Topic: News

The number of pirate DVDs made in the UK rose 133% in the first half of 2005, anti-piracy campaigners have said. The Federation Against Copyright Theft (Fact) seized 386,569 UK-made fake DVDs from January to June, as UK seizures of pirate DVDs from abroad fell.

Toshiba has developed a networked DVD recorder boasting advanced features such as the ability to set up and record TV programmes via email. Toshiba's newly developed RD-XS54 Multi-Drive (DVD-Ram, DVD-R and DVD-RW) recorder, which ships with a 250GB hard disc drive, can be connected to other devices over a home Ethernet network.

Samsung claims it has developed a 16-Gbit NAND Flash memory chip. Built in a 50 nm process, the new chip sets a new record in the storage density race and could be incorporated into memory cards with up to 32 GByte capacity.

Dolby Laboratories have announced a new advancement in lossless audio technology, the Dolby TrueHD. TrueHD is designed to be paired up with the most recent developments in high-definition optical disc formats, says Dolby. Apparently, the audio is equal to that of the "highest-resolution studio masters currently available."

Microsoft plans to cooperate with Taiwanese software and hardware companies to jointly promote Taiwan's next-generation DVD format, the forward versatile disc (FVD), an alternative format to Blu-Ray and HD-DVD.

Press Release: Verity Systems have released the latest in their range of on-demand disc duplicating system with the new CopyStack 100. Designed specially for office and home applications, the CopyStack 100 is described as the ideal solution for desktop duplication. Its compact design means that it will comfortably fit into any workstation environment and as no PC connection is required, it will happily copy up to one hundred DVDs or CDs unattended whilst the user continues to work.

Toshiba is debuting a portable LED pocket projector at the Internationale Funkaustellung (IFA) 2005 in Berlin, with the company stating the projector can be used to connect to 3G multimedia handsets.

Steven P. Jobs, Apple's chief, has taken the wraps off of two new products. One is a new iPod model - the iPod nano. Its two models priced at $199 (£110) and $249 (£137) hold 500 and 1,000 songs in memory; there's no hard drive, which helps the nano crank out 14 hours of music on a charge.

Sony's handheld game and media player experienced the strongest UK launch of any console in history, according to market analysts Chart-Track, selling about 185,000 units in the first week.

Blu-Ray drives for the Playstation 3 will cost Sony a small fortune. It turns out that at the release of the console in the first half of 2006, Sony will have to pay more than $100 (£54) per drive it builds in Playstation 3.

Mobile phones capable of transmitting data at blistering speeds have been demonstrated by NTT DoCoMo in Japan. At this rate, an entire DVD could be downloaded within a minute!

Three west London men are due in court today after police seized more than 50,000 fake DVDs worth about £150,000.

The Recordable DVD Council (RDVDC) unveiled the world's fastest Rewritable DVD products at its IFA press conference. The new 16X DVD-RAM products are being displayed at the RAM Promotion Group "RAMPRG" exhibit #221 of Hall 1.1 at IFA.

Toshiba may not launch HD DVD products until 2006, breaking its previously stated deadline for the introduction of the technology.

Norway's best known IT export, DVD Jon, has hacked encryption coding in Microsoft's Windows Media Player, opening up content broadcast for the multimedia player to alternative devices on multiple platforms.

Sales of Media Center PCs have skyrocketed since July 2005 according to a recent study by Current Analysis. For the week ending August 20, 2005, Media Center PCs accounted for 42.60% of all desktop personal computers sold in the US retail market, up from 16.28% for the week ending July 2, 2005.

The world's first 5 1/4 inch PC drive HR-1100A for HD-DVDs from NEC will be available from October onwards. The HD DVD drive plays back HD-DVDs, DVDs and CDs. This is all down to the optical head that was developed by NEC which can read blue, red and ultra-violet light.

Ritek went from a gross operating loss of NT$139 million (£2.4m) in the first quarter of this year to gross operating profits of NT$526 million (£9m) last quarter, according to the company.

Press Release: Primera Technology's first tower duplicator, the DUP-07 burns seven CDs or DVDs at a time from one master drive. Coupled with an optional CD/DVD printer, the DUP-07 is a great fit for worship centers, live concerts and other events where discs are needed fast.

Plasmon has developed a new optical disc for compliance-based systems that allows selected data to be physically destroyed on the disc while leaving other data intact, the company said Monday.