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Electronista: A rumor last week suggests that Nokia could remove copy protection from all its music services within the next year.

Claimed sources for ME say the smartphone maker will switch its pay-per-download store from locking songs with Windows Media protection to unguarded MP3s by late this year.

Tellingly, Comes With Music would also reportedly make the switch and would do so sometime in 2010, giving users a year of unlimited downloads they could move to any device, including iPhones and iPods.

The motivation is believed to center on an original Nokia preference for a relatively open, widespread format that was initially denied by Universal and other music labels. Both its per-track store and Comes With Music use protected Windows Media files that limit where the songs can be played and discourage users from entering into Nokia’s ecosystem as a result.

Nokia has routinely tried to explain poor uptake of Comes With Music in key areas like the UK and believes devices and distribution are the key factors. However, in its own recent studies it notes that 40 percent of those who bought one of the special phones needed for Comes With Music never activated the feature, suggesting that many either don’t know how to use Comes With Music or else decide they’re uninterested shortly after buying a given handset.

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T3: ARM may be best known for its mobile phone processors, but the chip maker has started dipping its toe in the TV market and has just announced a big licensing deal with LG, which wants to use ARM technology to power its next generation of digital TVs.

Using the multicore ARM11 processor and ARM Mali-200 Mali-400 graphics processors, LG believes it “will be able to offer a future-proofed premium-quality digital TV experience for today’s connected home,” said Seung-Jong Choi, research fellow of Digital TV Lab, LG Electronics.

“The connected home relies on technology that is fully functional and that guarantees a high-quality, energy efficient multimedia experience.”

Or if you prefer plain English, that means widgets, and lots of them. Widgets that give you full 1080p high definition video on demand – one of the main features of the ARM Mali-400 graphics chip.

Widgets that give you enhanced web content, social networking and online shopping. And widgets that even enable high definition gaming, direct from your TV. That’s not to say that LG is setting its sights on the wildly competitive console market quite yet, but it does mean that the number and range of additional service available to your TV, all without a set-top box, is about to take a very big step forward.

Hell, if LG manages to work in a BBC iPlayer app and YouTube, it could probably stand to lose the digital TV antenna. That would save a bit of space.

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DigiTimes: TV sales in Europe will rise to 51.97 million units in 2009, up 3.4% from 50.2 million in 2008, while LCD TVs will account for 79% of the market, and will see their sales rise by a robust 17.5% in 2009 to reach 41.1 million units, up from 35 million in 2008, according to iSuppli.

According to the European Commission’s recent reports, indications of an economic recovery from what were record lows have been confirmed by improved business and consumer confidence in the 16 euro-using-countries in May, the second month in a row.

According to the European Commission, the index of business and consumer confidence in the euro zone increased to 69.3 in May, up from 67.2 in April – the highest level since November 2008.

Consumer spending also has increased in all major European countries, including France and Germany. Overall, the region’s economy has stabilized, but concerns remain about the labor market and rising unemployment rates, which could counter the impact of lower inflation rates on household spending.

Nevertheless, despite mixed signals, there are more positive signs of an economic recovery taking place in Europe than there are negative indicators, said iSuppli.

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TGDaily: Adoption of Blu-ray players is slow to the point of static, with few takling the plunge, according to a survey.

Harris Interactive at the end of last week released details of a poll that shows only one in ten Americans own an HD DVD player. But only seven percent owned a Blu-ray player, the survey said.

The results of the poll included owners of a Sony Playstation 3, which plays Blu-ray. Worse, from the point of view of Blu-Ray vendors, the poll of 2,401 US adults showed that given the choice to switch to this format, two out of five people will wait for the price of consumables and drives to fall before they buy. And only one in five will replace or duplicate their existing standard format library with Blu-Ray format.

VP at Harris Interactive, Milton Ellis, said: “Blu-ray also faces competition from alternative technologies such as cable, satellite and the Internet.” He said people can readily watch HD TV channels, or use the web or video on demand to access high definition movies. The implications are clear – because nearly half of people own a high definition television. When Harris did a similar survey last year, only 35 percent of adults said they owned an HD TV.

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Guardian: Apple says it has sold a million of its new iPhone 3GS model (and we’ll come back to the “3GS” there in a moment) in the first three days since its worldwide launch on Friday.

The press release is also interesting for including a “quote” from Steve Jobs, who you might recall is the company’s chief executive, and who in an interesting development was said, by a mysteriously unsourced story in the Wall Street Journal, to have had a liver transplant earlier this year.

“Customers are voting and the iPhone is winning,” said Steve Jobs, Apple’s CEO. “With over 50,000 applications available from Apple’s revolutionary App Store, iPhone momentum is stronger than ever.”

Certainly no dispute about the momentum. Even the precipitious price for the new model doesn’t seem to be putting people off, despite this hefty recession. For those still stuck on the old iPhone 3G, or even the old old iPhone, there’s now a handy table to show you what things you can and can’t do on each phone.

(more…)

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Trusted Reviews: Are slow start-up times putting you off buying a Blu-ray player? Philips thinks they might be and, further, with its BDP7300 purports to have solved the problem, “by offering quick offering quick start up times but without the need to use any extra power usage in standby mode.”

Although quite what quick means in, say, seconds is anyone’s guess.

Anyone expecting Full HD, 1080p24 output capabilities, with Deep Colour support, as well as DVD up-scaling to ‘near-HD quality’ won’t be disappointed.

Decoding of Dolby TrueHD audio and DTS Master Audio Essential, with 7.1-channel output, is featured. BD Live (Profile 2.0) content is supported, with 1GB of local storage provided and the requisite Ethernet port offering internet connectivity. Despite it’s claimed quick start-up time, the BDP7300 manages to draw a paltry 0.2W in standby – hardly extravagant.

A front-mounted USB port means DivX WMV, MP3, WMA and JPEG files can be played from a removable storage device. AVC HD support enables video to be played from most HD camcorders with no messing around with conversion software. Can you think of a better use of £249 (€291) once the player hits retail some time this month?

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Engadget: Think the megapixel race is bad? Now we’ve another to worry about, with both Toshiba and Intel hastily approaching 0.01nm technology in order to make chips faster, more nimble and smaller.

According to undisclosed sources at Digitimes, Intel has actually canned production plans for its 45nm Havendale processors, which were originally slated to slip into machines later this year. The cause? It’s heading straight to 32nm, reportedly hoping to ship its Clarkdale line in Q1 2010 with entry-level prices ranging from $60 to $190.

In related news, Toshiba is joining the likes of IBM, Samsung and Globalfoundries in an effort to dish out chips based on 28nm process technology. Needless to say, the move is being made in an effort to “stay relevant in an area dominated by the likes of Intel Corp and Texas Instruments.” Now, if only we could get one of these potent, low-power chips inside of a netbook, we’d be pleased as punch.

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CNet: UK Communications minister Lord Carter has put the idea of mobile coverage on the London Underground back on the government agenda — only months after it emerged a planned Tube mobile trial had been shelved indefinitely.

Back in March, CNET UK’s sister site silicon.com revealed Transport for London (TfL) had quietly dropped plans for a six-month mobile Tube trial.

The pilot, which was to have considered whether it would be technically and commercially viable for coverage to be extended across the entire Underground network, was shelved after TfL said it had not received any commercially “credible” proposals from the market.

However, in the government’s Digital Britain report, unveiled on Tuesday, Lord Carter said there is a need to address “notable gaps” in mobile coverage on transport networks.

“There is a near-total mobile coverage blackout over the Central London section of the London Underground, including even large stations,” the report notes. In Carter’s view the London Olympics is an ideal opportunity to digitise the Underground.

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Gizmag: In the not too distant future, the most essential set-top box for the modern home will not be the Blu-ray player, freeview box or even a satellite or cable receiver, but the home media streamer.

While still at a relatively early stage of development, a streamer offers a similar service to the humble MP3 player in its ability to support playback of digital media formats, most notably video.

So what exactly do these devices do, and why are they so special? Well, as is usually the case with new technology, streamers come in various shapes and sizes and vary quite wildly in the specific features they offer.

Predominantly, a streamer’s job is to transmit digital video files across a network from a library stored on a computer to a television. Exactly how adept they are at doing this and what else they can offer the home user is what separates the men from the boys in this market, so we’ll take a look at five boxes that should be ticked in a successful, versatile device.

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Electronista: Dutch shares of native GPS device maker TomTom spiked on Friday morning after speculation rose that Apple is mulling getting a stake in the company.

Following Apple’s WWDC presentation Monday that saw TomTom introduce an iPhone GPS app and a matching car kit, some investors claim to have heard that TomTom being singled out and its tight integration of software with the iPhone are advance evidence of Apple wanting to invest a minority amount in the European firm.

The rumor is not universal, however, and some openly doubt the likelihood of such a deal. Apple has historically shied away from partial deals, making this unlikely, but does face competition in the GPS arena from cellphone designers that also have alliances with GPS firms.

Garmin and ASUS are working together on the nuvifone series of navigation handsets. Nokia, meanwhile, acquired NAVTEQ and is using the latter’s map data for its own navigation features.

Other companies have expressed interest in developing turn-by-turn iPhone GPS apps, particularly NAVIGON, but are often far smaller and less likely to have committed the resources to development in advance.

TomTom had said it was researching the possibility of a driving directions app for the iPhone as early as mid-2008 and so would have been the best-prepared for an eventual product. Apple hasn’t commented on the rumor.

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Ironic Sans: Instead of hiding your outlets behind furniture and worrying about the mess of wires tangled behind your entertainment center, consider making an entire wall that’s nothing but outlets. Then you can artfully plug in your appliances wherever the cords look pleasing to you.

Imagine no more crowded outlets or multi-plug adapters. Of course you don’t have to actually wire all the outlets on the whole wall for electricity, but you’d better come up with a good way to remember which ones are live.

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EngadgetHD: As frequently predicted, Blu-ray hasn’t been enough to make up for sagging DVD sales, as a new Screen Digest report indicates a 4.8 percent slide worldwide last year, falling more than $2.6 billion.

After plateauing approaching 2007, disc sales have been falling ever since and even Blu-ray’s $482 million contribution can’t hold up the slack.

Still, it’s looking at online rentals like Lovefilm and Quickflix to make up for some of the rental losses internationally, but don’t expect Blu-ray to help grow the market at all until at least 2010.

Of course, the company did also predict the format war would remain stalemated just weeks before Warner ended the whole thing, so we’d keep a grain of salt handy while reading.

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