Author: Digital Digest | Latest News

A new report by IHS predicts that by the end of 2017, most 50-inch or larger TVs will feature 4K resolution, and that 4K TV penetration will reach 34% by 2019 for the U.S. market. 

The same adoption rate will be lower in Europe, only 25%, with the highest adoption rate coming in Switzerland, followed by the UK.

The Japanese adoption rate for 4K TVs will only be 14%, predicts the IHS, due to the fact that most Japanese homes already have a fairly new model HDTV, thanks to recent subsidy and incentive programs introduced by the Japanese government. Due to space constraints, Japanese households also prefer smaller television sets, making it more difficult for the average person to see the benefits of 4K.

Although most will still find the higher resolution picture more desirable even on smaller screens, only those with a larger screens will be able to appreciate all the increased details in the picture. But 4K TVs offer not only a higher resolution, more than four times the number of pixels as HDTVs, but a whole host of picture quality improvements including a wider color range and more dynamic picture. 

These new features, however, means 4K TVs will attract a price premium, a premium that not all households will be able to afford or justify. This is why the adoption rate of 4K TVs in developing countries will be much slower, but with one major exception.

Watching television is extremely popular pastime in China, which is why the IHS predicts 4K TV adoption in China in 2019 will reach a high of 24%. This is extremely high compared to other developing countries such as India, where the 4K adoption rate will only be 2% by 2019.

A hacker has made claims that the PS4 has been jailbroken.

Someone referring to himself, or herself, as CTurt on Twitter made the claim this week, after earlier in the month claiming to have successfully tested a kernel exploit for the PS4. He thanked "everyone involved" at that time, suggesting that the hack was part of a larger community effort to jailbreak Sony's top selling console.

The exploit currently works only on version 1.76 or older versions of the PS4 firmware (the latest version is 3.11), which makes it unlikely that the use of this particular jailbreaking method will be widespread. But the exploit could be used to find further exploits in newer versions of the firmware.

Hackers and developers routinely challenge themselves by attempting to jailbreak devices such as the PS4. Jailbroken devices can be used to run homebrew software (those made by enthusiasts without having gone through the official Sony verification and release procedures). Another use for jailbreaking would be to run pirated games, although CTurt makes it clear his intentions behind the jailbreaking attempt has nothing to do with piracy.

"People who keep asking for piracy: go away, please," tweeted CTurt.

CTurt has previously released an open-source PS4 SDK, and so his claims, while lacking a working proof, cannot be discounted entirely either.

Regardless, Sony will be sure to keep an eye on the work of CTurt, and if his or her work proceeds further and threatens the security ecosystem, the company will most likely take technical and possibly even legal actions to ensure the jailbreaking doesn't become widespread.

From Sony's big win, to 4K's big hurdles, read the news roundup for the week ending 13 December 2015

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The PS4 has beaten the Xbox One in sales in November, for the lucrative US market, according to Sony. Sony made the announcement ahead of the official NPD report for the US market, due out next week.

This is a major coup for Sony, as Microsoft's "greatest gaming line-up ever" strategy failed to allow it to claim victory for the very important month of November (which also includes the Black Friday sales), a month that the Xbox One won last year.

For this year's Black Friday sales event, both Sony and Microsoft discounted their flagship consoles to only $300 (an offer that has now been extended by both companies until the end of the holiday shopping season). This price parity meant that Microsoft's sole advantage was its "greatest" gaming line-up, which includes exclusives such as Halo 5, as well as new games in the Forza, Gears of War and Assassin’s Creed series. In an indirect way, the Xbox One's new Xbox 360 backwards compatibility feature for selected 360 games, also helped Microsoft puff up its gaming line-up for November.

Both companies released statements stating that November had been the best November ever for both consoles, suggesting that sales of both consoles are growing strongly.

While it's still possible that the Xbox One actually had the better Black Friday and Cyber Monday sales, it appears that for the entire November at least, Sony's console, which many gamers considers to be superior in performance to the Xbox One, was the one that had the "greatest" month.

Lucasfilm, the makers of the new Star Wars: The Force Awakens film, has controversially used a DMCA take-down request to remove legally taken photos, in a possible bid to avoid a major film spoiler.

Walmart recently made the figurine for the upcoming film's main female character, Rey, available for sale still a week before the movie officially releases. Carelessly, the packing for the toy appears to reveal a major film spoiler regarding the fate of the character (a spoiler that will not be revealed in this news article).

It was then that Justin from the Star Wars fan site Star Wars Action News, who purchased the toy from his local Walmart, posted pictures of the toy and the box on Facebook. Shortly after, Justin received a notice from Facebook that his legally taken photos have been taken down after a copyright complaint, photos that were free of any copyright claim.

Jeremy Conrad at Star Wars Unity reposted the same pictures, and he too received a barrage of DMCA take-down notice, all were from Lucasfilm (via Irdeto). The notices refer to these images as that of "an unreleased figurine for Star Wars: Force Awakens", despite the same figurine being available to buy right now at all Walmart stores.

As Justin took these photos, the copyright on these photos belong only to Justin, and Lucasfilm has no legal claim. But the main reason for the outrageous DMCA request may have nothing to do with copyright, but everything to do with a major film spoiler that is revealed by text on the packaging for the toy. A toy that perhaps Walmart released far too early.

For fans unafraid of the spoiler, or for those that simply don't care much for the upcoming movie, you can view the original photo here (**Spoiler warning, click at your own peril!**) courtesy of TorrentFreak.

The results and analysis for Blu-ray (and DVD) sales for the week ending 28th November 2015 are in. It's Black Friday week, and the results are in. Find out if Blu-ray and DVD had a good Black Friday, or a bad one, in our weekly Blu-ray and DVD sales analysis.

You can read the rest of the stats and analysis here

New data released by Parks Associates shows that wider 4K TV adoption faces many issues, including pricing, content and unfamiliarity with the technology in general.

While the study showed that around 8% of US broadband households are looking to purchase a 4K TV, a staggering 42% said they simply weren't aware of or weren't familiar with 4K.

Consumers are also concerned about the higher pricing associated with Ultra HD TV sets, and many do not value the increased picture quality as worthy of the premium pricing, especially given the scarcity of 4K content.

"More consumers value other attributes, including smart TV capability, built-in Wi-Fi, and high-resolution audio, over 4K picture quality - 56% of U.S. broadband households planning to buy a flat panel in the next 12 months consider smart capabilities to be important, versus 39% who value 4K picture quality," said Barbara Kraus, Director, Research, Parks Associates.

The study also revealed that Samsung is currently leading the 4K TV market. 28% of all 4K TVs purchased in the last 12 month were Samsungs, followed by LG and Sony.

From copyrighting nothing to too many copyright notices, read the news roundup for the week ending 6 December 2015

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The results and analysis for Blu-ray (and DVD) sales for the week ending 21st November 2015 are in. The Man from U.N.C.L.E. was the week's best selling new release, but it failed to beat 'Inside Out' and 'Jurassic World'.

You can read the rest of the stats and analysis here

Google is now processing an unprecedented 1,500 DMCA takedown requests per minute, or more than 2 million takedown URL requests per day, according toGoogle's copyright transparency report.

Google first introduced their DMCA takedown service in 2011. Google processes each request, determining its validity, and if the request is deemed valid, removes the link from the search results. Owners of the links can then repeal the decision in order to reinstate the link.

While in 2011 Google only had to process a few hundred takedown requests per day, now in 2015, Google has to process more than 2 million requests in the same period.

This translates to more than 64.5 million URLs requested to be taken down in the past month, from 70,571 domains. Despite the high number of domains, a few bad actors are responsible for most of the requests, including Spanish MP3 download site flowxd.me who was single-handedly responsible for 1,467,424 URLs.

This escalating game of piracy "whack-a-mole" has critics on both sides of the fence, with some pointing to the futility of this kind of anti-piracy action as a reason for ending such actions, while rights-holders point to the same data as reason for Google to do more to make removals more permanent, including domain based blacklisting.