Chronos, God of time, born from Chaos, celebrated star of Greek mythology, and now a bedside alarm clock. How far the great have fallen. Did the great God Chronos imagine that one day he would be awakening the commuter from her hazy red wine slumber and propelling her into the bathroom to the wolverine yapping …

Crave’s beautiful 32-inch Sharp LCD is about to hijacked by a World Cup-obsessed partner so we are currently looking into alternatives. Sony’s new DVD Walkman caught our eye this morning — the timing was perfect. According to Sony, the D-VE7000S DVD Walkman has a 7-inch LCD widescreen, isn’t much bigger than a DVD case, and weighs about the same as …

File-swapping company Grokster has agreed to stop distributing its peer-to-peer software, following a $50 million legal settlement announced Monday with Hollywood studios and record labels. Along with co-defendant StreamCast Networks, Grokster had been accused by the music and movie industries of contributing to widespread copyright infringement by people who used its software to download songs and films. Monday’s settlement comes …

It must be a good time to be at the helm of the Recording Industry Association of America. The RIAA, the primary trade association for the American recording industry with a $27.7 million annual budget, is enjoying a string of recent political and legal victories. In last year’s Grokster case, the U.S. Supreme Court unanimously overturned a lower court’s ruling …

As Microsoft continues to enjoy mostly favorable reviews of its new Windows Media Player 11 jukebox software, analysts say the real boost for the company’s latest foray into music is a partnership with MTV Networks. As expected, Microsoft officially rolled out a test version of Windows Media Player 11 for XP on Wednesday, two days after the free software could …

Elvis Presley would judge the recording quality of his songs by whether the sound “moved him or not,” says music producer Elliot Mazer. After four decades producing some of the recording industry’s biggest artists–everyone from Janis Joplin to Switchfoot–Mazer has developed his own test. He asks himself: “Can you enjoy the music when it’s playing at a low level?” In …

review Windows Media Player 11–which debuted at the Consumer Electronics Show earlier this year and features a visually appealing interface, as well as impressive features and performance–is Microsoft’s best jukebox to date. Not that it was a grand feat to improve upon a generally disappointing string of versions, including the somewhat awkward version 10. Still, if Microsoft is ever going …

We were promised music for every generation, culture and religion, but did we get any of this? Did DAB really deliver? The DAB revolution promised CD-quality sound and a dazzling choice of radio stations. It promised digital airwaves filled with indie outfits broadcasting deliciously quirky music from the underground scene. Did this happen? No. DAB slapped us in the face …

Sony is moving to make its music management software compatible with Apple Computer’s audio file format in the latest evidence of Apple’s dominance in digital music. The behemoth Japanese conglomerate, which once controlled the portable music market, announced Tuesday that the company’s data compression technology would be compatible with a number of rival formats, including Apple’s format of choice, AAC. …

As the HD DVD versus Blu-ray format debacle bumbles along, our sister reviews site in the US, CNET.com, has an initial review of Toshiba’s first HD DVD player, the Toshiba HD-A1. The bottom line? It produces stunning high-definition images, but has a series of compromises that may deter all but the most hardcore of home-cinema fanatics. According to the review, …