News & UK Play Chart

With music fans' buying habits changing dramatically over the past few years you might assume that home insurance would cover downloaded songs as standard – but you'd be wrong. According to Which? around a third of home insurance providers don't cover downloads as part of their standard policies, meaning that in the event of an accident any downloaded songs would be lost without the possibility of compensation. As Britain's music industry moves ever further towards a download culture, with over 100 million tracks already being downloaded per year, this may come as a surprise for some consumers.

Anyone who frequently downloads, therefore, is advised to check their policy and ensure that their downloaded are covered by their current deal, or if not to look into a policy which does cover them. Insurers such as Direct Line and Privilege offer up to £1,000 worth of cover for downloads, with Hiscox' cover extending up to £2,500. Which? also advise heavy downloaders to invest in an external hard drive to act as a backup should anything go wrong with their PC – at least that way a bug in the system won't leave their record collection in the recycle bin. 

The fight-back against online piracy continues apace, but the rights holders of music which is being shared for free will still have to shoulder the vast majority of the costs of the clampdown.

The task of identifying, and notifying, people who are illegally distributing and downloading is a huge one, and the government has decided that the rights holders are to be responsible for 75% of the costs, likely to around the £14 million, with Internet Service Providers (ISPs) forking out for the remaining 25%.

This new cost-sharing plan is set to kick in in 2011, and it’s hoped it will make a saving for copyright holders of around £200million across the board. The rights holders aren’t exactly thrilled with the division, however, feeling ISPs should be forced to stump up more for their customers who use P2P filesharing tools.

At present, the rights holders have been paying the cost, but their hopes that a more equal division of the bill would be announced seem to have fallen flat. The government’s reasoning behind the uneven carve up was that “It was considered these were largely 'business as usual' costs that copyright owners would face as part of protecting their own copyright material”.

The BPI’s response to the ruling was guarded: “We will work closely with the government and Ofcom to ensure that the costs framework overall is workable and affordable, in particular for small labels, and that the Code can be swiftly implemented."

McDonalds have shown their commitment to introducing new technologies by partnering with IBM to implement a new cashless payment system at 1,300 restaurants across the country. Furthermore, it’s expected to be up and running by as soon as the end of this year.

It’s not the first time the two global giants have worked together – IBM were behind McDonalds’ move to provide free wi-fi in almost all its restaurants in 2007, which made them the biggest wi-fi provider in the country at the time and saw millions stopping by for a burger with their browser. They’re now working to make the McDonalds payment process quicker and more secure than ever before.

The new technology is intended to enhance customers’ payment experience by reducing transaction time, but it’s not just about speed – the new system will feature cutting-edge fraud detection software, as well as anti-tamper functionality, to protect these cashless payments.

The new, cashless solution is an integrated infrastructure, from the chip and pin at the point of sale terminal to the new, centralised data centre. This is a major part of an ongoing three year project to transform McDonalds payment systems, and a clear indicator of what the future of payment technology might look like.

The revolutionary iPad from Apple may be a sleek and stylish invention, but for PC bosses it’s proving a pretty ugly proposition. According to research from a leading analyst the impact of the iPad on the market is set to be felt most keenly by the manufacturers of lower-end PCs, with estimates of iPad sales in 2011 coming in at a whopping 28 million units. And according to the experts that might just be a ‘conservative’ estimate.

Notebook PCs may offer more complex functionality than the iPad, but its tablet design and eye-catching visuals have seen it overshadow the plainer, less aesthetically appealing notebooks, causing designers to go back to the drawing board in a bid to create products which can rival the innovative look and feel of the iPad.

One key knock-on effect of the iPad craze is the delay in customers upgrading their PCs, or holding back from buying them entirely, as their day-to-day browsing needs are met by the portable and lightweight Apple devices.

Another is the driving down of digital random access memory, or DRAM, in PCs as the iPad and other similar machines aren’t as reliant on DRAM as PCs or notebooks are.   
 

In March, Facebook overtook Google to become the most visited site on the Web. And what’s more, according to recent statistics, a whopping 50% of its 350 million plus users log into it every single day. More than 35 million of its users update their status everyday too – that’s a lot of active engagement – and it means their friends need to be able to access the web to stay up to speed with the latest goings on in their social circle.

Add to the mix rapidly-growing upstart Twitter, business essential LinkedIn and photo-hoster Flickr, itself a resource for over four billion images (and counting), and a picture soon emerges of a growing number of must-visit sites, whose dedicated users can’t be out of the loop for too long.

Thanks to the wonders of wi-fi there’s no need to be left out in the cold anymore, meaning terminal tweeters can share their latest musings, Facebook fiends find out what their friends got up to on their holidays as soon as they touch back down and budding Alan Sugars can do a bit of networking over lunch, via LinkedIn. It doesn’t take an entrepreneur to know that wi-fi connectivity is paramount in our new social networking age. Wi-fi in your pub, bar, cafe or hotel is as necessary as the furniture customers and patrons sit on.

So, Apple has another gleaming hit on its hands with the iPad. Within four weeks of its launch in the US, over a million high-tech tablets were snapped up. Interestingly, the wi-fi enabled units provided the key sales. The alternative, 3G iPads are costlier to buy and maintain.

The success of the wi-fi iPad is yet another sign that wireless connectivity is fast becoming essential for any commercial business wanting to maximise customer dwell time.

On another note, the San Francisco Chronicle reports the iPad is popular among OAPs – it seems older folks find it easier, more readable and better for people with basic computer skills than a laptop. Maybe that’s why I’ve got to get my hands on one when the iPads finally storm these shores!

It might sound like something from a spy film but Warner Bros are taking their fight against piracy to the next level: on-campus espionage. The music giants are hoping to crack down on students who break copyright laws with a little help from their fellow bookworms.

Aimed at people studying computing (well, they do know their way around the system after all) the £17,500 job, based in London, is a clear sign labels are taking the issue of illegal downloading more seriously than ever.

It’s not as simple as keeping their virtual ear to the ground – the successful ‘anti-piracy intern’ will monitor blogs and torrent sites as well as purchasing illegal material and issuing copyright infringement notices straight after their sting.

Rumour has it torrent sites are already biting back, recruiting people to snoop on the snooper – it could be a never ending spiral! Either way it shows how important this issue has become, and while I’m sure the intern won’t be the most popular person on campus it is a forward-thinking move to get someone on the inside. It also shows it’s not just big sites like Pirate Bay who have to keep an eye on who’s watching when they try to get around copyright laws.