Nokia: Comes with pirated music?
Nokia Vietnam is being sued by that country’s equivalent of the RIAA, the Recording Industry Assotiation of Vietnam (RIAV) over downloads they’re offering to mobile phone owners as part of a promotion.
The case is somewhat strange since the songs in question are being provided to Nokia by another company, FPT Telecom. What makes it odd is that the RIAV doesn’t seem to be going after FPT Telecom for selling the music to Nokia.
“We want to directly solve the case with Nokia. As a matter of fact, we will independently work with FPT Online about another matter,” said RIAV’s Vice Chairwoman, Truong Thi Thu Dung.
Perhaps it’s simply a question of going after the company with the deepest pockets. Or maybe it’s because they’re already suing FPT Telecom over content on their IPTV service and want to maximize the damages for each.
And maybe they just don’t expect to get their money from FPT, who Dung has described as “uncooperative.”
Facebook mobile users increase by 300 percent
Facebook has noted that use of its Facebook Mobile products have tripled since the end of 2007 and that the popularity has caught the company off guard.
Wayne Chang, an engineer on Facebook’s mobile team, wrote today that use increased from 5 million active users to a current 15 million.
BlackBerry, iPhone, Palm and Windows Mobile users can access Facebook through dedicated third party apps and normal mobile phone users can access the site via any mobile browser.
Because of the increased growth in mobile usage, Facebook has now expanded its mobile team and will continue to improve the features of the offering.
Microsoft banning Xbox 360 consoles again
Microsoft has confirmed that they are once again banning users of modified consoles from Xbox Live.
Quoting the Xbox team, I’ve gotten a few messages and seen some forum threads pop up on console bannings so I thought I’d post and let folks know what’s up. In our our continued effort to keep gameplay safe and secure for our community of more than 14 million members, Microsoft has taken action against a small percentage of Xbox 360 consoles that have been illegally modified in order to play pirated games. You should know that modifying your Xbox 360 console is also a violation of the Xbox LIVE terms of use, will void your warranty and result in a ban from Xbox LIVE. The health of the video game business depends on customers paying for the genuine products and services they receive, both from manufacturers and the local companies that support them. We will continue to employ and bolster anti-piracy security measures to counter piracy in the gaming industry and improve security in the Xbox LIVE community.
You can read more about the bannings here at the AfterDawn discussion forums: Xbox 360 November bannings
Live Nation to sell DRM-free MP3s from artist’s pages
Live Nation, which has spent hundreds of millions of dollars attracting acts such as U2, Jay-Z, Nickelback and Madonna has announced it will soon begin selling DRM-free MP3s from artist’s individual pages. So far, three of the Big 4 labels have signed on with Live Nation.
Live Nation has also confirmed it will be setting up its own ticketing service to compete with Ticketmaster and the company can now claim that it handles everything from merchandise to distribution and every step in between.
Sony Music, Universal Music Group and EMI have all signed on and negotiations with the last major label are still in progress. Artist have complained that iTunes, the current market share leader, does not have strong “artist pages” and lose sales because of it.
“Looking ahead, our primary goal remains centered on maximizing our global concert pipe for our client – the artist,” explained president and CEO Michael Rapino, “and expanding into direct ticketing/online distribution, completing the world’s only concert-to-fan direct platform for artists.”
Orange cuts iPhone 3G price to 99 euros
In an effort to spur added holiday sales, Orange France has cut the price of the 8GB model iPhone 3G from 149 euros to 99 euros when bought new with contract and data plan.
The price cut on the 16GB model wasn’t confirmed but reports have said it will drop from 199 euros to 129.
The promotion, called internally the “Christmas Origami star,” will last from November 13th until January 14th.
European prices for the iPhone 3G have never been this low but does bring back memories of last June when carriers slashed the price of the first generation iPhone to 99 euros or cheaper in an effort to clear out stock.
iTunes store finally puts some movies on sale
Aiming to convert physical DVD bargain hunters to digital copy owners, Apple has set up a special “This Week’s Great Movies Under $5″ page on iTunes that will offer a few movies every week for $4.99 USD, a steep discount from their normal price point.
For the inaugural week, there are mainly older action movies such as Terminator 2: Judgement Day, The Last Action Hero, Air Force One and The Karate Kid.
Although Apple has not made clear how long each discounted movie will last on the page, we can assume that it will be only for the one week period of Tuesday to Tuesday.
Maguire: Sony must work harder on marketing PS3-PSP functionality
Sony Computer Entertainment (SCE) UK boss Ray Maguire has said that Sony must work harder on promoting the cross-platform functionality between its home console, the PlayStation 3 (PS3) and the PlayStation Portable (PSP). When the PS3 was first launched, more emphasis was put on the functionality between the two devices than now, as the focus has moved more towards the game line-up than PS3 features in order to boost sales.
“When we first started - because all the functionality [on the PS3] was radical - we talked about that functionality,” he told GamesIndustry.biz last month. “And in doing that, maybe we weren’t strong enough on the games side of it. Now, with the strength of the games we’ve got coming out, this Christmas we’re definitely about the games. From our own first party, and also third party, there’s a feast of games for PS3 this year.”
He continued: “At the same time though, because we’ve been out for a couple of years now, people are starting to understand and discover the functionality of things like PlayTV, and that’s created the desire for people to upgrade to larger hard disk sizes. I just recently put a 320GB drive in mine. I think people are starting to come to grips with that, but what’s probably lesser known is the relationship between PS3 and PSP and the Remote Play functionality.”
ESA praises anti-piracy operation in Mexico
The Entertainment Software Association (ESA) has praised anti-piracy raids targeted counterfeit games in Mexico. Mexico’s law enforcement carried out raids that led to the seizure of about 20 tons of pirate video games. About 40 officers from he region’s Procuraduría General de la República and Agencia Federal de Investigación organisations raided booths and uncovered 91,200 fake games products.
Mexican law enforcement officials operated in conjunction with local ESA representatives to conduct this raid. “Piracy in markets such as San Juan de Dios hurts businesses engaging in the legitimate distribution and retailing of computer and video games,” said Michael D Gallagher, CEO of the ESA.
He continued: “We commend Mexican law enforcement officials for their actions in this raid and are committed to fully supporting authorities around the world who conduct these kinds of enforcement actions.”
AVG update accidentally cripples Windows XP
A recent update to AVG 8 has caused massive headaches for its owner and for many users who ended up with a crippled Windows XP operating system. At the core of the problem is a false positive of user32.dll, a vital Windows Operating System file, which the updated AVG 8 reported as a trojan horse. Upon the false detection, the AVG update prompted the user to delete the file to fix the problem, which in turn could result in Windows XP endlessly rebooting.
The problem affected the Windows XP operating system with SP2 or SP3 installed. It didn’t affect systems using Windows XP in the English language, but affected Windows installations using the Dutch, French, Italian, Portuguese, and Spanish languages. Upon noticing the problem, an update to fix it was immediately pushed out.
“AVG is actively working to remedy the problem some users are experiencing related to the most recent update to commercial and free versions of AVG 7.5 and AVG 8.0 in some languages. A number of users who installed the update mistakenly received a warning that the Windows system file user32.dll product version 5.1.2600.3099 was infected with a Trojan virus and were prompted to delete a file essential to the operation of Windows XP.” a company representative said.
The Czech anti-virus company has posted a fix tool and further details on its website. For users who are unable to boot Windows after updating to the latest version, they have been told to, “contact their AVG reseller or ask a friend to download the information and fix tool for them.” This latest problem comes after a recent update identified elements of the ZoneAlarm security software as a threat.
NVIDIA debuts 4GB Quadro FX 5800 GFX card
NVIDIA has introduced the latest version of its Quadro GFX card for the business sector. The Quadro FX 5800 marks the first time that a GFX card has been loaded with 4GB of graphics memory. Even NVIDIA’s dual GPU enthusiast video cards like the 9800 GX2 only sport 2GB of memory. “The size and complexity of data is growing at an exponential rate. The challenge for today’s professional is to make sense of the mountain of data by distilling it into a form they can comprehend, analyze, and use to make impactful decisions,” NVIDIA’s Jeff Brown, GM of professional solutions said in a statement.
He continued: “At stake can be billions of investment dollars, or even people’s lives. The Quadro FX 5800 has advanced features to allow massive datasets to be viewed beyond traditional 3D enabling professionals to make fast and accurate decisions.” The FX 5800 offers up to 240 CUDA programmable parallel cores and supports interactive 4D modeling with time-lapse capability.
The FX 5800 supports both Open GL and DirectX 10 applications. NVIDIA says the level of performance offered by the new powerful card is needed for demanding environments like oil/gas exploration and medical imaging. The technology comes with a sobering MSRP of $3,499.
