Audio/Video

When most of us think about a machine composing musical pieces, we think of primitive songs coming out of a HAL 9000 that could be suitable for a child's toy, but nothing that music lovers would actually enjoy. That's because most of us haven't heard of Emily Howell. No, that's not a person—it's the name of a computer program written by University of California, Santa Cruz professor David Cope that, after nearly three decades of work, is about to release, uh, "her" first CD through Centaur Records.

Back in August, the BBC sent a quiet notice to Ofcom asking for permission to cripple the next generation of digital television broadcasts. The BBC had apparently been meeting "third party content owners" who had "made it clear" that they expected the corporation to find ways to violate the regulation that forbids it from encrypting free television, and it thought it had found a way.

A website that illegally streams live television to personal computers and shows English football games each week could be closed down by the Premier League.

The success of MyP2P.eu, which is registered in the Netherlands, illustrates the problems that sports bodies face as they struggle to protect lucrative deals with broadcasters at a time when broadband access is making it easier to watch television programmes illegally.

Online music is confusing these days. It's hard to tell what's legal when once-defunct sites like KaZaA and Napster --former bastions of illegal downloads -- crawl out of the grave with legit subscription plans. And digital music offerings are expanding.

We've been promised wireless HDMI for years now and frankly, we're getting impatient. This is especially infuriating for tech journalists who attend CES each year to see an amazing array of wireless devices, only for them to never see the light of day. This year is different though, because right from the start, Panasonic and Sony both promised wireless HD transmission on their flagship TVs. ?

A few days after blocking PlayStation 3 users, Hulu has yet to respond to questions concerning the change which has only helped to fuel rumors it is related to the Microsoft ad campaign currently featured on the site, but that seems less likely now that we've confirmed it also began blocking the Flash-enabled Skyfire browser on Windows Mobile devices at the same time.

The world's most high-profile file-sharing website, The Pirate Bay (TPB), has lifted the lid on its new video sharing website, The Video Bay. Billed as a rival to YouTube, the service will offer unrestricted video content, in violation of copyright law.

It is not clear when the service will actually go live; the site's founders said "it will be done when it's done". In April, a court in Sweden jailed four men behind The Pirate Bay and ordered them to pay $4.5m (£3m) in damages.

A file-sharing fine against a Minnesota woman that mushroomed from $220,000 to nearly $2 million last week is just the latest evidence that illegally trading music and videos online is still with us in a big way.

In the spring, while pirates off the coast of Somalia were getting all the high-seas attention, four Swedish pirates of a totally different sort were being sentenced to pay more than $3 million in fines and serve a year in the brig. Their crime: running The Pirate Bay, one of the Web's most-visited file-sharing communities.

Has your mom ever called in a panic, saying the computer was displaying a weird error message and that she hurried and unplugged it just to be safe--and then dunked it in the bathtub so it wouldn't burn the house down?

It makes you realize that, to some people, a computer is still a terrifying box of mysteries. Well, we think Hollywood writers have those people in mind when they portray laptop computers doing everything short of blowing up the moon.

Virgin Media has announced it is to dip its toes into music streaming, in a bid to beat the online pirates.

In a partnership with Universal Music, Virgin Media will offer access to a massive library of DRM-free music for a yet-undisclosed fee (rumoured to be the price of a couple of albums a month) which will allow Virgin Media broadband customers to both stream and download as many music tracks and albums as they want from Universal Music's entire catalogue.