The recording industry reports a tenfold increase in the number of people legally downloading music from the internet and the first significant revenues brought in by digital sales.
The International Federation of the Phonographic Industry, or IFPI, also says it will continue its campaign of suing people who illegally download music, a practice it claims severely erodes the profits of its 1,450 member record companies worldwide.
The IFPI said music fans in the United States and Europe legally downloaded more than 200 million tracks in 2004, up from about 20 million in 2003. That contributed to estimated digital music revenues of around $330 million in 2004, up sixfold from the previous year.
Industry forecasts for future digital growth vary. Some analysts suggest that 25 percent of record company revenue could come from digital sales by 2010; others put the figure at less than 10 percent -- up from 1 percent to 2 percent now.
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Work from phone: New software from Toshiba will let you edit documents, send e-mail and reboot your Windows computer remotely through a mobile phone. That'll let you get work done wherever you may be, including commuter trains and bus stops.
The idea of accessing personal computers through mobile phones isn't new, but the software has been limited in capability. Toshiba (TOSBF) says its Ubiquitous Viewer handles virtually all Windows PC functions.
But making a cell phone work like a keyboard and mouse, and trying to view computer screens on a tiny display, can be quite a challenge. You need to do a lot of button-punching and scrolling. And in a recent demonstration, the mobile connection failed twice before a document could be copied and pasted as an e-mail attachment.
Toshiba initially is targeting the corporate work force, though it says individuals can use it to record TV shows, work security cameras and control air conditioners tied to home networks.
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20/20 hindsight: Sony missed out on potential sales from MP3 players and other gadgets because it was overly proprietary about music and entertainment content, the head of Sony's video-game unit acknowledged.
Ken Kutaragi, president of Sony Computer Entertainment, said he and other Sony employees have been frustrated for years with management's reluctance to introduce products like Apple Computer's (AAPL) iPod, mainly because the Tokyo company had music and movie units that were worried about content rights.
High-ranking Sony officials have rarely publicly said their proprietary views were a mistake. Kutaragi, who has long been viewed as a candidate to lead Sony, was unusually direct in acknowledging Sony had made an error and blaming proprietary concerns from its entertainment division.
Kutaragi -- known as the "father of the PlayStation" for making the game machine a pillar of Sony's business -- said the new handheld PlayStation Portable, or PSP, will grow into a global platform for enjoying music and movies as well as games.
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Please click our site: America Online, seeking to boost traffic to its free website as its paid subscriber base declines, said it is enhancing its search functions.
Search queries will now generate a group of results called "snapshots" -- editorial content and relevant information for a wide range of topics including local movie show times, sports statistics and current events. It will include options to find a flight or a restaurant.
The company is also introducing a tool to help users narrow their search queries. For instance, a user who types the word "eagles" can select from such options as "The Eagles" (the band), the "Philadelphia Eagles" (the football team) or "eagles" (the bird).
AOL also said it has signed a licensing agreement with Copernic Technologies for a desktop search tool. Google (GOOG), Yahoo (YHOO) and Microsoft (MSFT) already have released similar software for cataloging and scanning hard drives for information.
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Compiled by David Cohn. AP and Reuters contributed to this report.
