US musicians favour sharing - new survey

A new survey of US artists reveals that while most agree that downloading from file-sharing networks is illegal, yet they admit they themselves download media without paying and have little idea if it is legal or not. The Pew Internet survey 'Artists, Musicians and the Internet' reveals that artists are playing a canny game around the issue of file-sharing. Of paid artists, 55 per cent believe that it should be illegal for Internet users to share copyright material over the Internet, compared with 35 per cent that believe it should be legal. ...more

ATI debuts Radeon X1800 range

Graphics chip specialist ATI has come up with a new range of GPUs aimed at the notebook market. The company is claiming that the new chips will offer notebook users blinding performance on their machines. The company has announced two new chips known as the Mobility Radeon X1800 and Mobility Radeon X1800 XT mobile GPU based on the same R520 core as the desktop version of the X1800. ...more

UK GPRS trials

A new venture between ITN and GEO Interactive should see UK trials of GPRS services going ahead in January. The companies will be testing streaming MPEG-4-compliant live news feeds and on-demand video to PDAs using GEO Interactive's Emblaze compression technology. Initial trials will last 60 days, but the companies have declined to comment on which networks operators would be participating. ...more

Microsoft pays out on record revenues

Microsoft announces first ever annual dividend and a two-for-one stock split, posting record revenues for the second quarter. Software maker Microsoft waited until the financial market closed yesterday to announce its results and tell shareholders it would be making its first-ever annual dividend - of 16 cents a share - prior to splitting its stock two for one (creating more shares). This represents $870. ...more

Toshiba and Sony table talks for single hi-def DVD format

The major movie studios have begun talks with electronics manufacturers in an attempt to reach a compromise over high-definition DVD formats. Currently, studios are being frantically courted by Sony and Toshiba to support their rival Blu-ray and HD-DVD formats. But they want to avoid the costly, not to mention consumer-unfriendly, situation of having to release DVDs in both formats. ...more