It seems that the most recent DVDs released by Sony — specifically Stranger Than Fiction, Casino Royale, and The Pursuit of Happyness — have some kind of ‘feature’ that makes them unplayable on many DVD players.

This doesn’t appear to be covered by the major media yet, but this link to a discussion over at Amazon gives a flavor of the problems people are experiencing.

A blogger called Sony and was told the problem is with the new copy protection scheme, and they do not intend to fix it. Sony says it’s up to the manufacturers to update their hardware.

Several companies, including Yahoo, AT&T and Microsoft, are encouraging regulators to take a close look at Google’s planned purchase of online ad company DoubleClick.

Although the companies have yet to file any formal objections with regulators in the U.S. or Europe, they are beginning to publicly voice their concerns, according to a source close to one of the companies.

If the deal goes through, Google would account for 80 percent of the ads served up on the Internet, the source said.

Blu-ray may have the upper hand in the North American high-definition market, but HD DVD appears to be the format of choice in Europe. European movie studios are favoring HD DVD over Blu-ray due to the cost savings involved in HD DVD duplication for these independent European studios, according to a report on the Financial Times (subscription).

Part of the reason for Blu-ray’s success in the US is due to the inclusion of Blu-ray players in Sony’s newest console, the PS3. According to recent research from Adams Media Research, Blu-ray players that are built into consoles account for roughly 94 percent of all Blu-ray players purchased in the US. Going by that data, Sony’s delay in launching the PS3 in Europe could then be holding back the adoption of Blu-ray among the movie studios there, many of which are independent and must focus on targeting the largest installed user base—HD DVD—with their limited budgets.

Want a video removed from YouTube? Send along a fake takedown notice pretending to be from the copyright holder. At least, it’s a prank that worked for a 15 year old from Perth, Australia, who sent a signed form to YouTube pretending to be from the Australian Broadcasting Company. The form requested the takedown of hundreds of clips from “The Chaser’s War on Everything�?.

YouTube not only reacted, but sent warnings to all the uploaders saying their accounts would be deleted if they persisted. As it turns out, the ABC actually encourages the spread of Chasers clips, since they consider the comedy series to be a good promotion for the channel’s content.

The latest version of Mozilla Thunderbird may still only be in beta but already the user community have started creating an extensive set of viable Exhchange killers.

One such example is the latest mashup between Thunderbird and Google Calendars, providing bi-directional syncing of calendar information from both the client and internet. How long will it be before open-source software can provide a complete, accessible office suite for a fraction of the cost that Microsoft current impose

Samsung Electronics on Friday said it plans to introduce in time for the holidays a disc player that supports the two competing high-definition DVD formats.

The Korean company’s Duo HD, or BD-UP5000, player will fully support HD DVD and Blu-ray, including interactive features within the discs. Samsung currently makes a Blu-ray-only player.

“Consumers are hungry for more HD content but are currently confused about competing formats,” Dongsoo Jun, executive vice president of the Digital AV Division at Samsung,” said in a statement. “Samsung’s Duo HD player will allow consumers access to every HD movie title available regardless of the authoring format.”

Mobile service providers in Pakistan have been inundated by calls from subscribers worried by a prank message that they could die of a deadly virus being transmitted via their phones.

The rumor was so effective that some mosques in the country’s biggest city, Karachi, made announcements that people were being killed by a mobile virus and they should be aware of God’s wrath.

In a prank reminiscent of the plot in the hit Hollywood movie “The Ring” in which people die within a week after watching a video, the prankster warned users that a deadly virus transmitted through phones had killed 20 people.

There are more than 52 million mobile users among 160 million people in Pakistan.

Farah Hussain, a spokeswoman for Warid Telecom, said that their customer service centers had been inundated with panicky subscribers inquiring about the so-called virus.