EU ad ban casts gloom for mobile operators

Valuable advertising revenues could be denied mobile operators as the Government introduces EU directives to ban ads sent to mobile phones. Location-based marketing, where users would receive adverts and information based on where they are, would be a valuable tool to help 3G mobile operators recoup the cost of licences and the funding needed to set up the networks. But the Data Protection Commission has confirmed that this kind of advertising could contravene the new rules. ...more

Pointing the moon red

The reflections of a man who wanted - through a collective pointing of lasers - to put a red dot on the moon. This laser-pointing, moon-painting idea was the brainchild of would-be American author James Downey. While working on a futuristic novel, he dreamt up the plan as a fictitious example of the 'crazy ideas' circulating at the start of the 21st century. ...more

Sony presses play for MP3 files on Walkmans

MP3-playing Walkmans are being launched by Sony, and existing NW-series Walkmans will also have a firmware update for accommodating the de-facto Internet standard for compressed music files. As we reported back in September - Sony does u-turn for MP3 support - Sony has abandoned its position on only supporting its own ATRAC-format. The devices, which have up to 1GB of Flash memory, are Sony's first to accommodate the more popular MP3 format. ...more

Kazaa fights back with lawsuit against the RIAA

The owner of the Kazaa P2P file sharing software has filed a lawsuit against the RIAA, the body that represents the major US record labels, and movie studios, accusing them of using an unauthorised version of Kazaa known as Kazaa Lite. Sharman Networks files the suit on Monday, alleging that the RIAA and the studios violated its copyright by using Kazaa Lite. Kazaa Lite is an unauthorised version, that unlike Kazaa, does not display advertising. ...more

Google and eBay make peace

Sweetness and light has broken out between Google and eBay after a period in which daggers appeared drawn. On Monday the companies announced a deal involving text-based advertising and 'click-to-call' advertising. They also announced that they would be working together to support each other's voice offerings. ...more