When you start launching iTunes, it recognizes that your AppleTV is on and initiates a sync. If you didn’t happen to make any changes to what is already synced, iTunes launching should be a problem. But suddenly you notice that without any warnings displayed, iTunes starts copying several files to your Apple TV. This copying thing is made in the same manner that one had newly added the iTunes to Apple TV’s play lists. This is increasingly unsettling as you recognize these files as the ones that had been previously synced therefore they should already be on the Apple TV. So, what happens: iTunes does not sync with Apple TV any more?

This problem happened several times, and depending on the volume of data needed to be copied, it may last from minutes to hours! So the question is: “Is iTunes deleting DRMed and the content from Apple TV?” (DRM, as a generic term defines “digital rights management”, meaning access control technologies that try to impose restrictions on the unauthorized usage of digital content and devices).

There is a reportedly growing numbers of users that say that iTunes app deletes DRM-protected content from Apple TV in case your Mac or PC can’t connect to the iTunes Store. There are rumors stating that the existence of a bug that has been lately introduced through the updates might make this possible. Other rumors claim that perhaps a new DRM requirement was put into place when Apple began producing HD movies available on markets. Whichever it is, this thing is utterly unpleasant, since when it happens, people have to resync all of their DRM protected content back to the Apple TV, which may take time again.

Generally the recopied music should be DRM-protected music, theoretically meaning that either Apple TV itself or iTunes is blocked from being connected to iTunes stores. If this connection doesn’t exist, you will not be confirmed that you are actually authorized to play the protected files; it results in deleting the files from the Apple TV. After iTunes Store access is restored and you next sync Apple TV in iTunes, then the authorization is recognized and the files start to be recopied. A temporary loss of Internet access can represent a cause of these flaws in the sync process. But there is an available solution to this problem, which is to pay for a music upgrading thorough DRM-free iTunes Plus version. Well, not a solution that is convenient for all the people that face this issue.

It is understood that a restriction is necessary for the unauthorized playing of the protected music, and a way has to be found in order to deal with these situations, as nobody wants to have massive amounts of data suddenly deleted from an Apple TV, even if this happens every time losses of Internet connection take place. When contacted, the Apple manufacturers have confirmed that it is a known issue and they think that it comes from a corrupted Apple TV drive. In case they won’t be able to fix it by doing a factory restore of the Apple TVs, then the only viable solution is to get a new AppleTV.

Fantasy sport game is the choice that sport fans have to build their own teams and compete against other fantasy builders; it is based on the statistics generated by real individual players - a system present in order to convert statistical performance into points that are gathered according to a list selected by the player that creates a fantasy team.

Nowadays fantasy sports games seem to gain more fans. If you are one of them and got already your fantasy fixed through the services provided by Yahoo.com, there is this option available on your iPhone – to monitor your fantasy teams right from your handy device. The feature is called Y!Fan and enables the fantasy sport players to chart the progress of their fantasy teams. Not to mention that there is also the possibility to make players moves directly from your iPhone or iPod touch!

This Y!Fan makes your dream come true, easing you the access to your fantasy sport game, by a simple touch of your fingertips. In this way you can keep up with the most recent moves of your team, with their moments of high and low fortunes. This application helps you to monitor your team and league information, by displaying it on an easy-to-read interface. You can verify your list, the current stats, and situations of recent transactions as well. The Professional Edition costs $4, but ES Group Mobile offers a free edition of Y!Fan which allows you to check current scores, but without performing any changes in the list or lineup. Both versions (the paid and the free one) support Yahoo’s fantasy baseball, basketball, football and hockey leagues.

With the Professional Edition of Y!Fan you can make changes in your lineup, add or drop players, propose trades. There is this option quite at handy – writing on your league’s message board, view the Web site of your league located in the application’s built-in Web browser. A feature that a manager of the team should have at handy is ‘notes function’ – the ability of Yahoo’s player that looks to monitor breaking news about his team. This ‘notes function’ appears on Yahoo’s fantasy game as yellow notes which expand the moment you click on them. In Y!Fan’s feature it appears on a screen with player notes displaying the latest news on the players and the most recent news being displayed at the top of a list.

If you plan to add or remove a player to or from your roster, you simply have to scroll – by swipping your finger down the screen in the same way you do while using iPhone applications -through the list of top-ranked free agents. Lining up is also easy; you tap a player’s current position and choose the new one from the scroll wheel.

In case you want to have more than one fantasy team, you need to use the Y!Fan Professional Edition, since the Y!Fan free edition restricts you to just one team per sport option. With all the features that Y!Fan offers for your iPhone or iPod, one can only state that with Y!Fan, your fantasy sport game is at the touch of your fingertips!

Lately with so much technology available in the hands of the electronic device’s producers, the way in which people listen to the music is changing faster day by day. Moreover, with such an online availability for more music and more devices to store the music, one may want to know till where this rubber band of computer capacities can stretch? Yamaha offers a way to freely enjoy the music with Music CAST2 system. This system connects to your home network, thus enabling your entire family to easily enjoy their music wherever they are in the house. The beauty of this Music CAST2 system is that your present audio system can be easily integrated, thanks to a comprehensive controllability.

Music CAST2 is provided with possibilities to connect your PC to listen to music files, Internet Radio and Rhapsody music service, and can easily becomes a wireless network system for enjoying Yamaha Network Receivers, NAS devices via Wii. The MusicCAST2 gives the possibility to control devices pertaining to other manufacturers.

The intuitive GUI display of the MusicCAST2 Commander allows the user to control the basic operations of the connected devices through either conventional IR or network. For instance, when MusicCAST2 and a Receiver, belonging to Yamaha Network, are in the same home network, the Commander functions as a multi-zone remote control device.

Miscellaneous features include: identifying a specific Music Player; stopping instantly all playback, updating the Zone list in one instant, view the listof available access points and change the settings, using the sleep timer.

The MusicCAST2 is also available to operate various functions of the RX-V3900 and RX-Z7 receivers via WiFi network, even from a remote area of your house.

Headline for the future releases: Yamaha MusicCAST2 to be shared with other devices!These days, MusicCAST2 was used to upgrade Yamaha’s multi-room audio system. The combination dock & touchscreen controller delivers Internet and network-attached audio to as many 32 different receivers. The controller can support sharing iTunes libraries due to TwonkyMedia’s service; the central cradle supports also media from USB ports, including iPods, and includes internal Bluetooth to receive audio from cellular phones. It endorses directly RealNetworks’ Rhapsody and generic Internet radio. File format support incorporates unprotected AAC and WMA as well as FLAC and WAV.

The base MusicCAST2 system depends on MCX-RC100 Network Music Commander available at a $500 price, but needs at least one separately purchased receiver. The MCX-P200 at the price of $400 comes with no internal amp and is meant for complete home theatres that requires only an extra-source. It is provided with an IR port as a central hub for remote controlling multiple devices. The MCX-A300 costs the same but fails the IR port in favor of an amplifier for the bookshelf positioned speakers or other systems that aren’t fully powered. It wasn’t revealed when it would be available on the market, but it had to come sooner or later.

A new combination of games have been released these days on the market: Batman and LEGO set together to reveal the adventures of the famous and mysterious character incorporated in an already consecrated style called the “LEGO” style. But how the feature of playing LEGO, that hinges to its exclusive way of playing shapes into the traits of Batman who was worth calling himself The Knight of Justice. Indeed, there are some traits that separate Batman from the famous Star Wars and Indian Jones, but extensively, the game is merely about running around, kicking things down, punch some evil guys, and yet never dies.

That doesn’t necessary mean that LEGO Batman is already worn out and still used as a new game. There are some differences to be noticed if we compare this one to the others in the LEGO series, though the mechanics and graphics are almost unchanged. Actually LEGO style became a LEGO as a game, when its definition started to interconnect with this special graphics that put a mark on the game, gaining in this way its constancy in design and recognition in style.  The player has a whole bunch of Batman character to play with and fight against. They are funny characters resembling to the ones present in the old TV shows, where even the bad fellows were joyful.

The game is rich in gunplay and fighting, but the feeling one gets is of a ping pong ball guns. The positive thing is that you can control even the bad guys, giving you the possibility to be Batman, Robin, Batgirl and at the same time you get to be Joker, Riddler, Bane, Poison Ivy and many others from the tough gallery of the super-evils.

The game gives you the possibility to play through the game by yourself or with a friend, and both are satisfaction guaranteed. Thus, Batman and Robin can co-operate together having special moves funny in their way, but no excitement is present as long as you do not work in the proximity of your partner. The viewpoints are a bit too far to realize what is actually going on, and due to this, you might end up caught in the corners. Special skills are provide to you, such as climbing walls, blow up buildings, and so on.

Unfortunately the combat doesn’t touch the limits of reality, since you can never die! It simply keeps your time busy with solving puzzles. Anyway, one may say that it delivers enough fun, as it is a genuine story, LEGO Batman actually tells its own story. If you take into account the fact that LEGO is combined with Batman, one may take it as a game intended merely for children, but the concern for detail and cut scene certainly lifts the game above the one meant for children. Appletell announces LEGO Batman for Mac OS X with the following minimum system’s requirements:
1.8GHz Intel Mac, Mac OS X v10.4.10, 512MB RAM, 128MB VRAM, 5GB hard disc space, DVD drive, mouse.

Leslie Cauley reported for USA Today that the success of the Apple iPhone has gathered millions of customers for exclusive US carrier AT&T and this, according to Senate penal, has an important impact on wireless prices, innovation and competition. Paul Roth, the head of retail sales for AT&T noticed that exclusive arrangements have the benefit to give impulses to the competition, underlining the fact that now there are more than 30 smartphones to compete with iPhone. These effects help keep prices under a close check, enabling the customers to have several choices.

A contrary opinion comes from John Rooney, the CEO of US Cellular, saying that the exclusive deals can damage the market, limit choices, restrict innovation and options of the subscribers, especially the ones in rural areas, thus a wireless ‘digital divide’ will start to prevail. To make his point, Rooney holds a list of the top 14 devices, iPhone included, locked down in exclusives with AT&T, Verizon, Sprint and T-Mobile, this lowering their ability to serve the customers.

Cauley added that normally a device exclusive typically ends after 12 months, but AT&T deal, enclosed around 2006, is still on, Roth claiming that it was due to a ‘multiyear’ arrangement with Apple, according to their contractual terms. Going deeper into the matter, the limited duration of exclusive deals between carriers and handset producers do not restrict the developing and selling of the revolutionary products, such as iPhone, and to spread such innovations to more people. The question is: what can happen a year before the law conditions that deal must end? Do the subventions stop? For example, the iPhone 3GS that start at $699 will have the same price for everyone when it comes in the last year of legal exclusivity? This is a thing to be considered by lawmakers and Federal Communications Commission.

This issue can become more complex with any legislation bound to appear, along with unexpected consequences. If we let this matter up to the market’s decision, then we already have the solution: the exclusive AT&T and iPhone deal is a resounding success. An end to this exclusiveness would raise other issues: the carriers’ stimulant to improve their services would be impacted?, how could competing handset makers even compete so long as there won’t be a network to offer iPhone? US government can force Apple to create device compatible with other wireless standards so it can work on other networks? Would there be a law to legally bound Apple in producing a certain number of different devices? Would Apple have to sypply iPhones to carriers with bad service, not taking into account the fact that in this way Apple’s brand is damaged? In this case would the government compensate Apple for the damages it was submitted to? The limit for exclusiveness would apply for all the devices or only for the successful ones? Any
way, on government’s behalf this would be done at no cost to require multiple versions of unsuccessful devices for all the qualifying carriers.

But what represents a qualifying carrier; how would the law characterize a device to be successful enough so that it calls for exclusivity limits? Till we have the answers we may carry on purchasing iPhones with the competition constantly on stand by positions, while iPhones’ success draws exclusivity limits on the market.