News written by Andre Yoskowitz (March, 2008)

Sony BMG, one of the Big 4 record labels, has had a lawsuit filed against them by PointDev, a French software company that claims the label is using pirated versions of its "Ideal Migration" software.

Making the situation even more embarrassing, it seems Sony BMG got themselves in trouble. A company employee called PointDev for help in using the software.

“When PointDev’s technicians addressed the support request they found that the software had been activated with a stolen authorisation key,” reads the original story.

“PointDev got a search warrant for court bailiffs to raid a Sony BMG office in January. The raid discovered four Sony BMG servers containing unlicenced copies of PointDev’s software, so the servers were seized as evidence.”

“We are not interested in an amicable settlement,” added Agustoni Paul-Henry, the CEO of PointDev (translated from French). “It is not just a question of money but more importantly in principle...the rate of software piracy in the company is very high. According to the Business Software Alliance, a association of the major publishers in the market, 47% of programs used in the company are unlawfully used in France...We are forced to watch every week if key software pirates are not on the Internet. We are a small company of six employees. Instead of trying to protect us, we could spend this time to develop ourselves,” finished Paul-Henry Agustoni.

After last month's "three strikes and you're off the Internet" announcement in the UK was made official, it seems the large ISP Virgin Media will be the first to implement the plan.

Although record labels have been pushing for a plan like this for years, it is not even known yet whether the actual measures are legal. The government is expected to have a meeting on that very subject sometime next month. Despite this fact, BPI and Virgin say they will enact a pilot program using the infamous "three strikes and you're off the Internet".

A spokesman for Virgin Media said: "We have been in discussions with rights holders organisations about how a voluntary scheme could work. We are taking this problem seriously and would favour a sensible voluntary solution...the BPI has teams of technicians to trace illegal music downloading to individual accounts. It will hand these account numbers over to Virgin Media, which will match them to names and addresses."

BPI plans to send warning letters for first time offenders, a temporary suspension of Internet services for the "second strike" and finally a full disconnection for the final strike.

Microsoft has announced a partnership with the Safran Digital Group that will bring original content to gamers via Xbox Live.

SDG added that "full details of film-makers, talent and specific type of content will be disclosed at a later date," but other reports have disclosed that "the first batch of content will be six scripted shows running at under 10 minutes, and focusing on specific genres such as horror and comedy."

The group was established and run by Peter Safran, a producer and agent who produced "Meet the Spartans" and "Over Her Dead Body" and represented actors and film makers such as Sean "P. Diddy" Combs, David Schwimmer, Jason Friedberg and Aaron Seltzer.

The shorts will be the first ever original content created for the Xbox Live Video Marketplace.

Verizon has announced at CTIA today that it will be releasing a rebranded version of the HTC Touch dubbed the Verizon XV6900.

The exceptional touchscreen device is almost exactly like the the Touch but with a white color scheme instead of the usual black. The XV6900 retains "HTC's custom TouchFlo front-end software, a 2-megapixel camera, and Office Mobile editing." The new device also has faster 3G Internet access.

The company says the phone stays as close to the HTC Touch as possible, aside from a few slight improvements to the Windows Mobile 6 interface. The device will be available in Verizon's online and retail shops by the end of April and will sell for $350 USD with a two-year contract.

TeleGeography, a research firm, has reported that New Zealand will be expanding its cellular networks and that iPhones could be on the way.

Telecom New Zealand's director of mobile operations, Martin Butler added that it is a "good inference that the company will bring over the iPhone." The communications company is currently building a brand new $300 million NZD GSM/EDGE network which should be able to support the 850MHz Frequency of the iPhone. The new expansion of the network is expected by November and will reach 97 percent of New Zealand's residents.

Butler also noted however that the network will support 3G broadband, but for the first few months or so it will only cover NZ's three largest cities, Auckland, Wellington and Christchurch. "To achieve anything above EDGE -- a "2.5G" technology -- many users will need to fall back to the company's CDMA network, which supports EVDO Revision A," he added.

Although they closed down the service last June, it seems that Sony BMG is looking to resurrect its Connect music service.

Sony CEO Rolf Schmidt-Holtz has confirmed the launch of what users are calling "Son of Connect", a service which gives unlimited access to the label's catalog for about €8 per month.

Making the service more interesting is that if a subscriber quits the service then they can still keep some of the downloaded music. The songs will also be playable in non-Sony devices.

No other labels have joined into the service as of yet so the general consensus is that Sony will fail for the third time in a row.

Sony's first digital store, PressPlay, failed due to high DRM restrictions and a Limited catalog. The original Connect was only supported on Sony's own ATRAC players and had crippling DRM as well.

Vivitar has announced the upcoming launch of the DVR565HD High Definition Camcorder which should hit retailers by the end of April.

The company did not give all that much information on the upcoming camcorder but did say it will "record in H.264/MPEG4 high definition at 720p with a Frame rate of 30 frames per second, plays back at 1080i and comes complete with HDMI cable for playback on HD Ready TVs."

The device will be available in two colors, silver and black and will be "compact in shape and size". The camcorder will have a 3-inch flip out color display, "a rechargeable lithium ion battery and will support SD cards up to 4GB."

If Bank of America is to be believed, then the upcoming 3G Apple iPhone will hit retailers by June and that up to 11 million iPhones will be produced by the Q3 2008.

The new report, from Bank of America analyst Scott Craig, has not been confirmed by Apple or AT&T. "Our latest Channel checks point to a significant production build of a 3G iPhone beginning in the month of June after an initial small build in May," he said.

Craig estimates that 3 million 3G iPhones will be produced by June and then 8 million more in the Q3. Craig previously estimated that there would only be 8 million units produced for the whole year.

Recently other analysts reported that Apple had ordered 10 million 3G iPhones from manufacturers so Craig's estimates don't seem to far out of reach.

During a speech to Silicon Valley executives at the Tech Museum of Innovation, Attorney General Michael Mukasey warned that the "enormous" profits made from counterfeiting and piracy is flowing into the hands of terrorists and terrorist organizations.

Mukasey added that the "economy and national security of the United States are increasingly threatened by violations involving copyrighted software code, patented inventions and trademarked properties."

Terrorists are starting to perform more like organized crime and are increasingly using piracy and counterfeiting money to fund their operations, Mukasey says.

The Attorney General also noted that his department was now giving more resources to prosecuting intellectual property crimes, which has led to a 40 percent increase in IP cases since 2005.

"Criminal syndicates, and in some cases even terrorist groups, view IP crime as a lucrative business and see it as a low-risk way to fund other activities," Mukasey said. "A primary goal of our IP enforcement mission is to show these criminals that they're wrong."

The giant personal computer manufacturer Dell has announced that it will begin offering its Inspiron 1525 notebooks with an option for an internal Blu-ray drive, and that configurations will start at $879 USD.

The only hitch is that customers will need to select a processor that is non-Celeron and at least 1.83GHz processing power. Of course, if you are trying to add Blu-ray to your configuration you are most likely looking for a nice computer.

The base price for the line is $499 USD and adding the cheapest eligible processor and the drive adds $380 USD to the price. Be noted that the drive can only read BD and if you want burning capabilities then the price jumps another $200 USD.

Besides the drive the system has a 15.4 inch display that has up to 720p Resolution. Also notable, the system has an HDMI port.

Although the format has been technically dead for over a month, HD DVD is now officially dead, as the HD DVD Promotion Group has formally dissolved itself, marking a quiet end to the High Definition format.

After Toshiba's decision last month to abandon the format, other big players involved have all pulled out as well, including Microsoft, Universal Studios, Paramount Studios and more recently, Best Buy.

The Promotion group, the organization in charge of persuading the world to adopt HD DVD, has now voted to disband, leaving HD DVD and its branding to the DVD Forum.

Apple has announced the release of the second beta for the iPhone SDK which allows developers to build third party applications for the iPhone and similarly built iPod Touch.

The new updated download includes "the interface builder, the Xcode integrated development environment, the iPhone simulator, frameworks and samples, compilers, and the Shark analysis tool."

It was recently reported that 100,000 copies of the original SDK were downloaded in the first week after it was launched. Apple has also said that Firmware upgrade for the device will hit consumers in June.

Thanks to the launch of Pokemon Ranger: Battonage, the Nintendo DS has once again moved to the top of hardware sales in Japan.

The popular handheld sold 65,000 units for the week ending March 23, up from a relatively low 53,000 the previous week.

After a strong previous week, the PlayStation Portable fell two places to third and sold 60,000 units, slightly lower than last week's 62,000.

The perennial winner, the Nintendo Wii, moved up to second place with just over 62,000 units sold for the week. The rest of the chart, thanks to data by MediaCreate, is as follows:

* 1. Nintendo DS (65,055)
* 2. Nintendo Wii (62,404)
* 3. PlayStation Portable (59,833)
* 4. PlayStation 3 (12,874)
* 5. PlayStation 2 (9990)
* 6. Xbox 360 (1407)

It seems that Best Buy is completely dropping HD DVD, and is pulling all titles and players from its retail stores.

Instead of putting the remaining discs through a firesale, Best Buy managers have received a memorandum to remove all HD DVD products from store shelves. The memorandum reads, “Mosaic [field marketing company] will be in all stores before open on March 26 to pull and send back all HD-DVD titles. The representative will fill out the sendback paperwork and create a manifest for each individual tote. They'll also flex all Blu-ray inventory across the space where HD-DVD was featured.”

The memo even goes as far as to day that all signs promoting HD DVD must go as well. “Mosaic will remove any header signs that list both Blu-ray and HD-DVD, as they are no longer valid signs in the store. Stores will be responsible to order additional Blu-ray sign rails to fill in the space Left by the removed HD-DVD signs.”

Cox Communications has announced that they will be partnering with Rhapsody music service to create Cox Rhapsody, a service giving Cox High Speed Internet customers the ability to access and download millions of songs for $12.99 a month.

"Our customers have expressed that music is a big part of their lives, and Cox Rhapsody allows us to make their favorite songs even more accessible," stated Mark Snow, vice president of marketing for Cox Northern Virginia. "Cox Rhapsody provides our customers unlimited access to their music anywhere -- at home, work or while traveling."

According to the press release, the following packages are available:

Cox Rhapsody Free
-- Price: FREE trial service
-- Listen to 25 ad-free, high-quality Streaming radio stations from RealNetworks on your computer
-- Access the Rhapsody Unlimited catalog and play up to 25 on-demand songs per month on your computer

Cox Rhapsody Radio
-- Price: $4.99/month
-- Listen to more than 80 ad-free, high-quality streaming radio stations from RealNetworks on your computer
-- Includes ability to "skip" tracks and create personalized radio stations based on artist preference
-- Access the Rhapsody Unlimited catalog and play up to 25 on-demand songs per month on your computer Read more...

BCI/Eclipse, an indie movie distributor, has announced they have canceled all HD DVD titles and will be moving onto Blu-ray for future releases.

In 2006 BCI became the first indie distributor to announce HD DVD support but delays have slowed distribution to a few select titles. The company says the HD DVD Title 'My Favorite Brunette'/'Son of Paleface' will be the last release in the format and all future support is over.

Any fans of BCI titles can still look forward to seeing the titles on Blu-ray as the company is "planning a more aggressive Blu-ray line-up for later this year, although exact titles and street dates have yet to be determined."

Citing strong sales of 'No Country for Old Men,', the Blu-ray camp has now topped 9 million discs sold since its launch.

BD sales for the first 11 weeks of 2008 is about 3 million units, adding to the 6 million that the format had sold since its inception in Q2 2006. The sales are clearly stronger than past years and analysts predict 16 million sold total for 2008.

For the week ended March 16th, sales jumped to 319,000, buoyed by Disney's 'No Country for Old Men.' The movie moved 68,000 Blu-ray copies in its first week, and destroyed all competitors for the week including the healthy selling new Blu-ray release "Hitman".

In related news, HD DVD titles, now to be found for under $20 USD at most retailers continue to sell out and move at a vigorous pace after the format's demise last month.

The UK-based company Velocix (formerly known as CacheLogic), has announced that beginning today it will be "offering live Streaming television content with a hybrid P2P live streaming client."

So far live streaming has been a challenge to content providers as the audience for live streaming events are all trying to access the video simultaneously, putting a strain on resources.

The popular IPTV platform Joost recently made an attempt to live stream some NCAA "March Madness" basketball games via a partnership with CBS but "connections to CBS feeds were reported to have been dropped at inopportune periods."

Velocix, on the other hand, offers a BitTorrent-compatible hybrid P2P client "which turns each viewer into a sort of peer host for additional viewers." The streams are then available in Flash format or Windows Media format.

The company also says it has made deals with the BBC and Babelgum as well as Bollywood.tv, and Chic.tv.

The giant video sharing site YouTube has removed a few video clips that had prompted Turkish authorities to Block access to the site in January. The company hopes the move will lead the Turkish authorities to open access to the site in a timely fashion.

In a statement the site says, "we reviewed the videos that led to the most recent ban on access and removed them because of their content, which violate YouTube's content policy."

The clips, which Turkish authorities alleged were disrespectful to Mustafa Kemal Ataturk, the founder of modern Turkey, are now removed but the site remains blocked. Under Turkish law, it is a federal crime to even insult Ataturk.

The popular Chinese movie download site Jeboo has filed a lawsuit against the MPA for libel . The statement in question implies that Jeboo admitted to piracy as part of a past legal settlement. Jeboo claims it did no such admission.

MPA officials refused comment on the suit, which was filed in a Beijing court last week.

Back in September, Walt Disney Pictures, 20th Century Fox, Columbia Pictures, Universal Pictures and Paramount
Five studios sued Jeboo in Shanghai for "supplying Internet cafes with computer software that allowed users to download and watch illegal copies of 20 Hollywood movies, including "Hitch" and "Pirates of the Caribbean 2: Dead Man's Chest.""

Earlier this month the MPA announced that Jeboo had settled with the studios and that the defendants "confirmed the cessation of infringing activities,", apologized to the studios and also paid monetary compensation.

Company official Xie Jiangping says the settlement is confidential but that Jeboo never admitted to piracy. "We cannot tolerate statements that don't reflect the truth," he added.

After being accused of shaping and throttling P2P traffic, Bell Canada has admitted to doing so, claiming that it is within its rights to do so.

The company admitted that it implemented "load balancing to manage Bandwidth demand," and did so without telling customers or even the ISPs involved. The accusations thrown at Bell first occurred when Canadian ISP Teksavvy, an ISP popular among P2P users because traffic is guaranteed to not be throttled, noticed the "load balancing" and contacted Bell.

Last October Bell Canada's own ISP, Sympatico, admitted to throttling P2P traffic on BitTorrent, Gnutella, Limewire, Kazaa, eDonkey, eMule, and WinMX which they claimed "use a large portion of bandwidth during peak hours." The measures were supposedly only used during "peak hours" however.

What is more infuriating to customers is the fact that now traffic is affected for not only Sympatico users but customers of other ISPs that have connections through Bell. In response to what many customers have called "anti-competitive measures" being used by Bell a letter campaign is being formed with the Canadian Competition Bureau.

The group letter reads, "Bell Canada has overstepped its authority and are flexing their muscle (infrastructure control) to impose their will on independent competitors. I am a customer of an independent ISP who has purchased bandwidth and my provider is at the mercy of this underhanded tactic being employed by Bell Canada."

Netflix has announced that it will be giving all customers affected by Monday's outage a 5 percent credit on their monthly bill.

Netflix spokesman Steve Swasey would not give the total amount of customers affected or how much would be refunded but did mention that the credit will have no "material impact on the company's financial operations."

"The key thing here is: This was completely proactive on Netflix's part. There's no requirement for Netflix to do this, no obligation. There was no request for it. We thought it was the right thing to do," Swasey said.

Swasey added that many of Netflix's 7.5 million members return DVDs on Mondays after watching them over the weekend and the outage delayed those hoping to receive their movies by Tuesday. The ratings system is still down but all ordering and shipping is back online.

The Bodleian Library in Oxford and Folger Shakespeare Library in Washington DC have announced plans to reproduce all 75 editions of William Shakespeare's plays printed before 1641, online.

"There are no surviving manuscripts of Shakespeare's plays in his handwriting so the quartos are the closest we can get to what Shakespeare really wanted," said Bodleian spokeswoman Oana Romocea.

"Some quartos do, however, have his annotations around the printed text."

Many of the quartos are currently only available to scholars and the project is aimed to make the prints more accessible to the general public. The libraries say the downloading of the quartos will begin in April and take about a year to complete.

"We (at the Bodleian) have about 55 copies, although some of them are duplicates," said Romocea.

"Each quarto is different, so it's very interesting from a research perspective to compare the quartos.

"For example, some of the famous lines in 'Hamlet' exist in one quarto and in another they don't, or they are very different."

Nintendo's WiiWare service has finally launched in Japan and the company says there will be nine titles available on launch day.

Following the Japanese launch is the North American launch on May 12th and finally the European launch (to be known as Wii Software not WiiWare) sometime later this year. Each title will cost between 500 and 1500 Wii points and the list, courtesy of GI.biz is:

Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles: My Life as a King
Plonpos
Okiraku Ping Pong
Kotoba no Puzzle Mojipittan
Dr. Mario
Saku Saku Animal Panic
Star Solider R
Tenshi Solitaire
Pokémon Ranch

At the same time, Sega has announced that it will be bringing Master System classics Wonder Boy and Fantasy Zone to Nintendo's Virtual Console with more titles promised soon.

Although not confirmed by Apple, Gartner analyst Ken Dulaney, the research firm's iPhone expert, has said that Apple has "already placed orders for 10 million 3G iPhones" meaning the launch could be sooner rather than later.

Last year it was confirmed that a 3G version of the popular iPhone was coming, but Apple has not given an exact date as to when it is arriving. Analysts have suggested that June 2008 is the expected date, but there has been no confirmation.

In a phone interview, Dulaney also speculated that the upcoming 3G version would sport a OLED screen. Talks of an OLED screen have not been thrown around in the past but it would make sense considering the amount of energy the new phone should drain.

Buffalo Technology has introduced its first ever external optical disc drive, a dual format HD drive dubbed the BRHC-6316U2.

The drive can read and write single or dual layer Blu-ray discs at an impressive 6x speed and can read HD DVD at 3x. As is standard, the drive can read and write DVDs at 16x.

Buffalo adds that the drive is very simple to use and connects via USB to any PC using a plug and play connection. Included with the drive is Buffalo's own TurboUSB with Secure Lock Ware for drive encryption and the popular burning suite Nero 8 .

The company says the drive will be available for sale on Amazon, Dabs.com, Misco and Play.com for about £284 plus VAT.

Motorola has announced that it will be splitting off its mobile phone business into a seperate company by 2009.

The move is seen as a way to acquiesce to the demands of major investor Carl Icahn and the split will leave Motorola as a company that makes TV set-top boxes, wireless equipment, public-safety radios and bar-code scanners.

Motorola CEO Greg Brown has this to say about the latest move. "The decision will provide improved flexibility, more tailored capital structures, and increased management focus - as well as more targeted investment opportunities for our shareholders."

"Clearly there's a lot more work to be done," Brown added. "It will be a product-led recovery. We're taking steps now to ensure and solidify that direction."

THX chief scientist Laurie Fincham has been quoted as saying that despite its victory over HD DVD, Blu-ray will not become the next standard in the home entertainment market.

"Personally, I think it's too late for Blu-ray. I think consumers will only become interested in replacing DVD when HD movies becomes available on flash memory. Do we really need another spinning format?" Fincham is quoted in the Home Cinema Choice Magazine.

"In the future I want to be able to carry four to five movies around with me in a wallet, or walk into a store and have someone copy me a movie to a USB device. Stores will like that idea, because it's all about having zero inventory. I don't want to take up shelf space with dozens of HD movies."

"By the time Blu-ray really finds a mass market, we will have 128GB cards. I would guess that getting studios to supply movies on media cards, or offer downloads, will be a lot easier than getting them to sign up to support a disc format," he concluded.

Starz has announced it is now offering its TV series on Apple's iTunes platform, marking the second time a premium network has offered its programming on the platform.

Marc DeBevoise, Senior Vice President of business development and strategy for Starz, made the announcement yesterday at the Future of Television West conference in Hollywood. Starz' shows "Head Case" and "Hollywood residential" are the only two current series available on iTunes.

Anonymous sources have cited that the BBC is planning to make a similar move this week but it is not certain if the shows will be for the UK only or will also be available on iTunes in Canada and the US.

The BBC has reported that its English-language Website seems to be available to Internet users in China after years of it being blocked in the country.

For the time being, the BBC says stories that would normally be blocked can be accessed and that even sensitive subjects such as the protests in Tibet are available. The Chinese-language site however, remains blocked.

The move, which comes amidst growing backlash against the Chinese government for its actions in Tibet and its censoring of news about the country, had to have been government approved or is just a temporary glitch.

Recently, China blocked access to the gigantic video sharing site YouTube after videos of the Tibetan protests surfaced and the government also announced it will be punishing other video sharing sites for similar reasons.

Trey Parker and Matt Stone, the creators of the hit show South Park have announced the launch of a website that streams every episode of South Park ever created, and for free.

The site, South Park Digital Studios will include every episode, 3,000 video clips and an avatar creator. There were also be a dozen "Flash, Shockwave and Java powered mini games" as well as a retail store and download section for wallpapers and the like.

The site, SouthParkStudios.com, comes as part of the creators latest contract with Comedy Central, the cable network which broadcasts the show. Stone and Parker agreed to write three more seasons and Comedy Central will financially back the site. Parker and Stone also have equal partnership in the new digital venture.

“Three more years of South Park will give us the opportunity to offend that many more people,” Stone announced in a prepared statement. “And since Trey and I are in charge of the digital side of South Park, we can offend people on their cellphones, game consoles, and computers too. It's all very exciting for us.”

Quanta and ooVoo have announced that they have teamed up to "produce the first plug-and-play, real-time, high-definition video chat and messaging system" for HDTVs.

Citing the continuing growth in HDTV sales and the huge popularity of chat and instant message programs the companies say the product will "easily turn a laptop computer, HDTV or desktop PC into a high-definition chat screen."

Quanta Research Institute, the research Center for the world’s largest laptop maker would develop the hardware, while it would be ooVoo's job to work on the interface and any related software. In the end the two companies hope to develop technology that "would allow users to plug the product into an HDTV source and the Internet as easily as they would a webcam."

The technology would utilize the H.264 codec for video Compression meaning that users would need at least "512kbps of Bandwidth for one-way 720p video feeds at 30 frames per second," which should not be an issue for anyone with DSL or cable, or better.

Plextor made a surprising announcement today when it introduced two dual-format HD optical drives, the B920SA and B300SA, both of which can read Blu-ray and HD DVD discs.

Although the HD DVD format is now obsolete, the new drives gives owners a chance to watch their HD DVD titles on a computer while also allowing them to make way for Blu-ray.

The B920SA can burn 25GB BD discs at up to 4X speed and can write CDs and DVDs at 16x. The B300SA cannot write Blu-ray discs but can read at a relatively fast 6X speed. Both drives connect through Serial ATA and will ship in March for $450 USD and $600 USD respectively. Each drive comes bundled with movie playback, burning, and editing software for Windows systems.

It appears that Sony BMG and Warner are close to signing a deal for the upcoming MySpace Music online store that would make their entire music catalogs available to the service.

The service is expected to offer individual pay-for MP3 downloads as well "as ad-subsidized free streams of music and videos." MySpace Music online is also expected to have downloadable ringtones through Jamba.

The deal has a strange compensation format however. All labels that are part of the service will be paid "a share in the venture dictated by their existing marketshare outside of MySpace." It is not clear whether sales success from the service will change the format of compensation however. Universal is expected to not make a deal for the time being because it has an ongoing copyright infringement lawsuit filed against the social networking site.

Sony, Warner and MySpace declined comment but the service is believed to be an attempt to dethrone the online market leader iTunes.

According to a study by MultiMedia Intelligence, 50 percent of all phones shipped worldwide will be music-capable by 2011. The report also estimates that the Cell phone market itself will remain flat in terms of growth with about 950 million phones being sold in 2011, same like estimates for 2008.

The mobile music business was $6 billion USD for 2008 and MMI chief researcher Frank Dickson says that music is one of the key drivers "behind future success for cellular carriers."

The study comes at a point when carrier independent music stores are becoming more and more commonplace. Apple offers its iTunes store through the iPhone's wireless and Nokia is introducing its Nokia Music Store worldwide.

Writer's Guild of America strike.

Buyers of a season pass get access to a full season of a TV show at a discounted price but because of the strike many shows did not see a full season of episodes. Some shows were even canceled or stopped indefinitely.

As a way to compensate, the company will deliver all subsequent 2007-2008 season episodes when it is possible and issue prorated refunds for shows whose seasons were permanently truncated. Additionally, all season pass holders will be "given two free video credits, good for two TV episodes, music videos and/or short films on the iTunes Store."

Roxio has announced the release of Toast 9 Titanium, the latest update in its popular disc burning software for Macs. Among the notable updates are Blu-ray support and remote Streaming.

The new Blu-ray support includes the ability "to copy both computer files and RAW Video across multiple discs" and a few of the notable compatible video sources include TiVos, EyeTVs and AVCHD camcorders. There is even the ability to burn HD video to standard DVDs. As an added promotion, the HD/BD plug-in support will be free until April 13th. After that it will cost an extra $20 USD.

The new remote streaming component, known as Streamer, allows users to "broadcast video from a Mac to any Internet-connected Mac or PC, or iPhones and iPod touches within Wi-Fi range." Users can also Capture songs from Internet radio and the tracks are automatically tagged with Title, artist, and other information.

According to TorrentFreak, torrent popularity and torrent site traffic continues to grow with every passing day despite heated efforts by anti-piracy groups such as the MPAA and IFPI to slow piracy.

Using data from the traffic Tracker Alexa, TF compiled a list of the 25 most popular torrent sites and found the amount of growth since December 2007 to be, in a word, explosive. Many saw 40 percent or higher growth. Some saw as high as 400 percent growth.

The list, compiled originally here is as follows and shows the Alexa rank for the sites for December 2007, March 2008, and the increase (or decrease).


Rank # Torrent Site Alexa Rank (Dec 07) Alexa Rank (Mar 08) Change (%)
1. mininova.org 63 53 + 19 %
2. ThePirateBay.org 182 130 + 40 %
3. isohunt.com 170 147 + 16 %
4. Torrentz.com 231 192 + 20 %
5. BtJunkie.org 689 469 + 47 %
6. torrentspy.com 376 585 - 36 %
7. TorrentReactor.net 909 616 + 48 %
8. GamesTorrents.com 942 641 + 47 %
9. TorrentPortal.com 699 697 no change
10. btmon.com 924 743 + 24 %
11. sumotorrent.com 1,894 1,101 + 72 %
12. myBittorrent.com 1,861 1,454 + 28 %
13. animesuki.com 1,738 1,473 + 18 %
14. Fulldls.com 1,448 1,646 - 12 %
15. bitdig.com 5,805 1,945 + 300 %
16. torrentz.ws 7,990 1,991 + 400 %
17. newtorrents.info 3,348 2,272 + 47 %
18. Torrent-Finder.com 3,404 2,635 + 29 %
19. TorrentBox.com 2,812 2,686 + 5 %
20. Fenopy.com 3,102 2,901 + 7 %
21. torrentvalley.com 5,276 3,014 + 75 %
22. youtorrent.com … 3,107 New!
23. TorrentReactor.to 3,016 3,313 - 9 %
24. www.zoozle.org 4,669 3,369 + 39 %
25. www.seedpeer.com 3,992 3,449 + 16 %

In an effort to get back at the US for its interference with the small country's internet gambling operations, Antigua is threatening to make US movie and music piracy legal, unless its grievances are "properly addressed and losses compensated for."

In 2003, Antigua initially claimed that the US "unlawfully prevented its online gambling operators from accessing American markets although the US allowed domestic online bets for sporting events like horse racing." At the time the country claimed $3.4 billion USD in losses and made a case with the World Trade Organization. It won the case but was only awarded $21 million USD.

Out of retaliation, Antigua is now threatening to allow (make legal)"virtually everything from pharmaceuticals to music, anything with IP protection that can be duplicated," added Mark E. Mendel, who represents Antigua in the affair.

"It is not our preferred option to punish the MPAA or others for the U.S. government's intransigence, but the U.S. has refused to negotiate fairly," he said.

Canada’s public television broadcaster CBC has announced that they will be releasing the upcoming TV show “Canada’s Next Great Prime Minister” for free via torrents. The move marks the first time a North American broadcaster will use the very popular filesharing protocol.

Although not completely confirmed, early reports show that the TV show will be published the day after the show airs on TV, DRM-free and in HD. Despite being the only North American broadcaster to have the idea, European broadcaster, especially the BBC are working on ways to distribute their content online via torrents. Torrent distribution would cut costs substantially.

Different studies have shown that approximately 50 percent of all BitTorrent downloads are TV-shows and that some hit shows such as "Heroes" can see up to 10 million downloads per new episode so it should become clear to broadcasters that torrents are a great way to get a show distributed. The only question is how to make it a profitable market.

The popular satellite-television provider DirecTV spent a hefty $1.2 million USD in 2007 lobbying the US's switch from analog to digital TV.

Other broadcasters, cable operators, and satellite providers have all been campaigning to educate consumers about the government mandated transition that is scheduled for Feb. 17, 2009.

Current cable and satellite customers have nothing to worry about, even if they have old analog TVs, because their providers will provide devices to help them with the transition. However, "viewers who get free, over-the-air programming" will now need to buy converter boxes now available in stores. The US government is providing coupon vouchers to help citizens pay for the devices if they need such help.

DirecTV spent $600,000 USD for the second half of 2007 to lobby Congress, the FCC (Federal Communications Commission) and National Telecommunications and Information Administration. The company spent $640,000 in the first half of 2007 on the same issue.

The Chinese government will be shutting down or "punishing" dozens of video-sharing sites that carry content deemed pornographic, violent or a threat to national security, announced a regulator yesterday. The news comes as China tries to tighten Internet control over the country.

Recently, the Chinese government blocked all access to YouTube after videos of protests in Tibet surfaced on the site.

The State Administration of Radio, Film and Television, which made the announcement, noted that Tudou.com, China's most popular video-sharing site, was among the sites that was being penalized.

Rules that had taken effect on January 31st ban Chinese sites from posting or distributing online video that "involves national secrets, hurts the reputation of China, disrupts social stability or promotes pornography." With the upcoming Beijing Olympics, the government is hoping to stop any bad media that might tarnish the event.

The U.S. International Trade Commission has announced that it will be investigating possible patent infringements related to Blu-ray players and peripherals, and that Sony was one of 30 companies that are included in the probe.

The probe began because of a complaint filed in February by Columbia University Professor Emeritus Gertrude Neumark Rothschild who claims that short-wavelength light-emitting diodes and laser diodes used in Blu-ray players infringe her patent.

Other notable companies besides Sony in the investigation are Nokia, Motorola Inc, LG Electronics Inc, and Panasonic maker Matsushita Electric Industrial.

Sony spokespeople refused comment as the investigation is ongoing. We will keep you updated.

Philips has finally confirmed that it will be releasing a Blu-ray player in the UK, however if you are expecting it soon, you will be disappointed. The company will be releasing the BDP7200 in October meaning consumers will have to wait over 7 months for the player.

Making the news even more disappointing is the fact that the player will only support Blu-ray Profile 1.1 despite that fact that its American counterparts will already support 2.0 by then. The company could not even confirm that the player would have an Ethernet port, meaning an update to Profile 2.0 via the internet might not happen ever.

The player is the first the UK will see from Philips, and sports 1080p Resolution, multi-channel audio decoding and digital audio optical outputs.

Activision has announced that it will be releasing the blockbuster hit game "Guitar Hero" on the world's most popular handheld, the Nintendo DS.

The new game, "Guitar Hero: On Tour" will include a plug-in accessory (pictured later) and a mock guitar-pick that will allow gamers to strum on the bottom screen.

There was no price point set yet, but Activision says the game will hit retailers in June or July. The average Nintendo DS game costs $30 USD but gamers can expect GH: OT to cost around $50 because of the peripheral.

The blockbuster franchise has made over $1 billion USD since its launch in 2005 and the DS is the best selling gaming hardware for the last few years. The combo could be lethal.

Picture courtesy of IGN:

Philips has introduced a new LCD TV, the Eco FlatTV, that it claims will reduce your current electricity bill, regardless of how much TV you watch.

According to Philips, the Eco FlatTV's backlight can be dimmed to reduce the TVs electricity draw, but more importantly, "without compromising the picture quality." The "sensor monitors the surrounding ambient lighting level and adjusts the brightness of the TV's backlight accordingly," says the company of its new feature, Ambilight.

While in standby mode the TV consumes less than 0.15W of electricity which is indeed under the average for LCD TVs. You could however, save full electricity by turning off the TV but that is neither here nor there. The TV also uses lead-free components and flame-retardant materials which are reportedly friendly on the environment. Even the package the TV is shipped in is made from all recycled materials.

Does the TV stand up to other LCDs on the market though? It seems that way. It sports full 1080p Resolution, Pixel Plus HD image enhancement as well as four HDMI ports and invisible built-in speakers. The company says the TV will cost $2200 USD when it is released in June.

Torrent.is, the largest torrent Tracker in Iceland, is facing a permanent shutdown and the probability that it will have to pay restitution to copyright owners.

In November of 2007 Torrent.is received a preliminary injunction which eventually led to a shutdown of the site and a massive 50 percent drop in overall internet traffic in Iceland. Earlier this week, at the public hearing of the case, the plaintiffs asked for the monetary damages as well as a permanent shutdown of the site.

Snæbjörn Steingrímsson, an executive with SMAIS (the Icelandic MPAA) led the investigation and said his clients had lost "a few hundred million ISK" because of the site. At its peak, the site had 26,500 active users, all in Iceland to ensure fast connectivity between peers and seeds.

Svavar Kjarrval, the head administrator of Torrent.is feels he has a strong case though. “The plaintiffs are making an outrageous claim. They argue that website and domain owners should always be responsible for copyright violations of third parties. The case could set a dangerous precedent if the court agrees with their claims.”

The Federal Constitutional Court in Germany has ruled that the identities of file sharers must remain private and can no longer be revealed to media companies that are suing them over alleged copyright infringement. For now one, only people accused of "hard" crimes such as murder and kidnapping will have their identities revealed.

Germany is known to have some of the toughest copyright laws on the planet and some reports have indicated that over 200,000 German citizens have had their identities shared with entertainment and media companies, simply so they can be threatened with future legal action for unauthorized downloads.

Christian Solmecke, a defense lawyer, gave a more in depth look into the system before this latest ruling. “Based on the data provided by Logistep and other P2P tracking enterprises, an offense is reported. The public prosecution service is obliged to investigate because a copyright infringement is a criminal offense in Germany.” The ISP would then be forced to reveal the identity of the alleged file sharer.

Mininova, the very popular torrent site has begun testing a torrent pwered video Streaming feature that would give users the chance to videos streamed from .torrent files.

When it becomes completely publicly available, it will be integrated into the "featured torrents section" where Mininova "lists all the distributors taking part in its content distribution platform."

The "Swarmplayer", as the streaming service is being dubbed, was created in collaboration with the "Tribler" team from the Technical University Delft and Free University Amsterdam.

The site is looking for people to beta test the service, say Erik, one of the admins: “We are looking for people who would like to be in the first testing group who test the software, report suggestions and bugs you find. Please reply in this topic if you want to participate in this closed beta.”

Make sure to check it out.

The upcoming PlayStation 3 Firmware update will make the console the first Blu-Ray Profile 2.0 capable player, among other updates.

The new version 2.2 firmware update will add Internet features that are expected with upcoming Blu-ray movies. Future BD-Live titles will allow customers to download new content as well as play games online, added Sony. More Profile 2.0 dedicated players have been introduced but will only be shipping later this year.

Among other new updates coming with the firmware upgrade is the ability for users to "sync specific music and photo playlists to a PSP." An improved web browser is also coming "with direct Streaming of non-Flash video" included. Users will also be able to use the PSP as a remote control for music on the PS3 and new interesting playback memory feature will let users resume Blu-ray and DVD titles from a paused point even if the movie has been ejected since the last time it was viewed.

Yesterday we reported that the Financial Times was claiming that there was talk of an unlimited subscription to the iTunes Store in the works and that the only catch would be a premium on the price of iPods and other mobile Apple products.

According to Business Week however, the claims are largely unfounded although there have been talks for an iTunes subscription model being floated around for months. The FT report claimed that for a $20-$100 USD premium on the price of iPods and iPhones users would have unlimited access, DRM-free, to iTunes music. The added revenue from the sales of the devices would then be "distributed appropriately amongst record labels."

The latest Business Week report however completely contradicts the last report. "Insiders at major music labels" have supposedly dismissed the rumors completely although Apple has yet to make an official comment.

We will keep you updated on any developments.

The IFPI (International Federation of the Phonographic Industry) has announced that they have successfully raided two servers in Hungary that were home to the very popular music release group RAGEMP3.

The announcement also said that the raid disrupted another music release group, XXL. The raid was a joint action by the IFPI, Hungarian police, and ProArt (the local copyright traffic police).

No arrests have been made and the announcement said nothing about any long term consequences for the release groups. Most likely the organizations are nowhere near decimated and its possible that the servers were not the only ones used by the groups.

The release groups, otherwise known as top sites, are "the top tier hierarchy of the online distribution world." It is where releases begin and the point from which information "trickles" down to torrent sites, newsgroups, Warez forums and finally P2P.

Texas Instruments DLP Cinema has announced that IMAX will now be using DLP Cinema projectors.

Under the new agreement, beginning in Q2 2008, any IMAX Digital projection system deployed to commercial theaters will be powered by DLP Cinema projectors.

"We are proud to work with IMAX in its development and rollout of the best digital cinema experience in the market," said Nancy Fares, business manager for DLP Cinema Products Group. "DLP Cinema projectors are the heart of every digital 2D and 3D movie experience for traditional and now large format venues. We look forward to participating in their move to digital in the months ahead."

Since the great box office success of The Polar Express on IMAX 3D, the format in itself has made a comeback and is resurgent revenue for the movie industry.

Heres hoping everyone moves to digital soon.

Dell is reportedly making a comeback to the handheld device market and could be teaming up with large manufacturer Foxconn Electronics (Hon Hai Precision Industry) to develop Windows Mobile-based handheld devices.

The company, which ended it Axim handheld line 2 years ago, has been reorganizing for a comeback since early 2007 with the hiring of Ron Garriques, a former executive vice president at Motorola in charge of its Cell phone division.

Apparently, Dell has accelerated its reorganization since "Acer's recent announcement of acquiring Taiwan-based smartphone maker E-Ten Information Systems."

The sources have also added that Foxconn is "recruiting talent from other Taiwan-based handset makers in preparation for accepting orders from Dell."

We will keep you updated.

According to Sony’s PlayStation blog, the PSP has seen its firmware updated to version 3.93 today, which comes with 20 new Internet radio players.

The new players are "organized into more specific styles of music so that PSP users can easily find what they are looking for and listen to their favorite genres." Sony has said that more than 50 percent of PSP owners use the music-playback feature of their gaming handhelds.

Internet Radio functionality was originally introduced with firmware version 3.80 and gamers can can enable the Internet Radio player by going to the Network section of the Xross Media Bar. After you install the Internet Radio feature, a new icon will appear enabling music Streaming.

Also coming with the new firmware update is Skype calling, but you will need to purchase the PSP Headset Kit to use it. The set is not available yet.

The retailer HMV has begun a promotion for gamers eagerly awaiting the upcoming Grand Theft Auto IV that will include 1000 free Xbox Live points "and vouchers worth over GBP 130."

The free XBL points are exactly double what rival retailer GAME is offering. "We've come up with what we believe to be a market-leading offer for Grand Theft Auto IV," added Duncan La Barre, online games specialist at hmv.com.

"Grand Theft Auto IV is the biggest game release of 2008, and we're pleased to offer our online customers a great deal. If there's a better deal out there, we haven't seen it," he finished.

Obviously, the deal is only for pre-orders of the 360 version of the game and will not be included on the Grand Theft Auto IV: Special Edition. The game is set for release in Europe on April 29.

Best Buy has announced that it will be giving any BB customer who purchased an HD DVD player or the Xbox 360 HD DVD add-on before February 23, 2008 a $50 USD gift card as a way to make amends.

The retailer also added that it will be distributing at most $10 million USD in cards, meaning that about 200,000 individuals bought a player from BB since the format's launch.

To receive the gift card, many customers will not have to do anything but have a phone. BB plans to locate buyers using Reward Zone and service plan program information but those that cannot be identified need to call (888) BEST BUY and supply a receipt or credit card statement with the transaction.

If you did not purchase an HD DVD player from BB but would still like to get rid of it the company is also starting a trade-in program where the "company's Online Trade-In Center will provide estimates for how much the company will pay for various Toshiba HD DVD player models. Individuals can agree to the estimate and mail in their players to receive a Best Buy gift card for that amount." Read more...

EMI has announced that they were negotiating with the biggest mobile phone handset maker in the world, Nokia, in a concentrated effort to offer its music catalog as part Nokia's upcoming "Comes with Music" offering.

"We want to be part of it. I believe strongly that when it launches we will be there, with a full offering," Wemppa Koivumaki, head of EMI Finland, said in the announcement.

The handset maker will begin selling phones under its "Comes With Music" brand in the Q3 of 2008 and the service will give users unlimited access to millions of tracks from labels worldwide.

Last December, Universal signed up for the program, being the first of the Big 4 record labels to do so.

According to EngadgetHD, the latest version of the popular WinDVD 9 Plus Blu-ray (it actually supports HD DVD as well) has finally updated support for the latest audio codecs Blu-ray has available, namely TrueHD and DTS-HD.

Also improved in the update is support for BonusView and the HD video camera Codec, AVCHD.

Of course the software is still buggy but a very effective HD video playback software for those who have made the jump to BLu-ray and HD DVD.

Channel 4 has announced they will be making content available through Apple's iTunes platform. The announcement comes just a month after the BBC made a similar decision.

The popular C4 shows "Shameless", "Skins", "Teachers", "Peep Show", "Spaced", and "Monarchy" will now all be available on iTunes. Each episode wil cost £1.89.

"Digital technology transforms our audiences’ ability to create, access and engage with our content, making it easier for us to identify the best new British creativity and bring it to a wider UK audience and catalyse a new generation of digital media production companies", said Channel 4 chief executive Andy Duncan.

According to a new Pike & Fischer report, over 47 million American households will pay for some sort of HDTV service by the end of the year and that will increase to over 100 million by 2012.

The report, "HDTV Service: Market Forecast for Multichannel Video Providers", which is produced every year, showed a 17 million home increase from the 2007 report.

Most broadcast networks air their programming in HD for free currently by cable operators, satellite TV providers and telephone companies all offer "premium" HD channels as well as leasing HD-ready equipment, and selling on-demand movies and TV shows in HD format.

The forecast also showed that HD video "will generate up to $2.6 billion in annual revenue for the multichannel video providers by the end of 2012."

Despite the recent decline in consumer spending and economic recession in the US, Scott Sleek, Director of Pike & Fischer's Broadband Advisory Services, believes the slump can have an opposite effect. Read more...

European Union commissioners have decided on a mobile TV broadcast standard and has now asked that its member governments ask their respective Cell phone carries to favor it.

The standard, DVB-H, or Digital Video Broadcasting for Handhelds, was chosen over rivals MediaFLO and DMB which were favored by South Korean and Chinese manufacturers. DVB-H is the most widely used standard in Europe currently.

Nokia,,Motorola, Philips, Sagem, Sony, Ericsson, Samsung,Vodafone, O2 and T-Mobile all support DVB-H, but MediaFLO is supported by the largest carriers in the US, Verizon Wireless and AT&T.

"They can do that by labeling, they can do that by promoting it in attributing licenses and so on," said EU spokesman Martin Selmayr.

Despite the choice, the impact is Limited. EU nations are under no obligation to choose a standard based on the decision of the commission.

Apple has announced the release of the 3.1 version of its Safari web browser and it is sporting several key improvements including Windows support.

The company has said the new version "loads Web pages 1.9 times faster than Microsoft's Internet Explorer 7 and 1.7 times faster than the open-source Firefox 2 browser." Apple also claims that Safari now runs JavaScript almost 6 times faster than any other browser.

The benchmark stats come from using VeriTest's iBench Version 5.0 on default settings. The company said the specs of the computer used was an iMac 2.4-GHz Intel Core 2 Duo system with Windows XP and 1GB of memory.

Apple Senior Vice President Philip Schiller added that Safari 3.1 is "blazingly fast, easy to use" and has an "elegant user interface." More importantly, the browser "supports audio, video and animation standards needed for the next generation of Web 2.0 experiences."

Safari 3.1 is now available for free for Mac OS X Tiger 10.4.11, Leopard and Windows XP and Vista.

According to Chart-Track, the Microsoft Xbox 360 saw a 40 percent sales jump in the UK following the Europe-wide price cut last week.

Says Chart-Track director Dorian Bloch, "Xbox 360 is up 35-40 percent - that's from Friday, when the price cut came into effect, up to midnight Saturday."

"Now it's a question of Easter," he noted. "The real litmus test will be over the next three to four weeks – it's too early to read too much into it at this stage."

The data also showed that software sales remained about the same, but more interestingly that the PS2 saw the largest sales surge. "The greatest surge was on PS2," Bloch said. "There was a lot of price promotion going on, with certain titles being well and truly flogged. It's now the calm before the high point of Easter."

On March 14th, Microsoft slashed prices on all models of the 360 in Europe seeing the Arcade, Premium and Elite versions falling to GBP 159, GBP 199 and GBP 259, respectively. The price dropped the Arcade model to an even cheaper price point than the better selling rival, the Nintendo Wii.

At 0.9 inches at its thinnest, BenQ has introduced the V2400W, a 24 inch monitor inspired by the B-2 stealth bomber that "uses a new plastic injection technique that both curves the back of the display and makes it one of the thinnest of its kind."

The display is about 2.4 inches at its thickest point and includes a thin bezel and a touch-sensitive control panel. More importantly, the screen has a 4,000:1 dynamic contrast ratio and a 2ms gray-to-gray (5ms normal) pixel response time.

As is standard, the display has DVI, VGA and HDMI inputs. There was no word on price but the company said it will only be available in North America with a spring release date.

Microsoft Vista SP1 will be available online tomorrow for download and on Wednesday in stores, reported Microsoft.

The long awaited service pack was released as an RTM version in February but is now available to all genuine Windows Vista users. You can directly download the service pack from the Microsoft Download Center or as an optional update through Windows Update. The company did note however that if your system has drivers "which are currently known to be incompatible with SP1", you will not be able to install the update.

"Customers who visit Windows Update can choose to install Service Pack 1. Any system that Windows Update determines has a driver known to not upgrade successfully will not be offered SP1,"added a Microsoft spokeswoman.

Customers will also be able purchase Vista with SP1 already integrated in retail stores and online for between $94.99 USD and $299.99 USD, with the cheapest being Vista Home and most expensive being Vista Ultimate.

It was announced in August 2007, and now finally Limewire has launched a beta for its DRM-free online MP3 download store.

The store offers "a web browser-based interface for downloading music." The store does not use P2P however and is centralized with the company hosting the MP3s on its own servers. You do not need to be a subscriber to purchase the tracks but you will get better deals if you do. Each individual Track costs $0.99 USD but if you purchase the "Platinum Plan" for $20 USD a month then you receive 75 download credits, good for 75 song downloads. At that rate, each track only costs $0.27 USD.

Users running Internet Explorer 6 & 7, Firefox, Safari or Opera browsers can currently use the store but Limewire hopes to integrate the store into the actual client.

"Our plan with the LimeWire Store is to add to the LimeWire experience–we’re not going to take anything away. We think purchase links should appear alongside Gnutella search results, similar to how Google keeps sponsored links separate. We believe a significant number of users will choose to purchase content if the presentation is convenient and unobtrusive, the price is Right, and the product isn’t hindered by DRM," added a Limewire spokesperson.

Despite the actual website still being down, the once very popular torrent Tracker Demonoid is back, and hosted in the Ukraine.

Back in June 2007, the site was taken down by the Dutch anti-piracy outfit BREIN but relocated to Canada. After just weeks in the new country though, threats from the CRIA shut down the site again, for what many thought was for good.

For now though, Demonoid torrents are working again at inferno.demonoid.com, hosted by the Ukrainian ISP Cocall Ltd.

There has been no word from the Demonoid admin team as of yet but we will keep you updated if there is.

Back in November, YouTube boss Steve Chen promised that the popular video sharing site would begin giving viewers the option to watch some videos in High Definition beginning in March.

As promised, the site has now begun to offer higher definition streams based upon the source file uploaded. The site also promises more videos coming over time.

Users have the option to see the higher definition streams by checking an option in their Account page. Select "always show me higher quality when available" or "never show me higher quality" depending on your personal choice.

The official YouTube blog had this to say about the new video quality. "Our philosophy is to make sure that as many people as possible can access YouTube and that videos start quickly and play smoothly".

"That's one reason why you don't see us racing to call this 'Super Duper YouTube HD' because most people don't want to wait a long time for videos to play."

According to the French newspaper Les Echos, Microsoft officials have suggested that a third generation of its popular Zune media player is in the works and that a European launch of the player is coming in 2009.

The Zune, available since late 2006, has been a North American-only product so far despite repeated news reports and rumors that a launch in Europe is coming.

The new rumor, fueled by Microsoft France executive François Ruault, says the company will be releasing the Zune in France in 2009.

We will keep you updated.

A report by the Yomiuri Shimbun newspaper has said that Japanese companies are planning to block Internet access to anyone who downloads unauthorized files via P2P or other methods.

The newspaper said that Japan's ISPs have been faced "with mounting complaints from the music, movie and video-game industries" and have agreed to take the drastic action. The ISPs will send e-mails to users who repeatedly download illegally and will then terminate their Internet connections if they do not cease and desist.

The ISPs will hold a panel next month with copyright holders to draft a set of guidelines. If this goes through, the actions will be the strictest measures ever taken to fight online piracy. The newspaper estimated that 1.75 million people in Japan use file-sharing software, mainly for unauthorized downloads.

A similar measure brought forth by a Japanese ISP two years ago was shot down when the government said it might violate the right to privacy.

Acer has launched a complete overhaul of their Aspire notebook line, dubbed the Gemstone Blue.

The new design revolves around "CineDash", a "touch-sensitive control that lets users navigate music, videos, and menus without having to resort to the trackpad." Each system also has a 10-watt subwoofer and an "advanced speaker system that generates virtual Dolby 5.1-channel Surround Sound."

The first two systems released in the line are the 16-inch Aspire 6920 and 18.4-inch Aspire 8920G. Each are the first notebooks ever to sport a true 16:9 ratio display and can output 1080p (1920x1080) Resolution and can play Blu-ray discs. Each sport a relatively fast 8ms response time.

Last week the popular rock band Nine Inch Nails began offering their latest album exclusively as a digital download on their website, and those sales, along with orders for an expensive collector's edition, have netted the band $1.6 million USD since its release.

That figure, released by the band yesterday, is based on 800,000 individual downloads and orders for the new album, Ghosts I-IV. The first quarter of the album was free to download and a full digital download cost $5 USD. Fans could also order a physical copy for $10 USD and $300 USD for a collector's tin which has already sold out. The collector's edition as well as a $75 USD deluxe version both include a "DVD with the RAW tracks used to compose the album as well as a Blu-ray version with Surround audio."

We can only hope that this starts a trend in the music world, where the artists make the money they deserve.

Dell has introduced a cheaper but more accurate replacement to their mid-grade 2007WFP LCD model dubbed the 2009W.

According to Dell, "the 2009W can reproduce 102% of the NTSC color range and boosts the contrast ratio from 800:1 to 2,000:1 through dynamic adjustments." The display is also faster and sports a 5ms average pixel response time.

The display also improves on its predecessor's input connections by allowing VGA input for analog video, a four-port USB hub, and HDCP encryption support for its DVI connector. The price is also cheaper than its predecessor, and retails for $289 USD.

After the latest figures from the NPD Group showed that the Xbox 360 was once again lagging substantially behind its competitors in US sales, Microsoft has cited a "shortage in console availability" as the main reason for the lagging sales.

The 360 sold 254,600 units for the month while the Nintendo Wii sold 351,800 units and the Sony PlayStation 3 sold 280,900 units. The console equally trailed its competitors for January.

"Our retailers are telling us that Xbox 360 is selling as fast as they can restock, but due to this high demand, Xbox 360 is experiencing temporary shortages," Microsoft said in an e-mail. "We are working as quickly as we can to replenish inventory."

The email also threw around other stats saying that the 360 was leading in competitors in other areas of the market. According to NPD those stats are true, with "$159 million USD being spent on Xbox 360 games in January, compared to $131 million on Wii games and $80 million for PS3 games."

This morning the Chinese government blocked access to the popular video sharing site YouTube after over 20 videos about protests in Tibet appeared on the site.

The protests, which occurred in the Tibetan capital Lhasa on Friday, were against Chinese rule. The government has been blocking news broadcasts since the protests in an effort to control what the public knows about the events.

The videos were mainly of foreign news reports and montages of photos taken from the scene. The Chinese government has not yet officially confirmed that they have blocked the site, but Chinese citizens trying to access the site are met with a blank screen.

China has the second largest amount of Internet users at 210 million and is expected to soon surpass the US for largest population of internet users.

This news follows recent decisions by other countries to Block access to YouTube. Last month Pakistan blocked access because of "anti-Islamic" postings. Late last year Turkey made a similar move but the access was only blocked for a couple of days.

Earlier this week, hackers discovered a loophole in the brand new "iPlayer for iPhone" beta service which allowed users to download and save all iPlayer content DRM-free.

The exploit, which was made easy using a Firefox plug-in, meant users could "fool the service into thinking they were accessing the programming (with a different DRM set-up) on an iPhone or iPod touch whilst on a computer." The shows could then be downloaded with no copyright protection.

The vulnerability has now been closed but the BBC will continue to monitor the situation and look out for future exploits.

"It's an ongoing, constant process and one which we will continue to monitor. Like other broadcasters, the security of rights-protected content online is an issue we take very seriously," added the BBC in a statement.

Despite widespread rumors to the contrary, Apple has denied all claims that the Beatles catalog is set to be made available through the company's iTunes platform. A spokesman even called the claim "unsubstantiated speculation."

The rumors claimed that sources close to Sir Paul McCartney had confirmed that a deal had been made for the Beatles catalog to become available through iTunes in a "few months" but has so far been denied by EMI and Apple Corps, the Beatles' own label.

The Beatles' catalog, certain to be a gigantic hit when it becomes digital, has been delayed for years over a simple trademark dispute between Apple Inc. and the label Apple Corps.. The case was resolved in early 2007 and many had hoped that would be the last hurdle.

McCartney himself added fuel to the fire last year when he said in an interview that the catalog becoming digital was inevitable. "It's down to fine-tuning, but I'm pretty sure it'll be happening next year, 2008."

Just days after it was announced that Microsoft was slashing Xbox 360 prices across the board in Europe, leading simExchange analyst Jesse Divnich has reported that price cuts in the US are the "only feasible and economic option" if the 360 wants to combat the Sony PlayStation 3's ongoing momentum in the console market.

"Whether there is an Xbox 360 shortage or not, it is clear that the PS3 has gained considerable ground on its rival," he said, adding that the PS3's price cuts and the victory of Blu-ray have added strong gains for the console. "Given these past two months and the momentum that the PS3 has gained, Microsoft must react quickly as the PS3's momentum will only get stronger until Microsoft reacts."

The new price cuts in Europe have made the console war much more competitive as the Xbox 360 Arcade is now cheaper than the rival Nintendo Wii and half the price of the PS3.

"In the short-term, Microsoft's only feasible and economical option is to look at reducing its hardware price in North America to at least slow down the PS3's momentum until it can implement more long-term solutions to winning the next-generation console war," he finished.

Although it was
announced months ago the Apple iPhone has finally made its
way to Ireland and Austria, via O2 and T-Mobile,
respectively.

In Ireland, the 8GB model of the phone will cost 399 euros while the 16GB
model will cost 100 euro more. A standard 45 euro monthly contract will give
users 175 anytime minutes, 100 texts, and 1GB internet data. A 65 euro per
month contract will get you 350 minutes, 150 texts and 1GB data and a very
expensive 100 euro plan will get you 700 minutes, 250 texts, and the same
data. Making the offer even less appealing, Irish iPhone users will not get the
amazing "Visual Voicemail" or the free Cloud Wi-Fi access.

For those still interested despite the crippled features and lack of a
reasonable contract, the phone is available via Apple, O2 or the retailer
Carphone Warehouse.

The large European mobile phone carrier O2 has announced a partnership with Napster to "offer the UK's largest full Track mobile music download
service."

There is however, one hitch. Your handset must have "O2 Active" to access
the Napster Mobile service, and so far it seems only 30 different handsets can
do so. For those who can however, the service will give users access to over
five million tracks and offer "dual delivery of tracks to both
the customer's mobile phone and PC via email."

The new partnership will provide individual tracks for 99p or 5 for £4 for a
promotional Period but there was no word on pricing after that period.

According to data figures released by Media Create yesterday, the ever popular Nintendo Wii was back on top of Japanese hardware sales, regaining its spot after PSP sales returned to normal. The handheld had seen a burst after a Limited edition "mint green" colorway was released in the country.

The Nintendo DS also saw strong sales moving 49,000 units to place third for the week.

The Sony PlayStation 3 also saw an increase in sales, attributed to the released of the game Yakuza 3. The console sold 21,000 units, compared to just over 13,000 last week. So far the console has almost sold 2 million in Japan. As always in Japan, the Xbox 360 lagged behind miserably, selling almost 3000 consoles for the week to bring up the rear.

Fox has announced that it will be the first major studio to have extensive price cuts on its HD movie catalog by discounting 22 of its best selling Blu-ray titles.

The price cut, which began yesterday, will see those 22 select films drop in MSRP by $10 USD each from $39.98 to $29.98 USD. However, the titles have been available for some time now on Amazon and other retailers for much less than the MSRP and usually retail for $19.95 USD.

The complete list, courtesy of HighDefDigest are:'28 Days Later,' 'Behind Enemy Lines,' 'Broken Arrow,' 'Cast Away,' 'Chain Reaction,' 'The Devil Wears Prada,' 'Edward Scissorhands,' 'Flight of the Phoenix (2004),' 'The Fly (1986),' 'From Hell,' 'Entrapment,' 'Fantastic Four,' 'Kiss of the Dragon,' 'The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen,' 'Men of Honor,' 'The Omen (2006),' 'Planet of the Apes (2001),' 'Rising Sun,' 'The Sentinel (2006),' 'Speed,' 'The Transporter' and 'Transporter 2.'

Although the price drop is not for all of Fox's titles, its good to see any price drops at all and heres hoping for more to come.

After only four days of being available, the Apple iPhone SDK has been downloaded over 100,000 times by developers, said the company.

A few of the more notable developers that are now working on titles are Electronic Arts, THQ, PopCap, Namco, id Software and Sega.

"Developer reaction to the iPhone SDK has been incredible with more than 100,000 downloads in the first four days," said Philip Schiller, Apple’s senior vice VP of Worldwide Product Marketing.

"Also, over one million people have watched the launch video on Apple.com, further demonstrating the incredible interest developers have in creating applications for the iPhone."

The SDK is free for all to download and Apple has also launched the App Store which will allow would-be developers to deliver applications and games directly to iPhone and iPod Touch users.

"The iPhone is the mobile platform game developers have been dreaming of," said Scott Zerby, vice president, of THQ Wireless.

"We're looking at how we can use the iPhone’s innovative user interface to create new game experiences for our big brand entertainment partners that consumers love."

NBCU first announced the venture back in October of 2007, and now Hulu is finally set to launch tomorrow. For those unfamiliar, the service is a join venture between NBCU and News Corp and will offer free ad-supported TV shows and motion pictures.

The site will offer thousands of free videos from Fox, NBC, and 50 other content providers. Hulu is also in talks with Lionsgate and Warner Bros. to add more content to the Hulu library with those partnerships expected to be announced soon. Notably however, the service has not reached deals yet with CBS or ABC, two major broadcasters.

Hulu went into beta testing in October of last year and has been described as a rival to the much larger YouTube video sharing site. Besides its TV content deals the site also has video licensing deals with the NBA and NHL and will have its content also appear on AOL, MSN, Comcast, MySpace and Yahoo.

The large film producer Lionsgate Entertainment has announced that they are working with Apple in an effort to allow customers who purchase select DVDs and Blu-ray titles to download a free digital copy through iTunes as well.

The first movies to include free digital copies are the DVDs and Blu-ray discs of "Rambo" and "The Eye". Rambo will be available later this month while The Eye is slated for a June or July release. More releases are to come, said the company, but there was no word yet on what they might be.

"Our consumers are always looking for new viewing options in terms of the motion pictures they buy, and we are always searching for new ways to deliver content in formats that reflect consumer preference across the entire home entertainment spectrum, from packaged media to digital storage to VOD," Lionsgate president and COO Steve Beeks said.

To receive the digital download, consumers must simply insert the DVD or BD into their computers and enter a provided code into iTunes where it will copy to the users library. You can only copy the movie to one library, but it can be re-copied over and over in case you accidentally delete it.

EMI, one of the big 4 record labels, has announced that will remain a member of the IFPI, but only at a reduced cost. In December of last year the record label threatened to leave in an effort to cut costs but it seems that the trade group has struck a deal to keep them around.

At the time, EMI chairman Guy Hands made comments that implied that the IFPI made over $250 million USD a year from EMI and other companies, just for membership and other anti-piracy activities. Hands also told the IFPI they had until March 31st 2008 to reduce membership costs or see the label walk.

An IFPI spokesman added that both parties had agreed on a “sensible, appropriate and reasonable reduction in our budget.”

Jean-Francois Cecillon, president of EMI International added that the other Big 4 labels would see reduced rates as well. “We undertook to work with our colleagues in the other major labels and with (IFPI boss) John Kennedy on a cost saving plan for the IFPI. Together we have been able to find solutions which we believe are achievable whilst maintaining what the IFPI does best in representing our industry.”

The United Press International has reported that a tentative agreement between Apple and former Beatle Paul McCartney had been made which would mean that the Beatles' back catalog will finally be available for digital distribution on iTunes.

The deal, which could be in excess of $400 million USD, will be split between all the former members of the Beatles, Sony, EMI, and Michael Jackson all of which have some rights to the songs, whether it be in publishing, recording or reproduction.

Paul McCartney recently released his latest solo work for distribution on iTunes and that was followed by the release of John Lennon's solo work prompting widespread rumors that the Beatles catalog would soon follow. There has been no official announcement from either McCartney or Apple so for now the report is just speculation but we will keep you updated.

Microsoft may be planning to upgrade the Xbox 360 Pro to a 60GB HDD model, if new rumors are to be believed. The mid-tier model of the popular game console currently offers 20 GB of storage and the new rumor touts that Microsoft will be replacing the stock 20GB drive with the much higher capacity 60GB drive.

The upgraded console will come at the end of May or early June and although no exact reasons for given for the upgrade, we can imagine it is due to the growing power of the Xbox Video Marketplace and the larger size of game demos from the Xbox Live arcade.

On top of the upgrade, it is believed the company is considering a completely new model, although what will be inside this new model is uncertain as of yet. Could it possibly have an internal Blu-ray drive? We will keep you updated on any new developments.

Samsung and Adidas have announced the launch of the miCoach workout tracking system in an effort to compete with the popular Nike+iPod program jointly run by Apple and Nike.

miCoach will combine the Samsung miCoach mobile phone with "a heartrate monitor and stride sensor to provide accurate feedback about workout activities." There was no word on pricing yet but the system will be available in Europe beginning next week.

"miCoach is the most advanced interactive training system in the marketplace, blending sophisticated mobile technology with the most advanced in sport innovation and training," added Eric Liedtke, VP of Adidas Brand Marketing. "The uniqueness of miCoach is that it collects and analyzes personal data and then customizes training plans based on your fitness level and specific goals, while giving you real-time feedback during your workout via the miCoach phone."

The mobile phone in itself has good specifications without the heartrate monitor or stride sensor including seven colorways, a 2 megapixel camera, 1GB memory capacity and a slider portion.

The large Canadian retailer FutureShop has announced that anyone who bought a now obsolete HD DVD player now has the option to trade it in for a $100 CAD discount on the purchase of one of two hybrid HD players, the Samsung BD-UP5000 or the LG BH200. The hybrid players will play both HD DVD titles and Blu-ray titles. Any HD DVD player is up for the deal no matter how much they cost to begin with.

The new deal, which will last until April 3rd, will see all the received HD DVD players donated to the Boys and Girls Clubs of Canada.

A similar deal was made recently by the giant US retailer Circuit City to allow users to return their HD DVD players within 3 months or trade them in for Blu-ray players.

Yesterday, two brothers accused of software piracy were sentenced to multi-year prison sentences, said the US Department of Justice.

Maurice Robberson and his brother Thomas Robberson were sentenced to 36 and 30 month sentences respectively and ordered to pay $1 million USD in restitution. In November both men plead guilty to felony copyright infringement.

Both men sold counterfeit software through their websites Bestvalueshoppe.com, TheDealDepot.net, CDsalesUSA.com, and AmericanSoftwareSales.com. Both men agreed to pay back all revenue made by the sites which equaled the $1 million USD restitution.

"People who steal the intellectual property of others for their personal financial gain, while defrauding consumers who think they are buying legitimate products, will be punished for their crimes, as today's sentences prove," said Assistant Attorney General Alice S. Fisher.

Both men received complaints from software copyright holders but denied wrong doing. Undercover FBI agents then purchased items from one of their sites and found a network of other sites selling pirated software.

According to the Financial Times, Sony is currently in talks with Microsoft about a having the company offer an internal Blu-ray drive model of the Xbox 360 console.

Microsoft had backed the rival HD DVD until the format's demise last month.

The word of the negotiations come from Stan Glasgow, the president of Sony America. Sony has not confirmed the negotiations as of yet however.

Adding a Blu-ray drive to the 360 would make the console even more competitive with the PlayStation 3 but would give Sony's electronics division a needed revenue boost. Adding the drive would add production costs to the 360 and so a new premium model would be necessary. There is always the possibility of an external drive just like the HD DVD peripheral was.

Image Entertainment has announced that it has canceled its upcoming HD DVD releases and added that it was dropping HD DVD completely to focus on Blu-ray.

Image is one of the biggest suppliers of independent titles and had supported both HD formats. Over the past two years the company released a large variety of music, special interest and theatrical releases on both formats.

Of the more notable films that have been dropped from their HD DVD releases are 'Before the Devil Knows You're Dead' and a few IMAX films.

Blu-ray releases are not affected by the decision and will be released on time.

Vudu has added a new feature dubbed the "Vault" this week, which will allow users to save space on their HDDs by "storing" any purchased movie they own on the company's servers.

After "flagging" the movie as previously purchased, you can delete it from your HDD and re-download whenever you please at no added charge. You can also delete the file if you choose without flagging, but then re-downloading will cost you extra. Some content providers will not even allow archiving, says the company.

Other updates are "revised sort functionality, updated TV show search functionality, a revised advance settings menu, and a new Most Watched list, ranked by popularity among Vudu users."

The company also added that an IR receiver kit would be made available for $39 USD allowing the device to be usable with universal remotes. Finally, the company also added that Vudu XL was coming, which is a 1 TB version of the Set-Top Box. The added space comes with a hefty price tag however, $999 USD to be exact.

Despite massive campaigns to inform the public of the dangers of piracy and its effect on the world economies,the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA) has posted on their website that 2007 saw new all-time highs for both domestic and global box office sales.

The MPAA's own data figures show that the global market grew almost 5 percent$26.6 billion USD, and the US market grew 5.4 percent to $9.6 billion USD.

“From the threat and eventual reality of a writer’s strike to the global impact of film theft to concerns over the economy, the film industry faced significant challenges in 2007,” stated Dan Glickman, Chairman and CEO of the MPAA. “But, ultimately, we got our Hollywood ending. Once again, diverse, quality films and the timeless allure of the movie house proved a winning combination with consumers around the world.”

According to recent studies by the Institute for Public Innovation, movie piracy costs the US economy $20.5 billion annually including revenue loss and “related measures of economic performance." The study goes as far as to say that the movie industry could have added 45,000 new jobs had it not been for piracy. Funny how BO sales can grow at a steady pace despite the fact that the economy is seeing a "$20.5 billion USD annual loss" right?

According to MacNN, the BBC is working on a mobile version of its popular iPlayer software that will make the service available on the Apple iPhone and iPod Touch.

Visitors to the BBC iPlayer website through one of the portable devices will see a "small, inactive link appears in the corner of the main window, indicating that a beta version of the player software will soon be available."

The BBC or Apple have not confirmed the link but with the iPhone SDK event coming soon, there should be more news upcoming.

The BBC is also currently developing an iPlayer for Mac users who currently cannot download any content as it is protected WMV files.

Samsung has announced that it has canceled the upcoming BD-UP5500 Blu-ray/HD DVD hybrid player and attributed the decision directly to Toshiba's decision to drop the format.

The company also praised the decision, saying that have a standard format will allow the company to focus its efforts and money on Blu-ray. The older UP5000 player will still be available but the company added that the prospect of selling future hybrid players was slim.

"[A hybrid player] remains a practical solution, but the window of opportunity is smaller than it was before," the company said in a statement.

Toshiba plans to stop producing HD DVD players later this month and prior HD DVD-exclusive studios such as Paramount and Dreamworks have dropped the format making it all but dead.

According to a new study recently released in the UK, the largest cause of piracy and other copyright infringement is simply, a lack of choice or legal alternatives. The study went as far to show that over 30 percent of UK citizens had downloaded pirated content, or at least plan to do so in the future.

The study, the 2008 Digital Entertainment Survey, really only said what many have been saying for years now; legal venues don't have the quality or quantity of the illegal ones.

70 percent of those who had admitted to piracy also agreed that their primary reason for doing so was because “legal sites just don’t have the range of illegal ones”. The same amount of people also agreed that they would purchase the content if what they wanted was available.

Of the respondents who admitted to piracy, 70 percent also suggested that illegal venues were much faster.

Even more interestingly, 68 percent of those studied believed there was little chance they would be caught downloading and understood that many anti-piracy campaigns are more for intimidation.

Read the whole study here, its an interesting read.

Blue Underground, a giant distributor of cult and horror movies on DVD has announced that they will begin releasing their titles on Blu-ray later this year.

There was no word on which titles would retail first or even what quarter the movies would be released in but Blue Underground has already put word on their website that they plan to support the format with a large number of Blu-ray releases.

First started in the early 90s, Blue Underground has a large catalog of cult and horror classics, including some of the more popular titles from legends of film making like Dario Argento, Lucio Fulci, Larry Cohen, and George A. Romero.

Although it is not officially confirmed yet, industry sources have indicated that there are upcoming price cuts coming for all Microsoft Xbox 360 models in Europe.

The rumors suggest that there are "non-disclosure agreements in place with leading retailers" preventing them to reveal the upcoming price drop but that it is coming a week or so ahead of the Easter sales period. The expected price drop is EUR 50 for each available model.

Interestingly, the latest cuts will drop the price of the Arcade Xbox 360 model to a price cheaper than the rival Nintendo Wii. The Wii has dominated the "casual gamer" and family markets since its launch but Microsoft has said they hope to have the Arcade model steal some of the Wii's thunder. A price drop of this magnitude would certainly put some pressure on Nintendo.

Sonic has announced that Global Digital Media Xchange (GDMX), an Authoring facility, will be using "Sonic's Scenarist HDMV and BD-J authoring and CineVision AVC video encoding systems" to ramp up production capabilities for Blu-ray Discs.

The new move will now make GDMX one of the biggest HD production facilities in the world and allow the company to address the huge increases in BD movie releases that will be coming thanks to the demise of HD DVD.

The Scenarist authoring system allows content creators to "automate standard authoring tasks, such as graphics output for menus, buttons, and navigation, which provides more time for implementing advanced-interactivity components in BD-Java." Read more...

Sony Japan has announced that Japanese PSP gamers will be able to use Skype services beginning in two weeks, March 18th.

The company also said that the software will be included in the upcoming Firmware update for the system and that Sony will be "releasing official microphones to coincide with the communications service."

The service was originally supposed to hit Japanese PSPs in early January but was hit with delays due to Sony hardware failing to meet Skype specifications.

Also unveiled were new LE PSP bundles made specifically for Japan. "The PSP Matte Bronze Value Pack will go on sale April 24, priced JPY 23,800, and will come with the handheld, a pouch, hand strap, cloth, 32MB Memory Stick Duo and D Terminal AV cable."

Pioneer has decided the plasma TV market is to competitive and will be halting all internal production of plasma displays. The company will not be leaving the industry however and will instead get plasma panels from Matsushita.

Currently pioneer is the 5th largest plasma TV producer and is losing money on its plasma division. Actually, Pioneer is "expected to report a loss of 10 billion yen or about $96 million USD for the fiscal year."

Although not confirmed yet, Pioneer will supposedly close down one of its largest Japanese plasma manufacturing plants and focus the other two on assembling TVs. Pioneer stopped internal production of LCDs last year and teamed up with Sharp in a similar deal to this recent one.

Adde Mitsushige Akino of Ichiyoshi Investment Management, “This is an excellent development [Pioneer stopping plasma production]. Pioneer could have chosen another way and stepped up its plasma investment despite the fact that the business is bleeding red ink, but it's a wise step to decide against that. A quicker decision would have been even better, though.”

Toshiba CEO Atsutoshi Nishida has finally talked out about his company's decision to drop HD DVD and went as far as to say that the format did not "stand a chance" following Warner's decision to drop the format for Blu-ray.

Citing the Warner decision, Nishida said that the format would have only had 20% of the software market share and that Warner's decision sealed the format war's fate.

"One has to take calculated risks in business, but it's also important to switch gears immediately if you think your decision was wrong," explained Nishida. "We were doing this to win, and if we weren't going to win then we had to pull out, especially since consumers were already asking for a single standard."

In the wake of the end of the HD format war, Toshiba said it would focus more on upconverting standard-def DVD players and PCs as well as HD digital downloads. Read more...

According to the former CEO of China Mobile the company still has a strong interest in the Apple iPhone despite talks being cut off in January.

There has been no official explanations for why the two companies called off talks, but the general consensus is that negotiations were cut off due to China Mobile not accepting Apple's revenue sharing propositions. All other iPhone carriers use some sort of revenue sharing deal with Apple but Chinese businesses are actually hostile to the concept.

China Mobile CEO Wang Jianzhou however has been quoted as suggesting there is still a chance for the iPhone in China. "As long as our customers want this kind of product, we will keep all options open," he says. "We have not yet officially begun talks with Apple over the iPhone problem," he adds however.

The revenue sharing deals can be the least of Apple's troubles in China however. The 16GB iPhone model costs $499 USD, about double the average monthly salary for a Chinese citizen, and that is not even factoring in the price of a data plan.

LG has announced the world's first 10,000:1 Digital Fine Contrast ratio (DFC) PC monitor is now available in the UK. The monitor, dubbed the L197WH allegedly has the "greatest clarity available on a PC monitor today".

According to LG, the 19-inch full Widescreen monitor is powered by the "F-Engine", LG's picture enhancing Chipset. There is however, one small catch. The monitor is only set to 10,000:1 contrast ratio when the monitor is set to Movie Mode, "a pre-configured setting of the F-Engine."

"Ghosting, blurring and tearing are virtually removed as a result of the monitor's 2m/s grey-to-grey response time. In addition, the L197WH includes a dual hinge, height adjustment and a tilt design", adds LG.

No word on street price or availability but we will keep you updated.

The large research company iSuppli has said that it believes the Sony PlayStation 3 console will see another price cut during the course of 2008 leading to a huge Christmas for the system.

Analyst Pamela Tufegdzic is quoted as saying, "We anticipate Sony will have another price slash on the PS3 this year, and come Christmas, consumers who originally bought the Wii will likely purchase the PS3."

Continuing on, Tufegdzic reiterated that "2008 will be a turning year for the PS3 - Sony is offering a better forthcoming software pipeline with blockbuster titles like Gran Turismo 5, which will boost PS3 sales this year."

Despite drops in manufacturing costs, Sony still loses money on each console sold, albeit it is less than when the console first launched in late 2006.

Sony has announced that it expects manufacturing costs to drop substantially again this year and that should prompt the company to either slash prices or at least consider it.

Although Blu-ray officially won the HD format war last week, in a pretty funny ironic twist, "American Gangster",an HD DVD-only Title was the top selling HD disc for the week, beating out new Blu-ray releases.

American Gangster, a Universal release, was released on the same day that Toshiba announced it was canning HD DVD support but still topped Neilsen VideoScan's charts for the week, beating out Blu-ray's top release "Michael Clayton" by a 2:1 margin.

However, there were no other HD DVD titles in the top 10 and Blu-ray cruised to an easy overall victory for the week, with 77 percent of all HD disc sales.

The rest of the week's chart (thanks to HD Digest)

1. American Gangster (HD DVD); INDEX: 100
2. Michael Clayton (Blu-ray); INDEX: 62.24
3. The Rock (Blu-ray); INDEX: 27.26
4. Cars (Blu-ray); INDEX: 26.18
5. We Own the Night (Blu-ray); INDEX: 24.29
6. Planet Earth (Blu-ray); INDEX: 22.69
7. Con Air (Blu-ray); INDEX: 21.37
8. Gone Baby Gone (Blu-ray); INDEX: 19.89
9. Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest (Blu-ray); INDEX: 19.26
10. Crimson Tide (Blu-ray); INDEX: 18.28

The giant Chinese search engine Baidu has been sued again, this time by a local music industry group, marking the second time in the last month that the search engine finds itself in legal trouble.

The Music Copyright Society of China and one of its officials, Qu Jingming accuse Baidu of "providing music listening, broadcasting and downloading services in various forms on its Web site without approval, and through unfettered piracy, earning huge advertising revenue on its huge number of hits."

The group goes as far as to say that Baidu's piracy led to the shut down of many up and coming legal online music providers. The group filed the suit in Bejing Court yesterday and alleges that 50 songs were illegally traded. The group wants monetary compensation.

Updates as they become available.

It seems Dreamworks has gotten the OK from Toshiba to drop HD DVD because they have cancelled all upcoming HD DVD titles including the anticipated "Bee Movie" that was set for release in North America on March 11th.

Dreamwork's parent company Paramount also announced that it would be ending HD DVD releases beginning on March 4th.

The studios differ however with their future plans. Paramount plans to release on Blu-ray right after they drop HD DVD while you wont be seeing any Dreamworks titles until at least the summer. There was no word on what each studio's first release will be.

Earlier this week Dreamworks' CEO Jeffrey Katzenberg made a statement saying that the studio was still committed to HD DVD thanks to contractual obligations. From his mouth, "We have a partnership with Toshiba and have an obligation to see this through," he said. "It really is in [Toshiba's] court at this point to really declare what the next step will be."