Beginning Sunday, Toshiba will be offering a $100 USD instant rebate on its entry-level HD DVD player for a period of one month, with the savings eventually being available on any player it sells.

The promotion will run from May 20 to June 16. For the entire period, the $100 instant rebate is applicable to the HD-A2 model, bringing the price down to $299.99 USD. During the final week, the rebate applies to any player.

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eBay has been criticized for its participation in the "rampant trade" of ivory on its site, with the International Fund for Animal Welfare (IFAW) saying 90 percent of the listings on the site for elephant ivory it found violate the site's own wildlife policies. The group is pushing the auction site to ban the trade of ivory on its pages entirely, as the elephant is facing extinction due to continuing trade of the valuable material.

A survey was conducted in eight countries, including the UK, Australia, China, Germany, the Netherlands, France, Canada and the USA, which found over 2,200 listings. IFAW argues that sellers are being permitted to list items without much oversight. Furthermore, few of the illegal items reported to eBay by the IFAW were removed, it claimed. "In general it is illegal to sell carved or uncarved ivory unless it is antique and accompanied by a proof of age certificate," the IFAW says.

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US Attorney General Alberto Gonzales is asking the US Congress to pass new intellectual property legislation that would stiffen penalties as well as criminalizing "attempted piracy."

Called the Intellectual Property Protection Act of 2007, the bill has several key provisions that aim to change how piracy is prosecuted. As mentioned previously, one change is the go-ahead for prosecutors to charge somebody who intends to commit piracy but does not complete the act.

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Warner Music Group has sued Imeem, claiming the social networking site is allowing its users to share content from the label without permission. The suit, filed in US District Court in Los Angeles, is asking for an injunction against the site as well as monetary damages.

Each instance of a music video or song owned by WMG could cost the site as much as $150,000 if the courts rule in favor of the label. Warner also claims Imeem has done little to prevent its users from sharing content and is actively participating in the infringement.

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LOS ANGELES - A video just shown here during the Day 2 morning keynote session at WinHEC showed Microsoft's "crack" server team working hard on the critical task of naming its new server operating system. After considering such candidates as "Windows Server Server Edition" and "I Can't Believe It's Not Windows NT," the team leader ends up tinkering with the name "Windows Server 2003" on the whiteboard, changing the "3" to an "8."

The message of the video was well-taken: Microsoft's taking itself a little less seriously now, coming to grips with its own legendary geekiness.

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The MySpace profiles of a "few thousand" convicted sex offenders have been removed, the popular social networking site said Tuesday. But the company says it will not hand over the users' names to states requesting the data.

The company had previously announced a program in December that will identify and block sex offenders that were attempting to use the site. Called Sentinel Safe, the technology matches information on profiles with a database of about 550,000 sex offenders nationwide.

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Sling Media, maker of the popular Slingbox device that lets users stream their television to laptops and cell phones while on the go, is testing a new service for sharing clips of shows. Called "Clip and Sling," the feature could raise the ire of TV networks, which is why the company is working closely with them.

CBS is currently testing Clip and Sling, and advertisements could be embedded to help offset piracy concerts. Sling Media is additionally looking to embed advertising in interactive content it delivers alongside programming such as sporting events. Moreover, the company is considering reselling broadband Internet service, as Slingbox requires a beefy connection to stream video.

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Faced with increasing competition from Google Maps and AOL's MapQuest, Yahoo is beefing up the driving directions offered on its Maps product, for the first time including directions in 34 European countries.

In addition, Yahoo has upgraded its Maps engine to provide more landmarks and visual cues to help with navigation. The new engine -- developed in house -- should help make the product more responsive as well. Yahoo has made sure the platform upgrade will not affect third parties using its APIs. Printing of maps has also received improvements.

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Online retailer Amazon.com on Wednesday confirmed rumors that it plans to open a music download store to compete with Apple's iTunes. Unlike competitors, however, Amazon will only sell songs in the unprotected MP3 format.

Amazon says it will offer millions of songs on the as-yet unnamed service, which come from 12,000 record labels. Most of these will be smaller, independent labels, as EMI is the only major to have agreed to license its tracks without digital rights management.

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At a special event in Los Angeles late Tuesday, Microsoft announced that its highly-anticipated "Halo 3" title for the Xbox 360 will hit store shelves on September 25. A multiplayer beta for Halo 3 begins today, and Microsoft is launching a Halo-styled Zune next month.

Halo 3 is the final installment in Microsoft's most popular gaming franchise, which was created by developer Bungie Studios. The game promises to "set a new standard for interactive storytelling and social gaming by engaging consumers worldwide in Master Chief’s epic battle to save humankind." Multiplayer support through Xbox live is a major selling point.

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A day after Napster secured a deal to power the music services on Motorola's new ROKR handsets, RealNetworks has inked a similar agreement with European wireless carrier Vodafone. But Real had to buy into the partnership.

Music offerings on Vodafone are currently powered by Sony NetServices, a joint venture of Sony DADC and Sony Europe, which was acquired Wednesday by Real. Both streaming Internet radio to mobile phones and music downloads are available through the solution.

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TiVo on Tuesday unveiled a new feature to help customers navigate through the hundreds of channels they receive and find programming that actually interests them. Named "Swivel Search," the new option will begin rolling out to Series2 and Series3 TiVo users Tuesday.

Dubbed the first "TV-centric on-screen search tool," Swivel Search (view a demo) starts on a program itself rather than requiring the user to type in keywords or titles. TiVo customers can select "More options" on a program to access the feature, which pulls up detailed information on the show or movie.

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DirecTV is considering offering broadband internet service via power lines next year, with the company mulling a wide-scale test in a major US city.

The satellite provider is one of several talking to power-line Internet equipment manufacturers about offering high-speed Internet services. A test to see if such a service is feasible would occur in a "top 50" city and would have a coverage area of at least half the city.

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LOS ANGELES - During a roundtable meeting of analysts and reporters here at WinHEC 2007, well-known Endpoint Technologies analyst Roger Kay gave an assessment of the state of the Windows Vista ecosystem at four months after consumer launch.

There, Kay and others began discussing one of the more pressing problems facing the Vista community at present: Since Microsoft had more than enough time to get Vista beta tested and under way, why is it so many supporting hardware vendors were behind the ball getting drivers out on time?

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Motorola severed its ties with Apple on Tuesday, announcing that it would partner with Napster in the US, UK and German markets to bring the subscription music service to its new ROKR phones.

While the first phase of the marketing agreement between the companies will place the Napster To Go service on the ROKR Z6, Motorola said it would also look into other ways to integrate the music service with its product lines.

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