Warner signs with YouTube

Media empire Warner Brothers and video social networking phenomenon YouTube have signed a deal which means that content from the music arm of the giant can be shown legally on the site. The deal predictably covers the posting of music videos from WMG's stable of artists such as Madonna as well as behind-the-scenes footage, artist interviews, original programming and other 'special content'. An interesting twist, however, is that the deal also allows YouTube users to incorporate copyright WMG music into the videos they create and upload onto YouTube. ...more

IBM's Blue Gene wears the supercomputing trousers

IBM has claimed the top spot for the third time in a row in the global supercomputing chart with its Blue Gene/L system. The TOP500 Organisation put in a sustained performance of 280.6 Teraflops, or trillions of floating point calculations per second. ...more

Cleaning spyware takes its toll

Computer users are spending up to five hours a week or more cleaning off spyware from their systems because their security software is inadequate, according to SurfControl. In a survey of 500 UK IT departments, more than 60 per cent said their networks had been infected with spyware, and more than 12 per cent did not know whether they had been infected at all. Yet nearly 60 per cent are using some kind of anti-spyware program and nearly half employ content filtering software. ...more

Sony unveils first Blu-ray drive for $750

Sony has unveiled its first internal Blu-ray rewritable drive, capable of storing up to 50GB on a double-sided disc. The BWU-100A drive supports both BD-R (write once) or BD-RE (rewritable) discs, which also provide sufficient capacity to store up to four hours of high-definition video using HDV 1080i. The new drive also supports singled-sided 25GB discs, which can be burnt in about 50 minutes. ...more

Beatles ready to enter digital age

The Beatles are poised, at long last, to enter the digital age and make their music available in a downloadable format. The announcement was made by EMI vice chairman David Munns at a music industry conference in California, although he declined to set a date. Music Week has reported that The Beatles's company, Apple Corps, which manages the band's assets and interests, is in the process of launching an online merchandise store, but there is no indication of how or where the band's music will go on sale. ...more