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The European Union is readying a new set of directives that could have an impact on Apple and other manufacturer’s future products. Specifically, a new draft batteries directive, which mandates that power cells inside electronic devices must be readily removable for replacement and safe disposal. The iPhone, iPod and even the MacBook Air don't fit that mold.

Apple requires owners to send back their iPhones and iPods to the company for a battery replacement. If approved, however, the new directive could force the company to redesign its products to meet the criteria in Europe. Interestingly, it could also mean that products globally would see the same features since it would make no sense to build and market products with two different designs.

Then again, as AppleInsider notes, the idea behind the directive is to keep gadgets from being sent to landfills or recycled with the battery inside, so the EU might let Apple off the hook if the company proves that its battery replacement program prevents that from happening.

Nintendo of America boss Reggie Fils-Aime has denied recent rumors that the company is planning to release a Wii successor in 2011. In an interview with VentureBeat, Fils-Aime described the Wii HD console as “pure rumor and speculation” and equally dismissed claims that a prototype was already being shown to developers and publishers for pre-production feedback.

Nintendo has been under relatively little pressure to update its hardware since the introductions of the Wii in 2006, but of course that’s not to say a high-definition console isn’t on the drawing board somewhere – and it wouldn’t be a bad thing for them to recapture the market for core gamers. Nintendo doesn’t deny an eventual update to the console but merely debunks the notion that the company would weigh first reactions to an update by showing a prototype to developers.

Steve Wozniak interview: The future for Apple @ Telegraph.co.uk
Google Has Changed Political Debate Forever @ ReadWriteWeb
The top five reasons why Windows Vista failed @ ZDNet
OpenOffice.org Breaks Records Everywhere @ ComputerWorld
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Sharp builds high-resolution LCD for mobile

The massive amount of Eee PC sales we heard about earlier this week has helped Asustek rake in a lot of cash. Contrary to an overall global trend of hardware companies struggling, or at least seeing losses, Asustek is expected to grow significantly in the near future, as they are already doing now. The reasoning, cited by an Asustek CEO, is the Eee PC.

They claim the low cost of the hardware is what is making them so attractive, and able to sell so well – an easy correlation to make, as everybody loves to get good hardware on the cheap. That probably won't last, though, with their latest Eee hardware models consistently stepping outside the realm of “cheap.” If they want to keep up their current growth, they will have to keep a profile of cheap hardware available.

Sony is attempting to one-up Apple with a new supply of music, offering tracks for their iTunes-competing Dada.net service at a price below what Apple offers. Sony will be offering songs at roughly 66 cents apiece, and sweetening the offer in the eyes of the consumer by providing the tracks without any DRM.

Dada claims that all music they sell will be offered as DRM-free in their entirety, making it simple to transfer them to any type of media player you choose. You wouldn't expect Sony to be a company that endorses or pushes DRM-absent media, regardless of the cost, but clearly something has changed in how big companies are seeing the market.

There are a few fine details that don't make the service quite the iTunes-killer they'd like people to think it is, such as the fact that the discounted price for music only applies to the first 15 songs acquired per month – beyond that, the costs rise. Still, the DRM advantage could be key.

Research In Motion is making yet another move to level the playing field against Apple in the consumer space. Taking a page from the iTunes App Store and Android Market book, the company is reportedly set to launch an on-device application distribution hub tentatively called the BlackBerry Application Center.

Details remain sketchy, though it appears that the store will (at least initially) be crafted specifically for users of the upcoming touch-screen BlackBerry Storm, which will run the 4.7 version of the BlackBerry OS. The BlackBerry Application Center will be a carrier-supported feature, meaning wireless service providers will be responsible for hosting all applications and ensuring they are up to date – this is a big departure from the iTunes App Store model, where Apple maintains all the control over what's approved and what isn't.

But while RIM attempts to cash into the nascent application craze with an official store, another company has already launched its competing BerryStore standalone client, which will cater to both old and new BlackBerry handsets (not just the upcoming Storm) and works across carriers.

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.

The long-standing rivalry between Dish Network and TiVo may have come to a close. After dealing with numerous court battles that ended up in a nasty injunction, it seems Dish has finally agreed to shell out a sizable $104 million in damages over to TiVo.

The issue, which started with a patent infringement claim TiVo made about a DVR system that Dish pushed out, worried many customers that owned EchoStar-built DVRs. The concern was that Dish Network would recall them, which would be bad news all around. For the customers’ sake, Dish found a workaround and was able to implement it in time.

Earlier this year, the folks over at Mozilla took some time to show off a video with the latest developments in the mobile version of the popular Firefox browser. While a final version won’t be ready for handsets worldwide perhaps until sometime in 2009, an alpha testing build may come much sooner.

In fact, speaking to the San Jose Mercury News, Mozilla CEO John Lilly was quoted saying that we'll see the first Firefox Mobile alpha releases “in a few weeks.” Sadly, no specific details were offered but I’m certainly looking forward to an alternative for Opera Mobile and the iPhone’s superb mobile Safari browser. Check out the complete interview here, where Lilly also discusses other topics including how an open source company such as Mozilla works and Google’s new Chrome browser.

Crysis Warhead has been out for little over a couple of weeks now, and those of you who’ve picked it up also got the chance to play its multiplayer component. For the rest of you interested in getting some free Crysis Wars multiplayer action, EA and Crytek are offering the full standalone multiplayer client as a free download at the MyCrysis.com site.

Users will be able to play the game over LAN connections starting today, without any time limitation, and play online for free during the entire weekend starting October 10. Crysis Wars includes three multiplayer modes – Instant Action, Team Instant Action and Power Struggle – as well as 21 maps of varying sizes and access to all the weapons and vehicles in the Crysis Universe.

This is certainly great news and might be enough to convince many to try the game – just be sure to check the official minimum system requirements after the jump.

AMD's recent success with the Radeon series has been largely at Nvidia’s expense. After both financial and technological setbacks, many have wondered what Nvidia’s plan going forward is to recover. A recent interview has revealed much about what they are up to, in which Jen Hsun Huang spoke about the company’s future, CUDA, GPUs and chipsets.

It's pretty short, but to the point. Nvidia still sees the standard processor as something that is giving diminishing returns, and will wane faced with specialty processors like current GPUs using CUDA technology. They also don't see their chipset business as suffering – quite the opposite, they see themselves as “years” ahead of AMD. It's a short but interesting read on what Nvidia feels is really going on today.

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.

One of the biggest gripes in online movie distribution today is that most often releases are significantly delayed compared to DVDs. Not only is that annoying to those who subscribe to streaming movie services, but it is a huge incentive for pirates to rip movies and start distributing them online before an official release.

Warner Bros. apparently understands and wants to amend this, with some recent plans to start releasing movies online before the DVD itself hits the market. This sudden change in behavior won't be worldwide, initially deploying only in South Korea due to its high levels of piracy.

The company hopes to turn piracy around by offering movies in digital form before optical discs are available. Depending on what else they try to buddy-up on with the releases – such as DRM – this could be a huge success.

Although XP is now officially off sale in retail, customers can still get their hands on the operating system by buying a Vista machine that comes with an XP downgrade option. That lifeline was originally intended to be withdrawn on January 31 next year, but apparently Microsoft has decided to move the downgrade cut-off date a full six months to July 31 – sending some rather confusing signals about Windows Vista.

With Microsoft’s upcoming operating system rumored to be launching around that time, it appears the goal is to transition businesses over to Windows 7 while bypassing Vista altogether. Microsoft has been desperately to kill off Windows XP with hopes of boosting Vista sales, but it seems the aging system just won’t go away.

Anyone who enjoyed the original Deus Ex will be thrilled at the following. Eidos Montreal has announced that Deus Ex 3 is being developed and is due for a release sometime in 2009. The story has been confirmed to be a Prequel, one that the creators of the series apparently have given the green light to. The project will initially be deployed on the PC, with rumors that the Xbox 360 and PS3 are also planned to get a release.

Small details about what we can expect in terms of gameplay have been shared as well, and it seems that many elements from the first game have returned. It'll be a long road before development is finished, but I look forward to seeing it progress.