News written by James Delahunty (February, 2010)

LG Electronics has announced that it will offer up a 15-inch organic light-emitting diode (OLED) television in Austria in May. This will be the world's largest OLED television available when it launches. The LG 15EL9500 is only 3mm thick and provides an impressive contrast ratio of 10,000,000:1, response time of 0.001ms and what LG describes as "extremely low power consumption".

"The OLED technology uses an organic material that can apply to very thin and even flexible surfaces. Therefore, the 15EL9500 is one of the slimmest TVs in our portfolio and is ideal for any trend-setter," said Reinhard Huebner, Retail Marketing, LG Electronics Austria (translated from German).

The LG 15EL9500 is technically HD Ready, capable of 1366x768 display. It consumers one-third of the power that an LCD screen of the same size consumes. It features TruMotion 100Hz technology and a USB 2.0 port for connecting removable media. It can play back DivX (in HD), MP3 or JPEG images.

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A Judge has dismissed a case brought against Sony by a disabled gamer who claimed that people with disabilities were being denied access to Sony services. The gamer, Alexander Stern, had sued Sony Corporation of America, Sony Computer Entertainment America and Sony Online Entertainment because his visual processing impairments made it impossible to use video games created by Sony.

According to the complaint, "his visual processing impairments prevent him from fully enjoying the video games manufactured by Sony, some of which are played on gaming systems with internet connections through which players in different locations can communicate and play with or against one another."

The reference to "gaming systems with internet connections through which players in different locations can communicate" is essentially an argument that it qualifies as "public accommodation", which would be necessary for a discrimination claim under the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA), Title III.

The court ruling denied that Sony services are a "place of public accommodation" and thus, cannot be held liable then for violating ADA Title III.

SoundExchange, the establishment that has been tasked with collecting royalties for copyright holders and artists from music streaming services on the Internet, satellite radio and maybe traditional radio soon too, has told artists to label their music properly if they wish to receive their royalties.

SoundExchange Executive Director John Simson wrote in Billboard that the company actually has trouble finding out who owns the copyright to some songs it tracks and claims royalties for. He said the organization had about $40 million in royalties that it collected in 2008, which it could not distribute to artists and copyright owners because it couldn't find them.

Why not? Because the copyright owners didn't attach enough information to the song. Simson pleaded that at the very least, every song should include metadata identifying the artist, song name, album name, label or copyright owner.

SoundExchange also is holding $39 million for artists and copyright holders that simply have not registered with SoundExchange yet.

Apple Inc. has reported that it discovered 17 violations of its Supplier Code of Conduct by foreign suppliers. Apple began carrying out audits back in 2006 when it emerged that workers were being abused and mistreated by a Chinese manufacturer that assembled iPods. Three of the 17 violations involved the hiring of underage workers.

"Across the three facilities, our auditors found records of 11 workers who had been hired prior to reaching the legal age, although the workers were no longer underage or no longer in active employment at the time of our audit," Apple said in its report. The auditors reviewed the employment records to analyze how the underage workers were hired, and required each facility to implement better identification verification.

In another three cases, suppliers had contracted with non-certified vendors for the disposal of hazardous waste material. Apple requires each facility to contact certified vendors for this task. They also must engage a third-party consultant and undergo a review of their systems for managing the waste.

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Palm has managed to push out the webOS 1.4 update for some of its handset users. The update revolves greatly around the improvements in video recording functionality. It provides the Pre and Pixi with an iPhone-like interface for recording video and then carrying out trimming and simply tasks afterward.

Users can share their videos through Multimedia Messaging, YouTube, Facebook or by sending it through e-mail with the device. The update comes with support for Flash 10.1, making the Pre and Pixi the first handsets to fully support in-browser Flash videos and games, and other Flash-based content.

Some other features that are not as noticeable include a change that pulses the LED for notifications even if the phone is in "asleep" state, sorting e-mail by different criteria and better integration between calling and messaging features.

The update is available today for Sprint users, and also available to Movistar and O2 subscribers in Europe. Users of other services will have to wait a little while longer.

Intel plans to release a faster version of its Atom N450 processor for use with Netbooks on Monday. The new N470 is almost identical to the N450 except that it has gotten a speed increase from 1.66GHz to 1.83GHz. The chip will feature fairly quickly in new netbook offerings from laptop makers, as the segment remains popular among consumers.

The Atom processors are built to be more energy efficient. The company uses a different architecture to achieve this goal, but the trade-off is lower performance. Netbooks generally sell for less than $350, which puts restraints on how much an Atom processor should cost manufacturers.

Intel is also reportedly on track to deliver a new "Moorestown" Atom chip targeted for use with smartphones and mobile Internet devices. The new chip is expected to be unveiled by Intel later this year. The company's manufacturing relationship with Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. is currently on hold according to a report in the New York Times.

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SanDisk has made upbeat comments on the near-future market for flash memory products. The U.S. flash-memory maker raised its revenue forecast for the first quarter, prompting a 2 percent rise in shares after a 2.2 percent rise in the regular session on the Nasdaq. It now forecasts its Q1 revenue to be between $925 million and $1 billion, up from $875 - $950 million.

SanDisk CFO Judy Bruner said the company is comfortable that 2010 revenue will be at the high-end of its $4 - $4.4 billion forecast. Chief Executive Eli Harari said he expects the growth in the industry for flash industry over the next decade to "dwarf" the growth of the previous ten years in the sector.

"What is different really over the next decade is that the scale of the business, I believe, the growth ahead is going to be on a bigger scale," Harari said at an investor meeting. He expects SanDisk to ship 1 billion units over the next two years. In the previous three years, SanDisk shipped 1 billion units.

SanDisk is the No.1 manufacturer of NAND flash memory cards used in devices like digital cameras. It rivals consumer electronics heavy-weights including Samsung Electronics, Toshiba Corp and Hynix Semiconductor.

The gaming industry in China is continuing to enjoy rapid growth, spurred on by increasing numbers of Chinese citizens getting access to the Internet. In 2009, the industry earned 26 billion yuan, or about $3.8 billion, which was an increase of 39.5 percent over the previous year. Games developers overseas are looking at the market as a high priority investment.

However, it is the domestic game developers that will continue to get large pieces of the pie, according to experts. Games offered up by homegrown firms are more closely tailored to the tastes and preferences of Chinese people. "Foreign game developers are having a tough time competing in China," said Daniel H. Vlad, a senior analyst at JLM Pacific Epoch.

"So far only one Western game, World of Warcraft, has really succeeded in China. Chinese users spend significantly more time playing games than their Western counterparts. Foreign games typically fail to deliver enough content... Chinese gamers eventually lose interest and move on."

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The British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) has enabled SWF Verification for its catch-up Internet-video service. SWF Verification is effectively a content protection mechanism, in that its use can block out unauthorized software from accessing content. In this case, users of Open Source software (such as Xbox Media Center - or XBMC) can no longer access videos from BBC's iPlayer.

Adobe has effectively made it impossible for develops to create a fully-compatible open source Real-Time Messaging Protocol (RTMP) client. RTMP is used by Flash for streaming video, and it is publicly documented, but Adobe has guarded the RTMP content protection measures. SWF Verification is a security measure that can lock out an unauthorized client from multimedia content.

Content becomes accessible only by specific SWF files, and is controlled by the use of an authorization key. Fail to provide the authorization key and the video won't be retrieved. The principal intention of SWF Verification to guard against piracy (ripping videos) but regular honest users are once again caught in the crossfire.

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The UK's Digital Economy Bill (DEB) may have a negative effect on establishments that offer open Wi-Fi access to users. Libraries, Universities, Cafes and other small businesses will not be exempt from anti-piracy policies in the Digital Economy Bill, meaning that a small business offering WiFi might be warned and held responsible for copyright infringement of somebody using their WiFi access.

Lilian Edwards, professor of internet law at Sheffield University, said that the scenario as described by the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills (BIS) would effectively "outlaw open Wi-Fi for small businesses," while leaving the likes of Universities and public Libraries in an uncertain position.

"This is going to be a very unfortunate measure for small businesses, particularly in a recession, many of whom are using open free Wi-Fi very effectively as a way to get the punters in," Edwards said. "Even if they password protect, they then have two options — to pay someone like The Cloud to manage it for them, or take responsibility themselves for becoming an ISP effectively, and keep records for everyone they assign connections to, which is an impossible burden for a small cafe."

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U.S. Senator Herbert Kohl (D), chairman of the Subcommittee on Antitrust, Competition Policy and Consumer Rights, has written a letter to NBC Chief Executive Jeff Zucker asking for an explanation of a Pay-TV link to Internet-based Winter Olympics videos. Kohl expressed concerns that certain content on the NBC site is only viewable by those who have Pay-TV subscriptions.

Kohl has a very valid concern in this case, because if NBC wanted to raise revenue from its coverage of the Vancouver events, it could simply charge users for premium online content. Instead, when users register to view the games' feeds, they are asked to verify themselves as a Cable TV, Satellite TV or IPTV service subscriber - in other words, a subscriber to services provided by a third party.

This raises enormous suspicions for a politician in Kohl's place, as Comcast/NBC Universal merger is looming. "I fear that this practice of locking up certain content only for pay-TV subscribers may be a preview of what is to come with respect to TV programing shown on the Internet, particularly in the context of the proposed Comcast/NBC Universal merger," Kohl wrote in the letter to NBC.

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For those of us who regularly work with malware-infested machine as part of our jobs, rogue anti-malware software is absolutely nothing new. In Windows XP in particular, rogue software often portrays itself as Windows Security Center (while disabling the actual Security Center) to provide false warnings to users about (usually) non-existent virus and spyware infections.

Now, Microsoft has spotted a rogue piece of scareware that portrays itself as its Security Essentials suite (as have I on one laptop already), which is freely available to Windows users that have genuine software installed. As usual, the rogue anti-malware client lists a bunch of bullsh** infections before asking a user to pay a fee to purchase a "full" non-trial version of Security Essentials.

Here is what it looks like...

Click to Enlarge (Credit: Technet)

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Sony Corp. has announced a new line-up of flat-panel televisions that feature hardware for tuning into Freeview HD content. The consumer electronics giant confirmed that the 19-strong TV line-up will go on sale beginning this weekend. Seven types of BRAVIAs branded TV will be available in different sizes.

The HX703 is available in 40-inch and 46-inch varieties, sport 200Hz frame interpolation and are 3D-capable. The 40-inch model is priced at £1200 while the 46-inch model will set you back £1500.

The NX803 is available 40-inch and 52-inch varieties (£1600 and £2300 respectively), the NX703 is available as 40-inch or 46-inch (£1300 and £1700 respectively) and the NX503 comes in 32-inch and 40-inch varieties (£700 and £950 respectively). All three types sport 200Hz frame interpolation, edge LED backlighting, DLNA and WiFi for accessing content from the Internet.

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Wayne Shu was indicted by a federal grand jury for selling counterfeit copies of software made by Redmond-based software giant Microsoft Corp. The 44-year old Battle Ground, Washington man has been selling the illicit goods over the Internet for no less than 10 years.

He now stands charged with six counts of conducting mail fraud, trafficking in counterfeit goods and also in illicit labels. According to the prosecution, Microsoft had sent Wayne Shu multiple cease and desist letters over his activity but that the illegal trading just continued regardless.

The indictment seeks the forfeiture of Shu's home and "luxury car", as well as $1.7 million. A mail fraud conviction can land a criminal up to 20 years in prison and a fine of $250,000. Shu allegedly operated companies under the name Micro Sharp, Micro Sharp Technology, Microsharp.com and Meet Your Price.

On Thursday, AMD revealed the new ATI Radeon HD 5830 graphics card, promising to supply gamers with cutting-edge features and performance from its "award winning" Radeon HD 5800 series. The company was quick to mention that the 5830 debuts with a price tag of less than $250 in its press release.

The ATI Radeon HD 5830 graphics card comes with full support for Microsoft DirectX 11, and also features support for ATI's Eyefinity technology if that's your thing, and ATI Stream capabilities.

"The ATI Radeon HD 5830 graphics card makes enthusiast-level performance even more accessible to gamers, adding another compelling choice to the award-winning ATI Radeon HD 5800 series," said Matt Skynner, vice president and general manager, AMD Graphics Division.

"Cutting-edge features such as full DirectX 11 support, ATI Eyefinity multi-display capabilities and ATI Stream technology position the ATI Radeon HD 5830 graphics card to become a favorite with the gaming community."

A Taiwanese company that provides displays and electronics components for Nokia, Apple and others has confirmed that more employees than previously thought were poisoned by a chemical used in the manufacturing processes at the plant. Last summer, it emerged that between 47 and 49 employees were sickened by exposure to n-hexane, and now a Wintek spokesman admitted the figure is actually 62.

The toxic chemical can cause muscular degeneration and problems with vision. It affects workers that are exposed to it in high concentration, although symptoms can arise long after the actual exposure. N-hexane is used to be clean new displays. Wintek has confirmed that it no longer uses the toxic chemical following the poisoning of its employees.

Of the 62 employees made ill by n-hexane, a Wintek spokesman said 41 remain hospitalized. A recent report of a death linked to the exposure was denied by the company, which said the person it referred to had died from a heart attack. Since Nokia is a recipient of products from the company, it issued a statement on the issue.

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Square Enix is bringing back the beginning of an incredible story of success in the games industry on the iPhone and iPod Touch platform. The original Final Fantasy and Final Fantasy II are now available for the iPhone and iPod Touch.

Later versions of the game are particularly popular but the franchise has been a huge success since it launched on Nintendo hardware in the late 1980s.

The new versions of the game feature revitalized sounds, graphics and icons when compared to the original 1987/1988 Nintendo releases of the titles. The games feature control systems optimized for the iPhone/iPod Touch touch-screen hardware, according to the Square Enix press release.

The games are currently available from the App Store for $9 a piece, not a bad price since both titles will offer hours of gameplay.

Google Inc. has once again run into some trouble in Europe, this time over privacy concerns related to Google's Street View service. Launched in the United States in 2007, Google Street View now adds photos of real-life scenes from cities around the world to Google's maps. To protect privacy, Google utilizes software to blur out faces and license plates.

Now, Google's decision to keep all "unblurred" photographs in storage for a year has been questioned in Europe. The company has also been given suggestions that it should give more advanced warning that one of its Street View vans was going to be in an area.

In a statement, Google said that its year-long retention of original photographs was "legitimate and justified", and said that its website already posts notifications of where Street View cameras will be in operation.

Google's data privacy chief Peter Fleischer was given the suggestions by the head of the EU data protection agencies, Alex Turk, in a letter. EU Justice Commissioner, Viviane Reding, also commented that Europe has "high standards for data protection" and that she expected that "all companies play according to the rules of the game."

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Apple Inc. is apparently considering to provide options for 'explicit' applications to the company's popular App Store. This comes just days after Apple began removing applications that contained sexual or suggestive content without prior warning or notification to the developers.

The move was mostly criticized by the developers and by the tech media, possibly prompting Apple's decision to search for a compromise. The applications that Apple removed mostly just contained semi-nudity or innuendo. Some developers felt they were being punished for the content despite being given the green light for the applications by Apple in the first place.

"Whenever we receive customer complaints about objectionable content we review them. If we find these apps contain inappropriate material we remove them and request the developer make any necessary changes in order to be distributed by Apple," a statement from Apple read at the time.

An Apple spokesperson confirmed to Gizmodo that something was being considered as a compromise but that it's "not going to happen any time soon."

Cablevision has announced that it plans to launch its RS-DVR (Remote Storage-Digital Video Recorder) service in April. The company first announced plans to launch the RS-DVR in 2006 but was immediately hit with litigation from content companies. After a long battle, Cablevision won its case on appeal and the U.S. Supreme Court rejected a further appeal by film studios and TV networks.

The RS-DVR service will allow customers to record and access content on Cablevision's servers through the Internet. This allows Cablevision to cut costs of purchasing DVRs for subscribers and also the costs of sending out technicians to install new boxes.

"By year-end we intend to cease buying physical DVRs as we begin deploying our network-based DVR solution throughout our footprint," Cablevision Chief Operating Officer Tom Rutledge said Thursday. Comcast and Time Warner Cable Inc. also plan to launch similar services soon, as they had sat out Cablevision's legal dispute to verify that such a service is legal.

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Microsoft Corp. has announced that it plans to end support for older versions (or operating systems running older service packs) in the coming months. On April 13, the Redmond-based software giant will cease support for Windows Vista RTM (Windows Vista without service packs). On July 13, it will end support for all versions of Windows 2000 and also for Windows XP SP2.

"Back in October 2009 we talked about upcoming dates for end of support for certain Windows XP and Windows Vista versions," said Brandon LeBlanc, Microsoft's in-house Windows blogger. "Those dates are getting closer and this is the time to remind customers running these versions that there is a need to take action."

Microsoft will also be ending support for Windows Server 2000 on July 13. Windows Server 2003 will be moved from Mainstream Support to Extended Support on the same date meaning Microsoft won't provide no charge incident response, warranty, feature requests or design changes.

"We recommend that those of you still on Windows XP SP2 install the latest service pack available via the Microsoft Update Web site—Windows XP Service Pack 3—or look at moving to Windows 7," LeBlanc said. "Keeping your PC up to date and as safe as possible is something that people need to think about beyond just being on the latest service pack."

Cinema chain Odeon has announced that it reversed its decision to boycott the 3D theatrical release of Tim Burton's Alice in Wonderland. The chain is concerned that the decision to release Alice in Wonderland on DVD just 12 weeks after the theatrical release will set a new benchmark. Movies are usually released around 17 weeks after being shown in theaters.

"The Odeon and UCI Cinema Group is pleased to announce that, following detailed negotiations with the Walt Disney Company Ltd, an enduring agreement has been reached encompassing all the different aspects of both companies' commercial relationship," Odeon said in a statement.

"As a result of this agreement, Odeon is pleased to confirm that it will be able to continue with its plans for significant investment in new cinemas, in digital technology, in 3D capability and the other exciting developments designed for the increased enjoyment of all its customers."

Neither companies revealed any details on the agreement reached between both. Either way, Odeon movie theaters will be showing Alice in Wonderland in 3D in the UK, Ireland and Italy after all. Tim Burton had said he was upset by Odeon's decision to boycott the film. "I feel terrible about it," the director told the BBC's Breakfast programme. "To me it doesn't make anybody look good."

Apple has announced that the iTunes download store has reached a new milestone of 10 billion music downloads. The 10 billionth song, "Guess Things Happen That Way" by Johnny Cash, was purchased by Louie Sulcer of Woodstock, Georgia. As the winner of the iTunes Countdown to 10 Billion Songs, Louie will receive a $10,000 iTunes Gift Card.

"We're grateful to all of our customers for helping us reach this amazing milestone," said Eddy Cue, Apple's vice president of Internet Services. "We're proud that iTunes has become the number one music retailer in the world, and selling 10 billion songs is truly staggering."

Over 12 million songs are available from the iTunes store. It also offers 55,000 TV episodes and 8,500 movies for download. iTunes is the number one music retailer in the world and features the world’s largest music catalog.

Combined with the iPod, iTunes has been an incredible success story for Apple.

Nintendo has announced that 76 titles for the Wii console have sold more than one million copies. The tally splits up into 54 third-party titles and 22 first-party titles. As for the DS handheld consoles, 108 titles have now sold more than 1 million copies, split into 63 third-party titles and 45 first-party titles.

Nintendo made the announcements at the company's Media Summit in San Francisco yesterday. It also announced that Super Mario Galaxy 2 will be released on May 23rd in the United States, and that the new Nintendo DSi XL handheld console will be released in the United States on March 28 in North America.

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Microsoft Corp. has won a court decision that will allow it to attempt to topple a botnet by cutting off its methods of communicating with its creators. A federal judge in Alexandria, Virginia, granted a request from Microsoft to have 277 Internet domains deactivated, all of which are linked to the Botnet in question, identified as Waledac.

The judges order requires Verisign Inc. to temporarily suspend the suspect addresses, in an attempt to sever communications channels to the botnet before operators can establish links to the network.

Internet security firm NetWitness announced in February that a new computer virus had penetrated at least 2,500 organizations, breaching around 75,000 computers.

Botnets are networks of compromised computers that can be controlled by a centralized source, generally to dish out spam, carry out distributed denial of service attacks on targets and other illegal activities.

Compared to 2008, buyers of music downloads through the Internet actually deceased in 2009 by about one million people. The figures come from the NPD Group, but Russ Crupnick, an NPD senior industry analyst, believes there is no reason for the music industry to panic about the declining digital music customers.

Speaking at the Digital Music East conference on Wednesday, he told a gathering of music and technology executives that most of the lost customers were older users who had only recently started using the Internet for the first time and decided to try out music download sites.

In fact, the average music downloader is now spending more money on music than previously. Consumers spend an average of $50 a year on music downloads, up from $33. "You got some maturity in the marketplace," Crupnick told the audience.

"If I ran a record label, the first thing I would do is go out and hire a consumer promotion person from Kraft or Colgate. The consumer is saying they wanted to be promoted to and persuaded to come try this." He suggested that the music industry follow the examples of Kraft and Colgate and attempt to entice consumers with promotions such as bundled songs at low prices.

Nintendo announced on Wednesday that the latest revision of its DS handheld console line-up will make its way to North America at the end of March. The DSi XL is already available to buy for consumer in Japan. It features larger screens than the other DS models currently on the market.

The console will launch in North America on March 28th. Nintendo also announced plans to launch the DSi XL in Australia on March 15th this week. Last month, Nintendo sold about 420,000 DS units in the United States in January, while rival Sony moved around 100,000 PlayStation Portable (PSP) units, according to figures given by NPD.

The DSi XL includes two 4.2-inch screens, compared to 3.2-inch screens on the DSi. The console also comes with pre-installed games and applications, in the case of North America it is Brain Age Express: Arts & Letters, Brain Age Express: Math and Photo Clock, the DSi browser and Flipnote Studio applications.

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The Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA) being brokered by the U.S. government on behalf of the entertainment industry has caught the attention of the European Data Protection Supervisor, Peter Hustinx. He authored an opinion paper on several topics that include ACTA, and said he was concerned that it violated the legal rights of citizens in nations across Europe.

"The EDPS strongly encourages the European Commission to establish a public and transparent dialogue on ACTA, possibly by means of a public consultation, which would also help ensuring that the measures to be adopted are compliant with EU privacy and data protection law requirements," Hustinx writes in his opinion piece. ACTA has already found itself in the line of fire from the ACLU and the Electronic Frontier Foundation for some of its provisions.

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A look at the minimum system requirements for the upcoming blockbuster Just Cause 2 shows that the title won't work on installations of Windows XP. This would represent one of the first high profile releases not to be supported by the still-popular Microsoft operating system. The requirements specifies that an operating system newer than XP is required, and provides a hint why.

The game requires at least DirectX 10. Windows XP can only officially go as far as DirectX 9, meaning that gamers would need to be using Windows Vista or Windows 7 to play the game. A recent hardware/software survey from Steam showed that 42.15 percent of its users were in fact still running the Windows XP operating system, although Windows 7 was becoming popular very fast.

Of course, there have been several methods used to install DirectX 10 on Windows XP since it was launched, none of which are supported by Microsoft and several of which have no support from their original authors either. So maybe it is "technically" possible to run it on Windows XP, but it is a shame that users should have to install a hacked DirectX 10 package and probably patch the game files themselves to play it on Windows XP.

Amazon.com incorrectly lists XP as supported in search results.
Minimum System Requirements

• Operating System: Microsoft Windows Vista or Windows 7 (Windows XP is unsupported)
• Processor: Dual-core CPU with SSE3 (Athlon 64 X2 4200 / Pentium D 3GHz)
• Graphics Card: Nvidia Geforce 8800 Series / ATI Radeon HD 2600 Pro with 256MB memory or equivalent DX10 card with 256MB memory
• Memory: 2GB RAM
• DirectX: Microsoft DirectX 10
• Hard Drive: 10GB of free drive space
• Optical Drive: DVD-ROM drive
• Sound Card: 100% DirectX 10 compatible sound card
• Internet Connection: Internet connection required for product activation
• Input: Keyboard and mouse (Microsoft Xbox 360 controller optional)

Recommended System Setup

• Operating System: Microsoft Windows Vista or Windows 7 (Windows XP is unsupported)
• Processor: Intel Core 2 Duo 2.6GHz or AMD Phenom X3 2.4GHz
• Graphics Card: Nvidia GeForce GTS 250 Series with 512MB / ATI Radeon HD 5750 Series with 512MB or equivalent DX10 card with 512MB memory
• Memory: 3GB
• DirectX: Microsoft DirectX 10.1 with Vista SP1
• Hard Drive: 10GB of free drive space
• Optical Drive: DVD-ROM drive
• Sound Card: 100% DirectX 10 compatible Dolby Digital 5.1 sound card
• Internet Connection: Internet connection required for product activation
• Input: Keyboard and mouse (Xbox 360 controller optional)

LG Display has increased fears of rapid supply growth of LCD panels by announcing it is considering constructing a new LCD production line to meet demands. Manufacturers of LCD television products have been enjoying a healthy level of demand for LCD flat-screens, bolstered recently by Chinese holidays and sporting events like the Winter Olympics.

However, concerns are taking root in the industry that it may return to a state of oversupply as manufacturers beef up production to capitalize on the demand. Controlling supply is important for players in the industry to maintain profit margins for the technology.

"Although demand is strong, growing capacity will become increasingly burdensome for the industry," said Jason Kang, an analyst at NH Investment & Securities. "Supply is already growing and the growth will be faster next year."

LG plans to begin operation of a separate production line in the first half of 2010, while Taiwanese rivals are increasing factory utilization. "We are considering increasing capacity because we have been unable to meet all client demand for some time," said an LG Display spokesman. "But nothing has been decided yet."

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Cablevision is set to trial a new concept service in New York, where it serves 3 million homes. A household with both Cablevision Internet access and cable television services will be able to take part. Basically, the service will use your Internet connection to stream pretty much anything from your computer screen to your television, delivered as your own personal TV channel through your cable.

Titled PC to TV Media Relay, Cablevision is offering the service to customers in an attempt to provide innovative and useful solutions for home media consumption as sites like Hulu become more popular. In order to use the service, a user only needs to install software on a Windows-based machines. Cablevision will market it as enabling online viewing on a television with the push of a button.

Pricing for the service has yet to be decided, and users of Macs will be included as soon as software for the platform is developed. The move follows a service from Comcast called On Demand Online, launched last year to offer cable programming to subscribers of both Comcast Internet and cable TV services.

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Consumer Focus, a consumer watchdog that operates in the United Kingdom, has called for the region's copyright laws to be adjusted after research showed most consumers are unaware of copyright law. Millions of people are totally unaware that they regularly break the law in the UK, according to Consumer Focus. Their great crimes? Ripping and format shifting.

Consumers regularly rip CDs to computers as MP3 or other digital file formats for convenience, a practice which could very well be illegal depending on the circumstances. The same user would then break the law again by transferring those files to a portable media player device; a practice known as format shifting (technically, just ripping to a computer is format shifting, but the CD -> MP3 player example is usually given).

Some rights holders believe format shifting should be illegal, and that consumers should have to pay again to consume the same content on a different format. In a poll of 2,026 people, 73 percent were totally unaware of what they could legally copy or record. Jill Johnstone, of Consumer Focus, said that the law does not take the advance of technology over the past decade into account and needs to be changed.

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The European Commission has set its sights on Google Inc. following a number of complaints alleging that Google unfairly indexes search results in order to bury results from competitors. Google admitted that the European Commission was following up on three complaints made against U.S. giant, and protests its innocence while pledging to cooperate.

"Though each case raises slightly different issues, the question they ultimately pose is whether Google is doing anything to choke off competition or hurt our users and partners," senior competition counsel Julia Holtz said. "This is not the case."

The complaints were made against Google by Microsoft's Ciao! from Bing, eJustice.fr (a French legal search engine) and Foundem, a British price comparison website. Google has said it is confident that its operations conform to competition laws in the European Union.

Ciao! was a longtime user of Google's Adsense platform, and began to raise complaints about the terms of the arrangement when Microsoft bought it out in 2008. "We always try to listen carefully if someone has a real concern and we work hard to put our users' interests first and to compete fair and square in the market," Holtz said.

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Adobe Systems said on Tuesday that it patched a critical vulnerability that affected the Adobe Download Manager. The Download Manager is used when Internet users download Flash or Reader software from Adobes websites.

A critical vulnerability was discovered that could be used by attackers to remotely install malicious software on a victims PC. In order to fulfill an exploit, an attacker would lead the victim to a special modified link on the adobe.com domain.

The combination of the two combined to make a very serious security threat. The download manager is usually removed from a users' PC as soon as a computer is restarted. Users of the download manager in the past can ensure security by making sure the directory - C:Program FilesNOS - is not present.

More information on the issue is available at:
http://www.adobe.com/support/security/bulletins/apsb10-08.html

Acer has decided to halt its efforts to develop and market an e-book reader to compete with Amazon's Kindle, Sony Readers and now, Apple's iPad. The company only revealed last month that it was working on an e-book reader with the intention to launch in mid-year, but has had a change of heart and now would prefer to sit back and watch how the market develops first, Acer chairman Wang Jeng-tang said.

He said that the hardware is standing by, just in case the market does prove to be successful. Jeng-tang said that the question is whether or not e-book readers can break away from their current niche market and into the mainstream. Until consumers clearly display that they are willing to open their wallets to buy e-book readers, Acer does not see the business as being profitable.

The head of Acer's IT Products division, Jim Wong, revealed its efforts and intentions for an e-book reader in late January, but at the time did hint that Acer might adjust its product line-up based on what new device Apple would bring to the market this year. Just six days later, Apple launched the iPad, which the company asserts is a perfect solution for e-books.

DisplaySearch announced this week that sales of televisions grew in Q4 2009 when compared to the same period of 2008. Helped by strong LCD sales, the worldwide market for televisions recovered from recession-struck Q4 2008. LCD shipments for the quarter were up 50 percent compared to the same quarter of 2008, while plasma rose 6 percent and CRT declined 37 percent.

In 2009, consumers worldwide bought about 211 million new televisions. In Q4 alone, 50.73 millions LCDs were shipped, followed by 12.31 million CRTs and 4.72 plasma TVs. DisplaySearch estimates that a dismal 400 OLED TV sets shipped in Q4 2009, up from 207 in the same period of 2008.

Sony made a decision to step back from OLED, which has considerable production challenges. The OLED TVs that were actually available were priced accordingly. Instead, Sony has decided to focus on LED technologies and the emerging interest in 3D TV.

Unsurprisingly, South Korean giant Samsung was the leader during the quarter with a share of about 23.9 percent by revenue. LG followed far behind with 13 percent, then Sony at 11.5 percent.

In a podcast ahead of the Global Investment Conference in London, UK Prime Minister Gordon Brown singled out the games industry in the region as one of its most successful sectors. The games industry in the UK is "leading the way" in Europe, according to Brown. "We're leading the way in creative industries: by far the biggest producer of computer games in Europe," he said.

"And we're leading the way in digital communications. In a country with only one per cent of the world's population, more than a third of all internet traffic is routed through UK servers." TIGA, a trade association that represents the games industry in the UK, did not miss the opportunity to use the prime minister's comments to lobby on behalf of the industry.

"We warmly welcome Prime Minster Gordon Brown's comments and urge him to act quickly to introduce a Games Tax Relief as outlined by TIGA2, for the UK games development industry in the coming Budget," said TIGA CEO Richard Wilson.

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Intel Corporation has revealed that it too was hit by a sophisticated cyberattack in January 2010, around the same time that Google Inc. publicly announced that its services were the target of an attack from China. Intel spokesman Chuck Mulloy stressed that there was no current link between the two attacks. "The only connection is timing," Mulloy said.

However, the company did point out the similarity to the attack on Google in its annual filing with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. As many as 30 targets were involved in a sophisticated attack in January, and researchers claim to be closing in on those responsible as they follow the trail back to the source of the events.

One freelance security researcher with links to the Chinese government is suspected of authoring the code used against Google at least, and a trail allegedly leads back to two schools in the country. The Chinese government, and both schools, deny and dismiss both charges.

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According to a survey conducted by Nielsen Games, U.S. consumers spend about 4.9 percent of their budgets for home entertainment content during a month on video game titles. Buyers of video game titles spend more than non-gaming households on products such as Blu-ray/DVD titles, music and other things.

In households with "active buyers" of video games, the share for gaming expenditure rises to 9.3 percent.

Nielsen said that the research shows the share spent on video games comes at the expense of particularly traditional media, such as magazines, books and newspapers. Regular home TV packages also are of less priority on "active gaming" households.

Compared to other forms of home entertainment, the category for videogames beats print media at 4.2 percent, premium TV packages at 4.1 percent and Blu-ray/DVD title purchases at 3.5 percent. It should come as no shock that music stands at 2.8 percent.

The games industry took a hammering in the second half of 2009 in particularly due to the recession straining consumer spending.

Due to a dispute over the DVD release plans of Tim Burton's new Alice in Wonderland movie, Odeon movie theaters in the UK, Ireland and Italy will not screen the film. Walt Disney Pictures has decided to release the movie on DVD only 12 weeks after it is shown in theaters, instead of the usual 17 weeks.

Odean theaters in Germany, Austria, Spain and Portugal will show Alice in Wonderland however, as there is a longer gap between theatrical and DVD release in those countries. The company said it is worried that Disney's decision to reduce the gap to 12 weeks will "inevitably set a new benchmark" making the 12 week gap more common.

Other cinema chains in Britain have also cried foul about the 12 week gap to the DVD release, but so far no others have chosen to boycott the movie in the region. Odeon said that it had invested "considerable sums of money" in digital projection equipment to display 3D movies and a shorter window to screen films undermines that investment.

The Cineworld chain announced last week that it reached a "satisfactory compromise" with Disney and so would be screening the movie in 150 of its screens in Britain.

Intel Corporation and a group of 24 venture capital firms have announced an investment plan for companies in the United States. Venture capital firms including Advanced Technology Ventures, Braemar Energy Ventures and Bridgescale Partners will invest $3.5 billion in companies that develop promising technology in the United States.

Intel President Paul Otellini said that the firm would cough up $200 million itself toward the plan. "The members of this alliance have committed to invest $3.5 billion in promising clean technology, information technology and biotechnology companies over approximately two years," Otellini said in a speech at the Brookings Institution think tank.

Additionally, Intel also announced plans for it and other companies to double their hiring of college graduates in the country, creating more than 10,500 new jobs. Otellini estimated the total annual paychecks would total more than $1 billion.

The companies that have vowed to take on more college graduates are..

• Adobe Systems Inc.
• Autodesk Inc
• Broadcom Corp
• CDW LLC CDW.UL
• Cisco Systems Inc.
• Dell Inc.
• eBay Inc
• EMC Corp
• General Electric Co
• Google Inc
• Hewlett-Packard Co
• Intel Corporation
• Liberty Mutual Group
• Marvell Technology Group Ltd
• Marvell Semiconductor
• Microsoft Corp
• Yahoo Inc

Grow Up Australia is a campaign group in support of an '18' rating for video games in the country, which is the only developer first-world country to not have such a rating. The group's campaign has gathered 16,055 signatures which will be delivered to the Attorney General's Department.

EB Games strongly supports the campaign, and displayed posters in all of its 250+ Australian stores encouraging supporters to sign the online petition.

The Attorney General's Department had asked for public opinions, for or against the issue, back in December 2009, and until February 28, members of the public have their chance to give an opinion on it.

"Support for the introduction of the R18+ rating has been overwhelming with ninety-nine percent of the submissions made through the website in favour of the change," said Aaron John Percival, one of the founders of Grow up Australia.

Google Inc. has reportedly resumed talks with Chinese officials on the issue of Internet censorship in the country. Google threatened last month to exit the country rather than bow to government censorship policies that force it to filter search results. The company's change of heart came after a cyberattack, sourced in China, and aimed at the company's valuable source code as well as the e-mail accounts of Chinese human rights activists.

The U.S. Government got itself involved in the situation in the following weeks, with President Barack Obama saying he was troubled by the attacks and was seeking answers from the Chinese government. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton also covered the topic in a general speech about the affect Internet censorship can have on states.

Researchers now believe a Chinese freelance security consultant with ties to the Chinese government was the author of the code used in attacks against Google and 30 other companies. The trail apparently leads back to computers at two schools in the country. Both the schools and the Chinese government deny the claims.

Since Google's ultimatum, the search giant has continued serving filtered results to Internet users in the country and has not commented on discussions with officials.

A group of TV and music industry personalities have written a letter to members of parliament in the UK urging them to vote in favor of anti-piracy measures outlined in the Digital Economy Bill. Signatories include Simon Cowell, author Sir Terry Pratchett, Tim Bevan, Stephen Garrett and Paul Greengrass. Bevan is co-chairman of Working Title Films, Garrett is a leading TV producer and Greengrass is director of movies such as United 93 and two Bourne titles.

One of the clauses in the Digital Economy Bill would punish file sharers by cutting their access to the Internet. Internet Service Providers (ISP) fiercely oppose the plan, saying that it is not their job to police the Internet or spy on their customers. "Britain is admired for its creativity and its sense of fair play," the letter to MPs reads, adding that the country's artists "contribute more than 7% to the UK economy".

"The digital economy bill.... will ensure that British creators, entertainment companies, and the 1.8 million people who work in and around the cultural sector are respected and rewarded in the future as they have been in the past," it states.

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Gartner research said on Tuesday that it expects sales of mobile handsets to rebound in 2010 after declining in 2009 for the first time in eight years. The firm expects handset sales to increase more strongly than expected as economies recover from the global recession that cut into the consumer electronics market. Handset vendors are also upping competition by pushing cheaper smartphones to entice consumers.

The market declined 1 percent in 2009. Market leader Nokia Corp. had expected growth of about 10 percent for 2010, but Gartner is more optimistic, predicting a rise of about 11-13 percent this year in the sector.

"The economy seems to be stabilizing more into a recovery trend than we forecast back in December," Gartner analyst Carolina Milanesi said. "Sales will return to low-double-digit growth, but competition will continue to put a strain on vendors' margins."

Cheaper model smartphones will grow about 46 percent from 172.4 million units sold in 2009, according to Gartner research. The enormous growth in volume will be driven by falling prices for smartphones and competitive deals from network operators.

The U.S. Federal Trade Commission (FTC) has written to over 100 firms and organizations warning about a widespread, on-going data breach due to misuse of peer-to-peer (P2P) file sharing software. The FTC did not specify who it contacted, but said it included public and private institutions including schools and companies that employee as few as 8 people to others than employ tens of thousands.

The FTC said that sensitive data about customers and employees had been shared from computer networks to virtually anybody in the world connected to the Internet and P2P file-sharing networks. "Unfortunately, companies and institutions of all sizes are vulnerable to serious P2P-related breaches, placing consumers' sensitive information at risk," FTC chairman Jon Leibowitz said.

These types of data breaches are serious because of their potential to facilitate identify theft or fraud. "For example, we found health-related information, financial records, and driver's license and social security numbers -- the kind of information that could lead to identity theft," Leibowitz said.

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A UK government proposal to charge citizens with fixed phone lines a levy of 50p per month in order to fund broadband plans in the Digital Economy Bill has been condemned as "unfair" by members of parliament. The Business Innovation and Skills Committee said that most affected by the new levy would not benefit from the ultra-fast broadband services the government is pushing.

The government says that upgrading its broadband networks is the best way to drive further investment, maintaining that such measures are vial to the UK's economic growth. "We believe that a 50p levy placed on fixed telecommunication lines is an ill-directed charge," the committee asserts. "It will place a disproportionate cost on a majority who will not, or are unable to, reap the benefits of that charge."

Also included in the broadband plans is a goal to provide a minimum of 2Mbps Internet anywhere in Britain by 2012. The committee does agree with this part of the goal in principal, although it criticizes the government for not being more specific. Broadband speeds vary for customers throughout the day, and can also vary based on the distance between a home and an exchange.

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TiVo Inc. has reached out to the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) over concerns that the use of Switched Digital Video (SDV) technology by Cable providers will destroy its business. While traditional cable infrastructure delivers all available channels at once to subscribers' receivers, SDV will deliver only the channels currently being accessed.

The benefits of SDV are obvious; savings in bandwidth for one and the possibility of setting up systems with multiple times the channels currently being offered to subscribers. The system requires a receiver to send an upstream signal to a cable headend to request a signal be sent down the cable; a TiVo box cannot do this and relies on infrastructure that allows it to simply lock on to the available signals.

In a nutshell, this means that a TiVo box cannot change a channel on a SDV-based system, whereas a provider-issued box can. TiVo attacks the industry in a filing with the FCC on the issue, pointing out that TiVo is the "only major competitive entrant left standing" in the DVR space. It attributes this position to Cable's historical reluctance to open networks to third-party hardware, as opposed to natural free-market forces.

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South Korean consumer electronics giant Samsung Electronics is aiming to be the first TV-maker to offer a full HD 1080p LED-backlit 3D television in Europe. It will begin shipments of its 3D-capable units to Europe next month along with expansions of its 8 and 7-series LEDs and 6-series LCDs.

For plasma proponents, Samsung is aiming to ship 3D plasma televisions to Europe in "late Spring". The company will also release its new BD-C6900, a 3D Blu-ray player, and will offer 9-series LEDs and the HT-C6930W home theater rig in Spring.

3D models come with "wireless-ready" capabilities and sport a built-in Ethernet connection to access the company's Internet@TV online applications store. Among the media downloads being offered from the service is software from the History Channel, Cartoon Network, Google's Picasa and BBC's iPlayer.

Twitter has boasted that its users now send out 50 million 140-character-or-less tweets per day, or about six hundred per second. The micro-blogging giant, which is usually mute about much of its statistics, revealed the milestone on Monday. The site had five thousand tweets every day back in 2007, which went up to 300,000 per day in 2008.

In 2009, tweets had grown to an impressive 2.5 million every day, according to Kevin Weil, a member of Twitter's analytics team. "Tweets grew 1,400 percent last year to 35 million per day," Weil said. "Today, we are seeing 50 million tweets per day -- that's an average of 600 tweets per second."

The total number of Twitter users is unknown to the public, kept as an internal statistic at the company since it launched.

Considering that the 50,000,000 figure only represents the amount of tweets made by users, the actual number of tweets delivered by the service would be much higher, with tweets being shown for all followers of a user. Furthermore, Twitter omitted messages that were posted from accounts identified as spam from the total figures.

The European Commission (EC) is set to approve a merger between Orange and T-Mobile, which will create the largest mobile phone company in the United Kingdom. A request from the Office of Fair Trading (OFT) to the Commission to launch its own independent investigation spurred both operators into action to alleviate any concerns that regulators might have with the merger.

Among the concerns were the dominant share the new company would have over the scarce wireless spectrum and what the merger would have meant to the UK's smallest mobile phone network; 3. Despite being the smallest network in the UK, 3 can be credited with driving price competition in the UK in recent years.

In order to fend off a lengthy competition-probe in the UK, T-Mobile and Orange came to a deal with 3, which is owned by Hong Kong conglomerate Hutchison Whampoa.

Under the new deal, 3 will get access to 3,000 more mast sites across the UK. This would bring its total access to 16,000 sites and give it the largest 3G network in the United Kingdom. As for concerns about the wireless spectrum, T-Mobile and Orange agreed that the new mobile network would give back a quarter of the spectrum allotted to it for use by rivals to provide wireless broadband services.

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Finnish mobile handset giant Nokia Corp. has scrapped its 6216 NFC handset. The 6216 was set to be the third Near Field Communication (NFC) equipped handset, but also the first that would see the operator's SIM control the payment system through the Single Wire Protocol (SWP). China Unicom had planned an NFC service launch and had chosen the SWP architecture.

"We felt the quality of the consumer experience was not what it needed to be," Nokia told NFC World when asked about the cancellation of the 6216. Nokia objects to giving total control to the operator instead of the handset itself.

Using NFC technology, users can avail of a proximity payment system to carry out transactions, such as paying for public transport.

Besides having the NFC to facilitate wireless communications, the handset would also need a lot of various elements to be stored safely that control the system securely. Operators have lobbied for the SWP standard which would store all of this important data in the SIM and facilitate such features, but Nokia would prefer that the secure module be embedded in the handset itself.

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Apple Inc. has reportedly thrown out a bunch of applications for the iPhone that contain adult content under a new policy that bans all "overtly sexual content". Developers have been getting notices from Apple informing them that their applications have been removed from the App Store, without any prior warning or notification of a change in policy.

This could be a setback for some small app companies that were developing for the platform. On the Go Girls had half of its portfolio removed from the app store, while Jens Ltd was left with only one application remaining; and the purge is apparently on-going. A number of apps provided by Maxim were removed too, showing that established brands aren't being ignored either. Playboy's latest app is reportedly still up.

"Whenever we receive customer complaints about objectionable content we review them. If we find these apps contain inappropriate material we remove them and request the developer make any necessary changes in order to be distributed by Apple," a statement from Apple reads.

Sprint has announced that new 4G-compatible handsets will be available in the U.S. in the first half of 2010. The handsets will be dual-mode phones capable of using Sprint's 3G network in the U.S., while also using its 4G network when it becomes available. There is no information yet on who will be manufacturing the 4G-capable handsets for Sprint.

The operator, along with Clearwire, offers the only commercially available 4G network in the United States. It backed WiMAX for its technology, which is faster to marker than Long-Term Evolution (LTE). Sprint and Clearwire offer WiMAX in a number of large cities in the country, and continue to roll-out the network in more cities. AT&T and Verizon have opted to use LTE for their 4G networks.

Currently, the only use for Sprint's network is USB modems for Internet connectivity. The operator has said in the past that handset devices would become available, but none have materialized so far. Now, Forbes reports that handsets capable of using the 4G network will become available for subscribers in the first half of 2010.

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Charles Nesson, William F. Weld Professor of Law at Harvard Law School, who defends Joel Tenenbaum in his dispute with record labels, said that Joel has only caused $21 worth of damages from his activities. Tenenbaum was told to pay $675,000 in damages to record companies for downloading and sharing 30 songs using the Kazaa software. Nesson has described the damages as "monstrous and shocking."

"Had he purchased the 30 songs on iTunes, he would have paid 99 cents apiece, of which Apple would have passed on 70 cents to the record companies," Nesson argues. "Assuming, contrary to fact, that the record companies have zero costs so that every cent returned to them is profit, the total return would have been $21.00."

Record companies say that statutory damages are a fair way to deal with P2P file sharing, since nobody really knows how many times a user downloaded any of the 30 tracks from Tenenbaum, or from most P2P users. Nesson believes that the actual loss of revenue caused by Tenenbaum's actions should instead be the amount of money he would have paid for the songs had be opted to purchase them legally.

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According to a concept that surfaced in the US Patent & Trademark Office's online database, Sony may be looking to exploit the growing market for gaming accessories by developing a Universal Game Console Controller. The LCD touch-screen gamepad could emulate controllers for Nintendo systems, Microsoft systems and even some older legacy hardware.

The information on the concept says it could "emulate the controllers of popular game consoles, such as…the PlayStation, a controller made by Nintendo, Xbox game controllers made by Microsoft, Amiga CD-32 controllers, Atari Jaguar controllers, Gravis Gamepad controllers, Sega controllers, and Turbographics controllers." The button layout of the gamepads would be displayed on the LCD screen, which could store three types of control schemes at a time.

A special receiver would be used to pass controller data, and the pad could come with rumble functions as well as integrated speakers. "It may now be appreciated that among other advantages, the controller provides for backward compatibility so that it may be programmed to emulate the key layout of an older controller that may no longer be available," the filing reads.

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In compliance with a legal agreement made between Microsoft Corp. and the European Commission, Microsoft's Windows Update service will begin sending out a "browser choice" update for Internet Explorer users in Europe. The update will be delivered to users of Windows XP, Windows Vista and Windows 7. It gives the user an option to install, or get more information about, a different browser than Internet Explorer.

Microsoft made a legally binding commitment that PC manufacturers and users will continue to be able to install any browser on the Windows operating system, and to use any browser as the default browser. It also pledged to keep it possible to turn access off to Internet Explorer. As part of Microsoft's commitments, which resolve a number of competition law issues in Europe, Microsoft offered to provide users with an opportunity to install a different web browser like Firefox or Safari.

External testing of the browser choice screen will begin in the United Kingdom, France and Belgium next week, so any users from those countries can download the browser selection screen from Windows Update then. A phased roll-out of the update across the European Union will begin on March 1. For most users, the update will install via Automatic Updates. The update will display two different screens...

Introduction Screen

When the first screen displays, it will also install a shortcut to the Desktop in case the user would prefer to check it later. In Windows 7, it automatically unpins Internet Explorer from the taskbar. If the user selects any other browser, or even opts to stay with Internet Explorer, then it will have to be pinned to the taskbar manually again. This is done easily by locating an Internet Explorer shortcut in the Start Menu or Desktop, right-clicking on it and clicking "pin this program to taskbar".

Selection Screen

The second screen provides the user with a selection of web browsers to choose from. In accordance with the agreement between Microsoft and the European Commission, the browsers will appear in random order. Additional browsers can be viewed by scrolling to the right. The screen provides three options; "Install" to install the selected browser, "Tell Me More" to get more information about a specific browser (provided by the vendor of the browser) and "Select Later" to make a decision at a later time.

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GamesIndustry.biz has spoken to some games retailers about moves made lately by game publishers that could potentially hurt the sale of pre-owned games, or preempt further measures that could have the same effect. Electronic Arts is experimenting with "Project Ten Dollar", which provides downloadable content with titles to buyers of new games, but requires consumers who buy a second hand copy to pay for the DLC content.

Just this week, Sony also made a discouraging decision to include a voucher with the latest SOCOM title for the PSP that can be used online to unlock online content for the game. However, if a game is sold back to a store and bought pre-owned, the new owner would have to pay $20 for a new voucher to unlock the same features. Unsurprisingly, Sony describes it as an anti-piracy move.

The broad consensus among those who spoke to GamesIndustry.biz (link requires registration) about the two new systems is that it they hurt consumers. "The person you're pissing off the most is the consumer," Chipsworld MD Don McCabe told GI.biz. "This affects [them] directly - they pay the same amount of money and yet the resale value is much reduced. From a retailer's point of view, they'll just readjust [the price] bearing in mind you have to buy the voucher."

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The International Intellectual Property Alliance (IIPA) has given a document to the U.S. Trade Representative, damning Canada's laws with regard to copyright and intellectual property protection. The document was provided on the last day of the U.S. government's "Special 301" process which targets some of the world's worst countries with regard to the protection of intellectual properly.

Canada has long been a target of process, due to perceived weaknesses in the countries laws. According to the IIPA document, Canada is "fast gaining a reputation as a haven where technologically sophisticated international piracy organizations can operate with virtual impunity." It points out that four of the top ten "illicit BitTorrent sites" are located in Canada.

The IIPA says that Canada must be put on the highest-level "priority watch list". The group which represents the MPAA, RIAA, NMPA, ESA, BSA and more, wants the U.S. government to pressure the Canadian government to fix its laws. Among the things objected to be the IIPA is the permission for libraries to "format shift" items before the become obsolete, a CAN$500 limit on statutory damages for copyright infringement for private use and the legality of DRM circumvention for the creation of fair use copies.

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Apple CEO Steve Jobs has reportedly taken the opportunity to diss Adobe Flash technology again. Several weeks ago, after the iPad was unveiled by Apple, Adobe kicked up a fuss about the lack of Flash support with the product and released information on what iPad users would miss out on without it.

During a recent trip by Jobs - courting newspaper publishers with an iPad in hand - Steve spoke to some Wall Street Journal staff about Adobe's Flash technology. He told the staff that he dislikes flash technology because it crashes Macs due to its bugs, and that it is a CPU hog when it is in use.

He went on to point out that Flash is a source of security holes - which is true when Internet users do not keep their Flash add-on up to the latest version for sure. He compared the iPad's lack of Flash support to the dropping of floppy drives from Macs, as well as legacy data ports and other "dying technologies".

In recent weeks, Adobe has attempted to re-assure users about the performance of its software, noting that Flash 10.1 should deliver significant improvements over older versions. Steve Jobs however feels that its time for Flash to replaced on the web with Javascript, H.264 video and other alternatives to the Flash technology.

A Russian researcher has released attack code to exploit a critical vulnerability found in Mozilla's latest version of the Firefox web browser. It triggers a heap corruption vulnerability in the open-source browser that can allow attacks to execute malicious code remotely. He added it as a module to Vulndisco, which is an add-on for the Immunity Canvas automated exploitation system sold to security professionals.

"We've played a lot with it in our labs - it was very reliable," Evgeny Legerov, founder of Moscow-based Intevydis, told The Register. "Works against the default install of Firefox 3.6. We've tested it on XP and Vista." Mozilla issued Firefox 3.5.7 (for those who haven't upgraded to Firefox 3.6 yet) during the week to address security concerns, one of which was described as a heap corruption vulnerability.

Legerov said that the bug fixed by Firefox 3.5.7 is not the same one that he is exploiting in the lab however. While currently only being available to security researchers that pay a fee, details of the attack could spread with time.

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The Newspaper Publishers Association (NPA) has called on the BBC Trust to block the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) from providing new applications for the iPhone and (later) Blackerry. The BBC announced at the Mobile World Congress that it would offer new iPhone apps to provide BBC News and BBC Sport content to mobile users. The move was always going to be scrutinized by private news content providers who would see the BBC as a threat to a commercial business model on mobile platforms.

"Not for the first time, the BBC is preparing to muscle into a nascent market and trample over the aspirations of commercial news providers," said David Newell, director of the NPA. "This is not, as the BBC argues, an extension of its existing online service, but an intrusion into a very tightly defined, separate market." The BBC disagrees with this assessment however, and says that it is providing the apps at the request of TV-license-payers who wanted more options to consume content (they technically paid for) with mobile phones.

"They tell us that they want to access the digital services that they have paid for at a time and place that suits them," BBC's Erik Huggers said. "We are catching up with our audiences, and the same content that we broadcast on television and make available online can now be better enjoyed on the move."

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Microsoft has identified a malware infection that caused Windows systems to crash when installing a security update last week. The malware in question disguises itself using rootkit methods, and modifies the operating system kernel; changes that led to the system crashing when the update was installing.

"The restarts are the result of modifications the Alureon rootkit makes to Windows Kernel binaries, which places these systems in an unstable state," Mike Reavey, director of the Microsoft Security Response Center, wrote. "In every investigated incident, we have not found quality issues with security update MS10-015."

Until a solution is available, Microsoft will not offer the patch for 32-bit Windows through Automatic Updates, but will offer it for 64-bit systems.

"A malware compromise of this type is serious, and if customers cannot confirm removal of the Alureon rootkit using their chosen anti-virus/anti-malware software, the most secure recommendation is for the owner of the system to back up important files and completely restore the system from a cleanly formatted disk," Microsoft said.

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The International Trade Commission (ITC) will investigate a complaint made by Eastman Kodak Co. related to smartphones made by Apple and Research In Motion, the body announced on Wednesday. "The products at issue in this investigation are smartphones with built-in cameras," the agency said in a statement. The Kodak complaint was filed with the ITC on January 14th this year, while Kodak filed two lawsuits against Apple for patent infringement on the same day.

The patents in question relate to the image preview and image size functions of digital cameras and other things. Kodak is seeking compensation for the use of its technology, and is open to talks with Apple and RIM on licensing. For now however, it is requesting the ITC block Apple and RIM from importing devices that infringe its patents.

Hit badly by the recession, Kodak is looking at its patent portfolio as a long-term source of revenue. The company projects licensing revenue averaging at least $250 - $350 million each year for the coming several years.

The SOCOM: US Navy SEALS Fireteam Bravo 3 title for Sony's PlayStation Portable (PSP) handheld platform is the first to require online activation in order to unlock certain features. When it was released on Tuesday in the U.S., it came with a voucher code that had to be redeemed online to unlock online play features. Sony claims that the measure is aimed at curbing piracy of PSP games.

"Today's consumers are more tech savvy and better connected to the internet than ever before. Piracy continues to be an issue of concern for the PSP platform. SOCOM: U.S. Navy SEALs Fireteam Bravo 3 is a trial run for a new initiative we are exploring for the platform," said SCEA director of hardware marketing John Koller.

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South Korean consumer electronics giant Samsung Electronics Co. is enjoying growth spurred by sharp rises in sales of its flat-panel televisions. In 2006, Samsung overtook Sony as the biggest seller of television sets in the world. Since that time, the company has watched its TV business almost double in size. It has an advantage in that it constructed its own manufacturing base instead of outsourcing like some of its rivals.

This gives Samsung complete control over costs and quality. "We may have to invest in some capacity this year," said Samsung's Kim Yang-gyu. The company will spend $136 million to expand a factory based in Slovakia. Samsung's share of the market stands at around 17.2 percent, ahead of LG at 14.8 percent. It shipped 38 million televisions last year.

LCD sets accounted for 27.5 million of the total, and 3.5 million were Plasma. The remainder of shipments were CRT televisions. This year, the company hopes to ship 45 million televisions, with LCD and Plasma accounting for 39 million.

Dutch developers have set out to prove a point about the safety of certain social networking practices in a very public way. A new website they have constructed - Please Rob Me - lists information about empty homes gathered from Twitter. The site scrutinizes users of Foursquare, which is based on a person's current location in the real world.

"It started with me and a friend looking at our Twitter feeds and seeing more and more Foursquare posts," said Boy Van Amstel, one of PleaseRobMe's developers. "People were checking in at their house, or their girlfriend's or friend's house, and sharing the address - I don't think they were aware of how much they were sharing."

PleaseRobMe.com re-posts tweets from users who have chosen to alert the world of their whereabouts automatically on Twitter, which in turn reveals when they leave their homes. Of course the site does have a brief disclaimer explaining that it is not intended to be used as a tool to aid burglars.

"The website is not a tool for burglary," said Mr Van Amstel. "The point we're getting at is that not long ago it was questionable to share your full name on the internet. We've gone past that point by 1000 miles." He said that the site is basically just a Twitter search tool and nothing new, adding that anyone who can write HTML and a little javascript could create it.

The British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) is planning to deliver sports and news content via iPhone applications from April this year. The apps for Apple devices will be followed by versions for RIM's BlackBerry handsets and Google's Android software. Sky and the Daily Telegraph already offer free apps for the same purpose, whereas the Guardian charges £2.39 for its applications.

The BBC said that the move is being made because more and more people are using "sophisticated handheld devices" to view content. The move will raise tensions with publishers of paid-for content or content supported by other means. "Whilst the BBC's impulse to enter an already crowded news and sport apps market place is understandable, the move belies the fundamentally competitive nature of the Corporation's approach to new services," Emily Bell, director of digital content at the Guardian, told BBC News.

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Ventura Content filed a $6.75 million complaint against the owners of Brazzers on Tuesday, which operates adult entertainment "tube" sites. Ventura is the copyright-holding company for Pink Visual studios. Tube sites are YouTube-like video portals that host and stream thousands of adult videos for free to Internet users. Such websites are (unsurprisingly) among the most viewed websites on earth. The adult entertainment industry has been at odds with such sites for some time now.

In the lawsuit filed by Ventura against Mansef Productions and Interhub (owners of Brazzers), there are 45 examples of copyright infringing content on keezmovies.com, pornhub.com, extremetube.com and tube8.com. "These Tube Sites maintain the fiction that they offer a forum for consumers to upload and share their own original 'user-generated' adult video content; however in reality, they function as repositories for an extensive collection of infringing adult videos," Ventura states in the suit.

It goes on to compare the sites to file-sharing services such as Napster and Grokster, adding that piracy is a threat to the entire adult entertainment industry. "I think that the general consensus is that tube sites have really put a dent in the adult entertainment industry," says industry analyst Rhett Pardon of XBIZ Research. The online area of the industry is estimated to be a $6 - $12 billion business.

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