Facing an outcry over imminent royalty fee increases for Internet radio operators, the music industry body that lobbied for the changes has attempted a peace offering. SoundExchange, the nonprofit group that collects the fees on behalf of hundreds of major and independent record companies, said on Tuesday that it would give “small” Webcasters the option …

Crave is a fan of curves. Curves are aesthetic and useful at the same time. Curves are what make motor racing entertaining — where would ickle Lewis Hamilton be without wheels, corners and those girls who hold the umbrellas? Yes, we’re big fans. So it was with much excitement that we noticed how wonderfully curvy the new Samsung LE32R87 is. …

Critics of digital rights management have long insisted that record labels could boost sagging sales by offering music unencumbered by copy-protection schemes. Apple’s iTunes and e-tailer Amazon.com are in position to test this hypothesis in the coming months. On Wednesday, Amazon announced that it plans to sell digital songs from record label EMI Group that will be DRM-free. Amazon’s unprotected …

Napster said on Tuesday it agreed to make its music subscription service available on Motorola’s mobile phones. Napster and Motorola will develop promotional efforts for North America, the United Kingdom and Germany designed to let consumers listen to Napster’s music on many Motorola music-enabled handsets. Financial details of the deal were not disclosed.

Digital kids Software for kindergarten Beethovens By Stefanie Olsen Staff Writer, CNET News.com Published: May 14, 2007 4:00 AM PDT Child prodigies are rare in any artistic pursuit, but new music composition software is making it easier for parents and teachers to raise a little Beethoven. Sibelius, a well-known maker of software that’s used by musicians as well as composers …

Pioneer has certainly managed to pack a helluva lot into the LX01. Firstly, it’s a Freeview receiver with PVR functionality. You can save programmes to the built-in DVD writer or 160GB hard disk. But that’s not all — it’s also a fully fledged surround-sound system offering eight channels of glorious cinema-style audio. The most interesting feature is the new surround-sound …

My Toshiba 32WL56 has only one HDMI port, which is already used by the Sky HD Box. I want to buy an upscaling DVD player to get the best out of my collection, do they need an HDMI port or can I use the Scart? If I can’t, is it possible to plug two HDMI cables into an adaptor? Robert …

High-definition projectors are ten a penny these days, so we think we can be forgiven for missing the ViewSonic PJ258D, released earlier this year. “Better late than never,” goes the saying, and who are we to question the authority of anonymous saying-makers? The PJ258D is a high-definition DLP projector and — here’s the hook, gadget fans — comes equipped with …

Ohio University recently informed students that the use of peer-to-peer technology has been banned from the campus computer network. The reasons cited range from network congestion to malicious software to piracy. While the university acknowledges that there are legitimate uses of P2P technologies, the blanket ban on the technology stands. By instituting this ban, Ohio University has demonstrated a serious …

If you want a new television and have some money left over after the government has finished taxing you, may we suggest a shiny new model from Samsung? The LE46M87 is from a range it ambiguously calls ‘Bordeaux’. We’ve licked it, and it doesn’t taste anything like wine. If anything, it was a little salty. The M87 TVs are really …