UK consumers may be taking their time jumping on the Blu-ray bandwagon so maybe Sony’s latest Blu-ray players, sporting Wi-Fi and sensible price tags will help them make the leap. The company has just announced its new BDP-𔖠 and the BDP-𔙨 [above], the latter coming with integrated 802.11a/b/g/n Wi-Fi connectivity to make updating firmware and accessing Web content a snip. They both offer full 1080/60p and 24p True Cinema Output and support for the latest HD audio formats like 7.1-channel Dolby TrueHD, Dolby Digital Plus, DTS-HD High Resolution Audio and DTS-HD Master Audio. They are Profile 2.0 players with support for Internet-based BD Live content, like trailers, extra content and games.The BDP-𔙨 uses Wi-Fi Protected setup, which promises simple connection to your wireless router and it also supports DLNA, for easy communication and file swapping with other DLNA-certified products. However, despite the inclusion of Wi-Fi the player does not support content streaming from your PC, for instance, which new players from Samsung and others do. Still, there’s always the price to look forward to as the BDP-𔖠 and the BDP-𔙨 are priced at $300 and $350 [US first], respectively, so will be in the £215-250 ballpark when they arrive this summer. Oh, what a difference a year makes.-Martin Lynch blu-ray movies sony

We’re not sure what your night-time fantasies run to but, if it’s getting laughed at in the street, then you just have to get yourself one of these: the Batman Full Image Zip Up Hoodie. This is certainly the Most-Batman hoodie of all Batman hoodies and comes complete with drawn-on muscles so you can cut down on all that essential training, and a utility belt so you can pretend that you have some smoke bombs and grapple devices on you. But, you say, what good is a hoodie that when zipped all the way up you can’t even see the chavs you’re chasing? Good point but….TA-DA! The hood has a pair of cleverly disguised mesh eyeholes so that you can retain you vigilante identity and, not trip over things. Should go well with your new Bat-Cuffs. Ridiculous, but if you have to have one go here. They cost around £55. And no, people will not believe they are your real muscles.-Martin Lynch [Craziest Gadgets] fashion batman movies

We saw the first slinky Sony Walkman with a touchscreen OLED display at CES last month and it was indeed impressive. Now, it’s been priced for the UK but, before you think this latest wannabe ‘iPod Touch killer’ will save you a bit of cash, forget it. This is Sony, after all, and the pricing is on a level with the Touch at £216 for a 16GB model and £283 for the 32GB model. Still, it is pretty enough and that 3in OLED display is very sweet, despite losing 0.5in to the Touch’s touch LCD display. Formats supported include AAC and H.264 and the music player boasts noise cancellation technology and an S-Master digital amplifier. You can expect audio playback to be solid as a rock too thanks to the Walkman’s pedigree and, unlike the Touch, there’s in-built FM radio. There’s Wi-Fi for keeping tabs on your social networking status, watching YouTube vids, tuning into BBC’s iPlayer and checking emails. There are those anti-Apple shoppers who will no doubt take an interest in these players but we can′t help thinking that if Sony tried, just once, to offer the X series at a price even £10-20 lower than the iPod Touch it would interest a lot more people. Delivery is slated ‘loosely’ for next month.-Martin Lynch [Play.com] iPod Touch Sony MP3 player

Blu-ray has yet to shine as the HD movie format of choice for many consumers but according to market watcher Futuresource Consulting, HD fans around the globe will buy more than 100m of them within the year. Despite the recession, increased sales of HDTVs combined with cheaper Blu-ray players will drive sales of Blu-ray movies in Western Europe, the US and Japan. The UK already leads the way as the largest Blu-ray disc market in Europe, racking up 3.5m sales in 2008 - a whopping 40% of the European total. Worldwide, The Dark Knight led the Blu crusade with massive sales. “In the USA, BD has moved from early adopter phase through to early majority, with the format gaining real traction in the marketplace,” says Mai Hoang, Senior Market Analyst at Futuresource Consulting. “Last year in the US alone, BD video retail sales increased by a whopping 320% to 24 million units; and we’re going to see momentum continuing in 2009, with over 80 million disc sales forecast.” She added: “The UK is the largest market for BD in Western Europe. With sales of more than 3.5 million units in 2008, it represented over 40% of the West European total. BD also benefited from a number of UK television campaigns during the critical fourth quarter of 2008, considerably raising consumer awareness. Factor in Sky’s high profile approach to marketing its HD service, and to a lesser extent the BBC/ITV joint venture, Freesat, and the cumulative effect has made a substantial impact upon the marketplace.” Even though HD movie downloads are on the horizon, Futuresource does not see it threatening the overall uptake of Blu-ray. “Looking at the hardware, retail prices are declining fast and we’ll see BD players become ‘impulse buys’ very soon, powering the format’s momentum through the diffusion curve,” says Alison Casey, Head of Global Content at Futuresource. “Although movie downloads are making noises in the marketplace, mainstream adoption will be a much more gradual process, with our projections showing that 12% of US consumer expenditure on home video will originate from online in 2012, with a slightly lower proportion in Europe.” Still, it will be years before DVD is dethroned as the dominant movie disc format. According to Futuresource, by 2012 around 50% of US and 35% of Western European video disc retail sale volumes will be Blu-ray.-Martin Lynch blu-ray movies

We don’t want to spend too much time talking about The Pirate Bay’s ongoing court case but there were some rather interesting comments made on day three, so here’s a quick rundown. In a move that’s likely to infuriate those who already think the entertainment industry is a bunch of money-grabbing naysayers, the prosecution attempted to justify its oversized compensation claim by saying that damages from The Pirate Bay should be the same as if it had ‘legally’ purchased the content, so in other words it is calling every download a lost sale.It gets worse - for files that haven’t been officially released yet, like the song ‘Let it Be’ by The Beatles, it wants ten times its retail value in damages, something it is calling a special ‘preview license’. In addition the Swedish Anti-Piracy Bureau decided to double all of the figures to account for ‘loss of goodwill’, so it seems like they’re really having a laugh with the actual amount of compensation being asked for. The defence argued a number of issues including inaccurate download figures and file availability but Per E Samluelsson may well have sewn the thing up during his missive. “EU directive 2000/31/EG says that he who provides an information service is not responsible for the information that is being transferred. In order to be responsible, the service provider must initiate the transfer. But the admins of The Pirate Bay don’t initiate transfers. It’s the users that do and they are physically identifiable people. They call themselves names like King Kong,” said Samuelsson. “According to legal procedure, the accusations must be against an individual and there must be a close tie between the perpetrators of a crime and those who are assisting. This tie has not been shown. The prosecutor must show that Carl Lundström personally has interacted with the user King Kong, who may very well be found in the jungles of Cambodia.” After this rather concise revelation the court adjourned for the rest of the day. It′ll continue as planned tomorrow but is so far ahead of schedule. - Paul Lester [TorrentFreak] The Pirate Bay torrent P2P

As self-confessed tech-heads most of us would probably admit to wanting to regress back to our childhood from time to time so we can play with some of the cool toys that are being released these days. Terminator Salvation seems destined to result in a whole swathe of paraphernalia aimed at the younger generation and three have been announced already. First up we have a Terminator fist/sleeve device with a detachable hand that can be shot at your enemies to attack them from a distance, just like in the movie. No, wait… There’s also a voice-changing Terminator helmet with glowing eyes and what looks like some bits of plastic you stick on your face to make it look like you’ve been blasted with something and your skin is peeling back. Not so keen on that last one, but there’s bound to be some fun to be had with the other two. Unfortunately, since we haven′t perfected the art of morphing liquid mercury into solid objects and controlling machines with sheer willpower, it looks like at least the first batch of stuff will be based on the T-800, but that’s better than pulling on a scraggy vest and posing as a resistance fighter, right? - Paul Lester [Slashfilm] Terminator toys movies

As pointed out by one on-the-ball contributor in our previous post, the latest case against torrent giants Pirate Bay has all but descended into a farce just two days in. 50% of the charges against the website have already been dropped due to shortcomings in prosecution evidence. Apparently much of the evidence being used cannot actually be traced back to The Pirate Bay’s tracker, with screenshots clearly stating that there is no connection between them. The prosecution has also been accused of misunderstanding the technology, resulting in Hakan Roswall being told to ditch all charges based on ‘assisting copyright infringement’. The charges were dropped in the morning on the second day, leaving defense lawyer Per E Samuelson to say “This is a sensation. It is very rare to win half the target in just one and a half days and it is clear that the prosecutor took strong note of what we said yesterday” and one of The Pirate Bay’s operators to claim “It is clear that this is an advantage for the accused.” The prosecution, rather than being deterred by what appears to be a rather shocking oversight, seems more determined than ever though, releasing a statement that read: “It’s a largely technical issue that changes nothing in terms of our compensation claims and has no bearing whatsoever on the main case against The Pirate Bay. In fact it simplifies the prosecutor’s case by allowing him to focus on the main issue, which is the making available of copyrighted works.” The case continues this week as the prosecution attempts to regroup before the defense hits back. Here′s hoping for more comedy moments from the former. - Paul Lester [TorrentFreak] The Pirate Bay torrent copyright

Transformers fans assemble. A full official trailer for the new movie was posted up on YouTube today and is now available to watch, in glorious 720p HD. Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen is due for release on the 26th of June in the UK and those who argued that staggered worldwide release dates promote torrent use in our comments section will be pleased to hear that this is a global move; everyone except Belgium and France are getting it over a three day period. Except Russia and Spain who have a one-week head start, the lucky blighters.The movie has much of the same cast as the 2007 film and from the looks of things is another excuse for shed loads of CGI robots to beat the nuts and bolts out of each other while destroying half the planet in the process. Good stuff. Don’t forget to click the HQ box from the selection menu at the bottom right of the clip if you want the extra quality. - Paul Lester [Official site] science technology space

If you enjoyed watching the Steam engine being used to test fire drills and you’re a fan of indie movies you’ll want to check out ‘Escape From City 17′, which was created by the Purchase Brothers and posted up on the web last week in both standard definition and HD. It’s a cross between Half Life 2 and live action footage and as the name suggests, follows soldiers who are attempting to evade combines and escape the city. In part one of two, plenty of blood gets splattered about and someone gets beaten to death by the infamous crowbar, so can′t say fairer than that. It scored over a million hits in the first few days on YouTube and uses a blend of live action with footage from the game, all for a low, low production fee of $500. Handmade costumes and donated equipment were used and though it’s hardly ground-breaking in terms of a script or decent acting, it was originally an exercise in post-production techniques and we think it looks pretty cool. The spliced in scenes from the game are pretty obvious but they are effective enough to suggest that game engines could become more and more integral to moviemaking in the future. - Paul Lester YouTube Half Life 2 Steam

The Pirate Bay is being hauled up on charges again, this time in Sweden, where a trial began today to attempt to shut down the infamous torrent sharing site on the basis that even linking to copyrighted materials is a crime. Of course this isn′t the first time someone has tried to shut it down and despite the fact that representatives of the entertainment industry are seeking 10.6 million euros in damages, co-owner Gottfrid Svartholm Warg seemed confident in stating “What are they going to do about it? They have already failed to take down the site once. Let them fail again.” Defence lawyer Per Samuelsson used the comparison of the manufacture of cars that can be driven faster than the speed limit to illustrate the point that it is perfectly legal to offer a service that can be used both legally and illegally. The demise of Pirate Bay would be a massive blow to those who regularly download and share the various content available, so we’ll keep an eye on the trial, which is supposed to last around two weeks, to let you know if anything interesting happens. - Paul Lester [BBC] Pirate Bay P2P torrents