Retail: Opinions

More bad news for fans of the "I bought it, I own it, I can do what I want with it" approach to living.

Gordon Ramsay is the @#$%^ hottest thing on television right now. Apart from the ubiquitous swearing, part of his appeal is his ability to tell the truth about the situation his restaurateurs are facing and then how, if they listen, they can build a fabulous business.

Creating brand loyalty means telling your story again, and again...

And then there was one: Blu-ray.

Well, that was quick. Last week, consumer electronics giant Toshiba announced it was pulling the plug on its high-definition video disc format, HD DVD. Within days, Toshiba's partners announced that they were now Blu-ray shops, and HD DVD players and movies were reduced to fire-sale prices.

Toshiba conceded the HD video disc battle this week and announced its HD-DVD formatted products were no longer going to be manufactured. It had little choice after a string of defeats, started by Warner choosing to go with Blu-Ray exclusively and concluding when the US's biggest retailer, Wal Mart, backed out of the HD DVD format.

Courtesy of Mac Rumours comes this memo from Steve Jobs on FairPlay, the Digital Rights Management (DRM) anti-piracy technology with which Apple encodes downloaded music. DRM limits where and how digital music can be played.

While the digital camera explosion has sparked rapid development and growth in other areas, such as storage and photo sharing sites, the photo editing tool space has lagged somewhat behind. There's the pricey Adobe Photoshop at the high end of the market, and each of the camera manufacturers bundles their cameras with basic editing suites, but there hasn't been much in the middle.

Just when you've figured out the settings on your latest smart phone, digital camera or GPS device from last holiday, along comes this week's Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in Las Vegas with a whole new batch of electronic goodies to get you ready for 2008. Here's a bunch of new items I can't wait to see at the show:

So, just to be clear. We're all thieves here, right?

In a world in which gadgets are getting ever-smaller, SanDisk's new Sansa View is, strangely, significantly larger than both its competitors and its own predecessor, the company's Sansa e200 line of media players.