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Time to dump that Rolex?
Watches that let you make voice and video calls sound like something from a James Bond movie. Or an LG catalogue. The Korean electronics giant has a wristwatch phone in the works and yesterday confirmed it is launching the high-tech timepiece at some unspecified time this year.…
Seeking public comments, research
Here's a glimmer of hope that 2009 will be the year of DRM reform.…
Synthesized controversy
The US Patent and Trademark Office has granted a request by the Electronic Frontier Foundation to reexamine a controversial patent that covers the distribution of certain types of music files over the internet.…
Till Beatles say Let it Be
Updated A Norwegian broadcaster is claiming to be responsible for making The Beatles' entire back catalogue available for download for the first time. The downloads are free because they form part of Norwegian Broadcasting (NRK) podcasts.…
Schiller keynote makes $1.29 the new black
Macworld Expo Take your pick - the iTunes Store is going 100 per cent DRM-free, or Apple is whacking 30 cents onto the price of each song and encouraging you to upgrade your whole iTunes library to iTunes Plus, at 30 cents (UK 20p) per song. Apple prefers the 100 per cent DRM-free line, naturally, but there's a price being paid to the record labels, and with "high-quality audio... that’s virtually indistinguishable from the original recording" defined as 256-Kbps AAC, there seems to be headroom for another bite in a year or two.…
Tuner-integrated TVs first. Set-top boxes to follow?
LG is to follow Panasonic and release a series of TVs with integrated Freesat tuners later this year.…
Xbox beats PS3 to second slot
Nintendo may have cleaned up in console sales in 2008, but more US gamers spent their free time time playing Sony's "last-gen" Playstation 2, according to Nielsen Media Research.…
But it's a beta
As promised, the intrepid iPhone Dev Team released its iPhone 3G unlocking utility, yellowsn0w, on the first of this year.…
Wales' personal begging earns last $2m
A personal plea for cash by Wikipedia's founder, Jimmy Wales, has melted enough hearts to keep the ubiquitous online encyclopedia running for another fiscal year – and then some.…
"Pull my finger" has a whole new meaning
The US Patent and Trademark Office yesterday released Apple's most recent application, in which the company files for patent protection for ... wait for it ... a glove.…
Monopoly Money from Digital Books
Google dealt itself a powerful piece of the future in the proposed settlement of the "Google Books" case in 2008.…
Worldwide mass media-player death
Updated It would appear that a Microsoft software bug has put the world's 30GB Zune population on the verge of extinction.…
Addled by sinking ad revenues
Media giant Viacom is threatening to remove its 19 cable TV networks from Time Warner Cable if the operator doesn't agree to a carriage fee increase by midnight Eastern time tomorrow. Viacom's networks include MTV, Comedy Central, and Nickelodeon.…
Arise, Sir Discworld
Terry Pratchett has admitted he's "flabbergasted" to be awarded a knighthood for services to literature in the New Year Honours list.…
In yo' face, HP
The pre-Macworld Expo rumor machine has been in low gear this year - perhaps due to Apple's SVP Phil Schiller taking over keynote duties from His Steveness - but thanks to 9to5Mac, we have a new bit of speculation to report: an internet-based media server from Apple.…
YouTube don't pay the bills
Several major record labels have recently discovered a global system of interconnected computer networks they believe could be used as a new platform for distributing musical videos.…
Nothing but static in the UK
Tiscali has told subscribers it will close its Italian IPTV service, raising questions over the future of its apparently unpopular UK equivalent.…
Judge scratches 'making available'
The judge in the Jammie Thomas filesharing case has refused the Recording Industry Ass. of America's (RIAA) attempt to revive arguments that "making [music files] available" is copyright infringement.…
We're different - right hand drive cars, sterling, DAB...
Analysis In 2008, the wheels fell off the DAB digital radio platform. Last week, after a year of deliberation, the government’s Digital Radio Working Group concluded that outdated DAB technology should be the sole broadcast platform for UK radio, irrespective of global market conditions or the impractical cost of its implementation. Whilst nobody would argue against a digital future for radio, the Group's particular and peculiar vision of that digital future is more contentious. It recommends that existing FM and AM transmitters should be switched off, to be replaced by DAB, once radio listening has passed a threshold of 50 per cent via digital platforms. However, there are a number of challenges that would need to be overcome before such a plan could be realised.…
Teams with Japanese ad agency for the service
Nintendo plans to launch a video channel in spring 2009 for its money-printing machine, the Wii game console.…
It's been reel
Although closing credits for VHS finished rolling years ago, the once-standard home movie format is just now reaching the very end of its tape. The last major American VHS supplier is ditching the tape biz completely at the end of this year - just over a week away.…
Gartner demands freedom from compilation albums?
Market watcher Gartner is playing Scrooge for the music industry - or at least that part of it that is still in love with the CD as revenue generator.…
Claims living in material world, is material girl
YouTube began removing videos with music from Warner Music Group's stable of artists this weekend after royalty renegotiations between the two companies broke down.…
Anything you Kindle, I Kindle better
Orange is pondering a foray into Kindle territory. Innovative network application is all very well, but the company wants to go further and make innovative devices to allow its customers to run up their bills in new and interesting ways.…
Abandons lawsuit campaign
The Recording Industry Association of America has signaled a major strategy shift in its war against the downloading of copyrighted music, saying it would largely abandon its practice of suing violators. Instead, the RIAA will work with internet service providers to sever abusers' net connections.…
Radio Radio
Add another acronym to your collection of tech-industry alliances. A group of internet-media movers and shakers, including broadcast services and device makers, have joined together to form the IMDA, aka the Internet Media Device Alliance.…
MP3 album goes for a song
Amazon UK is currently selling the MP3 version of Prince’s Lovesexy album for the not so princely sum of 79 pence.…
The missing Zoophilia edits
Updated After the international brouhaha over Wikipedia's sudden appearance on Britain's anti-child-porn blacklist, things have returned to normal at "the free encyclopedia anyone can edit." The site's cult-like inner circle is threatening to eat itself after an über-admin vaporized some Zoophilia chatter laid down by a member of the Wikiland Supreme Court.…
Baidu media campaign take two?
Beijing appears to be expanding its recent crackdown on search engines running medical scam ads to implicating Google China and Yahoo China.…
Four-cent proposal twists knickers
It's a sign of the digital times: New York's governor proposes a state budget that slashes spending on education and healthcare, lays off hundreds of workers, and increases taxes on everything from cigars to beer to luxury yachts, and most media reports focus on the proposal's misleadingly monikered "iPod tax."…
Due a Jedi ass kickin'?
Another year gone, and Blizzard's World of Warcraft remains the unrivaled champion of the massive multiplayer online (MMO) genre, and - in many ways - PC gaming in general.…
Raises anonymisation bar
Yahoo! has taken Microsoft’s demands for internet giants to slash the time they keep online search query data to six months, and raised it by anonymising most of the info after just 90 days.…
Buckley fans try to bump Burke
A bunfight has kicked off on the interwebs between fans of the teary-eyed winner of X Factor and fey, navel-gazing muso types who want their Hallelujah back.…
Sitting in a Chinese stew
An American blogger faces up to a year in prison after pleading guilty to illegally uploading nine Guns N’ Roses songs onto his music site.…
Manufacturing isn't dead - it just went to Mountain View
Google this week admitted that its staff will pick and choose what appears in its search results. It's a historic statement - and nobody has yet grasped its significance.…
A Musical Journey
Those of you who like your Star Wars films condensed into a two-hour compilation* and projected large to an 86-piece orchestral backing are in luck - that's exactly what Star Wars: A Musical Journey will offer when it debuts on 10 April next year at London's O2 arena.…
Sort yourselves out, warn Burnham and McCreevy
Culture Minister Andy Burnham gave clear backing to extending the copyright term for sound recordings yesterday - but called on the music business to make sure it benefits musicians, not industry fatcats.…
CBS makes cuts at Last.fm
CBS has layed off about 20 per cent of staff at music site Last.fm, the poster child for would-be web 2.0 millionaires in the UK.…
Jezza Clarkson and co race into second spot
The fourth Series of Doctor Who has topped the Beeb's iPlayer hit list, proving the most-watched programme since the service launched on Xmas day last year, according to Broadcast.…
Betting big on MMOs
Atari is quite simply a brand with too much history to let die, despite it rarely being more than a financial sinkhole since the video game crash of 1983.…
Stealth plan gets a name
The plan to provide US students with compulsory flat-fee music finally has a name, it emerged this week. Choruss LLC will provide participating universities with a replacement for their current subscription services such as Rhapsody, and has the backing of the the EFF and the tacit support of the RIAA. That alone indicates the magnitude of the initiative. When have those two lobbying groups ever agreed on music policy?…
BBC, BT, ITV standards push for on demand telly
The BBC, ITV and BT are working on technical standards aimed at offering on demand TV over broadband to the UK's more than 15 million Freeview households.…
Project Kangaroo alternative jump-started
Having had their plan to combine their broadband TV services kyboshed by the Competition Commmission, the BBC and ITV today said they plan to do it anyway - but this time to open up the infrastructure to all comers.…
iTunes minus the store - and the fanbois
Linux-native music player Amarok 2.0 was released today, sporting some big changes to the open-source iTunes alternative.…
The prank that fell flat
REG: What's the point of fighting for his right to have babies when he can't have babies?! FRANCIS: It is symbolic of our struggle against oppression! REG: It's symbolic of his struggle against reality - Monty Python's Life of Brian.…
'You want DVD?'
UK police have raided a factory in the West Midlands where pirate films, games and music – with an estimated street value of £1m – were produced.…
Virgin Killer ban reversed
The Internet Watch Foundation has removed Wikipedia from its child porn blacklist, despite its contention that the free online encyclopedia includes an image "potentially in breach" of the UK Protection of Children Act.…
Virgin Killer births mass edit ban
Updated Six British ISPs are filtering access to Wikipedia after the site was added to an Internet Watch Foundation child-pornography blacklist, according to Wikipedia administrators.…
Not exactly retail therapy
Do you remember when the internet was supposed to "empower" new businesses, sweep away cartels and monopolies, and give a voice to the little guy? Well, unless you view increasing concentrations of power as a good thing, this week has been a bad one for the music economy.…