Topic: News

Toshiba has launched what it claims is the thinnest, lightest and smallest hard drive-based portable music player yet to grace the market. And, looking at the pictures the company supplied, we have to say, probably the sexiest one too.

In Hollywood, 2003 is rapidly becoming known as the year of the failed blockbuster, and the industry now thinks it knows why. No, the executives are not blaming such bombs as The Hulk, Charlie's Angels: Full Throttle or Gigli on poor quality, lack of originality, or general failure to entertain. There's absolutely nothing new about that. The problem, they say, is teenagers who instant message their friends with their verdict on new films - sometimes while they are still in the cinema watching - and so scuppering carefully crafted marketing campaigns designed to lure audiences out to a big movie on its opening weekend.

Hitachi have announced that it is now shipping qualification samples of its 4GB Microdrive to consumer product manufacturers worldwide. The one-inch diameter drive features a data transfer rate that represents a 70 percent increase from the previous-generation Microdrive. The new drive will also continue its tradition of offering a significantly lower cost-per-megabyte than competitive solid-state memory solutions.

BenQ today announced the world’s first 8x DVD+R writer which is only the second time that claim has been made this summer. Plextor, in July, were the first to make this claim. BenQ DW800A records speeds of 8x DVD writing on DVD+R and 4x DVD rewriting speed on DVD+RW.

Despite staunch legal opposition from Hollywood, a new package of DVD-copying software is headed for online and offline retail shelves. DVD drive company Tritton Technologies has agreed to distribute software called DVD CopyWare, created by United Kingdom-based Redxpress. Like software from rival 321 Studios, which has been sued by the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA), the CopyWare package will make a perfect copy of DVDs to a blank disc.

An anonymous California computer user has gone to court in Washington, D.C., to challenge the recording industry's file-trading subpoenas, charging that they are unconstitutional and violate her right to privacy.

The campaign launched in May by the Recording Industry Ass. of America (RIAA) to target individual music sharers appears to be scaring punters away from file-sharing services, the latest figures from market watcher NPD appear to show.

Nine major players in the DVD market have announced the formation of an industry group to increase the awareness and use of the DVD-RAM format. The RAM Promotion Group members are Hitachi, Hitachi-LG Data Storage, Hitachi Maxell, LG Electronics, Matsushita Electric Industrial, Samsung Electronics, TEAC, Toshiba and JVC.

Earlier this month, DVD-drive maker CenDyne was ordered by the Superior Court of California to shut down. The company has been placed into receivership, according to its voice mail message. CenDyne is no longer shipping products and is not servicing warranties or honoring rebates.

Matsushita, better known for its Panasonc brand, is considering setting up a European production plant in Germany as it seeks to maintain it's 50 per cent share of the booming DVD recorder market. As the machines gradually supersede video cassette recorders, the company expects the global market to grow to 4.42 million units in the year to March 2004 and to 13.65 million units in the following year.

While Sony and Microsoft see their consoles as hubs for various forms of living-room entertainment, Nintendo takes an opposite tack (perhaps hamstrung by its proprietary disc format) and continues to emphasize games while downplaying the importance of non-gaming features like DVD-playback.

Matsushita, the world's second largest consumer electronics maker, have said they aim to double their share of the fast-growing flat-panel television market by the 2005/06 business year. Matsushita, maker of Panasonic products, had a 16 percent global market share in 2002/03, but wants to capture 30 percent within three years.

VSO-Software has issued a warning for HP-DVD300E owners. It seems that the combination of this drive together with CopyToDVD kills the drive somehow. The cause of the problem remains unknown but the software developers and HP are working on a solution. HP-DVD300E owners are encouraged to contact customer support.

The Dutch PC-Active magazine has done an extensive CD-R quality test. For the test the magazine has taken a look at the readability of discs, thirty different CD-R brands, that were recorded twenty months ago. The results were quite shocking as a lot of the discs simply couldn't be read anymore.

Zippymilk, the elusive trader who's left hundreds of people waiting weeks for the arrival of DVDs they've paid for after winning auctions on eBay, has denied any wrongdoing. As first reported on The Register earlier this month, patience is wearing thin among the estimated 800 customers of zippymilk (aka Adrian Bailey, 33, of Great Yarmouth, Norfolk). They are growing tired of a succession of excuses he has offered for the non-arrival of goods they secured in eBay auctions.

The Recording Industry Ass. of America (RIAA) has launched its appeal against an April US District Court ruling that the Grokster P2P media-sharing network does not infringe copyrights juts because its software may allow users to do so.

Mobile phone giant Nokia is to acquire the assets of Sega's online and wireless gaming operation to boost its own N-Gage online games device. The Sega Network Application Package (SNAP), which enables networked multi-player games, will form the core of Nokia Mobile Phones' Entertainment and Media Business Unit's online games service.

Panasonic today announced that it will expand its DVD MULTI Drive support for Linux through a set of new customers that includes KOM Networks, Luminex and Objective Data Storage. These three join a prestigious list of Linux supporters, including LoneStar Software, MusicMatch and InterVideo, Inc. Support for the Linux platform continues to make strides in the PC industry year after year. Panasonic recognized this trend early on and has been working to accelerate adoption of DVD-RAM technology with products that support Linux, enhancing the workstation environment and consumer applications.

The European video market grew last year by 27% to a retail value of 11.2bn Euros according to trade body, the International Video Federation (IVF). The figures are a significant increase on the IVF's preliminary estimate of 15% expansion. The new figures also show an acceleration when compared with 2001, which registered a growth rate of 20%.

Major Japanese home electronics manufacturers such as Toshiba and Pioneer are preparing to release DVD recorders overseas according to Japanese sources. In September, Toshiba will begin marketing DVD recorders in North America, aiming to sell 10,000 units a month. It will start selling them in the U.K. in October, and in such other countries as France and Germany in November and beyond. Toshiba is targeting monthly sales of 5,000 units in each of these markets.