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Warner Bros. Entertainment today announced a deal that would enable online retailers to digitally distribute movies from the studio in the DivX standard format starting this month and high definition format in September 2009.

This means you'll be able to watch all the current and back-catalog Warner Bros. titles on hundreds of DivX certified devices, which include LG and Samsung phones, PlayStation 3 consoles and many Blu-ray and DVD players. The move is certainly good news for the DivX camp and marks the second deal with a major studio, following a similar one with Sony Pictures earlier this year.

The dream of free nationwide wireless came a bit closer to reality today, after the FCC released a report which states that providing wireless over the 2155-2180MHz spectrum would not interfere with service from other wireless carriers. This clears the way for the FCC to move forward with a plan to auction off airwaves to a bidder who agrees to offer free (albeit ad-supported) national wireless Internet service.

The decision is a blow to the telecoms, specifically T-Mobile, which is keen to protect revenue from its own wireless networks and had raised concerns that the service would disrupt the company’s 3G wireless network. The next step is to create rules for the new network, and then auction off the spectrum sometime in the first half of next year.

It could be a while before proposed network actually materializes, however. The free nationwide wireless service would have to reach 50 percent of the U.S. population in four years and 95 percent within a decade. It remains to be seen if anyone will be tempted to bid for the spectrum and then pony up millions of dollars in infrastructure.

After Blockbuster rescinded its $1.3 billion offer for taking over Circuit City last July, things haven't gone anywhere but downhill for the retail chain. Last quarter the company reported losses for $239 million, it has also suffered from the loss of its CEO and a severe impact on its stock price plummeting from a high $9.4 a year ago to $0.43 this week.

With the current financial crisis expected to take its toll on companies that rely heavily on credit or do not have enough liquid assets, Circuit City is one of those retailers expected to collapse by the end of the year.

Without a doubt Circuit City's dramatic decline in market capitalization looks astounding but other tech giants are also suffering from the stock market pain as summarized by a table at TG Daily.

Nvidia, for example, is down 81% from a year ago, Motorola -76%, RIM -60%, and even stock stars from the past few years like Apple and Google are both down 56%. Could consolidation extend to the technology industry, many analysts seem to think so considering the relative bargain some stocks are selling for right now.

Following AMD’s announcement that it would spin off its manufacturing assets to the newly-founded “The Foundry Company” – which is partially owned by the Abu Dhabi government – Intel was quick to voice it had “serious questions” about the transaction, specifically in reference to a cross-licensing agreement that allows AMD to use Intel’s x86 chip instruction set.

This agreement basically restricts AMD from transferring any of Intel’s intellectual property to a third party. AMD, however, is confident that the transaction is structured in a way that doesn't violate any agreements and recently said that the matter should be work out between the firm’s lawyers. Intel, for its part, says it will defend its chip patents against any violations as it continues to review their options – which perhaps will include creating some leverage to make AMD drop its long-standing lawsuit against the company.

Even though AMD’s move to sell off their manufacturing assets has been seen by many as a good move for the company, it may not be a smooth transition. Only hours after the announcement, Intel stepped in to say that they are concerned about what AMD has done.

The issue that Intel apparently has is with the cross-licensing that the two companies share. Primarily, AMD is heavily invested in cross-licenses from Intel, which allow them to manufacture processors based on the X86 instruction set, among other technologies that Intel originally created (such as MMX). According to Intel, AMD doesn't have the right to sell those licenses – and thus can't have a third party manufacturing their hardware.

This could prove to be an interesting kink in this developing story, especially if Intel tries to get involved and stop AMD from executing this plan.

AMD finally detailed its “asset smart” strategy today, which, as expected, involves spinning off its fabrication business into a separate company temporarily known as “The Foundry Company.” As part of the move, Advanced Technology Investment Company (ATIC) of Abu Dhabi will take a 55.6% stake in the new manufacturing entity and contribute a few billion dollars over the coming years, whereas AMD will take a 44.4% stake but get equal voting rights with ATIC.

After spinning off its foundry business, AMD executives said they’ll be able to focus entirely on the design of new microprocessors and graphics chips, rather than continue funding manufacturing operations at a loss in order to keep up with rival Intel. The transaction should close “at the beginning of 2009,” at which point The Foundry Company will reveal its permanent corporate name. Check out AMD’s New Global Foundry page to learn more.

Amid growing concerns, Google and Yahoo have announced their planned advertising alliance will be “briefly” delayed. While Google recently said they expected to move ahead with the deal, with or without the approval of government regulators, apparently Yahoo had no such plans.

Both companies released similar statements over the weekend, saying they have now agreed to a brief delay in order to continue their ongoing discussions with the Department of Justice – though they didn’t specify how long they intend to wait. Google and Yahoo’s combined search market share would be a staggering 83%, a number that most parties are not comfortable with, including Google rival and former Yahoo suitor Microsoft.

Internet auction site eBay has announced a pair of major acquisitions today, in an effort to bolster its position in the marketplace. The company is buying the online payments business Bill Me Later for $820 million in cash and 125 million dollars in employee options, along with a Danish online classifieds site and classified car sales site for a total of around $390 million.

Bill Me Later will be combined with eBay’s PayPal unit and is expected to generate $150 million in revenue in 2009. The company also said it is looking to become a “nimbler and more efficient organization,” which unfortunately means that about 1,000 employees and several hundred temporary workers will be receiving pinks slips.

After being predictably sued by a bunch of Hollywood movie studios last week, RealNetworks has been forced to halt sales of its new DVD ripping and archiving product, RealDVD. The shutdown is a temporary one, though, with the judge expected to review all the paperwork related to the case by tomorrow and decide whether or not to continue the order.

The MPAA is alleging a violation of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act and breach of contract. Real, on the other hand, claims the application does not actually break CSS, as it merely copies the disc, including CSS, bit for bit with the decryption residing in the player. While DVD ripping tools have existed almost as long as DVD discs, this is one of the first efforts by a mainstream company to try to make such software legal. In the end, all this is probably just doing what RealNetworks wanted to achieve in the first place: generate controversy and free publicity for its product.

Asustek’s P45-based motherboards account for an 80% share of worldwide shipments, according to DigiTimes. The company’s motherboard shipments overall saw a 20% growth in the quarter compared to a year ago, with an estimated 6.12 million units shipped. An impressive feat, indeed, but since the company only managed to ship 11.1 million units in the first two quarters of the year, they still need to move 6.78 million units in the fourth quarter to reach its target of 24 million for 2008.

In an attempt to boost demand and strengthen competition with smaller rivals, the company recently announced today that it would be cutting the price of its Intel P45 chipset motherboards. The move will also help Asustek kick off holiday sales a bit early as it clears out inventory and prepares for the upcoming launch of Intel X58-based platforms designed for Intel Core i7 processors, which are expected to hit the market later this month.

In an eagerly awaited decision, the Copyright Royalty Board announced that it will not increase the royalties paid by online music stores to members of the National Music Publishers Association, effectively ending Apple’s threats to shut down the iTunes store for profitability reasons.

The group also rejected a call to cut the rate to 4.8 cents and in the end agreed to freeze it at 9.1 cents a song for the next five years. While the NMPA was behind demands for a rise, it still hailed the five-year rate freeze as a positive development for all songwriters and music publishers, saying it should “bring clarity and order to an environment that for the past decade has been hampered by litigation and uncertainty on all sides.”

The iTunes shutdown was unlikely and almost certainly a bluff, but it's good to know we won't have to worry about music downloads getting any more expensive anytime soon.

According to a report from the Nikkei Business Daily newspaper, Fujitsu is in talks to sell its money-losing hard drive business to Western Digital. The two companies are said to be in the latter stage of negotiations over the deal and hope to reach an agreement before the end of this year.

The deal would see Fujitsu sell all of its plants – including those in Japan, Thailand, and the Philippines – for 70 billion yen to 100 billion yen (approximately $660 million to $944 million). This would be one of the largest business unit sell-offs for a Japanese electronics company, one that would raise Western Digital’s market share to almost the same as market leader Seagate.

The news come at a time when the hard disk drive industry facing falling prices and competition from flash-based solid state drives, particularly in ultra-portable notebooks and the enterprise market.

A new chapter in the face-off between Apple and the music industry has begun. The Copyright Royalty Board is expected to rule Thursday on a request from music publishers to increase royalty rates on songs bought from online music stores such as iTunes by 66% percent, from 9 cents a track to 15 cents. Such a rise would have to be paid by either Apple or the consumer.

Apple, of course, doesn’t like the sound of this and has threatened to shut down the iTunes music store. The company argues that an increase in the royalty rate would force them to either eat the loss or raise prices, neither of which are attractive options for them. Absorbing the higher royalty costs would eat into their margins (and, according to Apple, result in the store operating at a financial loss), but passing the raise to consumers could cause a drop in sales.

Apple charges 99 cents per track, of which 70 cents go to the record company which then passes on the royalties. But with record company revenues falling by the year, they want Apple to cover the increased royalties rather than absorb the extra cost themselves.

Apple doesn’t seem willing to make a compromise here, so we’ll just have to wait and see where this goes. In any case, it is highly unlikely that Apple would actually shut down the country's largest music store, and the music industry isn't going to risk losing its largest distributor either.

RealNetworks announced RealDVD earlier this month as the first commercially available and legitimate method for ripping DVDs to computers and laptops. The software officially launched today, and while it has only been available for a few hours, already Hollywood studios have asked a federal court for damages and an injunction against sales of RealDVD.

According to the MPAA, which represents the largest film studios, the software’s ability to copy DVDs to a hard disk violates the Digital Millennium Copyright Act. RealNetworks, on the other hand, believes it has a strong case because its software does not break the DVD’s CSS encryption when copying it to the hard drive (and even adds a second layer of DRM) – of course, that won’t stop people from renting a movie, copying it and then returning the movie without ever paying for the unauthorized copy.

The software is now available for download from realdvd.com at an introductory price of only $30, or you could just search for one of many readily available free and paid tools that offer similar functionality.

Music lovers are the direct beneficiaries of the industry’s move away from DRM, which gives them a legal way to purchase songs without limiting them to playback on only certain supported devices. While this is undoubtedly a good thing, the transition is likely to bring some additional inconveniences for consumers.

Such is the case with Wal-Mart customers, after the giant retailer announced plans to pull the plug on its DRM servers – and inevitably leave those who bought DRM-packed songs from their online store with the laborious task of burning all of their tracks to audio CDs, or run the risk of losing the lot. The rather predictable announcement comes just a year after Wal-Mart started selling DRM-free songs, and follows similar moves from Yahoo and Microsoft.

A long-standing class action case against Nvidia for allegedly conspiring with AMD “to fix, raise, maintain and stabilize prices of graphics processing chips and cards” is finally nearing an end, according to documents filed with the SEC last week. As a part of the settlement Nvidia would be required to pay $850,000 into a $1.7 million fund that will be made available for payments to the class, with AMD left to make up the rest.

The class includes anyone who bought a graphics card directly from either ATI or Nvidia's websites in the US between 4th December 2002 and 7th November 2007. The agreement, which is still subject to court approval, also includes an $112,500 payment to the individual plaintiffs who brought the case to court, in exchange for a dismissal of all claims and appeals they made.

Thirty-one years after the first internet protocol structure was put in place, the internet is in danger of running out of IP addresses – at least according to Google’s chief internet evangelist Vint Cerf. The man often referred to as “the father of the internet” recently talked up the next-gen IP addressing scheme, IPv6, and the need for a transition from the current IPv4.

According to Cerf, out of the 4.2 billion possible IP addresses, there are only around 600 million left. While that may sound like an awful lot, with the amount of expected mobile devices logging onto the internet, he predicts that we will run out of IP addresses within the next year or two. As alarmist as that may sound, the fact remains that IPv6 has been ready for a decade but it has yet to take off in many portions of the world. IPV6 can provide up to 2^128 addresses (340 trillion trillion trillion), and Cerf is urging ISPs to inform customers of the upcoming switchover.

Alcatel-Lucent lost another round against Microsoft this week, after a federal appeals court ruled in favor of the latter in a long-running court battle over patents for the MP3 digital music format. The software maker was initially hit with a $1.5 billion verdict in the case, but the decision was reversed in August 2007 by US District Judge Rudi Brewster. The amount would have been one of the largest-ever awards for patent infringement.

Alcatel-Lucent argued that the technology used to encode and decode digital audio files in Microsoft’s Windows Media Player infringed on its patents. The patent in question, however, is co-owned by Fraunhofer Gesellschaft and Microsoft had already licensed the technology from them for $16 million. The two companies have been sparring in courts for years. While this was their most widely watched case, they still have other ongoing patent disputes in courts in Texas and California.

After expressing doubts about the validity of his decision, Judge Michael Davis today declared a mistrial in the case of Jammie Thomas, the nation’s first and only federal jury verdict against a peer-to-peer file sharer. The move (at least for now) eliminates the $222,000 fine demanded by the RIAA for claims that she “made available” 24 copyrighted songs on the KaZaA file sharing network.

The Judge granted Thomas a new trial, as he said he might do a while back. The issue the court is now considering is whether or not the RIAA had to first prove that other people had downloaded from Thomas’ files or if making them available for download was enough. This is a major blow to the RIAA’s legal campaign against file sharers, as it could finally make them accountable for proving their accusations.

Davis also noted that the original fine levied on Thomas of $222,000 was "wholly disproportionate" to the actual damages the RIAA incurred and urged the Congress to revise the law for peer-to-peer network cases such as this one.

Early termination fees are one of those things that people universally hate, and rightfully so. Even those without planning to switch providers often dislike the terms, since they lock you into service you may discover not needing 6 months down the road. A number of companies have responded, this time Verizon has announced that as of today they will be offering month to month contracts for cell phone service.

While this may not seem like a big deal on the surface, it does represent an important change on how cell phone providers operate. It also shows that providers are understanding that lengthy contracts with draconian terms are making people very unhappy, even worse when they use dubious tactics to extend contracts, to the point where some people have taken these companies to court over them. Even when it's already late, it's not nearly as bad as never, so we applaud the positive changes.