Topic: News

Rumors have been circulating for many months that Apple is in the process of developing the "iPhone" - a combination phone and iPod.

Disc makers have indicated demand has been warming up for DVD+R/-R DL (single-sided double-layer) discs following the increased availability of a modding hack that allows for the playing of pirated games on Xbox 360 consoles.

Sony's PlayStation 3 (PS3), due this month, will not ship with Linux pre-installed, as suggested in March by CEO Ken Kuturagi. However, TerraSoft CEO Kai Staats says his company's Yellow Dog Linux is installable by "anybody who knows how to use a keyboard, mouse, and browser,".

A Chinese man has been sentenced to four years in jail for his role in a DVD piracy operation in London.

A draft report by the Australian Institute of Criminology says copyright holders are making up piracy figures in order to sway governments to their side.

UK manufacturer VADIM Computers have decided to make the mother of all gaming machines. With Quad core, water-cooling, Geforce 8800 GTX SLI - and all only £5,400.

Beginning on November 22nd, the console's first anniversary, Xbox 360 owners will be offered HD TV shows and movies as downloads to own and to rent (which goes someway to explaining the recent expiry tag that was seen after the previous update).

Sony NEC Optiarc, a joint venture between Sony (55% stake) and NEC (45% stake), has begun shipments of optical disc drives (ODDs) for use in IT products and game consoles as well as audio/video optical disc devices, and expects to become the world's largest supplier for such products by the end of 2007.

In an interesting interview over at The Register, Peter Jenner - Pink Floyd's first manager, who subsequently managed Syd Barrett's solo career, as well as looking after T.Rex, The Clash, Ian Dury, Disposable Heroes and Billy Bragg - has claimed the four major four labels today are "f*cked".

In view of the stalemate between HD DVD and Blu-ray Disc (BD), producers of adult films in the US will adopt both for the time being by offering HD DVD and BD movie titles, according to sources in Taiwan's optical disc drive (ODD) industry.

Lite-On IT has lowered its manufacturing prices for 16x Notebook DVD burners to US$27-28 (£14-£15) after some expected orders were shifted to Toshiba Samsung Storage Technology (TSST), the company's main competitor, because TSST offered prices as low as below US$25.

The first HD players capable of playing both both Blu-ray and HD-DVD disks are expected to appear by the end of 2007, possibly ending the format war in next-generation DVD.

Anyone needing to recover some pics erroneously deleted from their digital camera flash memory can now make use of a free tool called PhotoRec.

Microsoft is gearing up for the Zune’s launch in 2 weeks by unveiling a new website that previews the upcoming Zune music store. The company has also said that MSN Music will no longer sell tracks after the Zune store has launched.

Super Multi DVD burners have surpassed DVD Dual burners in global shipment volume with 12x DVD-RAM set to become mainstream in 2007, according to Kenji Koishi, director for the Compatibility Working Group of the Recordable DVD Council (RDVDC) at a symposium held in Taipei on October 31.

BenQ has expanded its optical storage lineup with the DW1800 and DW1680 DVD Re-Writer. The DW1800 and DW1680 offer 18x and 16x writing speed respectively and both feature BenQ's exclusive SolidBurn technology and convenient QSuite application package.

Movie lovers can now build a PC to enjoy an HD DVD or Blu-ray experience with the release of new Nvidia ForceWare drivers featuring Nvidia PureVideo HD technology, the graphics company has announced.

A new concept in made-for-mobile content has just been introduced by Brit specialist, Player X. Enter the 'retrosode' based on 1980s hit TV shows Knight Rider and Magnum, P.I.

Panasonic has become the first company in the world to achieve the elimination of lead in Plasma Display Panels (PDPs) used as the central picture component in its Plasma TVs and Plasma Modules.

Traxdata has today announced the availability of the first of its brand new range of SecureDigital High Capacity (SDHC) memory cards.