News written by Dave Horvath (March, 2007)

Speaking at the CeBit show, a Toshiba spokesperson revealed some interesting news about their flagship HD-DVD technology and its integration into their popular laptop product lines.

Announced for a release in Q3 2007, Toshiba stated that its Satellite brand of laptops will come equipped with HD-DVD drives. Toshiba already offers HD-DVD drives in its existing Q30 line of laptops which was launched in May of last year. Not content with letting that line go to waste either, the japanese electronics giant also revealed that the Q30 can expect an HD-DVDR drive in Q2 of 2007.

Some may remember that Toshiba had shown off an HD-DVDR equipped laptop at January's CES show, but now it appears that the product will finally come to consumer's hands.

The company announced that of the blue-laser optical drives designed for PCs, 60% of them were capable of supporting HD-DVD format, and with the integration into slimline notebooks, officials say that brings the share up to 70%. With the release of the HD-DVDR equipped Q30 and the lower end Satellite system later this year, it appears that Toshiba may make it's projected forecast of 500,000 HD-DVD players on the market in Europe by the end of 2007.

Their numerous copyright infringement lawsuits aren't enough to disuade the people at YouTube from having a bit of fun. They've announced that they will host a user submitted video award for the most popular videos voted on by you, the user. With several categories ranging from most creative to most adorable, YouTube promises good times for people who enjoy several unlicensed works on their website.

Voting will go on until this Friday and winners will be announced on March 25th. Winners will receive a trophy as well as a spotlight section on the video sharing giant's website. Since the website's success can be attributed to user interaction for both content and popularity of media, YouTube officials are confident that this type of an event will garner a lot of positive attention to the website. Should this award be successful, you can expect more of them in the future.

There are seven total categories in which you can vote and they are; most creative, most inspirational, best series, best comedy, musician of the year, best commentary and "most adorable video ever". Among the nominees are noted "vloggers" Paul Robinett (Renetto), British pensioner Peter Oakley, up-and-coming folk singer Terra Naomi, Star Trek parody Chad Vader, actress-turned-teenager Lonely Girl 15, and comic commentator LisaNova (Lisa Donovan).

If you live in or around the Whitehaven area of Cumbria, you will be the first of many to lose the analogue signal broadcast to your television sets. Beginning on October 17th, approximately 25,000 households will receive only digital signals from the stations as part of a nationwide digital television cutover.

BBC Two will be the first channel to switch from the aging analogue signal to its newer, crisper format, while the remaining channels are set to go dark on November 14th. All residents in the Whitehaven area will need some form of digital television, or invest in a set-top converter box by that time, and its expected that everyone in the UK will need to follow suit before 2012. Every television will need to be connected to Freeview, satellite, cable or broadband television by then to continue receiving transmissions.

New equipment, installation and support will be given for those individuals over the age of 75, have a disability and the blind, but will cost £40. There are fee waivers for those qualifying individuals who require income assistance.

Starting in early May, residents of Whitehaven will begin receiving captions across their screen explaining the cutover process. Beginning early October 17th, BBC Two will go offline and Freeview will begin broadcasting the digital versions of BBC One, Two and Three as well as News 24 and CBBC.

Movie giant Viacom has been added to the most recent list of people suing Google and its recently acquired internet video website YouTube. What has been listed as "massive intentional copyright infringement", Viacom has entered a lawsuit in the amount of $1billion.

The suit claims that YouTube has infringed on their intellectual properties intentionally and seeks retribution of its assets and an injunction against further violations. Viacom claims that over 160,000 of its copyrighted material has been uploaded to YouTube and has been viewed over 1.5 billion times without their expressed consent.

Source:
Reuters

Not content that the US is suited for the inevitable digital television cut-over in 2009, the National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA) has stated that they are set to give US housholds 2 coupons amounting to $40 each, good for purchase towards set-top boxes that will convert digital signal to analog. Their hopes are to keep consumers happy who have yet to make the switch to a television capable of receiving digital signals.

February 19, 2009 is the scheduled date in which the US will stop broadcasting anything analog and switch to a completely digital signal. It is estimated that there are some 73 million televisions in America, however they further estimate that a wide 15% of those still receive their transmissions via analog antenna. The NTIA is prepared to ship approximately 33,750 coupons in hopes of appeasing the followers of the great rabbit ears.

"The transition from analog to digital television is a historic change and brings with it considerable benefits for the American consumer," Secretary of Commerce Carlos Gutierrez said. "The coupon program is designed to help ease the transition to digital TV. Not only will the transition help expand consumer choices, but more importantly, the digital transition will enable more efficient use of the nation's airwaves, providing new advanced wireless services and increased public safety services for all Americans."

Sony Computer Entertainment UK chief Ray McGuire confirmed recently that the current version of the Sony PSP will undergo a redesign and bring forth a smaller and lighter PSP for the masses.

While saying the screen size of the PSP will remain untouched, he believes that with advances in miniaturizing electrical components, it is possible for stuff more goodies in a smaller package inside the vulnerable PSP. A thinner, sleeker handheld can be expected sometime in the future, although a date as to when the next version might be seen wasn't announced.

This sort of thing is not new to Sony, as they did the very same thing with the original Playstation, dubbed the PSOne and again with the slim-line PS2.

There were hints that the new fangled PSP could feature something fans of the handheld have screamed about since it's inception. Onboard storage of up to 8Gb of space and perhaps the inclusion of the Eye-Toy addon. There were no official comments however on exactly what changes will be made, only that a change will come.

Source:
The Register

There's a new beast in the war pit against internet piracy, and it's name is cGrid. Developed by a group called Red Lambda, cGrid is set to be a very real threat to P2P file sharers everywhere. Although still in its infant stage and with its sights focused on Universities, its a technology that should have many P2P people a bit wary.

cGrid is a proprietary technology that has a unique way of monitoring packet level transmissions and decided whether or not packets being sent back and forth from specific MAC addresses on a network are participating in things like bit torrent, FTP, Usenet and other venues commonly known for illegal activities. That's not all though, it can also instantly boot said offender from the network with little to no workaround for getting back on. This new technology obviously has groups such as the RIAA and MPAA rejoicing as the newest wonder tool to hit the market.

cGrid's developers describe the technology as, "the industry's most advanced P2P and file-sharing mitigation technology. It uses undisclosed techniques to monitor and record traffic at the packet-level and also uses proprietary behavioral analysis to determine whether individual users are participating in illegal file sharing. It monitors local networks and keeps historical logs on users according to their MAC addresses. In this way, cGrid can also monitor private file sharing such as that done with invitation-only FTP servers and other normally closed networks."

Earlier today, members of the European Commission began talks with Apple over their huge market share dominance of the mp3 market through their iTunes service. While EU states they have no immediate plans to force Apple into opening up its iTunes services, they did have some rather interesting things to say about the company.

Earlier today, E.U. Commissioner for Consumer Protection Meglena Kuneva unleashed on Apple's DRM policies in saying, "Do you think it's okay that you can play a CD in any CD player, but an iTunes song only on an iPod? I don't. This sort of thing has to change."

The Commission has stated that it has sat down with officials from Apple and they will consult on the issues of iTunes over the next couple of months. Any resolution isn't expected to come in the form of a proposal until such time has expired.

Online music services such as iTunes and smaller rival Sony's Connect are already under scrutiny from a new online copyright bill currently being reviewed in France and being considered by Norway and Denmark. The bill states that it would require an online music retailer to make songs acquired from its service to be made interoperable on many different devices, not just the device sold by the same company of the service.

Electronics manufacturer, Philips has decided to drop the plans to include the fluorescent stroboscopic lights that illuminate many of their flat screen televisions and provide much of the clean up duties for getting rid of motion blur and smear that tend to plague those types of TVs. Instead, Philips has decided to focus on LED backlights that give a more precise burst of light, take up less space and are more efficient to run.

Current LCD TVs emitt a constant stream of light, while Philips' plans with their LED backed televisions actually send out small bursts of light which trick the human eye into thinking the picture is brighter and sharper than it really is. While their previous fluorescent technology, dubbed Aptura was touted as a major advance in technology and a potential cash cow for the lighting division, Philips has since rescinded their support for such technology.

"If we want to continue developing this backlighting technology, we'll have to make new investments. At the same time, LEDs (light emitting diodes) are getting ripe for the market and they enable thinner TV sets, so we've chosen to invest in those," says a Philips spokeswoman.

Philips actually unveiled its flickering backlight technology some time ago and it is featured in several high end flat panel televisions, however it may take some time for televisions equipped with this technology to reach a cheap enough asking price for mainstream consumption.

Video game publisher, Take-Two Interactive Software Inc. got themselves in a bit of hot water some time ago over their infamous Hot Coffee unlockable in the smash hit Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas. The company was brought up on lawsuit charges stating that the company had been distributing video games with sexually explicit content under the wrong ERSB rating, according to a recently released court document.

A US federal magistrate in Manhattan issued a signed order Tuesday allowing this case to go into settlement. The magistrate has given a March 12th deadline for the details of this settlement to be agreed upon. Obviously since settlement has only just begun, no official numbers have been announced on how much Take-Two can be expected to pay for its follies. In a letter, the lawyer for Take-Two stated that the parties, "agreed to engage in settlement discussions with the hope of amicably resolving this matter."

Source:
Reuters

The recently released BitTorrent Entertainment Network promised to be a safe haven for digital downloaders everywhere. Unfortunately the new service was not met without a slew of problems.

Most of the problems stemmed after the consumer has already submitted his or her money for the digital content they wished to download. Early reports have shown that payment is received fast and easy, but when it comes to downloading files, people with PC's failed to be recognized by the service, yet people with Macintosh machines could browse perfectly. The problem with Mac users was that the files were not Mac-compatable and would have to be transferred to a PC to be viewed. Of course this is where the DRM practices come into play and quickly render the files utterly useless.

Not a great start for a noble venture. It seems that BitTorrent has their work cut out for them to ensure a secure and smooth ride for its consumers before people become frustrated and weary with the new service and decide to get their media elsewhere through less legal means.

Source:
Engadget

Released yesterday by Rep. Rick Boucher (D-VA) and Rep. John Doolittle (R-CA), the FAIR USE Act has already received a great deal of criticism from everyone's favorite digital chaperone, the RIAA. The FAIR USE Act was submitted as a bill before US Congress in hopes of limiting the amount of control granted to the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA). RIAA representatives have stated that Representative Boucher's bill is a blatant attempt to undermine the securities of intellectual properties granted by the DMCA.

The RIAA released a statement saying "The DMCA has enabled consumers to enjoy creative works through popular new technologies. The DVD, iPod and the iTunes Music Store can all be traced to the DMCA. Online games, on-demand movies, e-books, online libraries, and many other services are coming to market because of a secure environment rooted in the DMCA's protections."

The term secure environment is the essential core of the DMCA. The meat of what the DMCA limits is the ways in which Digital Rights Management can be circumvented by making such tools to do so a taboo practice. This, in turn, gives content providers free reign to limit exactly how consumers can digest said content. The same can be said that without DMCA, content providers would be forced to make their product that much more appealing to consumers to assure public interest.