As Microsoft developers gathered in Seattle to hear Bill Gates's keynote speech on the future of Microsoft and the coming release of its updated operating system Vista, protesters wearing bright yellow Hazmat suits swarmed the entrance of the city's convention center, delivering an unsettling message to the corporation: your product is defective and hazardous to users.

Two companies this week launched products designed to turn Macs - the Mini in particular - into PVRs. Miglia's TVMax is the most Mini-friendly of the two, but I-O Data's GV-1394TV/M3 connects to a Firewire port - handy for folk with USB 1.1-era computers.

Britain bounced into number one spot as Europe's most digital market yesterday, largely due to digital TV spending ahead of the World Cup.

Acer plans to introduce notebooks that feature built-in Blu-ray Disc (BD) optical disc drives (ODDs) and HD-DVD drives at Computex 2006. The company will also feature a 42-inch LCD TV at its booth during the event.

Tens of thousands of pirate DVDs have been found by police officers on patrol in east London.

Sony has announced a new portable DVD player - the D-VE7000S - breaking away from the company's focus on the UMD format found in the PSP. The video walkman will play DVD and CD discs, including recordables and rewriteables and the newly announced DVD+RW dual-layer format.

If you are wondering if it is worth it upgrading your XP machine to Vista later in the year you might want to have a look at some free software to give you a clue.

Microsoft has taken private action against a UK software pirate after he continued selling counterfeit software, despite receiving a criminal conviction for the same offence.

Sony Computer Entertainment UK's managing director, Ray Maguire, has revealed that to Eurogamer that the PlayStation 3 will set British gamers back £425 when it arrives here on November 17 - which he believes is "a bargain."

NEC has offered its own-brand DVD burners without burning software for sale in the European market at an average price of below US$30 (£16) in what appears a deliberate attempt to undercut the competition who have been quoting prices at $33-$35 (£17.50 - £18.50).

Sony is ready for volume production of Blu-ray Disc (BD) pre-recorded discs, BD-ROM, which will be undertaken by Sony Digital Audio Disc Corporation (Sony DADC), according to sources in Taiwan's optical disc manufacturing industry.

Microsoft on Wednesday finally detailed the hardware specifications required to run its Vista operating system. The company also launched a "Get Ready" program to help consumers prepare for the upgrade.

Samsung, in light of fast growing demand for DVD+R/-R discs in China, turned aggressive early this quarter in marketing DVD+R/-R disc under its Pleomax brand name by making its products extensively available through Orbbit, its China sale agent and lowering retail prices, according to industry sources.

A new Trojan horse seeks out and wipes movies and MP3 music tracks that it believes have been illegally distributed through file-sharing networks.

Samsung is set to exhibit the first commercial prototype of a Hybrid Hard Disk (HHD) for notebooks and PCs that integrates NAND flash memory with rotating magnetic storage.

Pioneer is now shipping the industry's first Blu-ray Disc (BD) computer drives.

Retail sources in the UK have said that Microsoft has intimated to them that the HD-DVD add-on for the Xbox 360 will be priced such that console and peripheral combined are cheaper than Sony's PS3.

The Recording Industry Ass of America (RIAA) has filed a lawsuit against XM Satellite Radio over its new device, the Pioneer Inno, which allows users to save songs heard on the radio.

A software piracy case cost the UK taxpayer more than £19m in legal aid last year.

Microsoft's new Windows Media Player has been leaked a couple of days early. It is 22.9MB and this version is in RAR format. We have no idea of its history, but it does download, and hasn't got a virus attached that we could see.