News written by James Delahunty (August, 2009)

Argentina has passed over European and American standards for High-definition television broadcasts, and followed Brazil in opting to adopt the ISDB-T standard for HDTV in the country.

Argentine President Cristina Kirchner made the announcement of its decision to follow Brazil's lead in the region in a highly-competitive market for HDTV broadcasts at a South American summit.

Kirchner ratified a memorandum between the governments of both Argentina and of Japan to introduce the Japanese ISDB-T standard in the country to co-operate together in the sector. Kirchner also signed a cooperation accord on HDTV with Brazil.

Apple France's financial director, Michel Coulomb, met with France's Secretary of State for Trade, Herve Novelli, on Friday to reassure the French government of the iPhone's safety following a burst of media reports about the product in recent weeks. The company stated that reports of iPhones suddenly cracking, and a report about an iPhone exploding, were not due to a defect, but improper handling by users.

Coulomb said that no cases of the iPhone's battery overheating have been detected, and that iPhones with broken screens were damaged by excessive external pressure on the device. Novelli more or less agreed that the explosions didn't appear to be caused by the batteries, and said that non-Apple experts in the United States were examining three problematic iPhones sent from France.

One iPhone user, Frank Benoiton, disagrees with the claim that the screen damage is caused by users. His wife has an iPhone, which suffered a cracked screen recently. "It was not dropped and experienced no unusual shock," he said. He appealed to Orange France to fix the device, but they told him to contact Apple. The iPhone maker initially told him that the screen was broken by a user and so nothing would be done on their part - but then days later reversed its decision and said the phone would be replaced free of charge.

Film Fresh has partnered with DivX Inc. and major movie studios to offer a download-to-own service that sells downloads in the DivX format. Users will be able to download content provided by Warner, Lionsgate, Sony Pictures and Paramount from the street release date and play them on any DivX-enabled devices.

This is the first DivX service of its kind to be available to users in the United States. DivX Inc. already has a download-to-own store in France with Warner Bros. and expects to open a store in other European countries. The new U.S. service is advertised as allowing users to download movies directly from the web, transfer them to USB or to DVD.

The DVD Player option does not appear to be what it seems however. On the Film Fresh website, it gives an option for playback on a "DVD Player", but further reading shows that it requires a "DivX-Certified" device - a conversion from DivX to DVD-Video for these downloads is not likely to be allowed, rather you likely need a DVD player that can play DMF content.

YouTube currently offers a revenue-sharing "partner program" to notable video creators on its website. Launched over a year ago, the Partner Program has vague terms on which a user can be accepted, and currently has several thousand partners. Partners have the opportunity to place ads against their videos, and take the majority of the ad revenue as the content creator.

However, some users often post their own video creations and watch them go "viral". The view count of such videos might be much higher than the average viewing of a user in the Partner Program. In order to expand the program from thousands of users to tens of thousands of users, YouTube will now monitor videos in rising popularity, and at a certain point, e-mail its creator and offer a revenue sharing option to place ads.

The offer won't give all the benefits received by a current Partner, but the revenue sharing is kept the same. According to YouTube spokesman Aaron Zamost, advertisers have been requesting such a feature for some time now, as many thousands of very popular videos that are composed of original content are not tapped for their advertising potential.

Channel 4 has announced that it plans to broadcast 3D television programmes in the UK during the Autumn, beating heavyweight Sky which has already carried out some 3D tests including a live concert by Keane. Channel 4 will broadcast its 3D content using ColorCode, which will provide a normal picture for the naked eye, and a 3D effect with the use of appropriate 3D glasses.

The network said that 3D glasses which can be used to view the programmes will be distributed through the Sainsbury's retail chain. One of the first shows that will be broadcast in 3D will be a show with illusionist Derren Brown, as well as a combination of clips and documentaries in a collection dubbed "The Greatest Ever 3D Moments".

Sky Digital also has plans to commence 3D programmes broadcasting, hoping to make it available to consumers before Christmas.

UK ISP TalkTalk has said that recommendations from the UK Government on ways to solve the Internet piracy problem - which include disconnecting customers who are deemed "repeat offenders" - likely breach fundamental rights. Additionally, provider Virgin Media commented that it is persuasion and not coercion that is the key to cracking down on the estimated 6 million file sharers in the UK.

"This is best done by making sure there are legal alternatives and educating people, writing letters to alleged file-sharers and, if necessary, taking them to court," TalkTalk's director of regulation Andrew Heaney told BBC News, adding that the company is determined as anyone to crack down on illegal activity on its network.

"Disconnecting alleged offenders will be futile given that it is relatively easy for determined file-sharers to mask their identity or their activity to avoid detection," he added. A Virgin Media spokeswoman said the company was concerned that a "heavy-handed, punitive regime will simply alienate consumers," and warnings were also raised about the possible methods of identifying a user by IP address, which might affect users who share an Internet connection.

In a letter brief filed in the ongoing court battle between Apple and the "Mac clone maker" Psystar, Apple has accused Psystar of destroying valuable evidence. Psystar sells what it calls "Open Computers", and gives an option to have Mac OS X Leopard pre-installed on a new system. Apple guards its operating system software for use with its computers only, and it sued Psystar, alleging that it breached the DMCA and the Max OS X license.

Apple claims that in order for Psystar's systems to have been made Mac-compatible, Psystar had to circumvent technical elements of the software that prevents its unauthorized use. The company accused Psystar of improperly modifying or reverse engineering its software to enable it to run on these unauthorized systems - Psystar's "Open Computers".

"Defendant, Psystar Corporation, has destroyed relevant evidence that it was legally required to preserve. Specifically, Psystar has overwritten -- i.e., erased -- infringing versions of the software code used on computers sold to its customers," the letter reads. Apple says that Psystar has erased prior versions of its software. This discovery was made when the company deposed Rodolfo Pedraza, CEO of Psystar, in order to discover how the company was circumventing the "technological protection measures".

After registering as a legitimate political party in the United Kingdom, the UK Pirate Party received over 100 new members per hour, according to its leader. "It has exceeded all expectations. Put it this way, donations have been coming in so fast that PayPal were concerned we were a fraudulent site," said Andrew Peter Robinson, party leader.

He continued: "The party was born of the feeling at the last European elections that there was no one to vote for and a group of us were jealous of people in Sweden who could vote for the Pirate Party." The party intends to contest as many seats as funding and resources will allow and may even contest a by-election if one shows up before the general election.

However, Robinson is keeping a perspective on the reality of the Pirate Party's chances to gain any power. "We're not going to win any seats but we can get these issues discussed," he told The Register. As for the issues that the Party wants to get discussed, Robinson said the following: "The system as it is doesn't reward artists. Typical record contracts now grant 95 per cent of revenues to the record label, not the band. Reorganizing that would help make up for a lot of the shortfall from cutting the length of copyright."

The Nintendo Wii console has sold over 800,000 units in the United Kingdom since early January, according to data obtained by GamesIndustry.biz earlier this week. Some confusion had arisen from a GAME financial statement which would suggested that the Wii and DS performances had slowed considerably in the UK.

The newer Nintendo DSi model has sold 370,000 units in the UK since it emerged, giving it a faster rate of sale than the original DS and DS Lite in its first four months. Still going strong however, the Nintendo DS Lite has sold 680,000 units in the UK in 2009 so far.

Following a number of complaints at the revelation that Sony imposed a block on Intel's Virtualization Technology (VT) in some VAIO models - which is present in the Core 2 Duo chip that ships with affected VAIO notebooks - Sony has promised The Register that it will make an effort to clarify the policy more clearly on its websites.

Customers were unhappy to learn about the limitation in the VAIO BIOS after buying a model which Sony recommends for the upcoming Windows 7, because it blocks Windows 7's XP-mode. It is a feature that has received considerable media attention and put some minds at ease about going with Windows 7, so it isn't inconceivable that customers who saw Sony advertise VAIO notebooks for Windows 7 assumed they could use this feature, even if they didn't know the VT technology is included in the CPU.

If they did know, then they most likely would have been unaware that Sony has disabled it since its advertisements fail to declare the fact. "I'll take the action to be clearer on our site that VT will not be enabled," Senior manager for product marketing Xavier Lauwaert promised The Register.

In another challenge to Amazon's Kindle, Sony has decided to do away with its proprietary software and instead convert all of its e-book store into the ePub industry standard format. Sony made the move to "allows Sony to make its e-book store compatible with multiple devices and its Reader devices open to multiple sources for content," according to the Japanese consumer electronics giant.

It said that converting its e-book store to ePub is an effort to take the confusion out of the digital book formats. Instead of using its proprietary copy protection software on the Sony Reader, it will use an anti-copying solution that has been developed by Adobe with multi-platform support.

"Consumers should not have to worry about which device works with which store," Steve Haber, president of Sony's Digital Reading Business Division, said in a statement. "With a common format and common content protection solution they will be able to shop around for the content they want regardless of where they get it or what device they use."

The International Digital Publishing Forum backs the ePub format, which was developed by a group of 60 companies and organizations.

A claim made that an Apple iPhone exploded in France is the first such report involving an iPhone, after several have been made about the company's iPod since it was released. Marie-Dominique Kolega says her 18 year old son was struck in the eye after his girlfriend's iPhone started hissing, and shattered. She has threatened to file a complaint against Apple over the incident.

"My son was frightened but he did not lose an eye," Kolega, of Aix-en-Provence in southern France, told AFP. US television station KIRO recently did a report on a number of cases of exploding iPods that have led to injuries or property damage. The station claimed that Apple's lawyers had tried to prevent it from getting access to 800 pages of documents from the Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC) in California.

In the pages were information about 15 burn and fire-related incidents that have been blamed on Apple's iPods. The documents put the blame on overheating lithium-ion batteries, and stated that reports dropped off when Apple changed the batteries in use.

Google Inc.'s plan to acquire On2 Technologies in a deal worth around $106.5 million may not go as smoothly as both had hoped. Some On2 shareholders are unhappy with the deal, which they believe undervalues their stock, as well as other terms of the deal. They also point out that the deal was announced just one day before the company released its best quarterly results in 18 months.

A lawsuit, seeking class-action status, was filed in Delaware Chancery Court on Monday. It requests a permanent injunction blocking the deal from going ahead, as well as calling the defendants to account for all damages caused. But does the deal really undervalue the stock, when the 60 cents a share deal represented a 57 percent premium from the closing price of On2's stock the day it was announced?

Well, the lawsuit says that on May 13, On2 stock was traded at 65 cents and that in 2008, the price reached $1.16. According to Reuters, the stock started the second quarter at 30 cents and ended it above 40 cents. "Defendants rushed to announce the proposed transaction at $0.60 per share on August 5th ahead of the positive earnings results announced the next day, thereby placing a cap on the company's stock price," the suit reads.

AT&T Inc. has filed a complaint with the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) against Cablevision Systems Corp, alleging anti-competitive practices. AT&T is seeking to gain access to HD programming from the Madison Square Garden (MSG) network, which is the same goal as Verizon Communications Inc, which filed a similar complaint with the FCC just last month.

The content they seek to gain access to includes games played by the New York Knicks basketball team, New York Rangers, New York Islanders and the New Jersey Devils ice hockey teams. According to AT&T, in its complaint to the FCC, Cablevision engages in conduct that prevents other providers from offering a competing service to customers, which is claims is against FCC rules.

AT&T providers the programming to customers in Connecticut but in standard definition. "Their customers already receive every single game offered on MSG and MSG Plus," Cablevision said. "Now they want the FCC to force MSG to hand over its HD programming, which is a product of many years of technological development and investment. The idea that a phone company more than 15 times our size needs a regulatory bailout is absurd."

The U.S. games industry has seen its fifth straight month of double-digital decline news from the NPD Group. Combining all hardware, software and accessories on the market, gaming sales dropped 29 percent from July 2008 during the month, raking in around $848.90 million compared to last July's $1.19 billion total.

A dramatic drop was witnessed for hardware, with sales falling 37 percent. The Nintendo DS platform topped the charts having sold 538,900 units, but the Nintendo Wii had an uncharacteristic month, selling 252,500 units. While lower than usual for the Wii, it still beat the Xbox 360 by almost 50,000 units. Microsoft's console took third place with 202,900 units - 2,000 shy of its July 2008 total.

In fourth place, Sony's PlayStation Portable (PSP) moved 122,800 units, followed by the PlayStation 3 (PS3) with 121,800 units and finally, the PlayStation 2 (PS2) at 108,000 units. Total hardware sales amounted to $280.94 million. Software sales dropped 26 percent in July compared to July 2008, bringing in $436.99 million. Nintendo's Wii Sports Resort topped the charts, selling 508,200 copies. The only other title to make it to the top 10 was Electronic Arts' NCAA Football.

On Wednesday, a California appeals court overturned a previous ruling that had declared Kaleidescape's DVD storage machine legal, siding with the film industry in the dispute. The decision mirrors a court decision the previous day that resulted in an injunction being placed on RealNetworks' RealDVD software and Facet prototype HDD-equipped DVD player.

In March 2007, a District court judge agreed with Kaleidescape's position that nothing in the Content Scrambling System (CSS) license it obtained from the DVD Copy Control Association (DVD-CCA) forbade it from creating hardware that could copy and store digital content from movie DVDs. The appeals court disagreed.

"We're obviously disappointed by the court's decision" said Michael Malcolm, Kaleidescape's CEO. "Our plan is to go to the Supreme Court of California. We're confident that were not in breach of our contract with the DVDCCA and until then our products remain fully legal and licensed."

Microsoft has had a long-running campaign against businesses that use and/or sell pirated copies of its software, whether its actually sold as a counterfeit product on a disc, or a pre-installed on a HDD by a PC dealer. In the UK, it has taken action against more than 100 high street retailers in just the last 18 months or so.

One of the companies that it caught, and is now working with, is PC Support in Worcester. Christine Throup of the company, told The Register, "We recognize that we weren’t installing Microsoft software correctly, and that’s something we take seriously. We’ll be working with Microsoft over the next few weeks to make sure what we do falls within their software rules from now on."

Ten other companies also have reached a settlement with Microsoft having been caught in the act (list at source). Microsoft reminds consumers that PCs with pre-loaded Windows installations should also come with the appropriate documents to prove that it is genuine software.

The company provides a discounted replacement service for consumers who unknowingly bought unlicensed copies of Microsoft's operating systems.

The creators of the PlayStaion 3 (PS3) and Wii consoles, and the iPhone, have been handed yet another patent dispute complaint, this time from a company called Bandspeed. The company filed a lawsuit in the Western District Court of Texas last week. It claims that the manner in which the said products handle wireless communication channels infringes on two of its patents.

The first patent was issued in 2006 and details a method for a device to select a wireless channel to facilitate communication based on performance, which the second patent, issued on August 4, 2009, details managing the channels, again based on performance. Bandspeed describes itself as the "leader in next-generation Wi-Fi management."

The company alleges that Apple, Nintendo and Sony's products are infringing its patents, and is seeking damages from the court and a permanent injunction to prevent continued violation.

The World Trade Organization (WTO) has handed a victory to the United States in a complaint made in 2007 against China over the its system for the import of American media products including music, movies, magazines, books and other products. The U.S. has maintained that China's imposed limitations have helped a large counterfeit market to flourish in the country.

The WTO ruling has ordered the Chinese government to ease up on the limitations on foreign films, music and print, but it did not make any ruling on Chinese censorship. According to the ruling, China was breaking international trade rules by blocking foreign-owned companies from acting as importers and wholesale providers of media products.

"China expresses regret that the panel did not reject the US complaint about the import and distribution of printed material, films and music," China's commerce ministry spokesman Yao Jian said in a statement. "China will carefully evaluate the panel's report and does not rule out appealing on issues of concern to the Chinese side."

The United States called the WTO ruling significant. The ruling also specifically stated that China's policy of preventing U.S. music download companies from offering their services to Chinese customers was breaking trade rules.

Debian-developer Joey Hess posted a blog entry with some worrying details of how Palm Pre communicates with the company. From reading log files Hess found on his Pre, it would appear that the device alerts Palm of where you are (using GPS), what applications you are using and for how long, and when they crash. All of this is done with no notification of such data being sent, and no opt-out method appears to be available.

"I'm shocked that GPS location info is apparently being sent to Palm on a daily basis," Hess told The Register. "It seems both unnecessary and a large privacy risk." The Register went on to contact Palm about the issue and received a statement.

"Our privacy policy is like many policies in the industry and includes very detailed language about potential scenarios in which we might use a customer’s information, all toward a goal of offering a great user experience. For instance, when location based services are used, we collect their information to give them relevant local results in Google Maps. We appreciate the trust that users give us with their information, and have no intention to violate that trust."

After receiving take-down notices from the Recording Industry of South Africa (RISA) requesting that two International websites be blocked, the Internet Service Providers Association (ISPA) has decided not to comply. Specifically, the RISA had requested the blocking of Soundike.com and GoMusicNow.ur, because the services sell tracks for as low as $0.09 each.

The local Nokia Music Store charges easily ten times the amount for song and album downloads. The ISPA responded to the take-down notices on behalf of its members, rejecting the request and maintaining that it is not up to the ISPA what sites should be blocked.

"It isn't up to ISPA to decide whether or not websites should be blocked. It is up to ISPA to assist and advise its members in dealing with take-down notices made in terms of the ECT Act," said ISPA GM Ant Brooks.

"The take-down notices ISPA's members received from RiSA were requests to block access to certain Internet sites hosted outside of South Africa. The take-down notice process in the ECT Act can only be used to request the removal of content hosted on the network of the service provider to whom that take-down notice is sent."

Tom Group, a Chinese conglomerate, announced on Wednesday that it plans to bring the popular music streaming service Spotify to the Chinese market. The Spotify service comes in both a free (when you can get it) service supported by advertising, and a premium subscription service. Not only does the Tom Group want to make it available to Internet users on a computer in China, but also to provide it over mobile phones, a Spotify service not yet available elsewhere.

"Tom will work toward unveiling a localized version of Spotify in Greater China in the near future," a statement from the company on Wednesday, said. The Chinese government indicates that as many as 338 million people in China use the Internet. Hong Kong billionaire Li Ka-shing owns the majority of the Tom Group, which also counts eBay and Skype as International partners.

According to the Financial Times, Spotify is close to securing new investment from Ka-shing's charitable foundation, which along with Wellington Partners and others will flood another $50 million into Spotify, valuing the service at around $250 million.

Nokia and Microsoft Corp. announced an agreement yesterday that will bring Microsoft Office software to Nokia smartphones. The software will coming with Nokia handsets from next year, and will include Microsoft Office Communicator Mobile, which will be followed by other applications.

"This agreement represents an important milestone for both companies and the industry," Stephen Elop, the president of Microsoft Business Division, said. "It's the first time Microsoft will develop rich Office Mobile applications for another smartphone platform. With more than 200 million smartphone customers globally, Nokia is the world's largest smartphone manufacturer and a natural partner for us."

Nokia smartphone users will be able to use popular Microsoft programs such as Word, PowerPoint, Excel and OneNote to edit and share Office documents, but both companies stressed they will be still rivals when it comes to mobile operating system software. "Nokia and Microsoft do compete in some areas and we will continue to do so," said Elop. "At Microsoft we remain deeply committed to Windows Mobile."

Redbox, a DVD rental Kiosk service that operates 17,900 kiosks in the U.S., has filed a lawsuit against 20th Century Fox for attempting to delay new releases from its machines. Fox, like Universal before it, believe that Redbox' $1 rental fee and $7 DVD sales seriously undervalue the product, and will do damage to DVD sales by diverting consumers away from stores like Blockbuster where they are surrounded by new DVDs to buy.

The lawsuit was filed on Tuesday in U.S. District Court in Wilmington, Delaware. Redbox had previously sued Universal for the same tactics and is awaiting a decision. The Fox lawsuit accuses the studio of violating antitrust laws by reducing consumer choice in the marketplace, as well as increasing prices that consumers must pay.

Not all studios feel the same way as Fox and Universal however. Sony Pictures reached a deal with Redbox to offer Sony titles for rental, as long as Redbox destroyed the rental DVDs instead of selling them when their rental life is over. Lions Gate Entertainment Group also agreed on Tuesday to make its films available to Redbox immediately.

The UK's first Pirate Party has officially registered as a political party, meaning it can now raise funds and push its candidates in the next general election. The Party hopes to emulate the same popularity as the Swedish Pirate Party has gotten, largely due to the attention surrounding the Pirate Bay.

"Getting to this stage has been a long process, we've had to elect officers, raise funds, fill out forms, meet with some (very helpful) people at the Electoral Commission, and learn far more about electoral law and the special party funding rules that apply to Gibraltar than any same person would ever want to," a site announcement reads.

"Now the party can really start. It's time for us to tell the world that we exist, to recruit members, raise funds and gear up to fight the General Election. The officers and web team have built the framework that the party needs to get going, now it's time for YOU to make things happen.

"Join the party, tell the media about the party,tell your friends about the party, take part in policy and news debates on the forum, join our Facebook group, donate or set up a regular payment to provide financial support, set up a branch in your constituency, school or workplace, join the specialist workings groups for members with key skills like lawyers and journalists and volunteer to take part in canvassing and campaigning in your constituency at the general election..."

The Free60 Project - which aims to open up the Xbox 360 to homebrew to the same degree as the original Xbox (or as close as can be achieved) - has warned those who have not already gotten the Tuesday Xbox 360 update to avoid the update altogether. There are two main reasons for this. Firstly, its the first Xbox 360 update to overwrite the first stage bootloader of the system.

Any failure when this process is under-way could badly damage an Xbox 360, according to Free60. The second reason is Microsoft's intention for doing this. According to Free60, a vulnerability exists which can be used to boot Linux, or other operating systems, on the Xbox 360 console, and that this hack will be released very soon. The Tuesday update fixes the vulnerability.

Here is the full Free60 take on the update...

On Tuesday, Microsoft has released an Xbox 360 software update that overwrites the first stage bootloader of the system. Although there have been numerous software updates for Microsoft's gaming console in the past, this is the first one to overwrite the vital boot block. Any failure while updating this will break the Xbox 360 beyond repair. Statistics from other systems have shown that about one in a thousand bootloader updates goes wrong, and unless Microsoft has a novel solution to this problem, this puts tens of thousands of Xboxes at risk. Read more...

Intel has licensed Scalable Link Interface (SLI) technology from Nvidia for use with its new Nehalem processors and chipsets. Intel Nehalem is the successor to the Core microarchitecture, and uses a 45-nanometer manufacturing method. The first processor released using the architecture is Intel's Core i7.

Intel has licensed the SLI technology from Nvidia in order to add improved support for multiple graphics processors to its Nehalem processors and chipsets in high-end gaming machines. The licensing however, does not include next-generation products being developed by Intel that incorporate a CPU and graphics technology on a single chip.

The company has also been improving the graphics capabilities in its chipsets, cutting into Nvidia's market in PCs. In response, Nvidia is pushing its own chipsets to compete with Intel. The SLI technology, which enables a motherboard to support as many as three Nvidia Geforce cards, has also been recently licensed by motherboard manufacturers including Asus, EVGA, Gigabyte and MSI.

A federal Judge has stung RealNetworks badly by issuing a preliminary injunction preventing the company from selling its RealDVD software, which costs $30 a pop. Additionally, the company's prototype DVD player, Facet, will now also be blocked from sale. RealDVD allowed consumers to make copies of their DVDs onto their computers, while Facet is a HDD-equipped DVD player. The company has maintained that the software is entirely legal.

This case became important because it can answer the question of whether consumers in the U.S. are allowed to make copies of their DVD movies. The Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA) regards Facet and RealDVD as tools of piracy that could cost the industry a lot of money, and claimed they were illegal under the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA). Real argued that because it has licensed Content Scrambling System (CSS) from the DVD Copy Control Association (DVD-CCA), that its software and prototype DVD player do not break provisions surrounding the circumvention of copy protection, disregarding ARccOS and RipGuard.

Netflix has revealed that it will hold a second challenge to improve the movie recommendation systems offered by the service to its customer. The revelation came from chief product officer, Neil Hunt, even before the company has announced the winner of the $1 million prize for the first challenge.

The contest was launched in 2006 by the DVD rental giant, aimed at improving predictions of titles customers might be interested in by 10 percent. Contestants from 186 countries, amounting to 51,000 people, decided to give it a shot. Right now, two teams called BellKor's Pragmatic Chaos and The Ensemble top the leader board with The Ensemble just edging Bellkor's with 10.10 percent compared to 10.09 percent.

The winner will be announced in late September when Netflix will announce the details of the second competition. "While the first contest has been remarkable, we think Netflix Prize 2 will be more challenging, more fun, and even more useful to the field," Hunt wrote.

In a recent interview, John Carmack of id Software, touched briefly on the next generation of gaming systems that will replace the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 (PS3) consoles. The interview, with Polish site CD-Action, is primarily about id Software's upcoming shooter Rage, but it is the few words he dedicated to the next-generation of gaming that had caught the interview in tech site's radar.

"The whole jockeying for who's gonna release next gen console first is very interesting and really divorced from the technical side of things. Whether Sony wants to try and jump the gun to, you know, to prevent the same kind of 360 lag from happening to them again seems likely. As developers, we would really like to see this generation stretch as long as possible, you know, we'd like to see it be quite a few more years before a next-gen console comes out, but I suspect someone will wind up shipping something earlier rather than later," Carmack says.

Amazon and other sources are now displaying the price you will have to pay if you are interested in investing in one of Microsoft's Zune HD portable media players. Amazon has the Zune EHD-00001 HD 16GB Video MP3 Player priced at $219.99, and the Zune HD 32GB Video MP3 Player (Platinum) priced at $289.99.

It's unclear how much the players will cost in the UK and other European countries in the event of a launch, but $220 is roughly £133/€155 and $290 is roughly £175/€204. The Zune HD features a 3.5-inch Organic Light-emmiting Diode (OLED) screen in a 16:9 display aspect ratio.

The Zune HD, which also features a HDMI port and a HD Radio receiver, is expected to become available in North America next month, with Amazon not revealing any launch date for the products (but of course, Amazon U.S. has market both models as available for pre-order).

U.S. market research firm Strategy Analytics (SA) is reporting that two of South Korea's top consumer electronics manufacturers have captured almost half of the North American mobile handset market in Q2 2009. It reports that Samsung Electronics Co. and LG Electronics Inc. had a combined market share of 47.3 percent during the quarter in North America.

Samsung sold more units than LG, with a total of 11.7 million Samsung handsets being sold in the United States and Canada during the quarter. This converts into about 24.7 percent of the market share in the region. LG manufacturers handsets sold 10.7 million units in the region during the quarter, representing about 22.6 percent of the market.

In contrast to these figures, Nokia Corp., the Finland-based handset maker that dominates the global market outright, captured just 6.8 percent of the market, down from 7.9 percent in Q1 2009. The success of the Samsung and LG phones is attributed to both companies stepping up efforts in the region to provide a diverse range of products.

Sharp Corporation will introduce 13 new models of its AQUOS DX Series LCD TV with a built-in Blu-ray Disc recorder. They will come in a variety of 26-, 32-, 40-, 46- and 52-inch sizes. This second edition of the DX Series brings more advanced functions such as even better images and ease-of-use.

The recording function is improved with the 7X extended HD video recording (7X mode), which allows extended recording time while retaining the same exact full-HD quality as the original high-definition broadcast.

This second edition of the DX Series brings more advanced functions such as even better images and ease-of-use. With the New Motion Guide, users can be watching TV while selecting another program on TV or the Internet, or a program recorded on Blu-ray Disc.

A deadline imposed by a court of law ordering that The Pirate Bay block all traffic coming from the Netherlands has passed quietly, AP reports. The order imposes fines for every day that The Pirate Bay does not comply, amounting to $42,000 per day. The deadline has passed, and there is no sign that The Pirate Bay has complied in any way with the order.

According to Stichting Brein, a Dutch group that is involved in a lot of anti-Internet piracy cases, said that the Pirate Bay founders are planning to challenge the Amsterdam District Court ruling, but Brein is confident that the challenge will ultimately fail.

In any case, Brein says that it won't demand the $42,000 per day in damages unless the site continues to operate in the current form after it is due to be bought on August 27.

Toshiba claims that it will be the first tech company to ship 64GB Secure Digital eXtended Capacity (SDXC) memory cards. The company projects that it will begin shipping the new flash memory cards that utilize the exFAT (FAT 64) file system by Spring 2010.

When announced in January earlier this year, it was revealed that the capacity limit would be around 2 terabytes (TB) of data, but 64GB is certainly a long way away from 2TB.

Toshiba's new cards, according to the company, will support HS104 data transfer technology offering up to 60MB/s write speed and 35MB/s write speed.

Toshiba was mute on how much the new card will cost, but it can of course be expected to be quite high for an SD card.

Owners of some Sony VAIO laptops have voiced their anger about a Sony-imposed limitation that will block XP Virtualization in Windows 7. We all know VAIO isn't exactly cheap, and this is not a case of the VAIO missing hardware required for the welcomed Windows 7 feature. The affected laptops (such as the Z series) utilize an Intel Core 2 Duo processor that has Intel's Virtualization Technology (VT) built in.

However, the Intel VT is disabled on the affected laptops, and it doesn't appear that Sony is willing to change that anytime soon, but did say it would enable VT on "some" VAIO models in the future. The question is being asked whether Sony has the right to do this, considering owners did "buy" the laptop with the VT-capable processor built in - yet they are being prevented by Sony from utilizing it fully.

Sony's position on it is that Sony engineers were, "concerned that enabling VT would expose our systems to malicious code that could go very deep in the Operating System structure of the PC and completely disable the latter."

It's not exactly a headline any of us would have expected soon just a couple of years ago, but the former cheerleader of the HD DVD format, Toshiba, has applied to join the Blu-ray Disc Association (BDA). The company is set to introduce products that use the Blu-ray format, which beat the HD DVD format in becoming the standard disc format for High-definition video content.

"As a market leader in digital technologies, Toshiba provides a wide range of advanced digital products, such as DVD recorders and players, HDTVs and notebook PCs that support a wide range of storage devices, including hard disk drives (HDD), DVD, and SD Cards. In light of recent growth in digital devices supporting the Blu-ray format, combined with market demand from consumers and retailers alike, Toshiba has decided to join the BDA." a statement from Toshiba reads.

Toshiba aims to introduce digital products that support the Blu-ray format, including BD players and notebook PCs integrating BD drives, in the course of this year. Details of the products, including the timing of regional launches, are now under consideration.

Global Gaming Factor's CEO Hans Pandeya recently received a letter from IFPI general council Jo Oliver informing him that the trade group will be lobbying the Swedish authorities to block any money transaction between the company the Pirate Bay, and that they would push for Global Gaming to be forced to turn over information about the acquisition.

It had been speculated that the IFPI was intending to intercept the money instead of it being paid to Peter Sunde, Fredrik Neij, Gottfrid Svartholm Warg and Carl Lundstrom. A court found them guilty of copyright offenses back in April and sentenced them to one year in prison along with a $3.6 million fine.

Fredrik Neij however maintains that they have not owned the Pirate Bay since 2006, but the record labels allege that Neij himself is in control of Reservella, the company that is the listed owner of the site. The letter sent to Pandeya also gives the IFPI's position on the Pirate Bay's possible practices after it is sold.

"We need to warn you that if GGF takes responsibility for The Pirate Bay service in its current form, or if GGF operates The Pirate Bay in any way in violation of applicable copyright law, we will be forced to take legal action," the letter reads. Pandeya is of the opinion that the Pirate Bay can eventually be turned into a legal service.

Firefox 3.6 Alpha – code named Namoroka Alpha 1 - has become available to download from the Mozilla Developer Center, and is built on a pre-release version of the Gecko 1.9.2 platform. The release is only intended for developers and testers, but if curiosity is your thing, it is available for all.

New Features

• Compositor (Phase 1), which moves Gecko to using one native widget per top-level content document. See this blog post or bug 374980 for more details.
  
• A new focus model, described here and tracked in bug 178324
  
• The chromedir attribute has been replaced with a pseudoclass
  
• Several new CSS3 properties including background size and gradients for background images
  
• Speed improvements to the TraceMonkey JavaScript engine
  
• Startup and responsiveness improvements throughout the application

YouTube has posted "Community Guideline Tips" on its Community Guidelines page, clarifying what kind of content will prompt a video removal by the site. YouTube's user-driven video flagging system helps it to remove inappropriate content, and according to YouTube, staff work 24 hours a day, 7 days a week to ensure that the site's contents stay acceptable for viewing.

Still, it has published some tips on the Community Guidelines page, probably due to some criticism of the guidelines being too vague to determine what would be inappropriate in cases. Here are some examples...

Hate Speech
"Hate speech" refers to content that promotes hatred against members of a protected group. For instance, racist or sexist content may be considered hate speech. Sometimes there is a fine line between what is and what is not considered hate speech. For instance, it is generally okay to criticize a nation, but not okay to make insulting generalizations about people of a particular nationality.

Shocking and Disgusting
The world is a dangerous place. Sometimes people do get hurt and it’s inevitable that these events may be documented on YouTube. However, it’s not okay to post violent or gory content that’s primarily intended to be shocking, sensational or disrespectful. If a video is particularly graphic or disturbing, it should be balanced with additional context and information. For instance, including a clip from a slaughter house in a video on factory farming may be appropriate. However, stringing together unrelated and gruesome clips of animals being slaughtered in a video may be considered gratuitous if its purpose is to shock rather than illustrate.

Apple finally launched its iTunes music store in Latin America recently. The digital music download store was launched in Mexico on August 4, the first in the region. America Movil, the dominant mobile carrier in Mexico, had been offering the iPhone for over a year and it launched the iPhone 3GS in the country and several others on July 31.

According to Pyramid Research, the Latin American smart-phone market will rise to 30 percent of all handset sales in the region by 2014, up from just 3 percent last year, and Apple's share of the market could reach 15 percent in 2009 largely due to America Movil subsidizing the older version of the iPhone with a two year contract.

Music industry estimates put mobile sales accounting for more than 80 percent of digital music revenue in Latin America last year, and now over-the-air downloads are being looked at to provide growth in the market. Carriers also will push feature-packed smart-phones in an attempt to get more revenue through downloaded data by customers.

According to Bernstein Research analyst Toni Sacconaghi, Apple's iPhone accounted for about 8 percent of the handset industry revenue, but possibly around 32 percent of the industry operating profits, during the first half of 2009. He attributed the success to the "first mover" advantage and compared the iPhone / App Store tie to the very successful iPod / iTunes tie.

"Our analysis indicates that Apple's iPhone accounted for only eight per cent of handset industry revenues but 32 per cent of industry operating profits in the first half 2009," Sacconaghi wrote in a note to clients. "Even if we exclude the operating losses generated by Motorola and Sony Ericsson, Apple still accounted for 25 per cent of industry profits."

In yet another example of how law enforcement can use online video and other content to find criminal or dangerous behavior and then do something about it in the "real world", a police investigation has been launched by Quebec provincial police over a YouTube video which shows a 7 year old driving an SUV.

The kid is in the driving seat cruising along a country road as he is cheered on by his family. His father, in the passenger seat cheerfully notes as he passes 40km/h that it's "a little fast", but later on when he hits 70km/h, he laughs and says, "he's rolling, he's rolling."

His mother is sitting behind the driver's seat with a little girl on her lap, and an older boy sitting beside her - none wearing seat belts. Bloggers picked up on the video and started writing about it. It was removed from YouTube but re-surfaced again later on the site and on other video sites.

"Since seeing this video, we've opened an investigation," Sgt. Chantal Mackels of the Quebec provincial police, said Monday. "Once the investigation is over with, we'll give it to the Crown prosecutor who will analyze it and decide if he's issuing a criminal offence."

According to figures acquired by GamesIndustry.biz, Nintendo's Wii Sports Resort title has been very successful in Europe as well as its strong performance in North America and Japan. The company revealed that it has sold more than 600,000 copies of the MotionPlus-enhanced title in Europe since it was release in July 24, taking just under two weeks to pass the 600,000 tally.

Within eight days of its release in the United States, the title sold over half a million copies. It is the third fastest selling game for the Wii platform in Japan as it topped the charts in the region for two straight weeks and caused a noticeable surge in the sales of Wii hardware.

In the UK, the game topped the all-format sales charts for two weeks running. The sales figures solidified it as the fourth most popular title for the platform to date in the United Kingdom.

RealNetworks is making a small 9 percent cut of its music division staff following a drop in subscribers to its Rhapsody music service. The company reported last week that it had lost 50,000 of its 800,000 subscribers over the past three months, mostly due to a rise in the number of credit card defaults brought on by the economic turmoil that impacted credit services in the United States severely.

Viacom's MTV Networks owns part of the Rhapsody music service, which is a prime example of a successful music subscription service for those who advocate the model in the digital music distribution business. The model has the support of major music companies but is struggling to take a hold on consumers who prefer to own their music - or at least think they own it.

Additionally, a failed partnership with telecom company Comcast lost the company a gigantic 1.1 million radio subscribers. The tally fell from 1.2 million to just 75,000 after Comcast discontinued the service. RealNetworks revenue for the second quarter fell by 11 percent to $135.7 million, according to the company.

20th Century Fox has decided to follow Universal Studios by forcing distributors to stop selling new DVDs to Redbox, which operates low-cost DVD rental kiosks. Fox does not have any distribution deal with Redbox, instead DVD distributors such as Ingram and VPD, who do have deals with Fox and other studios, provide the rental service with DVDs. Fox believes the low costs undervalue the product and threaten DVD sales.

The studio has warned distributors not to sell DVDs to the service until at least 30 days after release. Coinstar and a McDonald's subsidiary jointly own Redbox, which has kiosks at 10,000 retail locations in the United States, such as McDonald's restaurants, Wal-Mart and other store. They rent out DVDs at $1 per day and sell used DVDs for $7 a piece.

Each kiosk rents out an average of 50 titles per day, and there are more kiosks than Blockbuster stores. Users can even reserve movies on the Internet in advance and get them from a specific Kiosk. The movie studios don't take issue solely with the low prices, but also worry that the kiosks are cutting down the number of customers that will visit Blockbuster and other stores where they are more likely to buy new DVDs.

According to Internet security company F-Secure, the cyberattacks that disrupted service at Twitter, Facebook and LiveJournal on Thursday were targeted at just a single blogger. The attacks appear to be politically motivated, as the targeted user, "Cyxymu", is a pro-Georgian blogger, and they also came a year after the short Russia-Georgia conflict over South Ossetia and Abkhazia.

The Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) attacks were aimed specifically at the users' personal pages on the sites. Some commentary suggests the attacks came from Russian nationalists who have control over vast botnets, whereas Cyxymu claims it came from the Russian government itself as a means to silence its critics.

"Launching DDoS attacks against services like Facebook is the equivalent of bombing a TV station because you don't like one of the newscasters," F-Secure researcher Mikko Hyponnen said. "The amount of collateral damage is huge. Millions of users of Twitter, LiveJournal, and Facebook have been experiencing problems because of this attack."

Facebook said on Friday that its service has returned to normal for its 250 million users. "Yesterday's attack appears to be directed at an individual who has a presence on a number of sites, rather than the sites themselves," the company said in a release. "Specifically, the person is an activist blogger and a botnet was directed to request his pages at such a rate that it impacted service for other users."

Microsoft Corp. and chip makers including Nvidia and Advanced Micro Devices (AMD) are working on the DirectX 11 application programming interface (API) to maximize its potential for more realistic graphics, improved multimedia performance and other features in Windows 7. Software designed to unload tasks from the CPU to graphics processing cores is not new, but Microsoft aims to maximize on the potential of breaking up tasks to multiple cores in its new operating system.

Nvidia is using DirectX 11 with Windows 7 and its own hardware to accelerate certain tasks, such as image manipulation. "Microsoft did a number of things within the operating system that allow us to take the computing horsepower we developed for visual computing and apply it to a range of tasks that have never been seen before," said Ned Finkle, vice president of strategic marketing at Nvidia.

Neal Robison, director of independent software vendor relations at AMD, said that DirectX 11 efficiently harnesses the huge potential of parallel processing with GPUs. "We're going to see gaming at a whole new level of realism that you've never been able to experience before because it just hasn't been possible," he said, while giving another example of how Windows 7 will use the technology to push interoperability by automatically converting video on-the-fly to an appropriate format while transferring to a portable device.

Los Angeles Superior Court spokeswoman Vania Stuelp told attorneys on Wednesday that Activision notified the court of a settlement reached over a lawsuit aimed at blocking the release of "Brutal Legend". Activision has claimed to still own the rights to Brutal Legend, which was developed by San Francisco-based Double Fine Productions and due to be released by Electronic Arts.

Activision claimed that Double Fine had failed to deliver the title on time and that it still owned the rights to it. Double Fine countersued Activision, alleging that Activision had terminated its agreement to release the title following a failed attempt to make it part of the "Guitar Hero" series of games.

A hearing scheduled for Thursday morning to decide on whether an injunction would be imposed was canceled, though Superior Court Judge Craig Karlan had indicated that he was inclined to deny Activision's requested. Brutal Legend features Jack Black as a band roadie transported to a mythical world to battle evil.

Satellite television provider Dish Network has filed a lawsuit against ESPN, alleging that the company has broken an agreement by giving better terms to Dish Network rivals. Dish claims that the 2005 agreement between both companies prohibits ESPN from offering better provisions to DirecTV Inc. and Comcast to carry ESPN's networks.

The lawsuit, which is seeking at least $1 million in damages, was filed earlier this week in a New York federal court. ESPN doesn't agree with Dish Networks' take on the situation. ESPN spokeswoman Katina Arnold said that the company was in full compliance with the 2005 agreement with Dish Network, and thus would defend itself against the legal action brought by it.

New pictures of Xbox 360 console packaging allegedly from GameStop have been spread around and seem to confirm rumors that suggest Microsoft is dumping the Xbox 360 Pro model. The picture, shown below, shows an Xbox 360 Arcade box (left) compared to a newer box (right), with the newer box only showing the Xbox 360 Arcade, and Xbox 360 Elite versions of the console.

Source: Kotaku

The sheer potential of solid-state drives to boost the performance and other aspects of computers is starting to show in the regular announcements of SSD developments from manufacturers. The drive to capture a large piece of the pie is accelerating the evolution of the technology, and one of the major factors under focus now is capacity, with a race to catch up to the standard HDD.

Toshiba has begun volume shipments of new SSD drives with capacities of up to 512GB. These drives are already featured in new (expensive!) Toshiba laptops. The new drives, offering capacities of 64GB, 128GB, 256GB and 512GB are manufactured on a 43-nanometer process using multi-level cell (MLC) technology, and available in either a 1.8-inch or 2.5-inch enclosure.

For whatever improvements the SSDs might offer over a standard run-of-the-mill HDD, the price is a hard pill to swallow. The component costs themselves aren't quite clear yet, but consider that a Toshiba Portege R600 laptop with a 512GB SSD will set you back $3,499.

Sharp and Sony have announced that both consumer electronics companies have entered into a joint venture agreement. The joint venture is related to the production of LCD panels and modules.

Sharp Display Products Corporation (SDP) took over the LCD production plant in Sakai City, Japan which is still under construction, in early July.

It will manufacture mostly 32-inch LCD screens. Sony will invest over $100 million in SDP, which will make SDP a Sharp/Sony joint venture. As part of the agreement, Sony will cough up 34 percent of the $4 billion cost of the Sakai City plant, and will receive a portion of the products produced at the plant as well as another in Southern Japan.

Sony already has another LCD joint venture established with Samsung, and also sources panels from Taiwan-based AU Optronics.

Following the recent issue surrounding the deletion of George Orwell works (1984, Animal Farm) from users' Kindle readers, anti-DRM activists Defective By Design has targeted the device with a new petition. The text of the petition reads...

We believe in a way of life based on the free exchange of ideas, in which books have and will continue to play a central role. Devices like Amazon's are trying to determine how people will interact with books, but Amazon's use of DRM to control and monitor users and their books constitutes a clear threat to the free exchange of ideas.

That is why we readers, authors, publishers, and librarians demand that Amazon remove all DRM, including any ability to control or access the user's library, from the Kindle.

Amazon's assurances that it will refrain from the worst abuses of this power do not address the problem. Amazon should not have this power in the first place. Until they give it up they will be tempted to use it, or they could be forced to by governments or narrow private interests. Whatever Amazon's reasons for imposing this control may be, they are not as important as the public's freedom to use books without interference or supervision.

Microsoft has come out in defense of the much-anticipated Windows 7 operating system after a number of blogs and other sources flaunted a discovered bug as a potential "show-stopper". Some had reported that a bug with the operating system's CHKDSK utility could delay the planned rollout, which is being watched closely as hopes are high of Windows 7 providing a much needed jab in the arm for the PC industry.

Screenshots of the Windows Task Manager depicting the CHKDSK process eating up several gigabytes of memory (apparently leading to a BSOD in cases) have circulated around the blogosphere, but Microsoft is denying that the bug is in the Windows software. Instead, Microsoft is pointing at a chipset controller issue as the culprit and advising customers to update their chipset drivers to the latest versions providing by the motherboard manufacturer.

Microsoft's Windows division President Steven Sinofsky said that the company has not reproduced the crash or experienced any crashes with CHKDSK in any measurable number. "While we appreciate the drama of 'critical bug' and then the pickup of 'showstopper' that I’ve seen, we might take a step back and realize that this might not have that defcon level," he said.

According to figures published by Enterbrain, Nintendo's DSi handheld console has sold more than 3 million units in Japan since its launch in November 2008. The latest version in the DS series was marked as having moved 3,062,920 units as of August 2, showing that the sales milestone for the device was achieved in nine months on the market.

In Nintendo's quarterly results published last week, the company noted that 3.65 million DSi units had been sold in the three months ending June 30th, part of the total 6.68 million units sold to date.

In the NPD figures for June 2009, a particularly bad month for the industry, Nintendo noted that 424,000 units of the total 766,000 DS units sold (representing more unit sales than all other consoles combined) were of the new DSi model.

Palm has written a letter of protest to the USB Implementers Forum (USB-IF), the non-profit organization that maintains the Universal Serial Bus (USB) specification and promotes the interface. The Palm letter concerns Apple's iTunes update (8.2.1) which blocked the Palm Pre from being used with the iTunes software in exactly the same way as an iPod is. iTunes even identified a Palm Pre as an iPod and showed iPod artwork when connected.

The support for Apple's iTunes software was seen as an important selling point for the Palm Pre. The device was able to fool iTunes into identifying it as an Apple product by manipulating the USB standard's device descriptors. Apple's iTunes blocks access to any device that isn't an Apple product by checking the idVendor descriptor when connected.

AT&T has told the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) that Apple Inc. is to blame for the rejection of the Google Voice application from the iPhone app store. According to AT&T, the company does not manage to approve any applications for the App Store at all. The FCC had asked Apple and AT&T to explain the process by which Apps are approved or rejected, and to what extend AT&T is involved in any given decision.

AT&T's claim that is does not approve or reject applications for the App Store is not entirely true however, as it clearly had some sway over App limitations at least. The Slingbox and Skype apps have been forced to go WiFi-only in order to be listed in the App Store, largely due to network congestion fears from AT&T.

Even Apple CEO Steve Jobs stated that AT&T is "policing" VoIP applications, attributing Skype's limitations to the carrier. The new issue highlights what is being seen as a rift between both companies in recent times which even saw Apple accused of making several swipes at AT&T at its Worldwide Developers Conference (WWDC).

Dish Network Corp. and sister company, EchoStar Corp., announced on Tuesday that the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office has delivered it an initial favorable ruling in a patent dispute with DVR-pioneer TiVo Inc. The case surrounds a lawsuit originally filed by TiVo against Dish in 2004 over TiVo's "Time Warp" feature that enables the pausing of live TV or re-winding.

Tuesday's decision by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office rejects TiVo's software claims that are at the core of the lawsuit. TiVo won its initial lawsuit against Dish, and Dish was ordered to pay $105 million to TiVo. While the case was on appeal, Dish decided to take a workaround solution and downloaded modified software to DVR's in use by its customers.

TiVo protested saying the workaround software still infringes its patent and prevailed when it asked a District court for an injunction. Dish appealed the case. Responding to Tuesday's decision, TiVo points out that it is only a preliminary finding, and that the company has not yet had the opportunity to present its views.

Sony unveiled two new e-readers on Tuesday which will compete with Amazon's popular Kindle e-book readers in the emerging market for digital books, one of which stands $100 less than the Kindle. The Sony Reader Touch Edition sports a 6-inch touchscreen, and has a price tag of $299 just like Amazon's latest Kindle.

The second new e-reader has a smaller 5-inch (not touchscreen) screen. Dubbed the Reader Pocket Edition, the portable e-reader will cost $199. Both new e-readers will be available in August. From the details revealed by Sony, it's a mixed bag when compared to the Amazon readers.

Google Inc. has announced that it plans to acquire web video-compression expert On2 Technologies Inc. in an all-stock deal worth an estimated $106.5 million. On2 Technologies pioneers video compression technology geared toward providing high quality video on the web at ever-decreasing file sizes, to help address the bandwidth challenges that are brought up by the rise of online video.

Google, which owns YouTube, the largest video-sharing hub in the world, can only benefit from acquiring a well-known company such as On2. "Today video is an essential part of the Web experience, and we believe high-quality video compression technology should be a part of the Web platform," said Sundar Pichai, Google's vice president for product management in a statement.

The deal, which the search engine-giant expects to complete in the fourth quarter, will provide On2 shareholders 60 cents worth of Google class A common shares for each outstanding On2 share they hold, amounting to a 57% premium compared to the closing price on Tuesday.

A California state college student was arrested for modifying gaming console hardware to bypass copy protection technology. Matthew Lloyd Crippen, 27, or Anaheim was taken into custody by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents on Monday following indictment by a federal grand jury on two counts of violating provisions of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA), each count carrying a maximum of five years imprisonment.

Crippen is accused of profiting by modifying Sony, Microsoft and Nintendo video game consoles to enable booting of pirate copies of video games. Investigators seized more than a dozen video game consoles which were found in his home. "Playing with games in this way is not a game -- it is criminal," said Robert Schoch, special agent in charge of the ICE investigations office in Los Angeles.

Nero AG has released a freeware data burning utility for the Microsoft Windows platform. The new freeware tool is limited to data discs and CD, DVD copies, but it is totally free and is not time limited (not to be confused with the 15 day trial of Nero 9). A cut down copy of the software might be exactly what some users were looking for in the first place, as Nero's increasingly bulky releases have prompted criticism of the products.

Of course, a tool like ImgBurn can do pretty much everything, and more, compared to the new Nero freeware tool, but the tool keeps the ease-of-use of Nero StartSmart that might be more attractive to users new to burning. The freeware version will work with Windows XP, Windows Vista and Windows 7.

Download Nero 9 - Free version v9.4.12.3 from:
https://www.afterdawn.com/software/video_software/dvd-r_tools/nero_free.cfm