News from Sling Media hasn't been this big in quite a while. The Slingbox Pro-HD is now available -- the company's first device that enables streaming of high-definition content.

Though the device is half a year late, the new Slingbox Pro-HD is fortunately over a hundred dollars cheaper than originally anticipated. Priced at $299.99, the Slingbox Pro-HD can be purchased directly from Sling, or at select stores throughout the country.

Back in April, Sony President Ryoji Chubachi projected that its Blu-ray Disc format would garner 50 percent of DVD market share by the end of 2008. At this rate, according to new data, we could get there in about nine years.

For the US home video market, new figures from Nielsen VideoScan show that Blu-ray ended last week with a scant 8 percent share -- only two percentage points over the 6 percent recorded for the last week of April, and a 13.4% decline over the previous week.

The latest Skyfire beta offers a full Web browsing experience to WM5, WM6, and Symbian S60 devices, enabling the consumption of media that's usually off limits to users of the "mobile Web." At least that's what it offers.

Of the three "screens" that the marketers of converged devices say are critical to the consumers' lifestyles -- television, computer, and handset -- it's the third that has been the most neglected in terms of the availability of media. Sure, improved storage has allowed greater volumes of audio and video content to be stored and played back on mobile phones. But with streaming media now a prime focus for content providers, our lowest-power and often most slowly connected screen could often use a little push.

Is the Justice Dept. unconcerned with everyday cases intellectual property theft, like the one profiled in the upcoming movie, Flash of Genius? No, it's just that there's not enough resources to go around, says a key DOJ official.

Bipartisan legislation introduced earlier this month before both houses of Congress would enable the President to appoint an "intellectual property czar," responsible for the enforcement of the nation's IP protection laws and answerable to the Executive Branch. But that would entail the creation of a major new wing of the Dept. of Justice whose responsibility would be to prosecute even the smallest cases, including instances that have typically been tried in civil court up to now.

Broadband service providers are perfectly capable of setting up appropriate safeguards for users who may be targeted by behavioral ad platforms, said ISPs' executives this morning. It's the content providers we should be worried about.

It was an eerie setting on Capitol Hill this morning, as representatives from three of the nation's largest broadband ISPs -- Verizon, Time Warner, and AT&T (Comcast was conspicuously absent) -- plus the founder of Public Knowledge, noticed the hearing taking place in front of them very nearly suggested the absence of a quorum. Not that the subject of ad targeting methodologies for broadband users wasn't important. But with the Senate Commerce Committee's own chairman absent from this morning's hearing, and with only three senators present at any one time -- the bare minimum -- you definitely got the feeling something bigger was going on next door.

Earlier this summer, Roku, the company responsible for the hit $99 Netflix streaming set top box, said the device would soon support major content providers other than Netflix. With the release of an SDK, that finally looks viable.

Roku CEO and Founder Anthony Wood, formerly of ReplayTV, gave a keynote speech yesterday morning at the Streaming Media West conference in San Jose, entitled "The Future of Internet TV: Primetime Anytime." There, Wood proclaimed that the DVR (which his former company claims responsibility for inventing), is in its death throes, because "Streaming from the Internet to the TV is a much better solution."

EA has been sued in the Northern District of California over DRM software placed in its evolution simulator game Spore developed by Will Wright and Maxis.

Though the game itself is regarded very highly, any praise it has received has been greatly overshadowed by the public's vexation at the SecuROM copy protection that caps installations at three. In the midst of public complaints, EA later increased the install limit to five.

Just as before, the site offers unlimited free streaming of content posted to an artist's profile. But now its system for playlist creation and purchase has improved, especially now that the fourth and final big label is secured.

Social Network MySpace has officially launched its music-dedicated portal after securing EMI as its final partner among the Big Four major labels.

InterCage (a.k.a., Atrivo), the network provider notoriously fingered as a major purveyor of malware, found its way back online after a days-long shutdown cheered by anti-malware and anti-spam activists.

Could pulling just one firm offline make a noticeable dent in the malware trafficking problem? That may depend on whether Sunday's move by former upstream provider Pacific Internet Exchange (PIE) to cut InterCage's connection makes an impression on owner Emil Kacperski.

The Minnesota woman who lost the only RIAA copyright-infringement case to go to trial thus far had her verdict set aside Wednesday by the judge who originally oversaw the case.

District Court judge Michael Davis took the remarkable step of vacating the verdict reached on Capitol v. Thomas in his very own courtroom. The judge's 44-page decision is based on his conclusion that he did give the jury improper instruction as to whether the law disallows making files available for distribution, as Ms. Thomas allegedly did when she saved songs in a folder that was visible to peer-to-peer networks.

Suppose only a small percentage of the American population finds themselves without television service come next February, and either don't know why or aren't sure what to do. Are federal, state, and local governments ready for them?

After a pair of congressional hearings in recent days where witnesses gave generally favorable reports on the status of the nation's transition to digital television -- still slated for next February 17 -- leaders there are still putting out the word that a crisis of misinformation may not be avoided in time.

Sony Ericsson's PlayNow Arena has just been given a boost, with a plan for unlimited downloads and an agenda to roll it out to wireless customers worldwide.

PlayNow Arena fully launched in the Scandanavian countries Denmark, Finland, Norway, and Sweden in August, offering mobile entertainment content for Sony Ericsson users. The service uses a "cover flow" type interface to sell music, games, ringtones, and other phone content.

Judging from the announcement at this week's OracleWorld, both enterprise cloud computing and virtualization customers could soon get new data encryption technologies that are "hardware-rooted."

Oracle and Intel are now working together on enterprise computing "clouds" that will use data encryption for improved privacy, the two companies said at this week's OracleWorld conference.

M2Z, major supporters of a "porn-free wireless broadband access for all" plan, have rebuffed T-Mobile's spectrum tests that say it would interfere with the company's cellular signal.

The 2155-2175 MHz band (termed advanced wireless service, or AWS) has been the subject of contention for several years, as chunks of spectrum are the one of the most important commodities for telecommunications operations, and different groups want it used for different purposes.

A new attachment for two of Motorola's enterprise digital assistants (EDAs) gives police and other mobile security folk the gear to check fingerprints in the field.

It's the stuff of nightmares and various cheesy cop shows: The bad guy gets control of an officer's gun / radio / car and takes his mayhem to a new level. But with the announcement of a biometric attachment for two models of their EDAs popular with police and other security personnel, Motorola's looking to increase the peace.