The MPEG LA, the organization in charge of handing out MPEG patent licenses, said that it will drop the fees for “essential” MPEG-2 patents beginning next year.

Let’s be realistic: If we leave the form factor and the splashes of color of the iPods for a moment aside, the iPods aren’t exactly a showcase of innovation these days. Apple is way too comfortable with its market share to introduce dramatically different features – such as the standard wireless Bluetooth headphones we have been waiting for. But, if we believe a new set of rumors, then at least a digital camera is on the way. But remember, it is a slow news day.

 Have a great idea for an Internet company? Head right over to Marc Andreesen, best known for (co-) inventing the web browser as we know it today at NCSA in the early 1990s and commercializing his idea through Netscape. Andreesen announced the founding of a $300 million VC firm, ready to give out somewhere between $50,000 and $50 million to the next great idea.

You know what the world's first full length talking movie was, don't you. Well, no, you don't. While Al Jolson has gone down in history as starring in the first talkie, the first movie with a full length soundtrack was The Lights of New York, released on July 6, 1928.

A New Zealand teenager is in big trouble after trying to sell sexy photos of his mother through an online auction site.

All 800 surviving pages from the earliest surviving Christian bible, Codex Sinaiticus, have been reunited on the internet.

NTT DoCoMo is hoping to boost its music and video services by buying a 35 percent stake in NextWave Wireless's PacketVideo software unit.

Being a one-trick pony isn't so bad as long as your trick is a really, really good one. But Professor Erno Rubik has long been looking for another gadget to match the success of his eponymous Cube, and is this week set to launch a new game which he hopes will spark another worldwide craze.

Mozilla can celebrate a decent launch of its latest browser, Firefox 3.5. The software has cleared the 2% barrier over the weekend, topping Google’s Chrome browser for the very first time. However, even if Mozilla’s version transitions seems to be on track, Firefox has lost steam and is not gaining market share as quickly anymore as in previous months.

Three new dinosaurs have been discovered in Australia: two giant, herbivorous sauropods and one carnivorous theropod, all from the mid-Cretaceous period.

Engineers are one step closer to developing an optical computer, following the successful creation of an optical transistor from a single molecule.