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Reportedly, copyright watchdog Recording Association of Vietnam (RIAV) has  filed a $3 million lawsuit against FPT Telecom and Nokia Vietnam for violating intellectual property rights. I know, I know. Who would have thought that such a group existed right? Since copyright law is virtually nonexistent in Vietnam. Appearently, RIAV, which was founded in 2003, represents 60 music production companies throughout Vietnam, is suing both companies over allegations of copyright infringement for using 10,446 songs of RIAV’s members commercially without permission.

Earlier this month, RIAV said that it was going to initiate a lawsuit against FPT Telecom for sharing recorded music over the internet via its website, Nhac So, and using copyrighted materials on FPT Telecom’s internet television service, IPTV. After a failed attempt for a settlement between the two companies, RIAV also filed a suit against Nokia Vietnam for allowing its customers to download 1,000 copyrighted songs from a 10,466 song database through Nhac So.

According to Nokia, FPT admitted that it may not have the necessary rights for all of the music content on their website even though FPT Online had previously confirmed to Nokia that they had the legal rights for the complete music content on their website, and place the blame squarely on FPT.

So, why is Nokia dealing with FPT in the first place? Because RIAV do not own most of the music copyright. In fact, artists own it directly, and NhacSo (FPT) have signed many contract with those artists. So NhacSo have full legal right to distribute most but not all the music.

On related news, other music producers, namely HT Production and Kim Loi Studio, have also jointly sued multimedia company VTC Intercom for selling copyrighted music to mobile phone service provider Viettel Mobile through the service of I-muzik, which provide ringtones to subscripers.

Sources: here, here, and here.

The biggest news of the days is the news that Microsoft offered to buy Yahoo for about $44.6 billions in cash and stocks. Yahoo stocks soared almost 50% on the news, pushing it to its highest levels in months. If the deal goes through, Google will have a time keep up with the two giants. Of course, we are still waiting to see if Google will try to outbid Microsoft or not. A deal with Microsoft would be a great outcome for Yahoo shareholders, who have grown increasingly frustrated with Yahoo’s stock performance, according CNBC via (RBC Capital Markets analyst Jordan Rohan). He expects Yahoo founders and insiders to support the deal.

 Of all the mergers/takeovers talks over Yahoo, including NewsCorp (FoxNews, MySpace), Microsoft’s proposal seems the be the most promising. If this will indeed happen, Google might enjoy a brief moment of peace while Microsoft and Yahoo work out the operation details. Since two companies share lots of similar services, the merger will have a huge impact on the brandings, with many services ending up in the deadpool, not to mention the likelyhood of massive staff layoffs/downsizings.

[More info]

AMD’s newest R680 graphics processor might look a whole lot like the ill-fated R600 GPU, but the reality couldn’t be more bizarre.  Instead of one 80nm behemoth-of-a-GPU, the R680 consists of two 55nm processor cores.

Representatives from AMD would not confirm that the R680 is essentially two RV670 GPU cores on the same board, though the company did confirm that each core has the same specifications of an RV670 processor.

The RV670 graphics core, announced last November with the Phenom processor, is the first 55nm desktop graphics adaptor.  AMD does not target this card as a high-end adaptor, though reviewers were quick to herald the RV670 as AMD’s best product of 2007.

The company also made quick mention of the RV620 and RV635 GPU cores.  These cores are nearly identical to the previous RV610 and RV630 processors, but will be produced on the 55nm node instead. 

All three of AMD’s new GPUs are scheduled to launch next month. 

Dual-GPU technology is not new.  3dfx’s flagship Voodoo 5 family also resorted to multiple processors to achieve its relatively high performance.  ASUS, Gigabyte, Sapphire, HIS and PowerColor all introduced dual-GPU configurations of just about every graphics processor on the market, though these were never “sanctioned” ATI or NVIDIA projects.  Ultimately, all of these projects were canned due to long development times and low demand.

Cross-state rival NVIDIA isn’t sitting on idle hands though, either.   The company publicly announced plans to replace all 90nm G80 graphics cores with G92 derivatives by the end of the year.  G92’s debut introduction, GeForce 8800 GT, met wild support from reviewers and analysts alike.  G92’s second introduce, GeForce 8800 GTS 512MB, was met with similar but less enthusiastic acceptance during Tuesday’s launch.

NVIDIA’s newest roadmap claims the DirectX 10.1 family of 65nm processors will also hit store shelves this Spring.  The chipsets — codenamed D9E, D9M and D9P — are architecturally different from the G80/G92 family.

 Viewsonic recently announced its Precision Pro8100, a 1080p LCD projector, claiming it position in one of the most affordable 1080p LCD projector category with price of $4,995 (MSRP) with its Epson’s C2Fine™ panel and Silicon’s optic Hollywood Quality Video (HQV) technology. The projector uses ViewSonic’s proprietary Precision Color System (PCS), an image enhancement technology that renders natural colors with extensive tuning capabilities and Silicon Optic best in line VX-210 to achieve finest image reproduction, with the specification of 1000 lumens and dynamic contrast ratio 13000:1. The Precision Pro8100 will be showed at the International CES 2008 in Las Vegas.

What this means for us is another glorify 1080p LCD projector that is somewhat affordable but most importantly, competitions will be fierce in this market. This will hopefully draw the prices of LCD projectors and as well as LCD TVs to a new lower prices.

In recent years, consumers electronics and telecommunication companies had been trying to bring gamers into their mobile phone business. This was done either by implementing games into their mobile devices. Here is a twist to that old convention, Sony had teamed up with Ebay’s Skype division to bring you VOIP on your PSP. It is confirmed that mobiles gamers can now transform their PSP into mobile communication device. PSP owners can download the firmware update as well as an application that allow them to make free PSP to PSP and PSP to PC calls via wifi; or they could sign up for Skype VOIP service to make it their own landline. The application will allows users to ultilize Skype’s service as well as other new features on a PSP.

This is great news for gamers since now they can just carry one essential device on the go and still be able to connect with their family and friends. As a down side with most VOIP, the signal strength will be limited by their connection bandwidth, this might be a drag since you need a wifi hotspot in order to make a phonecall. Hopefully, Sony will partner with various other telecommunication companies to allow users to use their PSP just like a mobile phone. Until then, making a call is as essential as finding a good wifi hotspot.

[Source]

In a move that surprises noone, China is cracking down on video hosting websites. Under new regulation, effective Jan 31st, sites that provide video programming or allow users to upload video must have a permit and be either state-owned or state-controlled. Permits for video hosting sites will be subject to renewal every three years and operators who commit violations may be banned for up to 5 years.

China claims the new censorship is to control the country’s “social stability” and “reputation”. Words are Youtube has been blocked, and its chinese clones such as Youku and Tudou will be restricted soon, if not closed down completely. These new regularations are simpliar to the previous ones imposed on websites (Wikipedia is blocked since last year) and news portals. More regulations are likely to come as the communist country trying hard to plug the holes in the bucket that is the Internet.

According to BusinessWeek, Sony BMG Music Entertainment is finalizing plans to sell songs without the copyright protection software that has long restricted the use of music downloaded from the Internet. With the last of the big labels on board, it looks like that DRMed music’s days are numbered.  By partnering with online retailers such as Amazon and social networks such as Myspace and Facebook, the labels want to take a bite out of Apple’s monopolizing market shares.

The move by Sony BMG is especially noteworthy because back in 2005, in an effort to regulate the transfering of music, their CDs were came bundled with rootkits, which besides taking over your pc, also leave it vulnerable to virus attacks.

This is certainly good news, if it sticks. Besides the fact that those who bought DRMed music are now forced to buy them again, there is nothing that will stop the music industry from taking the second pass at the DRM scheme. Until then, enjoy the music the way it meant to be. Next stop … the movie industry.

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It seems that the RIAA must really hate its customers. It’s one thing to go after people who illegally download your music, but to go after the people who purchased your music legally? What have they been smoking? According to WashingtonPost, in the ongoing case against an Arizona man, the RIAA is arguing that copying music from a legally purchased CD is illegal. And they still wonder why CD sales are still down?

So what if you want your music on your iPods, Zunes, Zens, Sansas or other DAPs? Simple. Don’t buy CDs. With services like AmazonMP3s offering DRM-free music, (iTunes only starting to offer it, same with Microsoft and Yahoo), there is no reason to buy CD ever again. Better still, only buying RIAA-free music. However, that is unlikely to happen any time soon as the lables’ grip on the industry is still pretty tight. Of course, if you want to listen to your music for free, you get your fix from services like imeem.

[Source]

Update: Since the incident, the RIAA president claimed that the Sony BMG lawyer simply “misspoke” during the trial. Go here if you’re interested in hearing the interview.

Reportedly, World of Warcraft gamers are getting performance boost up to 50% simply by having WMP running in the background. Apparently, European forums started reporting last month that running WMP in the background noticeably cuts World of Warcraft load times, specifically in high-traffic sections of the game, though US gamers have just recently caught on.  Some gamers even reported that it improves game latency and framerates, although these improvements are only being experienced by a handful of users at the moment. If you play WoW, why don’t you give a try and see if it works for you. Words are Blizzard is aware of the issue and currently looking into it. For once, gamers are not thrilled if this “glitch” ever get fixed.

There’s a lot of talk about Toyota and its robotic division recently, and here’s another one. This is basically old news for those in Japan, since it debuted over 2 years ago, but we just got a glimse of it here in the states, so it’s new to us. Officially called the “i-unit”, the single passenger unit is equipped with intelligent transport system technologies that allow for safe autopilot driving in specially equipped lanes. The vehicle allows the user to make tight on-the-spot turns, move upright amongst other people at low speeds and can be easily switched into a reclining position at higher speeds. Body colors can be customized to suit individual preferences and a personal recognition system offers both information and music. Hear that Segway’s owners? This thing will out-geek your expensive toy, and we can sit down, too.

The first thing I said when I saw this thing(from the yellow/green picture below) is, “holy ****, they created a protoss car”. It’s too bad that not many concept stuffs will ever be mass-produced for the public use, but this is one of the thing I want to see come to life. Even if Toyota never bring this to market, I’m hoping some modders will create a similar, static chair, before Starcraft 2 comes out next year. It would make for a sweet gaming chair.