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News

• Hands On: Livescribe smartpen adds Wi-Fi, Evernote

  How do you improve upon a digital pen that records audio as you write? With its new Sky smartpen, Livescribe is betting wireless is the answer.

• Technology helps pope extend reach into space

  Technology has given Pope Benedict XVI a window into space and the astronauts he spoke to the ultimate morale boost.

• Apple's iPod killed Microsoft's Zune

  Microsoft has nixed any future iterations of its Zune music and video player, according to a Bloomberg report, adding another name on the list of devices killed by Apple's iPod hardware and entertainment ecosystem. Microsoft has yet to make the death of its Zune official, but unofficially it's believed the decision is based on poor demand for its players since the Zune line was introduced almost five years ago.

• New Dolby System Looks to Improve Laptop Sound

  Dolby's new PC Entertainment Experience 4, or PPEv4, pushes the capacity of one of the weakest sound players on the planet: the laptop. Built into the new line of Acer Aspire Ethos computers, PPEv4 sounded great and didn’t disappoint at CES this week.

• NCITA spin out scores $4M in funds

  National ICT Australia (NICTA) spin-out, [[xref: http://www.audinate.com|Audinate]], has secured a further $4 million in venture capital funding to develop high performance TCP/IP networking equipment.

• Copenhagen countdown - Audio and video conferencing technology

  Computerworld concludes the [[artnid: 327427|Copenhagen Countdown series|new]] by taking a look audio and video conferencing technology as a way to help reduce green house gas emissions.

• Thomson pumps up volume with tools for MP3HD lossless codec

  Thomson has released software for the creation and playback of a new type of audio file using lossless compression. MP3HD files will be around four times the size of corresponding MP3 files, but will remain compatible with existing MP3 players.