Universal cuts online album prices

In what is the first broad online cost-cutting move by any of the four major music companies, Universal Music is slashing European download prices for some of its older albums. The world's largest seller of recorded music has announced that starting 1 November it would reduce the prices it charges online retailers for 1,500 albums ranging from The Who's 'Quadrophenia' to REM's 'Reckoning'. The prices ultimately charged to consumers will be determined by individual online services, Universal Music said, though a spokesman added that the response has been encouraging. ...more

MGM backs Blu-ray

Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer is the latest movie studio to back the Blu-ray consortium headed by Sony. The studio is behind the James Bond and Pink Panther franchises. It is also of course the copyright holder of some of the biggest movies and TV programmes of the last 100 years and its archive will give a huge boost to the number of titles available on the new format - many of which will be in high definition for the first time. ...more

AMD stays hand over ATi brand axe

Our sister publication Custom PC discovered yesterday that a number of AMD and ATi staff had understood the ATi brand was to be dropped. However, AMD has backtracked on that position, saying no such decision has been made and that it maintains a strong commitment to the ATi brand. AMD's olive branch to ATi fan boys came straight from the company's Sunnyvale headquarters. ...more

The next next gen thing

NTT DoCoMo has announced it is in the process of constructing an experimental fourth-generation wireless network at its Tokyo base. The 4G system, it is hoped, would be launched around 2010 and would offer data download rates of 100Mbits/sec and uploads of 20Mbits/sec. This is about 260 times faster than the company's current 3G service, FOMA, which uses a WCDMA network. ...more

MessageLabs acts the Skeptic for small Businesses

Managed security provider MessageLabs has released a small business version of its solution, designed to offer enterprise class security to smaller firms. MessageLabs Small Business Solutions is aimed at small and mid-sized businesses, offering the company's Skeptic technology to protect against viruses, trojans, spam, and phishing attacks. As well as protection against these threats, the MessageLabs solution also gives companies web URL filtering, allowing companies to shut out undesirable or unnecessary websites from their employees. ...more