Hollywood studios sue RealNetworks

Hollywood's six major movie studios on Tuesday sued RealNetworks to prevent it from distributing DVD copying software that they said would allow consumers to "rent, rip and return" movies or even copy friends' DVD collections outright, reports Newsweek.

The studios stand to lose key revenue from the sale of DVDs, estimated by Adams Media Research at $15 billion in the US this year, if consumers stop buying DVDs and instead copy rental discs from outlets like Netflix and Blockbuster.

The suit, filed in US District Court in Los Angeles, alleges RealNetworks' RealDVD programme, which launched Tuesday, illegally bypasses the copyright protection built into DVDs.

Apple's had issues meeting many of its self-imposed deadlines in the last couple years. Some of the delays, such as Leopard, have been big; others, like the iPhone SDK, somewhat smaller, says Macworld.

As we watched the calendar tick over from the end of September to the beginning of October earlier this week, Apple missed yet another of its targets by not releasing its promised push notification system for the iPhone.

Back in June, at the WWDC keynote, Apple SVP of iPhone software Scott Forstall took the stage to discuss Apple's answer to the lack of background applications on the iPhone. Many developers had expressed concern about the limitation, which could restrict the usefulness of certain applications, such as instant messenger clients.

From "Spider-Man 3" to "No Country for Old Men", Netflix is making another 2 500 movies, TV shows and concerts available for instant viewing through a deal with Starz Entertainment, states The Canadian Press.

The world's largest online movie rental service and Starz, a subsidiary of conglomerate Liberty Media, were planning to announce Wednesday that Starz titles were being added to the "Watch Instantly" feature of Netflix's Web site.

The new content will beef up the more than 12 000 movies and TV shows Netflix already makes instantly watchable over the Internet through its streaming service. While this is just a fraction of the 100 000 titles Netflix has available on DVDs, Netflix says it continues to grow both numbers and eventually hopes to close the gap between them.

Google, in co-operation with Deutsche Telekom-owned T-Mobile, announced the first product using the search engine company's own mobile phone operating system, Android, reports The Irish Times.

Techies have known about the "gPhone" (as it has been called) for almost a year, and have been working with prototype software to create applications for it - but this is the first time a real Google Phone has been put on sale for ordinary users.

Costing from $179 with a two-year plan, the T-Mobile G1 phone has a camera, accelerometer and GPS to detect location and angles, supports 3G and slower data protocols, and can browse the Web, play music, show maps and download additional applications.