UK satellite TV broadcaster Sky last week quietly released a firmware downgrade to fix dozens of old Sky+ boxes rendered inoperable by a firmware update transmitted earlier in the week. PVRs affected include almost all machines equipped with upgraded hard drives.

Britain is attempting to crack down on film piracy by appointing its first investigator into the crime of recording blockbuster films in cinemas to sell as counterfeit DVDs.

BenQ has unveiled it's next generation 'trio' optical writer. The BW1000 incorporates three types of lasers to support multiple media formats - CD, DVD and Blu-Ray.

Manufacturers of DVD recorders are pessimistic about shipment volumes during the second half of this year due to decreased sales in Japan last year and potential competition from next-generation blue-laser DVD players/recorders, according to industry sources.

Ulead's Blu-ray Disc recording applications for rewritable and recordable discs have been certified by the Sony Blu-ray Test Center.

Following news that Spain has introduced a mandatory copyright tax on blank media, another intellectual property law has finally banned unauthorized peer-to-peer file-sharing, making it a civil offense to download content from such networks in Spain.

Sony updated its Vaio UMPC (Ultra Mobile Personal Computer) pocket PC devices and replaced their 30GB hard discs with 16GB flash memory. The new VGN-UX90PS and VGN-UX90S devices will go on sale in Japan July 3.

Virgin France has been fined £414,147 for music piracy after it was caught nicking popular beat combo star Madonna's single Hung Up to flog on its own website.

Microsoft has patched a controversial nagware update that "phoned home" every time Windows started. Redmond has also issued an advisory with instructions on how to remove the software.

Plextor has launched its first Blu-ray drive - the PX-B900A. The internal (ATAPI) re-writer drive is capable of writing and re-writing Blu-ray discs at 2x (BD-R and BD-RE) up to a maximum capacity of 25GB for single layer and 50GB for dual-layer.

An internet cafe offering connections 50 times faster than typical broadband services has opened in Cornwall.

The Spanish Congress have voted to implement a tax on all blank media, including flash memory sticks, blank cd and dvd-rs, even mobile phones and printers. There is no word on how much this new tax will be, only that the revenues will be collected by the government, and will then be given to the "copyright holder."

Tower Records, America's leading independent music and entertainment retailer, today unveiled 'Tower Records Digital,' a music download website who's unique selling point seeems to be the high quality of it's downloads.

Apple has said it was awaiting final approval of a French bill aimed at opening online media stores to rivals, which it hoped would leave the market to decide which systems prevailed.

A Nintendo big-wig seems to have overestimated his drinking capacity and let slip the release date for Nintendo's up and coming console, the Wii.

Netgear launched the first powerline Ethernet adaptor to hit the 200Mbps mark yesterday.

Toshiba has said it would still like to develop a unified format for advanced optical DVD discs, but two competing--and incompatible--products are likely to hit the market at first.

CMC Magnetics on June 26 announced it received class-A verification for its 1x HD-DVD-R SL (high-definition DVD-R single-sided single-layer) discs with 15GB storage capacity from the DVD Forum last week, while Ritek indicated it obtained the same level of verification in late May of this year.

After denying that it was running a sweatshop that would be familiar to Charles Dickens, Apple's Ipod manufacturer, Foxconn has finally admitted that it broken Chinese labour laws.

Resident DVD crackerjack Flash has started a new series looking at common questions around the theme of DVD writing. His second article answers the question that is often asked: why won’t my DVD player play imported DVDs? If you have a question you would like Flash to answer please email him.