In an ambitious music campaign to raise money for Darfur, Amnesty International is relying on a new widget to promote viral sales of re-recorded John Lennon songs on sites like MySpace.com and across the blogosphere. The campaign, called Instant Karma, will promote an album of the same name with Lennon song tracks recorded by U2, …

BT sent a lovely chap called Dave to my flat last week to install its Vision PVR/on-demand box. Apparently we can’t be trusted to plug them in ourselves, so customers have to pay a £60 installation charge — but considering the 160GB PVR box only costs £30, this isn’t such a bad deal. The box itself, built by Philips but …

CBS has purchased Last.fm, a social-networking site devoted to music. What it plans to do with the site, however, isn’t clear yet. With the $280 million deal, announced Wednesday, CBS has acquired a popular social-media technology: the music “scrobbling” engine developed by Last.fm that analyzes what its members listen to. Based on scrobbling results, Last.fm offers recommendations for members’ playlists, …

Apple’s iTunes Store began selling DRM-free songs from EMI on Wednesday. DRM (digital rights management) software prevents owners from copying or freely using a digital file across multiple devices. As expected, all the songs from music label EMI that are sold on iTunes are now available in DRM-free versions. Shoppers have the option to purchase either a 256kbps AAC-encoded DRM-free …

Pam Carroll Commentary I believe that most vendors try to do the right thing by their customers, but occasionally things go wrong. It is significant news today then, that Sharp is undertaking a recall of its 42-inch LCD TV models due to a potentially serious overheating and electrical problem. For the proponents of LCDs who are trying desperately to stake …

Sharp Corporation of Australia has announced a voluntary product recall on all 42-inch models of its LCD TVs. The precautionary measure is being taken after the discovery that in these TVs, there is a chance that a small piece of foam shielding could dislodge from its mounting and make contact with the power board. This could in turn cause overheating …

Philips pulled off the most elaborate launch of CES so far, with a working Blu-Ray player, gorgeous new Ambilight TV technology and a rather spiffing new VOIP phone. Crave took time out after the event to be given a guided tour of the new technology as most of it was unveiled way ahead of the Spring launch. Philips’ Blu-ray player looks gorgeous, …

Pioneer got the jump on its rivals in announcing the first Blu-ray player to hit the market today at CES, even if it was only thanks to press conference timing. However, when it launches in June the BDP-HD1 won’t come cheap. This 1080p compatible player will cost $1,800, and it doesn’t even record to the format. The player is geared …

While the forward march of technology usually results in lower prices for us consumers, it seems that a quiet revolution is starting in the world of DVD players. We seriously thought we would see DVD players given away free inside packets of Corn Flakes soon, but it seems like the latest icon of geek chic is a super-expensive DVD player that will …

I get to see most new gadgets as they pass through the office, but some things you can only touch at trade shows, and even then some security guard is watching over you, ready to break your arms if you look suspicious. There have been a couple of examples this year — the best home projector I’ve ever seen in …

Toshiba has been shouting about the HD DVD format for a while, fighting off Sony’s rival Blu-ray in a bitter standards war. Toshiba’s format is supposedly cheaper to produce and has the backing of Microsoft, but so far we’ve yet to see a non-prototype HD DVD player. Today at CES, Toshiba showed off not one but two new players, one designed to hit …

Hooray — there’s going to be more high-definition stuff on Sky! Now that Warner Bros is on board, it has deals in place with all the major Hollywood studios, so we’ll be getting films like V for Vendetta and Syriana, among others. Sky has also announced its latest stats showing that 244,000 people have signed up to Sky HD over …

Channel 4’s new video on-demand service — 4oD — is a breakthrough service for the UK that allows you to freely catch up on the station’s TV programming from the comfort of your desk or armchair. But it’s being severly restricted by the UK’s Internet service providers — the companies who provide your broadband. The service runs on VeriSign’s Kontiki …

Okay, this isn’t a new product, but we were so impressed with it at a trade show we felt the need to get one in anyway. PURE Digital’s Legato II is a digital diamond of a mini system, with built-in DAB radio, an SD card slot and a USB port for MP3 playback, a CD player of course, three auxiliary …

It’s always good to see a new Sharp TV. They rarely disappoint our keen eye, in either looks or picture quality. But the new Aquos LC37RD2E has caught our eye for a different reason — it has a new 100Hz mode. These are all the rage at the moment and can make a huge difference if you want smoother motion …