Illegal music downloading has been the scourge of the music industry for many years, and now the UK’s biggest Internet Service Providers are uniting to tackle the problem. Six ISPs, namely Virgin, BT, BSkyB, Carphone Warehouse, Tiscali and Orange have teamed up with a government initiative that will see hundreds of thousands of Internet users receiving warning letters about suspected illegal file sharing.

Anyone suspected of downloading and sharing music illegally could find their Internet connections heavily restricted.

Geoff Taylor is the chief exec of the BPI:

All of the major ISPs in the UK now recognise they have a responsibility to deal with illegal file-sharers on their networks.

The BPI in the UK has tried to educated people on downloading illegal music, in sharp contrast to the approach taken in the US where tens of thousands of Internet users have been taken to court over file sharing.

Geoff Taylor continued:

The focus is on people sharing files illegally; there is not an acceptable level of file-sharing. Musicians need to be paid like everyone else.

File-sharing (of copyright tracks without permission) is not anonymous, it is not secret, it is against the law.

If you’re into downloading MP3 music from the Internet you’ll be interested in the new UK service from Datz. They’re offering an ‘all you can eat’ style service that allows you to download as much music from your iPod and your MP3 players as you want. The service costs £100 for a year, which gives you unlimited access to its music lounge.

It differs from its rivals, such as Napster, because the music on Datz is in MP3 format, which means you can play the music that you download on any iPod, MP3 player or even burn them to CD.

Even better, when your subscription to the service expires you still get to keep the music that you have downloaded.

Michael Richardson, the man behind Datz stated:

The real target market is young teenagers who are downloading illegally.

The family won’t have to worry about getting nasty letters from the solicitors and the son or daughter gets all the music he or she wants.

We are not trying to judge ourselves against iTunes. We’re taking on [peer to peer networks] BitTorrent and Limewire.

Currently Datz has EMI and Warner signed up, but is still waiting on Sony BMG and Universal.

Fans of the Beatles have always been disappointed that you can’t get their music from iTunes, so you’re unable to download their tracks for an iPod or MP3 player. Recently a commemorative Beatles iPod was released, but it still didn’t come with digital versions of the tracks, it comes with CDs instead!

Now however Beatles fans will be able to get their music digitally, but it’s not from iTunes, nor is it for your MP3 player. No, instead the Fab Four’s music is being released in a version of the MTV video game series, Rock Band.

The Beatles version of the game, which will allow you to play along to their music, was produced with input from the surviving members of the Beatles, Ringo Starr and Sir Pail McCartney.

McCartney stated:

The project is a fun idea which broadens the appeal of The Beatles and their music.

Ringo added:

How wonderful that The Beatles’ legacy will find its natural progression into the 21st century through the computerised world we live in.

Let the games commence.

With the Wii performing so strongly and the iPod always doing well, Nintendo has announced that it expects its second-quarter earnings to be strong.

We may be in a global recession with consumer confidence low and spending very tight, it doesn’t seem to have affected Nintendo or their profits. Nintendo raised their sales projections in July for the Nintendo Wii console and the Nintendo DS Lite handheld. The Wii Fit has kept interest and demand for the Wii console alive, and the impending launch of the DSi is expected to keep Nintendo at the forefront of the gaming world.

Part of Nintendo’s success lies in their ability to attract the non-typical gamers with their style of party games and family games. The Xbox 360 and the PS3 may be technically superior, and may be the ‘gamer’s choice’ but they can’t compete with the widespread appeal of the Wii.

With Nintendo expected to announce their figures shortly, they’re forecasting a massive 165 billion yen profit (which is about $1.7 billion profit) for their Q2.

The Nintendo Wii has been used for a few months now in various hospitals throughout the world to help patients with rehabilitation. One such patient was teenager Natalie Cinderby who recently survived a car crash that left her left arm badly injured. She had her arm rebuilt by surgeons, and underwent months of physiotherapy to regain the use of her arm.

She was injured in a car accident last year and ended up in Morriston Hospital, Swansea. As a thank you for the staff at the hospital, Natalie has donated a Nintendo Wii so that other patients can benefit from its rehabilitation powers.

It was a big accident and I was unconscious for a couple of weeks.

When I came out of hospital I couldn’t do anything with my arm - I couldn’t do my hair or dress myself.

I’ve been having therapy ever since and they’ve been pushing me using different games and things to help me use my arm.

The therapists have been great and given me different things to do but we were having a chat about a Nintendo Wii and how it might help so I decided to buy them one.

I know that people of all ages are treated here and particularly for younger children it might make things a bit more fun.

The hospital are delighted with the gift from Natalie, as therapist Amanda Kyle states:

The gift has gone down really well with the staff and will certainly be a very useful addition to our service.

Using a games console like this can work well because it stimulates automatic movements, which is much better than the person thinking about it and trying to force their movement.

Of course, variety always helps and because a lot of people have similar games at home they can practice using the same equipment in between their appointments.

Although the iPod may have been designed for entertainment purposes, it can also be used for other things as well. The data storage facility on an iPod is basically a computer drive that can house information, just like a USB stick or external hard-drive. It’s for this reason that many companies, particularly those that are heavily involved in the IT sector, actually ban their employees from using iPods on the premises.

A construction company in Bangalore recently lost a multimillion-pound tender to a rival because of a leak involving one of their employees who used an iPod to download their tender documents and give them to the rival bidder.

The company discovered this through an investigation and was able to retrieve the data that was stored on the MP3 player, even though it had been deleted.

Another company in the IT field recently faced a similar problem when they had source code to one of their applications stolen using an iPod.

Murali Mohan, the advocate representing the IT firm stated:

We thought iPod was used only to download and listen songs, but as an external storage device holding any file type, iPods or other MP3 players have storage capacity between 1 GB and 80 GB. That is sometimes more disk space than conventional PCs. iPods can be easily misused.

Many companies are blind to the storage potential of the iPod, and despite banning devices such as USB drives and laptop computers from their premises, frequently allow iPods to be brought in.

The word of god has been spread in many different ways over the years, now it could be coming to iTunes and an MP3 player near you. That is, if a think tank of bishops from the Vatican have their way.

The Vatican has always been at the forefront of technology when it comes to preaching the word of god, and even had one of the very first websites every built in the early nineties, but the think tank wants to step up the pace and make use of newer, more widespread technologies for preaching about god; namely users of MP3 players.

A statement from the Vatican’s think tank read:

The voice of the Divine Word must resonate over the radio, on Internet channels with virtual distribution (and by) CDs, DVDs and iPods, and on television and cinema screens.

The Vatican wants to act fast to address the decline of church going, particularly in the UK, and believes that by taking advantage of iPods and MP3 players they’ll be able to do just that.

You could soon be listening to the sermon on the mount, on the bus, with the use of your iPod.

If you’re considering buying a Nintendo Wii this Christmas you’ll need to act fast, as Nintendo itself has admitted. Nintendo said that supply was very likely to exceed demand across the globe for their console as people seek to secure themselves a Wii for Christmas.

Reggie Fils-Aime, the Nintendo President for North America, mention in a recent interview with the LA Times that Nintendo increased production of the Wii for the holidays, but even with their increased production volumes, they still look likely to run out of consoles.

This is hard to imagine as the Japanese gaming giant is currently manufacturing 2.4 million Nintendo Wii consoles every month, which is an increase of 33% on last year’s production. However demand is still outstripping their ability to supply consoles.

Reggie also commented how the production figures for the Wii compared to the sales figures of the PlayStation 3 from Sony.

They will sell 10 million consoles worldwide this year. For us, that’s three months of production.

If you’re looking to buy a Nintendo Wii this year, you should move now as they’ll be in short supply.

It’s been standard for a while now that the best cars come with an iPod dock so that you can use your Apple iPod to listen to music while you drive. It’s nothing new, and many people expect to see it when they look for a new car. But what about a scooter? You don’t typically expect to have an iPod dock with your scooter, however the latest scooter from Razer, dubbed the iMod, comes equipped with an iPod dock.

In addition to the iPod dock, the scooter also comes equipped with speakers, meaning you can blast your music out while you motor around the town looking casual and cool in a very European style.

For the Mods among you (which means anyone who’s seen and enjoyed Quadrophenia) you’ll be pleased to know that the iMod is similar to a Vespa, but much smaller. Unlike with a Vespa though, you won’t be flying down the motorway as it has a top speed of 15mph.

The iMod, as you might imagine, isn’t for adults as it’s a Toys R Us exclusive and is more suited to kids. At $299 though, it’s for rich kids who love their MP3s.

You’d think that after inventing the modern day MP3 player you’d be tempted to rest on your laurels and sit back to reap the rewards. You’d be wrong though, because Fraunhofer, the German institute credited with being the inventors of the MP3 player (and presumably on Steve Job’s Christmas card list for life) are looking to plough ahead and make new discoveries, this time in the Gulf.

Dr Dieter Fuchs, the GM of Dr Dieter Fuchs in the Middle East, stated:

In the GCC region, we are interested in short and medium term research and development in cooperation with local companies.

The German institute, based in Munich, takes on approximately 15,000 research contracts each year with global companies, but is best know for its work developing and inventing the modern day MP3 player, an invention which changed the face of music industry, both in terms of listening to music and in the way music is purchased by the consumer.

Now Fraunhofer has partnered with companies in the Middle East, including Dubai Techno Park, in a bid to locate and develop new projects that will hopefully shape the world in much the same way as the MP3 player already has.