Apple has said the global launch of its popular iPod mini, which contains a Hitachi 4GB hard drive, will take place on 24 July, selling for £179 in the UK.

The Recording Industry Association of America said Thursday that it will add sales of digitally downloaded singles to its longstanding gold and platinum sales certification program.

Controversial film-maker Michael Moore has welcomed the appearance on the internet of pirated copies of his anti-Bush documentary Fahrenheit 9/11 and claimed he is happy for anybody to download it free of charge.

Production oversupply has pushed down OEM prices for DVD+R/-R discs since the beginning of the year and prices are not expected to stabilize until the fourth quarter, according to major optical disc manufacturers in Taiwan.

The average selling price of DVD recorders is expected to fall by as much as 50 percent later this year as Taiwanese shipments of DVD recorders increase sharply, a government-backed market research firm in Taipei says.

Sony have announced yet another attempt to displace the iPod from the top of the digital music hardware charts. But unlike the clunky-looking players launched in the Japanese market, the European model appears a serious challenger for Apple's market leadership.

Dell wants your old iPod and is willing to pay to get it. The PC maker will give US consumers a $100 rebate on its Digital Jukebox if they surrender their iPod.

Australia's main record industry group says it is not opposed to a certain amount of copying by consumers, as long as it can be controlled.

Japanese consumer electronics behemoth Panasonic has said it has released the DMR-E700BD, which it claims as the first DVD recorder to support dual layer single side Blu-ray disks with a capacity of 50GB.

The Beastie Boys website claims that the copy-control mechanism on the DRM-crippled CD "To the 5 Boroughs" does not install any files on the victim's computer.

Linux software makers Red Hat and Novell have said that they will begin offering RealNetworks' open-source media player with their operating system products.

Lite-On IT will begin volume production of its DVD recorder with a 40-120GB built-in hard drive at the end of July. The company will be the first Taiwanese optical disc drive manufacturer to ship HDD+DVD recorders in volume.

The British Phonographic Industry (BPI) official chart for downloaded singles is going live from the 1 September. The chart is compiled from the downloads from paid-for music download services. It counts singles sold to UK consumers and takes information from 7 Digital Media, iTunes, Metacharge, OD2 and Playlouder.com. The BPI will be looking for more partners in future.

Sony Music International is deciding whether to test-launch DualDisc DVD/CD hybrids in the UK following a successful trial in the US and the formal approval of the format by the DVD Forum.

In apparent defiance of color theory -- that dark surfaces absorb light and white surfaces reflect it -- Sony have unveiled a black screen that allows a regular digital projector to vividly display TV images and business presentations in a brightly lit room.

Sony will update its PSX personal video recorder/Playstation 2 combo device family on 1 July following the company's move to suspend production of the original models earlier this year.

DVD duplication software maker 321 Studios has admitted that it is considering going bankrupt in order to fend off lawsuits from the music, movie and games industries.

Universal Music's UK wing is to bring the 8cm CD back from the dead later this month, in a desperate bid to revive the singles market. The 'new' format will be called Pocket CD, but is essentially the compact CD developed in the mid-1980s as the format for CD singles.

NEC have announced a chipset for rewritable DVD drives that supports a 16x recording speed in the DVD-R and DVD+R formats.

Sharp have announced the release of five new DVD video recorders. Set to hit the market July 30, the DV-HRD200 features a 400GB hard drive that is capable of recording up to 34 hours of high-quality digital video.