Disney has put its video-on-demand service, MovieBeam, on hold for technical upgrades and the possibility of more corporate partners. The service which operates in just three U.S. cities sends movies to it's customers HDD's via television airwaves that can be played for a small fee. A spokeswoman said the service will be interrupted while upgrades take place and the company cannot predict when the service will be available for its customers again.
"In order to provide our consumers with even better entertainment experiences, MovieBeam is planning an upgrade of its technology, network and infrastructure," the company said in a statement. "We are having discussions regarding platform and rollout strategy with several potential partners and upon successful completion of those conversations will introduce the next phase of the service." The company has been exploring alternate directions for movie distribution for the past few months.
"They had it up and running, showing that it works,"InStat/MDR analyst Gerry Kaufold said. "But there is a much larger, broader opportunity than the specific MovieBeam service they trialled in those three cites." Customers using the MovieBeam service rent their receivers for $8.99 a month and occasionally the receiver's HDD would be filled with about another 100 movies.
The world's largest mobile phone manufacturer, Finnish Nokia, announced yesterday its latest phone, Nokia N91 which takes its aim at Apple's iPod and other portable audio players.
The phone features a 4GB harddrive and a standard stereo headset jack. Additionally the phone includes an integrated wireless LAN adapter, which allows the phone to access Internet via WLAN networks, and allows easy-to-use wireless transfer of audio tracks from desktop computers. The phone can be also synchronized by connecting it to a regular USB 2.0 port.
N91's audio player supports MP3, M4A, AAC and WMA formats and the 4GB HDD is capable of storing upto 12.5 hours of music using the latest audio codecs. Th device is a so-called 3G phone and should be available worldwide by the end of the year. Pricing details were not announced yet.
Nokia's idea is clear -- people are now carrying tons of gadgets with them, typically a PDA, a phone and a portable digital music player. By combining all of these into one unit might prove to be a successful concept.
This is something one don't see every day, not even in the IT-industry! E-net Distribution, the company distributing the brand Datawrite has put out a huge fee for the one that is able to provide information that will lead to counterfeiters producing fake products under their brand names. We'll be watching how the hunt proceeds.
"Datawrite offers € 150,000 reward to catch counterfeiters."
With the marketplace increasingly crammed with more media brands, it has come to light that there are in circulation, counterfeit versions of optical media from E-Net Europe, exclusive global distributors for the brands Datawrite, Titanium and Ridisc.
When recently contacted by a number of clients who stated that they had been offered illegitimate copies of Ridisc, Titanium and Datawrite media, E-Net asked for samples to back up these reports. After testing it seems that the reports are substantiated and that one or more counterfeit rings have been producing fakes.
E-Net are determined to get to the bottom of this situation by helping the authorities clamp down on the counterfeit ringleaders and bring them to justice. They have already contacted their lawyers and have agreed to offer up to €150,000 reward for any information that may lead to legal prosecution.
Nero, leaders in digital media technology, will demonstrate their award-winning optical recording software’s CD/DVD/blue laser burning capabilities at the Blu-ray Disc (BD) Association member Seminar April 26 & 27 in San Jose. Members of the Blu-Ray Disc Association and Contributors will display and demonstrate BD and BD-related products and technology at the seminar. Nero is an all in one CD/DVD/blue laser burning solution and now possesses the ability to record data and video with a blue laser onto Blu-ray media.
Nero ShowTime allows users to playback all digital recordings including video recorded on Blu-ray discs, movies, TV programs, home videos, DVD video all with high-quality picture and sound quality. "Nero takes pride in being one of the first companies to support Blu-ray technology," says Udo Eberlein, President of Nero Inc. "Blu-ray is a giant leap forward on the evolutionary scale of optical storage for data and video recording, and Nero provides users with applications like Nero and Nero ShowTime to use such innovative technology."
Recently we reviewed Bulkpaq Orange 8x Printable DVD-R media. The test results were negative, which has raised the attention of the distributor behind the Bulkpaq brand. This is their response to our test results.
Statement from Bulkpaq
Thanks for CD-RW.ORG for highlighting these imperfect results. At Bulkpaq, we work closely with our Far Eastern manufacturing partners and our network of distributors to ensure that we offer our customers the best combination of price and quality for our media.
Of course, no manufacturer is able to guarantee results 100 percent of the time and sometimes a bad batch does slip through the quality control process. This is further supported by the fact, that all of the large Tier 1 manufacturers accept that Grade A products certify only up to 98 percent. As this is the case, we accept - and expect - to get the occasional complaint.
Our position regarding quality is very clear. If an end-user suffers from any bad disc (due to manufacturing defects) that carries the Bulkpaq brand, then they should quite rightly expect a refund / replacement from the vendor that sold it to them. At Bulkpaq, we value customer feedback and recognise it as essential to our brand success which is why we closely work with our distributors ensuring that any potential problems are dealt with quickly and promptly.
The particular CMC manufactured Bulkpaq printable 8X disc that showed unfavourable results is no longer being manufactured and has not been since late 2004. Within the next few weeks, we expect all our European vendors to be distributing a new product.
The Recordable media marketplace is becoming increasingly crowded and we even have heard reports that there are counterfeiters who are trying to capitalise on the fame of Bulkpaq by rebadging cheap DVD with the brand. To ensure that our customers get only the genuine Bulkpaq product and not a lesser quality "fake", please buy from our network of official authorised Bulkpaq vendors throughout Europe.
Guys at Nero sent us a guide for encoding video files for Sony PSP console, using Nero Recode. The guide itself is pretty easy to follow and allows converting virtually all types of video files to H.264 video format that Sony PSP uses as its native video format.
Yesterday we finished one of the last pieces in our server puzzle by transferring our main site, www.afterdawn.com, to our new server cluster. Previously we've already moved most of our other sites, including our discussion forums, to this new server setup.
The new cluster has already proven to be much more reliable and faster than the previous system we used. Obviously transferring such a huge and complex site as ours involves inevitable bugs and hiccups, but all of those seem to be sorted by now. However, we wish that our users notify us via our feedback form (found under "About us" tab) if they find any weird problems with the site.
After months of speculation and uncertainty, Sony Computer Entertainment Europe (SCEE) has finally announced the official release dater of the Playstation Portable console in Europe. Gamers will be able to get their hands on the device from September 1st for €249 (£179 in UK) which will get them a value pack. The value pack contains the PSP, carry-case, earphones with remote control, a 32MB MemoryStick, power adaptor, wrist-strap, a game sample disc and a battery pack.
Also SCEE announced that early buyers who register their console on yourpsp.com will be able to claim a free copy of Spiderman 2 in UMD format but the number available was not given. This new release date comes five months after Sony first expected to release the console in Europe. The date was first put back when Sony had to make sure they had enough devices made to cover the U.S. market.
The delay will be a big disappointment to European gamers but at least now they have a date and know exactly how long they must wait to get a new PSP, which is a lot easier to deal with than the uncertainty of the past few months. It is also beneficial to Sony as more people would be inclined to buy a PSP in September than they would be in any of the summer months.
Finally. Back in the 90's I wrote a university seminar paper about the future of the music industry. Those were the times when MP3 really started to blossom. Napster made it main stream. First legal MP3 selling e-tailer were already there, while nobody had ever heard of iTunes.
It was so evident years ago that the main product of the music industry, the Compact Disc, is out of date. The supply chain is prehistoric, as audio content could be delivered via Internet. The prices are inflated, as you get whole lot more moneys worth when buying DVD movies.
People still enjoy music, and it constantly has a high demand. But with inflated prices the basic economic laws of supply and demand weren't allowed function freely. Internet gave the alternative distribution method. A black market was born. Piracy flourished. This is a very typical behavior pattern in an economic environment.
Now it seems that music industry is trying to get the grip again. Earlier, Apple (and many others) already filled the void of music e-tailing, even though the prices still very high. Dual Disc allows the industry to deliver richer content with high playback compatibility in CD and DVD players. But as bandwidth gets cheaper, and broad bands faster this ain't the ultimate cure for piracy. Movie industry is suffering from illegal file sharing as well.
Some French news sources are reporting that the Paris Court of Appeals has granted UFC-Que Choisir (a French consumer protection organization), a prohibition on DVD copy protection devices, because they are incompatible with private copying rights. Two companies, Les Films Alain Sarde and Studio Canal, had originally won this case in August 2004 but have been dealt a major setback with this ruling. UFC-Que Choisir supported a consumer who was unable to copy his Mulholland Drive DVD to a VHS tape to watch at his mothers.
However he was unable to make a copy of his DVD because of Copy Protection. The studios were also grilled about poor consumer information practises, having just the letter "CP" on the DVD to represent Copy Protected. It was in small characters and not sufficiently explicit also. Les Films Alain Sarde and Studio Canal have one month to unblock their DVDs. At the same time, Alain Sarde and Universal Pictures Video France must pay 100 euros in damages to the consumer in question. The same two companies, and Studio Canal, must also pay him 150 euros as well as 1,500 euros to the consumer association.
A request for damages and interest by UFC-Que Choisir against Studio Canal was refused by the court however but the case was not about money for UFC-Que Choisir. The association is delighted with the ruling. But for the delegate general of the Video Producers’ Association, Jean-Yves Mirski, the decision is "worrisome" at least. The VPA has not yet decided whether to appeal the decision to a higher court (the Court of Cassation) but it is far from out of the question. In any case, according to Jean-Yves Mirski, this judicial turn of events "directly contradicts the European Copyright Directive."
Several pictures of the upcoming Xbox 360 console (or at least it's named Xbox 360 on the picture) have surfaced on the net. While pictures have surfaced in the past, the one seen now could be the one that will be shown at E3.
The device that will eventually hit the stores will most likely not be like the one shown here. Many remember the rather cool-looking X-shaped Xbox prototypes displayed by Microsoft after the first generation Xbox was announced.
The picture shows the disc tray, two memory ports, a power button and a possibly covered extension port. In addition there seems to be an IR port and maybe a button to trigger a wireless connection. Since no connectors are visible for the connectors, it's likely that the Xbox 360 will feature wireless controllers -- as has been suspected by many.
This is actually rather extraordinary in the technology industry. It really seems that the HD-DVD and Blu-ray camp are trying to find a consensus peacefully, without fighting for it on the free market.
Looking back we can recall a lot of format wars in the IT industry. The VHS vs. Betamax in the video casette recorders is one of the most famous ones. The DVD-R vs. DVD+R calmed down quite quickly as all drive manufacturers now support these two formats in parallel.
Behind this 'sudden' urge to find a peaceful solution must be the economics. Hostile competition is expensive. It is so expensive, that I can bring down even largest of companies. For an example, Yamaha was forced to step back from optical recording industry, even though it was one of the highest quality and most innovative manufacturers (read this). Instead of speding millions on marketing, lobbying, and price reductions, they seem to have chosen the peaceful way. There is plenty of cake for both of them, as we see from the DVD recordable market today. But customers usually benefit from the fierce competition via aggressive pricing. Now if Blu-ray and HD-DVD find a peaceful solution, will they be floating the prices high with common agreement, since there is no need beat the competitor on the free market?
Other key companies involved in the format war, including Matsushita's Panasonic and Netherlands-based Philips are also studying ways to end the three-year stand-off that is threatening to stifle the industry's growth.
Some of the world's biggest manufacturers of MP3 players including Apple, Sony and Phillips are very angry over a proposed surcharge on mp3 players sold in the Netherlands which would compensate copyright holders for lost revenue due to copying for personal consumption. This is similar the charge on CD and DVD media in some countries. The Stichting Thuiskopie foundation collects surcharges on CDs and DVDs which it then distributes to copyright holders.
The foundation is now looking for a similar charge to cover m3 players also. However, the main difference is that some MP3 players store the mp3's on a hard disk drive and can hold big amounts of data. The proposed surcharge will be based on the amount of storage at €3.28 per gigabyte that a player offers. According to ICT Office, a Dutch trade association, this surcharge, expected to be introduced within two months, could increase the price in the Netherlands of an Apple iPod with 40 gigabytes of storage, for example, by more than €130.
Similar demands are being made in other countries also. There is also some opposition to fair use, with some proposals for new copyright laws that would make it illegal to rip a CDs audio to MP3, but it would remain legal to copy the CD itself for personal use. While consumers might see these charges as a nuisance, one French man benefited from a charge on blank DVD media. See that story here.
Videotron, a Canadian Internet Service Provider said it is willing to hand over personal details of its customers to the Canadian Recording Industry Association and doesn't understand why so many other ISP's would choose to fight it. The ISP agrees that uploading music over the Internet is Copyright Infringement. They also say that this is a regular procedure if a court order is issued. They claim that some of the companies fighting to protect their customers own entertainment networks and are part of groups that are losing money due to file sharing.
The statement came not long after a hearing at the Federal Court of Appeal about file sharing. Chief Justice John D. Richard and three other judges heard arguments from both sides about privacy and copyright laws. A decision is not expected until late summer however. The main issue to be determined is whether the Canadian Copyright Act is violated when people upload songs online.
The Canadian Recording Industry Association is fighting for the identities of 29 file swappers that it calls "large scale uploaders" so it can launch legal attacks against them. Shaw Communications, Rogers Cable Communications, Bell Canada and Telus Communications are all fighting for their customers. The others say there’s no way to prove whether the IP address belongs to the person doing the uploading. A Telus lawyer said they want to see if the CRIA has proof.
Two NYPD cops are being investigated by Internal Affairs for allegedly accepting cash payoffs from the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA) to bust DVD pirates. One officer, a sergeant on the force since 1992, has been transferred from the Staten Island Task Force to the 122nd Precinct pending the internal investigation. The officers ages 36 and 32, would arrest he pirates and then confiscate the pirated goods. They would be acting on information from MPAA investigators, many of whom are actually former cops.
"There is nothing improper about that practice. But on at least four occasions in Brooklyn, Manhattan and Staten Island, the task force officers arrested the vendors, confiscated the illegal movies and then allegedly received gratuities of several hundred dollars from the MPAA itself or its investigators" a source told the New York Post. The Motion Picture Association of America has strongly denied the allegations.
"We don't give cash to police officers," said Bill Shannon, an MPAA anti-piracy official. "We work with law-enforcement organizations by providing information and logistical support, and the police make the arrests." The Staten Island Task Force made headlines in 2003 after one of its officers, Bryan Conroy, shot and killed an innocent bystander at a Manhattan storage warehouse where they had went to bust pirates. Ousmane Zongo, an African immigrant, was unarmed. Conroy's trial earlier this year ended in a hung jury. He will be retried this summer.
If you haven't already read about this, P2PUnite.net set out a week in April to get as many people not to buy entertainment goods or provide the major entertainment companies with any revenue as a warning from us consumers. "As of late the MPAA's and RIAA's of the world are claiming that we are denying them their justly earned money and are trying to find ways to put an end to this supposed loss through litigation. It would seem that their scare tactics have been fruitful as they keep getting settlements out of court and probably generate even more profit from these activities." the site reads.
It also makes a pretty good reason besides fighting piracy for the lawsuits we hear so much about. "The aim of their campaign, of course, is not to target and eradicate file sharing as much as it is an attempt to control the market and dictate where and on what our hard earned money is spent." P2PUnite says. "The wealthiest, nowadays, decide what we listen to and watch using staggering public relations campaigns; most releases are "format" productions where talent, passion and creativity come after profits and greed."
The site also has a nice stab at the recording industries claims of lost revenue to their artists. "How many get sick to their stomachs while hearing about revenue losses after viewing an episode of 'Cribs' on MTV? The production companies have the audacity to say that we are using people's creativity and talent, without paying for it. Well, guess what? Most P2P users actually do buy the products they like!" the site claims. "To prove this, we call out to all that have shared a file, downloaded something online or think that prices are outrageous; Let us send a message to the entertainment industry leadership."
Creative has announced that it has sold 2 million MP3 players in the first quarter of 2005, a number that is equal to the holiday quarter of last year. The company did admit however that it is feeling financial pressure from Apple's strategic pricing of its iPod music players. "This was our second consecutive quarter of selling two million MP3 players, an achievement that further positions us as an industry leader in the explosive MP3 market,"Sim Wong Hoo, Creative's CEO said in prepared remarks.
He said the company will continue to aggressively price its players but also warned that it may move profit margins lower in the short-term. Craig McHugh, president of Creative said that the company is now starting to feel the pressure from Apple's pricing strategies. He said that the price drops in the iPod Mini were larger and the aggressive pricing of the iPod Shuffle was lower than expected.
The company is hoping that rises in sales will help it to get better deals with suppliers so it can lower the cost of manufacturing the players and reduce the decrease in profits. Creative struck deals with Circuit City and Best Buy to carry the Zen Micro player which substantially increased the products availability. Apple has been selling iPods at Best Buy since 2002.
Sony is planning to start a new online market place that will allow its gamers to buy and sell virtual game items. The Sony Station Exchange is not expected to open until late June and initially will only allow the service for EverQuest players. They will be able to sell in-game cash, magical items and characters. The move comes as some surprise because Sony has tried to stop trading like this in the past on several sites. Sony said it was taking the move to help stamp out fraudulent sales of game gear.
The EverQuest game was released in 2004 and allows players to control characters in an online fantasy world called Norrath. These characters gain experience and become more adept at their trade, be it warrior, priest or magician, by completing quests. The game has its own internal currency and magical items are used by characters to boost their powers. Some players didn't want to build up their supplies and characters so they go looking to buy them from somebody else.
In the case of EverQuest, most items that are traded are cash, artefacts and characters; you would often find them on eBay. Sony has done it's best to try to stomp out this kind of trading and has even sued from item trading sites. Powerful characters and items can change hands for hundreds of pounds. Some estimates have put an $800m (£418m) price tag on the global market in game items and cash. In a statement issued to EverQuest players John Smedley, president of Sony Online Entertainment, said it was setting up the marketplace to stop people being ripped off when they buy game goods online.
A new worm that has been discovered posing on P2P networks as DVD copying software has a bit of an anti-piracy twist to it. The worm, Nopir-B, searches through your computer for MP3 files and then deletes them. It also disables some system utilities and wipes .COM programs while it is displaying an anti-piracy picture. The virus, believed to have originated in France is spreading but very slowly and doesn't pose much of a risk other than wiping your music collection.
Whatever our views are on piracy, this virus is still of criminal nature. "The Nopir-B worm targets people it believes may be involved in piracy, but fails to discriminate between the true criminals and those who may have legally obtained MP3 files. Whichever side of the fence you come down on in regards to internet piracy, there's no debate about the criminal nature of this worm," said Graham Cluley, senior technology consultant for Sophos.
This is not the first virus to target music on infected PCs; the Klez-F worm spread around in 2002 and overwrote MP3 files on certain days. The Scrambler worm made MP3s sound like scratched records and the Mylife-G worm overwrote MP3 files with the words "my lIfE". This new Nopir-B worm will probably stop spreading very quickly, but just imagine other viruses like Blaster or Sasser were programmed to delete music files.
Michael Jay Rossi, President of InternetMovies.com Inc. is turning to the Supreme Court in his fight against the MPAA for the wrongful shut down of his website in 2001. The Ninth Circuit Court ruled that good faith belief under the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) is subjective and not objective. "The Ninth Circuit Court's subjective interpretation of good faith belief stated in the DMCA is unconstitutional, allowing copyright holders to abuse people's rights without conducting proper investigation on alleged violations." said Rossi.
In the Ninth Circuit ruling, Judge Johnnie B. Rawlinson states, "Applying the subjective good faith standard of #512(c) and viewing the record in the light most favourable to Rossi, Rossi failed to raise a genuine issue of material fact regarding the MPAA's violation of the DMCA." However Rossi is not convinced and believes his attorney James Fosbinder did indeed raise a genuine issue of material fact regarding the MPAA's violation of the DMCA. The MPAA accused him of offering movies for download, including one that wasn’t released or even finished production yet.
"Plaintiff Rossi did not ever offer any movies for download from his site, contrary to the MPAA's express statements to the contrary in their violation letters, and in fact he could not have done so given the server space available for his site at that time. Interestingly, one of the movies he was accused of having available for download in 2001, 'Lord of the Rings, The Return of the King' did not even come out until December of 2003", Fosbinder stated in his Appellant's Opening Brief to the 9th Circuit Court.
Verizon Communications and Movielink have made a deal that will allow some Verizon customers to download movies from Movielink. The rentals are available to customers of Verizon Online's digital subscriber line and Fios Internet service. They can choose from titles on Movielink's Video-On-Demand service. After the movie is downloaded, it can be stored on the users HDD for 30 days before it will be automatically deleted.
Price ranges for the service are generally $2.99 - $4.99 but there is a selection of titles that can be gotten on the 30 day rental service for as little as 99c, the company said. You can watch the movies as many times as you want as many times as you want before the 30 ay limit runs out. The downloads can be viewed on a PC or a television connected to a PC without being online all the time.
Movielink was the first broadband online video rental service to allow legitimate downloads of major motion pictures. Verizon is entering into new partnerships with entertainment companies as part of its strategy to make inroads into the paid television market using its fiber-optic network. "Our new movie rental service helps our broadband customers get even more out of their high-speed connection,"Eric Cevis, vice president of retail markets at Verizon, said in a statement. "With top content from Movielink and the speed of Verizon's broadband networks, customers enjoy the flexibility and convenience of accessing affordable entertainment in ways they want to receive it."
UK based Wippit is planning a movie download service that will offer movie downloads for as little as 99p. Wippit already offers legal music downloads for 29p a track from a selection of 60,000 tracks or unlimited downloads for £4.99 a month. The company is in talks with distributors that have not yet been named. The company said the movies that will be offered will range from Blockbusters to Classics and will including Independent and rare movies also.
This news comes not long after Sonyannounced its plans to open a movie download service within the next year that would do for movies what Steve Jobs' iTunes did for music. The Sony service will initially offer about 500 movies just from Sony's impressive catalogue of about 2,500 titles. However, Wippit already have a reputation for providing low cost services and really hopes to get its service launched by the end of the summer.
Paul Myers, founder and chief executive of Wippit said that research has already proven that consumers are interested in movie download services. "We're in talks and are slating a late summer release for Wippit Movies with a great selection of films from the suppliers we are currently in discussion with," Myers said. Wippit hopes to enter into more discussions with studios, distributors or production companies.
Mobile phone makers Nokia and Motorola have both seen big rises in profits and sales for the first quarter of 2005. In the three months Nokia profits were up 18% at 836m euro, from 729m in the same quarter in 2004. Sales were 17% higher at nearly 7.4bn euro, up from 6.4bn euro. Nokia shares also rose up about 5.5%. Jorma Ollila, chairman and chief executive of Nokia said the success was due to 20% industry growth in the first quarter compared to the same term last year.
"This marked a strong start for the year and prompted an upward revision of our 2005 annual market volume estimate to about 740 million units (from 712.9 million)," Ollila said. He added that he was extremely satisfied with the first quarter results. Sales of handsets in Asia grew strongly for Nokia which China now being its biggest market but sales in the United States and Latin America were disappointing. "There was also some weakness in 3G devices at the industry level," Ollila said.
Motorola benefited from the Industry growth aswell, also seeing double-digit growth in quarterly profits. Its shares also grew by more than 5% after it announced its results for the first quarter. Motorola's profits rose 14% to $692m, up from $609m a year earlier. The company benefited from a strong line-up of devices including the Razr phone. Although its not sold in large volumes it has positioned Motorola as a "cooler" mobile brand. In the first quarter, Motorola said it increased its market share to 17.1%, a rise of 1.4 percentage points. It is second only to Nokia in terms of the numbers of mobile handsets it sells.
A request for investigation has been filed against Viralg and BMG Finland by a Finnish musician. The musician, Pekka Sallinen has asked both the police department of Helsinki as well as the National Bureau of Investigation to investigate whether the use of technology developed by Viralg and used by BMG Finland is illegal.
Specifically Mr Sallinen asks the police to investigate whether or not the companies are in violation of the Finnish criminal law which strictly prohibits any kinds of interference with telecommunications. Viralg manufactures and markets a product which, according to them, breaks P2P downloads by injecting "bad data" to people downloading copyrighted material. According to Viralg, BMG Finland has been successfully using their technology since 2003.
Even though Viralg's technique of faking file hashes works only with some of the old peer-to-peer applications, such as Kazaa, it is nevertheless illegal to take matters into one's own hands when fighting against copyright infringements. Furthermore, downloading or copying music and video files for personal use via P2P networks (or any other means) is still perfectly legal in Finland. In his request for investigation Mr Sallinen reminds the investigators that action should be taken before companies take up a habit in defending their rights by illegal means.
Hollywood studios are debating about whether or not to bring DVD release dates of movies forward to combat growing piracy around the world. In fact some do predict that the day may not be far off when some major films are available on DVD at the same time as their theatrical release. "Your premiere may be at Wal-Mart," said Barry Meyer, chairman and chief executive of Warner Bros Entertainment. It's all about business, and he points out that in some territories movies make more money on DVD than they do in theatres.
"Right now theatrical is the main way we set values in these movies, and video is the first aftermarket," Mr Meyer said during a discussion held as part of the Milken Institute Global Conference on Wednesday. "It might well be in certain territories it should be exactly the reverse - that theatrical is the added value." He went on to explain how pirated copies of the latest Harry Potter movie were being sold literally outside a multiplex in Shanghai on the same day the film opened there.
"The day you have a public performance of a movie anywhere in the world, you can count on the fact there will be a physical product on the streets of Asia, Eastern Europe (and) Russia within a few days," he said. Michael Lynton, chairman and CEO of Sony Pictures Entertainment agrees with Meyer's view saying that many film-goers prefer to wait for a DVD release of a movie than to spend money to watch it once in a theatre. "Where piracy tends to thrive is where the consumer perceives that goods and services are not convenient and price is out of whack," added Peter Chernin, chairman and CEO of the Fox Group.
If you own a Sony PlayStation Portable console and also for some reason have a slight interest in the type of material an average edition of Playboy would offer, then you will be glad to know about Playboy's "PlayboyStation Portable". According to Playboy, it is available for free, in the form of two non-nude picture galleries and one free video. Playboy subscribers however have access to premium nude content.
Playboy has said it has taken some "sci-fi" themed pictures of model Amy Cooper that has been formatted to display perfectly on the wide Sony PSP screen. They also did the same thing for Apple's iPod music player, which they called simply, "iBod". Sony released the PlayStation Portable in the U.S. in March and managed to sell over half a million copies in a week. However, I do not think that there is any need to introduce anybody here to "Playboy" as I'm quite sure you know just a little about the publication already!
Sony and Toshiba have been fighting an unwanted battle over the last couple of years, both backing their technology as the best option to replace current DVDs. Toshiba is heading its camp in support for the HD DVD format and Sony is backing its Blu-Ray format. However, both sides have decided to avoid a war that would resemble the VHS-Beta videocassette war. "The two groups are in talks to jointly develop a new standard for next-generation DVDs to give the best benefit to consumers," a Sony source said on Thursday.
Toshiba also believes a single format would benefit consumers and it would continue to strive for that goal. Japanese business daily Nihon Keizai reported that the groups are stepping up their negotiations and could find a solution as early as this month. The groups basically hope to create something that will have the good points of both technologies. Both technologies offer much higher storage capacity than current DVDs which hold about 10GB of data at most.
"This is good news for the industry as a whole because it will help penetrate DVDs into homes ... it might also help DVDs improve their content," said Kazuharu Miura, an analyst at Daiwa Institute of Research. "Now I'm interested to see how soon the makers can come out with products with standardized technology ... because the move might slow down the launch (of products) and might let rivals such as Taiwanese makers, that came into the market later, advance in the competition."
The United States Congress today passed a bill that's very tough on movie pirates. Anybody who is caught trying to record a movie in a theatre with a camcorder could face up to three years in prison. In 2003, piracy cost the movie industry about £3.7bn in lost revenue. The US Customs Department blames 95% of pirated movies online on two sets of people. It blames the people who create CAM and Telesync copies of movies by recording a movie while it's showing in theatres and blames industry insiders who intentionally leak movies before their release.
The bill has been passed by both the Senate and House of Representatives and now President Bush is set to sign it. It is intended to clamp down on pirates who sell bootleg copies of new films. The Internet has become a massive resource for pirated movies, including movies that haven't been released yet. It is not uncommon for DVD or VHS Screener copies of movies to appear on the Internet long before a retail copy is available in stores.
An attachment bill to the Family Entertainment and Copyright Act called the called the Family Movie Act will soon make it legal to alter a motion picture so long as all the sex, profanity, and violence have been edited out. The Family Entertainment and Copyright Act was approved on Tuesday by the house. The Senate has already passed its own version, and the President is expected to sign it. It's a big win for Hollywood as it sharpens penalties for pirates.
On AfterDawn forums, one frequently asked question is how to remove unwanted scenes from DVDs to make them fit for viewing by a younger audience. Some services are available that will do this but Hollywood takes a sceptical look at them. Two such examples are Family Flix and CleanFilms. These companies claim that they are not violating any copyright laws as they purchase a legal copy of a DVD each time they edit one. Hollywood studios are still upset with this action as the companies are essentially profiting from re-distributing their works.
The Director's Guild is very unhappy also as these companies tend to just leave the movies in any state that they want and Directors claim that it ruins what they tried to create in the movie. The directors agree that when someone buys a DVD they should be allowed to edit it for personal use if they want since they legally purchased a copy. However, they disagree with somebody making changes to the DVD and then going ahead and selling their edit, which is precisely what these companies are doing, they claim.
It appears that Macrovision's challenge to InterTrust’s patents is likely to fail as the United States Board of Patent Appeals and Interferences gave a ruling last week that concluded that key InterTrust patents have priority over Macrovision's claims. When Macrovision bought patents from a European company some years ago they realised that many of the filing dates had date precedence over InterTrust’s core trust chain patents in Digital Rights Management and filed an Interference suit.
If one patent is found to be very similar to another owned by a different company, then an Interference suit can be filed and courts have to decide which company can own the patents. In the United States, the laws recognize whichever company first invented a technology but in other places it all goes down to the date when a patent application was filed. However Macrovision still believes that it owns key DRM patents in many countries outside the United States.
"This is an ongoing process with other portions of the interference action still under review by the Panel. The InterTrust interference action has no bearing on patents outside the US and our essential international DRM patent applications are proceeding to issuance in Europe and Japan, unaffected by the outcome of the US patent interference action." the company said. Macrovision CEO Bill Krepick says the company will consider its appeal options. "Macrovision intend to introduce a licensing program based upon our international DRM patents as well as on those portions of the US patents subsequently issued." he added.
SimWorks is a Symbian anti-virus specialist and a leading developer of innovative mobile applications for the Symbian platform. Today the company announced it has discovered 52 new trojan viruses that affect Series 60 phones using Symbian OS v6.1 or newer such as the Nokia 3650, 6600 and 6630. None of the trojans affect UIQ based Symbian phones such as the popular Sony Ericsson P900/910 and Motorola A925/1000. The trojans appear to be cracked versions of popular Symbian applications such as BitStorm, BugMe!, Cosmic Fighter, 3D Motoracer and SplashID.
"This is a significant development as until now we've usually found mobile trojans two or three at a time at the most. It would be easy for a malware writer to create 1 trojan and give it 52 different names however this is not the case here where we have 52 separately cracked and infected applications. Somebody has gone to an awful lot of time and effort to turn these out". SimWorks CEO Aaron Davidson said. He also has a theory as to why the virus creators would go to so much trouble.
"Previous mobile viruses have either been able to spread but cause no harm or alternatively have been able cause significant harm but not able to spread. It may be that producing large numbers of harmful trojans such as those we discovered today is a reaction by the writers to their inability to produce destructive viruses that can effectively spread. Obviously by producing large numbers of these things you greatly improve the odds of someone actually downloading and installing them". SimWorks has yet to receive any reports of the 52 trojans identified today in the wild.
On the 17th of April, the British Broadcasting Company aired a whole new official UK music top chart. For the first time music legally bought and downloaded from the Internet has been included when calculating the chart. The number of songs distributed via the Internet is increasing rapidly to numbers that start to have an actual statistical effect on the charts.
It was the first time in the charts history that download sales from Internet websites including Napster and iTunes has been included in the charts. The results of the increased sales – download and singles sales amounted to almost 800,000 sales last week up from 395,000 the week before - has already taken its affect.
Most hardcore gamers can’t wait to see what the next gen consoles have in store for them and at E3. Sony and Microsoft will be displaying the eagerly awaited PlayStation 3 and XBOX 360. However, the Nintendo Revolution console may not appear there according to EuroGamer. Apparently there will be a few rolling demos of games currently in development, but no console or controller on display. Gamers will be disappointed no doubt but will probably still be blown away by the PS3 and XBOX 360.
Apparently, Nintendo boss Satoru Iwata is worried about rivals nicking all his best ideas at this early stage. That line sounds familiar because it is the exact same excuse Nintendo used to avoid showing Mario 128 at a previous E3. Instead Nintendo will be focusing most on its new Nintendo Online service which will be demonstrated using the DS handheld console.
Buena Vista Games expanded Tuesday by acquiring Avalanche Software. Last year, Walt Disney Co. (Buena Vista parent company) reported it had earmarked $40 million for developing its game business. No details on the deal were disclosed but Buena Vista Games senior VP and general manager Graham Hopper, said that "they totalled well south of $50 million." Buena Vista Games plans to reach $536 million in fiscal 2006 after its $265 million of revenue in fiscal 2004.
"The acquisition of Avalanche Software and the creation of a development studio in Vancouver mark a significant milestone in becoming a top-tier video game publisher by securing the industry's top talent to build and create game franchises," Hopper said. There is already a partnership between the two as Avalanche is developing the video game counterparts to Walt Disney Pictures' "Chicken Little,".
Avalanche is well known for its million-selling "Tak" franchise, which Hopper referred to as "one of the few successes in the children's intellectual property space." The startup studio that BVG also acquired is based in Vancouver and is led by senior development and business staff previously with Electronic Arts. The team is already working on developing games for next gen consoles like the XBOX 360 and PlayStation 3.
Brits have bought more than 5.6 million music downloads so far in 2005, a figure that brings music downloading into direct competition with the sales of singles. The announcement follows the launch of the first official singles chart that combines sales of downloads and physical media. It almost doubled the number of singles on the official weekly tally which shows the growing importance of legal downloads to music sales.
At least 383,000 downloads were sold last week, just under the 393,000 physical units but the amount single-track downloads that are being counted as singles isn't clear. So far in 2005, 5,263,995 tracks were downloaded which is more than the entire of 2004. You have to remember though that iTunes was not available in the UK for five months in 2004. iTunes is believed to be responsible for up to 805 of legal download sales in the UK.
However it’s not all good for iTunes in the UK; independent labels feel like they are being under-represented by Apple whose iTunes service launched in the UK with no content from independent labels. However, sector insiders defend Apple by saying this is because the company can’t add music to iTunes any faster than it already is.
The Canadian Recording Industry Association (CRIA) is set to appear before Federal Court of Appeal in Toronto hoping to overturn a ruling in April 2004 that shielded file sharers from legal attacks. It started in January 2004 when the CRIA tried to force ISPs to hand over personal information of file sharers. The ISPs decided to fight back and Federal Court Justice Konrad Von Finckenstein ruled that file sharing was akin to using a photocopier, citing the Canadian Copyright Act as support.
Graham Henderson, president of the CRIA says the recording industry faces millions of dollars in more lost sales if the appeal is unsuccessful. "It could cost millions and lead to more job losses if we aren't successful," Mr. Henderson said. "It would be awful." In many countries, the recording industry has launched a battle against file sharers by filing lawsuits against uploaders, which is exactly what the CRIA had planned.
Mr. Henderson claims that since the ruling in April 2004, more than 134 million songs have been downloaded in Canada illegally. Movie sales were flat in 2004 however but Henderson said that the industry's retail sales have dropped $465 million since they peaked in 1999. The recording industry will have a hard time overturning the ruling. "Their big challenge is that they have to convince the Court of Appeal that the decision was legally incorrect,"Mark Hayes, an intellectual property lawyer with Ogilvy Renault said. "They need to get the court to confirm that Justice Von Finckenstein's musings on the law aren't binding."
Nokia's Visual Radio has been available in many countries around the world including Finland, the UK, Singapore, Thailand and Germany and will soon be available in the United States. The service merges traditional FM radio with mobile phone interactivity that is based on the content of the broadcast. The announcement was made with Nokia's technology partner, Hewlett-Packard. The partners re determining which of Infinity's 185 radio stations will be the first in the country to offer the service.
According to Reidar Wasenius, the service will be available in the United States within six months. "It adds another dimension to FM radio," said David Goodman, Infinity president, marketing. "I love the idea of everyone walking around with a portable radio that happens to make phone calls and show great pictures." While listening to FM radio on their handsets, customers will also receive graphics and information based on the broadcast.
"It makes us very happy to offer Visual Radio on this continent, since this is such a major market in the world and it is the home of commercial radio," Wasenius said. "It proves the credibility of the concept." The kind of data that listeners will receive includes artist and track information, opportunities to buy concert tickets, radio station promotions, ringtones offers etc.
Spammers now have a new source of real email addresses. They are taking advantage of the fact that some novice P2P users accidentally share private directories on P2P networks like eDonkey2000. In some cases, people intentionally share their entire HDD's to boost the amount of data they are sharing on some P2P software that has minimum requirements for shared files. So some spammers got clever and decided to search for strings like "email" or "e-mail" or "Outlook.pst".
"They're going into P2P networks and harvesting addresses accidentally shared, then spamming every address they find," said Eran Reshef, the chief executive and co-founder of Blue Security. Spammers usually use Directory Harvest Attacks, where they flood mail servers with thousands of address variations, hoping to get a response when a valid address is queried. Harvesting on P2P networks is not that complicated either, and even if you don't have your email address shared, some one of your friends might have yours shared accidentally.
"All it takes is one person you know, who you've sent an e-mail address," said Reshef. "This friend of yours has your e-mail address somewhere in his files, likely in his Outlook .pst file. He doesn't know P2P, and rather than share just some songs, sets the file-sharing software to share his entire hard drive, including his Outlook.pst file for spammers to find and see." Blue Security set up 500 virgin e-mail accounts, listed those addresses in several files on a PC connected to the eDonkey2000 and Gnutella file-sharing networks, and shared the directories the files were in.
The British Phonographic Industry scored another small victory today when a court ordered five ISPs to hand over the personal details of 33 file sharers it alleges to have illegally distributed copyrighted music online through P2P networks. The BPI estimates that these individuals are responsible for uploading 72,000 songs to other P2P users. The total number of P2P users sued in the UK has risen to 90 when you add the latest lawsuits.
They will now face claims for compensation and the legal costs of pursuing them. BPI General Counsel Geoff Taylor said: "This court order should remind every user of a peer-to-peer file sharing service in Britain that they are not anonymous. These 33 people will now face paying thousands of pounds in compensation. We are continuing to collect evidence every day against people who are still uploading music illegally, despite all the warnings we have given. If you want to avoid the risk of court action, stop file sharing and buy music legally."
In March this year, the BPI sued 31 people, many of which were parents whose kids had been downloading and uploading music. The BPI also estimates that downloaders spent £654m less on recorded music over the last two years. They also believe that their actions are turning the tide in the battle against file sharing, but P2P networks appear to be getting more popular in reality.
While the DVD Double Layer media prices remain sky high and whether we want it or not, the next generation of optical recording is coming our way. Traditional recording media provider TDK at the bleeding edge of recording technology, and has todayd released it's Blu-ray disc TDK Professional Disc (PD-RE23CN).
The TDK Professional Disc, which uses a blue-violet laser with a short wavelength for recording and playback, boasts a capacity of 23.3GB – approximately five times that of DVD media – as well as a rapid transfer rate of 72Mbps. Thanks to its random data access capability and other features available only from optical disc media, it can be expected to find growing acceptance in broadcasting applications.
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Due to the high-density recording required by the Professional Disc System, adherence of any dust on, or scratches to the disc surface can have a serious impact on recording and playback accuracy. By utilizing TDK’s DURABIS PRO, a hard coating technology developed for professional-use discs, TDK’s Professional Disc offers extremely high durability and recording reliability.
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By use of a blue-violet laser with an extremely short 405nm wavelength, a large recording capacity of 23.3GB – about five times that of a DVD disc – is realized on a disc of the same size. In addition, high-sensitivity phase change materials and an optimized layer structure allows for a high-speed transfer rate of 72Mbps (144Mbps with two optical heads) with stabilized recording and playback.
A Finland-based company called Viralg claims that its technology could stomp out 99% of illegal file sharing on P2P networks. They are not one bit hesitant to say they are the best and the only real solution to the problem faced by the entertainment industry. Their "overwrite" technology apparently can mix-up and corrupt files on P2P networks. Similar services make the same claims but all they really do is spread corrupt files around the network, a practice that can be beaten with verification sites.
However Viralg claims that their technology can beat the verification sites problem. Viralg explained to Slyck.com how this is possible. "We make viable non-working file with a working file hash, so when someone tries to download a working file he/she will receive a random mix of working and non working file. The final content depends on many things (bandwidth, sources etc.)" they said. "Simply, we can deliver corrupted content with the same hashcode".
They claim they can corrupt files on many P2P networks including some newer networks like Ares Galaxy. Also they have already got some strong support behind them. BMG Finland is already praising the company having already worked with them and seen positive results. BMG Finland became the market leader in domestic music in the past 12 months. Their market position increased from 15% to 25% and they believe its because of Viralg. Now Viralg is looking for more customers. Seems like a pretty powerful weapon for the entertainment industry. The coming months will be interesting.
Continuing our series of media reviews, we have a look at affordable 8x printable media by Bulkpaq. According to their website these discs offer hard to beat quality / price ratio and the best selling media brand in Europe. Unfortunately, our experiences weren't quite live up to their promises.
The number of mobile phones infected with some sort of virus grew last month according to reports. Eight viruses in total were found in that time, including one virus, Cabir, which has bee found now in its 17th country. In the first two weeks of April, Mabir, Fontal and Hobbes viruses were discovered. However, the threat from these viruses is being played down because the infection could so easily be avoided by the user. These early viruses mostly target Symbian based phones, which comes as no surprise to company.
"The more handsets we see with a common open operating system, the more skill the virus developers have and the more damage they can do," said Tiago Alves, spokesman for mobile chip designer Arm. Some viruses can stop a phone from working completely but most don't and continue to attempt to spread to other phones using Bluetooth and MMS messaging. To most users, this means that getting an infected phone could mean you lose all your stored phone numbers and other data. "Most people do not take back-ups of the data and software they have on their phones," said Marit Doving, spokeswoman for Symbian.
The fastest growing Internet Telephony Company, Skype has announced it has launched new services in selected countries. On Friday, the company launched a voice mail and phone access service in eight countries including the United States. Users could now get up to three phone numbers that can be called from any ordinary handset, fixed or mobile. Until now, users could only be contacted through Skype by a computer connected to the Internet.
"This makes Skype much more ubiquitous," Skype Chief Executive and co-founder Niklas Zennstrom told Reuters. The service now has 34 million registered users after never once advertising the software. Internet-routed communications costs a lot less than cable, satellite and radio telephony so Skype has been quick to build a huge member database. The company also announced that the software has now passed the 100 million downloads mark.
The new service called SkypeIn will cost ten euro for three months or thirty euro for twelve months and the voice mail service will cost just five euro for three months or 15 euro for a year. "The new services represent an important new source of revenue for the company," Zennstrom said. Skype also launched SkypeOut in August 2004, a pre-paid service that allowed users to make calls to ordinary phones around the world at a low cost. SkypeOut already has 1.2 million registered users.
RealNetworks is no stranger to most Internet users. Whether you love Real audio or hate it, you have to agree it was pretty hot when it first appeared 10 years ago. RealNetworks never really slipped away but became one of those names that you see in your daily Internet surfing and learned to pretty much block the name out until you hear something new from them. Well RealNetworks seem very excited about the press conference they will be holding on April 26, 2005 to reveal a "groundbreaking" initiative in digital audio.
After the conference, Real will sponsor a free concert featuring Good Charlotte at New York City's Radio City Music Hall. Members of the press and analyst community are invited to attend both the press conference and concert. RealNetworks believes it will change the Internet once again just like it had 10 years ago and revolutionize digital music. Unfortunately, everyone will have to wait for the press conference to hear more details.
A Seattle-area woman is suing Comcast, one of the United States' best cable TV network operators for disclosing her personal contact information to the Recording Industry Association of America. Dawnell Leadbetter who has two teenage children was contacted by a debt collection agency telling her she had to either hand over $4,500 for downloading copyrighted music or face a lawsuit that could mean she would have to pay up hundreds of thousands of dollars.
Leadbetter later learned that the company, Settlement Support Center was using information that they obtained from the RIAA in a Philadelphia Copyright Infringement lawsuit. Just like thousands of other Internet users in the United States, Leadbetter was accused of illegal file sharing through P2P networks. However, no court authorised Comcast to hand over her contact information and Comcast didn't even contact her to inform her that they had.
"Comcast should respect the rights of privacy who pay them monthly bills,"Lory Lybeck, the lawyer representing Leadbetter said. Also the debt collectors, Settlement Support Center, had apparently informed her that she had to pay the $4,500 for downloading copyrighted music. This is strange because generally the lawsuits filed by the RIAA are against people who are sharing copyrighted files illegally (not Download… but Uploading!). I'm sure that is what she is really being accused of. The RIAA has filed thousands of lawsuits against P2P users in the United States so far in its campaign against illegal file-sharing.
According to market research firm In-Stat, the Global music download market is going to reach €780m in 2005. That is a growth increase of 134%. The firm says that increasing competition between sites is a key factor in the growth. More sites are adding more and more music tracks to their catalogue attempting to attract new customers. Apple of course is still ahead of the market with its 70% share, continuing to sell millions of digital downloads.
Sites are also beginning to sell more live performances and remixes of music, which is attracting more customers. The market so far is all about consumer loyalty, another area where Apple rules above the rest by gaining a lot of respect from its customers for its pricing models and reliability. However, P2P and online music piracy refuses to back down and continues to cause headaches all across Hollywood.
In a survey, half of the people admitted that they have downloaded music without paying for it. The average person who paid for music, spent €19.5 (on average) in the last year on it. However, despite piracy, consumers are showing more awareness and interest in legal music stores. The survey also showed that more people are using portable digital audio players. 35% of al respondents own an MP3 player, and 70% of them say it is their first.
When people think of the iTunes music store they see a partnership between Apple and major record labels that has become a huge success. Apple seems to have single headedly created the online digital music market with its iTunes store, but that may be the problem, the major labels basically handed the business straight into Steve Jobs' hands. Apple runs iTunes for little profit (when you take into account the amount money they make vs. the amount they sell) but they do it to promote the iPod music player.
Unfortunately for major record labels, this means that both have different aims when it comes to selling music. iTunes will continue to sell music for 99c per track and album or $9.99. However, the record labels would prefer different pricing methods like charging less for old albums and more for newer albums and tracks. That kind of pricing model would help them to take advantage of the demand for music and maximise revenue.
Some record labels are now spending more time looking at different ways to sell digital music, particularly digital downloads to cell phones. "The (wireless) carriers' economics are aligned with us much better than Apple is aligned with us," said one anonymous senior executive at a major record label. "The mobile market is very important, as important to us as the PC." Steve Jobs can be given credit for jump-starting the digital music market but some record labels complain that his company with a 70% market share is setting the ground rules itself.
Online retailing giant Amazon is reported to be looking to partner with another existing online DVD rental service instead of launching its own fresh service. Amazon has apparently already approached Netflix and Blockbuster but no details on the negotiations were given. Amazon already has its own rental service in the UK which the company launched last year but no companies involved would comment on the new information.
Currently, Netflix is the market leader, consuming about 75% of the overall revenue. After rumours of Amazons plans last year, subscription prices dropped by about 20% as Netflix and Blockbuster went head to head to battle for customers. Netflix CEO Reed Hastings believes the company is about the break even this year and hoping to add nearly 1 million more subscribers by the end of the year.
Currently Netflix has about 3 million subscribers keeping the service alive and successful. Hastings said that Amazon would have to spend a lot of money, in the area of hundreds of millions of dollars just to catch up with Netflix. Amazon however has 47 million customer accounts and believes it can use these accounts as its base to start a new service quickly without having to spend too much money.
Most of you have probably heard about PyMusique by now? Software that allows people purchase music from the iTunes music store without the Digital Rights Management (DRM) protectionB on Operating Systems like Linux that are not supported by iTunes. The authors of PyMusique were Cody Brocious, Jon Lech Johansen, Travis Watkins and Charles Hannum. Now Brocious and Watkins are working with Alex Goodwin on Musik. Musik will soon do the same for iTunes that PyMusique does and also supports the Napster music store.
It has been tested now on Linux, Windows and Mac and the reports are that it works just fine. It allows you to login to the iTunes music store under any of these operating systems (the iTunes client portion requires the Mcrypt library), search for music and preview. It allows you to login to the Napster store, search and download music.
"This is the first release of the Musik framework for music store clients. In its current state, it supports the iTunes Music Store and the Napster Music store." they say. "We have not finished reverse-engineering the license issues we’re having, but we’re getting close and we should have a release within the next few days so you can use your purchases songs on OS’s not supported by MS." You can download Musik now from daeken.com.
Taiwan seems to be continuing its support for the High Definition DVD (HD-DVD) format. At a conference in Taipei's Grand Formosa Regent Hotel Tuesday, several representatives from various countries discussed DVD-related issues. Taiwan's top technological research institute promoted the HD-DVD format as the main format on behalf of several Taiwanese firms. Representatives of the Industrial Technology Research Institute (ITRI) as well as from over 21 domestic and international firms attended the conference.
The ITRI is to support the HD-DVD format in its battle against the Blu-Ray Disc format. Deputy Director of ITRI's Opto-Electronics & Systems Laboratories Huang Teh-rei said ITRI's participation in developing the HD DVD format shows Taiwan's aspiration to get on the ground floor of the international information industry. 21 firms also showed their latest DVD-related products including HD-DVD discs and optical drives.
Huang said that ITRI hopes successful global adoption of the HD disc format will benefit Taiwanese optical disc manufacturers by reducing significant amounts of royalties paid to Toshiba and NEC, whose HD DVD competes with Blu-ray discs developed by Sony and Panasonic. HD-DVD can hold up to 25GB data per disc whereas Blu Ray supporters claim it can holds up to 50GB per disc. Both are a huge improvement on about 10GB per DVD disc.
It looks like the Gaming Industry is finally started to realise that more young people are spending their time playing games than watching TV. The gaming market just keeps growing and growing and now corporations are looking for more ways to cash in off this addiction that has a global reach to people of all ages. Massive Incorporated thinks that the future of the games industry will be in-game advertisements and has managed to attract attention from companies like Coca Cola, Intel, Honda, Nestle, T-Mobile, Universal, Verizon, Dunkin’ Donuts and others.
While games do already have advertisements, maybe these new ads may be a little bit more intrusive, making sure they catch our eye, just coming along while we are playing our game. Here's a quote from Massive: "By delivering ads seamlessly to fit the context of the game environment, Massive has created the most effective model for reaching young men. Gamers are completely engaged in their play—they are not multi-tasking or fast forwarding ads. Unlike their consumption of television and other media, gamers are 100% focused on the game."
While they do have a point that not many people actually focus on the advertisements on TV, no gamers want to see stupid ads appearing on all their games and still have to pay full price for the game. It also now looks like fast-forwarding past advertisements you have recorded from TV with PVR devices and similar will not be tolerated much longer. If a game were to be separated into different levels or missions, let’s hope the future games will not have 2 minutes of video advertisements between them. Massive plans to have their in-game ads incorporated into at least 40 titles from over 10 different publishers by the end of the year.
Dr Vinton Cerf is a name that is quite popular in the computer world because he wrote the original TCP/IP protocol and could be seen as the "father of the Internet". He is also currently chairman of the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN). He revealed that he has recently discussed BitTorrent with at least two interested movie producers. BitTorrent has already proven itself as a fast and reliable way to distribute large amounts of content around the world.
"I know personally for a fact that various members of the movie industry are really getting interested in how to use the Internet--even BitTorrent--as a distributed method for distributing content," Cerf said. "I've spoken with several movie producers in the last month." Cerf was adamant the entertainment industry still did not understand the online environment. "They are only just now starting to come to honest grips with the possibilities of using the Internet," he said.
He also pointed out what he believes to be a flawed perception that the Internet is capable of providing movies in real-time. "People think of video and they think of real-time, watching it as it's coming out [downloading]," he said. "But most video doesn't have to be watched in real-time. With TiVo and those other things it doesn't have to be watched in real-time."TiVo products allow viewers to record from TV to a PVR device to watch later.
Major Hollywood studios have settled a lawsuit against ESS Technology, a chipmaker that they accused of allowing its products to be used illegally in DVD copying devices. The Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA) claims that ESS violated a contract by selling DVD Decoding chips to manufacturers that had not acquired a license to the studio's anti-piracy technology. Last July, a California state judge blocked the sale of ESS chips to other unlicensed manufacturers.
"ESS totally supports the enforcement of all parties' valid intellectual property rights and is committed to being a leader in enabling content protection features," ESS CEO Robert Blair said in a statement. "We look forward to working with the motion picture industry in their worldwide enforcement efforts and in the development of next-generation anti-piracy technology." This lawsuit was part of an on-going Hollywood campaign against hardware manufacturers.
The studios claim to be targeting manufacturers of devices that assist with piracy. One controversial lawsuit in this campaign is against Kaleidescape. The company sells products that allow users to transfer as many as 500 DVD movies to a central server, and then browse and play the movies anywhere in a house. Kaleidescape executives say that they have acquired a license from the DVD Copy Control Association but DVD-CCA said its technology is meant to prevent copying of DVDs, and filed suit against Kaleidescape in December.
Last year, Internet users used up more bandwidth than ever, mainly due to the growing popularity of P2P networks and growing demand for video files. The demand prompted Internet carriers to upgrade their network capacity to handle the extra traffic. According to TeleGeography, a telecommunications research firm, the demand for bandwidth grew by 42% in 2004 with the largest growth being in Asia. This is the second consecutive bandwidth rise after carriers added 62% extra capacity in 2003.
"It really seems to be picking up again," said Alan Mauldin, senior research analyst at TeleGeography. Researchers are pointing the finger at P2P software as being the fastest growing consumer of bandwidth, growing so large that it can now rival traffic used in web surfing. Also on P2P networks, more people are now looking for Video files. "From mid-2004, we saw a significant shift away from music and on to video," said Andrew Parker, chief technical officer at England-Based P2P monitoring firm CacheLogic. "Before that it was mainly music."
According to Parker, the actions taken by the Recording and Movie Industry against P2P sharing has failed to reduce the number of people using P2P or the amount of traffic it consumes. In the United States, the RIAA and MPAA both claim that their actions have had an effect on P2P sharing but in reality there has been virtually no change in P2P traffic levels. "In some parts of the world we have seen the opposite happen. The publicity created by the MPAA actually drove users to find out what all the fuss was about and resulted in an increase in traffic levels," Parker said.
UBC Media, owner of Classic Gold analogue and digital stations said it was investing in technology it hopes will make it possible for radio listeners to purchase a music download simply by pressing a button on their digital radio. The idea right now seems to be that listeners will be able to simply push a button to get a download of the song that is currently playing and pay a price that is competitive with online music download services like Apple's iTunes Music Store.
"We think it is a most compelling way to buy music, much more compelling than someone who gets an iPod and crawls all over the internet looking for music for it" said finance director Jenny Donald. "You are listening to the tune, you like it, it only costs about a quid and you can just push a button to download it." Whilst it seems like a good idea, to a music lover it might not be the best choice as this easy pay-per download approach could seriously spark some impulse buying.
UBC Media hopes to announce partners in the music and radio industries for the venture shortly. It will initially team up with just one radio station to test the service. The company has made a £400,000 investment in the possible service. However, whether or not they will be successful at encouraging listeners to purchase the music instead of just recording it from the radio will have to be seen.
In he first quarter of 2005, more than five million iPod music players were sold. Apple's quarterly income has increased six-fold largely due to the success of the device. The firm's net income raised by a massive 530% to $290m compared to €46 over the same period in 2004. Revenues rose 70% to $3.24bn after good growth in all product categories. A number of approximately 5.3 million iPods were sold over the period, which is an increase of 550% in the same period in 2004.
Sales of PCs also rose to over a million (43% rise) following the success of the new Mac mini and new PowerBook notebook computers. Steve Jobs was delighted with the figures for the first quarter. "Apple is firing on all cylinders and we have some incredible new products in the pipeline for the coming year," he said. 40% of the sales made were over seas, which showed the popularity of the iPod in Europe and Asia.
However, Apple said it expected earnings per share to be lower in the third quarter, at $28 per share as against $34 per share over the latest period and also expects revenues to remain largely flat at $3.25bn. "Its second quarter is traditionally its toughest quarter and these numbers are good," said Jim Fisher, vice president and senior portfolio manager of University Wealth Management & Trust.
Sony has revealed it would like to avoid a format war between its Blu-Ray disc and HD-DVD. The company is open to discussions to attempt to find ways to bring the two formats closer together. While it seems like a good idea, it's unlikely that it will ever happen. Both sides claim that their format is the best suited for consumer needs and both have backup from tech companies and Hollywood studios. "From the point of view to provide the best service to the consumer one format is better than two," said Yukinori Kawauchi. "We're open to discussions."
Blu-Ray Disc is the most technically sophisticated format, which brings about production difficulties that the HD-DVD team claims to have fixed. Movie studios have also announced movies that they plan to release in the HD-DVD format later this year. Blu-Ray discs however can store about 15GB to 25GB per layer which makes it a nicer option to Hollywood studios because it means they can pack much more high quality material onto a disc.
Blu-Ray also has the support of some major companies including Philips, Apple, Dell, HP, Sharp, Panasonic and Hitachi. Also Sony's next generation console, PlayStation 3 will support the Blu-Ray format.
More than 400 college students will be sued for making thousands of copyrighted works available on an experimental network called Internet2. With an average broadband connection, the average person could download a movie in a matter of hours and a song in about a minute, compared to 5 minutes to download a movie and 20 seconds per song on Internet2. The trading was done on software called i2hub which was designed especially for Internet2.
"Internet2 is increasingly becoming the network of choice for students looking to steal songs and other copyrighted works on a massive scale," said Cary Sherman, president of the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA). The RIAA is responsible for suing about 9,000 P2P users to date. They like to target students because they believe it sets an example in universities all over the U.S.
On Monday, users logged onto i2hub were sharing 99TB of files apparently. Dan Glickman, head of the Motion Picture Association of America said this 99TB of data was the equivalent of an entire video-rental store. The RIAA said it has sued 405 students at 18 schools but the MPAA declined to reveal how many it has sued. The creators of the software used have not been sued but Glickman threatened them by saying, "We know who you are, and we strongly encourage you to stop what you are doing."
Nero, MediaTek and ATEME shake hands in order to produce chips with Nero Digital MPEG-4 support. MediaTek is well known for their chips user in optical recorders, but they have also provided the chipset for nearly a half of worlds DVD players. No doubt this may be a very good move for Nero, which has been pushing their digital format aggressively to several platforms, including stand-alone and mobile devices.
Nero Digital™, co-developed by Nero and ATEME, is the first complete MPEG-4 audio and video solution for home entertainment and CE devices. By offering chapters, subtitles and multi-channel surround-sound support, Nero Digital™ represents one of the very few 'all in one' solutions in the World of A/V compression. Nero Recode allows for the direct importing of most video file formats, and non-protected DVD’s for encoding or transcoding into Nero Digital™.
Consumer electronics products integrated with the Nero Digital™ MediaTek MT1389 and MT1390 chips will greatly benefit end-users and CE manufactures by providing them with the world’s leading AV MPEG-4 solution.
“MediaTek is committed to supplying its customers around the world with high-quality comprehensive IC chipset solutions for consumer electronics and PC products,” said Jim Corbett, Executive Director of Nero AG. “Nero Digital™, the world’s leading MPEG-4 solution fits perfectly into that commitment.”
Often better-known as the "mother of all RIAAs", the International Federation of Phonogram and Videogram Producers, has extended its on-going holy war against the P2P networks to several new countries. Yesterday, IFPI filed total of 963 lawsuits around the world. Countries where lawsuits were filed included Finland, Japan, Ireland, Netherlands and Iceland.
According to the IFPI, the example that RIAA has set in the U.S. by sueing thousands of individuals, seems to work and it is determined to extend that method to the European and Asian countries now and in the future.
According to several IFPI's local operations, including Finnish ÄKT, the lawsuits were targeted to P2P users who were considered as "heavy file uploaders", people who share thousands, maybe tens of thousands of files via P2P networks. It should be remembered that downloading from P2P networks is perfectly legal in most of the European countries. The lawsuits weren't targeted to any particular P2P network, but instead included users of eMule, eDonkey, Kazaa, BitTorrent, DirectConnect, DC++, etc.
The quick breakdown for each targeted country:
Austria - 50 criminal and civil cases
Denmark - appx. 200 cases
Finland - 28 cases
France - 60 cases
Germany - 401 cases
Iceland - 23 cases (all using Direct Connect or DC++)
Ever since Germany adopted its current draconian copyright legislation, several news stories about software companies moving away from the German market have emerged. However, linking to such material from third party websites has been grey area until now. German district court ruled last week that German website Heise.de has violated country's copyright legislation by linking to SlySoft's website. SlySoft is the maker of AnyDVD, a software product that allows cracking the copyright protection found on most DVD-Video discs, and CloneCD, a tool that allows backing up virtually all of the copy protected audio CDs.
Website defended itself by pointing out to the freedom of speech that is defined in German constitution, but the first-instance district court of Munich I ruled that the protection on intellectual property goes before the freedom of speech. Court also ignored the claims that anyone could have simply entered the software product's name to a search engine and found the product anyway. Apparently, court decided that direct linking made finding the product much easier and thus increased the danger of copyright violations significantly.
The next-generation Xbox console (Xbox 2, Xbox 360 or what ever it will be called) will be unveiled a week before E3 -- on May 12th. The unveiling will not be held behind closed doors to selected few, but on MTV in a half-hour special.
The special will be hosted by Elijah Wood and feature footage of next-generation Xbox games as well as online play. After the show viewers can visit the MTV site for more clips and content.
Both Sony's PlayStation 3 and Nintendo's Revolution game consoles will most likely be unveiled at E3. None of the manufacturers has announced a launch date as of yet, but the next-generation Xbox is expected to hit the stores by the end of the year. PlayStation 3 and Revolution are not expected before 2006.
Also according to Engadget Pepsi and Microsoft would team up before the Xbox 2 launch for a huge giveaway. In the promotion the companies would be giving away one console every ten minutes, 24 hours a day for nine weeks straight, which adds up to over 9,000 consoles in total. The giveaway would be realized in much the same way as the Apple iTunes promotion in 2003.
The MTV show will air in the US at 9:30PM EDT. Here's the schedule for the rest of the world:
Sony has released figures for the sales of their Playstation Portable (PSP) hand-held console in the United States. The console managed to sell half a million units in just two days which falls short of most expectations for its opening sales. The most enthusiastic gamers waited in line for hours to get their hands on a console. In the first week of the console sales, it generated over $150m which is a figure Sony Computer Entertainment America is delighted about.
"The launch of PSP was everything we hoped for,"Kaz Hirai, president of SCEA, said in the statement. "In only two weeks, PSP is having an immediate impact across the entire industry, as consumers are clearly voting it the product of the year in 2005." The PSP hit stores in Japan late last year, but only went on sales in the United States in March. The initial number of PSPs available in the U.S. was 1 million. Sony actually had to delay the launch of the PSP in Europe to facilitate for the demand in the U.S. market.
The PSPs sold well in game and computer stores, other retailers (like Wal-Mart and Best Buy) still have many of the consoles on hand. Analyst P.J. McNealy of American Technology Research called the PSP launch "solid but unspectacular". Only one third of the 150 stores he contacted were out of PSPs and several stores reported still having over 100 of the consoles available. "We are hesitant to draw any macro-level conclusions about the success or failure of the PSP and impact on the video game publishers, simply because we are only seven days into the PSP launch in North America," he wrote.
Traxdata has long history in optical recording. Back in the early CD-R age, the brand distributed high quality Kodak made media. Since 2001 it has worked in deep co-operation with RITEK, and is currently RITEK's premium media brand.
Now we have a chance to have a look at the premium quality Traxdata / RITEK products, so let's see how does a genuine A-grade RITEK perform. In this test we are evaluating Traxdata's DVD-R and DVD+R media, rated at 8x speed.
Back in 1984 after the Sony Betamax case, American consumers now had many fair use rights which today would allow people to copy their own personally owned CDs, DVDs etc. After the Sony Betamax case, countries around the world also followed in giving consumers rights over their purchased goods. However, the entertainment industry has been quite unfair when it comes to fair use, trying to make it impossible for us consumers to copy something we paid money for. For example, CSS on DVDs was designed to stop DVD ripping and there have been many copy protections tested on music CDs.
So while the entertainment industry seems to dislike our fair use rights so much, what does it take for a company like MGM to concede that something like ripping CDs to MP3 to store on a portable audio player is legal and actually ok? Well, we now have that answer. It occurs when you are cornered by the Supreme Court. As you know MGM vs. Grokster is currently been fought in the U.S. Supreme Court and some are not convinced by MGM's claims.
A photocopier could be used for copyright infringement and it always is, but they are legal because of their substantial legitimate uses just like P2P networks, so why don't we see these cases against companies that make photocopiers? The same can be said to MGM in the case of Apple who do have a music store that sells DRM protected music but also has a hugely successful iPod music player than can be used to play "stolen music" as well as legit music. Could one not argue that an iPod looks like an excellent buy to a music pirate? Just like P2P software might look like a good download?
The Recording Industry Association of Japan (RIAJ) has won a major P2P case. For the first time anywhere in the world, a P2P service has been found liable for copyright infringement that has taken place on the network and damages have been awarded to the RIAJ. The decision cames after a Tokyo court rejected MMO's appeal and awarded damages of Yen36.89mn (£183,000) to plaintiff’s comprising 19 labels. MMO was also found to have infringed the plaintiffs' right to make their recordings available on the Internet.
The RIAJ was delighted with the ruling of course, saying it will keep up its fight against file sharing. The RIAJ says file sharing is corrupting the cycle of music creation and is leading to decline of music culture. Allen Dixon, general counsel for the International Federation of the Phonographic Industry (IFPI) stressed the significance of the ruling. "This case is important in that it is the first decision world-wide that has found that providing an unauthorised file-sharing service itself constitutes an infringement of record companies' rights to make available their recordings on the Internet," he said.
The significance of this decision on a worldwide scale is quite big as right now, MGM vs. Grokster is active inside the U.S. Supreme Court, and MGM want Grokster to be found liable for copyright infringement that allegedly takes place on the P2P network. Punishing legitimate technology for the illegitimate uses of some of its users is wrong and in 1984 the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in favour of Sony after the company was sued over its VCRs. That decision proved excellent for both sides as the movie industry turned VHS tapes into a multi-billion dollar market. Also somebody needs to remind the RIAJ that P2P doesn't corrupt the cycle of music, there is a lot more music in the world not being offered by their or any other major record label.
A Scottish man has been jailed for 20 months after a court heard how he turned his family home into a major counterfeiting operation. Ian McNaughton, 44, was copying and selling copyrighted material to pay off some high gambling debts. Copying equipment was apparently found in every single room in McNaughton's house. His 20 month sentence is the longest sentence ever handed down by a Scottish court for counterfeiting.
"These are serious offences at the highest end of the scale. You turned your family home into a factory to produce fake CDs and DVDs for the Christmas market. It was an operation of a significant scale. You had major debts but it was your decision and your responsibility as to what happened within your own home. Even although you owed people a lot of money and were under extreme pressure to repay them, this is a classic case where they cynically use someone to carry out a large scale operation like this with a family home as cover." said Sheriff Alfred Vannet.
McNaughton refused to reveal who he was running the operation for. He pleaded guilty to charges of counterfeiting and breaching the trade marks act during his actions at his home in December 2002 and also admitted breaching copyright laws. "The council welcomes the sentence because of the scale of the crime and the impact it has on the legitimate businesses." Councillor Helen McKenna, convener of North Lanarkshire Council's Protective Services Sub-Committee, said.
A new mobile phone virus that is not in circulation has many people very concerned because of it spreading methods. Like the viruses we've seen before the Mabir worm also infects Symbian Series 60 phones. It spreads through Multimedia Messaging Service messages (MMS) and it doesn't just send itself to numbers in a user’s phone book, it also replies to any received messages. Mabir is essentially a variant of the Cabir worm, which spreads only using Bluetooth.
An analysis of the worm by anti-virus firm F-Secure suggests that Mabir-A is based on the same source code as Cabir and is likely the product of the same coder. Mabir-A spreads using Bluetooth the same way as early variants of Cabir. When it activates it searches for the first Bluetooth phone it finds and sends copies of itself to it. However it’s the MMS spreading function that has many experts worried.
AfterDawn reported on an earlier mobile phone virus called Commwarrior-A which also could spread using MMS messages but it only could send itself to entries in a user’s phone book, unlike Mabir-A that will reply to any message sent to your phone with a copy of itself. One thing mobile phone users obviously need to be concerned about with viruses like Mabir-A and Commwarrior-A is the cost of sending out MMS messages.
According to a report by Alex Malik, a former general counsel for the Australian Recording Industry Association (ARIA), TV networks that are slow to air new episodes of popular TV shows are forcing their viewers to turn to alternative methods like BitTorrent sites. Usually when a TV episode is aired in the U.S. for the first time, you could find it quite easy on BT sites and P2P networks within a few hours. Impatient TV viewers prefer to wait a few hours after the show is initially aired to view it rather than waiting a matter of months to see it on their local TV networks.
According to the report, on forums about popular TV shows, one in three conversations touches on where and how to pirate those TV shows. "It's difficult to put a number on it because not a lot of people talk about (online pirating) especially since it's illegal. It's similar to illegal music file sharing...Not a lot of people admit to it, but there is a substantial amount happening," he said. Malik's research showed that Australians have to wait an average of eight months to see first-run episodes of popular programs from overseas.
Some Australian networks also delay the shows until times where overall viewing becomes low. "These delays provide a window of opportunity for viewers to upload TV programs after their American broadcast date, thereby making them available to viewers outside of the U.S., and viewers within the U.S. who may have missed the program." Malik said. To download TV shows, all you really need is BitTorrent installed, a decent Internet connection and the address of a good torrent site. "While there are no accurate Australian BitTorrent usage figures, anecdotal evidence and reports from online forums suggest that Australians are downloading TV programs in large quantities," Malik said.
Sony wants to create its own sort of "iTunes for Films" by making the most popular 500 Sony movies available for download within the next year. Sony has an impressive movie catalogue of about 2,500 titles including classics like Lawrence of Arabia. Sony is going to use this massive resource to test Internet movie downloaders.
"We want to set business models, pricing models, distribution models like Jobs did for music, but for the film industry," said Michael Arrieta, the senior vice-president of Sony Pictures. Sony also plans to make the films viewable on mobile phones. The movie industry has been slow to provide ways for people to legally download movies on the Internet but the major movie studios are already suing people who are using P2P as their means to download and share movies online. The recording industry is also suing file sharers it alleges to have downloaded and shared copyrighted music illegally but claims there are several different legitimate sites those users (and anybody) can purchase music from legally.
Microsoft warned film makers that they have to adapt to this new demand or else they will face the same experience that the recording industry did over the last few years. Now also with the growth of broadband Internet connections worldwide and a vast selection of P2P based software and networks, movie piracy is growing at a huge rate, in most cases allowing movies to be downloaded in a matter of a few hours. The movie industry is afraid this type of file sharing will damage its $17.5bn annual DVD sales. Sony will go ahead and open their download store for movies, and we will more than likely see many more legal download stores open up shortly afterwards, just like with legal music download stores.
Microsoft has launched a new service that will allow customers to download video content like news and sports from MSNBC.com, Fox Sports, The Food Network and others. The Redmond-based software giant believes that there is a new market for video content on mobile devices and hope that their new $19.95 a year service will allow them to get a ice chunk of the market. The service will work with devices like Portable Media Centres, Smartphones and Pocket PCs. Microsoft launched their Portable Media Centre last year and made deals with content providers such as MTV Networks, Napster, and SnapStream Media to make video content available that is compatible with the portable media centre.
"The launch of Portable Media Centers in 2004 began a new era of portable entertainment, and the announcement solidifies the continued momentum we've seen for portable video," director of Windows Mobile Applications and Services Marketing at Microsoft, said in a statement. "With content from some of the most recognized brands in entertainment, MSN Video Downloads helps bring this vision to life, allowing people to take their favourite television shows with them whether they are on the train, waiting for a doctor's appointment, or keeping the kids occupied in the back seat of the car."
Cuban AfterDawn Holdings Inc, the sole owner of the Finnish website AfterDawn.com, announced today its plans to launch the world's first legal, fully DRM-less movie download service.
AfterDawn aims to provide unlimited downloads of DVD-quality movies with a monthly subscription fee of $29.95, thus competing directly against the movie industry heavy-weights such as Blockbuster and Hollywood -backed movie download services such as Movielink. However, AfterDawn's service differs from its competitors in several ways -- downloaded files wont contain any usage restrictions and all files are transferred to users utilizing modern P2P technologies.
"As Cuba's Internet connections aren't suitable for delivering DVD-quality movies to thousands of users directly, we've decided to use BitTorrent network as our main method of delivering the movies, thus cutting down the bandwidth costs by up to 90 percent compared to our competitors. This helps us to deliver the savings directly to our customers," said Jari Ketola, AfterDawn's CTO in a phone interview.
According to AfterDawn's CTO, company had to decide which format they would use with their upcoming service. "After considering our options, we felt that it would serve our customers best if we would deliver the movies using the old, but reliable MPEG-2 video encoding instead of more modern solutions, such as MPEG-4. This also eases the process of transferring the movies to the Net, as the movies don't need any re-encoding when they're transferred from DVD-Video discs to DVD images. Users will also benefit from our solution, because the files can be easily burned to blank DVDR discs and watched on a regular DVD player rather than with a desktop computer", says Mr. Ketola.
Disney has put its video-on-demand service, MovieBeam, on hold for technical upgrades and the possibility of more corporate partners. The service which operates in just three U.S. cities sends movies to it's customers HDD's via television airwaves that can be played for a small fee. A spokeswoman said the service will be interrupted while upgrades take place and the company cannot predict when the service will be available for its customers again.
The world's largest mobile phone manufacturer, Finnish Nokia, announced yesterday its latest phone, Nokia N91 which takes its aim at Apple's iPod and other portable audio players.
This is something one don't see every day, not even in the IT-industry! 
