Digital Audio/Video News

LOS ANGELES - Sheryl Crow wants your vote — and figures she can get it for a song.

TOKYO (AFP) - Apple is offering to replace faulty batteries in iPod nanos in Japan following a government warning that the popular music players may pose a fire hazard, a company spokesman said Thursday.

BEIJING (Reuters) - The downloading of music for iPod players has hit a mysterious glitch in China, stumping scores of users and raising fears the government has blocked Apple's iTunes site over pro-Tibet lyrics, analysts said on Thursday.

SEATTLE - Digital cameras have liberated awe-struck travelers and proud parents from worrying about the price of film processing. But showing off those megapixels of memories is still reminiscent of tedious living room slideshows — and perhaps now worse, because instead of one blurry photo of the Eiffel Tower or the high school musical, there might be 50.

SAN FRANCISCO - A federal judge is allowing a Pennsylvania woman to sue Universal Music Corp. for forcing YouTube to take down a video clip of her baby dancing to Prince's "Let's Go Crazy."

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Indian conglomerate Reliance ADA Group's media and entertainment division is launching Jump Games U.S.A., a publisher and developer of mobile video games, in its latest effort to expand into the United States.

On Wednesday, Intel and Yahoo announced a sweeping initiative to embed Internet-connected, software widget applications – and ads – directly on your HDTV. Several major CE manufacturers expressed support.

LONDON (Reuters) - Thousands of people suspected of sharing music, films and games over the Internet will be pursued through the courts for damages, lawyers for entertainment companies said on Wednesday.

SINGAPORE (Reuters) - Motorola Inc, the world's third-largest handset maker, unveiled two new low-end phones on Wednesday that allow users to listen to songs and surf the Web.

Ringback tones, those songs that play on the line while you wait for someone to pick up, are music to the ears wireless operators. And the tune is only going to get sweeter, according to a new report out Tuesday.

SEATTLE - Apple Inc. said Tuesday that batteries from a single supplier are to blame for the meltdown of some models of its tiny iPod Nano digital music player.

The Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry, after two years of speculating fires in Japan involved iPod nanos, confirmed Tuesday that the fires were caused by Apple's music players.

DUBLIN (Reuters) - Rock stars may have to rein in their taste for loud music after a fan overheard U2 frontman Bono listening to tracks from the group's forthcoming album and recorded them before posting the songs on the Internet.

A report has surfaced that Pandora -- the popular music-mix service for computers and mobile devices such as the iPhone -- may have to stop music streaming as royalty fees drain its cash.

What's your next step if your company's high-definition DVD format lost the war? If you're Toshiba, you come out with a new DVD player that converts to high-def.

NEW YORK - Picture whipping out your cell phone and catching up with "Lost" or "Jeopardy," or watching the local 11 o'clock news, all for free. You can do this with an imported Chinese phone, but you can't with any phone sold in the U.S. — at least not without monthly charges.

The next time U2 manager Paul McGuinness wants to rant about music piracy on the Internet, he may have to add his own boss to his list of targets.

LOS ANGELES - Eddy Hartenstein, a former head of DirecTV, will become publisher of the Los Angeles Times, the newspaper reported Saturday.

SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - Tribune Co has appointed the former chief executive of satellite television provider DirecTV as publisher of the Los Angeles Times, the paper said in its Saturday edition.

Rich Peters of Iowa City, Iowa, explained why he's a Democrat in a simple video with a few scene changes, a dog as a prop, and straightforward analysis-- and now YouTube will fly Peters to the Democratic Convention in Denver to present his video and travel with the press pool for a day.

LOS ANGELES - Online music thieves can't interfere with the hundreds of songwriters Hanna Rochelle Schmieder has on her payroll.

BEIJING (Reuters) - Many Chinese unable to catch the Olympics on television will watch national hurdling hero Liu Xiang retain his 110 meter crown next week by simply switching on their cellphone.

NEW YORK - Research company eMarketer is sharply reducing its spending projections for online video advertising, saying the market hasn't been as strong as the firm had previously estimated.

LOS ANGELES - Liberty Media Corp.'s Starz pay TV subsidiary is pulling the plug on its Vongo movie-download service in favor of letting Verizon Communications Inc. and other affiliates market a similar service.

Instant-messaging chat or dissing your Texas Hold 'em opponents on the iPhone just got one step closer. Global IP Solutions (GIPS) has announced the release of its near-ubiquitous voice-over IP (VoIP) developer software for the iPhone engineering crowd. GIPS VoiceEngine Mobile is a development toolkit for iPhone software developers who want to add voice and streaming video to iPhone applications.

SEATTLE (Reuters) - Napster Inc posted a bigger quarterly loss on Monday as the number of its paid subscribers declined, and the online music service predicted revenue to be mostly flat in the current quarter.

Raise your hand if you think downloading music from file-sharing service Kazaa is just like listening an Internet radio station? No? Anyone? Yes, District Judge Xavier Rodriguez?

NEW YORK (Billboard) - This fall, the Independent Film Channel will be running more music-related programming -- on-air and online -- than at any time in its 14-year history.