Nearly one-half (46%) of U.S. Internet consumers aged 13 and older are comfortable with viewer tracking and targeted advertising services if offered in conjunction with ad-skipping capabilities, according to Digital Entertainment: Changing Consumer Habits, a new study from Parks Associates. MORE »

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What’s really going on here? Broadcast and Cable is reporting that the Chairman of the Senate Commerce Committee, Ted Stevens (R-Alaska) and senators Daniel Inouye (D-Hawaii) and Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.) have issued a stern warning and a threat of imposed penalties if the file-sharing networks and Internet Service Providers “don’t do more to stop illegal downloading of music, movies and TV shows.” (via Lost Remote) Boxer further goes on to say that “In a year’s time if you have not moved to protect copyrights, to protect children, it’s not going to sit well regardless of what the court said.” Who made made her the queen? And when did she actually start caring about children in relation to pornography? Where was she when COPA (Child Online Protection Act) was coming under fire? But the kicker to this story is that Hollywood has joined with the P2P and Internet Service Providers in urging Congress to wait and see how the Grokster ruling plays out.

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Boo-yaa! You got to love it when hack developers put their minds to something. This time it was the need for Mac users to interface with their favorite non-Apple device, a TiVo Series 2 DVR (via PVRblog). But here’s the best part, not only do users have access to their entire TiVo video library within iTunes, TivoTool transcodes video on the fly and enables iMovie to capture the video for viewing, editing, or burning to DVD (view screenshots).

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Olive Media Products, Inc., a developer of innovative digital audio systems, today announced the Symphony, a wireless digital HiFi component that combines premium audio with the latest convergence technology. Olive Symphony is based on the popular idea of a central device that stores, manages and wirelessly distributes digital music throughout the home, but goes a new way with regard to its hardware and user interface concept. MORE »

Popularity: 7% [?]

After Jason Dunn reported that the Xbox 360 was only going to support Microsoft codecs out of the box (note: things may change when it’s officially released), many people were extremely disappointed. However, Chris Lanier, inventive and creative as he is, came up with a brilliant plan to thwart the Xbox 360 from becoming an MCE extender flop. His proposal: “[Microsoft] you’re going to need to use the Xbox Live Marketplace to allow people to purchase software decoders for third party formats. This will solve the problem of licensing it and included it in the shipping Xbox (which raises the price). Let the third parties develop the codecs and sell them at there set prices.” Not a bad idea! But will Microsoft listen or stick to their proprietary ways?

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Accelerating and expanding the Federal Communications Commission’s (FCC) digital television tuner requirements will sharply raise prices on smaller sized television sets causing disruption in the marketplace and harming low-income consumers, said the Consumer Electronics Association (CEA) and the Consumer Electronics Retailers Coalition (CERC) today. The organizations expressed their concerns in comments filed today with the FCC in response to the Commission’s Further Notice of Proposed Rulemaking (FNPRM) on digital television (DTV) receiving capability. MORE »

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Meedio LLC, a leader in home entertainment and control software, today announced the availability of Meedio Express, a free software application for Microsoft Windows 2000 and Windows XP computers that lets users enjoy digital photo albums, slideshows, and music using their TV and remote control. Meedio Express is based on a limited version of the award-winning Meedio Essentials platform which lets users collect, categorize, and enjoy all of their digital media files from a central media library. MORE »

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Meedio LLC, a leader in home entertainment and control software, today announced the availability of the latest product in their line of digital home software. Meedio TV is a digital video recorder (DVR) application that runs on Microsoft Windows XP computers and uses a TV tuner to enable users to watch, pause, rewind, and record live television broadcasts. Meedio TV also includes a free subscription to an Electronic Program Guide (EPG) which allows users to browse, search, and schedule upcoming broadcasts up to ten days in advance. Meedio TV is available immediately for only $39.99. MORE »

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[FYI, We’ve corresponded on this topic on previous occasions] I’m still thinking SnapStream is missing an opportunity with Linux. My suggestion would be to create a cross-platform version of SnapStream that can be installed on Windows, Mac, or Linux — similar to what Mozilla is doing with Firefox and Thunderbird. I know that there will be limitations with TV tuner card compatibility, but if SnapStream goes through with this, they would have the largest PVR market share of any developer. What do you think? MORE »

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Digital music research firm, The Leading Question, finds that illegal music file-swappers in Britain are the biggest spenders on legal music downloads, outspending casual users by £4.25 a month (via Designtechnica). Does this seem a little far fetched to anyone else? I’ve heard these reports before, but if you’re a regular music file-swapper, why would you spend money on buying DRM-protected digital music? If anything, it would make more sense to buy music CDs directly from a music store (and convert them to MP3 or OGG) than from Napster or iTunes.

Popularity: 2% [?]