News written by Dave Horvath (July, 2007)

Coming in way behind its US competition, AT&T has teamed up with eMusic, an independent music retailer to bring music downloads to its customer base. Trailing the efforts already in place by companies like Sprint and Verizon, AT&T takes an interesting approach at online wireless music downloads.

Coming in at about mid-range in pricing, AT&T has released information that their song downloads will cost $1.50 per Track, sitting squarely between Sprint's 99 cent deal and Verizon's $1.99 per track offering. There appears to also be a package deal where you can download 5 songs for the inflated price of $7.49.

This is a strange move for AT&T to allow only independent music to its customers as marketing strategies show that most mobile music purchases are impulse, and most impulse buys will be current billboard hits, not independent offerings. eMusic will not offer music in its catalog that is anywhere close to a mainstream billboard. Additionally, AT&T does not offer wireless music downloads to its partnered flagship, the Apple iPhone of which it has exclusive rights. Finally, the eMusic service will not work with the iPhone.

It seems that the Japanese electronics giant Sony just cant catch a break when it comes to their vulnerable PS3. Recently a company based in the US has claimed that Sony is infringing upon their patented "synchronized parallel processing with shared memory" technology. The Parallel Processing Corporation recently issued a lawsuit to a district court in Texas where it says they seek retribution for this infringement.

The patent for this technology was approved in 1991 originally to a company called International Parallel Machines, based out of Massachusettes, however The Parallel Processing Corporation claims they are the exclusive licensee for this technology.

The suing company is claiming that their organization is being caused irrepairable harm and monetary damages and seeks not only monetary compensation, but the destruction of Sony's product which is infringing on the patent. In essence, they want to be paid and destroy the PS3 from ever being produced. Bold lawsuit.

Sony has yet to make a comment on this situation as it takes a firm stand on not issuing statements on pending lawsuits. This is however nothing new to Sony who have been receiving infringement lawsuits from smaller companies since they began developing the PS3.

The group over at AppleTVhacks.net in conjuction with FatWallet.com offered up a prize for anyone who could effectively hack the AppleTV software to allow the use of an external USB hard drive as its main storage. This hack would then allow users to have much more storage without the need to crack open the AppleTV device itself.

Armed with the 1.0 version of the AppleTV software, an Intel based Macintosh computer or Intel based Linux machine, an external hard drive and a little gusto, users can follow instructions on how to enable an external HDD as the primary source for storage. Since Apple is constantly on the verge of not giving an easy method for copyright infringement, its easy to see why a feature such as this wasn't enabled from the start.

Source:
AppleTVHacks.net

Adopters of the Blu-Ray devices and PS3 owners alike will be able to rejoice in the near future as the Japanese porn industry will soon produce high definition media for all your adult film needs.

In the past, Sony and its major partner Disney had rejected the US adult film industry's proposal for adult content on their media because they felt there was an image to uphold. At this year's Adult Treasures Expo 2007 in Chiba, Japan however, Sony began offering more technical support for the adult film industry.

Until now, there had only been a handful of companies with rights to stamp out Blu-ray media, but a Japanese company which was in charge with a great deal of the early release Blu-Ray discs said it has partnered with a Taiwan company to produce much more media for this purpose.

This move could prove to be a decent push in the Blu-Ray camp who has appeared to be losing the race to HD-DVD. Following a fatal mistake Sony made back in the days of Betamax, their refusal to endorse the US adult film industry effectively led to the demise of the superior beta format over VHS, which had endorsed porn. With HD-DVD already on the adult bandwagon right from the gates, along with cheaper production costs and a growing list of supporters, Blu-Ray will need all the help it can get to remain in this high-definition battle.

South Korean hardware giant LG has issued a lawsuit against the world's largest contractor for building laptops, Quanta stating that they have blatently stolen the design for DVD player components from LG.

LG claims that the Taiwan based company has used their plans inside all of their devices which contain DVD drives without giving any royalties. The lawsuit was entered into a U.S. District Court in Wisconsin on July 3rd and is seeking an injunction against Quanta for using their technology. They are also seeking undisclosed monitary compensation for the past infringements.

In a statement from LG on Wednesday, a representative said, "LG's claims include infringement of four patents related to DVD standard. Quanta has been using these patents without LG's permission to produce notebook computers that were supplied to U.S. computer companies."

Quanta has major existing contracts with some of the leading laptop providers including Dell, Apple, Hewlett-Packard, and Sony. An injunction such as this could spell troubles for the Taiwan based company.

Source:
Reuters

Not to be content with merely going after lost assets from music file sharing, the RIAA has set its sights on yet another potential revenue generator. Stating that the advent of the Internet and the ease in which its tools can give consumers easier and more efficient access to music, the RIAA feels that they are no longer receiving the benefits due to them for allowing radio stations to play their music for free. While the overall financial outlook of broadcast radio has only seen very marginal increases in revenue as of late, the RIAA appears to want to kick the radio stations while they're down and at their weakest.

For at least 70 years, radio stations have been allowed to broadcast music of their choosing without the need to provide royalties to the recording industry or its artists. The agreement originally made between the two groups was an arrangement of free advertising and viewed as a necessary expense to get new and current artists noticed in the music community.

As of mid-June, 133 musicians and recording industry organizations, including the RIAA have formed a coalition called musicFIRST. Its aim is to press Congress into reviewing the copyright acts and reform the Digital Millennium Copyright Act of 1998. They would like broadcast radio to be treated to the same royalty obligations as satellite radio.

The PSP homebrew scene was dealt a blow recently as one of the more influential developers for the PSP decided to call it quits. Dark_Alex, who's work included many custom firmware options for PSP owners allowing them to keep the homebrew capabilities while still experience the newer features, has stated on his website that he can no longer keep up with the scene.

Blaming the amount of time it takes to work on new revisions as well as potential pressures from Sony themselves, he has decided to tip his hat to the scene and walk away while he still can.

Bye, scene.

I've decided to cease OE development, and leave PSP scene.
The reasons are various.
One of them is the time it consumes, which i'm losing from other things.
The other is related to my security. I didn't like Sony menaces to PS3 hackers.
I think it is better to leave now rather than end paying the consequences. As quoted from his website.

This departure comes just before anyone could marvel in the famed 3.50 firmware release. There are bound to be many, including myself, who will miss Dark_Alex's OE custom firmware revisions, but it is understood that what he did was a risky business and its smart for him to leave while he's ahead.