News magazine The Economist this week forecast that Apple's share of the emerging online music business would plummet later this year when Microsoft moves into the market. But according to a Billboard report, the two firms' love-hate relationship may be tending toward the former in order to build links between their music encoding and digital rights management technologies.

An Inquirer reader reports that when he bought a copy of the latest Dido album for his loved one, he discovered that Windows Media software wouldn't play the thing. In fact, for the CD to be played, its own media software was installed.

A Texas grocery chain has decided to stop selling disposable DVDs, a product that outraged environmentalists and apparently didn't sell too well, either.

More details on Nintendo's mysterious new DS portable system have come our way via the latest issue of Japan's Famitsu magazine. The magazine clears up some confusion regarding the system's game storage media. Rather than standard cartridges, the DS will make use of thin card-type media. Apparently, this form of media uses a new type of semiconductor whose production cost is close to that of optical disk (DVD, CD, etc.). In addition, the media allows for quicker turnover times over cartridges in case of reorders for product.

As prices for blank DVD-R/+R discs fall with increasing supply, CMC Magnetics is hiking the speed of its products to maintain its gross margin at about 50%, according to company spokesperson Andria Wong.

Currently shipping their latest 8x DVD burner, LG Electronics have announced their new DVD burner which is expected for CeBIT 2004, the GSA-4120B. As with their previous drives, this new drive will also support DVD-RAM.

A new wireless technology with enough bandwidth to carry cable television signals from a wall-mounted outlet to a TV anywhere in the home could be on the market as early as next year, an industry group have said.

Philips subsidiary Polymer Vision has unwrapped - literally - what it claims is the world's widest yet thinnest, most flexible TFT LCD panel. The monochrome 4.7in, 320 x 240 display is thin enough to be rolled into a curve with a radius of 2cm, the company said.

The European Union is set to reclassify monitors which have DVI outputs as TVs, meaning that manufacturers will have to pay 14% tariffs on these so-called "video monitors".

The release of the PSX multipurpose entertainment system in Japan last December was marred by last-minute changes to the console's specification. As Sony pushed to get the PSX on the market before Christmas, several features had to be cut due to time constraints. Today, however, Sony announced plans to return those features through a downloadable firmware upgrade, which will be available starting February 1.

The U.S. Department of Justice has started a preliminary inquiry into activities by the Blu-ray Disc Founders (BDF), a coalition of electronics vendors led Sony, Matsushita, Philips and seven other major electronics companies. The investigation is looking to determine whether the group's members potentially acted in concert to impede the technical progress of the DVD Forum, which has a competing high definition DVD format called HD-DVD.

Ooh arr, Jim lad: a huge counterfeiting business responsible for making thousands of pirate DVD copies of the latest movie blockbusters has been discovered during two raids in Bristol (UK).

Pioneer have announced today the introduction of the DVR-A07-J (white) and DVR-A07-J-BK (black), new DVD/CD internal writers that offer the fastest rewritable drives, capable of writing at up to 8x speed on DVD±R discs, and at up to 4x speed on DVD±RW discs.

The war between the audio CD follow up, DVD-Audio and the Super Audio CD (SACD) has taken another turn. Both formats promise an improved sound quality and better surround but require new equipment. SACD have in the past come in dual-sided disks with one side being the easily playable CD version of the recording. This has been to ensure the playback of the purchased items and to encourage people to try SACD. For now this has always been a strong marketing point, but it seems DVD-Audio has learnt from this.

Nintendo today announced a new portable games console with two screens and two CPUs. However, the company denied the product was intended to go head-to-head with Sony's upcoming PlayStation Portable (PSP).

The British and Irish record industries have struck a mighty blow for consumers by forcing online retailer CD Wow to stop selling CDs imported from outside the EEA. Upshot: customers will have to pay an extra £2 for each CD.

Hewlett-Packard has said that it will start selling an HP-branded version of Apple Computer's iPod this summer as part of a broad expansion into consumer electronics.

Lead Data, a second-tier producer of optical storage discs in Taiwan, will begin deliveries of blank 8x DVD-R discs to a Japanese client in February. The client is one of the world's top five optical disc brands, Lead Data said.

The FBI has confirmed that it has entered the case of the pirated "screener" videos sent to Academy Award voters. It is looking into four films -- "Something's Gotta Give," "The Last Samurai," "Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World" and "thirteen." According to multiple studio sources, illegal copies of those films that have appeared on the Internet have been traced by their respective studios to screeners intended for use by character actor Carmine Caridi, a member of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences.

If you were one of the fortunate few that purchased one of Sony's new DVD camcorders (DCR-DVD100/200/300) incorporating an 8mm DVD-RW drive over the past month, you might be feeling a little smug ? or a little miserable, especially if you are hunting for blank media. There's a shortage.