Texas Instruments eyes Web music devices

Texas Instruments has its eye on the growing market for Internet-based music devices. The company has unveiled a new chip employing power management technology that allows devices to play for up to 70 hours on two AA-sized batteries. The new digital signal processor, together with analogue technology, converts real world sound into suitably digital data. ...more

Philips ditches Aptura backlight tech for LED

Philips has canned the stroboscopic backlight in its flat televisions in favour of LED technology This puts an end to the technology designed to dramatically reduce motion blur and smear on flat LCD televisions, a notorious problem with those types of TV sets. Instead of emitting constant light, like in current LCD TVs, Philips' scanning backlight emitted bursts of light, which tricked the human eye into seeing sharper images. Philips had touted the technology called Aptura as a major innovation and a potential cash cow for the lighting division which has been repositioned as one of Philips' growth engines. ...more

Ericsson launches largest GPRS network in China

Ericsson has begun the long march of rolling out GPRS networks across China. China's largest GPRS "pre-commercial" network has been launched by Ericsson in conjunction with GMCC (Guangdong Mobile Communication Company). High-speed wireless data communications services will initially be offered to customers in the cities of Guangzhou and Shenzhen. ...more

Borland's new model of Togetherness boosts .Net development

'Bringing affordable modelling to the masses' is Borland's claim for its new programming support tool, Together Edition for Microsoft Visual Studio .NET v2.0. ...more

MusicForMe cracks Allofmp3's music streaming service

MusicForMe has cracked the DRM designed to restrict access to Allofmp3's Music for Masses, just days after the free music streaming service was launched. Music for Masses - which stretches Allofmp3's highly dubious legality to new limits - provides free access to the Russian company's entire music catalogue. Tracks are wrapped in a DRM jacket which means they can only be played in the Music for Masses Player. ...more