Topic: News

Nine Inch Nail tracks have been readily available from the NIN.com website, downloadable via the traditional client/server method, for some time. Surprisingly new material from the band is now available for download via the BitTorrent protocol. Even more surprisingly, the torrents were uploaded to The Pirate Bay.

Sony has gone webcam crazy this week with the launch of the first official units for both its PlayStation 3 and PSP.

Viewers in the UK will be able to access a full weeks' worth of BBC output via their PCs and other digital devices when the broadcaster finally launches its iPlayer service later this year.

Manufacturers, dealers, and champions of digital rights everywhere can rejoice: Video server maker Kaleidescape has beaten the DVD Copy Control Association (DVD CCA).

Amazon seems set to open a mainstream online music store as early as next month, and aims to follow the new EMI/Apple model of offering tracks unencumbered with DRM.

Samsung has said that it has become the first to begin mass producing 16 gigabit (Gb) NAND flash, the highest capacity memory chip now available.

Neuros Technology has called on Apple TV hackers to join it and develop a next-generation open source set-top box to prevent IPTV falling into the hands of the Man.

THE faces of some bootleg DVD pirates hit with 10-year-long ASBOs have been plastered on posters in a Hackney supermarket.

CMC Magnetics, the largest producer of optical discs in Taiwan, saw a small net profit of NT$301 million (US$9.05 million) in 2006 after suffering net losses consecutively in 2004 and 2005. The company's board of directors decided not to distribute any dividend for operations in 2006.

Linux users may be happy to know that Nero has released the latest Linux version of its software suite, NeroLINUX v3.0.0.0 Beta.

The next user to download a song from a peer-to-peer file-sharing service like LimeWire could be in for a surprise. Not a recording industry lawsuit, but a pop-up asking him to look at an ad - either text or video - in return for a free and legal copy of the music.

A lorry driver who earned thousands of pounds selling counterfeit CDs and DVDs has been jailed for three months.

If you share copyrighted files on peer-to-peer networks, it's almost certain that the RIAA and/or MPAA is monitoring your actions, according to a new study, meaning that it's only a matter of time or luck until The Man comes a-knockin'.

Dell is offering a 1.8-inch 32GB solid state drive (SSD) from SanDisk on Latitude D420 ultra-mobile and D620 ATG semi-rugged notebooks as an alternative to hard disk drives.

Xbox 360 games will shortly include a color barcode system, developed by Microsoft, which has four and eight-color geometric patterns.

As if the US wasn't already angry enough over widespread piracy in China, it's being reported that the country's infamous movie pirates have unleashed a $1 (50p) bootleg copy of Spiderman 3, a movie which is reported to have cost over $500 million dollars to make -- the most expensive movie ever made.

US supermarket giant Wal-Mart has delivered a blow to the Blu-Ray standard by buying more than two million HD-DVD units from Taiwan.

Panasonic have announced that the company will globally introduce Blu-ray discs with 4x writing speed this summer to coincide with its 4x BD drive launch.

Blu-ray Disc (BD) has become the first high definition format to sell more than one million discs, and the format accounted for 70% of high-definition movies sold during the first quarter of this year, according to sales figures from Home Media Research (HMR).

Sony DADC says that it will replace copy-protected DVDs that are incompatible with a small number of DVD players, caused by Sony's ARccOS copy protection on the discs.