's future plans. "This is not about a change in strategy," Noonan said. "This is completely [Nickerson's] call, and he will be missed. He is smart and a workhorse."

A future decision of exclusivity for Warner could be one of the final straws in pushing the format war one way or the other.

Source:
HD Digest

Sony BMG has finally begun support for Dolby TrueHD on their Blu-ray music titles, starting with "Dave Matthews & Tim Reynolds: Live at Radio City".

The disc, which is already a huge hit in standard def, will be released on Blu-ray on September 4th. The release will be Sony BMG's first ever support for the TrueHD audio on a music title.

The show was filmed with nine HD cameras and therefore is presented in full 1080p/24fps video. The audio will be available in uncompressed PCM 5.1 Surround as well as Dolby TrueHD for the first time ever.

Source:
HD Digest

Netflix, the US' largest online DVD rental service has said that its demand for HD discs, HD DVD and Blu-ray, are just about equal but also reiterated what most knowledgeable consumers know already, that the sales and rentals were tiny as compared to standard definition DVDs.

CEO Reed Hastings said that the company was still seeing low demand for HD discs but that demand was equal for both rivals.

"We carry all the Blu-ray titles and we carry all the HD DVD, so we're agnostic. And we think the solution in that market is to have the studios publish on both," said Hastings. "(Customer demand) is pretty evenly split between them (but it's) tiny, like a percent or something."

That statement is in contrast to disc sales, where Blu-ray holds a 60/40 sales margin. It should be interesting to see if those numbers change as Blu-ray standalone players increase in sales.

Source:
Netflix

While many believed it to be dead and buried, it seems AllofMP3 will be resuming service.

"The service will be resumed in the foreseeable future," a blog post from the company read. "We are doing our best at the moment to ensure that all our users can use their accounts, top up balance and order music."

The latest development follows the decision by a Russian judge to throw out the case against Denis Kvasov, the former head of Mediaservices, the parent company of the site.

The record companies have vowed to appeal the decision but they will be facing a losing battle. The Russian courts ruled that Kvasov cannot be sued under current Russian law.

Source:
BetaNews

Users logging in from the United States are no longer able to access TorrentSpy's torrent search engine and instead are redirected to a privacy notice.

"Sorry, but because you are located in the USA you cannot use the search features of the Torrentspy.com website.Torrentspy’s decision to stop accepting US visitors was NOT compelled by any Court but rather an uncertain legal climate in the US regarding user privacy and an apparent tension between US and European Union privacy laws."

TorrentSpy's owner Justin Bunnells aid the decision was made in part to comply with EU privacy laws. “We must comply with European Union privacy laws and turning off USA traffic was the only way to guarantee that protection for our users. It is not something with a time limit.”

However, on the flip side of the decision, almost 20 percent of TorrentSpy's visitors are US residents and shutting them out should prove disastrous to the site. Bunnell had this to say on the future of the site. “Whatever future awaits, the innovations of peer-to-peer technology and the jobs and opportunities it creates will take place outside of the USA.”

Recently, we reported that the infamous P2P client Limewire was set to start a DRM-free legal music store but the company didnt give any pricing information or a date for launch.

According to Dailytech however, Limewire has finally released all those details including the pricing schemes for both individual tracks and monthly subscriptions.

The service will be launched at the end of November 2007, said the company, and each individual track will cost $.99 USD. Monthly subscriptions however, will be on a tier plan. "The first monthly plan tier will allow 25 songs to be downloaded for $9.99 USD; the second tier allows 50 downloads per month for $14.99, and the third tier allows 75 downloads per month for $19.99."

Limewire also added that video content was not ready but would be available a few months into the service.

Source:
Dailytech

On Monday, Sony introduced its first ever combo HDTV/PC that included Blu-ray.

Dubbed the Vaio LT HD PC/TV, the display is a 22-inch Widescreen "all-in-one". The system has support for CableCARD technology that will allow the user to view digital cable channels without the need for a separate cable box or DVR.

The new system is powered by an Intel Core 2 Duo processor and includes 2 gigs of RAM and a fast DVD writer. The system also comes with built in 802.11b/g and Vista Ultimate preinstalled.

Other features in the expensive system are a Digital Video Recorder, 1.3-megapixel camera and echo-canceling microphone, as well as fast switching between PC and TV functions.

"The LT model has everything you need- it's a PC and HDTV set in one breathtaking device," VAIO product marketing chief Mike Abary said in a statement.

Sony Europe head David Reeves has recently said that the company has not ruled out introducing a hard drive for the PSP even though the PSP Slim is coming out soon.

"I think that it certainly is not ruled out, Reeves said in an interview.

"The only thing I would say is that the flash memory is simply so cheap - you can get an 8GB Memory Stick for under 100 Euros, and on 8GB you can get a lot of content."

"I think the big debate is - there's a point in time when you have to put a stake in the ground and say we're going to go with flash memory or we're going to go with hard drive. I don't think they've put that stake in the ground just yet," he added.

"So they're thinking about it - I think they'll get through Christmas and think about what the next step would be. You might hear more later."

Should be interesting to see what is in store for the PSP.

Source:
Gi.biz

Sharp, one of the largest LCD TV makers in the world, has unveiled that they will be selling a new set of TVs that are only 20mm (.78 inches) thick at its widest point.

Sharp also claims that the contrast ratio will be 100,000:1 and that the living contrast will be 3000:1. The display would "would reproduce 150% of the NTSC color ratio and have a 4 ms response time" as well.

The company did not say how large the new ultra thin LCD would be but only that it would weigh 55 pounds, so don't expect anything too large.

The catch, as there is always a catch, is that the TVs wont be ready to hit the market until 2010. By that time however, laser HDTVs will be emerging and LCD sales should be slowing perhaps making these TVs obsolete before they even hit retail shelves.

Source:
DailyTech

It seems that thanks to a couple of legends in the PSP homebrew scene, that the hackers have won, as a universal downgrader was released, for free, yesterday.

The software, known as Pandora's Battery is the work of well known names, Adrahil, Booster, Cswindle, Dark_AleX, Ditlew, Fanjita, Joek2100, Jim, Mathieulh, Nem, Psp250, Skylark, and TyRaNiD.

According to Dark_AleX himself, "The battery lets to downgrade any firmware version (including those that Sony releases in the future), and to unbrick bricked psp's (whatever bricked by software PSP, not only the ones bricked by that retard of Serafin), in all current hardware. Of course, we cannot be sure about future hardware, but the Firmware Update game has finally come to the end for all current psp's."

Although it is unclear whether this will work on the upcoming PSP Slim, Fanjita said the software was finally released as the it had somehow hit the blackmarket and was selling for over $1000 USD, making some people a fortune off potentially stolen software.

What makes this even more special is the opportunity to unbrick a bricked unit, making the worries of trying to downgrade a thing of the past.

According to the Financial Times, Apple has finally secured revenue sharing deals that will bring the iPhone to Europe.

Three service providers have signed the deals, T-Mobile in Germany, Orange in France, and O2 in the UK.

The deals mean Apple will receive a large 10 percent cut of all revenue "from calls and data transferred through the phones." Although it is not known how long these exclusivity deals will last, it should prove to be as long as AT&T's deal in the US, but could be as short as two years.

The new revenue sharing deal is almost unheard of in the mobile phone business as usually manufacturers get little to no cut of any revenue made from use of their phones.

For 2007, Germany, France and the UK will be the only European countries to receive the iPhone but Apple has said that they will be expanding to other parts of Europe and Asia next year.

Source:
BetaNews

According to a new report by iSuppli, the relatively unknown Vizio has jumped to the top of LCD TV sales in North America, beating out giants such as Sharp and Sony.

For the second quarter 2007, Vizio shipped 606,402 TVs, a huge 76.4 percent increase from 343,704 in the first quarter. The surge helped Vizio jump from fifth in shipments in North America to first in just one quarter.

Sony fell from third to sixth with shipments falling to 263,377 units in the second quarter, down 36.1 percent from 412,323 in the first quarter.

Sharp however, shipped more and moved into third place. iSuppli believed the added sales were due to increased availability of 8th generation Aquos panels.

“Vizio’s success is mainly due to the company expanding its retail presence to Wal-Mart and Sears at the beginning of the second quarter,” said Riddhi Patel, principal analyst, television systems for iSuppli. “The company already was selling its LCD TVs through the warehouse stores Costco, Sam’s Club and BJ's Wholesale Club—but the addition of the two new retailers gave Vizio’s sales a significant lift.”

“Americans have grown comfortable with value brands, making Vizio’s low-cost sets an alluring alternative to the established names,” Patel added.

Sony America chief Dave Karraker has proudly noted on the official PlayStaion blog that the PlayStation 3 was put through an "independent stress test" by PS3 Vault and that it had passed with flying colors.

The test, entitled “How to kill a Ps3 Console” put the console through over 200 hours of operation in various adverse conditions that no gamer would ever have to endure.

The first part of the test placed the PS3 in a typical living room with regular temperatures and such. The test then ran the machine continuously for 108 hours switching between game playing and Blu-ray movie playback. "The only recorded anomaly was a slight vibration coming from the tray area which lasted approximately 20 seconds.”

The second part of the test placed the PS3 into the back of a freezer van where the temperature began at 50 degrees Farenheit and slowly dipped down to 0. “We noticed a slight sluggishness in playback once the temperature reached 0 degrees,” the test notes. “This was maintained for the last 24 hours, with 12 hours to go we thought we were going to crash with a sudden blackout to the screen, [but] this was tracked down to condensation on the cord for the screen.”

After weeks of speculation and reports, data released by Home Media Research for the first half of 2007 finally gives a look into actual disc sales for Blu-ray and HD DVD.

The report said that total sales of Blu-ray discs for the period of January 1st to July 31st was 1.6 million units, more than double that of HD DVD which had 795,000 discs sold over the same period.

Although it has been known that Blu-ray had an almost 2-to-1 disc sale lead, the report is the first to give official figures on the amount of discs sold so far in 2007.

Of course, in the short run these numbers mean almost nothing, as both formats combined account for only 2.5% of overall disc sales this year, with standard definition DVDs still clearly leading the way.

However, DVD sales are now in a slump and HD will be the industry's next big growth area so it should be good to see how sales fare during the upcoming holiday season and beyond.

Source:
HD Digest

Over a week after the US and Canada saw price drops on the Xbox 360, Australia is finally getting the same treatment.

Starting today, the 360 will cost the same as the rival Nintendo Wii, with the Core model running A$399.95, a A$30 price cut. The Pro model will see an even bigger drop, from A$649.95 to A$579.95. The Pro models will also be shipping with an HDMI connection just like the Premium units in the US.

Microsoft also said they plan to bring the Elite and Halo 3 Special edition models to the country, but did not give a definite date as to when.

Source:
BetaNews

The infamous file sharing company LimeWire announced today that they had plans to begin a legal, authorized music store which it will eventually integrate into its hugely popular P2P client.

For the past few months, Limewire has been under intense scrutiny and pressure to clean up its business, especially after being sued by the record industry.

The legal service will have a small library to begin with, featuring music only from IRIS Distribution and Nettwerk Productions but the tracks will be available DRM-free and at 256kbps. There is no pricing details available as of yet, but the company said there will be single downloads offered as well as a subscription service.

Source:
BetaNews

Finally seeing some competition on the horizon in the form of Samsung's $1,049 dual-format hybrid player, LG has lowered the price of their "Super Blu" BH100 hybrid combo player by $200 USD.

The BH100 was the first player of its kind to hit stores but it has had no competition and therefore stayed at its $1199 price tag until today.

Critics will still mention that at $999, the player is still much more expensive than buying two standalone players separately but the price cut is a step in the right direction.

The upcoming Samsung BDP-UP5000 should prove to be a fierce competitor with the LG player because it will offer full support for both BD-Java and HDi as well as well as web-enabled features for both formats.

Source:
HD Digest

Microsoft marketing boss Chris Di Cesare has made some bold statements about the much hyped, upcoming game Halo 3 saying that he believes the game can sell more in one day then the top box office films have made in their opening weekends.

He said the target for the first day of sales was 155 million USD which would beat out the 151 million opening weekend of Spider-Man 3.

"When we opened to USD 125 million [last time], that really caught a lot of people's attention. It showed that videogames were no longer that thing that kids play in their basement," Chris Di Cesare said. "We're confident we can do better."

Di Cesare does concede that the comparison isn't entirely fair due to the high prices of Xbox 360 games as compared to a movie ticket, but still says the figures are too large to ignore.

"I recognize it's not apples to apples. But it's big business any way you cut it," added Di Cesare.

Microsoft recently announced that they had over 1 million pre-orders for the game in the US, and the advertising push for the game has been huge prompting many to believe that the game will shatter even the highest expectations.

Source:
GI.biz

Although the Beatles' digital catalogue wont be hitting iTunes until next year, Apple announced that they had made the solo works of John Lennon available on the iTunes platform.

16 tracks from EMI were posted, although many of the works were already available elsewhere. The announcement is significant because iTunes is far and away the largest legal music download store.

All the tracks are available DRM-free for $1.29 USD a track and two collections, the “Lennon Legend” and “Acoustic” will be making their digital debut on iTunes.

Apple also said for the next month, exclusive video content would be included with the albums "John Lennon/Plastic Ono Band," "Sometime in New York City,; "Walls and Bridges," "Milk and Honey" and the collections "Anthology" and "Working Class Hero."

Source:
BetaNews

Shape Services announced yesterday that it had created a new version of its IM+ for Skype client, one that works on the Apple iPhone.

The client is already available for BlackBerry, Windows Mobile, Palm OS, Symbian, and J2ME devices but the new update had been specifically developed for the touchscreen interface of the iPhone.

The new client will allow iPhone owners to make calls using SkypeOut credits or any other Skype plan to a Skype enabled PC or phone number.

"Noticing the public interest for Skype on iPhone, we decided to use our mobile IM and mobile Skype experience and develop an application for [the device's users]," CEO Igor Berezovsky said in a statement.

iPhone can learn more about the service at skypeforiphone.com.

Source:
BetaNews

Tempting consumers, Amazon has begun using last week's Xbox 360 price drops to sweeten the pot for gamers who may want to step up to HD DVD by offering a new bundle for the Elite Xbox system.

The bundle, priced at $599 USD, offers the Elite system itself, the HD DVD add-on player, and copies of "300" and "King Kong" on HD DVD. This deal is stacked with the current "5 discs free" promotion so in total you receive 7 free movies with your purchase. Amazon advertises a savings of over $240 USD off retail prices.

There is no word on how long the promotion will last, but the bundle is a flashback to last month when Amazon did a similar promotion for Blu-ray and the PlayStation 3. That deal lasted almost a month.

Source:
HD Digest

In a fierce battle with Blockbuster that seems to be ever heating up, Netflix has promised more "Watch Now" streaming movies to be included with their service plans.

Netflix has been running ads promoting “5 movies for $5”, meaning subscribers of its $4.99 plan will now have two DVD rentals and 3 online movies a month via the Watch Now streaming service.

Blockbuster however, has made changes to its Total Access that have confused both subscribers and employees alike. Apparently, if you use the service alot, then you can get free unlimited instore exchanges but if you do not then the service is more expensive.

Blockbuster spokesman Randy Hargrove wouldn’t say exactly which subscribers are being affected “for competitive reasons,” revealing only, “We’re trying to match subscribers with the plan that seems to best fit their needs based on their rental history.”

Source:
Video Business

NBC Universal has announced that they will be shooting more than 3600 hours of coverage of the 2008 Beijing Olympic Games, which is over 3 times the previous record of 1,210 hours of coverage at the 2004 Summer Olympics in Athens, Greece. Many of the hours of coverage will be shot in full HD.

The coverage will run from Aug. 8-24, 2008.

NBC Universal also said they will be carrying the Olympic programming on NBC, USA Network, MSNBC and CNBC.

The HD content would be played on USA HD and Universal HD. Telemundo would be running all Spanish-language Olympics programming.

NBColympics.com would also be host to over 2200 hours of live streaming broadband video coverage, but no word on whether it will be in HD.

Source:
MultiChannel

Cinebank, the largest video rental operator in France has developed a new and unique system for movie rentals by creating a portable hard drive that customers can use to load up at an instore kiosk then play back on their TVs via HDMI or a docking station.

The devices can hold up to 14GB of data, which is enough for over 30 movies at DVD quality.

The rentals use DRM and remain watchable for 30 days after which they expire. The kiosks can load 6 movies onto the drive in under 2 minutes.

Users pay for the movies using a prepaid card and the revenue from each rental is split between the retailer and the movie studios.

The new venture is aptly named Moovyplay and is created by the owner of Cinebank, CPFK Holding which also owns Video Futur and Video Pilote.

The system can hold up to 3000 movies which allows the rental stores to expand without actually adding physical stock.

So far, Moovyplay has licensed titles from Warner Bros. and New Line and is in talks with all the other major American movie studios. Licensing deals have also been made with nine major French distributors, including Seven Sept. and BAC.

Movie Gallery, the game and video rental outlet, posted a large loss for the second quarter of 2007 and expressed “substantial doubt” as to whether it can continue operating.

The company said "that it is not in compliance with the terms of its loans, and that if it does not reach an amended agreement with its lenders by Aug. 14 or obtain an extended forbearance period, its lenders could start foreclosure proceedings immediately."

The filing also goes on to say that the company is losing working capital and without the additional capital the company can not continue operating.

Movie Gallery, which is the second largest US rental chain posted a $561 million USD revenue with a net loss of $310 million compared to a much less substantial $25 million USD net loss last year.

Source:
Video Business

LCD TVs are now continuously beating sales of Plasma displays and as a result, iSuppli, an industry research firm has stated that Plasma revenues will peak in 2008 before beginning a steady decline in 2009.

To date, revenue growth has been pretty good for Plasmas thanks to falling average selling prices which have boosted sales. The price drops are thanks to huge competition from LCDs as well as declining costs for display materials.

Worldwide Plasma revenue is expected to rise to $8.6 billion USD for 2007, up over 11 percent from 2006. Revenue is also expected to swell to $10.2 billion USD in 2008 due to increased production of larger sized panels. iSuppli believes that after 2008 however, plasma revenue should begin a steep decline, hitting $8.7 billion USD in 2011.

"In order for plasma manufacturers to continue to be successful in the market, they must weather the storm of LCDs while focusing consumer interest on PDPs' attractive form factors and reasonable prices," Riddhi Patel, principal analyst for television systems at iSuppli, said in a statement.

For the first quarter 2007, Matsushita held 31.5% of the plasma market in terms of revenue, with LG, Samsung, Fujitsu and Pioneer rounding out the rest of the top 5.

Although Google says it will be implementing an automated filtering system later this year to stop copyrighted material from finding its way to YouTube, it seems for now, humans are employed to find the "infringing" material.

According to a report in the Wall Street Journal, BayTSP, infamous for its anti-piracy dealings worldwide has hired over 20 analysts to sit around all day and search for infringing material on YouTube and other video sharing sites. Some clients, such as Viacom ask that the analysts issue takedown notices for each and every video they find but others ask to have tons of videos logged and then have one large takedown notice sent. A recent log for one company consisted of over 100,000 videos.

BayTSP has said that it bills clients up to $500,000 USD per month to track down illegal copies of software, music and video clips and that on any given month it sends out more than a million take-down notices.

"BayTSP thinks human beings will always be needed if only to inspect automated results. There will always be something that falls into the gray area," says BayTSP CEO Mark Ishikawa. The company, as well as Viacom have faced criticism from groups such as EFF for their mistaken requests to take down non-infringing content but Ishikawa says its error rate on Web videos is only around 0.1 percent."

According to Reuters, D-Link is planning to introduce a rival to the Apple TV that will serve the same purpose as well as cost the same price.

The new device will support 802.11n wireless networking which offers enough bandwidth to deliver large media content to your TVs quickly.

The Reuters report added,"D-Link already sells these media devices, but they run at slower speeds than the Apple product, which is ahead of the rest of the industry." That is set to change however in the fourth quarter of this year when the D-Link product goes on sale for $300 USD in the US first and then moving on to other countries.

More on this when updates become available.

Source:
MacNN

A few months ago, we heard a report from Twentieth Century Fox that said that Canada was a "haven for pirates" and that over 50 percent of all camcorder recorded movies came from the country. Although there is no way those facts are completely true, it started a widespread panic for Canadian officials.

In an effort to cut down on that large number, Canadian theaters are now employing many of the same tactics that have been seen in American theaters, including a $500 CAD reward to an employee that catches a "pirate" in the act.

Serge Corriveau, Director of the Canadian Motion Picture Distributors Association, talked about a few of the new tactics, “Having people searching knapsacks and people going up and down the aisles once the movie’s started to see if they can spot somebody camcording. You can see also people with night-vision goggles searching through the crowd trying to see if they can find something.” Corriveau even said there would be metal detectors used for pre-screenings and large first day screenings.

Source:
TF

According to TorrentFreak, Google has begun filtering certain torrent results from its search engine, those that have been specifically mentioned to them in DMCA complaints.

Searching for some torrents, or even torrent trackers such as "sumotorrent" or "torrentreactor" will bring you a message on the bottom of the results screen that says, “In response to a complaint we received under the US Digital Millennium Copyright Act, we have removed 1 result(s) from this page. If you wish, you may read the DMCA complaint that caused the removal(s) at ChillingEffects.org.”

Google says the filtered results are caused only because of DMCA complaints but Chillingeffects.org is not very helpful in trying to find the complaints.

Although torrent sites usually take down files upon request within 24 hours, it is kind of sad to see that Google has begun filtering their content in the same way. Google China anyone?

Source:
TF

Although Warner has boasted that they will be the first studio to offer "Best of HD DVD" and "Best of Blu-ray" disc bundles, apparently Disney has beaten them to the punch.

This week, the gigantic retailer Costco began carrying Disney Blu-ray disc bundles, at a very discounted price as well.

According to HD Digest, "the "Action Movies" four-pack includes 'Pearl Harbor,' 'Gone in 60 Seconds,' 'The Guardian' and 'Deja Vu'; the "Family Movies" four-pack includes 'Pirates of the Caribbean: Curse of the Black Pearl,' 'Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest,' 'Invincible' and 'Eight Below'; and finally, the "Disney Movies" four-pack includes 'The Wild,' 'Chicken Little,' 'Dinosaur' and 'Bridge to Terabithia.'

Each one of the discs are the same as previously released editions of the films, with the same covert art, specs, and supplements.

Costco is selling the bundles for $85, which is a discount of over 30 percent as compared to the individual suggested retail price.

Source:
HD Digest

Earlier this week we reported that the blockbuster movie "300" had become the fastest and highest selling HD title to date.

In its first week of sales however, according to Home Media Magazine, the Blu-ray edition sold almost twice as well as its HD DVD rival.

The ratio, 65:35, is almost equal to the overall market share for HD movies, but the HD DVD camp had hoped for better sales citing general better reviews for the HD DVD version as well as an exclusive set of supplemental features.

Source:
HD Digest

For the last 4 months, EMI physical CD sales have plummeted 20 percent, however the news comes bundled with the fact that in the same time period, digital music sales were up 26 percent.

EMI was the first major label to offer its music DRM-free and it is still the only label to offer such music on iTunes despite Universal's latest turn to a DRM-free catalogue. EMI has said that the move to DRM-free has helped boost their digital sales, and that "early revenue indications for this initiative are encouraging."

Perhaps this latest news will encourage EMI to keep the path and embrace that digital music is the present and future of the industry.

Source:
Zerpaid

BenQ has introduced their new E-series of LCD monitors with very fast response time.

Each display has a 5ms pixel response time and uses BenQ's custom Senseye image processing techniques to auto balance colors for perfect accuracy in sRGB mode or boosted colors in "movie mode".

The smallest of the set is the 17 inch E700 and along with the 19 inch and 20 inch versions, all include DVI/VGA output. The 24 inch E2000W adds HDMI at 1080p.

No word on price or availability as of yet.

Source:
MacNN

Universal Music Group, in an effort to sell as many copies as possible of Amy Winehouse's newest CD have begun blocking US sales of her first album, "Frank" and are threatening to sue retailers who make it available outside of the EU.

How this is a good strategy is beyond me, as piracy will undoubtedly give interested buyers the album way before the record label releases a US version of the CD in November. Instead of letting fans buy the album, Universal would rather try pushing away potential buyers.

One merchandiser quoted in the article acknowledged that probability: "We are selling physical product that the customers want, and they are trying to stop us... In the meantime, it is flowing freely throughout the world over the Internet through the (peer-to-peer) sites."

Source:
Wired

Microsoft announced this morning that Halo 3 had become the fastest selling pre-ordered game in history, with over 1 million copies already paid for.

Hoping to add to that total, Microsoft is launching a huge promotional campaign that includes ad campaigns with Mountain Dew, 7-Eleven, Pontiac, Comcast and Burger King.

The game officially hits retail shelves on September and is by far the most hyped release for the Xbox 360 to date. Mountain Dew has even said they will be creating a halo-themed new drink called "Game Fuel" to launch near when the game does.

Source:
BetaNews

Microsoft has applauded today's federal court decision to sentence a man convicted of selling pirated MS software along with faked certificates of authenticity.

The man, Justin Harrison, was sentenced to 46 months in prison for his part in running Sales International, the company which participated in trafficking the certificates and software.

"The sentence recognizes the value of intellectual property and the threat that software piracy presents to the global economy and consumers throughout the world," Microsoft said in a press statement.

Source:
BetaNews

SpiralFrog, the much delayed but unique free music download site seems to be finally on track for launch after the company said they sent invitation emails to a private group of beta testers.

The site, which is based on an ad-supported model, which makes the user watch ads while they wait for their music to download, should be ready to go live by the end of the year revealed the company.

To date, the site has signed Universal Music Group and will have over 700,000 songs at launch.

Hopefully the site will be a success and bring with it more major record labels and more free music for consumers.

Source:
Mashable

Dell has announced that they will be expanding their experiment with Linux to key countries in Asia and Europe.

A few months back, Dell began offering notebooks and desktop PCs preloaded with Ubuntu Linux, and it seems the experiment is somewhat of a success. The PCs are now headed to the UK, Germany, and France. Chinese customers will get SUSE Linux pre installed on their Dell PCs.

Although Dell will most likely not be making extra revenue from the sale of the PCs, they have been gaining some good press with open source fans and I applaud Dell's effort.

Source:
BetaNews

According to Shacknews, Microsoft has confirmed that their new reduced price Premium Xbox 360 consoles will also be shipping with a new HDMI port.

Yes, we are offering an HDMI port for Xbox 360 simply as another choice in Xbox 360 owners’ games and entertainment experience," a Microsoft rep told Shacknews in an e-mailed statement. "Retailers are gradually introducing HDMI-enabled Xbox 360s into the channel to meet demand."

Microsoft representatives however did say that the Core system would not be receiving the same treatment as the Premium systems. "We have not announced any plans to add HDMI to the Xbox 360 Core System."

Until this week, only the Elite system had an included HDMI port, but now with a price drop, added HDMI port, and free extended warranties, Microsoft seems to be doing itself a lot of good nowadays.

Source:
Dailytech

After announcing price cuts on Xbox 360 consoles in the US, Microsoft has announced that Canadian gamers will finally get a price cut as well, with the Premium and Core systems both dropping $100 CDN to $400 and $300 CDN respectively.

Compared to the US, products sold in Canada are usually more expensive but a deflating dollar has almost put the CDN on par with the dollar. Also dropping in price is the Elite, which will now cost $500 CDN.

Source:
BetaNews

In the not-so-slow death of VHS, HD seems to be putting the final nail in the coffin.

According to a research report by Video Business, combined sales of Blu-ray and HD DVD have overtaken sales of VHS for the first half of 2007. The news however, comes on the heels of a 5 percent decline in standard DVD sales for the first half of the year versus the first half of 2006.

Although the news is hardly huge, it is still interesting to note the death of VHS in under 10 years and the small but notable decline in DVD sales. Studios, noticing the aforementioned facts, have decided to develop the HD market more in the second half of the year.

"What is likely to happen as the business starts to flatten or trend downward, is it becomes less exciting for retail and they dedicate less space to it,” said Sony Pictures Home Entertainment worldwide president David Bishop.

Source:
HD Digest

Skype has launched the latest version of their VoIP service today, dubbing the latest update Skype 3.5.

The update shifts the attention of the software towards video, allowing users to share video very easily. You can also link directly to clips on Dailymotion or Metacafe which have struck deals with Skype. The company also says anybody with a webcam can now take still photos in the middle of a video chat if they so choose.

Besides the video updates, voice features were also updated allowing for callers to "either automatically redial busy or unanswered numbers and to transfer calls to other Skype users, including groups."

Only the Windows version was updated however, so Mac and Linux users will have to wait a bit longer.

Source:
Electronista

Citing the popular feedback from US military personnel,Microsoft has announced they will be releasing a Halo 3 Military Edition Zune, that will be available exclusively at military retail stores starting later this month.

The player will come packaged in a collectible box and the device will also come pre-loaded with trailers, artwork, and music from the Halo series.

Microsoft sent 300 players to the USO of Metropolitan Washington for free as part of a special USO care package the soldiers received.

"Microsoft has been a great partner to the USO of Metropolitan Washington for several years, supporting both our U.S. soldiers and the USO's mission," says Elaine Rogers, president of the USO of Metropolitan Washington. "From Zune devices and Xbox 360 gaming consoles to new computers with the latest Windows Vista and Office software, Microsoft's technology has helped service members stay connected and entertained."

The players will sell at a discounted price to military personnel and family when the begin selling later this month.

Source:
DailyTech

Sony has begun shipping their PlayStaion 3 80GB model, returning the company's lineup to two models.

The new unit will have 20GB of extra storage, and comes bundled with a copy of Motorstorm. There are no added features to the new model, but there is one notable removal. The "emotion engine", the hardware engine used for added backwards compatibility with PS1 and PS2 games has been removed to save costs on the system.

The 60GB model continues to sell at its lowered $499 USD price tag, but analysts are awaiting an announcement that will show that the model is either canceled or will have the emotion engine removed as well.

The 80GB model will begin selling this week for $599 USD.

Source:
Electronista

Michael Pachter, one of the video game industry's leading analysts has predicted that there will be a PlayStation 2 price drop coming before the holiday season and another price drop for the PlayStation 3 alongside the release of GTA IV and MGS4 in 2008.

"Although we do not expect another PS3 price cut this year, we think a price cut for the PS2 is possible," said Pachter in his latest note to investors. "Any hardware price reduction could serve as a catalyst for sales growth later in the year."

"We do expect Sony to be in a position to cut the price of the PS3 in early 2008, when blockbuster games Grand Theft Auto IV and PS3 exclusive Metal Gear Solid 4 will launch," he added.

The PS2 is still the most played console, by far, but it is sometimes forgotten in the shadows of the "next gen" consoles. A price drop on the system should be great for sales and continue to push the system to new customers.

Source:
GI.biz

Nintendo has filed a patent which indicates it is working on motion sensing technology for use on an upcoming handheld system, all this according to the US Patent and Trademark Office.

The patent, filed at the end of March, describes "A game system includes a housing to be held by a player," and goes on to define motion through three axes: "…having change-state detecting means to detect at least one of an amount and a direction of a change applied to the housing."

The functionality seems very similar to that of a Wii-mote, but Nintendo refused to comment.

More updates as they become available.

Source:
GI.biz

This morning, Warner Home Video announced that HD sales of the blockbuster movie "300" had reached 250,000 making it easily the fastest and highest selling HD title ever.

Warner has 6 of the 10 best selling HD discs including the BBC's "Planet Earth" boxset which is the highest grossing title so far.

The company attributed that fact to the benefits of supporting both HD DVD and Blu-ray as opposed to a single format like many studios have done.

"This phenomenal response to '300' is the latest proof that our approach makes the most sense in today's market and has enabled Warner Home Video to continue to lead the market in high definition sales," Warner Home Video president Ron Sanders said.

Source:
BetaNews

Today, Sharp filed a lawsuit against Samsung claiming that the Korean TV maker violated five of its patents in relation to LCD TVs.

The lawsuit contends that Samsung has been almost copying Sharp, using similar technology for the core components of the TVs including processing techniques that help improve contrast and image quality of the LCD panels.

Although Samsung has not commented on the suit, Sharp says it is a result of failed negotiations by the two companies to "establish a licensing deal for the patents."

Sharp is demanding a jury trial and is hoping for monetary rewards as well as an injunction on Samsung's LCD displays that use any of the patents in question. A decision for Sharp would effectively block most of Samsung's LCD TVs from being shipped to the US, and would be devastating to the company.

Source:
Electronista

Sources in Taiwan's semiconductor business have said that Apple is almost done preparing a flash-based video iPod, one that could be ready for shipment in September.

The new model will have 16GB of flash memory and may be a replacement for the current flash-based iPod Nano. The sources believe the introduction of the players would take place at the Apple Expo event in September.

This news could be problematic due to the recent Samsung power outage that literally disrupted the worldwide production of flash memory.

Samsung, which has since resumed output, said there would be no problems for customers. "We have assured our key flash chip clients that there would be no supply problem," said Samsung's semiconductor head Hwang Chang-gyu.

Source:
Electronista

According to a report by the Scotland on Sunday, the BBC will be making a return to the videogame market by expanding its new iPlayer to offer games content.

Media boss Simon Nelson is expected to reveal the news officially next week at the Edinburgh Interactive Festival. He is expected to speak on the 14th and he will discuss how games will once again become part of the BBC's media portfolio.

Currently, the BBC offers games via its CBBC and CBeebies channels and it also offers a few flash based games on its web channels.

The iPlayer, which was launched in July as an on-demand TV service will be expanded to offer game content following the trend Nelson has started since becoming media boss. He has so far expanded the BBC brand on the internet, DAB digital radio, digital television, and mobile phones.

Source:
GI.biz

Lucky and Flo, the two trained dogs infamous for helping to bust pirates have been credited with another significant counterfeit disc piracy bust in Malaysia.

The dogs, which are trained to sniff out pirated optical discs, have been credited with helping break many large piracy rings, but have recently been out of commission after a bounty was placed on their heads by a Malaysian piracy group not happy with the work the dogs had been doing.

In the latest victory against piracy, the dogs helped find a factory in which MPAA and Ministry of Domestic Trade & Consumer Affairs officials seized 18,000 bootleg movies including some very new ones such as the Transformers and The Simpsons Movie. Officials said 4 suspects were arrested as well. Apparently, in an effort to thwart the dogs, the factory was packed with 300 bags of fertilizer to mask the smell of the discs.

"Lucky and Flo have done it once again. Their deployment in Malaysia has been a great success. And this is only because the MDTCA has and continues to show tremendous leadership in tackling the piracy problem" said Mike Ellis, Senior Vice President and Regional Director, Asia-Pacific for the MPAA. "The Malaysian government's aggressive enforcement measures send a clear message that piracy will not be tolerated. We therefore remain fully committed to support them in their operations."

Timothy Hall was sentenced to two years in prison and a $1200 USD fine yesterday, for pleading guilty to selling unauthorized video games on his website.

He pleaded guilty to one count of criminal copyright infringement in May after he was caught selling thousands of copied games on his website, Morbidbackups.net. Hall sold games for the Xbox, GameCube, PlayStation 2, and Wii and also sold TV series on DVD.

For the five year period started in 2001, Hall made more than $266,000 in profits from selling the counterfeit games, and he acknowledged the fact when pleading guilty.

Back in May, undercover FBI agents placed orders for over 70 Xbox games and the 4 full seasons of the hit show "24" and they received every disc as promised.

Source:
Yahoo!

Sharp, one of the largest makers of LCD TVs has forecasted that over the next year, the average price of the TVs will drop 25% as competition continues to rise.

Toshihiko Hirobe, the deputy general manager of Sharp's LCD business said "The price of LCD TVs in the 40-inch category, currently about $2,600 to $2,700, will fall to less than $2,000 by the end of this year...Prices for 30-inch models are hitting bottom."

According to Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc., shipments of LCDs will outpace similar plasma models five-to-one for the year.

"In Japan, the competition is almost over, with the LCD industry the winner," Hirobe said from the company's newest factory, "In the U.S., full high-definition LCD TVs will gain a big market share and there will be no room for plasma TVs."

Lehman also reported that shipments of LCD TVs should surge 76 percent to 74 million units this year.

This is certainly interesting news for those looking forward to buying a new LCD TV soon. Maybe waiting will pay off in the long run.

Source:
Bloomberg

A teen girl in Virginia was arrested and now faces up to a year in jail and a $2500 USD fine after recording a 20 second clip from the movie Transformers to show her little brother.

The girl recorded the clip on a borrowed Canon Power Shot camera and was arrested minutes later on the charges that she was a pirate. The girl, understandably was terrified. “I was crying, I’ve never been in trouble before.” She hoped to get her little brother hyped to go pay and see the movie by recording a small clip of the action.

Obviously the girl was not planning to sell the 20 second clip, but the theater, in Arlington, did not care. Kendrick Macdowell, a representative National Association of Theater Owners said in a response: “We cannot educate theater managers to be judges and juries in what is acceptable. Theater managers cannot distinguish between good and bad stealing.”

Although she should have known better than to point a camera at a movie screen in this day in age, I hope the case is thrown out.

Source:
TF

TorrentSpy, the public torrent tracker in the midst of a lawsuit from the MPAA is apparently advertising, even promoting fake torrent clients that are bundled with malicious adware.

The clients, created by a Swedish company called Wakenet, look like legit torrent clients but instead just infect computers with adware that is hard to uninstall.

The clients, Get-Torrent, Torrent101, TorrentQ and BitRoll result in a barrage of annoying popups, yet TorrentSpy is actively promoting them. Underneath each download, the words "Use Get-Torrent for high speed downloads" appears, tricking users into downloading them.

The malware bundled with the clients is a program called "Cidhelp" that can be removed from Windows default add/remove in the Control Panel. However, most anti-virus programs will cripple the malware but not completely delete it, making it impossible to uninstall.

The Pirate Bay and Mininova both banned the clients from advertising using Adbrite but apparently money is more important to TorrentSpy then the safety of their user's computers.

The producers of Good Copy, Bad Copy, a new documentary that analyzes the current state of global music piracy, have decided to release the movie for free, and via torrents in XviD format.

The movie goes in depth on the line between "fair use" and piracy and includes many interviews, including some notable ones like DJ Danger Mouse, the creator of the "Grey Album", Lawerence Lessig (founder of Creative Commons), the admins of The Pirate Bay, and an official from the MPAA.

Although we cannot directly link to the torrent, it can be found at The Pirate Bay as well as on the official website here.

Source:
Slashdot

Until today, Canadians had little to no choices if they wanted DRM-free music, but that is now set to change.

EMI has announced that they made a partnership with Puretracks, a Canadian authorized music store to offer EMI's DRM-free digital catalogue at $1.29 CAD a track.

"EMI Music Canada wants to give fans the best possible digital music buying experience, and our premium download offering is a fundamental part of our strategy," said Deane Cameron, President EMI Music Canada.

"We are proud that Puretracks is the first Canadian retailer to offer EMI's DRM-free downloads in the MP3 format. We are confident that artists on EMI's roster, as well as those on our distributed labels will see a good lift in digital sales as a result."

Unauthorized P2P downloading is still not considered illegal in Canada so it will be interesting to see how well the venture works.

Source:
Slyck

Today, Pioneer introduced their new top of the line Blu-ray PC drive, the BDR-202.

The burner can write at 4x speed for write-once discs and 2x for rewritable Blu-ray recordable discs.

According to Pioneer, the drive also includes extra measures to increase stability for better writing.Ultra DRA cancels all drive shaking during the burning process and adds a liquid equalizer during playback.

The burner can also write DVDs at 12x speed and CDs at 24x.

The BDR-202 is already available in Europe for the equivalent of $675 USD but a US version bundled with CyberLink BD should be available in the US soon with a retail price of $650.

Source:
Electronista

The Verbatim Corporation has announced that they too will be offering mini Blu-ray recordable media.

The specs offered by Verbatim say the discs, with 7.5GB capacity, can provide almost one hour of continuous video when HD (1920×1080i) is used and almost 2 hours when recorded at 1440×1080i.

The mini Blu-ray discs will be available later this month in Japan and the company will begin shipping the discs elsewhere as BD-compatible camcorders become more readily available.

According to DailyTech, the new discs will "share similar performance characteristics of its standard (12 cm) BD media, including technologies developed by MKM to guard against deterioration. The proprietary hard-coat finish on Verbatim BD media features anti-static and anti-scratch properties for added protection against scratches, fingerprints and dust particles that can occur during normal camcorder and home use."

The media are currently in production in Japan.

Source:
DailyTech

Recently, Mercury Computer Systems released its MultiCore Plus SDK for the PlayStation 3. The event is pretty notable because it is one of the very few third-party developments kits available for game consoles.

Mercury has said however, that they are not at all interested in games but rather in military interests citing the PlayStation's Cell processor as being a very powerful yet still pretty cheap platform.

Mercury is using the PS3's ability to load Linux and pairing it with its SDK to perform powerful tasks such as running a node in a computing cluster.

The new SDK wont be cheap however, a single-seat license will cost you $399 USD.

Source:
Electronista

Take-Two Interactive, the company behind the much hyped upcoming game Grand Theft Auto: IV has announced that the game will not be hitting stores in late 2007 as planned but instead in early 2008 due to a few delays.

The company said it needed more time to "perfect the game" and the chairman of Take-Two said in a statement that "certain elements of development proved to be more time-intensive than expected," and also admitted that its dual development, for both the PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360, added largely to the delays.

"We owe it to the game's millions of fans, to our dedicated development team, and to our shareholders to make sure that Grand Theft Auto IV is a groundbreaking gaming experience that takes maximum advantage of next generation technology," chairman Strauss Zelnick said in a statement.

Because of the move, Take-Two said they would now post a loss on revenues of about $1 billion instead of breaking even on revenue of about $1.25 billion.

Source:
BetaNews

Early this morning, Amazon began taking pre-orders for three new, third generation HD DVD players by Toshiba.

Once the players started seeing significant orders placed however, Amazon took down the listings and canceled all orders. Before they were taken down, a few key but vague details were revealed, and Engadget listed them.

The new players were dubbed the HD-A3, HD-A30, and the HD-A35 with each one costing $299, $399 and $499 USD respectively. Each also had a release date of October 1st 2007.

It is now anticipated that Toshiba will reveal the full details of the players at the CEDIA Expo next month.

More details as they come in.

Source:
HD Digest

The former owner of the infamous, but legendary torrent tracker Suprnova.org has donated the domain to the admins of another notorious tracker The Pirate Bay and it seems Suprnova will be relaunched soon.

A few months ago, "Sloncek", the former owner, donated the domain to TPB but the admins have kept it quiet while planning its relaunch. The admins left a couple cryptic blog entries including one that said "The past, the present and the future. It’s all the same, but one thing’s for sure, we will radiate for weeks." It is clear now that that message was in reference to Suprnova.

Sloncek responded to the news by finally telling why he decided to donate the domain. “The domain was doing nothing. I know that domain has some nostalgic value and some people would be more then happy to see it back online. I don’t use it, and TPB is the only team that I know will use it correctly.”

“I will be involved in the community [Forums] on a separated domain”, Sloncek said and added, “The site has to look almost exactly like it looked before. They can upgrade it, but they cannot change it appearance completely. We further agreed that the site has to be community orientated (not private).”

Plusmo has announced they will be launching their free and customizable iPhone widget service and that the service will give users access to over 20,000 widgets.

Plusmo allows for users to create personalized widgets from Web services, XML/RSS-based services, and user-generated content such as videos, photos and blogs.

The widgets "serve as miniature Web applications that offer traffic reports, store locators, games, blogs, specialized searches, live sports updates, and more."

You can also use Plusmo on such Java-enabled phones like Blackberries and other Symbian devices.

Source:
IpodNN

TDK, partners of the optical disc maker Imation, have introduced the first recordable mini Blu-ray discs. The discs make their debut in conjunction with Hitachi's mini Blu-ray recordable camcorder.

The 3-inch discs can store 7.5GB of data on a single layer which is far more than the 4.36GB of data a single layer standard DVD-5 can hold. The single layer mini discs can hold up to one hour of widescreen 1080i video.

TDK also claims the discs are almost completely scratch-proof, due to its use of DURABIS protective coating.

The discs can be loading into any tray loading standalone or computer Blu-ray drive but will be expensive. A single disc will run you $25 USD or $35 for a rewritable version.

The discs will be available for sale in September, one month before the camcorders.

Source:
Electronista

Creative has introduced an upgrade to their Zen V Plus line of MP3 players, with the latest player being able to hold 16GB of flash memory which is double the space of the largest iPod Nano or any other comparable flash based player.

The Zen V Plus line distinguishes itself from other comparable players by its selection of skin colors, its 1.5-inch OLED screen, and line-in recording functions.

The player also supports MP3, WMA and IMA ADPCM music files.

The player currently is only sold in Singapore for $260 USD but Creative expects to move it to the US in the next few months.

Source:
MacNN

IGN has announced that they are expanding their digital retail store, Direct2Drive into the UK and that at launch the store will have more than 100 games available.

Some of the more popular games include Civilization IV, Elder Scrolls Oblivion, and S.T.A.L.K.E.R. Recently, IGN has made deals with large publishers such as Activision, Take-Two, and THQ.

“Direct2Drive is the quickest and most convenient way to own a game. We want users to discover games through our comprehensive editorial coverage on IGN.com, try before they buy on FilePlanet.com and then buy the ones they love via Direct2Drive,” said Justin Keeling, European general manager, IGN Entertainment.

The US launch of D2D was in October 2004 and the store now holds loads of games from such publishers as Blizzard, Atari and Vivendi as well as the above mentioned publishers.

The US store also allows for downloading of movies and TV shows and the UK site will eventually be expanded to allow the same.

Source:
GI.biz

According to Warwick Light, the sales and marketing manager for Sony New Zealand, the company is set to launch a digital tuner for the PlayStation 3 in early 2008, a device that will offer programmable TV recording functions for the console.

Light told The Press the device would "transform the PS3 capabilities so as to meet people's changing entertainment needs."

"We're also hoping next year – about the same time that Freeview launches its terrestrial broadcasting service – to release a digital tuner for the PS3, turning it into a programmable TV recorder," said Light.

Freeview is expected to launch in March 2008.

Source:
GI.Biz

After hearing comments from the developers of Project Gotham Racing 4, Sony cited the comments to justify its large investment in Blu-ray discs.

The developers said they were having trouble fitting the game data into a single DVD-9. "We took a lot of heat at launch for including Blu-ray in PS3. Now it looks like that investment is being justified," said SCEA spokesman Dave Karraker.

"Next generation games simply need more space on the disc to contain all that high definition content. Take a look at Lair, for example, already pushing 25GB of content, and that is a first-generation title. At 50GB storage capacity, Blu-ray gives the PS3 plenty of headroom for developers to fully realize their visions well into the future."

Bizarre Creations, the developer of PGR4, recently revealed that due to having trouble fitting all the texture data on a single DVD, players would not "see different times of day in each racing location." Clearly a few hundred MB of extra texture data is worth hundreds of millions of dollars in investments.

Source:
GI.biz

According to Joystiq, the large electronics retailer Best Buy has effectively discontinued offering the Xbox 360 Core package.

An internal Best Buy document confirms the discontinuation by clearly showing the Core system as having a new status of "Deleted" and having a "pref code: y" which signifies that “replenishment of this item is not expected.”

Microsoft representatives denied the reports however, saying the "Xbox 360 Core remains an important member of the Xbox 360 family.”

Recently, Sony dropped the 20GB model of its PlayStation 3 so Microsoft dropping the lesser Core model would not be unheard of. It is not clear whether the decision is exclusive to Best Buy, but we will keep you updated on any developments.

Source:
DailyTech

This morning, the US Government announced it has executed 32 search warrants in 16 different states in an effort to crackdown on console mod chip makers, claiming the chips cause the video game industry billions of dollars in lost revenue each year.

The warrants were out for companies that produce mod chips, which effectively bypass any copyright protection, allowing gamers to play downloaded or copied games. To date, there is no mod chip for the Sony PlayStation 3 but there are for the PS2, Microsoft Xbox, Nintendo Wii and there are hacked DVD drives for the Xbox 360.

The warrants were the result of investigations by Immigrations and Customs Enforcement (ICE). According to ICE, seizures of pirated works increased by 83 percent in 2006.

"Illicit devices like the ones targeted today are created with one purpose in mind, subverting copyright protections," ICE Homeland Security assistant secretary Julie Myers said. "These crimes cost legitimate businesses billions of dollars annually and facilitate multiple other layers of criminality, such as smuggling, software piracy and money laundering."

The US Chamber of Commerce has made a very bold statement, claiming that counterfeiting and piracy, of all types, cost the US economy over $200 billion each year.