Starbucks became the most visible Wi-Fi-equipped national chain in the US when it began offering the service in 2002. Now, at more than 5,100 stores, Starbucks offers Internet access "from the comfort of your favorite cozy chair." Before you pop open your laptop, however, you need to pull out your credit card. Starbucks and its partner, T-Mobile, charge $6 an hour for t…

"Today, we're introducing three revolutionary new products. The first one is a widescreen ipod with touch controls. The second is a revolutinoary new mobile phone. And the third is a breakthrough internet communications device. An iPod, a phone, an internet mobile communicator... these are NOT three separate devices! And we are calling it iPhone!" During the 2007 MacWorld K…

The winner of a new Machinima competion - The Sims Shorts - will have their 2 ½ minute film shown throughout December in 58 Vue cinema screens across the UK alongside some of the big Christmas  blockbusters. The winner will also get a cash prize of £1000 and have their short available for download on www.simsshorts.com.

"Pirates compete the same way we do - through quality, price and availability." Giving the Keynote address at Mipcom, Disney co-chair Anne Sweeney has broken with studio convention and recognised piracy as a business model to compete with, as opposed to simply an illegal threat to be battled. Sweeney's pragmatic conversion came after seing - within 15 minutes of the ABC network premiere of Despe…

Having previously turned down MySpace, Google has paid more than three times the amount of money NewsCorp paid for that community to pick up the video sharing social network YouTube. Conceived in February 2005 by three ex PayPal employees and with only $11.5m in venture capital funding to date, the 67-employee company boasted over 100 million films watched per day, dwarfing the audience s…

After returning from Mordor and battling Kong, Peter Jackson has just signed with Microsoft to develop 'a new form of interactive entertainment' for the Xbox 360. The Oscar winnner, soon to begin production on a film version of the video game Halo is set to create a series based on the Bungie Studios shoot-em-up franchise.

A technology company has released a TV-stereo-computer interfacing device that fully embraces the open source idealogy by encouraging end users to modify and produce its core software. Unlike most consumer hardware where the manufacturer does everything in its power to prevent users from 'climbing under the hood' the Neuros OSD will actually pay end users for their hacks, includin…

iTunes Movie Store also unveiled  At a special media event today, Apple CEO Steve Jobs previewed a wireless set top box to be available from the first quarter of 2007. The much rumoured device, provisionally called iTV ('we need to get a better name' said Steve) will allow people to manage their music and media collections from the living room and access select quantite…

  UK Government Have Posted Two Videos on YouTube - for all the world to enjoy. Senior executives at the UK Cabinet Office have posted their first two short films - 'Transformational Government' and 'Sharing the leadership challenge', a slightly longer clip concerning Whitehall plans to save money by consolidating service departments and the leadership cha…