Topic: News

Microsoft says it is going to release some new software for the Xbox 360 within the next six months that will enable you to send and receive text messages within the existing MSN mobile phone network.

Hauppauge has announced the release of its new 'Wing' software, enabling consumers to record TV shows on a personal computer for playback on the PSP and other portable video players. Wing can also be used to convert existing TV recordings to the PSP format.

Earbuds such as those used with the iPod and other music players can increase the risk of hearing loss, according to a US audiologist.

Google said it was moving into music with a new Internet search function for users seeking lyrics and information about their favorite performers.

Plextor Japan said that its 18x DVD burners, the PX-760A series, will be available by the end of February.

A man in Beijing has repeatedly burgled a neighbour's house to repair her computer, a Chinese court heard.

A computer that spots movie flops has been created in Hollywood to ensure that film companies never have a dud on their hands again.

The gaming boards are all of a flutter about an advertisement on a website that claimed to be from two women prepared to trade sex to get their paws on an Xbox 360.

OEM prices for 16x DVD Dual burners have fallen to as low as US$35 and further reductions in the price will depend on cuts in royalty charges, according to Taiwan's largest maker of optical disc drives (ODDs), Lite-On IT.

Microsoft has said it has "no plans" to add HD DVD optical disc technology to its Xbox 360 console.

The Japan Recording-Media Industries Association (JRIA) predicts that 2006 global demand for blank DVD discs (+R, -R, +RW, and -RW) will grow 41% to 5.541 billion discs in 2006.

Microsoft released the v1.11 of its malicious software removal tool, which removes Sony BMG's copy protection sceme found on some of the company's music CDs.

Toshiba today blamed the brains behind the Advanced Access Content System (AACS) for any delay it may experience shipping HD DVD drives and players into the Japanese market this year.

TDK has begun sampling recordable and rewriteable Blu-ray Discs that don't need to be kept in cartridges, the company said today.

TCL, a large 3C manufacturer in China, has decided to give up its original planned expansion of production capacity for DVD+R/-R discs from an initial six production lines to a total of 100 lines, according to suppliers of polycarbonate (PC) in Taiwan.

A coding group named Pi claims that it has managed to decode the DVD file system used by the popular Xbox 360 gaming console.

Taiwanese manufacturers of DVD players have seen increasing OEM/ODM orders but are not necessarily willing to take these orders because the heavy burden of royalty fees makes such production profitless, according to industry sources.

DivX released DivX 6 for Mac, the company's digital media software suite that lets Mac users create and play compressed DivX videos.

A Microsoft investigation into the sale of counterfeit software on eBay has led to the closure of an online operation responsible for the sale of over £3 million worth of fake Microsoft software.

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