Disc burning software developer Nero and the MPEG LA licensing group have finally settled their two year-old legal battle. Nero sued MPEG LA back in May of 2010 for allegedly abusing its monopoly for its video codec patents. The two companies on Thursday revealed that the matter is now resolved, though neither side revealed financial details of the truce.
Dell hoped to preempt Apple Wednesday by adding its own rough parallel to iCloud. An updated Stage UI now includes SyncUP, a Nero-developed sync service that both automatical spreads files and streams music, photos, and videos between computers and mobile devices. The service is cross-platform and can see Android and Windows devices, though it won't share copy-protected content.
Sony today added a designer USB-based DVD rewriter tailored for notebooks. The DRX-S70U-W is only just larger than the drive itself and records single-layerDVDs at 8X; it can also burn rewritable discs at the same speed and dual-layer 8.5GB discs at 6X. The drive is powered by the USB bus and is intended first for netbooks and ultraportables where optical storage isn't built-in.
Nero today introduced a new hardware and software combo that aims to bring full DVR features to those who don't have or prefer to avoid built-in tools such as Windows Media Center. LiquidTV includes TiVo's familiar remote, a USB digital TV tuner, and a customized version of the interface from TiVo's video recorders, all of which effectively mimic the features of the dedicated set-top box. Owners can auto-record suggested TV shows, subscribe to season passes and manually specify show recording from the programming guide.
TiVo and software developer Nero on Wednesday announced that they were jointly developing a TiVo interface for an upcoming version of Nero's software, giving the suite digitial video recorder-like features very similar to TiVo's set-top boxes without the need for stand-alone hardware. The particular features have not been detailed but are targeted specifically at the increasing amount of home theater computers with TV tuners, Nero says.
