Archive - Sep 9, 2005 | Digital Media Wire

MPAA, RIAA Join Internet2 to Study Advanced Content Distribution

Authored by Mark Hefflinger on September 9, 2005 - 4:35am.

Ann Arbor, Mich. -- The recording and motion picture industries' major trade groups announced on Friday that they have become corporate members of Internet2, the ultra high-speed private Internet used by the research and higher education community. The Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA) and Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) will "collaborate with the Internet2 community to consider innovative content distribution and digital rights management technologies, and to study emerging trends on high-performance networks to enable future business models." The groups have previously criticized Internet2, which is available at over 200 universities, for its allowance of lightning quick file-sharing by university students and others on the network via a program called i2hub. The RIAA has also taken the step of suing 33 Internet2 file-swappers for copyright infringement. "The movie industry is committed to working with the technology sector to find innovative new ways to deliver entertainment to consumers. The MPAA views this partnership with Internet2 as an important opportunity for collaboration as we seek to link new delivery models with content protection," said MPAA president Dan Glickman.

tags: Internet | RIAA | MPAA | Advanced Content Distribution |

Report: EA's "Madden NFL 06" Led August Video Game Sales

Authored by Mark Hefflinger on September 9, 2005 - 4:33am.

Port Washington, N.Y. -- Video game publisher Electronic Arts' "Madden NFL 06" title sold 2.2 million units during August -- nearly two million more than Nintendo's second-place "Nintendogs" (210,000 units) -- in a month that saw overall U.S. game sales remain flat. The data from market research firm NPD Group found that EA also scored the third spot on the sales chart, with "NCAA Football 2006" (180,000 units), followed by Take-Two Interactive's "Charlie and the Chocolate Factory" and Novalogic's "Delta Force: Black Hawk Down."

tags: EA | Reports | Video Game | Madden NFL 06 |

Microsoft: Xbox 360 to Feature Hardware-Level Security

Authored by Mark Hefflinger on September 9, 2005 - 4:31am.

London -- Microsoft's forthcoming Xbox 360 video game console will feature security technology more advanced than that on its first-generation Xbox, for which modified chips were developed to bypass copyright controls and play imported games, the BBC Online reported. "We've taken security to the hardware level and built it in from the ground up," Chris Satchell, of the Xbox Advanced Technology Group, told BBC Online. "One of the reasons we went with custom hardware design for all our silicon is that it allows us to build security at the silicon level. There are going to be levels of security in this box that the hacker community has never seen before." However, Satchell conceded, hackers will likely eventually defeat security on the Xbox 360, which is scheduled for release in the fall. "I'm sure sooner or later someone will work out how to circumvent security. But the way we have done the design doesn't mean that it will work on somebody else's machine," Satchell added.

tags: Microsoft | Xbox 360 | Hardware-Level Security |

Science: U.K. Researchers Make Microchip Breakthrough

Authored by Mark Hefflinger on September 9, 2005 - 4:29am.

London -- According to a report in Science, a group of researchers at Imperial College London, Durham University and the University of Sheffield has made a breakthrough in computer chip design that could give mobile phones, which currently have very limited memory, the capacity of desktop computers. "The new video mobile phones are very popular, but they desperately need more memory so that people can take longer videos and store them," said lead researcher Russell Cowburn. "This technology has the potential to transform mobiles into fully functioning video cameras, in addition to a range of other applications." Their new design, which they claim will revolutionize the chip industry, links computing nodes with nano-wires much in the same way that neurons and axons are linked in the human brain. The report claims that the chip could potentially increase mobile memory capacity by as much as 200 times. The researchers said products could be on the market within the next few years.

tags: Science | U.K. Researchers | Microchip | Breakthrough |

Report: Men and Women Surf Internet in Very Different Ways

Authored by Mark Hefflinger on September 9, 2005 - 4:26am.

Cambridge, Mass. -- According to a new report by market analysis firm Forrester called "Men are from CNet, Women are from iVillage", men and women surf the Internet in markedly different ways. The report found that men go online mostly to find news, magazines and career information, while women prefer to spend their time playing games, sharing photos and shopping. Furthermore, men are more likely to research financial data online, while women are more interested in saving money, downloading coupons and seeking out bargains. Forrester also found that men, on average, spend about 6.7 hours online every week, while women spend about 5.3 hours on the Internet per week.

Report: Nearly 800 Websites Dedicated to Online Plagiarism

Authored by Mark Hefflinger on September 9, 2005 - 4:23am.

San Jose, Calif. -- With students across the country now logging back on to their school computers this week, Secure Computing said that it has found 780 websites dedicated to online plagiarism -- a 10% increase over a year ago. The firm said that most of the sites describe themselves as "essay banks" and offer digital copies of term papers and essays, some for free and others for a price. The larger plagiarism sites offer tens of thousands of essays on a wide variety of topics, with some even offering to write custom term papers on almost any topic. One site charges $19.95 a page for seven-day delivery, and offers "same day service" at $44.95 a page. According to a 2003 survey of 11,000 high school students, 58% admitted to copying uncredited material from the Internet for school assignments.