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The Sony PlayStation 2 has morphed tremendously over the years, from a fat black box to a streamlined sexy thing in contrasting hues. The only problem with the last installment is a cumbersome external power brick. But that's going out the window, at least in Japan, with a new 9000-series that includes an integrated AC power supply. Three colors (Charcoal Black, White Ceramic and Silver Satin) are available and each will be retailing for about $142 on the Japanese market, according to Gizmodo. There were no launch details for the rest of Asia at press time.

(Source: Crave Asia) … Read more

American peer-to-peer users worried about being sued into oblivion by the recording industry may soon have a much bigger concern: facing off against the U.S. Department of Justice.

Two senators, a Democrat and a Republican, introduced a bill on Wednesday that would unleash the world's largest law firm on Internet pirates. It would authorize the Justice Department to file civil lawsuits against people engaged in peer-to-peer copyright infringement--with the proceeds going to the company or person who owns the copyright.

"This legislation is a simple bill that would give the Department of Justice the authority to prosecute … Read more

Tomorrow Photobucket is finally rolling out smarter way to tag your photos. If you've ever used Facebook's system of tagging other people that lets users draw a box around their friends, Photobucket's new implementation isn't too far off. You simply need to draw a box around any people or objects in a photo and give it a tag. Users who see the photo can mouse over the shot and get little boxes that denote the tagged area--similar to Flickr's notes feature. You can also add URLs that will jump users off to someone's social … Read more

The RIAA's justification for its strong-arm tactics against alleged file sharers is simple: file sharing acts as a substitute for music purchases and is directly and primarily responsible for plummetting CD sales (which are down 14 percent from last year). I've argued in the past that the entire drop can't be blamed on piracy, and one Harvard study suggested that piracy is having no effect at all.

This week, Billboard published an article about a study commissioned by the Canadian government that investigated the connection between file sharing and CD sales. The surprising conclusion: the most active … Read more

Nick Carr has a biting post on Facebook's search for monetization. According to Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg, the future of Facebook may well be to monetize social interactions. I can't wait. What could be better than to have my interactions with "friends" I can't be bothered to hang out with in real life bought and sold?

Nick writes:

I like the way that Zuckerberg considers "media" and "advertising" to be synonymous. It cuts through the bull[potty]. It simplifies. Get over your MSM hangups, granddads. Editorial is advertorial. The medium is the message from our sponsor.… Read more

Update: I added a lot more detail about Red Hat's ambitions and other moves.

Red Hat on Wednesday announced a significant departure from its current business plan, saying its flagship Linux product will be available on Amazon.com's Elastic Computing Cloud online service.

Previously, the Raleigh, N.C.-based company only sold its Red Hat Enterprise Linux product in the form of a support contract costing between $349 and $2,499 per year. But in a beta program beginning in the fourth quarter, the software will be available on Amazon's EC2 infrastructure, Red Hat said.

The move … Read more

Microsoft's Windows Live services are living up to its name by going live, losing the "beta" label, and becoming available as a free, Windows suite of six Web-connected applications.

The suite includes Windows Live Mail, which integrates with Hotmail and supports POP and IMAP. Among the other complete desktop services are Windows Live Messenger and Windows Live Writer for composing blog posts. Windows Live Photo Gallery manages picture albums that can be uploaded to Microsoft Spaces, MSN Soapbox, or Yahoo's Flickr.

Also final are Windows Live Spaces for blogging, the Windows Live Events invitation service, as … Read more

It's fun for me to think about a room full of Target executives sitting around and making a decision about whether a video game is too violent for it to sell.

According to ABCNews.com, the giant retailer has decided not to carry the recent Rockstar Games gorefest, Manhunt 2, almost certainly because it has been at the center of the latest kerfuffle over the content of one of the publisher's titles.

"All video games and computer software sold at Target currently carry ratings by the Entertainment Software Ratings Board--from early childhood through mature audiences," ABC … Read more