News written by James Delahunty (September, 2011)

Security measure could impact on Linux dual-boot options.

In order for a PC to be sold bearing a "Designed for Windows 8" logo, it must ship with secure booting (enabled by UEFI) enabled. This could pose problems for users who wish to install (an unsigned) open-source operating system.

For most users, the solution would simply be to disable the secure booting in the UEFI settings. That will not effect Windows 8 booting. However, this does mean that the hardware vendor is responsible for making it possible to disable the security feature.

Why protect the bootpath? In recent years, malware authors have resorted to attacking the bootpath to get around security features in Windows. As an example, the TDL-4 rootkit utilizes a bootkit to disable the Windows kernel mode code signing policy of the 64-bit version of Windows 7.

The only airtight way to counter the threat is to protect the bootpath by requiring that all firmware and software involved in the boot process have been signed by a CA. Google has done the same thing with its Chromebooks to avoid bootpath attacks. Google mandates that a Chromebook feature a physical switch (under the battery component) which would allow it to be disabled.

"Cloud console" service makes jump to UK market.

Partnered with retailer GAME, OnLive offers UK gamers a subscription to play the latest top-tier games on demand, delivered over the Internet form OnLive's powerful cloud gaming technology. UK gamers can play on their HDTV, PC, Mac or any combination of the above, regardless of performance capabilities, and soon they will even be able to play on iPad and Android tablets.

They can buy the games they want individually, with prices starting at £1.99, or subscribe to OnLive's PlayPack Bundle, which now offers access to more than 100 games for just £6.99/month.

OnLive has struck a strategic partnership in the UK with BT, the first internet service provider in the UK to offer cloud-based gaming to customers through the exclusive partnership. To mark the launch, BT is giving its 5 million broadband customers three months free access to 100+ games when customers sign up at: www.bt.com/onlive.

"We're incredibly excited to see the OnLive community expand across the globe, bringing OnLive’s unprecedented live instant gaming experience to Europe. UK and US members can now play live in our massive spectating Arena and chat with players and spectators across the Atlantic," said Steve Perlman, Founder and CEO, OnLive.

Adobe to deliver major update for "game console of the web."

Adobe has announced that Adobe Flash Player 11 and AIR 3 will launch early next month. It promises that the release will enable the next generation of immersive application experiences across devices and platforms including Android, Apple iOS (via AIR), BlackBerry Tablet OS, Mac OS, Windows, connected TVs and more.

Flash Player 11 and AIR 3 will enable game publishers to deliver "console quality" 2D and 3D games over the Internet to nearly all PCs, and a host of other mobile devices.

"Media companies can take advantage of new features to seamlessly deliver protected feature-length, cinema-quality HD video through the Web, in mobile apps, and even with surround sound for connected TVs. Flash Player 11 and AIR 3 provide a cross-device entertainment platform, enabling the best in online gaming and premium video while helping content publishers to reach the broadest possible audience with highly-leveraged development investments."

Microsoft is providing ISO images of the Windows 8 Developer Preview software shown at the BUILD keynote yesterday, and with VMware you (should) be able to sample it as a virtual Guest OS.

First things first. VMware Workstation is not free (VMWare Player is no good for this, for now). However, you can get VMware Workstation on a 30-day trial. To do this, you need to get a product key from VMware. This is a little bit annoying, but worth it (and definitely better than paying $199.99 for a license just to check out software).

You will need Workstation 8, which was just officially released yesterday.

Step 1 - Get VMware Workstation

Major Nelson confirms Xbox Live on Microsoft's upcoming operating system.

"We are confirming that we will be bringing Xbox LIVE to the PC with Xbox LIVE on Windows. We are very excited about Xbox LIVE coming to Windows 8. Xbox LIVE brings your games, music, movies, and TV shows to your favorite Microsoft and Windows devices," a blog entry read.

"Bringing Xbox LIVE to Windows 8 is part of our vision to bring you all the entertainment you want, shared with the people you care about, made easy. At BUILD we are showing that it is easy for developers to create games for Windows 8 that take advantage of the power of Xbox LIVE. We have much more detail to share about the capabilities of Xbox LIVE on Windows and look forward to the opportunity to do so in the near future."

Microsoft just showed off an early development build of Windows 8 at the Windows BUILD keynote.

Steve Sinofsky took to the stage to boast some stats on the success of Windows 7, but that's not what we wanted to hear/see (we'll talk about that later.) What we wanted to see is how is Microsoft going to revamp Windows so much to justify the comparisons to the changes made when Windows 95 was first unveiled?

Sinofsky first wants to calm any fears that Microsoft is simply building all of these new features as layers atop its Windows operating system. He takes out a first-generation netbook from Lenovo that runs Windows 8, and then shows us just how it manages it.

Windows 8, today, in its early development stage, uses less memory and runs less processes under normal use, compared to Windows 7. At its Preview release stage, Windows 7 required 540MB of RAM, running 34 processes. That dropped to 404MB and 32 processes in Windows 7 SP1. Windows 8 blows it out of the water, running on about 208MB with 29 processes.

Open Rights Group says music copyright extension term from 50 to 70 years in Europe is a cultural disaster.

In a blog post, ORG Executive Director Jim Killock said the change means it will be harder to publish older works, and many will simply remain out of print. He also said research shows that 90 percent of the cash windfall from copyright levies will fall into the hands of record labels.

"Despite the rhetoric, small artists will gain very little from this, while our cultural heritage takes a massive blow by denying us full access to these recordings for another generation," Killock writes.

He references the Gowers Review of Intellectual Property, an independent review of Intellectual Property in the UK, and the Hargreaves Report, an independent review of how the Intellectual Property framework supports growth and innovation in the UK, and how both were highly sceptical of the need to extend the copyright term.

The Hargreaves Report had said that copyright policy needed to be based on hard evidence, and that for copyright term extension, the evidence just wasn't there to support it.

Nintendo hopes a big push in 3DS software will help to pick up disappointing sales.

Nintendo President Satoru Iwata promised an unprecedented range of games at an event held two days before the Tokyo Game Show. Some of the games will feature Nintendo's adored Mario character, while others will take aim at female gamers.

"From the end of this year to the beginning of next, we are planning the kind of extensive line-up that has probably never been seen before in the history of video games," Iwata told reporters and guests at the event. "We will make an all-out effort to see that the 3DS sells enough to become the successor to the DS."

Earlier Nintendo DS models have sold a staggering 148 million units to the end of June this year. The 3DS has been underwhelming in comparison, selling just 710,000 units in April - June of 2011, forcing Nintendo to slash the price of the handheld. It had sold 3.6 million units in the first month after its launch.

Nintendo's handheld is now also competing with Apple's iPhone, iPad and dozens of devices that run the Android mobile operating system.

Sir Brian Souter fuming over "mysterious" disappearance of his website in Google search results.

The Scottish businessman accused Google of stopping links to his website appearing when people search for it. He claims that on August 13, his site "mysteriously disappeared" from results returned for a search on "Brian Souter".

He has vowed to launch a campaign to stop search engine censorship. "It's not Google's place to decide which sites we can see and those we can't," he said in a statement. He asked Google in late August why his site disappeared from search results, and claimed they "mumbled" something about algorithm changes.

"Our search algorithm relies on more than 200 signals to help people find the answers they're looking for, and and last year alone we made more than 500 improvements to our algorithm, while experimenting with thousands more," Google said in a statement, reported by BBC.

Belgian firm finds no conclusive evidence of major breach.

Earlier this month, Dutch certificate authority DigiNotar was breached, resulting in the creation of hundreds of false certificates. Some of these were used by rogue entities in Iran, prompting major browser vendors to act to protect their users.

An anonymous post from "ComodoHacker" claimed to have breached four certificate authorities, naming GlobalSign. In response, GlobalSign temporarily ceased issuance of all Certificates while it carried out an investigation. It brought in help from Fox IT, a security firm that investigated the DigiNotar hack.

While GlobalSign did find evidence of an attack on one of its web servers, it found no hard evidence that its systems had been compromised. It said it would resume issuing Certificates on Tuesday.

Hundreds of certificate authorities around the world provide certificates to web services, verifying that they are legitimate and are what they appear to be. They are used to provide secure access, mainly through SSl, to privacy-conscious users.

App developers who advertised that their Apps could treat Acne told to stop making "baseless claims."

The Applications were available via the Apple App Store and Google's Android Marketplace. AcneApp and Acne Power told users to hold their smartphone screens to their face for several minutes every day while the screens emitted Acne-terminating colors.

"Smartphones make our lives easier in countless ways, but unfortunately when it comes to curing acne, there's no app for that," said FTC Chairman, Jon Leibowitz. There were approximately 3,300 downloads of AcnePwner, which was offered for 99 cents in the Android Marketplace, and 11,600 downloads of AcneApp from the iTunes store, where it was sold for $1.99.

“This app was developed by a dermatologist. A study published by the British Journal of Dermatology showed blue and red light treatments eliminated p-acne bacteria (a major cause of acne) and reduces skin blemishes by 76%," AcneApp's description read.

The FTC charges that the claims made by both developers / marketed were unsubstantiated, and charged the marketers of AcneApp for flasely claiming that the study in the British Journal of Dermatology proves that blue and red light therapy, such as the type provided by AcneApp, is an effective acne treatment.

Payout will settle criminal case in software theft case.

SAP AG has agreed to pay $20 million to resolve a criminal probe, a source familiar with the matter as told Reuters. An investigation was launched into allegations that SAP AG illegally downloaded millions of files from rival Oracle.

SAP's defunct TommorrowNow Inc. was charged with 12 criminal counts by the U.S. Department of Justice last week, for illegally retrieving the Oracle data.

SAP had agreed to settle the case, but the public court documents did not include how much it had agreed to cough up.

Copyright protection extended in European Union from 50, to 70 years.

The Directive extends the term of protection for performance and producers of musical works to 70 years, closer to the protection that is offered to authors and composers, which is life + 70 years. It also narrows the gap between the term of protection in Europe and that of other countries and regions, where term of protection can range from 70 to 95 years.

It was adopted on Monday by the EU Council of Ministers in Brussels after a vote in the European Parliament in 2009. Governments of member states will implement the Directive to national law over the next couple of years.

Plácido Domingo, chairman of IFPI:
"The decision to extend the term of protection for recordings in Europe is great news for performing artists. Artists at the start of their careers will benefit from an increased pool of revenue that will be available to invest in new talent. Established artists can benefit from their work throughout their lifetimes. This is especially important today when licensed digital services make music widely available online. Extension of protection also reflects the important role performers play in the success of songs by narrowing the gap between the protection offered to recorded performances and that offered to compositions."

Adobe will push out update for security issues that effect several of its products.

The updates are pushed out in response to recent revelations that a hacker compromised Dutch certificate authority (CA) DigiNotar (now under control of the Dutch government). The DigiNotar Qualified CA root certificate is part of the Adobe Approved Trust List (AATL) program.

The AATL is designed to make it easier for authors to create digitally signed PDF files that are trusted automatically by Adobe Reader and Acrobat versions 9 and above, and includes many certificates from around the world.

Based on the nature of the breach, Adobe is now taking the action to remove the DigiNotar Qualified CA from the Adobe Approved Trust List. This update will be published Tuesday, September 13.

The issue affects:

• Adobe Reader X (10.1) and earlier 10.x versions for Windows and Macintosh
• Adobe Reader 9.4.5 and earlier 9.x versions for Windows and Macintosh
• Adobe Reader 8.3 and earlier 8.x versions for Windows and Macintosh
• Adobe Acrobat X (10.1) and earlier 10.x versions for Windows and Macintosh
• Adobe Acrobat 9.4.5 and earlier 9.x versions for Windows and Macintosh
• Adobe Acrobat 8.3 and earlier 8.x versions for Windows and Macintosh.

THQ CEO talks benefits of eliminating physical media from games industry.

Chief Executive Brian Farrel predicted that the industry will soon abandon physical media entirely for games consoles, favouring cloud computing solutions instead. He made his comments at the Cloud Gaming USA Conference while making a presentation.

He argued that the lack of physical media could save money for hardware makers, since they would not have to include an optical drive in their consoles. For developers and publishers, it would cut costs associated with producing, storing and shipping inventory.

"The box, ship, and done model is transitioning to observe, measure, and modify," Farrell said, adding that the industry is moving to "a games-as-a-service model where direct consumer feedback allows the ability to operate in this always on, always connected environment."

Farell acknowledged that the content of the game matters more to consumers than the way in which it is delivered to them.

HMV Group chief executive Simox Fox insists he is still optimistic about the future.

The High-Street store has seen a 12.8 percent drop in total retail sales. "Trends in HMV Retail were broadly unchanged during the Group's first quarter, with like for like sales decline at 15.1%," said Fox in an official statement.

"Total HMV Retail sales, including the impact of 29 store closures, were down 21.8%, and including HMV Live, the Group's total sales declined by 19.4%." The chain is now looking toward the Christmas market for a boost, with Fox saying big name game releases are likely to provide it, giving special mention to FIFA 12, Batman: Arkham City, Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 and more.

Newer HMV stores that have a stronger focus on tech products such as headphones, MP3 player docks and so forth were also mentioned by Fox. 150 HMV stores are to make a transformation to a new Apple Store-like appearance. "We're very encouraged by what we've seen in our technology stores," said Fox.

"The business has been through a very tough time, and the line up of the products looks very good, the technology offer that we've got we feel very confident about it. I'm certainly more optimistic now then I was when we last spoke in May."

Updates to be pushed out Tuesday, September 13, address Windows and Office flaws.

Microsoft does not rate any of the five bulletins as critical, which might appear to be a good thing on the surface, but the five "Important" bulletins address some serious vulnerabilities. One in particular patches an undisclosed remote code execution bug affecting Windows.

Another code execution flaw affects the Microsoft Office from 2003, to 2010.

Five found to be unlawfully discharged by New York non-profit for Facebook discussion.

Hispanics United of Buffalo provides social services to low-income families. It fired five of its employees after they argued on Facebook over some of their working conditions, such as work load and staffing issues.

A National Labor Relations Board Administrative Law Judge has found that the Buffalo nonprofit organization unlawfully discharged the five employees. It all started with an employee overhearing a coworker criticize other employees for not doing enough to help the organization's clients.

She then went ahead to post the allegations on her Facebook account. Responses from other employees included defences of their own work, criticisms of working conditions, staff load comments and so forth. Hispanics United responded by discharging the five employees who took part.

The National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) is getting an increasing number of charges related to social media sites in recent years. This case is the first involving Facebook that has resulted in an Administrative Law Judge decision, following a hearing.

Judge Amchan found that the Facebook discussion was protected concerted activity within the meaning of Section 7 of the National Labor Relations Act, because it involved a conversation among coworkers about their terms and conditions of employment, including their job performance and staffing levels.

Website forced down as UK prime minister travels to Russia for state visit.

David Cameron's visit to Russia is the first visit by a British leader to Russia since Kremlin critic, Alexander Litvinenko, was murdered in London. Litvinenko died from radioactive poisoning (polonium-210) in 2006, degrading ties between the UK and Russia.

Britain demanded that Russia extradite Andrei Lugovoy, ex-KGB, to be prosecuted for the murder, but Russia refused. Relations between both countries have improved slightly since Dimitri Medvedev took office in 2008, and David Cameron became Prime Minister in 2010.

"Prior to the visit of Prime Minister David Cameron to Russia, the website of the Russian Embassy in London (www.rusemb.org.uk) was brought down by a suspected DDoS (distributed denial of service) attack," the embassy said in a statement.

An embassy spokesman said the site started to experience problems on Friday. On Sunday, it was forced down due to a denial of service attack, so the embassy setup a mirror site at www.rusemborguk.ru.

New entry-level Desktop APUs bring price down to $70.

Last week, Advanced Micro Devices (AMD) announced the availability of the AMD A-Series Accelerated Processing Unit (APU) A4-3300 and A4-3400 desktop processors, bringing the price down to $70 for the HD graphics-packing microprocessors.

Both the AMD A4-3300 and A4-3400 APUs combine two x86 CPU cores with 160 Radeon cores, offering DirectX 11-capable discrete-level graphics and dedicated HD video processing on a single chip. Both chips feature 1MB L2 cache. The new APUs support AMD Dual Graphics, providing a graphics performance boost if paired with select AMD Radeon HD 6000 Series graphics cards.

AMD Steady Video also instantly removes shakes and jitters when re-watching video. An integrated USB 3.0 (SuperSpeed) controller provides for rapid transfer and storage of digital content.

The AMD A4-3300 APU runs at 2.5GHz (CPU) and 444MHz (GPU) and has a suggested retail price of $70. The AMD A4-3400 APU pushes the CPU to 2.7GHz and GPU to 600MHz, with a suggested retail price of $75. They are available now from Amazon.com and other stores.

(All AMD A-Series processors are designed for use with FM1 motherboards. AMD A4 APUs require the AMD Vision Engine Control Center 11.8 driver release or later releases.)

Summarizes conduct of lawyer as "staggering chutzpah."

Last September, Texas lawyer Evan Stone filed suit against 670 file sharers that he (and Mick Haig Productions, whom he was representing) accused of sharing a German adult film called Der Gute Onkel. He asked the court for permission to take out early discovery.

Judge David Godbey refused to grant permission, and brought in the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) and Public Citizen to represent the interests of the 670 Does in the case, none of whom had been identified personally yet and were nothing more than IP addresses to the case.

Public Citizen and EFF discovered that Verizon had already handed over information to Stone, and asked Judge Godbey to investigate.

Evan Stone was found to have issued subpoenas seeking the personal information of Does in the case at least four times. He then went on to contact an unknown number of the potential Does. The court presumes the reason for contact was to reach a settlement for the alleged infringement.

German court rules against EMI in case involving Russia-Hosted eD2K website.

The Cologne court heard a case brought against Internet Service Provider (ISP) HeaseNet by the EMI record company. EMI said a HeaseNet customer was using HeaseNet's network to access a Russian-hosted file-sharing website that offered eDonkey links to files.

Since the customer was using HeaseNet's network to access the website, EMI argued that HeaseNet was contributing / aiding the copyright infringing activities taking place. EMI wanted access to the file sharing site blocked by HeaseNet, arguing that failure to comply with the demand made the ISP party to the lawsuit.

The Cologne District Court 28th Civil Division found no legal basis for forcing an ISP to control the data communications of their customers, saying that the, "defendant is not committed to such precautionary measures."

Using litigation to force ISPs to block access to websites that offer pirated content (or link to somewhere else it can be found) is the latest trend for the industry as it battles Internet piracy, and is bringing up serious questions about censorship (and who decides when its necessary) and the privacy rights of Internet users.

Concerns over data collection force Microsoft to remove app created by one of the world's most popular security software companies.

Questions had already been raised about the necessity of AVG Mobilation for Windows Phone 7. Firstly, there's no malware to be found on the platform at least yet, and the operating system automatically sandboxes all applications and restricts their access to system files and other applications that are installed.

The only files that the AVG app had access to are media files; music and photos, and so that's what AVG scanned. According to a blog post from Rafael Rivera, all it actually does is check the names of the files and see if they match a couple of strings, one in Hebrew. The app is available for free, supported by advertisements.

The lack of need for this application (at least now) is not why Microsoft pulled it from the Windows Phone Marketplace though. Justin Angel, a former Microsoft employee, examined the application more closely and found that it collects some data about the phone and sends it back to AVG.

Not likely to be a working loophole for very long.

Customers of T-Mobile in the United States might be able to browse the web on their Android phone even if they don't have a data plan. Smozzy is an Android application that lets you browse through the web without a data plan, because the content is requested and delivered entirely via SMS and MMS messages.

Of course that means your plan had better include unlimited messaging.

It has been tested only with the Nexus S and HTC G2 devices so far, and will only work with T-Mobile's U.S. service.

Use of he beta app is entirely at your own risk of course. Reviews for the app so far are mixed.

More info: https://market.android.com/...

Has four tuners, double the recording space and is THX Certified.

TiVo announced its TiVo Premiere Elite set-top box earlier this week. It packs four digital tuners and a 2TB hard drive which is says is good for 300 hours of Full HD recordings. It is TiVo's first and only DVR with four tuners allowing for simultaneous recording of four different shows while viewing a fifth recorded program.

The TiVo Premiere Elite is intended for use with digital cable systems only and does not work with analog cable or over-the-air antennas. It maintains TiVo's easy to navigate user interface, integrating Web entertainment 'from Netflix, Pandora, Hulu Plus, Amazon Instant Video, YouTube, and much more.

"We are pleased to announce the TiVo Premiere Elite at this year's CEDIA show as this product was designed specifically for the high-end custom home theater integrator or enthusiast looking to complete their home entertainment system with a best-in-class TV experience. Only TiVo Premiere Elite seamlessly combines digital cable programming with the best of Web entertainment, in full 1080p HD, and with 300 hours of HD recording space," said Doug Bieter, Vice President of Retail Sales for TiVo Inc.

Intel VP sees company as leader in software as well as hardware.

Doug Fisher, Corporate Vice President, General Manager of the Software and Services Group's Systems Software Division, Intel Corporation, was speaking at Intel's Software Media Day on Thursday in San Francisco. He said the company had a challenge to get people to recognise it as a software company as well as a hardware company.

He singled out the consistency of Intel's architecture in the chipmaker's close relationship with industry partners who develop for everything from high-end servers to mobile platforms. Servers and high-performance systems can rely on Intel's Xeon microprocessors, while Intel's Core products power most of the world's PCs and laptops. For mobile users, there's Intel's Atom line.

MSI presentation discredits Gigabyte claims about PCI Express Gen3-ready motherboards.

On August 8, 2011, Gigabyte issued a press release that announced their entire range of 6 series motherboards are ready to support the next generation Intel 22nm CPUs (LGA1155 Socket) as well as offer native support for PCI Express Gen. 3 technology, delivering maximum data bandwidth for future discrete graphics cards.

In total, it listed more than 40 motherboards that it said were Gen3-ready. Gigabyte rival MSI investigated the claims made by the Gigabyte press release and published its findings in a presentation. It seeks to discredit the claim that all the boards listed are Gen3-ready, and instead insists that only one of the Gigabyte boards is technically Gen3-ready.

The motherboard-manufacturer based its argument around the claim that if not all Gen3 components are available on a motherboard, then Gen3 will never be enabled. Intel Ivy Bridge CPUs with PCI Express Gen3 can deliver double the bandwidth (32GB/s Max) compared to Gen2, if the board is truly Gen3-compliant.

MSI made its points clear through a presentation (click to enlarge/browse images):

Northern Ireland man says Facebook put his daughter at risk.

The 12 year old girl posted what are being described as "sexually suggestive" photos of herself on the social networking site. It is this material, and the fact that she also revealed where she lived and attended school, that he claims has put her in danger from sex abusers.

At the core of the case is Facebook's own age limitation that bars under-13s from using the service. "It relies on children stating their correct age and it doesn't have any checks in place," his solicitor, Hilary Carmichael, said.

"My own personal view is that Facebook isn't suitable for under-18s, but the company isn't even able to uphold its own policy of keeping under-13s out. An age check, like asking for a passport number would be a simple measure for Facebook to implement."

The writ, lodged in Belfast High Court earlier this week, deems Facebook is guilty of negligence, and as such, has created a risk of sexual and physical harm to the child. Also, since the girl was in the voluntary care of the Northern Health and Social Care Trust when the images were posted, the trust was named as a defendant.

Apple insists it is only clearing stock of the old software.

Last week, an older version of its Final Cut video editing software became available again amidst ongoing complaints that its successor, Final Cut Pro X, is not good enough for professional editing.

Final Cut Studio is available to order (by phone) selling for £834 in the UK, as Apple insists it is only clearing out old stock. Final Cut Studio includes the Final Cut Pro 7 software. "It's really good news all round. I don't know what people would have done over the next year otherwise," said Ben Franklin, head of post production at London-based Spectrecom.

"Final Cut Pro X just doesn't seem to fit within the way we work, so we have to make the decision, do we stick with it or do we look elsewhere like Avid or Adobe Premiere Pro." Apple has also reportedly been pushed by some major customers and broadcasters to do something about what are seen as major issues with the new software.

Reviews for Final Cut Pro X were mixed, but particular attention was paid to the removal of key features from previous iterations of the software, and the inability to import projects from older versions.

Hitachi Deskstar 7K1000.D drive family is now shipping worldwide.

After becoming the first to ship a multi-disk 1TB hard disk drive back in 2007, Hitachi Global Storage Technologies can now also boast that it has squeezed 1TB on a single disk in a new series of its HDDs. The Hitachi Deskstar 7K1000.D drive family has begun worldwide shipments.

"The areal density race continues and while having the highest capacity is appealing, reaching 1TB per platter is equally important as it serves a full range of applications and opportunities across the industry's largest market volume," said Brendan Collins, vice president of product marketing at Hitachi GST.

"As we ship our first 1TB per platter drives, we know we’re delivering capacity, reliability and value to a broad customer base. Not only are we shipping our 1TB per platter drives to our own Branded Business, but we are shipping to our channel partners as well, enabling them to design affordable HDD-based solutions at attractive price points."

Group promises that work on "Do Not Track" standards is starting.

Around the world, privacy concerns have been raised as advertising firms track the habits of regular Internet users as they go about their daily online business. The tracking helps the firms to target more adequate advertisements at users with different tastes, but not everyone is OK with all the methods if tracking in practice.

This has prompted privacy groups and regulators in the United States and Europe to call for "Do Not Track" features to be offered to Internet users, giving them the option to opt out of this form of data gathering.

W3C has announced the creation of the Tracking Protection Working Group, which will meet September 21-22 with an ambitious timeline to publish standards by mid 2012.

"The W3C's action here can help protect consumers from unwanted tracking. Microsoft welcomes the opportunity to work with the industry and governments on a web standard based on our earlier work," said Dean Hachamovitch, Corporate Vice President, Microsoft Internet Explorer.

W3C is seeking broad-based participation, hoping to gather together browser vendors, search engines, advertising networks, regulators, civil society actors, and many other interested parties involved in the task. The group will be led collaboratively by a pair of industry-sponsored co-chairs, one from Europe, one from the US, of which the first is Aleecia M. McDonald, senior privacy researcher at Mozilla.

Flash Media Server 4.5 will set the stage to expand online content libraries and give audiences more choice and access to the content they want, Adobe says.

RTMP delivery through Flash Media Server has supported the largest live events in the world such as Obama's Presidential Inauguration, the World Cup and the Royal Wedding, and with Flash Media Server 4.5, HTTP streaming will help broadcasters and content providers scale to meet the demands of more video online.

HTTP streaming is the focus of the new release. While iOS does not support Adobe Flash, it does support HTTP Live Streaming (HLS). When Adobe's Media Server encounters an iOS device (or any that do not support Flash), it will provide the streaming video in a supported container through HLS.

This will allow for publishers using Adobes server software to offer their content to iPad and iPhone users. It does not, however, provide a solution for flash games, just for video.

Key New Features inside Flash Media Server 4.5

• Same Source Video delivery to Apple Devices and Adobe Flash (single workflows to reach both platforms)
• On Demand video packaging / segmenting for HTTP video delivery (no need to pre-package your content)
• Set-level F4M Manifests and Variant M3u8 playlist support
• Simple and robust content protection workflows for HTTP streaming (as easy as saying on or off)
• Live PVR/DVR support for Apple Devices and Adobe Flash with Disk Management (don’t miss that special moment in live)
• Support for Studio-approved DRM with Adobe Flash Access 3 (robust DRM that exceeds your requirements on Desktop and Android)
• Multicast SSM and ASM, with Multicast re-broadcast
• SIP Device support for communication
• P2P support in Flash Media Interactive Server

Not the best week for cloud services.

Users of Google Inc.'s popular Google Docs suite of web-based applications were unable to use the service for some time on Wednesday. Alan Warren, Engineering Director at Google posted an explanation on the official Google Docs blog.

The outage is the result of an update that should have made the service better. The change was designed to improve real-time collaboration within document lists, but a lurking memory management bug showed its ugly head when the servers came under heavy usage.

"Every time a Google Doc is modified, a machine looks up the servers that need to be updated. Due to the memory management bug, the lookup machines didn't recycle their memory properly after each lookup, causing them to eventually run out of memory and restart," Warrern writes.

"While they restarted, their load was picked up by the remaining lookup machines - making them run out of memory even faster. This meant that eventually the servers couldn’t properly process a large fraction of the requests to access document lists, documents, drawings, and scripts which led to the outage you saw on Wednesday."

Google's automated monitoring alerted the team to a spike in failure rate of attempts to access Google Docs. The engineering team atarted rolling it back 23 minutes after the first automated alert. They then doubled the capacity of the lookup service to mitigate the impact of the memory management bug, and the rollback completed 24 minutes later. Within five minutes the service was restored and everything got back to normal.

Judge sides with Electronics Arts in case over use of football player's image.

Former Rutgers University Quarterback Ryan Hart sued the giant video game publisher for the use of his image in its NCAA Football game without getting his permission first. EA argued that it had a constitutional right to free expression, and that the case should be dismissed.

U.S. District Judge Freda Wolfson in Trenton, New Jersey, agreed, citing the First Amendement to the United States Constitution that guarantees the right to free expression, saying it outweights Hart's right to control the use of his image.

Electronic Arts' lawyer, Elizabeth McNemara, said the company is pleased with the Judge's decision, adding it "validates Electronic Arts' rights to create and publish its expressive works."

Hackers tweet phony terrorism reports on NBC's Twitter.

With the tenth anniversary of the September 11, 2001 terrorist atrocities in New York, Washington and Pennsylvania approaching, and with U.S. authorities urging vigilance amidst a "credible threat", Americans are keeping an eye on the media and hoping it all passes without incident again this year.

Unfortunately for followers of NBC's Twitter account, some hackers decided to exploit the current atmosphere and post messages about a phony terrorist attack happening in New York.

"Breaking News! Ground Zero has just been attacked. Flight 5736 has crashed into the site, suspected hijacking. more as the story develops," one of the tweets read.

NBC released a statement explaining the tweets. "The NBC News twitter account was hacked late this afternoon and as a result, false reports of a plane attack on ground zero were sent to @NBCNews followers," the statement read.

"We are working with Twitter to correct the situation and sincerely apologize for the scare that could have been caused by such a reckless and irresponsible act."

Techland says it is "disturbed" by wording in line of code revealed by Steam forum goers.

The launch of Dead Island did not go as smoothly as hoped. When the game made its way to Steam, it turned out to be an incorrect developer version of the game. It has since been replaced to the proper final version of the game, but one little nasty detail got out.

Inside a file, Data0.pakDatadefault_player_setup.scr, is a reference to a skill in the game that gives a female character an extra 15 percent damage against men. In the final version of the game, this skill is "Gender Wars". In the not-for-public version, it appears to be called "Feminist Whore" ("FeministWhorePurna" found in default_player_setup.scr).

"It obviously violates professional and ethical standards at Techland and should never have happened," Blazej Krakowiak, international brand manager, told Eurogamer. "We're investigating this right now and we'll issue a statement later. For now, I can only express my sincerest apologies for this incident and assure you that whoever acted so irresponsibly did not represent the views and opinions of Techland."

Internet giant agrees to start collecting sales taxes next year.

Amazon agreed to start collecting California sales taxes on September 15, 2011, unless the United States Congress passes legislation setting a national standard in a debate that has spread to numerous states.

While brick and mortar stores are subject to sales tax, Amazon does not collect the taxes, referring to a supreme court ruling in 1992 that declare the collection of taxes from companies that don't have stores or warehouses within a state unconstitutional.

Amazon had refused to collect sales taxes and gathered over 500,000 signatures of registered voters to put a motion to repeal a law that took effect on July 1 on the June ballot. "Nobody wanted this referendum," said Lenny Goldberg, a supporter who is executive director of the labor-oriented California Tax Reform Assn. "There's a big down-side risk for everyone with the referendum. Amazon gets hammered with bad publicity, and we could lose [the election]."

Increasing numbers of states have been probing the sales tax issue, as it could be a source of hundreds of million of dollars of tax revenue per year.

Our friends at VSO Software released a new useful tool into the wild last week, and it's completely free.

VSO Downloader sits in the background while you are browsing the Internet and consuming multimedia. To the best of its ability it will download any streaming video or audio that it can detect.

It supports the typical sources that you would expect, such as YouTube and Metacafe, but it also has been tested against an extensive list of sources. To see the list, click here.

VSO Downloader will allow you to rename files as they download from remote servers, and using a download accelerator engine, will achieve the best speed it can, supporting resuming if something goes wrong. It also supports VPNs and proxy servers.

It does not matter what web browser you are using to view / listen to multimedia. The software is easy on system resources too, and is only a small installation completely free of adware, toolbars, spyware etc.

You can get VSO Downloader from: https://www.afterdawn.com/software/...

Google urges Gmail users to take precautions after attempted man-in-the-middle attacks.

Last week, the compromise of a Dutch certificate authority, DigiNotar, put the private online communications of some Internet users (mostly in Iran) at risk. It was found that a fraudulent SSL certificate was issued by DigiNotar for Google (which its not supposed to issue certificates for) allowed the attackers to get between Gmail users and the encrypted Google services.

The Google Chrome browser immediately detected the fraudulent certificates, protecting the user. Both Microsoft and Mozilla responded promptly to the threat too.

Not the Gmail team is urging Iranian users to take steps to protect their communications. It is contacting users directly that it deems to have been affected by the attack, even though Google's internal systems were not compromised in any way.

On its official blog, the Gmail team urged all Iranian users to:

• Change your password. You may have already been asked to change your password when you signed in to your Google Account. If not, you can change it here.
• Verify your account recovery options. Secondary email addresses, phone numbers, and other information can help you regain access to your account if you lose your password. Check to be sure your recovery options are correct and up to date here.
• Check the websites and applications that are allowed to access your account, and revoke any that are unfamiliar here.
• Check your Gmail settings for suspicious forwarding addresses or delegated accounts.
• Pay careful attention to warnings that appear in your web browser and don't click past them.

Federal court filing argues against Justice Department's challenge to proposed merger of AT&T and T-Mobile.

If the $39 billion deal goes ahead, AT&T would become the biggest carrier in the United States, jumping above Verizon Wireless. It is currently the second largest provider in the United States, while T-Mobile is the fourth largest.

The Justice Department filed a lawsuit to stop the deal from going ahead last week, citing concerns about competition and prices for consumers. The Justice Department views T-Mobile as an innovative, discount carrier that helps to keep wireless prices down in the market.

"T-Mobile has not been a meaningful or unique innovator in terms of network development and deployment, nor is it likely to become one in the foreseeable future," AT&T argued in the court filing, made with the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia. It wants the court to allow the deal to go ahead and force the Justice Department to pay the costs of this challenge.

The filing argues that the merger would free up spectrum, providing some relief to U.S. smartphone users who are consuming increasingly large amounts of wireless data.

U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) announces five operators have been charged with conspiracy and copyright infringement crimes.

A federal grand jury in Alexandria, Virginia returned the indictment on Friday. The five individuals stand charged with one count of conspiracy and five substantive copyright infringement counts for their involvement with NinjaVideo.

The website operated from February 2008 until it was shutdown in June 2010. In the meantime, the defendants are alleged to have collected more than $500,000 in proceeds, and facilitated millions of dollars in copyright infringement activities.

ICE said on Friday that these efforts are made to "safeguard the nation's economic security against those who seek to profit illegally from American creativity, innovation and hard work."

The five individuals charged by the grand jury include.

• Hana Amal Beshara, New Jersey - Co-Founder, Administrator.
• Matthew David Howard Smith, North Carolina - Co-Founder, Administrator.
• Jeremy Lynn Andrew, Oregon - Website Security.
• Joshua David Evans, Washington - Active Uploader.
• Zoi Mertzanis, Greece - Active Uploader.

Microsoft services hit by outage late Thursday, early Friday.

The outage was caused by DNS issues, according to Microsoft posts while the problem was being fixed. It lasted for around two and half hours late on Thursday night (early Friday morning in Europe.) Affected services included Microsoft's Hotmail e-mail service, Skydrive cloud storage and Office 365.

"We have completed propagating our DNS configuration changes around the world, and have restored service for most customers. Depending on your location you may still experience issues over the next 30 minutes as the changes make their way through the network. Thank you for your patience as we have worked to address these issues," a Microsoft blog read on Thursday night.

Cloud services allow corporate and home users to move their files and computing needs to powerful remote servers. In the case of Office 365, corporations can pay monthly subscription fees for its employees, only paying for services that those particular employees will use.

The advantages are potentially reduced costs, universal access to documents and other materials from anyway there is Internet access, piece of mind that important work is kept safe in the cloud where local system failures cannot destroy it and strong security that these services generally utilize.

Companion App for iPad lets users interact with Virgin Media: TiVo service with new ways.

The new feature will be available and usable as part of the first major software update for the system and is designed to build on the user experience of the award-winning service. The update will be rolled out by Virgin Media to the TiVo service customers in the UK over the coming months.

Customers will be able to use their Apple iPads to interact directly with their TiVo service and extend their viewing experience beyond the remote control. Using the free app, viewers can interact with the TiVo interface directly on the iPad and also search across Virgin Media's content including the TV Guide and thousands of hours of content available through its video on demand library.

Using the App for browsing content will not interfere with the video on the television at the time. Using just a couple of swipes, the viewer can begin viewing content on their TV that they discovered with their Companion App.

  

BSA tip-off leads to settlement over use of unlicensed software.

Citrin Cooperman, an accounting, tax and consulting firm that works with entrepreneurs, of New York, NY, has paid $385,000 to the BSA to settle claims that it had unlicensed software developed by Adobe, Corel, Microsoft and Symantec installed on some of its computers.

The company has also agreed to delete all unlicensed copies of software from its computer and acquire any licenses necessary to be complaint, and to implement stronger software asset management (SAM).

"Our firm has grown significantly in the last decade. We have always felt we were fully in compliance and had no idea there was any unlicensed software on our computers. When BSA asked us to check, we launched an investigation. Upon learning there was unlicensed software, we immediately contacted BSA and corrected it," said Joel Cooperman, Managing Partner of Citrin Cooperman.

"We are happy to say that in addition to ensuring all of our software products are fully and properly licensed, BSA has helped us safeguard our IT systems from serious risks such as malware and viruses that pirated software often brings."

World's only certified PlayStation smartphone comes to AT&T stores this month.

Sony Ericsson and AT&T announced this week that the Xperia PLAY smartphone will be available in AT&T stores throughout the United States from later this month. The smartphone is available through major carriers around the world, including Verizon, America Móvil, Telefónica Movistar, Vodafone, T-mobile and Orange.

There are currently 150 optimised titles available to download for Xperia PLAY, including Battlefield: Bad Company 2, Dead Space 2 and Minecraft Pocket Edition.

“Xperia PLAY is the only true gaming smartphone and Sony Ericsson is creating a new and unique market category. Games are the most popular content for smartphones and Xperia PLAY users are at the forefront in downloading content. This presents a major opportunity for operators," said Steve Walker, Global Head of Marketing at Sony Ericsson.

AT&T will market the smartphone as "Xperia PLAY 4G supporting HSPA+" with an exclusive "stealth blue" color. It will be available as a smartphone package complete with accessories including the Sony Ericsson Multimedia Dock DK300 and MC100 music cable.

Multinational personal technology firm believes its long-running growth will continue.

It is on course to surpass Dell is sales by year's end, becoming the second largest PC vendor in the world behind HP, which currently claims 18.1 percent of the global PC market. Lenovo has just jumped above Acer Inc. to claim the third spot in the world, with a 12.2 percent share of the market.

It now has its eye on Dell, which is just ahead with a 12.9 percent share of the PC market. For seven straight quarters, Lenovo has been the fastest growing major PC maker, and it shipped more than 10 million units worldwide during Q1.

"Lenovo has tremendous momentum in the market. We continue to not only outgrow the market, but also significantly outpace our competitors. With our own rapid growth, combined with the successful execution of our joint venture in Japan with NEC and our acquisition of Medion in Germany, we fully expect to be number 2 in worldwide PCs this year," said Lenovo CEO Yuanqing Yang.

"PCs continue to be a very strong core business for us. Even as we invest in new areas like tablets and mobile internet, we see great opportunity in PCs around the world. We are committed to the PC space for the long term and expect it to continue to fuel profitable, balanced global growth for Lenovo."

Finnish mobile giant wants a new take on its iconic tone.

Back in the '90s, when Nokia was clearly king of the industry, its ringtones were heard almost everywhere. Mobile phones only came with a certain amount of tones that you could choose from, and so a lot of Nokia's tones became very familiar to people.

Now Nokia is offering $10,000 to whoever can compose their next tone.

"Nokia Tune is one of world's most recognized audio brand assets and is estimated to be heard over one billion times a day. Nokia is launching a global crowdsourcing campaign to find a fresh version of the Nokia Tune. This is the first time Nokia is inviting people to work with the iconic tune with the winning tune to be placed next to the standard Nokia Tune in a selection of the company 2012 product portfolio. The tune should be fresh, expressive, original, creative yet distinctively a Nokia Tune. All collaborations are welcome"

Think you can do it? Go submit a new entry, or you can also vote which ones you like best.

UK communications regulator warns that auction may be pushed back by several months.

Due to legal issues and complex technical details that need to be resolved, the UK communications regulator, Ofcom, is warning that the auction for next-generation 4G spectrum could be pushed back until sometime in the second quarter of 2012.

"Ofcom has been explicit in its aim to begin the 4G auction as soon as is practicable and this remains our objective," a spokesman said. "We are aiming to hold the auction in the first half of next year. However, we have always maintained it is an ambitious timescale."

Ofcom is aiming to impose strict limits on the amount of 4G spectrum that operators can hold. This, it argues, will ensure competition for 4G services. Some operators, like O2, are not happy with Ofcom's auction proposals and have hinted at possible legal action.

"We note that because these technical issues need to be resolved before networks can be built, it will not be possible for mobile operators to start rolling-out 4G networks until 2013 at the earliest, regardless of when the auction takes place," Ofcom's spokesman said.

Pair facing lengthy jail sentences if convicted on terrorism charges for tweets.

Gilberto Martinez, 48, and Maria de Jesus Bravo, 57, are accused of using their Twitter accounts to insight panic. They had warned that gunmen had stormed a primary school in Veracruz. "They took five children, an armed group," Martinez, who is a math teacher, said on Twitter.

Maria de Jesus Bravo is a local radio host, and is also accused of making similar tweets as parents rushed to save their children from the reported attack.

The rumors spread fast, and were fuelled further when witnesses reported a burning car near the school. The two face up to 30 years in prison if they are convicted on terrorism charges, said Fidel Ordonez, their attorney. He said that Mexico is breaching an international human rights charter by charging the pair with terrorism offences.

"You cannot regard us as terrorists or saboteurs," the pair said in court documents filed by their lawyers on Monday, saying they were only exercising their right to free speech.

Over 42,000 people have been killed over the past five years in an ongoing drug war in Mexico between authorities and traffickers. Several attacks in recent months have prompted citizens to keep an eye on social media for unfiltered news, according to Rupert Knox of Amnesty International.

BSA members reach settlement with organization using illegitimate licenses.

The settlement is to be paid out by a Japanese computer software planning and production company based in Kanto, Japan. The infringing licenses were for software products developed and sold by BSA members Adobe, Autodesk and Microsoft.

The case originated with a report lodged with the BSA Japan software piracy hotline. A software audit was undertaken at the premises of the company, which found nearly 1,300 copies of unlicensed software, including Adobe Photoshop, Autodesk MAYA, and Microsoft Office.

A settlement of JPY437.34 million (approximately US$5.7 million) was reached between the three affected companies and the Japanese firm.

"The world's largest settlement originated from a report made to the BSA hotline. We continue to be surprised by the sheer number of reports being made of large organizations involved in software license infringements, despite a high level of awareness for copyright issues and intellectual property rights. We hope that this landmark case will serve as a timely reminder of the serious legal risks associated to the use of unlicensed software," said Chair of the BSA Japan committee, Sanae Matsuo.

Forget split screen, 3D television technology used to provide two different pictures on full screen.

LG call them its "Dual View" televisions. Demonstrated by Microsoft at IFA in Berlin, the new TVs display two separate pictures on the same screen, and use special 3D-like glasses to ensure that each gamer only sees one of those images.

The technology will go on sale in a limited number of LG televisions. It works with LG's Cinema 3D range, including the new flagship LW980T. For now, LG's models are limited to the Xbox 360 console. The glasses will come separately, reportedly costing £20 in the UK for both pairs.

A similar television will be released in the UK later this year to work with the PS3, though it uses the more expensive active-shutter glasses, while LG's models use the passive glasses.

Samsung SE-208BW combines an external ODD with wireless connectivity to provide wider end-user benefits.

Along with offering typical combines an external ODD with wireless connectivity to provide wider end-user benefits, the hub features Samsung’s own APP to enable smartphone, tablet and PC users to wirelessly stream and play CDs and DVDs on their smart devices to listen to music or watch films.

It includes wireless access point and repeater functionality, boosting the signal of existing access points across the home. The SE-208BW serves as a backup solution by wirelessly connecting to a smartphone or tablet PC to backup photos, videos, contacts and other information without having to interface with any PC.

For TV's with DLNA compatibility, the SE-208AB comes with Allshare allowing users to view drive content through the TV menu to play and record multimedia files onto CDs and DVDs. It is engineered to be compatible with all major operating systems, including Win7 and Mac OS.

The external drive provides a variety of speeds across different data media types including: 24X CD-ROM, 24X CD-RW, 8X DVD reading and 8X DVD±R, 5X DVD-RAM, 6X DVD+R Dual Layer, 6X DVD-R Dual Layer, 8X DVD+RW, 6X DVD-RW recording.

Video Electronics Standards Association reports dramatic increase in DisplayPort-equipped PC displays.

Over the last 12 months, PC displays making their way to market with DisplayPort have increased by 160 percent, reaching 78 displays from leading manufacturers such as Apple, Barco, Dell, Eizo Nanao, Fujitsu, Hewlett-Packard, Lenovo, Mitsubishi, NEC, Philips, Samsung and Sony.

DisplayPort is a high-bandwidth interface designed to work across the full line of PC components and offer backwards compatibility with legacy interfaces such as DVI and VGA, and with HDMI. DisplayPort significantly enhances display performance by doubling of the maximum data transfer rate to 21.6 Gbps, and increasing display resolution, color depths and refresh rates.

DisplayPort also enables more advanced features, such as multiple monitor support through a single DisplayPort connector; support for high-speed, bi-directional data transfer; audio enhancements including Audio Copy Protection and support for High-Definition (HD) audio formats such as Dolby, MAT, DTS HD, all Blu-Ray formats, and China's DRA standard; and improved support for Full HD 3D Stereoscopic displays.

"The availability of streaming media and HD-quality broadcast content over the internet means many consumers now demand a TV-like experience on their PCs," said Bill Lempesis, executive director at VESA.

Patent row with Apple continues as Samsung removes new tablet from line-up at Europe's biggest consumer electronics trade fair.

Samsung opted to remove the Galaxy Tab 7.7 from its IFA line-up in Berlin after a Dusseldorf court ordered it to stop selling the product. Despite the fact that the tablet is not even on sale yet, Samsung decided to honor the court order by removing it.

It had been unveiled at the show along with the new 5.3-inch Galaxy Note, a kind-of cross between smartphones and tablets in terms of its size.

Apple has accused Samsung, the biggest Android vendor, of "slavishly" cloning its iPad and iPhone devices in its tablet and smartphones. A ban was placed on the sales of the Galaxy Tab 10.1 in Germany in August, and the court will give its final ruling on September 9.

Apple and Samsung are also fighting legal battles in the United States, Australia and South Korea.

Sharp brings its monster 8K4K display to IFA.

Promising incredible images of 7680 x 4320 pixel resolution, 8K4K (Ultra-High Definition Television - UHDV) is something a lot of us are dying to see. Sharp showcased its prototype 8K4K, 85-inch display at the IFA trade show in Berlin, giving attendees a glimpse of the future.

Unfortunately, its presence doesn't mean we can expect to see anything like this on the market for a long time yet. Trials of 8K4K broadcasting aren't even planned to go ahead until 2020 in Japan, and there's not a whole lot of content that could be displayed on a prototype like this TV now anyway, nor is much in production.

Sharp isn't likely to offer an 85-inch "Super Hi-Vision" television until 2022, according to reports, but the interest in 8K4K is global. The BBC will erect three screens in the UK during the 2012 Olympics to show 8K4K footage of events, reportedly at the BBC's Pacific Quay building in Glasgow, its Broadcasting House in London and the National Media Museum in Bradford.

The SE-506AB optical disc drive is powered by USB.

Featuring a glossy anti-scratch surface, the SE-506AB is 12 percent smaller than Samsung's conventional Blu-ray drive to accommodate today's hectic mobile lifestyle. Samsung ODD's exclusive AV connectivity technology is featured on the new SE-506AB allowing users to easily connect and play content via AV connectivity function on multimedia TVs with an available USB port.

It is compatible with all major operating systems, including Windows 7 and Mac OS. A USB power interface eliminates the need for a separate electrical outlet.

The external drive provides a variety of speeds across different data media types featuring BD Quadruple layering. Specific speeds include: 6X BD-ROM, 24X CD-ROM, 24X CD-RW reading and 6X BD-R, 6X BD-R Dual layer, 4X BD-R Quad layer, 8X DVD±R, 5X DVD-RAM, 6X DVD+R Dual layer, 6X DVD-R Dual layer, 8X DVD+RW, 6X DVD-RW recording.

Vestel and BitTorrent Inc. showcase the world's first BitTorrent Certified Digital TV at the IFA show in Berlin.

The new prototype TV enables consumers to find, play and share all types of personal media, independently produced content and internet files directly on their TV.

By becoming BitTorrent Certified, consumer electronics makers can leverage the speed of the BitTorrent protocol and key downloading, transcoding, sharing and file-shifting features to make it easy for their customers to find, get and play all files on any certified devices.

The certification ensures consumers that any content will play back. The BitTorrent ecosystem is an integrated solution of software, devices and content, all orchestrated to move 100+ million PC users into the living room via certified TVs, Blue-ray/DVD players, media extenders, NAS devices and more.

"Consumers want all types of personal media and Internet content in their living rooms and the TV remains the most desired device for consuming this digital media, regardless of source," said Hakan Kutlu, deputy general manager responsible for marketing at Vestel.

"BitTorrent certification helps our TV line meet this consumer demand and ensures that Vestel products remain at the forefront of technology innovation and adoption."

Designed to save space while delivering great multimedia performance.

The Qosmio DX730 is Toshiba's first all-in-one PC, a stylish entertainment center. Its design is inspired by Toshiba's REGZA television line, coming with a 23-inch Full HD 1080p LED-backlit multi-touch display, featuring Resolution+ picture processing technology developed for REGZA TVs.

It is powered by the latest generation of Intel processors, can come with up to 6GB of memory and up to 1TB storage space. Selected models come with an integrated Blu-ray drive. For UK users, the DX730 doubles as a television setup with built-in Freeview support delivering a wide-range of digital channels without the need for a set-top box or Sat dish.

The Qosmio DX730 packs two USB 3.0 ports and four USB 2.0 ports for connecting smartphones, tablets and media players. An HDMI-In port lets you connect up any HDMI-equipped consumer electronics device, such as a games console.

For audio, the all-in-one PC comes with stereo speakers and a sub-woofer designed by Onkyo. Toshiba
Sleep-and-Music also lets users connect an MP3 player to the PC and play music through the speakers – even when the machine is switched off.

Light and thin Toshiba AT200 tablet packs 10.1-inch screen.

The tablet runs the Android 3.2 Honeycomb operating system, on a Texas Instruments OMAP 4430 1.2GHz processor and 1GB or DDR2 RAM. The 10.1-inch capacitive multi-touch LCD panel with LED backlight displays in 1280 x 800 (16:10). It comes with internal storage up to 64GB.

For connecting with other devices, the ultra-slim tablet comes with a micro-USB port, micro-SD slot, Wi-Fi and Bluetooth. Using a micro-HDMI port, content can be easily streamed to a large TV. Front and back high-definition cameras are ideal for video conferencing.

Running Android, the device has access to more than 250,000 apps on the Android Market. 1.5 Watt stereo speakers allow for high-quality sound playback.

• Android 3.2, Honeycomb
• High resolution 25.7cm (10.1-inch) capacitive LCD panel with LED backlight, 1,280 x 800 pixels (16:10) and multi-touch support
• CPU: TI OMAP 4430, 1.2GHz
• RAM 1GB DDR2
• Internal memory with up to 64 GB
• Micro-USB, micro-SD, micro-HDMI, Bluetooth, Wi-Fi (802.11b/g/n), docking port
• Settings: 100% video playback with backlight: 60nits
• GPS, 3D Accelerometer, gyrometer, electronic compass, ambient light sensor
• 5.0MP camera (rear), 2.0MP camera (front)
• Stereo speakers (2x 1.5W)
• Toshiba Media Player supporting a wide selection of video, picture and audio formats
• Weight: 558g
• Size: 256mm x 176mm x 7.7mm
• Battery life (backlight 60nits): 8h (100% video playback). 8h (65% web browsing via WLAN 10% video playback 10%; 25% standby)

Designed for thrill-seekers, it's water-resistant, easily attaches to clothes or bike.

An integrated clip built into the body of the lightweight camcorder allows it to be easily attached to a t-shirt or shorts for hands-free filming, and a 5mm jack lets owners mount the Camileo Clip to helmets and bicycle handlebars.

It can record in Full HD 1080p. It offers 5X digital zoom keeping the 1080p resolution, and drops to 720p for 10x zoom shots. Electronic Image Stabiliser technology is included to reduce visible camera shake.

It sports a 1.5-inch LCD screen that is controlled using a touch pad on the external body of the camcorder. Still shots can be captured at 16MP resolution using the 5MP CMOS sensor.

For storage, the Camileo Clip uses micro-SD cards for easily expandable storage and card swapping. Mini-USB is used to connect to computers for quick data transfer while a mini-HDMI output lets the user watch their recordings on a HDTV.

Toshiba Camileo Clip Information.

• Full HD 1080p resolution (30fps)
• 5MP CMOS sensor (up to 16MP photos)
• 5x digital zoom (1080p), 10x digital zoom (720p)
• Electronic Image Stabiliser
• Screen size: 1.5-inch (3.8 cm)
• CAMILEO Uploader software
• Micro SD/SDHC/SDXC up to 64GB
• 1x mini HDMI and 1x mini USB
• Touch pad
• Weather proof
• Webcam functionaility
• Size: 46.5mm x 80mm x 16 mm (19.5mm with clip
• Weight: 85g

Records in Full HD 1080p, and offers 12x optical Zoom.

Utilizing an 8MP CMOS sensor, the Toshiba X200 also has a 20x "Advanced Zoom", which can record distant action with the resolution cut down to 720p from Full HD. Additionally, 60x digital zoom lets the user record even more distant action.

The camcorder can also take stills up to 16MP resolution. Electronic Image Stabiliser technology is included for steady shots, and the X200 also packs motion detection technology to detect and record people and pets in higher quality.

A 3-inch touch-screen allows for viewing of recording/recorded footage, and quick editing using a Cut 'n' Save feature. Content can be easily shared with friends and family through social networks using included Camileo Uplaoder software.

For storage, the Camileo X200 uses SD cards, allowing for easy storage expansion and card swapping. A mini-HDMI output is there for playing HD content on a television, and mini-USB for connecting to computers and laptops for quick and easy data transfer.

Toshiba Camileo X200 Information.

• 1080p Full HD video resolution (30fps)
• 12x optical zoom, 60x digital zoom, 20x advanced zoom
• 8MP CMOS sensor (up to 16MP photos)
• 3.0-inch (7.6 cm) touchscreen
• CAMILEO Uploader software
• Electronic Image Stabiliser
• Microphone slot
• Face tracking, smile detection and slow motion technology
• On camcorder video editing software Cut and Save
• Pause Button
• MPEG 4 H.264 recording
• SD/SDHC/SDXC up to 128GB
• 1x mini HDMI and 1x mini-USB
• Size: 120mm x 54mm x 62mm
• Weight: 301g

Provides recording in Full HD 1080p, and offers 23x optical zoom.

An extended 120x digital zoom allows the user to get much closer to the most distant action. The 5MP CMOS sensor also means the Camileo X400 is capable of capturing very high quality still images up to 16MP.

The Camileo X400 sports a 3-inch LCD touchscreen with a user-friendly interface to pick settings and shooting modes on demand. Electronic Image Stabiliser technology is included for steady shots, and the X400 also packs motion detection technology to detect and record people and pets in higher quality.

A "smile detection" feature can be switched on to automatically snap a still photo when a smile is detected.

Sharing the captured video with friends is made easy with Camileo Uploader, which can easily publish content to social networks. Featuring an SD card slot, it is simple to expand storage and swap cards, while mini-USB enables quick data transfers with laptops and computers. Mini-HDMI connectivity allows the user to play recorded content on HDTVs.

Toshiba Camileo X400 Information.

• 1080p Full HD video resolution at 30fps
• 23x optical zoom, 120x digital zoom
• 3.0-inch (7.6 cm) LCD touchscreen
• 5MP CMOS sensor with BSI (back side illumination) technology (up to 16MP photos)
• CAMILEO Uploader software
• Electronic Image Stabiliser
• Microphone Slot
• Face tracking, smile detection and slow motion technology
• On camcorder video editing software Cut 'n' Save
• Pause Button
• MPEG 4 H.264 recording
• SD/SDHC/SDXC up to 128GB
• 1x mini HDMI and 1x mini USB
• Size: 120mm x 54mm x 62mm
• Weight: 326g

The Toshiba BDX1250 and Toshiba BDX2250 displayed at IFA trade show in Berlin.

Each model outputs video content in Full HD 1080p and can upscale standard definition movies into "near high-definition resolution", and feature Dolby True HD audio, all of which we have come to expect in the market. Additional, USB connectivity allows playback of content in the MP3 format for audio, or in AVCHD or the MKV container (H.264 video) for video.

Both models support BD Live (Profile 2.0) to provide access to interactive features.

Toshiba BDX2250 Information.

• 1080p Full HD
• Access to YouTube Leanback and Picasa
• BBC iPlayer
• Dolby True HD
• BD Live (Profile 2.0)
• MKV, AVCHD (H.264 profile), MP3 and JPEG
• USB 2.0
• REGZA-Link (HDMI-CEC)
• DLNA support for file streaming over network

• 1080P Full HD
• Dolby True HD
• BD Live (Profile 2.0)
• MKV, AVCHD (H.264 profile), MP3 and JPEG
• USB 2.0
• REGZA-Link (HDMI-CEC)

Combines Full HD 1080p, LED backlighting, Smart TV functionality and promises to go easy on the wallet.

Just how easy, we don't know for sure yet as the press information does not price for the UK (or European) market. What we do know is the new Toshiba TL Series (TL858) LED TVs will be available in 40-inch or 46-inch screen sizes, displaying Full HD 1080p content up to 200 frames per second (FPS) for smooth motion, and in 3D if desired (requires glasses that are not included.)

Smart TV functionality brings YouTube, BBC iPlayer, Flickr (and Facebook through Toshiba Places) and other applications for on-demand content. It connects to the Internet wirelessly via an additional dongle, and sports USB connectivity for playing audio or video content from USB key. DLNA compatibility supports content streaming across a home network.

For connecting other home entertainment devices, the TL series packs four HDMI ports.

Also announced was the RL858 series, a stylish range of Full HD LED TVs offering high quality performance, available in screen sizes of 32-inch or 40-inch. Like the TL Series, they also feature Smart TV functionality, providing access to content from Facebook, Flickr, BBC, YouTube and more.

Quad Full HD display delivers striking 3D images.

Toshiba used the IFA trade fair in Berlin to demo its new 55-inch ZL2, featuring its very latest in imaging technology. The ZL2 removes the need for 3D glasses for viewers, who can experience the effect from 9 different positions in front of the TV.

Other features of the ZL2 include face tracking, Resolution+, Auto Calibration, 2D to 3D conversion, and Smart TV features including Toshiba Places. The ZL2 is the world’s first TV targeted at consumers to include a Quad Full HD display, offering up to 3840 x 2160 pixel resolution. This enables the ZL2 to offer a 3D viewing experience that can be enjoyed by multiple viewers and can display 2D content in four times (Quad) Full HD resolution.

The glasses-free 3D technology is based on the stereoscopic principle of simultaneously delivering a picture for the left eye, and another one with a small offset (parallax), for the right eye to achieve the 3D effect. To deliver a glasses-free 3D image and experience, a range of lenticular lenslets guide the dedicated images to each viewer.

• 139.7cm (55-inch) Glasses-Free 3D TV
• Quad Full HD (3840 x 2160) resolution display
• Face tracking technology via integrated camera
• 2D to 3D conversion with depth control
• Built in Wi-Fi, DLNA® and Windows 7 compatibility
• Freeview HD ready tuner
• Resolution+ and 3D Resolution+
• Toshiba Places
• YouTube, BBC iPlayer
• Personal TV
• Remote control operation via iPhone
• AutoView ambient light sensor
• Built-in subwoofer
• USB HDD Video Recording
• Auto Calibration
• 4x HDMI, 2x USB
• REGZA-LINK (HDMI CEC)

New product lets users effortlessly play, share and wirelessly stream their local videos, music and photos between their PCs and Android-powered tablets.

PowerDVD Mobile for Android devices can wirelessly download and share media from PowerDVD on the PC to Android tablets, utilizing "Save To" and "Share On" features. If you have a DNLA TV, you can use it to stream media from your Android device to enjoy it on the bigger screen.

It also acts as an all-in-one media player, supporting photos (including the ability to touch up photos and create/view slideshows easily), videos and music on Android tablets, though the format/codec support is dependant on the capabilities of the Android device itself.

“CyberLink has always been synonymous with creating innovative digital media solutions,” said Alice H. Chang, CEO of CyberLink Corp.

“With the release of PowerDVD Mobile, we are proud to add a new solution that takes advantage of the momentum from Android device adoption and brings the premium entertainment experience of PowerDVD beyond the PC. Users can now conveniently enjoy their movies, videos and photos on the PC, in the living room or on the go.”

  

• Operating System: Android 3.0 and above
• Processor: Minimum 1GHz
• RAM: Minimum 512MB
• Supported Screen Resolutions: 1280x800, 1280x768, 1024x600