Topic: News

Ritek is shifting manufacturing equipment for CD-R discs from its two subsidiaries in Germany and another two in Northern Ireland to its subsidiary in Vietnam, Ritek Vietnam, according to the company’s March 31announcement.

Press Release: Pioneer announced today the introduction in Japan of the DVR-530H and DVR-555H, the world's first*1 DVD recorders with built-in HDD to incorporate the Dual Layer DVD-R (DVD-R DL) technology, which allows recording up to 24 hours*2 of content on a single DVD-R DL disc.

Sony have downplayed widespread reports of 'dead pixel' LCD screen problems for their new Playstation Portable (PSP) handheld games console and media player, saying that the warranty is still in effect and defective units can be exchanged.

Blockbuster has agreed to make refunds to customers -- and pay an additional $630,000 -- to settle allegations the US's biggest movie rental chain deceived people with its "No Late Fees" campaign.

Nero Digital will be available as a free download beginning of April 2005. The software is an MPEG-4 solution that enables users to fit the entire audio and video contents of a DVD on a regular data CD with no perceivable loss of quality, accorting to Nero.

An Austrian village is testing technology that could represent the future of television. The people of Engerwitzdorf are filming, editing and producing their own regional news channel. The channel covers local politics, sports, events and anything that residents want to film and are prepared to upload for others to watch on PCs.

Sony have been ordered by a U.S. court to halt sales of its blockbuster PlayStation consoles in the United States and pay $90 million in damages to a California tech company, Immersion.

A top executive at Sony, one of Blu-ray's major backers, has opened the door to the possibility of unifying the format with its arch rival, HD-DVD.

Ritek, the second largest producer of optical discs in Taiwan, anticipates good sales of DVD+R/-R discs for next quarter based on orders received, but will keep watching to ascertain whether the global demand will continue growing in the second half of this year, company CEO Gordon Yieh indicated.

In the US, the Consumer Product Safety Commission, in cooperation with Thomson, have announced the voluntary recall of 47,000 digital video disc player batteries.

TV channel Five has said it will be the first UK broadcaster to offer parts of its shows for sale as legal downloads. From Monday, viewers of motoring show Fifth Gear can pay £1.50 for "DVD quality" downloads of car reviews.

Almost eight out of ten UK businesses could be paying too much for their software licenses. Only 22 per cent of people responding to a FAST survey were sure they had the right number of licenses. Another 11 per cent did not know if their business was over or under-licensed and 41 per cent thought they were probably over-licensing.

The new Philips DVDR7200 is a DVD recorder that features an inbuilt Freeview digital terrestrial receiver and decoder.

Apple has shutdown a back door that allowed software called PyMusique to buy songs from the iTunes Music Store without Apple's DRM. Calling it an exploit, Apple have issued a statement saying that only users of iTunes 4.7, the current version of the software, would be able to access the iTunes Music Store.

The new Nintendo DS handheld console has set a new record for opening sales of consoles in the UK. Nintendo sold 87,000 DS consoles in the two days after the handheld device was launched last Friday, beating the record set by the company's GameCube almost three years ago.

14 million games console owners are still at risk of waking up to find their Xbox has become an ex-box. For when Microsoft issued a safety advisory for Xbox customers last month, it failed to address the underlying problem.

A new UK website has launched, offering cash in exchange for second-hand phones. Mopay says that if you send off your used phone - Freepost - to them they’ll send you a cheque in exchange.

Described by its developers as "the fair interface to the ITunes Music Store," PyMusique is a new application that lets users connect to Apple Computer's ITunes Music Store and download songs without Digital Rights Management (DRM) restrictions. PyMusique does so by bypassing the ITunes application interface all together--a clear violation of the ITunes Music Store's Terms of Service.

The Indian film and music industry has long been suffering due to CD and DVD piracy. The UK, allegedly accounts for 70 per cent of the market of pirated Bollywood films and music. And Pakistan is the biggest exporter of pirated discs.