DDEX has announced digital music distributor The Orchard has become a charter member, and will deal with marketing and promotion standards in the Web 2.0 sector.

The Digital Data Exchange (DDEX) was formed in 2006 under the "big four" major label record companies Sony, Universal, Warner, and EMI with the purpose of creating a single set of standard XML messages for the digital media trade. By doing this, the information on album and video streams and sales would be easier for participating companies to exchange, simplifying the flow of money among them.

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Video game giant Nintendo has adjusted its outlook for the remainder of the fiscal year, and forecasts a 33% lower profit than previously expected.

Nintendo's financial reports today showed the great impact of large changes in exchange rates. As the Japanese yen sharply climbed in value, sales in the European and American markets dropped in value. This is evidence that even if sales are high, their mitigating effect on profits is substantially lessened by global currency exchange.

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Released to the Android market in beta last November, Opera Mini today received the definitive update to "final version."

This version allows uploading and downloading of files through the browser, and allows pages to be saved for offline viewing. YouTube videos and the like (not all Flash 9+ video sites are supported) are redirected through the system's video player, double tapping the screen now activates zoom, trackball speed issues have been addressed, and text size can now be changed to "extra large" for easier navigation.

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Sony's PSP was Time's "Gotta Have it" device for 2005, which was like being voted "Person of the Year." Now as the PSP enters its middle-age, it is the subject of less adulation, and more dismissive grumbling.

Today, GamesIndustry.biz posted an interview with Laurent Benadiba, CEO of French software developers Smack Down Productions, who says publishers are discouraged from making PlayStation Portable games, despite it being an outstanding platform.

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Download Audacity for Mac OS X from Fileforum now.

Audacity X, the Mac version of the free open source audio editing and recording tool created by Google Dev Dominic Mazzoni, quietly received a beta upgrade this morning, fixing a handful of bugs and including some new features. The new features include Full Screen mode, a pitch shift/time scale slider effect, a WCAG2 accessibility testing function, improved latency correction and effect grouping.

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The Sony Bravia XEL is tiny. The Organic LED screen measures only 11" across, and has a profile of only 3 millimeters, roughly the thickness of two stacked pennies. But this size carries with it a heavy pricetag, and in the US, units cost between $2,400 and $2,600 each. Today, the OLED screen is available in the UK at a price point twice that of North American retailers, £3,489 ($4,944).

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An invitation to Acer's press conference at GSMA in Barcelona on February 16 confirms that the third largest PC manufacturer will be entering the smartphone market.

Acer's Gianfranco Lanci talked about the company's plans for launching a Windows Mobile smartphone last year, after the company announced that it was acquiring Taiwanese smartphone manufacturer E-TEN.

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IBM today announced that it has resolved its suit against former PowerPC chip and blade server executive Mark Papermaster. In November of last year, the company filed for a preliminary injunction that would have denied Papermaster an advisory position at Apple because he knew too many of IBM's secrets.

Papermaster and IBM agreed on a resolution that would keep the executive from beginning work at Apple until April 24 of this year, whereupon he will remain subject to all of his former contractual obligations at IBM, including the obligation to not divulge any of IBM's confidential information. Papermaster will be under the watchful eyes of the court until October 24, 2009, a full year after he officially left IBM. In that time, he will have to legally certify in July and October that he has adhered to his legal obligations. There was no announcement regarding the monetary terms of this settlement.

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Apple has pushed out a minor software update to its iPhone, iPhone 3G, and iPod Touch devices this afternoon. According to the update information from Apple, among 246MB worth of unnamed bug fixes and improvements, Safari's stability has been improved, and an "issue where some images saved from Mail do not display correctly in the Camera Roll" has been fixed.

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Yesterday evening, Apple released the Nvidia Graphics Update 2009 which deals with video smoothness issues on Macs equipped with GeForce 7300 GT or GeForce 9600M graphics cards.

The primary fix involves cursor movement and visibility when a Mac (MacBoook, MacBook Pro, MacBook Air) with one of these Nvidia cards is using a Dual-link DVI adaptor connected to the Mini DisplayPort. This particular piece of hardware was a requirement for anyone who bought an updated Mac in October and wanted to use it with a 30" external monitor. Unfortunately, the $99 product wasn't available until the end of December.

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Consumer storage space continues its intrepid climb today as Western Digital announced its WD Caviar Green Drive, a 3.5" SATA drive that offers a 2 TB ceiling. Caviar uses WD's 500 GB/platter technology with 400 GB per square inch areal density and 32 MB cache.

The 2 TB WD Caviar Green (WD20EADS) has a suggested retail price of $299.99 and is available immediately.

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Under the NSA's Secure Mobile Environment/Portable Electronic Device (SME PED) program, President Obama will have two candidates to choose from: the Sectera Edge and the L-3 Guardian.

Obama's BlackBerry reliance ("They'll have to pry it from my hands!") has caused a great deal of speculation recently about which device will replace his beloved smartphone. Under the NSA's SME PED (Secure Mobile Environment/Portable Electronic Device) program, two devices are being considered the likely candidates for replacement.

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The US Patent Office has granted "Jobs, et al" a patent for multitouch techniques. The patent is entitled "Touch screen device, method, and graphical user interface for determining commands by applying heuristics."

Heuristics is a commonly used term in computer science, and here refers to a set of loosely-defined parameters that can be applied to numerous situations, and the important thing to note here is that it's not the commands themselves being patented, rather the device and its associated GUI and methods for recognizing those commands.

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In Mozilla's weekly project meeting yesterday, updates to mobile browser Fennec were discussed, and the M1 milestone release target for Windows Mobile was noted.

According to the meeting's minutes: "We are targeting a Milestone release for the first week of February, targeting the HTC touch pro. We are two patches away from the meta goal of building from trunk. The tools changes have review from dougt, and are waiting for review from ted, who has promised review by the end of the week. NSPR changes are waiting for review from Nelson, who asked for and received a patch against NSPR trunk."

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The .tel top level domain, which strives to become the standard for virtual contact information will finally be available for public purchase on February 3, more than two and a half years after it received ICANN approval. A .tel domain is intended to be a virtual rolodex card, a place where a business or individual can store phone numbers, addresses, userIDs and even GPS coordinates that launch appropriate communications protocols when clicked.

Corporate launch for the domains took place on December 3, and the global consumer landrush will begin on February 3. During that time, it will be around $300 to purchase a .tel domain for three years. Normal pricing will then go into effect on March 24, when it will be about $10 to $20 for a name per year. Pricing will vary by registrar.

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