Say good-bye to traditional notions of a PC company. Times have changed and PC vendors will increasingly move away from selling just computers and peripherals to also offering consumer electronics products, including television sets, according to the chief executive at one of the world's largest semiconductor makers. The result is a home computing environment that will be more tightly tied into areas, such as entertainment, that were once considered the domain of consumer electronics companies.

Barely 24 hours after suing alleged file swappers around the United States, the recording industry has settled its first, agreeing to drop its case against a 12-year-old New York girl in exchange for $2,000 (£1,257).

If Disney gets its wish, an experimental type of DVD will begin flying off store shelves today -- and self-destructing and thursday. Disney movies on disposable DVDs are set to arrive in convenience stores, pharmacies and other outlets in a four-city test of whether Americans will pick up a limited-life DVD rather than dropping by a video rental store.

Adding to the mainstream adoption of recordable DVD, Panasonic have announced that HEURIS has introduced DVD ConnexIT for Apple OSX and QuickTime -- the first QuickTime plug-in specifically developed for A/V and PC convergence between Panasonic DVD-RAM products. Now making movies on DVD is possible without any cables or wiring, and Apple users can simply play or even edit their recorded movies in one easy step.

Pioneer have announced a new DVD and CD writer for people who don't want to take their PCs apart. The external DVD/CD writer, the DVR-S606, is Pioneers first external drive and comes in response to consumer demand that DVD writers should handle various formats in order to reduce confusion in the marketplace. The drive supports discs using DVD-R, DVD-RW, DVD+R and DVD+RW formats. It works with both IEEE 1394 (FireWire) and USB 2.0 ports.

It is believed that the RIAA is considering an "amnesty plan" for alleged P2P users. The plan would let P2P pirates off the hook if they change their habits. RIAA has refused officially to comment the alleged plan, but according to various news sites, P2P users who have been "caught" by RIAA would be able to get off hook if they destroy all the copied material they own, including copies on harddrives, CDs, etc, agree not to participate in illegal file sharing ever again and to submit a photocopy of their ID to RIAA. Users who wish to apply for the amnesty would have to sign a notarized contract.

A bug has been discovered in versions of the popular CD and DVD authoring software Nero. Versions 6.0.0.15 & 5.5.10.50 cannot over-burn the 700MB limit on CD-recordable discs regardless of the 'Enable overburn' setting in the expert features.
Until this bug is corrected, use Nero 5.5.10.42 or Nero 6.0.0.11 if you need to write an oversized disc. You can download those versions here.

A new British film entitled "This is Not a Love Song," by Simon Beaufoy, writer of the movie "Full Monty," has been released on the Internet. No this is not another case of piracy. In fact, "This is Not a Love Song" is the first movie to be launched via the Internet. The movie is a low-budget thriller that was shot in just two weeks for a budget of around £500,000.

The Japanese Logitec company has announced a new dual format DVD-recorder that supports 8x DVD+R recording. Besides that the drive, model LDR-X840AK, supports 4x recording to DVD+RW and DVD-R media and 2x recording to DVD-RW media.

Until now, the music industry was simply trying to put off home users from sharing music and sending out subpoena’s threatening to sue. Now, three men from Sydney face jail after pleading guilty last week to breaking copyright laws. The Australian recording industry believes this to be the world's first criminal prosecution for online music piracy; at least against users running off a home connection.

One of the most popular DVD-2-DVDR tools, DVD2One, has been updated. The latest version, DVD2One v1.3.0, introduces a new feature called "join mode" that allows, as its name suggest, joining multiple DVDs (or parts of DVDs) into a single DVDR compilation.

Both Sony's PlayStation 2 and Microsoft's Xbox are set to see price cuts in the coming month as the battle for Christmas sales dominance kicks off earlier than ever - with both companies also planning a range of other promotions.

Landmark Theatres have announced the largest permanent digital exhibition installation ever undertaken, with a nationwide theatre circuit outfitting all of Landmark's 53 U.S. theatres and 177 screens with Windows Media 9 Series systems to receive and play back movies.

Pioneer have announced the Elite DV-59AVi, a new industry reference DVD player that offers both a high definition multimedia interface (HDMI) and i.LINK connectors for the best in both digital audio and digital video connectivity. Pioneer have also added superior DVD video playback capabilities giving this DVD player the ability to scale a typical DVD video signal to HD quality as well as playback of both DVD-Audio discs and Super Audio CDs.

Microsoft is expected to show off later this month a new version of its Windows XP Media Center entertainment PC software. The upgrade, code-named Harmony, provides an extra interface to make it easy for people to view photos, listen to music and watch videos on a television hooked up to the PC.

321 Studios has released a new DVD backup tool called DVD X Copy Platinum which they claim is "a breakthrough in DVD movie backup technology, and is the most powerful DVD movie backup software ever. Along with the speed, ease of use and one-click convenience of DVD X Copy XPRESS, DVD X Copy Platinum adds brand-new TDF backup technology which allows complete customization and control over your movie backup. TDF is the breakthrough movie fans have been demanding, and allows for chapter by chapter control over compression. Create and share TDF files with others." It's currently available for $119.99 (£76) after a $30 mail-in rebate.

CTX, a manufacturer of monitors has predicted that by the end of next year, cathode ray tube (CRT) monitors will be obsolete.

The Japanese TDK website has announced that the company has released two new DVD-R media types which have an ultraviolet radiation protective coating. This coating makes the discs three times more resistent against sunlight when compared to normal discs. TDK has released two types of discs, the DVD-R47HCG for data (4.7GB) and the DVD-R120HCF for (120 minutes) video recording. Click for the babel translated TDK page.

Sony's new Vaio PCV-W1 centres on entertainment and aims squarely at the living room. On the one had it is a rather stylish 17.5 inch wide screen and on the other a P4 2.8GHz PC with 160GB of hard disk and a DVD-burner.

Big news from France today where EMI has landed in the soup for selling 'defective' copy protected CDs. A Nanterre court has ordered the music label to refund a woman who could not play her new Alain Souchon CD on her car CD player. Alternatively, EMI is to provide a full-working copy. The ruling applies to all people who have bought CDs which they cannot play on some CD players, computers and Walkmans.