Topic: News

The British Board of Film Classification has caused a bit of a rumpus by approving for general release on DVD the famed "video nasties" which were 20 years ago deemed unfit for human consumption.

The battle of the recordable DVD formats - DVD+R/RW versus DVD-R/RW - is finally and officially over more than five-odd years after it began, and several years after the fight became largely symbolic.

Woolworths stores will stock only Blu-ray high-definition movies from March in the latest setback for the rival HD-DVD format.

Sony Ericsson said it had signed deals with 10 music labels to add content to its PlayNow service, which lets users download music via their mobile phones.

Researchers at the University of Washington have developed a different kind of heads-up display that takes the approach of imprinting the screen on a contact lens-type of device that sits on the eye itself. The image is presented to the viewer overlaying the real-world.

Asian LCD makers who have bet big on flat screen TVs are starting to see returns as the booming sector matures, but only a handful of companies with strong brand clients or exposure to the most advanced TV panels will see a significant profit boost.

Super Bowl XLII is expected to drive the purchase of approximately 2.4 million high-definition television (HDTV) units, according to the third annual "Sports and Technology" survey.

Social music site Last.fm claims to be the first to offer free, global, on-demand access to a huge catalogue of music after striking up partnerships with all four major record labels.

Recent HD player sales data provided by market research firm NPD point to bad month for the HD DVD camp: Blu-ray extended its market share to 93% in the second week of the month up from a virtual tie with HD DVD in the first week.

HP and Sony will team up to launch a DVD video service. The offering will allow customers to order Sony Pictures Home Entertainment movies and TV shows on discs which can be individually printed for each order.

In Japan, Sony have blamed technical problems for delaying the planned introduction in late January of a Skype Web phone service for PlayStation Portable (PSP) users.

Stateside, Sony has introduced a new High Definition version of its spherical digital living system - the VAIO TP Home Theater PC.

The DVD6C Licensing Group consisting of nine leading developers of DVD technology and formats have announced that it has revised its worldwide patent licensing program including offering a new license agreement (the "New DVD6C License"), which offers reduced royalty rates on certain products and additional licensing options.

Boffins behind the original MP3 and MPEG4 codecs have come up with a new audio format which could make CDs obsolete.

Yahoo is in early discussions with major record labels over offering unprotected MP3s either for sale or for free as part of an ad-supported service, two record company executives familiar with the talks said Wednesday.

US retail giant Best Buy has apologised to Heath Ledger's family and fans after one of the firm’s employees erected a makeshift movie display in memory of the Brokeback Mountain star.

Sony has licensed MTV programming for viewing on the PlayStation Portable, which represents some of the first new non-Sony product released for the PSP in some time.

The online community MySpace is partnering with the BBC to bring some of the British broadcaster's programs to a worldwide audience in the site's first global content deal involving a major network.

Copying music from a CD to a home computer could be made legal under new proposals from the UK government.

Ritek, one of the world's largest producer of blank optical discs, has obtained OEM orders for blank HD DVD-RW (rewritable) discs from Toshiba, with shipments to begin in the first quarter of 2008, according to Chinese-language newspaper Economic Daily News (EDN).