Piracy is unstoppable, says ISP CEO
According to Carphone Warehouse and Talk Talk CEO Charles Dunstone, piracy is unstoppable and the media industry’s call to have ISPs as watchdogs is “naive” at best.
Instead, Dunstone believes a more reasonable solution is to educate users about the “benefits of respecting copyright” while also launching services that will allow consumers to get music and movies cheaper and easily.
Speaking at TalkTalk’s quarterly conference call, Dunstone added:
“If you try speed humps or disconnections for peer-to-peer, people will simply either disguise their traffic or share the content another way. It is a game of Tom and Jerry and you will never catch the mouse. The mouse always wins in this battle and we need to be careful that politicians do not get talked into putting legislation in place that, in the end, ends up looking stupid.”
The media industry continues to push for controversial laws such as the ‘three strikes’ laws that would force ISPs to disconnect multiple time offenders.
“If people want to share content they will find another way to do it,” he added. “It is more about education and allowing people to get content easily and cheaply that will make a difference. This idea that it is all peer to peer and somehow the ISPs can just stop it is very naive.”
DVD-sniffing dog makes big piracy bust
According to industry officials, an anti-piracy dog by the name of Paddy has made a large bust in Malaysia, uncovering 35,000 pirated discs in a few warehouses in the region.
The MPA added in a statement that the raids occurred last week in southern Johor. Paddy is trained to detect chemicals in DVD-R discs.
“Paddy led enforcement officers on a successful weekend operation to shut down the supply lines of pirated movie DVDs in the Malaysian state of Johor,” read the statement.
“Post-raid investigations revealed that two of the targets were actively involved in exporting pirated DVDs to Singapore.”
After the raids, 6 factories were shut down and brand new titles such as “Terminator Salvation”, “Night at the Museum: Battle of the Smithsonian”, “Angels and Demons” and “Star Trek” were seized.
“This is a clear signal to the pirates that we will not waver in our efforts to shut them down,” continued Mohamad Roslan Mahayudin, director-general of enforcement for the Malaysian ministry.
“We are glad to hear that Paddy’s skills are being put to good use against the large, organised network of pirates involved in exporting illegal pirated DVDs to Singapore,” concluded Mike Ellis, the MPA’s Asia-Pacific managing director.
68 percent of American households are gamers
According to new figures from the Entertainment Software Association, 68 percent of American households play video games, an increase of just over 3 percent from 2008.
The report, presented at the E3 Expo, also added that “home console ownership” moved to 42 percent.
Adult gamers have been playing video games for, on average, 12 years, which actually fell year-on-year from 13, suggesting there is an increasing amount of new gamers. The average age of gamers now stands at 35 years old.
“This is the new golden age of entertainment software. Our products are now being enjoyed by over two-thirds of Americans,” added Michael Gallagher, CEO of the ESA. “As the findings of the 2009 Essential Facts illustrate, more and more Americans across all demographics are now embracing the interactive entertainment experience that computer and videogames provide.”
In terms of parental controls, 77 percent of parents said they believed current controls were “useful” and 92 percent said they were with their kids while they played games.
Sony to expand PlayStation business in South America
According to Sony America boss Jack Tretton, the company is preparing to expand their PlayStation business further into South America, marketing their consoles more in Brazil, Uruguay and Paraguay.
The company hopes to make $750 million USD in regional sales for the fiscal 2009 year.
At the same time, Tretton added that the PlayStation Network now has 24 million accounts worldwide, but a small number from South America.
Moving to more general facts, Tretton applauded the aging PS2, which still manages to make brisk sales despite being almost a decade old. Tretton says 100 titles will be released for the console in 2009.
Opera surpasses Safari in global mobile browser market share
According to the latest figures from StatCounter, the Opera mobile browser has once again overtaken the iPhone’s Safari browser as the most popular mobile browser internationally.
The two popular browsers have been battling for six months, but Safari has beaten out its rival for at least the last three months.
For the month of May however, Opera saw an unexpected spike in usage and jumped to 24.6 percent, while Safari fell to 17.6 percent.
In the United States, Safari remains dominant, followed by BlackBerry. Opera holds a tiny 3 percent market share.
“Opera began the year in number one slot but iPhone overtook it in February. May saw Opera regain the number one position,” noted StatCounter CEO Aodhan Cullen. “It will be fascinating to watch how this battle plays out over the year.”
Sony E3 summary: Motion control system, PSP Go! and Final Fantasy
Following Microsoft’s presentation yesterday, it was Sony’s turn today to woo the crowd at the E3 Expo and for the most part they did.
First off was the announcement of the worst kept secret PSP Go! updated handheld. Kaz Hirai even made a joke that one of the company’s nickname for the device was “The worst kept secret of E3.”
As already leaked, the Go! strips the UMD drive and has everything running off 16GB internal flash memory. The design changes to a “slider” and Hirai says the handheld is “50% smaller and 40% lighter than original PSP-1000.” Also notable is the integration of Bluetooth. Users will also have the ability to download music and movies directly from the PlayStation Network.
A few of the new apps coming with the Go! are “Media Go” and “Sense Me.” Media Go replaces the current “Media Manager” and integrates easier with the PlayStation Store. Sense Me will “use a 12-tone recognition system to analyze your PSP music library in order to deliver playlists based on moods you select.”
Hirai also noted the classic hit Final Fantasy 7 , first available on the PSone, would soon be coming to the PlayStation Store along with 50 other classics.
The company will not be dropping UMD or PSP-3000 support either, says Hirai. How much will the new handheld cost? An unjust $250 USD.
Among notable games the company demoed: Uncharted 2 - Among Thieves, MAG, Assassin’s Creed 2 and Gran Turismo PSP stole the show.
[More]>>
HDTV, Blu-ray ownership keeps rising
HDTV ownership increased 73 percent over the 12 months ended February, says new Nielsen figures, reflecting the continuing falling prices in the sets.
The overall growth also “fueled” growth in Blu-ray players and Blu-ray titles, says the report.
Last February, 19 percent of U.S. households had one HDTV and that number has now jumped to 33 percent.
For the same period, Blu-ray spending doubled to $230 million USD, while at the same time DVD spending fell 15 percent. Blu-ray standalones sold jumped 72 percent for the same period, thanks mainly to falling prices and the increase in HDTVs in American households.
“Despite the current economic climate, HD is on course to becoming the benchmark in television viewing,” Nielsen adds. “As prices of HDTVs continue to fall and circumstances such as the Digital Television Transition create opportunities to further promote HD sets and services, HDTV will gain a greater foothold in U.S. television homes.”
Microsoft E3 summary: New motion control system and Metal Gear Rising
Microsoft had a pretty big day today at the E3 Expo, unveiling an entirely new control system for its Xbox 360 console among other notable announcements.
Dubbed Natal, the system is a fully hands-free control system which uses facial recognition and multiple motion sensors to allow users to playback games using their body motions and not buttons.
The system is still in early stages, but Microsoft has sent full functioning prototypes to all big game developers.
Showing off the technology, developer Peter Molyneux said the system could recognize facial expressions as well, determining the mood of the player or players and “reacting accordingly.”
Will Natal be successful however? Piers Harding-Rolls, senior analyst with Screen Digest, says it will depending on a number of factors.
“I think the technology looks very interesting but its success depends on the content and how easy it is to use,” Rolls added.
“The other aspect is cost and how they will get it out to the user base. That said, I think Microsoft would like to get it out sooner, rather than later.”
“Sales of the Xbox 360 hit their peak in 2008 and are now in decline, in terms of console sales, so you would expect them to get it out as soon as possible to rekindle interest in the platform.”
Also notably at the show Microsoft announced they had made deals with Twitter and Facebook in an effort to make “full integration between three of the largest social networking sites on the planet.” The third being, of course, Xbox Live.
[More]>>
T-Mobile G2 confirmed for early summer
T-Mobile, the fourth largest mobile phone carrier in the U.S., has confirmed that the much anticipated G2 Android phone will be available starting “early summer.”
The company has sold over 1 million of the original G1 device, which is a re-branded HTC Dream. The phone was made available in the Q3 2008 and has been a great success for the carrier.
“T-Mobile is planning to offer the follow-on device to the T-Mobile G1 early this summer,” the company confirmed via email. Unfortunately there was no other details on the phone itself.
The move should coincide with Palm’s launch of the Pre smartphone as well as the expected launch of a new version of the popular Apple iPhone.
DSi sales hit new milestone in Europe
Nintendo has announced that the popular DSi handheld has hit a new milestone this week, 1 million units sold in Europe.
The DSi is 12 percent thinner than its predecessor, the DS Lite with 17 percent larger screens. It touts two video cameras, web browsing abilities, music playing and an SD-card slot.
In the same period, the cheaper DS Lite continued to sell well, pushing 500,000 sales in the same period in Europe. In comparison, the Lite sold 1 million in the region in 13 weeks, meaning the DSi is selling at a much faster clip.
The DSi recently broke records for handhelds sold in a month in the US.
