For all its troubles, Sony seems to be the first big tech company to embrace the idea of advertising as content. In this digital age, where we can fast-forward past ads with our PVRs, or go to places like YouTube where there aren’t any ads in the way, advertising has to be its own reason …

Crave was tantalised by the idea of the PDT Eye-Theatre. Would it afford relief from squinting at the beautifully clear but frustratingly small iPod screen? Would it finally allow us to enter the William Gibson-esque world of virtual reality immerso-specs? And why does the set make us look so like Star Trek‘s Geordi La Forge? We also liked the price …

Is there a big difference between 1080 and 768 resolutions for LCD TVs? I am trying to decide between two Sony TVs — the KDL-40X2000 and the KDL-40V2000. I was told that the key is to find out if the resolution is interlaced (i) or progressive scanning (p). I can’t see this on Sony’s Web site tech specs on either of …

It may be sooner than you want to think about it, but Christmas is coming. Before you know it you’ll be tucking into turkey, nursing hangovers and engaging in traditional arguments — like what to watch during the peak TV viewing season. With so many channels to choose from on Freeview, keeping all the family happy is going to be …

If you want to watch films at near high-definition quality before the dust settles on the Blu-ray versus HD DVD hi-def format war, an upscaling DVD player is the answer. Denon has concentrated its efforts on upgrading existing technology before becoming involved in any next-generation infighting. The new DVD-3930 uses state-of-the-art technology, which Denon claims produces a picture that rivals …

France enacts its controversial, and now watered-down, law as regulators in Scandinavia scrutinize the music service. France’s diluted iTunes plan becomes law But Socialist Party still hopes to revise it, likely forcing copyright-protecting tech to be freely interoperable. August 4, 2006 Norwegian watchdog scrutinizes iTunes DRM Consumer council accuses Apple of unfair practices. Apple says it’s protecting the interests of …

A newly launched peer-to-peer trade association has offered to sit down and negotiate with music industry lawyers, while it simultaneously denounced its adversaries as obsolete and “tyrannosaurical.” P2P United, a group of six peer-to-peer businesses, held a coming-out event Monday in Washington, D.C. The lobbying effort is designed to demonstrate to the U.S. Congress that peer-to-peer companies are legitimate enterprises …

For a few fearful minutes in late 2004, iMesh co-founder Talmon Marco thought Garth Brooks had sunk his company. Marco was in New York, showing off the technology behind the new iMesh peer-to-peer music service slated for release this Tuesday. The software was supposed to identify and block virtually any copyrighted song being downloaded from peer-to-peer networks. But this time, …

The cheaper end of the DLP (Digital Light Processing) projector market is plagued by the dreaded ‘acid-trip’, or ‘rainbow’ effect, a kind of visual distortion that causes red, green and blue motion-blur artefacting when you flit your eyes across the screen. To paraphrase Hunter S. Thompson (he of gonzo journalism fame), there is nothing more helpless and irresponsible than a …

New technology is often blighted by teething problems, as early adopters of Sky’s HDTV service will confirm — ever since Sky’s high-definition broadcasts launched earlier this year, its HD receiver boxes have been plagued by complaints from disgruntled consumers. Thanks to a recent firmware upgrade, however, subscribers have been reporting that these problems with bugs and instability could be a …