Sony has thrown its hat into the video portal ring with the purchase of Grouper.com.

Optodisc Technology and Princo, two second-tier makers of optical discs in Taiwan, have reduced their quotations for 16x DVD+R/-R discs to US$0.16 and US$0.15, respectively, lower than the current general level of US$0.18, according to the Chinese-language Economic Daily News (EDN).

Samsung has debuted a mobile phone handset model equipped with 8 gigabytes of storage, the world's largest, enabling consumers to store MP3 music files and other multimedia contents.

Plextor have announced its new shape ultra-portable DVD writer. Measuring just 15.9mm high and weighing 250g, the pocket-sized PX-608CU is ideal for mobile laptop users and those requiring a stylish and compact unit to use anywhere.

After a few false starts over the past century, the optical illusion that is 3-D entertainment is back in vogue. And this time, there are no red-and-green cardboard specs to wear as you fight back the nausea.

Rapidly growing video website YouTube is to launch its first "branded" channel, allowing advertisers to create sets of webpages carrying commercials as well as videos.

Lite-On have announced it is developing half-height (H/H) HD-DVD burners, with a volume production target set for March 2007.

Digital TV will be watched in a greater percentage of homes in the UK than any other country by 2010, a report says.

Some are claiming that the format war is over and that HD DVD is the winner by virtue of the simple fact that the first porn film to be releasesd in a next-gen format has gone for HD DVD.

Memorex, a portfolio brand of Imation Corp. has announced it is shipping its 15GB HD DVD recordable media.

In the UK, newspapers and magazines are giving away as many DVDs now as are being bought by consumers, according to new research.

Leading manufacturers of optical discs and optical disc drives in Taiwan, in an attempt to promote the Taiwan-developed DVD format FVD (forward versatile disc), are developing PC-use FVD burners and FVD-R (write once) discs through cooperation with fellow makers in China, with volume production to begin next quarter at the earliest, according to Taiwan industry sources.

Barely a month after Swedish police raided their server room and carted two administrators and their legal help off in handcuffs, the lanky co-operator of the Pirate Bay -- the most popular and hunted piracy site in the world -- settles back to watch a pirated copy of Spanglish.

The BBC is drawing up plans for a plug-in gadget that turns MP3 players into digital radios.

The internet has been buzzing with speculation that to compete with Sony's Blu-ray, Microsoft will eventually roll out HD DVD games. Not so according to Microsoft.

Japanese users of Blu-ray DVD players will be able to view US films because there will be a single region code, Nikkei.net reports.

In ongoing efforts, copyright supporter Macrovision has dealt an interesting blow to TiVo users. Certain digital movies in which Macrovision has an intellectual stake in have been flagged with some curious limitations.

The Swedish Pirate Party has launched a new Internet service that lets anybody send and receive files and information over the Internet without fear of being monitored or logged.

In yet another example of tenacity over public relations, the Recording Industry of America has decided to chase a dead man's kids for his acts of file-sharing.

Microsoft will launch external HD-DVD drives for its Xbox 360 at a retail price of US$200 by Christmas of this year, and Taiwanese games developers and gaming services providers indicated this this is a smart marketing strategy as compared with Sony's adoption of built-in BD drives for its PlayStation 3 (PS3).