Latest Technology News

Downloads of digital music are up, while CD sales are down. But CDs are here to stay - with adults, anyway, if not with teens, according to JupiterMedia analysts.

"Sales of music CDs are continuing to decline annually at double-digit rates. At the same time, we see indications that downloads of digital music are increasing," noted Mark Best, an analyst at JupiterResearch. "That said, digital music downloads are not replacing music CDs."

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A discovery buried deep within the code of some iPhone applications may be cause for concern for those who like to know who's seeing their data.

Some code-savvy users of the iPhone discovered the lines in a hidden string in at least two applications on the device, Stocks.app and Weather.app. The information is sent to a website on Apple's servers, according to the users.

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Pioneer-funded SyncTV claims an a la carte selection of DVD quality cable programming, but looks like another Vongo.

As the potential for a la carte cable programming is speculated upon, SyncTV has opened in private beta, adding more cable content to the online market.

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While some may view it as a sign of desperation, Sony on Monday said that it will cut licensing fees for the PS3 SDK in half to spur additional game development.

The package now costs $10,250 in the US, 950,000 yen in Japan, and 7,500 euros in Europe. With lower prices now both for the consumer in the form of a system price cut, and for the developer in the SDK, it hopefully will mean higher sales and profits for the PS3.

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The Redmond company has apparently overestimated the demand for some of its players, leaving high stocks of one model on shelves while others are difficult -- if not impossible -- to find.

Microsoft launched both new flash-based players in 4 and 8GB versions, as well as an 80GB hard-drive based model. A quick check of retailers showed ample stocks of the smaller players, but the 80GB was out of stock.

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In an effort to make its investment in ATI pay off, AMD is rolling out its first comprehensive PC platform today, aimed carefully at the lower half of the high-dollar enthusiast market.

The Spider platform aims to accomplish for the enthusiast market what Intel's Centrino accomplished for the mobile connectivity market: to specify components that are certain to work together without fuss. In this case, it's a three-way combo consisting of its long-awaited RV670 chipset family, now called its "7-series;" its ATI Radeon 3800 series graphics cards, unveiled just last Friday; and its Phenom series quad-core (not tri-core) processors, announced last May.

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As expected, Amazon debuted its $399 Kindle book reader at a Monday press event in New York. But will it be enough to finally help electronic books take off?

The retailer is ready to make a big deal out of the product as well: a letter from CEO Jeff Bezos greeted users visiting the Amazon.com front page beginning Monday morning. He says that Kindle was born of his interest in electronic books, and how they could be improved.

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While EarthLink says it's now considering new "strategic alternatives" for its municipal Wi-Fi projects, the Philadelphia Inquirer is reporting the company could very well leave that city with a partly-finished project if it backs out now.

"We will not devote any new capital to the old municipal WiFi model that has us taking all the risks," said EarthLink CEO Rolla Huff in a statement late last week. "In my judgment, that model is simply unworkable."

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With the new Bento personal database now in the wings, Microsoft Access will soon be way upstaged, and Apple-owned FileMaker may finally have a database that's fully compatible with Leopard.

"Bento puts [Microsoft] Access to shame," said one attendee at Pepcom's Digital Experience event in New York City, summing up a sentiment common among those who viewed vendor-delivered demos of FileMaker's Bento, unveiled just this week.

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A report published this afternoon by a Congressional panel states "Chinese espionage activities in the United States are so extensive that they comprise the single greatest risk to the security of American technologies."

This is the conclusion of the US-China Economic and Security Review Commission (USCC), a 12-person bipartisan panel whose members are selected by Congress. The Commission is responsible for advising Congress how to handle major economic and technological issues with China.

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By a vote of 227-189, the US House of Representatives yesterday passed its version of the RESTORE Act, in an attempt to strengthen foreign intelligence surveillance restrictions while preserving individuals' rights, including the right to sue.

H.R. 3773 seeks to amend the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA), with the principal aim being to prevent the Justice Dept., the CIA, or any other intelligence-gathering source from obtaining communications from "non-United States persons" without a warrant from an exclusive FISA court.

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NPD's sales numbers for the PlayStation 3 still show the console lagging its competitors badly, however it was before the price of the console dropped.

Sony cut prices on the PS3 on November 2, but the data is for the month of October. What can be gleaned from NPD's data is that Nintendo is likely selling its consoles as fast as they can ship them.

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Hardly content to rest on its laurels with its widely heralded Eee "PC gadget," Taiwan-based Asus has additional slick consumer products in mind for display at CES.

Asus, maker of the pint-sized Linux-based Eee PC, expects to display at least two new offerings at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas in January: its largest Windows PC to date, plus its first cell phone for the North American market.

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YouTube is planning to upgrade the quality of its videos within the next three months, but it will not be high-definition video.

The social video company has been testing higher quality video, but it does not want to alienate its traditional users with long load times. YouTube provides content to everyone, co-founder Steve Chen said at the NewTeeVee conference.

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Singapore's video game market has been given a temporary ratings system after the Bioware Xbox 360 game Mass Effect came under scrutiny for "lesbian activity."

While a permanent classification system will not be in place until January, the Board of Film Censors said in a statement that highly-anticipated games will be selectively given ratings so that the public may better understand why such a system is beneficial. The game, slated for release on November 20, was widely reported yesterday to have been banned, but today it has been given a rating of "M18," the film board's equivalent of an "R" rating.

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