Plextor Europe has announced a new version of its PlexTools software. PTP (Plextools Professional) HDD includes new features that will appeal to many users of the Plextor Portable Harddisk devices including secure password protection and extra diagnostic tools.

An innovative american company has come up with a simple but effective solution for destroying the confidential data stored on optical discs. The makers also claim their 'Disc Eraser' is the greenest product on the market.

The UK tabloid The Mail on Sunday has reported that a Chinese factory that manufactures iPods employs 200,000 workers who live in dormitories where visitors are not permitted. Workers toil for 15-hour days for as little as $50 (£27) per month, according to the article.

The global supply of DVD+R/-R discs currently exceeds global demand, but the oversupply will begin to diminish next quarter and largely decrease or even disappear in the fourth quarter of this year, according to Ritek CEO Gordon Yeh.

Ten companies which had their servers confiscated during the police's raids against file-sharing outfit The Pirate Bay are suing the Swedish government.

The new SDR-S150 is an update of the SDR-S100 camcorder which records to SD card, rather than DV tape, hard disk, or DVD. The SDR-S100 uses conventional SD media which has a maximum capacity of 2GB, while the SDR-S150 supports both SD and the brand new SDHC (SD High-Capacity) card.

Authorities armed with a search warrant hauled away 20,000 DVD recorders from Cyberhome USA, a U.S. affiliate of Cyberhome Taiwan, which is accused of manufacturing them without paying licensing fees, authorities said.

The European Union is ending its antidumping investigation of DVD+R/-R discs imported from Taiwan, China and Hong Kong.

Sony Pictures has announced that it will release its first seven titles on the Blu-ray format on June 20.

Millions may be about to discover what singer Billy Bragg found out recently - that "community" hosting web sites can do as they please with creative material you submit.

The BBC has published advice explaining how to block access to one of its own heavily promoted services - live streaming video of World Cup matches.

CyberHome Entertainment and Mustek Systems, two Taiwan-based makers of DVD recorders, have lowered retail prices by 20-30% for their entry-level models.

Ken Katarugi has made it clear that Sony's vision of the PS3's capabilities run far beyond a gaming system. "PS3 is a computer, so there are no 'models,' only 'configurations," said Katarugi.

The British Phonographic Industry (BPI) has said it won't pursue consumers who copy music from their CDs to listen to on portable music players.

Music lovers are being forced to pay high prices for downloading songs from the internet by record companies keen to protect sales of conventional CDs, according to industry experts.

Philips this week launched its first Blu-ray Disc drive, and was quickly followed by Lite-on and BenQ. Both the Philips and the Lite-on models are due to ship in the UK in August, the two companies said separately.

CMC Magnetics, Ritek, Prodisc Technology and Daxon Technology, the top four makers of CD-R discs in Taiwan, jointly filed a legal complaint with Taiwan's Fair Trade Commission (FTC) against Philips for its Veeza CD-R patent licensing scheme, claiming that it violates Taiwan's Fair Trade Law.

Microsoft acknowledged that it needs to better inform users that its tool for determining whether a computer is running a pirated copy of Windows also quietly checks in daily with the software maker.

HD DVD will be launched in Europe in the fourth quarter of this year, according to the HD DVD Promotion Group representatives.

DVD lodestar Flash - in his latest review - has turned his attention to the rapidly emerging market of pen drives as the new storage medium of choice. He seems impressed for an old fella, as they are "amazingly fast and efficient and I am sure I will make good use of them". Read the whole review here.