Hitachi announced on Thursday that among other changes to its HDTV production line, it will be teaming up with Panasonic to develop “next-generation LCD and plasma HDTVs that are thinner, more efficient and distinct from their competition.”
Hitachi claims they had an over $1 billion USD loss for fiscal 2007 in the HDTV business and the electronics maker is now hoping to move into the higher-end HDTV market to help make their money back.
The partnership with Panasonic will include the company buying glass panel components from Panasonic as well as purchasing full plasma panels built by the latter company beginning in 2010.
Result for: flv
First announced last December, Nokia’s oft-delayed Comes With Music service is finally official (at least for the UK) and will hit handsets beginning October 17th.
The first handset to include the service will be the Nokia 5310 and the exclusive retailer will be Carphone Warehouse. The service, which allows users to download unlimited DRM-free music for one year and then keep it forever, will cost 70 GBP in addition to the original price of the handset.
The service will have include the full catalogs of Universal Music, Sony BMG and Warner Music but notably lacks EMI.
There was no word on the price of the actual handset as of yet but we will keep you updated.
Result for: flv
Kazushi Hirata of Kyoto, Japan has been charged with copyright infringement after he was arrested for illegally uploading the blockbuster movie “Wanted” with Japanese subtitles to the P2P file sharing application Winny.
The arrest of a “pre-release uploader” was the first of its kind in the country and Mr. Hirata faces a $100,000 USD equivalent fine and up to 10 years in prison if convicted.
The film was released in June in the US, but was released in Japan just yesterday. An R5 (Russian retail DVD) release of the film has been available for months, but it obviously did not include Japanese subtitles which Mr. Hirata added himself before releasing on Winny.
The authorities were alerted to Mr. Hirata by the Japan and Intl. Motion Picture Copyright Assn. (Jimca). The group says that pre-release uploads are becoming a major problem and that “this year, Jimca has identified more than 30 movie files that have been uploaded to Winny before their Japan release dates.”
